YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

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THE

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS,

PROTESTANT NONCONFORMISTS

THE REFORMATION IN 1517, TO THE REVOLUTION IN lg88;
COMPRISING
^n itccouitt oi thet'r prtncf^Jles;
THEIR ATTEMPTS FOR A FARTHER REFORMATION IN THE CHURCH ; THEIR SUFFERINGS ,"
AND THE LIVES AND CHARACTERS OF THEIR MOST CONSIDERABLE DIVINES.
BY DANIEL NEAL, M.A.
^P REPRINTED
KROM THE TEXT OF DR. TOULMIn's EDITION : WITH HIS LIFE OF THE AUTHOR"
AND ACCOUNT OF HIg WRITINGS.
REVISED, CORRECTED, AND ENLARGED, WITH ADDITIONAL NOTES,
BY JOHN O. CHOULES, M.A.
miith nine Jlortratts on Steel.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
V O L. I.

NE W-YQRK:
PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF-STREET.
18 4 4.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1^^,
By Harper & Brothers,
In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New- York.

PREFACE.

A THOUGHTFUL man is not only convinced that God has created this world,
he is as deeply persuaded that God has a Church in it ; that he planted it here,
and waters and nourishes it, and exerts in its favour a heavenly influence.
In Eevelation we are furnished with a lively emblem of the Church, " a bush
burning with fire, and not consumed." — Exodus, iii., 2. The Church has not,
however, sustained the conflict in her own strength, but because the Lord Jesus
Christ, the angel of the covenant, has been in the bush, " either to slack the
fire, or to strengthen the bush, and make it incombustible." The history of
the Church is a record of suffering and affliction; she has ever had the cross
in her experience ; and all who hsive followed Christ and his apostles have received
the Word in much affliction. — 1 Thessalonians, i., 4.
The persecutions of God's people were great under the pagan emperors ; but
still the Church has suffered more from Kome papal than Eome pagan. That
idolatrous and apostate communion may truly be said to be drunk with the
blood of the saints. We talk, and write, and preach about the reformation
from popery, and seem almost to imagine that the beast is destroyed ; we for
get too commonly the partial character of the Eeforraation, the imperfect
views of the early champions for truth, and the grasp which popery retained in
England through the unsanctified alliance of the Church and State.
Very few are thoroughly informed as to the events connected with the strug
gles for truth in the reigns of the Tudor family. The reformation of Henry the
Eighth and the Sixth Edward was certainly a glorious achievement, but can
never be regarded as a complete triumph, a perfect work. It was effected by
those who only saw men as trees walking, and who just felt that all around
them were men still blinder than themselves. Satan, when he cannot destroy
a good thing, is content to mar it. Elizabeth was a Protestant but in name ;
her religion was papistical ; all her sympathies were with external pomp and
showy ceremony ; she regarded religion as a mere matter of state policy, and
the Church as an affair to be governed by her will, expressed by parliamentary
statutes. To Christ's sceptre she never bowed — the supremacy of his laws she
never recognised — of Christ's headship in the government of the Church she
never dreamed. A haughty princess, and a proud and persecuting prelacy fash
ioned the Church as it suited their taste and purpose, and they have handed it
down to us with so many alterations and additions, that the fishermen of Galilee
and the early disciples of Jesus would be unable to recognise it as the "kingdom
not of this world."
The power and excellence of the Gospel are never seen to greater advantage
than in the days of persecution. It is true that God's children are like stars

vi PREFACE.
that shine brightest in the darkest skies ; like the chamomile, which, the more
it is trodden down, the faster it spreads and grows. The glories of Christian
ity in England are to be traced in the sufferings of confessors and martyrs in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; and it was under the influence of
Christian principles, imbibed at this very period, that the Mayflower brought
over the band of Pilgrims to Plymouth.
Afflictions and religious persecutions have for a long period been unknown to
the happy citizens of these United States, and we have strangely forgotten the
times that tried the souls of our fathers.
There is a resurrection in the land at the present time of feelings and prin
ciples which were once generally prevalent, and which so eminently distin
guished our English ancestry. Now, after a long period of carelessness and in
attention to the history of Protestant Nonconformity, the descendants of the
Pilgrims have been compelled to fall back upon the history and faith of their
fathers, in consequence of the pressing impertinence with which the claims of
popery, prelacy, and priestcraft have been urged upon them and their children.
God has been building up Zion in all our borders for two hundred years, ma
king our land the praise of the nations ; he has granted the quickening influ
ence of his Spirit to the ministrations of thousands of all religious names, who
have published the deathless love of his adorable Son ; and yet a comparative
handful of our fellow-Christians gravely deny that our solemn gatherings make
Christian churches ; that our pastors and teachers have any authority to speak
in His name who has so unequivocally blessed them in their labour ; and as for
Zion's chief and holiest feast, that they stigmatize as " the blasphemous mock
ery of a lay sacrament." We have again to fight the battle for all that we hold
dear ; but we enter the contest cheered by the undying renown of the names
which illustrate the early history of the struggles for religious freedom. It is
as fitting and proper for an American to forget or scorn the names of Lexing
ton and Bunker Hill, Trenton and Princeton, Hancock and Adams, Washing
ton and Jefferson, as for a New-Englander to be unaffected by the utterance of
Smithfield, Lambeth Palace, and the ever-honoured names of Eogers and Eid-
ley. Hooper, Lawrence, Latimer, and their fellow-martyrs. We should never
forget that the prison, the scaffold, and the stake were stages in the march of
civil and religious liberty which our forefathers had to travel, in order that we
might attain our present liberty.
It is quite clear, that in the United States there is a general attention direct
ed to the subject of Church History, partly arising from the almost total apa
thy which has so long existed, and in a considerable degree owing to the ex
traordinary movement in the Church of England by that party who regard their
amputation from Rome as original sin and actual transgression. I have long
wished to see Neal's admirable History of the Puritans in the hands not only
of the ministry and students, but all private reading Christians, a growing class
in this country ; but its very expensive price has been an insuperable bar
rier to general circulation. Consultation with many of our most influential
clergy of all denominations interested has induced me to prepare an edition
which shall not only be so cheap as to admit of general use, but shall imbody
the valuable information which has been garnered up by the writers of the last
century. Since Neal finished his work we have had the writings of Towgood

PREFACE. va
and Toulmin, Wilson and Palmer, Brooks and Conder, Fletcher and Orme, and
especially the admirable contributions of Drs. Vaughan and Price. The works
alluded to, and very many others, have been faithfully and laboriously con
sulted in order to enrich this edition. It may have some errors in typography
which have escaped my notice, but I can assure the reader that it is the most
perfect edition extant, and that I have made scores of corrections from the la
test London edition. Not an iota has been altered in the original text of Neal,
and every edition of the immortal work has been carefully collated and com
pared. To the Congregational, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist ministry
of the land, I believe these volumes will be welcome, and if our pastors are
faithful to their high trust, they will see that they are placed in the hands and
houses of their people : should this be the case, we may defy the machinations
of Rome, and laugh at the absurdity oi apostolical succession.
I anticipate the happiest results from the wide circulation of this History. It
will create an interest in favour of the venerable sufferers in behalf of truth.
We shall see that the persecuting party, who had also enjoyed a partial escape
from anti Christian despotism, secured their political ascendency only by acci
dental causes ; and we shall see " that in these circumstances, the same con
victions and feelings which had led all the friends of the Eeformation to resist
the papal tyranny of Eome, determined the consistent advocates of that refor
mation to oppose the Protestant tyranny of the Tudors and the Stuarts. They
were anxious to attain a greater degree of simplicity and purity in the admin
istration and ritual of the Eeformed Church. When, at a subsequent period, an
Jlct of Uniformity was passed, it was not for the sake of vestments and forms
that the successors of the Puritans withheld their acquiescence, but because in
the principles which led to their adoption by legislative arrangements there
was no recognition of personal and social rights ; no accordance with the lib
erty of the Christian dispensation ; no allowance for weak and tender con
sciences ; no desire for a liberal and enlarged comprehension ; but a system
of arbitrary and capricious enactments, independent both of personal and rep
resentative consent, and supported by a usurpation of authority which directly
impugned the great principles of the Eeformation, and invaded the prerogative
of Him who is our ' only Master and Lord !' Not finding a sufficient code for
the regulation of their ecclesiastical system in the New Testament, they added
an apocryphal book of Leviticus to its canon, and claimed for this appendage of
human origin implicit faith and unresisting obedience." Thus originated Non
conformity. Before our children remove their religious connexions, and, en
amoured with a show of pomp and circumstance, embrace a religion which may
cause its professor to be greeted in the high places — before they leave the old
paths of God's Word, alone sufficient for man's faith, guidance, and sal
vation — before they barter their birthright for a mess of pottage — let us place
in their hands this chronicle of the glorious days of the suffering Churches, and
let them know that they are the sons of the men " of whom the world was not wor
thy," and whose sufferings for conscience' sake are here monumentally re-
.«orded. JOHN OVERTON CHOULES.
August 12, 1843.

PREFACE
TO VOLUME I. OF THE ORIGINAL EDITION

The design of the following work is to preserve the memory of those great and
good men among the Reformers who lost their preferments in the Church for attempt
ing a farther reformation of its discipline and ceremonies, and to account for the
rise and progress of that separation from the national establishment which subsists
to this day.
To set this in a proper light, it was necessary to look back upon the sad state of
religion before the Reformation, and to consider the motives that induced King Henry
VIll. to break with the pope, and to declare the Church of England an independent
body, of which himself, under Christ, was the supreme head upon earth. This was
a bold attempt, at a time when all the powers of the earth were against him, and
could not have succeeded without an overrijling direction of Divine Providence.
But as for any real amendment of the doctrines or superstitions of popery, any far
ther than was necessary to secure his own supremacy, and those vast revenues of
the Church which he had grasped into his hands, whatever his majesty might design^
he had not the honour to accomplish.
The Reformation made a quick progress in the short reign of King Edward VI.,
who had been educated under Protestant tutors, and was himself a prodigious genius
for his age ; he settled the doctrines of the Church, and intended a reformation of its
government and laws ; but his noble designs were obstructed by some temporizing
bishops, who, having complied with the impositions of King Henry VIII., were will
ing to bring others under the same yoke ; and to keep up an alliance under the
Church of Rome, lest they should lose the uninterrupted succession of their charac
ters from the apostles. The controversy that gave rise to the separation began in
this reign, on occasion of Bishop Hooper's refusing to be consecrated in the popish.
habits. This may seem an unreasonable scruple in the opinion of some people, but
was certainly an affair of great consequence to the Reformation, when the habits
were the known badges of popery ; and when the administrations of the priests were
thought to receive their validity from the consecrated vestments, as I am afraid many,
both of the clergy and common people, are too inclinable to apprehend at this day.
Had the Reformers fixed upon other decent garments, as badges of the episcopal or
priestly office, which had no relation to the superstitions of popery, this controversy
had been prevented. But the same regard to the old religion was had in revising
the liturgy, and translating it into the English language ; the Reformers, instead of
framing a new one in the language of Holy Scripture, had recourse to the offices
of the Church of Rome, leaving out such prayers and passages as were offensive,
and adding certain responses to engage the attention of the common people, who, till
this time, had no concern in the public devotions of the Church, as being uttered in
an unknown tongue. This was, thought a very considerable advance, and as much
as the times would bear, but was not designed for the last standard of the English
reformation ; however, the immature death of young King Edward put an end to all
farther progress.
Upon the accession of Queen Mary, popery revived by the supremacy's being
lodged in a single hand, and, within the compass of little more than a year, became
a second time the established religion of the Church of England ; the statutes of
King Edward were repealed, and the penal laws against heretices were put in execu
tion against the Reformers ; many of whom, after a long imprisonment, and cruel
trials of niockings and scourgings, made a noble confession of their faith before many
Vol. I.— B

PREFACE.

A
•witnesses, and sealed it with their blood. Great numbers fled into l^anisbment'^.^j^
were entertained by the reformed States of Germany, Switzerland, and ^^"; ,,;g f^r
great humanity ; the magistrates enfrarichismg them, and appomting ^M
their public worship. But here began the fatal division :* some of the exH
for keeping to the liturgy of King Edward as the rehgion of their -°""^y' ^^"^-^f
others, considering that those laws were repealed, apprehended themseesa^ ull
lihertv and having no prospect of returning home, they resolved to shake OH tne
reraam; of antichrist, and to copy after the purer forms of those churches among
whom they lived. Accordingly, the congregation at Frankfort, by the desire of the
magistrates began upon the Geneva model, with an additional prayer for the afflicted
state of the'church of England at that time ; but when Dr. Cox, afterward Bishop of
Ely, came with a new detachment from England, he interrupted the public service
by answering aloud after the minister, which occasioned such a disturbance and di
vision as could never be healed. Mr. Knox and Mr. Whittingham, with one half
of the congregation, being obliged to remove to Geneva, Dr. Cox and his friends
kept possession of the church at Frankfort, till there arose such quarrels and conten
tions among themselves as made them a reproach to the strangers amongwhom tliey
lived. Thus the separation began.
When the exiles, upon the accession of Queen Elizabeth, returned to England,
each party were for advancing the Reformation according to their own standard.
The queen, with those that had weathered the storm at home, were only for resto
ring King Edward's liturgy ; but the majority of the exiles were for the worship and
discipline of the foreign churches, and'refused to comply with the old establishment,
declaiming loudly against the popish habits and ceremonies. The new bishops,
most of whom had been their companions abroad, endeavoured to soften them
for the present, declaring they would use all their interests at court to make thsm
easy in a little time. The queen also connived at their nonconformity till her gov
ernment was settled, but then declared roundly that she had fixed her standard, and
would have all her subjects conform to it ; upon which the bishops stiffened in their
behaviour, explained away their promises, and became too severe against their dis
senting brethren.
In the year 1564, their lordships began to show their authority, by urging the
clergy of their several dioceses to subscribe the liturgy, ceremonies, and discipline
of the Church; when those that refused were first called Puritans, a name of re
proach derived from the Cathari, or Puritani, of the third century after Christ, but
proper enough to express their desires of a more pure form of worship and discipHne
in the Church. When the doctrines of Arrainius took place in the latter end of the
reign of James I., those that adhered to Calvin's explication of the five disputed
points were called Doctrinal Puritans ; and at length, says Mr. Fuller,t the name
was improved to stigmatize all those who endeavoured in their devotions to accom
pany the minister with a pure heart, and who were remarkably holy in their conver
sations. A Puritan, therefore, was a man of severe morals, a Calvinist in doctrine,
and a Nonconformist to the ceremonies and discipline of the Church, though they
did not totally separate from it.
The queen, having conceived a strong aversion to these people, pointed all her
artillery against them ; for, besides the ordinary courts of the bishops, her majesty
erected a new tribunal, called the Court of High Commission, which suspended and,
deprived men of their hvings, not by the verdict of twelve men upon oath, but by the
sovereign determination of three commissioners of her majesty's own nomination,
founded, not upon the statute laws of the realm, but upon the bottomless deep of the
eanon law ; and instead of producing witnesses in open court to prove the charge,
they assumed a power of administering an oath ex ojicio, whereby the prisoner was
obliged to answer all questions the court should put to him, though never so prejudi-
andif\ .Tl, '"ri''^ ^^ '^^"'^'^ *," '''""' ^'^ ^^^ imprisoned for coiltempt;
ana it he took the oath, he was convicted upon his own confession.
mrr,/^'"^ division ; i. e., on account of the animosities it created, and thp mrsprip<! in ,„k,- u , ¦ , ,
J^?pJhF»T™? ^"'' '¦^"""«= ; ''U' i" ™"ther view, ,t was a happy division for Uha^hh»^ " '"™ 'f,''™''^

PREFACE. xi
The reader will meet with many examples of the high proceedings of this court
in the course of this history ; of tlieir sending their pursuivants to bring ministers out
of the country, and keeping them in town at excessive charges ; of their interroga
tories upon oath, which were almost equal to the Spanish Inquisition ; of their exam
inations and long imprisonments of ministers without bail, or bringing them to a trial ;
and all this not ibr insufficiency, or immorality, or neglect of their cures, but for not
wearing a white surplice, for not baptizing with the sign of the cross, or not subscri
bing to certain articles that had no foundation in law. A fourth part of all the
preachers in England were under suspension from one or other of these courts, at a
time when not one beneficed clergy-man in six was capable of composing a sermon.
The edge of all those laws that were made against popish recusants, who were con
tinually plotting against the queen, was turned against Protestant Nonconformists ;
nay, in many cases, they had not the benefit of the law, for, as Lord Clarendon*
rightly observes. Queen Elizabeth carried her prerogative as high as in the worst
times of King Charles I. "They who look back upon the council-books of those
times," says his lordship, " and upon the acts of the Star Chamber then, shall find as
high instances of power and sovereignty upon the liberty and property of the subject
as can be since given. But the art, order, and gravity of those proceedings (where
short, severe, constant rules, were set, and smartly pursued, and the party felt only
the weight of the judgment, not the passion of his judges) made them less taken no
tice of, and so less grievous to the public, though as intolerable to the person."
These severities, instead of reconciling the Puritans to the Church, drove them far
ther fioin it ; for men do not care to be beat from their principles by the artillery of
canons, injunctions, and penal laws ; nor can they be in love with a church that
uses such methods of conversion. A great deal of ill blood was bred in the nation
by these proceedings ; the bishops lost their esteem with the people, and the num
ber of Puritans was not really lessened, though they lay concealed, till in the next
age they got the power into their hands and shook off the yoke.
The reputation of the Church of England has been very much advanced of late
years by the suspension of the penal laws, and the legal indulgence granted to
Protestant dissenters. Long experience has taught us that uniformity in doctrine
and worship enforced by penal laws is not the way to the Church's peace ; that
there may be a separation from a true church without schism, and schism within a
church without separation ; that the indulgence granted by law to Protestant Non
conformists, which has now subsisted above forty years, has not been prejudicial to
Churdi or State, but rather advantageous to both ; for the revenues of the Established
Church have not been lessened ; a number of poor have been maintained by the Dis
senters, which must otherwise have come to the parish ; the separation has kept up
an emulation among the clergy, quickened them to their pastoral duty, and been a
check upon their moral behaviour ; and I will venture to say, whenever the separate
assemblies of Protestant Nonconformists shall cease, and all men be obliged to wor
ship at their jiarish churches, that ignorance and laziness will prevail among the
clergy ; and that the laity in many parts of the country will degenerate into supersti
tion, profaneness, and downright atheism. With regard to the state, it ought to be
jemembered that the Protestant Dissenters have always stood by the laws and Consti
tution of their country ; that they joined heartily in the glorious revolution of King
William and Queen Mary, and suffered for their steady adherence to the Protestant
succession in the illustrious house of his present majesty, when great numbers that
called themselves churchmen were looking another way ; for this, the Schism Bill
and other hardships were put upon them, and not for their religious differences with
the Church; for if they would have joined the administration at that time, it is well
known they might have made much better terms for themselves ; but as long as
there is a Protestant Dissenter in England, there will be a friend of liberty and our
present happy Constitution. Instead, therefore, of crushing them, or comprehending
them within the Church, it must be the interest of all true lovers of their country,
even upon political views, to ease their complaints, and to support and countenance
Ibeir Christian liberty. * Vol. i., p. 72, 8vo.

PREFACE.

r or, though the Church of England is as free from persecuting principles as any es
tablishment in Europe, yet still there are some grievances remaining, which wise and
good men of all parlies wish might be reviewed ; not to mention the subscriptions
which affect the clergy, there is the act of the twenty-fifth of King Charles II. for
preventing dangers arising from popish recusants, commonly called the Test Act,
" which obliges, under very severe penalties, all persons [of the laity] bearing any
office or place of trust or profit (besides taking the oath of allegiance and supremacy,.
and subscribing a declaration against transubstantiation) to receive the sacrament of
the Lord's Supper according to the usage of the Church of England, in some parish
church, on a Lord's Day, immediately after Divine service and sermon, and to deliver
a certificate of having so received it, under the hands of the respective ministers and
church-wardens, proved by two credible witnesses upon oath, to be recorded in court."
It appears by the title of this act, and by the disposition of the Parhament at that
time, that it was not designed against Protestant Nonconformists ; but the Dissent
ers in the house generously came into it, to save the nation from popery ; for when
the court, in order to throw out the bill, put them upon moving for a clause to except
their friends, Mr. Love, who had already declared against the dispensing power,
stood up, and desired that the nation might first be secured agamst popery, by pass-
mg the bill without any amendment, and that then, if the house pleased, some re-
g'^^'J raight be had to Protestant Dissenters ; in which, says Mr. Echard, he was sec
onded by most of his party.* The bill was voted accordingly, and another brought
in for the ease of his majesty's Protestant dissenting subjects, which passed the-
Commons, but before it could get through the Lords, the king came to the house and
prorogued the Parliament. Thus the Protestant Nonconformists, out of their abun
dant zeal for the Protestant religion, shackled themselves, and were left upon a level
with popish recusants.
It was necessary to secure the nation against popery at that time, when the pre
sumptive heir of the crown was of that religion ; but whether it ought not to have
been done by a civil rather than by a religious test, I leave with the reader. The
obliging all persons in places of civil trust to receive the holy sacrament of the-
in ^ J "PP®''' ®®®™^ *° be a hardship upon those gentlemen whose manner of fife
loudly declares their unfitness for so sacred a solemnity, and who would not run the
hazard of eating and drinking unworthily, but that they satisfy themselves with
throwing off the guilt upon the imposers. Great Britain must not expect an army
of saints, nor is the time yet come when all her officers shall be peace, and her ex
actors righteousness. It is no less a hardship upon a great body of his majesty's
most dutiful and loyal subjects, who are qualified to serve their king and country ia
all offices of civil trust, and would perform their duty with all cheerfulness, did they
not scruple to receive the sacrament after the usage of the Church of England or to.
prostitute a sacred and religious institution as a qualification for a civil employment
i can see no inconvenience either to Church or State, if his maje.sty, as the common
lather of his people, should have the service of all his subjects who are willing to
swear allegiance to his royal person and government; to renounce all foreign juns-
diction, and to give all reasonable security not to disturb the Church of England or
any of their fellow-subjects, in the peaceable enjoyment of their religious or civil
pSf ^f P'^'Pf'T- ^.T'^^l' *^' '""'^^^^S this grievance would do honour to the-
Church of England itself by obviating the charge of imposition, and byreheving the
clergy from a part of their work, which has given some of them very great uneasi
ness; but I am chiefly concerned for the honour of rehgion and public virtue, which
are wounded hereby m the house of their friends. If, therefore, as some conceive,
the sacramental test be a national blemish, I humbly conceive, ^ith all due submis-^
sion, the removal of it would be a public blessing.
fl^^Ij"^^^^"^ Nonconformists observe with pleasure the riaht reverend fathers
of the Church owning the cause of reUgious hberty, "that privatT udlTent oueht o
be formed upon examination, and that religion is a free and unforced Xinl" And
hit !t"'=r'y J°'^.^"h the Lord-bishop of Lichfield and Coventrr'n the" r'^factto
bis excellent Vindication of the Miracles of our Blessed Saviour,/" la cong'^atS^dng-
* Echard'3 Church History, ad ann. 1672-3. f Pref., p. viii.

PREFACE xiu
our country on the enjoyment of their civil and ecclesiastical liberties within their
just and reasonable bounds, as the most valuable blessings," though we are not
fully satisfied with the reasonableness of those bounds his lordship has fixed. God
forbid that any among us should be patrons of open profaneness, irreligion, scurrility,
-ox ill-manners to the established religion of the nation ; much less that we should
countenance any who blasphemously revile the founder of it, or who deride what
soever is sacred ! No ; we have a fervent zeal for the honour of our Lord and Mas
ter, and are desirous to " contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints"
with all sorts of spiritual weapons ; but we do not yet see a necessity of stopping
the mouths of the adversaries of our holy religion with fines and imprisonments,
even though, to their own infamy and shame, they treat it with indecency : let scan-
•dal and ill-manners be punished as they deserve, but let not men be terrified from
speaking out their doubts, or proposing their objections against the Gospel revelation,
which we are sure will bear a thorough examination ; and though the late ungener
ous attacks upon the miracles of our blessed Saviour may have had an ill influence
upon the giddy and unthinking youth of the age, they have given occasion to the
publishing such a number of incomparable defences of Christianity as have confirmed
the faith of many, and must satisfy the minds of all reasonable inquirers after truth.
Nor do we think it right to fix the boundaries of religious liberty upon the degree
of people's differing from the national establishment, because enthusiasts or Jews
have an equal right with Christians to worship God in their own way ; to defend
their own peculiar doctrines, and to enjoy the public protection as long as they keep
the peace, and maintain no principles manifestly inconsistent with the safety of the
government they live under.
But his lordship apprehends he has a chain of demonstrable propositions to main
tain his boundaries : he observes,! " 1. That the true ends of government cannot
subsist without relfgion, no reasonable man will dispute it. 2. That open impiety,
or a public opposition made to, and an avowed contempt of the established religion,
which is a considerable part of the Constitution, do greatly promote the disturbance
of the public peace, and naturally tend to the subversion of the whole Constitution."
It is here supposed that one particular religion must be incorporated into the Consti
tution, which is not necessary to the ends of government ; for religion and civil gov
ernment are distinct things, and stand upon a separate basis. Religion in general is
the support of civil government, and it is the office, of the civil magistrate to protect
all his dutiful and loyal subjects in the free exercise of their religion ; but to incor
porate one particular religion into the Constitution, so as to make it part of the com
mon law, and to conclude from thence that the Constitution, having a right to pre
serve itself, may make laws for the punishment of those that publicly oppose any
one branch of it, is to put an effectual stop to the progress of the Reformation through
out the whole Christian world : for by this reasoning our first reformers must be con
demned ; and if a subject of France, or the ecclesiastical states, should at this time
write against the usurped power of the pope, or expose the absurdities of transub
stantiation, adoration of the host, worshipping of images, &c., it would be laudable
for the legislative powers of those countries to send the writer to the galleys, or shut
him up in a dungeon, as a disturber of the pubhc peace, because popery is supported
by law, and is a very considerable part of their constitution.
But to support the government's right to enact penal laws against those that opposed
the established religion, his lordship is pleased to refer us to the edicts of the first
Christian emperors out of the Codex Theodosianus, composed in the fifth century,
which acquaints us with the sentiments of that and the preceding age, but says
nothing of the doctrine of Scripture, or of the practice of the Church for three hun
dred years before the empire became Christian. His lordship then subjoins sundry
passages out of a sermon of Archbishop Tillotson, whom he justly ranks among the
greatest of the moderns. But it ought to be remembered, that this sermon was
preached at court in the year 1680, when the nation was in imminent danger from
the Popish Plot. His lordship should also have acquainted his readers with the arch
bishop's cautious introduction, which is this : " I cannot think (till I be better in-
* Pref. p. ii., i.

xiv PREFACE.
formed, which I am always ready to be) that any pretence of conscience warrants any
man that cannot work miracles to draw men off from the established religion of a
nation, nor openly to make proselytes to his own religion, in contempt of the magis
trate and the law, though he is never so sure he is in the right."* This proposition,
though pointed at the popish missionaries in England, at that time, is not only incon
sistent with the Protestant Reformation (as I observed before), but must effectually
prevent the propagating of Christianity among the idolatrous nations of the Eastern-
and Western Indies, without a new power of working miracles, which we have no
ground to expect ; and I may venture to assure his lordship and the world that the
good archbishop Hved to see his mistake, and could name the learned person to
whom he frankly confessed it after some hours' conversation upon the subject.f But
human authorities are of little weight in points of reason and speculation.
It was from this mistaken principle that the government pressed so hard upon-
those Puritans whose history is now before the reader, in which he will observe
how the transferring the supremacy from the pope to the king united the Church
and State into one body under one head, insomuch that writing against the Church
was construed by the judges in Westminster Hall a seditious libelling the queen's
government, and was punished with exorbitant fines, imprisonment, and death. He
will observe, farther, the rise and progress of the penal laws ; the extent of the regal
supremacy in those times ; the deplorable ignorance of the clergy ; with the oppo
site principles of our church-reformers, and of the Puritans, which I have set in a
true light, and have pursued the controversy as an historian in its several branches,
to the end of the long reign of Queen Elizabeth ; to all which I have added some
short remarks of my own, which the reader will receive according to their evidence.
And because the principles of the Scotch Reformers were much the same with
those of the English Puritans, and the imposing a liturgy and bishops upon them
gave rise to a confusion of the next age, I have inserted a short account of their re
ligious establishment, and have enlivened the whole with the lives and characters
of the principal Puritans of those times.
A history of this kind was long expected from the late reverend and learned Dr.
John Evans, who had for some years been collecting materials for this purpose, and
had he lived to perfect his design, would have done it to much greater advantage;
but I have seen none of his papers, and am informed that there is but a very small
matter capable of being put in order for the press. Upon his decease, I found it
necessary to undertake this province, to bring the history forward to those times
when the Puritans had the power in their own hands ; in examining into which, I
have spent my leisure hours for some years; but the publishing those collections
will depend, under God, upon the continuance of my health, and the acceptance this
meets with in the world.
I am not so vain as to expect to escape the censures of critics, nor the reproaches
of angry men, who, while they do nothing themselves, take pleasure in exposing the
labours of others in pamphlets and newspapers ; but as I shall be always thankful to
any that will convince me of my mistakes in a friendly manner, the others may be
secure of enjoying the satisfaction of their satirical remarks without any disturbance
from me.
I have endeavoured to acquaint myself thoroughly with the times of which I write ;
and as I have no expectations from any party of Christians, I am under no tempta
tion to disguise their conduct. I have cited my authorities in the margin, and flatter
* Abp. Tillotson's Works, vol, i, fol., p. 320, 321.
¦I; The learned person to whom Mr. Neal refers, I conceive, was Mr. Howe : the purport of the conver
sation he had with the bishop, on the proposition contained in his sermon, was given to the puljhc by Dr.
Calamy, in his Memoirs of Mr. Howe, p. 75, 76. The fact was, that the bishop was sent for, out of his
turn, to preach before the king, on account of the sickness of another gentleman, and had prepared his
discourse in great haste, and impressed with the general fears of popery : the sentknent above quoted from
It was the occasion of its being published from the press. For the king having slept most part of the time
¦While the sermon was delivered, a certain nobleman, when it was over, said to him, " 'Tis pity your nlai-
''Jty slept, for we have had the rarest piece of Hobbism that ever you heard in your hfe " "Odsfish he
fnM/H"' "' 'hf-V^i;'"^'^ *^ ^'"8¦¦, Wheii it came from the press the author sent a copy, as a present,
to Mr. Howe, who i^reely expostulated with Dr. Tiliotson on this passage, first in a long letter and then in
a conversation which the doctor desired on the subject, at the end of which he felt to weepSig freelv and
said that this was the most unhappy thing that had of a long time befallen him." ^'

PREFACE. IV
myself that I have had the opportunity of bringing many things to light relating to-
the sufferings of the Purit-ans, and the state of the Reformation in those times, which
have hitherto been unknown to the world, chiefly by the assistance of a large manu
script collection of papers, faithfully transcribed from their originals in the University
of Cambridge, by a person of character employed for that purpose, and generously
communicated to me by my ingenious and learned friend. Dr. Benjamin Grosvenor ;
for which I take this opportunity of returning him my own and the thanks of the
public. Among the ecclesiastical historians of these times, Mr. Fuller, Bishop Bur
net, and Mr. Strype, are the chief; the last of whom has searched into the records
of the English Reformation more than any man of the age ; Dr. Heylin and Collyer
are of more suspected authority, not so much for their party principles, as because
the former never gives us his vouchers, and yet the latter follows him blindly in all
things. Upon the whole, I have endeavoured to keep in view the honesty and gravity of
an historian, and have said nothing with a design to exasperate or widen the differ
ences among Christians ; for, as I am a sincere admirer of the doctrines of the New
Testament, I would have an equal regard to its most excellent precepts, of which
these are some of the capital, that " we love one another; that we forgive offences;
that we bear one another's infirmities, and even bless them that curse us, and pray
for them that despitefully use us and persecute us." If this spirit and temper were
more prevalent, the lives of Christians would throw a bright lustre upon the truth and
excellence of their Divine faith, and convince the atheists and infidels of the age,
more than all their arguments can do without it;
I would earnestly recommend this temper to the Protestant Nonconformists of the
present age, together with a holy emulation of each other in undissembled piety and
sanctity of life, that while they are reading the heavy and grievous sufferings of their
ancestors from ecclesiastical commissions, spiritual courts, and penal laws, for con
science' sake, thoy may be excited to an humble adoration of Divine Providence,
which has delivered them so far from the yoke of oppression ; to a detestation of all
persecuting principles ; and to a loyal and dutiful behaviour to the best of kings, un
der whose mild and just government they are secure of their civil and religious Ub-
erties. And may Protestants of all persuasions improve in the knowledge and love
of the truth, and in sentiments of Christian charity and forbearance towards each
other, that, being at peace among themselves, they may with greater success bend
their united forces against the common enemy of Christianity !
Daniel Neal.
London, Feb. Ut, 1731-g.

ADVERTISEMENT
TO VOLUME I. OF DR. TOULMIN'S EDITION.

More than half a century has elapsed since the work now again offered to the
¦public made its first appearance. The author gave it a second edition in 4to. In
1755 it was printed at Dublin, on the plan of the first impression, m four volumes
octavo. The English editions have for a number of years been scarce, and copies
of the work, as it has been justly held in estimation by dissenters, have borne a high
price. Foreigners also have referred to it as a book of authority, affording the most
ample information on that part of the English history which it comprehends.*
A republication of it will, on these accounts, it is supposed, be acceptable to the
friends of religious liberty. Several circumstances concur to render it, at this time,
peculiarly seasonable. The Protestant Dissenters, by their repeated applications to
Pariiament, have attracted notice and excited an inquiry into their principles aiid
history. The odium and obloquy of which they have recently become the objects
are a call upon them to appeal to both,in their own justification. Their history, while
it brings up to painful review scenes of spiritual tyranny and oppression, connects
itself with the rise and progress of religious liberty, and necessarily brings forward
many important and interesting transactions which are not to be met with in the gen
eral histories of our country, because not falling within the province of the authors
to detail.
The editor has been induced, by these considerations, to comply with a proposa:!
to revise Mr. Neal's work. In doing this, he has taken no other liberty with the
original text than to cast into notes some papers and lists of names, which appeared
to him too much to interrupt the narrative. This alteration in the form of it prom
ises to render it more pleasing to the eye, and more agreeable to the perusal. He
has, where he could procure the works quoted, which he has been able to do in most
instances, examined and corrected the references, and' so ascertained the fairness
and accuracy of the authorities. He has reviewed the animadversions of Bishops
Maddox and WarbuTton, and Dr. Grey, and given the result of his scrutiny in notes ;
by which the credit of the author is eventually established. He has not suppressed
^strictures of his own, where he conceived there was occasion for them. It has been
his aim, in conducting this work through the press, to support the character of the
diligent, accurate, and impartial editor. How far he has done this he must leave to
the candid to determine.
Whatever inaccuracies or mistakes the eye of criticism may discover, he is con
fident that they cannot essentially affect the execution of the design, any more than
the veracity of the author. The remark, which Mr. Neal advanced as a plea in his
own defence, against the censure of Bishop Maddox, will apply with force, the edi
tor conceives, to his own case, as in the first instance it had great weight. " The
commission of errors in writing any history of times past," says the ingenious Mr.
Wharton, in his letter to Mr. Strype, " being altogether unavoidable, ought not to de
tract from the credit of the history or the merits of the historian, unless it be ac
companied with immoderate ostentation or unhandsome reflections on the errors of
others."! The editor has only farther to solicit any communications which may tend to im
prove this impression of Neal's History, or to furnish materials for the continuation
of the History of the Protestant Dissenters from the Revolution, with which period
Mr. Neal's design closes, to the present times, as he has it in contemplation, if
Providence favour him with life and health, to prepare such a work for the press.
Taunton, IMh June, 1793. '^
* Mosheim, Dictionnaire de Heresies, and Wendebom.
+ Mr. Whartoii discovered as many errors in Mr. Strype's single volume of Memorials of Archbishop
»^ranmer as hlled three sheets ; yet Mr. Strype's collections were justly entitled to the commendations of
jjosterity, as a work of great utiUty and authority.— See Neal's Review, p. 6, 8vo.

MEMOIR
OF THE
LIFE OF MR. DANIEL NEAL, A.M.*

Mil. Daniel Neal was born in the city of London, on the 14th of December, 1678.
When he was very young, his parents were removed by death, and left him, their only
surviving child, in the hands of a maternal uncle, whose care of his health and educa
tion was faithful and affectionate, and was often mentioned by his nephew with grati
tude. He received his classical education at Merchant Tailors' School, to which he was
sent when he was seven or eight years of age, and where he stayed till he was head
scholar. In this youthful period he gave a proof of the serious and conscientious prin
ciples by which he was governed ; for, an exhibition to St. John's College in Oxford
being offered to him, out of a foundation belonging to that school, he declined it, and
¦chose an education for the ministry among the Protestant Dissenters.
About the year 1696 or 1697 he removed from this seminary to a dissenting acade
my, under the direction of the Reverend Thomas Rowe, under whose tuition several
eminent characters were, in part, formed.f To this gentleman Dr. Watts addressed
his animated ode, called " Free Philosophy," which may, in this view, be considered
as an honourable testimonial to the candid and liberal spirit with which Mr. Rowe con
ducted the studies of his pupils.
Mr. Neal's thirst after knowledge was not to be satisfied by the limited advantages
of one seminary, but prompted him to seek farther improvement in foreign universi-
-ties. Having spent three years with Mr. Rowe, he removed to Holland, where he
prosecuted his studies for two years, under the celebrated Professors D'Uries, Graevius,
and Burman, at Utrecht ; and then one year at Leyden.
About the middle or latter end of 1703 he returned to England, in company with Mr.
Martin TomkinsJ and Mr. (afterward the eminent Dr.) Lardner, and soon after appear
ed in the pulpit.
* This narrative is drawn up chiefly from the memoir of Mr. Neal's life in the funeral sermon by Dr. Jen-
jiings, and a MS. account of him and his works by his son, Nathaniel Neal, Esq., communicated by his
grandson, Daniel Lister, Esq., of Hackney.
t Among others, Dr. Watts, Dr. Hort, afterward Archbishop of Tuam, Mr. Hughes the poet, Dr. John
Evans, Mr. Grove, and Dr. Jeremiah Hunt.
t This gentleman was settled with a dissenting congregation at Stoke Newington. In the year 1718,
Mr. Asty, the pastor of a congregation in Ropemaker's Alley, Moorfields, on making an exchange with Mr.
Tomkins for one Lord's day, thought fit to alarm his people with the danger of pernicious errors and dam
nable heresies creeping in among the Dissenters ; and particularly referred to errors concerning the doc
trine of Christ's deity. Mr. Tomkins, to counteract the ill tendency of this discourse, and of the censures
it conveyed, preached the succeeding Lord's day from John, xx., 21-23, on the power of Christ to settle
the terms of salvation. The inference which he deduced from the discussion of his subject was, " that no
man on earth, nor body of men, no, nor all the angels in heaven, have power to make anything necessary
to salvation but what Christ hath made so." In the conclusion of his discourse, he applied this general
jrinciple as a test by which to decide on the importance of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, and of the
deity of Christ. Here he entered into a particular stjrvey of the various passages in the historical and epis
tolary books of the New Testament connected with this point, and gave at large his reasons why he did
not apprehend the orthodox notion concerning the deity of Christ to be a fundamental doctrine of Christi
anity. This sermon, though the preacher neither denied nor intimated any doubt of the truth of the orthodox
doctrine, gave much disgust, and made a great noise. The minds of his people were irritated, and every
attempt which Mr. Tomkins used to calm them and restore harmony proving unsuccessful, he resigned his
pastoral connexion, after ten years' services among them. Prejudice rose so high against him, that he was
afterward denied the conununion of the church, in which he had been many years before ; when, on being
disengaged from stated ministerial functions, he desired to return to it.
Mr Tomkins did not again settle as the pastor of a congregation, but did not wholly lay aside the char
acter or drop the studies, of the Christian minister ; for he occasionally preached, and published several val-
-uable' theoloo-ical tracts. The first, about the year 1723, was " A Sober Appeal to a Turk or an Indian con
cerning the plain sense of Scripture, relating to the Trinity : being an answer to Dr. 1. Watts's late book, enti
tled ' "7110 Christian Doctrine of the Trinity ; or. Father, Son, and Spirit, three Persons and one God, asserted
and proved by plain evidence of Scripture, without the aid and encumbrance of human schemes.' " This
piece was drawn up in terms of decency and respect, and in the language of friendship towards that excel
lent and eminent person, to whose tract it was a reply ; and the whole was written in an exemplary strain
of moderation and candour. In the year 1748 it came to a second edition : to which were added, 1. Re
marks on Dr Watts's three citations relating to the doctrine of the Trinity, published in 1724. 2. A sober
Vol. I.-C

xnii MEMOIR OF THE LIFE OF
It was not long before his furniture and abilities attracted notice ; and, in the next
year, he was chosen assistant to Dr. John Singleton,* in the service of an Independent
congreffation in Aldersgate-street ; and, on the doctor's death, in 1706, he -was eieciea.
thei? pSstor In this relation he continued for thirty-six years, till -about five months
before his decease When he accepted the pastoral office, the church, though some
persons of considerable fortune and character belonged to it, was very small as to
numbers • but such acceptance did his ministry meet with, that the place ol worship
became in a few years, too strait to accommodate the nuinbers that desired to attend
on Mr. Neal's preaching, which obliged them to remove to a larger house, m Jewin-
He fulfilled the duties of his character with attention and diligence : statedly preach-
ino- twice every Lord's day, till the three or four last ye-ars of his life, and usually de
voting two or tliree afternoons in a week to visiting his people. He pursued his stud
ies wTth so close an application as to reserve httle or no time for exercise ; though he
was assiduous in his preparations for the pulpit, he gave himself some scope in his lit
erary pursuits, and particularly indulged in the study of history, to which his natural
genius strongly led him. " He still," observes Dr. .Tennings, " kept his character and
profession in view as a Christian divine and minister, "f
The first fruits of his literary labours appeared in 1720, under the title of " The His
tory of New-England : being an impartial account of the civil and ecclesiastical affairs
of the country, with a new accurate map thereof: to which is added an appendix, con
taining their present charter, their ecclesiastical discipline, and their municipal laws,"'
in two volumes 8vo. This work contains an entertaining and instructive narrative
of the first planting of the Gospel in a foreign heathen land ; and, besides exhibiting
the rise of a new commonwealth, struggling in its infant state with a thousand difficul
ties, and triumphing over them all, it includes biographic-al memoirs of the principal
persons in Church and State. It was well received in New-England ; and the next
year their university honoured the author with the degree of master of arts, the high
est acadeiriical title they had power to confer.
In the s-ame year there came from Mr. Neal's pen, "A Letter to the Rev. Dr. Fran
cis Hare, Dean of Worcester, occasioned by his reflections on the Dissenters, in his late
visitation-sermon and postscript," 8vo.t
In 1721, he published " The Christian's Duty and Interest in a time of pubhc danger,.
from Ezekiel, ix., 4. A sermon preached at the Rev. Mr. Jennings's meeting-place in
Wapping, on Friday, October 27, being a time of solemn prayer on accoimt of the
plague. "§ This discourse is preserved in the library of Queen's College, Cambridge.||
Appeal to all that have read the New Testament, whether the reputed orthodox are not more chargeable
with preaching a new Gospel than reputed Arians? 3. A Reply to Dr. Waterland's Animadversions upon
some passages in the " Sober Appeal," To neither of the editions of this treatise was the author's name
affixed. In 1732, Mr. Tomkins published, also without his name, a piece which gained him great reputa
tion, entitled " Jesus Christ the Mediator between God and Man ; an Advocate for us with the Father, and
a Propitiation for the Sins of the World." A new edition of this work appeared in 1761. He published,
in 1738, " A Calm Inquiry whether we have any warrant from Scripture for addressing ourselves, in a way
of prayer or praise, directly to the Holy Spirit : humbly offered to the consideration of all Christians, par
ticularly of Protestant Dissenters." This piece has seriously impressed the minds of many, and has, un
doubtedly, contributed very much to the disuse of the Trinitarian doxology among the Dissenters. Mr.
Tomkins himself, so far back as the time when he was minister to the congregation at Stoke Newington,
had forborne it, because he could find no instance of it in Scripture. All Mr. Tomkins's pieces are proofs
of the candour of his spirit, and of the clearness and strength of his judgment. Long since his death, there
has appeared, in the Theological Repository, vol. iii., p. 257, " A Letter from him to Dr. Lardner, in reply
to his letter on the Logos, in defence of the Arian hypothesis." In this enumeration of his publications, it
had almost escaped me to mention another, and that the tirst in order of time, viz., "The Case of Mr. Mar
tin Tomkins, being an Account of the Proceedings of the Dissenting Congregation at Stoke Newington,
upon occDsiou of a sermon preached by him July 13, 1718." This piece bears on it all the marks of being
a fair and impartial," as it is an instructive, narrative. The character of candour and piety which he sup
ported, and with which his^writings are impressed ; the simplicity and integrity with which he bore his tes
timony to Scriptural worship. Christian moderation, and the Divine unity ; and the weight and influence of
his publications, in the Trinitarian controversy, have justly entitled Mr. Tomkins to this particular mention.
* Dr. John Singleton was a student in the University of Oxford ; from whence, after he had been there
eight years, he was turned out by the commissioners in 1660. He then went to Holland, and studied
physic, but never practised it any farther than to give his advice to particular friends. His settlements
were various. Residing some time with Lady Scott in Hertlbrdshire, he preached then to some Dissent
ers at Hertford. He was afterward_pastor to a congregation in London. When the meetings were gener
ally suppressed, he went into Warwickshire, and lived with his wife's brother. Dr. Timothy Gibbons, a
physician. Upon King James giving liberty, he preached first at Stretton, a small hamlet, eight miles
Irom Coventry, and then became pastor to the Independent congregation m that city From wnence he
was again called to London, to succeed Mr. T. Cole.— Palmer's Nonomformists' Memorial, vol. i„ p. 170.
1 nere is a sermon of Dr. Singleton's in the Morning Exercises.
t I-uneral Sermon for Mr, Neal, p, 33.
tici If''Bi'il';or°M.^'' u "'™r ""g." Ch"f<^h Authority Vindicated." This discourse also attracted the no-
A 1 ? P Hoadley, who pubhshed an answer to it.
died of k" '''^ "' Marseilles, in Fiance, being brought thither from the Levant ; and eighteen thousand
II Cooke s Index to Sermons, vol. ii., page 241, article Neal.

MR. DANIEL NEAL. xis
Mr. Neal gave to the public, in 1722, " A Narrative of the method and success of in
oculating the smallpox in New-England, by Mr. lienjamin Cohnan ; with a n.'iily to
the objections made against it from jirinciples of conscience, in a letter from a minis
ter at Boston. To which is now prefixed an historic-al introduction." On the appear
ance of this piece, her royal highness Caroline, princess of Wales, sent for him to wait
on her, that she might receive from him farther satisfaction concerning the practice of
inoculation. He was introduced by a physician of the royal family, and received by
the princess in her closet, whom he found reading " Fox's Martyrology." Her high
ness did him the honour of entering into a free conversation with him for near an hour
on the subject of inoculation ; and afterward on other subjects, particularly the state
of the dissenting interest in England, and of religion in New-England. After some
time the Prince of Wales, afterward George II., came into the room, and condescend
ed to take a p-art in the conversation for above a quarter of an hour. Mr. Neal had
the honour of kissing the hands of both the royal personages.*
In 1722 he published, at request, a sermon preached to the Societies for Reformation
of Manners, at Salters' Hall, on Monday, June 25th. This discourse, grounded on
Psalm xciv., 16, is to be met with in the hbrary mentioned before.
In the beginning of the next year the request of the managers of the charity-school
in Gravel Lane, Southwark, procured from him the publication of a sermon, preached
January 1st, for the benefit of that institution, on Job, xxix., 18, 13, entitled, " The
Method of Education in the Charity-schools of Protestant Dissenters ; with the Ad
vantages that arise to the Public from them."
After this nothing of Mr. Neal's appeared from the press for several years, till, in
1726, the death of the Rev. Matthew Clarke, a minister of considerable eminence
among the Dissenters of that period, gave occasion for his pubhshing a funeral sermon
for him, froin Matt., xxv., 21. This discourse was next year reprinted, and annexed
to a volume of sermons upon several occasions, by Mr. Clarke ; of which Mr. Neal
was the editor, and to which he prefixed some memoirs of the author.f
At the beginning of this year he printed a sermon, entitled, " Of sorrowing for them
who sleep in Jesus," occasioned by the death of Mrs. Anne Phillibrowne, who departed
this life February 1st, 1726-7, in the forty-third year of her age. This discourse is
also to be found in Queen's College library, Cambridge.
In 1730, the united request of the ministers and the church prevailed with him to
publish a sermon, entitled, " The Duty of Praying for Ministers and the Success of
their Ministry," from 2 Thess., iii., 1 ; preached at the separation of the Rev. Mr. Rich
ard Rawlin,J to the pastoral office in the church at Fetter Lane, June 24th. A passage
in this discourse deserves to be quoted, to show the catholic and generous sentiments
of Mr. Neal. Having referred to the persecutions of the Christians under the Roman
emperors, and then to the prevalence of darkness and superstition for a thousand years
after Rome became papal, he proceeds, " The light of the Gospel broke out again at
the Reformation ; but, alas ! -what obstructions has it met with ever since!, how much
blood has been spilled, and how many families ruined, and sent into banishment, for the
profession of it ! There is at this time a bloody inquisition in Spain ; and the sword
of the magistrate is drawn against the preaching of the Gospel in Italy, France, Po
land, in several parts of Germany, and in other popish countries. I wish I could say
* The MS. account of Mr. Neal.
t Mr. Matthew Clarke, a gentleman of eminence among the dissenting ministers of that period, and the
father to Dr. Clarke, a physician of extensive practice, who died not long since at Tottenham, in Middle
sex, was descended from a genteel family in the county of Salop. He was the son of the Rev. Matthew
Clarke, who was ejected from Harborough, in Leicestershire, and was born February 2d, 1663-4. His
father, who had been an indefatigable student in Trinity College, Cambridge, led him through the learned,
languages. His academical studies were pursued under the learned Mr. Woodhouse, at Sherifhales, in-
Shropshire, a tutor of eminence in those times. Mr. Clarke, when he had finished his academical course,
spent two years in London, for the benefit of conversing with learned men, and forming himself on the
model of the most celebrated preachers. He began his ministry in 1684, with great acceptance : so that
great additions were made to the church, which his father had formed, at Market Harborough ; and he laid
the foundation of several societies of Protestant Dissenters in those parts. Being engaged, when he was
on a visit to London, in 1687, to supply the congregation at Sandwich, in Kent, for a lew Lord's days, he
was prevailed with to spend two years there, which he did with eminent success. In 1C89, he was unan
imously invited to become assistant to the aged Mr. Ford, the pastor of a congregation in .Wiles's Lane,
which was then reduced to a very low state ; but the auditory in a few years became crowded, and seven
or eioht in a month were added to the communion. In 1697, Mr. Clarke was chosen one of the lecturers
at Pinners' Hall, He married, in 1696, Mrs, Anne Frith, daughter of Mr, Robert Frith, of Windsor, who
was repeatedly mayor of that corporation. His pulpit abilities were greatly admired, and his services
much sought ; so that he usually preached twice or three times on a Lord's day, and several tunes in the
week. He died March 27, 1726, aged sixty-two years, much beloved and much lamented, and leaving be
hind him the character of having been among the best and most useful divines of his age. — Mr. Neal's Me-
Tnoirs of his Life. ^ , . - , r , „.
% Mr. Kawlin was a minister of reputation among the Independents, one ol the six preachers ot the Mer
chants' lecture-at Pinners' Hall, and the author of a volume of sermons ou Justification, which met with
great acceptance, and passed through more than one edition.

XX MEMOIR OF THE LIFE OF
that all Protestant governments were willing the Gospel should have its free course ;
but our fathers in this nation have drunk of the bitter cup of persecution ; our teachers
have been driven into corners, and the mouths of thousands stopped in one day : bless
ed be God that there is now a more open door ! Let us pray that all penal laws lor
religion may be taken away, and that no civil discouragements may lie upon Christians
of any denomination for the peaceable profession of their faith, but that the Gospel
may have free course."
In the year 1732 came out the first volume of Mr. Neal's great work, " The History
of the Puritans." The following circumstances gave birth to this publication. Dr.
Edmund Calamy, many years before, had, in his "Abridgment of the Life of Mr. Rich
ard Baxter, and the continuation of it," laid before the public a view of-the state of non
conformity, and of the characters and sufferings of the principal adherents to it, during
the period that immediately succeeded to the Act of Uniformity in 1662. Dr. John Ev
ans,* on this, formed a design of writing " A History of Nonconformity," from the be
ginning of the Reformation to 1640, when the civil wars began. Mr. Neal was re
quested, by several ministers and other persons of considerable figure among the Dis
senters, to take up the history from the year 1640, and to carry it on to the Act of Uni
formity. Dr. Evans proceeded a great way in the execution of his design, by collect
ing, for several years, with great industry and expense, proper materials from all quar
ters, and by filling several quires of paper with references, under each year, to the
books he had read on the subject. He had gone so far as to have written out fairiy
about a third part of the two fohos he intended to fill. But his constant employment
as a minister, the multiplicity of public aff'airs which passed through his hands, ill
health, and various disappointments and troubles in his own concerns, greatly inter
rupted his close apphcation to the work : and his death, in the year 1730, put a final
period to the design, which was left in an unfinished state. In the mean time, Mr.
Neal had prosecuted his work with so much application and spirit, that he had com
pleted his collections, and put them in order for the press, some length of time before
the doctor's decease. This event obstructed his immediate progress, and opened to
hiin a new field of study and investigation . for he now found it necessary to take up
himself the long period of history from the Reformation to the commencement of the
civil wars, that his own collections might be published with more acceptance, and ap
pear with greater advantage, than he apprehended they could have done if the doctor's
province had been entirely neglected.f
The approbation which followed the publication of the first volume of " The History
of the Puritans" encouraged him to prosecute his design, and the next year, 1733,
produced a second volume of that work.
Between the appearance of this and the subsequent parts of his history, we find Mr. '
Neal eng-aged with some of his respectable brethren in carrying on two courses of
lectures ; one at Berry-street, the other at Salters' Hall.
The former was preached at the request and by the encouragement of William Cow-
* Dr. John Evans, the author of two volumes of judicious and admired sermons on the Christian temper,
.and of many single sermons, was the son of Mr. John Evans, of Baliol College, Oxford, and ejected by the
Act of Uniformity from Oswestry. He was born at Wrexham, in the year 1679. His mother was the daugh
ter of the eminent Colonel Gerard, governor of Chester Castle. He received his education first under
Mr. Thomas Rowe, of London ; and afterward under Mr. Richard Frankland, at Rathmill, in Yorkshire.
He enjoyed great advantages under both, and made a singular proficiency in all the parts of rational and
polite hterature. His first settlement was in the family of Mrs. Hunt, of Boreatton in Shropshire, reUct of
Roland Hunt,, Esq., and sister of Lord Paget, ambassador to the Ottoman court. In this retirement he read
over entire Mr. Pole's Latin Synopsis, in five volumes folio, which laid the foundation of his great skill in
iScripture criticism, and all the Christian writers of the first three centuries, under the direction of the learn
ed Mr. James Owen. His first settlement as a minister was in the place of his nativity ; from whence
he remo,ved to London, to be assistant to Dr. Daniel Williams, pastor of a congregation in Hand Alley,
Bishopsgate-street ; which afterward removed to New Bond-street, Petty-France. Dr. Evans, after sev
eral years, was by Dr. Williams's desire made copastor with him, and succeeded him at his death. On
taking the whole charge of the congregation, he spent a week in solemn retirement and in extraordinary
exercises of devotion. He was one of the six preachers of the Merchants' lecture at Salters' Hall, and for
several years concerned in the Lord's day evening lecture in that place. Besides the sermons mentioned
above, he pubhshed a small volume addressed to young persons, which has been reprinted within these few
years, and a tract or two on the " Importance of Scripture Consequences," drawn up in a masterly way,
with great clearness and judgment, sobriety and decency. Both the universities of Edinburgh and Aberdeen,
without his knowledge and in a most honourable manner, conferred on him their highest academical hon
our. A complication of distempers broke down his constitution, and deprived the world of his abilities and
labours, at so early a period as the fifty-first year of his age. May 23, 1730. He excelled in the several vir
tues of integrity, greatness and generosity of mind ; in compassion and tenderness, in a cathohc temper and
a public spirit, and in a steady, regular piety. His solidity of judgment united with vivacity, his industry
and prudence, were distinguishing and superior to most others. Among the pertinent, devout, and excellent
sentiments he dropped in the course of his illness, when he looked upon his body swollen with distemper,
he would often say with pleasure, "This corruptible shall put on incorruption— Oh, glorious hope '"— i>r.
Harris s }• uneral Sermon for Dr. Evans, in his Funeral Discourses, p. 285-296.
WS Accoun"o'f m""n^'i^^™°" ^""^ ^'^' •^^*"^' ^" ^ volume of Funeral Discourses, p. 289, 290; and the

MR. DANIEL NEAL. xxi
ard, Esq., of Walthamstow. It consisted of fifty-four sermons on the principal heads
of the Christian religion, entitled " Faith and Practice." Mr. Neal's associates in this
service were Dr. Watts, Dr. J. Guise, Mr. Samuel Price, Mr. John Hubbard, and Dr.
David Jennings.* The terms on which Mr. Neal complied with Mr. Coward's request,
made through a common friend, to take part in this service, are proofs of the independ
ence and integrity of mind which he possessed, and was determined to maintain. His
requisitions were, that he would draw up the dedication, write the preface, and choose
his own subjects, in which Mr. Coward, though they were not very pleasing to a gen
tleman of his known humour and fondness for adulation and control, acquiesced, rath
er than the lecture should lose the advantage and reputation that it would derive from
Mr. Neal's abilities and naine.f The subjects handled by him were " The Divine au
thority and perfection of the Holy Scriptures," from 2 Tim., iii., 16. " Of God, as the
Governor and Judge of the moral world, angels, and men," on Daniel, i-v., 35. " The in
carnation of Christ as the promised Messiah," the text Gal., iv., 4, 5. " Effectual call
ing, with its fruits, viz., regeneration and santification by the Holy Spirit," from 2 Tim.,
i., 9. " Confession of sin, repentance, and conversion to holiness," on Acts, iii., 19.-
" Of fearing God and trusting in him," Psalm xxxi., 19. " The sacrament of the Lord's
Supper," on 1 Cor., xi., 23, 36. " The love of our neighbour," the text John, iii., 34, 35 ;.
and " The pleasure and -advantage of vital religion," from Rom., vii., 22. These, with
the discourses of the other preachers, were, after the course was finished, published
in two vols. 8vo, in 1735, and have passed through several editions. Dr. Doddridge,
when speaking of them, says, " I cannot recollect where I have seen a set of impor
tant thoughts on such various and weighty subjects more judiciously selected, more
naturally digested, more closely compacted, more accurately expressed, or, in a few
words, .more powerfully enforced, than 1 have generally found in those sermons. "^l
Without determining whether this encomium be exaggerated or not, it may certainly
be pronounced, that the practical strain in which the discourses are drawn up, and the
good temper with which the subjects of greatest controversy are here handled, without
any censure or even illiberal insinuation against others mingling with the representa
tion of their own views ou the points discussed, do great honour to the heart and spirit
of the authors.
The other course of lectures, in which Mr. Neal was engaged, arose from an alarms
concerning the increase of popery, which prevailed -about the end of the year 1734.
tiuaie tminent dissenting ministers of the day, of the Presbyterian denomin-ation, in
conjunction with one of each of the other persuasions, agreed to preach a set of ser
mons on the main principles and errors, doctrines and practices, of the Church of
Rome, to guard Protestants against the efforts of its emissaries. The gentlemen who-
eng.iged in this design were Mr. John Barker, Dr. Samuel Chandler, Mr. George Smith,
Dr. Samuel Wright, Dr. William Harris, Dr. Obadiah Hughes, Dr. Jeremiah Hunt, Mr.
Joshua Bayes, Mr. John Newman, Dr. Jabez Earle, Mr. Moses Lowman, Dr. Benjamin
Grosvenor, Mr. Thomas Leavesly, Mr. Joseph Burroughs, a minister of the Antipjedo-
baptist persuasion,^ and Mr. Neal, who was an Independent. The subject which fell
* It is needless to say anything here of the first name on this list. Dr. Watts, whose fame by his various
writings has been so universally diffused.
Mr. Samuel Price, the uncle of the late Dr. Richard Price, served forty-five years in the ministry of the
Gospel, with Dr. Watts, as assistant or copastor. Pie was a man of exemplary probity and virtue, of sound
and solid sense, a judicious and useful preacher, eminent for his gift in prayer, and for wisdom and prudence
in the management of affairs. He was a native of Wales, received his academical learning under Mr. Tim
othy Jollie, at Atterclitfe, and died in 1756.
Dr. John Guise was well known as a popular preacher, and as the author of a paraphrase on the New
Testament, in three vols, quarto.
Mr. Hubbard was minister of a congregation at Stepney, and about three years before his death was
chosen tutor of a seminary for educating young men for the ministry. He filled both capacities with con
siderable reputation, and is said to have had so extensive and famiUar an acquaintance with the Scriptures
as to supersede the use of a concordance, which had no place in his library.
Dr. David Jennings has left behind him "An Introduction to the Use of the Globes and Orrery," "An
Introduction to the Knowledge of Medals," and " Jewish Antiquities," as monuments of his genius and leam-
in*^. For many years he was at the head of the seminary endowed by Mr. Coward's munificence, and for
forty-four years pastor of a congregation in Old Gravel Lane, Wapping. He was a pleasing and pathetic
preicher, an early riser, very methodical and punctual in the arrangements of his studies and Dusiness, and,
notwithstanding that he lived much in his study, his conversation was lively and instructive, and his ad
dress easy and affable. He published several sermons, and was the author of several other pieces besides
the above. He died September 26, 1762, in his. seventy-first year.
t From private information. t Doddridge's Ten Sermons, 12mo. Preface, p. ix.
^ Mr. John Barker was for a number of years a preacher of popular talents and great eminence, first at
Hackney, and then at Salters' Hall. Many single sermons came from his pen, and he published a volume
of discourses in his lifetime, which was succeeded by a second volume after his death in 1763.
Dr. Samuel Chandler is well known as rising superior to most, either within the pale of the establishment
or out of it, in learning and abilities.
Mr. George Smith oflSciated to the society of the Gravel-pit meeting. Hackney, for thirty years, as a
preacher excelled by none and equalled by few. He died May 1, 1746, aged fifty-seven, looked upon byhia

xiii MEMOIR OF THE LIFE OF
to his lot to discuss was, " The supremacy of St. Peter, and the bishops of Rome, his
successors " These discourses were separately printed immediately after eacti was
preached, and when the lecture was closed, were collected together, and formed two
¦volumes 8vo.'*
own brethren as holding the first rank hi merit among them ; and not less honoured and valued by those
"^nf sfn'^uri WrTriit^tbe^^uthor rf many single sermons and several valuable practical works, was distin-
smishpd bv Dubit talents. He was thirty-eight years pastor of the congregation which originally met for
felipinn^ worshio in Blat-kfriars, and then, greatly increasing under his preaching, which was serious and
iudicious solemn and striking, removed to Carter Lane. He died in his sixty-fourth year, 17-tC.
Dr William Harris, who was upward of forty years pastor of a congregation in Crutched Fnars, was a
verv acceptable preacher, and the author, besides many single sermons, of a volume of discourses on " The
principal Representations of the Messiah throughout the Old Testament," and of another called "luneral
Discourses, m two Parts : containing, 1. Consolation on the Death of our Friends ; and, 2. Preparation for
our own Death." His compositions were laboured and finished. It was among the excellences of lus
character, that he was scarce ever seen to be angry, was a very great patron arid fnend of; young ministers,
and had a concern in many great and useful designs of a public nature. He died, high m reputation and
usefulness. May 25, 1740, aged sixty-five.
Dr. Obadiah Hughes " was many years minister of a congregation in Southwark, from which he re
moved to Westminster. He was an acceptable preacher, and printed some occasional sermons."— Z>r.
Kippis's Life of Dr. Lardner.
Dr. Jeremiah Hunt, of Pinners' Hall, was a most respectable character, a man of extensive learning and
profound knowledge of the Scriptures ; he pubhshed many occasional sermons, and " An Essay towards
explaining the History of the Revelations of Scripture." He died 5th of September, 1744, aged sixty-seven.
Mr. Joshua Bayes was pastor of the congregation in Hatton Garden.
Mr. John Newman was for many years one of the most celebrated preachers in the city of London, who
delivered, to crowded audiences, long and laboured sermons without any assistance of notes. He was first
assistant to Mr. Nathaniel Taylor, and then copastor with Mr. WiUiam Tong, at Salters' Hall ; appearing in
the same place for five-and-forty years, with great credit and comfort, and died while he was esteemed and
beloved, m full reputation and usefulness, much missed and lamented, in his sixty-fifth year, July 25, 1741.
Dr. Jabez Earle, a classical scholar, remarkable for a ^^vacity and cheerfulness of temper, which never
forsook him to the last, was for near seventy years a noted minister in London. He preached to the last
Sunday in his life, and died in his chair without a groan or sigh, aged ninety-two. He was pastor of a con-
legation at Long-acre, and one of the Tuesday lecturers at Salters' Hall. He printed, besides several ser
mons, a little tract called Sacramental Exercises ; and in the second edition of the " Biographia Britannica,"
under the article Amory, there is a small copy of verses which he sent to his friend Dr. Harris, on their both
receiving diplomas from a Scotch university.
Mr. Moses Lowman, more than forty years minister of a congregation at Clapham, Surrey, to a great
¦character for general literature added a thorough acquaintance with Jewish learning and antiquities. His
treatise on the civil government of the Hebrews, another on the ritual of that people, and a commentary on
the Revelations, have been held in liigh estimation. A small piece drawn up by him, in the mathematical
form, to prove the unity and perfections of God d priori, was called by Dr. Chandler a truly golden treatise,
and asserted to be a strict demonstration. After his decease there appeared from the press three tracts on
the Shechinah and Logos, published from his MSS. by Dr. Chandler, Dr. Lardner, and Mr. Sandercock.
He reached the age of seventy-two, and died May 3, 1752.
Dr. Benjamin Grosvenor was a minister in London, of distinguished reputation, upward of fifty years. A
singular acumen, lively imagination, and warm devotion of heart, characterized his discourses, which were
delivered with a graceful utterance. He was born in London, 1st January, 1675 ; was chosen minister to
the congregation in Crosby Square in 1704, which he soon raised into a flourishing church and crowded au
ditory s and in 1716 he was elected one of the six preachers at the Merchants' lecture at Salters' Hall. In
1749 he retired from all public services, and died August 27th, 1758, in the eighty-third year of his age.
He pubhshed many single sermons ; the most distinguished of which was one on " The Temper of Jesus
towards his Enemies," which was reprinted at Cambridge so lately as the year 1758 ; it was a transcript of
his own heart and life ; " An Essay on Health," and an excellent treatise entitled " The Mourner," both
of which have passed through several editions, and will continue to be memorials of his genius, learning,
and spirit. Of the latter the following passage in his diary is an amiable specimen : " I thank God," says
he, "for that temper of mind and genius which has made it natural for me to have an aversion to bigotry.
This has improved constantly with my knowledge ; and the enlarging my mind towards those who differ
from me has kept pace with my illumination and intellectual improvements. 'Agree to differ' is a good
motto. The reason and loveliness of such a friendly disposition would recommend it, and 1 am persuaded
people would almost take it of themselves, if it were not for the several arts used to prevent it."
Mr. Thomas Leavesly was for some years minister of the Old Jewry in London.
Mr. Joseph Burroughs was a learned and judicious divine ; of which, not only the sermon in the above
collection, but a volume of sermons published in 1741, and "A View of Popery," taken from the creed of
Pope Pius IV., afford ample proof He was also the author of several single sermons, and of "Two Dis
courses relating to Positive Institutions," which brought on a controversy between him and the worthy
Dr. Caleb Fleming on the mode and subject of baptism. He was fifty-two years connected with the o-en-
eral Baptist congregation in Barbican, London, first as an assistant to the Rev. Richard Allen, and from°the
year 1717, as pastor, to November 23, 1761, when he died, in the seventy-seventh year of his a^e; having
supported, through so long a life, the character of the steady friend to liberty and free inquiry, of a' zealous
advocate for the importance of the Christian revelation, and of the strenuous promoter of every scheme that
tended to advance the common interests of religion, as well as those which were particularly calculated for
the benefit of Baptist societies ; while through the greatest part of this period he had as a minister served
'uo church with which he was united with the greatest fideUty, affection, and zeal
^oL'j'' l'^*"^* °^- ^^^^ ,"°'P ™^8ht appear to require an apology, were not the names to whose memorv it is
dinf ran l^J*™"™' 'H n ' n"^ '° ^^ ^^f^f- vi*"' "'j'^™' some respectful notice. Several of the prece-
1716 m" T7TS wV n °?- °'°^''Tm' ^"S"' ^'^ ^™-"'' """^i ^'- Lowman, were engaged in the years
/„ 1 D ' „ ^' ""'^ ^'- ^^^T and Mr. Simon Brown, in a valuable pubhcation entitled " The Occa-
siona Paper," a work sacred to the cause of rehgious liberty, free inquirf, and charitv
Jt is proper to add, that this defence of Protestantism did not terminate with the delivery of the ser-

MR. DANIEL NEAL. xxiii
In the year 173G came out the third volume of the History of the Puritans ; and Mr.
I^^¦ea^s design was completed by the publication of the fourth, in the year 1738, which
brought down the history of Nonconformity to the Act of Toleration by King WilUam
and Queen Mary, in tlie year 1689. This and Mr. Neal's other historical works spread
his name through the learned world, and justly secured to him great and permanent
reputation. Dr. Jonnitigs, speaking of them, says, " I am satisfied that there is no ju
dicious and unprejudiced person that has conversed with the volumes he wrote, but
will acknowledge he had an excellent talent at writing history. His style is most easy
and perspicuous ; and the judicious remarks which he leads his readers to make upon
facts as they go along, make his histories to be not only more entertaining, but to be
more instructive and useful, than most books of that kind."*
While this work was preparing for and going through the press, part of his time was
occupied in drawing up and publishing an answer to Dr. Maddox, bishop of §t. Asaph,
who wrote a pretty long " Vindication of the Doctrine, Discipline, and Worship of the
Church of England, estabUshed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, from the Injurious
Reflections (as he was pleased to style them) of Mr. Neal's first volume of the History
of the Puritans." This answer was entitled, "A Review of the Principal Facts ob
jected to the first volume of the History of the Puritans." It was reckoned to be writ
ten with great judgment, and to establish our historian's character for an impartial re
gard to truth. And it was reasonably concluded, from this specimen of his powers of
defence, that, if his declining state of health had permitted him, he would have as thor
oughly vindicated the other volumes from the animadversions afterward published
against them by Dr. Zachary Grey.
The pleasure Mr. Neal had in serving the cause of religious liberty had carried him
through his undertaking with amazing alacrity. But he engaged in it at an advanced age,
and when his health had begun to decline : this, joined with the close application he
gave to the prosecution of it, brought on a lingering illness, from whiph he never re
covered. He had been all his life subject, in some degree, to a lowness of spirits, and
to complaints of an indisposition in his head. His love of study, and an unremitting
attention to the duties of his ofSce, rendered him averse to the frequent use of any ex
ercise that took hiin off' from his books. In the end, repeated strokes of the palsey,
first gentle and then more severe, which greatly enfeebled all his powers both of body
and mind, baffled the best advice, the aids of medicine, and repeated use of the Bath
mons from the pulpit at Salters' Hall. Dr. Chandler pursued his subject in "A second treatise on the notes
of the Church," as a supplement to his sermon at that place on the same subject. And Dr. Harris fol
lowed up his sermon on transubstantiation with " A second discourse, in which the sixth chapter of St.
John's Gospel is particularly considered : preached at the Merchants' lecture at Salters' Hall, April 22,
1735," which was reckoned to possess pecuhar merit. Mr. Burroughs farther showed himself an able wri
ter, in the cause for which the sermons were preached, by his " Review of Popery." The course of lec
tures had not gone on a month, when a gentleman or two being in company with a Romish priest at the
Pope's-head tavern in Cornhill, they became the subject of conversation ; and the latter objected, in par
ticular, against some passages in Mr, Barker's sermon, as what could not be supported by proper vouchers.
This brought on, by appointment, "Two conferences on the 7th and 13th of February, 1734-5, at the BeU
tavern in Nicholas Lane, on the blasphemy of many popish writers in giving, and of popes in receiving,
the title of Our Lord God the Pope ; on the doctrines of substantiation ; praying to saints and angels ; and
of denying the use of the Scriptures to the laity." At the first of these conferences twenty were present,
and the dispute was supported by the Romish priest. Dr. Hunt, and a divine of the Church of England ;
at the second the debate lay between the former Catholic gentleman, Mr. Morgan, accompanied by Mr.
Vaughan, supposed to be a priest, and Dr. Hunt, Dr. Chandler, and Mr. John Eames, well known to the
world for his integrity and learning : Dr. Talbot Smith was chosen chairman, and the whole company con
sisted of thirty. A statement of these disputations was soon pubhshed by an anonymous author, entitled,
"Two Conferences held," &c. The Catholic party also gave a representation of them to the public in a
pamphlet entitled, "The two Conferences, &c., truly stated." This brought out from the pen of Dr. Chan
dler, "An account of the Conference held in Nicholas Lane, February 13th, 1734^5, between two Romish
priests and some Protestant divines, with some remarks on the pamphlet," &c. The doctor's account is
confined to the second conference, because he was not present at the first.
Soon after these Salters' Hall sermons were pubhshed, there appeared a pamphlet in 1735, which in
1736 ran to a third edition, ehtitled, "A Supplement to the Sermons lately preached at Salters' Hall
against Popery : containing just and useful remarks on another great corruption therein omitted." The
author of this tract was Mr. G. Killingworth, a respectable lay-gentleman of Norwich. The design of it
was to sfcow that the reasoning of the gentlemen who preached those sermons affected, not only the pa
pists, but themselves, in rejecting the baptism of adult persons, and substituting in the room thereof the
sprinkling of infants. The author, with this view, besides stating from the New 'Testament the evidence
in favour of his own sentiments, shrewdly appUed a great number of passages from the sermons, somewhat
in the way of a parody, to estabhsh his own conclusion ; and to prove that, if those gentlemen practised or
believed anything as a part of the religion of the Holy Jesus which could not be plainly and clearly proved -
from the New Testament (as he conceived that they did in the matter of sprinkling of infants), they must
look upon themselves as self-condemned, their own arguments being a full confutation of them. Mr. Kil
lingworth showed himself an able writer by other pieces in favour of the sentiments for which he was a
strenuous advocate ; and published also " An Answer" to the late very respectable Mr. Micajah Tow-
good's tract, entitled, "Infant Baptism a Reasonable Service," by way of appendix to an exammation of
Dr. Forster's " Sermon on Catholic Communion." In one of his pieces, he likewise replied to the argu-
anents of Mr. Emlyn's previous question. * Funeral Sermon, p. 32.

juQv MEMOIR OF THE LIFE OF
waters, brought him to his grave, perfectly worn out, in the sixty-fifth year of his age.
"DmLVthfdtlln'nf state of his health, Mr. Neal applied to the excellent Dr. Dod-
HriHire to recommend some young minister as an assistant to him. A gentleman was
Sed out rXopeared in his pulpit with this view ; and a letter, which on this oc
casion he wioe to Dr. Doddridge, and which the doctor endorsed with this memoran
dum " Some v^ise Hints," afford! such an agreeable specimen of Mr. Neal's good sense,
ca™dour, a"d prudence, as cannot fail, we think, to render it acceptable to our readers.
" Your^etter! which I received yesterday, gave me a great deal of agreeable enter
tainment, and made me almost in love with a person that I never saw. His character
is the very picture of what 1 should wish and pray for. There is no maimer of excep
tion that I can hear of, but that of his delivery, which many, with you, hope may be
conquered, or very much amended. All express a very great respect and value for
Mr.  and his ministry, and are highly pleased with his serious and affectionate-
manner. And I am apt to think, when we have heard him again, even the thickness^
of the pronunciation of some of his words will in a great measure vanish ; it being
owing, in a great measure (according to my son), to hot making his under and upper
lip meet together ; but, be that as it will, this is all, and the very worst that I know of^,
to use your own expression.
" I wish, as much as you, that the affair might be speedily issued ; but you know-
that things of this nature, in which many, and those of a different temper, are concern
ed, must proceed with all tenderness and voluntary freedom, without the least shado-w
of violence or imaginary hurry. Men love to act for themselves, and with spontane
ity ; and, as I have sometimes observed, have come at length cheerfully and volunta
rily into measures which they would have opposed if they had imagined they were to-
be driven into them.
" I don't mention this as if it was the present case, for I can assure you it is not;
but to put you in mind that it may possibly not always be for the best to do things too
hastily ; and therefore I hope you will excuse the digression. I am exceedingly ten
der of Mr.  's character and usefulness, and therefore shall leave it to your pru
dence to fix the day of his coming up ; and you may depend upon my taking all the
prudential steps in favour of this affair that I am master of I hope the satisfaction
will be general, but who can answer for it beforehand T It has a promising appear
ance ; but, if it comes out otherwise, you shall have a faithful account.
" I am pleased to hear that Mr.  is under so good an adviser as yourself, -who
cannot but be apprized of the great importance of this affair, both to your academy, to
myself, and to the public interest of the Dissenters in this city ; and I frankly declare
I don't know any one place among us in London where he can sit more easy, and en
joy the universal love and affection of a good-natured people, which will give him aU
fitting encouragement. We are very thankful to you, sir, for the concern you express
for us, and the care you have taken for our supply. I hope you will have a return from
above of far greater blessings than this world can bestow, and you may expect frorai
me all suitable acknowledgments.
" Pray advise Mr.  , when you see him, to lay aside all undue concern from.
his mind, and to speak with freedom and ease. Let him endeavour, by an articulate
pronunciation, to make the elder persons hear, and those that sit at a greater distance,
and all will be well. He has already got a place in the affections of many of the peo
ple, and I believe will quickly captivate them all. Assure him that he has a candid
audience, who will not make a man an offender for a word. Let him speak to the-
heart and touch the conscience, and show himself in earnest in his work, and he will
certainly approve himself a workman that needs not be ashamed. I beg pardon for
these hints. Let not Mr.  impress his mind too much with them. My best re
spects attend your lady and whole family, not forgetting good Mr.  , etc.
I am, sir, in haste, your affectionate brother and very humble servant,
,,, , „. , „ " Daniel Neal.*
"London, Saturday evening. May 12, 1739. " Brethren, pray for us !"
Disease had, for many months before his death, rendered him almost entirely inca-'*,'
II. I P."^^'° ^fnu'""- '^^'^ induced him to resign the pastoral office in the Novem- •
annii^r "?{. Fu eonsiderate, as well as generous manner in which he did it, will
appear Irom the following letter he sent to the church on that occasion :
Stow'lbury'"' ^^"^' ""^^ ^""^ obUgingly commumcated by the Rev, Thomas Stedman, vicar of St. Chad's,

EnQTavecl by O-irnher rrojrf ^ui Onjuial/.

^^iQCOflA^© ©A;<¥E'^, A„JVJ

^nu.4A.^i

MR. DANIEL NEAL. xxT
" To the Church of Christ meeting in Jeviin-slreet, London.
_" My dear Brethren, and Bui.ovEn in the Lord,
" God, hi his all-wise providence, having seen meet for some time to disable me in
a great measure from serving you in the Gospel of his Son, and therein to deprive me
of one of the greatest satisfactions of my life, I have been waiting upon him in the use
of means for a considerable time, as I thought it my duty to do. But, not having found
such a restoration as might enable me to do stated service, it is my duty to acquiesce
in his will ; and, having looked up to him for direction, I think it best, for your sakes,
to surrender my office of a pastor among yon.
" Upon this occasion it becomes me to make my humblest acknowledgments to the
blessed God for that measure of usefulness he has honoured me with in the course of
my labours among you ; and I render you all my unfeigned thanks for the many affec
tionate instances of your regard towards me.
" May the Spirit of God direct you in the choice of a wise and able pastor, who may
have your spiritual and everlasting welfare at heart. And, for that end, beware of a
spirit of division ; be ready to condescend to each other's infirmities ; keep together in
the way of your duty, and in waiting upon God for his direction and blessing ; remem
ber, this is the distinguishing mark of the disciples of Christ, ' that they love one an
other.' Finally, my brethren, farewell ! Be of good comfort, and of one mind ; live in
peace ; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.
' I am your affectionate well-wisher and obedient, humble servant,
"Daniel NE.4L.'"*
From the first attack of his long illness, it appears he had serious apprehensions-
how it would terminate ; -and a letter written from Bath, in April, 1739, to a worthy
" friend,! shows the excellent state of his mind under those views.
" My greatest concern," he says, " is to have rational and solid expectations of a future
happiness. I would not be mistaken, nor build on the sand, but would impress my
mind with a firm beUef of the certainty of the future world, and live in a practical
preparation for it. I rely very much on the rational notions we have of the moral
perfections of God, not only as a just, but a benevolent and merciful Being, who knows ¦
our frame, and will make all reasonable allowances for our imperfections and follies
in life ; and not only so, but, upon repentance and faith in Christ, will pardon our past
sins, thougb never so many or great.
" In aid of the imperfection of our rational notions, I am very thankful for the glori
ous truths of Gospel revelation, which are an additional superstructure on the other:
for, though we can believe nothing contrary to our reason, we have a great many ex
cellent and comfortable discoveries built upon and superadded to it. Dpon this double
foundation would I build all my expectations, with an humble and awful reverence of
the majesty of the great Judge of all the earth, and a fiducial reliance on the mercy
of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. In this frame of mind, I desire to fear God,
and keep his commandments."
In all his sensible intervals, during his last illness, he enjoyed an uncommon seren
ity of mind, and behaved becoming a Christian and a minister.f
This peaceful state of mind and comfortable hope he possessed to the last. ^ About
a month before his death, he appeared to his fellow-worshippers, at the Lord's Supper,
with an air so extraordinarily serious and heavenly as made some present say, " Ho
looked as if he were not long for this world."
The preceding particulars and his writings will, in part, enable the reader to form for
* From the MS. account.
t This friend was Dr. Henry Miles, an eminent Dissenting minister at- Tooting, in Surrey, and a respect
able member of the Royal Society, who died February 10, 1763, in the sixty-fifth year of his age. He was
a native of Stroud, in Gloucestershire. His knowledge in natural history, botany, and experimental philos
ophy, for which he had a remarkable taste, occasioned his being elected a member of the Royal Society in
1743, in the transactions of which appear several papers from his pen ; and Dr. Birch, in the preface to his
fine edition of Mr. Boyle's works, handsomely says, that the conduct and improvement of that edition wer&
chiefly to be ascribed to the great labour, judgment, and sagacity of the learned Mr. Miles, and that to him
the puplic owed considerable additions never before published. Besides this, he could never be prevailed
upon to publish more than a single sermon, preached at the Old Jewry, on occasion of a public charity, in
1738. He was a hard student. His preparations for the pulpit cost him incessant labour ; and, for a course
of thirty years, he constantly rose, two days in the week, at two or three o'clock in the morning, to com
pose his sermons. He lived like an excellent Christian and minister : his behaviour was on all occasions
that of a gentleman ; the simplicity of his spirit and manners was very remarkable ; his conversation in
structive and entertaining ; his countenance was always open, mild, and amiable ; and his carriage so con
descending and courteous, even lo his inferiors, as plainly discovered a most humane and benevolent heart.
He was the friend of Dr. Lardner and Dr. Doddridge ; and, in the correspondence of the latter, published,
by the Rev. Mr. Stedman, there are several of his letters. See also Dr. Furneaux's Funeral Sermon for
Dr. Miles. X Letters to and from Dr. Doddridge, 1790, p. 358.
^ Dr. Jennings's Funeral Sermon, and the MS. account.
YoL. I.— D

-xxvi MEMOIR OF THE LIFE OF MR. DANIEL NEAL.
himself a just opinion of Mr. Neal's character, and will certainly give credibility to
what is reported concerning it. , , , _ j
He filled the relations of domestic life with integrity and honour, and le" a aeep ana
fond regret in the hearts of his family.* In his public connexion.s, he was me Pi uaent
-counsellor, and a faithful, steady friend. His 1-abours in the pulpit, and his visits in
famihes, while his health continued firm, were edifying and entertainmg^ He hacl an
easy and agreeable manner, both in the style and m the delivery of his sermons free
froiTi affectation. In conversation, he knew how to mix grave and prudent instruc
tion or advice with a becoming cheerfulness, which made his company to be pleasing
and profitable. , . ,_ » ,i- j •
He was honoured with the friendship of some m very high stations ; and, in early
life, contracted an acquaintance with several who afterward made a considerable fig-
¦ure in the learned world, both in the established Church and among the Dissenters.
The repeated and frequent invitations he received to appear in the pulpit, on singu-
lar and pubUc occasions, especially the share he had in the lectures at Salters' Hall,
against popery, are honourable proofs of the respect and estimation in which his abili
ties and character were in general held, even by those who differed from him in their
sentiirients on many questions of doctrine and church government.
His own doctrinal sentiments were supposed to come nearest to those of Calvin,
which he looked upon as most agreeable to the sacred Scriptures, and most adapted
to the great ends of religion. But neither were his charity nor his friendships confined to
men of his own opinion. The Bible alone was his standard for religious truth, and
he was willing and desirous that all others should be at perfect liberty to take and fol
low it as their own rule. The unchristian heats and unhappy differences which had
arisen among Christians by the restraints that had been laid, more or less by all par
ties, when in power, on the faith or worship of their fellow-Christians, had fixed in him
an utter aversion to imposition upon conscience in any shape, and to all such party dis- •
tinctions as would naturally lead to it.
Mr. Neal married Elizabeth, the only daughter of the Reverend Richard Lardner,
many years pastor of a congregation at Deal,t and sister of the great and excellent
Dr. Lardner. She survived Mr. Neal about five years, dying in 1748. They left a son
and two daughters : one of these ladies married Mr. Joseph Jennings, of Fenchurch-
street, the eldest son of the Rev. Dr. David Jennings ; the other the Rev. Mr. Lister.
minister of the Dissenting congregation at Ware. His son, Mr. Nathaniel Neal, was
an eminent attorney, and secretary to the Million Bank. He wrote a pathphlet entitled
" A Free and Serious Remonstrance to Protestant Dissenting Ministers, on occasion
of the Decay of Religion," which was republished by the late Rev. Job Orton, in 1775.
Many admirable letters of this gentleman to Dr. Doddridge are given to the pubHc in
that instructive and entertaining collection of letters to and from the doctor, which we
owe to the Rev. Thomas Stedman, vicar of St. Chad's, Shrewsbury ; and who, to the
mention of Mr. Nathaniel Neal, adds from a correspondent, " whose character I never
think of without the highest veneration and esteem, as few ever possessed more emi
nently the virtues of the heart, united with a very superior understanding and judg
ment. "J
* Of this we have a proof in the expressive and affecting manner in which his son wrote concerning his
death to Dr. Doddridge. " The report which you had heard of my honoured father's death was too well
founded, if it is becoming the fihal gratitude I owe to his memory to seem to repine at my own loss,
which I am satisfied is greatly his gain ; especially when his nobler powers were so much obscured, even
to the sight of his friends, as they have been for some time past, by the bodily decays he laboured under.
But, notwithstanding all the admirable reliefs which reason and faith afford under the uneasiness which
nature feels on the loss of so near and (who had been) so desirable a relation, and the many circura.stan.
ces of weakness which seemed to make dissolution less formidable, yet the parting season wili.be gloomy,
-the breathless corpse of a once dear and valuable friend will affect us, and the carrying out of our house,
and leaving behind us, in a solitary tomb, all that was visible (when, at the same rime, it was so venerable)
of a father, strikes a damp on the spirits which is not easily overcome or foi-gutlen."— Letters to anifim
Dr. Doddridge, p. 355, etc.
t The character of Mr. Lardner, drawn by his son-in-law Mr. Neal, forms the sixth number of the Ap
pendix to Dr. Lardner's Life, prefixed to the new edition of his works, in 8vo.
t Letters, and p. 353, note.

CONTENTS

THE FIRST VOLUME.

Editorial Preface 
Preface to Vol. I. of the Original Edition
Advertisement to Vol. I. of Dr. Toulmin's Edi-
don ... . . . . xyi
Memoir of the Author . ... xvii
PART I.
HISTOEY OF THE PURITANS FROM THE ACCESSION
OF HENRY VIIl. TO THE DEATH OP QUEEN ELIZ
ABETH, A.D. 1509-1602. CHAPTER I.
Eeign of Henry the Eighth, A.D. 1509-1547 . 29
CHAPTER II.
Keign of Kmg Edward the Sixth, A.D.
1547-1553 . . .... 43
CHAPTER in.
Reign of Queen Mary, A.D. 1553-1558 . . 57
CHAPTER IV.
From the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign
to the separation of the Protestant Noncon
formists, A.D. 1558-1566 .... 71
CHAPTER V.
From the separation of the Protestant Noncon
formists to the death of Archbishop Parker,
A.D. 1566-1575  106
CHAPTER VI.
From the death of Archbishop Parker to the
death of Archbishop Grindal, A.D. 1575-1585 139
CHAPTER VII.
¦From the death of Archbishop Grindal -to the
Spanish invasion in 1588 .... 156
CHAPTER Vm.
From the Spanish invasion to the death of
Queen Ehzabeth, A.D. 1588-1602 . . 188

Preface to Vol. II. of the Original Edition
Advertisement to Vol. II. of Dr. Toulmin's Edi
tion .... . . .
PART II.

Fajo

219

225

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS FROM THE DEATH OP
QUKEN ELIZABETH TO THE BEGINNING OF THE
CIVIL WAR IN THE YEAR 1642. .
CHAPTER 1.
J"rom the death of Queen Elizabeth to the
death of Archbishop Bancroft, A.D. 1603-1610 227

CHAPTER VIII.
The antiquity of liturgies, and of the episco
pal order, debated between Bishop Hall and
Smectymnuus. — Petitions for and against
the hierarchy. — Root and branch petition.—
'The ministers' petition for reformation. —
Speeches upon the petition. — Proceedings
against papists . . . .

256

CHAPTER U.
From the death of Archbishop Bancroft to the
death of King James I., A.D. 1610-1625
CHAPTER III.
From the death of King James I. to the dis
solution of the third Parhament of King
Charles I. in the year 1628 . . .278
CHAPTER IV.
From the dissolution of the third Parliament of
King Charles I. to the death of Archbishop
Abbot, A.D. 1628-1633 . . .297
CHAPTER V.
From the death of Archbishop Abbot to the
beginning of the commotions in Scotland in
the year 1637 . .... 310
CHAPTER VL
From the beginning of the commotions in Scot
land to the Long Parhament in the year 1640 334
CHAPTER VII.
The character of the Long Parhament. — Their
arguments against the late convocation and
canons. — Impeachment of Dr. William Laud,
archbishop of Canterbury. — Votes of the
House of Commons agamst the promoters
of the late innovations

350

363

CHAPTER IX.
From the impeachment of the Earl of Strafford
to the recess of the Parliament upon the
king's progress into Scotland, A.D. 1640-41 374
CHAPTER X.
From the reassembling of the Parliament to
the king's leaving his palace of Whitehall,
January 10, 1641-2 . . . . 395
CHAPTER XI.
From the king's leaving Whitehall to the be
ginning of the civil war, A.D. 1642 . . 409
CHAPTER Xn.
The state of the Church of England. — Reli
gious character of both parties. — Summary
of the ground of the civil war . . . 423

CONTENTS.

Page

Preface to Vol. III. of the Original Edition 433

PART III.
HISTORY OF THE PURITANS FROM THE BATTLE
OF EDGE HILL TO THE DEATH OF KING OBAELES
I., A.D. 1643-1649.
CHAPTER L
From the battle of Edge Hill to the calling of
the assembly of divines at Westminster 441
CHAPTER II.
From the calling of the assembly of divines at
Westminster to the Oxford Parliament . 457

Fajr

CHAPTER III-
The Oxford Parliament. — Progress of the
war.— Visitation of the University ol Cam
bridge by the Earl of Manchester.— Comniit-
tees for plundered, sequestered, and scanda
lous ministers . ... 47&
CHAPTER IV.
Of the several parties in the assembly of di
vines — Presbyterians — Erastians — Independ
ents. — Their proceedings about ordiiiation,
and the directory for Divine worship. — Rise,
progress, and sufferings of the Enghsh An-
tipsedobaptists  488'
CHAPTER V.
Abstract of the trial of Archbishop Laud, and
of the treaty of Uxbridge . , . .501

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

CHAPTER I.

REIGN OP HENRY VIII.

'King William the Conqueror, having got pos-
"session of the crown of England by the assist
ance ,of the See of Rome, and King John hav
ing afterward sold it in his wars with the bar
ons, the rights and privileges of the English
clergy were delivered up into the hands of the
pope, who taxed them at his pleasure, and in
process of time drained the kingdom of immense
treasures ; for, besides all his other dues, arising
from annates, first-fruits, Peter-pence, &c., he
extorted large sums of money from the clergy
for their preferments in the Church. He ad
vanced foreigners to the richest bishoprics, who
never resfded in their diocesses, nor so much
as set foot upon English ground, but sent for all
their profits to a foreign country ; nay, so cov
etous was his holiness, that, before livings be
came void, he sold them provisionally among
his Italians, insomuch that neither the king nor
the clergy had anything to dispose of, but every
thing was bargained for beforehand at Rome.
This awakened the resentments of the Legisla
ture, who, in the twenty-fifth year of Edward
111., passed an act, called the statute of provi-
sors, to establish " that the king and other
lords sliall present unto benefices of their own,
or their ancestors' foundation, and not the Bishop
of Rome." This act enacted " that all forestall
ing of benefices to foreigners shall cease ; and
that the free elections, presentments, and colla
tions of benefices, shall stand in right of the
crown, or of any of his majesty's subjects, as
they had formerly enjoyed them, notwithstand
ing any provisions from Rome."
But still the power of the court of Rome ran
very high, for they brought all the trials of titles
to advowsons into their own courts beyond
sea ; and though by the seventh of Richard II.
the power of nomination to benefices, -without
the king's license, was taken from them, they
still claimed the benefit of confirmations, of
translations of bishops, and of excommunica
tions ; the Archbishops of Canterbury and York
might still, by virtue of bulls from Rome, as
semble the clergy of their several provinces, at
what time and place they thought fit, without
leave obtained from the crown ; and all the can
ons and constitutions concluded upon in those
synods were binding, without any farther ratifi
cation from the king ; so that the power of the
Church was independent of the civil govern
ment. This being represented to the Parlia
ment of the sixteenth of Richard II., they pass-
-ed the statute commonly called prcemunire, by
¦which it was enacted, " that if any did purchase
translations to benefices, processes, sentences
of excommunication, bulls, or any other instru
ments from the court of Rome, against the king
or his crown ; or whoever brought them into

England, or did receive or execute them, they
were declared to be out of the king's protection,
and should forfeit their goods and chattels to the
king, and should be attached by their bodies, if
they may be found, and brought before the king
and council to answer to the cases aforesaid ;
or that process should be made against them,
by prcemunire facias, in manner as it is ordained
in other statutes of provisors ; and other which
do sue in any other court in derogation of the
regality of the king."* From this time the arch
bishops called no more convocations by their
sole authority, but by license from the king ;
their synods being formed by writ or precept from
the crown, directed to the archbishops, to as
semble their clergy, in order to consult upon such
affairs as his majesty should lay before them.
But still their canons were binding, though con
firmed by no authority but their own, till the
act of submission of the clergy took place.
About this time flourished the famous John
Wickliffe, the morning-star of the Reformation.
He was born at Wickliffe, near Richmond, in
Yorkshire,! about the year 1324, and was edu-

«" Fuller's Church History, book iv., p. 145-148.
t See the very valuable Life of Wickliffe, publish
ed by the Rev. Mr. Lewis, of Margate, which begins
thus : " John de Wickliffe was born, very probably,
about the year 1324, in the parish of Wickliffe, near
Richmond, in Yorkshire, and was first admitted com
moner of Queen's College, Oxford, then newly found
ed by Robert Egglesfield, S.T.B., but was soon after
removed to Merton College, where he was first pro
bationer and afterward fellow. He was advanced to
the professor's chair, 1372. It appears by this inge
nious writer, as well as by the Catalogus Testium,
that Wickliffe was for 'rejecting all human rites,
and new shadows or traditions in religion ; and with
regard to the identity of the order of bishops and priests
in the apostolic age,' he is very positive. Unum au~
dacter assero, one thing I boldly assert, that in the
primitive Church, or in the time of the Apostle Paul,
two orders of clergy were thought sufficient, viz.,
priest and deacon ; and I do also say, that in the time
of Yaul,fuit idem presbyter atque episcopus, a priest
and a bishop were one and the same : for in those
times the distinct orders of pope, cardinals, patriarchs,
archbishops, bishops, archdeacons, oificials, and deans
were not invented."
Mr. Neal's review of the first volume of the Histo
ry of the Puritans, subjoined to the quarto edition of
this history, vol. i., p. 890. — Ed.
To Mr. Neal's account of Wickliffe's sentiments, it
may be added, that he advanced some tenets which
not only symbolize with, but directly led to, the pe
culiar opinions of those who, called Baptists, have in
subsequent ages formed a large body of dissenters,
viz., " that wise men leave that as impertinent which
is not plainly expressed in Scripture ; that those are
fools and presumptuous which aifirm such infants
riot to be saved which die -without baptism ; that bap
tism doth not confer, but only signify grace, which
was given before. He also denied that all sins are
abolished in baptism; and asserted that children may
be saved without baptism; and that the baptism of
water profiteth not, without the baptism of the Spir.

30
cated in Queen's CoUege, Oxford, where he was
divinity professor, and afterward pastor of Lut
terworth in Leicestershire. He flourished in the
latter end of the reign of KingEdward III. and the
beginning of Richard II., about one hundred and
thirty years before the Reformation of Luther.
The University gave this testimonial of him af
ter his death : " That, from his youth to the time
of his death, his conversation "was so praisewor
thy, that there was never any spot or suspicion
noised of him ; that in his reading and preach
ing he behaved like a stout and valiant champion
of the faith ; and that he had written in logic,
philosophy, divinity, morality, and the specula
tive arts, without an equal." While he was di
vinity professor at Oxford, he published certain
conclusions — against transubstantiation and
against the infallibility of the pope ; that the
Church of Rome was not the head of all other
churches ; nor had St. Peter the power of the
keys any more than the rest of the apostles ;
that the New Testament, or Gospel, is a per
fect rule of life and manners, and ought to be
read by the people.* He maintained, farther,
most of those points by which the Puritans were
afterward distinguished ; as, that in the sacra
ment of orders there ought to be but two de
grees, presbyters or bishops and deacons ; that
all human traditions are superfluous and sinful ;
that we must practise and teach only the laws
of Christ ; that mystical and significant cere
monies in religious worship are unlawful ; and
that to restrain men to a prescribed form of
prayer is contrary to the liberty granted them
by God. These, with some other of Wickliffe's
doctrines against the temporal grandeur of the
prelates and their usurped authority, were sent
to Rome and condemned by Pope Gregory XL,
in a consistory of twenty-three cardinals, in the
year 1378. But the pope dying soon after, put
a stop to tire, process. Urban, his successor,
wrote to young King Richard II. and to the
Archbishop of Canterbury, and the University
of Oxford, to put a stop to the progress of
Wickliffism ;- accordingly, Wickliffe , was cited
before the Archbishop of Canterbury, and his
brethren, the prelates, several times, but was
always dismissed, either by the interest of the
citizens of London, or the powerful interposi
tion of some great lords at court, or some other
uncommon providence, which terrified the bish
ops from passing a peremptory sentence against
him for a considerable time ; but at length his
new doctrines, as they were called, were con
demned, in a convocation of bishops, doctors,
and bachelors, held at London by the command
ment of the Archbishop of Canterbury, 1382, and
he was deprived of his professorship, his books
and writings were ordered to be burned and
himself to be imprisoned; but he kept out of the
-way, and in the time of his retirement wrote a
confession of his faith to the pope, in which he
declares himself willing to maintain his opinions
at Rome, if God had not otherwise visited him
with sickness and other infirmities : but it was
¦well for this good man that there were two anti-
popes at this time at war with each other, one
at Rome, and the other at Avignon. In Eng-
land, also, there was a minority, which was fa-

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

it-" — Fulkr's Church History, b. iv., p. 130. Trialo-
gus, lib. iv., cap. i.— Ed.
* Fox's Martyrol. Pierce's Vindicat., p. 4, 5.

vourable to Wicklifl'e, insomuch that he ven
tured out of his retirement, and returned to hia
parish at Lutterworth, where he quietly depart
ed this life, in the year 1384. This Wickliflfe
¦was a wonderful man for the times in which he
lived, which were overspread with the thickest
darkness of anti-Christian idolatry ; he was the-
first that translated the New Testament into
English ; but the art of printing not being then
found out, it hardly escaped the inquisition of
the prelates ; at least, it was very scarce when
Tyndal translated it a second time in 1526. He
preached and published the very same doctrines
for substance that afterward obtained at the Ref
ormation ; he wrote near two hundred volumes,
all which were called in, condemned, and order
ed to be burned, together with his bones, by the
Council of Constance, in the year 1425, forty-
one years after his death ; but his doctrine re
mained, and the number of his disciples, who
were distinguished by the name of Lollards-, in
creased after his decease,* which gave occasion
to the making sundry other severe laws against
heretics. ' The clergy made their advantage of the con
tentions between the houses of York and Lan
caster ; lioth parties courting their assistance,
which they did not fail to make use'of for the
support of the Catholic faith, as they called it,
and the advancement of their spiritual tyranny
over the consciences of men. In the primitive
times there were no capital proceedings against
heretics, the weapons of the Church being only
spiritual ; but when it was found that ecclesi
astical censures were not sufficient to keep men
in a blind subjection to the pope, a decree was
obtained in the fourth Council of Lateran, A.D.
1215, "that all heretics should be delivered
over to the civil magistrate to be burned."
Here was the spring of that anti-Christian tyr
anny and oppression of the consciences of men
which has since been attended with a sea of
Christian blood : the papists learned it from the
heathen emperors, and thfe most zealous Prot
estants of all nations have taken it up from
them. Conscience cannot be convinced by
fines and imprisonments, or by fire and fagot ;
all attempts of this kind serve only to make
men hypocrites, and are deservedly branded
with the name of persecution. There was iio
occasion for putting these sanguinary laws in
execution among us till the latter end' of the
fourteenth century; but when the Lollards, or
followers of Wickliffe, threatened the papal pow
er, the clergy brought this Italian drug from
Rome, and planted it in the Church of England.
In the fifth year of Richard II. , it was enacted
" that all that preached without licence against
the Catholic faith, or against the laws of the
land, should be arrested, and kept in prison' till
they justified themselves according to the law
and reason of Holy Church. Their commitment
was to be by *rit from the chancellor, who was
to issue forth commissions 'to the sheriffs and
other the king's^ ministers, after the bishops had

* Knighton, a canon of Leicester and a contempo
rary of Wickliffe, tells us that in the year 1382 " their
number very much increased, and that, starting like
saplings from tlie root of a tree, they were multiplied,
and filled every place within the compass of the
land." — Dr. Vaughan's Life of Wickliffe, vol. n.,p. 154- ¦
2d edition. — C.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

31

returned the names of the delinquents into the
Court of Cliancery.
When Richard II. was deposed, and the
crown usurped by Henry IV., in order to gain
the good-will of the clergy, it was farther en
acted, in the second year of his reign, " that if
any person were suspected of heresy, the ordi
nary might detain them in prison till they were
canonically purged, or did abjure their errors ;
provided, always, that the proceedings against
them were publicly and judicially ended within
three months. If they were convicted, the dio
cesan, or his commissary, might imprison and
fine them at discretion. Those that refused to
abjure their error, or, after abjuration, relapsed,
were to be delivered over to the secular power,
and the mayors, sheriffs, or bailiffs, were to be
present, if required, when the bishop, or his
commissary, passed sentence, and after sen
tence they were to receive them, and in some
high place burn them to death before the peo
ple." By this law the king's subjects were put
from under his protection, and left to the mercy
of the bishops in their spiritual courts, and
might, upon suspicion of heresy, be imprisoned
and put to death, without presentment or trial
by jury, as is the practice in all other criminal
cases. In the beginning of the reign of Henry V.,
who was a martial prince, a new law passed
against the Lollards or Wickliffites,* "that they
should forfeit aU the lands they had in fee-sim
ple, and all their goods and chattels to the king.
All state officers, at their entrance into oSice,
were sworn to use their best endeavours to dis
cover them, and to assist the ordinaries in
prosecuting and convicting them." I find no
mention, in any of these acts, of a writ or war
rant from the king, de htsretico comburendo ; the
sheriff might proceed to the burning-of heretics
without it ; but it seems the king's learned
counsel advised him to issue out a writ of this
kind to the sheriff, by which his majesty took
them, in some sort, under his protection again;
but it was not as yet necessary by law, nor are
there any of them to be found in the rolls before
the reign of King Henry VIII.
By virtue of these statutes, the clergy, aocord-

* It marks the profaneness, as well as cruelty of
the act here quoted by Mr. N^al, that it was not di
rected merely against the avowed followers of Wick
liffe. as such, but against the perusal of the Scrip
tures in English: for it enacted, "that whatsoever
they were that should read the Scriptures in the
mother tongue (which was then called Wicleue's
learning), they should forfeit land, catel, hf, and
godes, for theyr heyres forever, and so be condemp-
ned for heretykes to God, enemies to the crowne,
and most arrant traitors to the, lande." — Emlyn's
Complete Collection of State Trials, p. 48, as quoted in
Dr. Flemming's Palladium, p. 30, note.
So great an alarm did the doctrine of Wickliffe
raise, and so high did the fear of its spread rise, that
by the statute Of 5 Rich. II. and 2 Hen. IV., c. 15, it
was enacted, as part of the sheriff's oath, "that he
should seek to redress all errors and heresies, com
monly called Lollards." And it is a striking instance
of the permanent footing which error and absurdity,
and 'even iniquity gain, when once established by
law, that this clause was preserved in the oath long
after the Reformation, even to the first of Charles 1.,
when Sir Edward Coke, on being appointed, sheriff
of the county of Buckingham, objected to it, and ever
since it has been left out.^Z*Ae Complete Sheriff,
p. 17.— Ed.

ing to the genius of the popish religion, exer
cised numberless cruelties upon the people. If
any man denied them any degree of respect, or
any of those profits they pretended was their
due, he was immediately suspected of heresy,
imprisoned, and, it may be, put to death ; of
which some hundreds of examples are upon
record.* Thus stood the laws with respect to religion,
when King Henry VIII., second son of King
Henry Vll., came to the crown ; he was bom
in the year 1491, and bred a scholar: he under
stood the purity of the Latin tongue, and was
well acquainted with school divinity: No sort
of flattery pleased him better than to have his
wisdom and learning, commended. In the be
ginning he was a most obedient son of the pa
pacy, and employed his talents in writing against
Luther in defence of the seven sacraments of
the Church. This book was magnified by the
clergy as the most learned performance of the
age ; and upon presenting it to the pope, his
holiness conferred upon the King of England,
and his successors, the glorious title of de
fender OF THE FAITH ;t It was voted In full
consistory, and signed by twenty-seven cardi
nals, in the year 1521. t
At the same time. Cardinal Wolsey, the king's
favourite, exercised a sovereign power over the
whole clergy and people of England in spiritual
matters : he was made legate in the year 1519,
and accepted of a bull from the Jiope, contrary to
the statute oi prcemunire, empowering him to su
perintend and correct what he thought amiss in
both the provinces of Canterbury and York,
and to appoint all officers in the spiritual
* Thus, in the reign of Edward IV., John Keyser
was committed to jail, by Thomas, archbishop of
Canterbury, on the suspicion of heresy, because,
having been excommunicated, he said " that, not
withstanding the archbishop or his commissary had
excommunicated him, yet before God he was not
excommunicated, for his corn yielded as well as his
neighbours.' " Thus, also, in the reign of Henry Vll.,
Hillary Warner was arrested on the charge of heresy ,^
because he said " that he was not bound to pay tithes
to the curate of the parish where he hved."
Coke's Institutes, 3 mst., p. 42, quoted in a treatise
on heresy as cognizable m the spiritual courts, p. 22,
23.— Ed.
-f Mr. Fox observes, that though "this book car
ried the king's name in the title, it was another who-
ministered the notion and framed the style. But,
whoever had the labour of the book, the king had
the thanks and the reward." — Acts arid Monuments of
Martyrs, vol. ii., p. 57. It has been said that the jester
at the court, seeing Henry overcome with joy, asked
the reason ; and when told that it was because his
holiness had conferred upon him this new title, he-
replied, "My good Harry, let me and thee defend
each other, and let the faith -alone to defend itself."
" If this was uttered as a serious joke," says a wnter,
" the fool was, undoubtedly, the wisest man oi the
two."— C.
% " The extravagant praises which he received for
this performance," observes /Dr. Warner, "meeting
with so much pride and conceitedness in his nature,
made him from this time impatient of all contradic
tions on rehgious subjects, and to set up himself for
the standard of truth, by which his people were to
regulate their belief" — Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii.,
p. 228. ¦We are surprised, in the event, to see this
prince, who was now " the pride of popery, become
its scourge." Such are the fluctuations in human
characters and affairs, and so unsearchable are the
ways of Providence !— Eb.

33

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

courts.* The king also granted him a full po-w-
«r of disposing of all ecclesiastical benefices in
the gift of the crown ; with a visitatorial power
over monasteries, colleges, and all his clergy,
exempt or not exempt. By virtue of these
¦vast powers a new court of justce was erected,
called the legate's court, the jurisdiction where
of extended to all actions relating to conscience,
and numberless rapines and extortions were
committed by it under colour of reforming men's
manners ; all which his majesty connived at,
out of zeal to the Church.
But at length, the king, being weary of his
Queen Katharine, after he had lived with her
almost twenty years, or being troubled in con
science because he had married his brother's
¦wife, and the legitimacy of his daughter had
been called in question by some foreign princes,
he first separated from her bed, and then mo
ved the pope for a divorce ; but the court of
Rome having held his majesty in suspense for
two or three years for fear of offending the em
peror the queen's nephew, the impatient king,
by the advice-of Dr. Cranraer, appealed to the
principal universities of Europe, and desired
their opinions upon these two questions :
1. " Whether it was agreeable to the law of
God for a man to marry his brother's wife 1
2. " Whether the pope could dispense with
the law of God 1"
All the universi-ties, and most of the learned
men of Europe, both Lutherans and papists, ex
cept those at Rome, declared for the negative
of the two questions. The king laid their de
terminations before the Parliament and convo
cation, who agreed with the foreign universi
ties. In the convocation of English clergy, two
hundred and fifty-three were for the divorce,
and but nineteen against it. Sundry learned
books were written for and against the lawful
ness of the marriage ; one party being encour
aged by the king, and the other by the pope and
emperor. The pope cited the king to Rome,
but his majesty ordered the Earl of Wiltshire
to protest against the citation, as contrary to
the prerogative of his crown ; and sent a letter
signed by the cardinal, the Archbishop of Can
terbury, four bishops, two dukes, two marquis
es, thirteen earls, two viscounts, twenty-three
barons, twenty-two abbots, and eleven common
ers, exhorting his holiness to confirm the judg
ment of the learned men, and of the universi
ties of Europe, by annulling his marriage, or
else he should be obhged to take other meas
ures. The pope in his answer, after having ac
knowledged his rnajesty's favours, told him that
the queen's appeal and avocation of the cause
to Rome must be granted. The king seeing
himself abused, and that the affair of his mar
riage, which had been already determined by
the most learned men in Europe, and had been
argued before the legates Campegio and Wol
sey, must commence again, began to suspect
Wolsey's sincerity ;' upon which his majesty
sent for the seals from him, and soon after com
manded his attorney-general to put in an in
formation against him in the King's Bench, he-
cause that, notwithstanding the statute of Rich
ard II. against procuring bulls from Rome un
der the pains of a prcemunire, he had received
* Burnet's Hist. Ref , vol. i., p. 8,

bulls for his legatine power, which for many
years he had executed. The cardinal pleaded
ignorance of the statute, and submitted to the
king's mercy ; upon which he was declared to
be out of the king's protection, to have forfeited
his goods and chattels, and that his person
might be seized. The haughty cardinal, not
knowing how to bear his disgrace, soon after
fell sick and died, declaring that if he had ser
ved God as well as he had done his prince, he
would not have given him over in his gray
hairs. But the king, not satisfied with his resent
ments against the cardinal, resolved to be re
venged on the pope himself, and accordingly,
September 19th, a week before the cardinal's
death, he published a proclamation forbidding
ail persons to purchase anything from Rome
under the severest penalties, and resolved to
annex the ecclesiastical supremacy to his own
crown for the future. It was easy to foresee
that the clergy would startle at the king's assu
ming to himself the pope's supremacy ; but his
majesty had them at his mercy, for they having
acknowledged Cardinal Wolsey's legatine pow
er, and submitted to his jurisdiction, his majes
ty caused an indictment to be; preferred against
them in Westminster Hall, and obtained judg
ment upon the statute of prcemunire, whereby
the whole body of the clergy were declared to be
out of the king's protection, and to Ijave forfeit
ed all their goods and chattels.
In this condition they were glad to submit
upon the best terms they could get, but the
king would not pardon them but upon these
two conditions : (1.) That the two provinces of
Canterbury and York should pay into the ex
chequer £ 1 18,840, a vast sum of money in those
times. <2.) "That they should yield his majesty
the title of^ole and supreme head of the Church
of England, next and immediately under Christ.
The former they readily complied with, and
promised for the future never to assemble in
convocation but by the king's writ ; nor to
make or execute any canons or constituti()ns
without his majesty's license ; but to acknowl
edge a layman to be supreme head of an eccle
siastical body, was such an absurdity, in their
opinion, and so inconsistent with their alle
giance to the pope,, that they could not yieldto
it without an additional clause, as far as is
agreeable to the laws of Christ. The king ac
cepted it with the clause for the present, but a
year or two after obtained the confirmation of
it in Parliament and convocation without the
clause. The substance of the act of supremacy* is as
follows : "Albeit the king's majesty justly and
rightfully is, and ought to be^ supreme head of
the Church of England, and is so recognised by
the clergy of this realm in their convocations;
yet, nevertheless, for confirmation and corrobo
ration thereof, and for increase of virtue in
Christ's religion within this realm of England,
&c., be it enacted by the authority of this pres
ent Parliament, that the king, our sovereign
lord, his heirs and successors, kings of this
realm, shall be taken, accepted, and reputed
the only supreme head on earth of the Church
of England ; and shall have and enjoy, annexed

* 26 Henry VIII., cap. i.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

33

and united to the imperial crown of this realm,
as ¦well as the title and style thereof, as all hon
ours, dignities, immunities, profits, and com
modities, to the said dignity of supreme head of
the said Church belonging and appertaining ;
and that our sovereign lord, his heirs and suc
cessors kings of this realm, shall have full
.power and authority to visit, repress, redress,
reform, order, correct, restrain, and amend all
such errors, heresies, abuses, contempts, and
enormities, whatsoever they be, which, by any
manner of spiritual authority or jurisdiction,
ought or may be lawfully reformed, repressed,
ordered, redressed, corrected, restrained, or
amended, most to the pleasure of Almighty
God, and increase of virtue in Christ's religion,
and for the conversation of peace, unity, and
tranquillity of this realm ; any usage, custom,
foreign law, foreign authority, prescription, or
anything or things to the contrary notwith
standing." Here was the rise of the Reformation. The
whole power of reforming heresies and errors
in doctrine and worship was transferred from
the pope to the king, without any regard to the
rights of synods or councils of the clergy, and
¦without a reserve of liberty to such consciences
.as could not cqjnply with the public standard.
This was undoubtedly a change for the better,
but is far from being consonant to Scripture or
leason. The Parliament had already forbid all appeals
to the court of Rome, in causes testamentary,
matrimonial, and in all disputes concerning di-
¦vorces, tithes, oblations, &c., under penalty of
a prcemunire,* and were now voting away an
nates and first-fruits ; and providing " that, in
case the pope denied his bulls for electing or
consecrating bishops, it should be done without
them by the archbishop of the province ; that
an archbishop might be consecrated by any two
bishops whom the king should appoint ; and be
ing so consecrated, should enjoy all the rights of
his see, any law or custom to the contrary not-
•withstanding." All which acts passed both hous
es without any considerable opposition. Thus,
-while the pope stood trifling about a contested
marriage, the king and Parliament took away
all his profits, revenues, and authority in the
Church of England.
His majesty having now waited six years for
a determination of his marriage from the court
of Rome, and being now himself head of the
Church of England, commanded Dr. Cranmer,
lately consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury,-!
to call a court of canonists and divines, and pro
ceed to judgment. Accordingly,his grace sum
moned Queen Katharine to appear at Dunstable,
near the place where she resided, in person or
* 24 Henry VIII., cap. xii.
t Cranmer's elevation took place in 1533. " He
appears to have accepted the distinction with reluc
tance, and the best friends of liis reputation must re
gard lus compliance with some degree of regret. He
was destitute of that fortitude and determination of
mind which so high a station required. He was timid
and vacillatmg; honest in his purposes, but irreso
lute in his conduct. In a private station, or in a
calmer age, he would have maintained an irreproach
able character ; but at present he needs all the sym-
jiathy which his martyrdom inspires to retain for him
.s. high place in the respect of impartial men." — Dr.
Price's History of Nonconformity, vol. i., p. 8. — C.
Vol. I.— E

by proxy, on the 20th of May, 1533, but her ma
jesty refused to appear, adhering to her appeal to
the court of Rome ; upon which the archbishop,
by advice of the court, declared her contumax,
and on the 23d of the same month pronounced
the king's marriage with her null and void, as
being contrary to the laws of God. Soon after
which his majesty married Anne Bullen, and
procured an act of Parliament for settling the
crown upon the heirs of her body, which all his
subjects were obliged to swear to.
There was a remarkable appearance of Di
vine Providence in this affair ; for the French
king had prevailed with the King of England to
refer his cause once more to the court of Rome,
upon assurances given that the pope should de
cide it in his majesty's favour within a limited
time ; the pope consented, and fixed a time for
the return of the king's answer, but the courier
not arriving upon the very day, the Imperialists,
who dreaded an alliance between the pope and
the King of England, persuaded his holiness to
give sentence against him ; and accordingly,
March 23d, the marriage was declared good,
and the king was required to take his wife again,
otherwise the censures of the Church were to
be denounced against him.* Two days after
this the courier arrived from England with the
king's submission under his hand in due form,
but it was then too late, it being hardly decent
for the infallible chair to revoke its decrees in
so short a time. Such was the crisis of the
Reformation !
The pope having decided against the king, his
majesty determined to take away all his profits
and authority over the Church of England at
once : accordingly, a bill was brought into the
Parliament then sitting, and passed without any
protestation, by which it is enacted " that all
payments made to the apostolic chamber, and
all provisions, bulls, or dispensations, should
from thenceforth cease ; and that all dispensa
tions or licenses, for things not contrary to the
law of God, should be granted within the king
dom, under the seals of the two archbishops in
their several provinces. The pope was to have
no farther concern in the nomination or confirm
ation of bishops, which were appointed to be
chosen by conge d'elire irom the crown, as at
present. Peter's-pence and all procurations from
Rome were abolished. Moreover, all religious
houses, exempt or not exempt, were to be sub
ject to the archbishops' visitation, except some
monasteries and abbeys which were to be sub
ject to the king."t Most of the bishops voted
against this bill, but all but one set their hands
to it after it was passed, according to the cus
tom of those times. Thus the Church of Eng
land became independent of the pope, and all
foreign jurisdiction.
Complaints being daily made of the severe
proceedings of the ecclesiastical courts against
heretics, the Parliament took this matter into
consideration, and repealed the act of the second
of Henry IV., above mentioned, but left the stat
utes of Richard II. and Henry V. in full force,
with this qualification, that heretics should be
proceeded against upon presentments by two
witnesses at least ; that they should be brought
to answer in open court ; and if they were found

* Buniet's Hist. Ref, vol. i., p. 135.
t 25 Henry VIII., cap. xi., xii.

34

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

guilty, and would not abjure, or were relapsed,
they should be adjudged to death, the king's
writ de haretico comburendo being first obtained.*
By this act the ecclesiastical courts were lim
ited, heretics being now to be tried according
to the forms of law, as in other cases.
Towards the latter end of this session, the
clergy, assembled in convoca:tion, sent up their
submission to the king to be passed in Parlia
ment, which was done accordingly : .the con
tents were, " that the clergy acknowledged all
convocations ought to be assembled by the
king's writ ; and promised, in verba- sacerdotii,
that they would never make nor execute any
new canons or constitutions without the royal
assent ; and since many canons had been re
ceived that were found prejudicial to the king's
prerogative, contrary to the laws of the land,
and heavy to the subjects, that, therefore, there
should be a committee of thirty-two persons,
sixteen of the two houses of Parliament and as
many of the clergy, to be named by the king,
who should have full power to revise the old
canons, and to abrogate, confirm, or alter them,
as they found expedient, the king's assent being
obtained." This submission was confirmed by Parlia
ment ; and by the same act all appeals to Rome
were again condemned. If any parties found
themselves aggrieved in the archbishops' courts,
an appeal might be made to the king in the
Court of Chancery, and the lord-chancellor was
to grant a commission under the great seal for
a hearing before delegates, whose determination
should be final. All exempted abbots were also
to appeal to the king ; and the act concluded
with a proviso " that, till such correction of the
canons was made, all those which were then
received should remain in force, except such as
were contrary to the laws and customs of the
realm, or were to the damage or hurt of the
king's prerogative." Upon the proviso of this
act all the proceedings of the commons and
other spiritual courts are founded ; for the can
ons not being corrected to this day, the old ones
are in force, with the exceptions above men
tioned ; and this proviso is probably the reason
why the canons were not corrected in the fol
lowing reigns, for now it lies in the breast of
the judges to declare what canons are contrary
to the laws or rights of the crown, which is
more for the king's prerogative than to make a
collection of ecclesiastical laws which should be
fixed and immovable.
Before the Parliament broke up they gave
the annates or first-fruits of benefices, and the
yearly revenue of the tenth part of all livings,
which had been taken from the pope last year,
to the king. This displeased the clergy, who
¦were in hopes of being freed from that burden ;
but they were mistaken, for by the thirty-second
of Henry VIII., cap. xlv, a court of record is
ordered to be erected, called the court of the
first-fruits and tenths, for the levying and gov
ernment of the said first-fruits forever.
The session being ended, commissioners were
sent over the kingdom to administer the oath of
succession to all his majesty's subjects, accord
ing to a late act of Parliament, by which it
appears that, besides renewing their allegi-

* 25 Henry VIII., cap. xiv.

ance to the king, and acknowledging him to be.
the head of the Church, they declared, upon
oath, " the lawfulness of his marriage with
Queen Anne, and that they would be true t»
the issue begotten in it. That the Bishop of
Rome had no more power than any other bish
op in his own diocess ; that they would submit
to all the king's laws, notwithstanding the
pope's censures ; that in their prayers they
would pray first for the king as supreme head
of the Church of England ; then for the queen.
[Anne], then for the Archbishop of Canterbury,.
and the other ranks of the clergy." Only Fish
er, bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More,,
lord-chancellor, refused to take the oath, for
which they afterward lost their lives.
The separation of the Church of England
from Rome contributed something towards the
reformation of its doctrines, though the body of
the inferior clergy were as stiff for their old,
opinions as ever, being countenanced and sup
ported by the Duke of Norfolk, by the Lord-
chancellor More, by Gardiner, bishop of Win
chester, and Fisher of Rochester ; but some of
the nobility and bishops were for a farther
reformation : among these were the new queen,.
Lord Cromwell, afterward Earl of Esse.x, Dr.,
Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, Shaxton,,
bishop of Salisbury, and LatimS of Worcester.
As these were more or less in favour with the,
king, the reformation of religion went forward
or backward throughout the whole course of his
reign. __j
The progress of the Reformation in Germa
ny, by the preaching of Luther, Melancthon„
and others, with the number of books that were
published in those parts, some of which were
translated into English, revived learning, and'
raised people's curiosity to look into the state
of religion here at home. One of the first books
that was published was the translation of the
New Testament by Tyndal, printed, at Antwerp,
1526.* The next was the Supplicatioh of the
* Of this edition, which consisted of fifteen hun*
dred copies, only one is supposed to exist; that
copy is preserved in the library of the Baptist Col
lege, Bristol, England. The scarceness of this edi
tion is easily accounted for : " The book that had
the greatest authority and influence was Tindal's
translation of the New Testament, of which the
bishops made great complaints, and said it was full
of errors. But Tonstal, then Bishop of London, be
ing aman of invincible moderation, would do no
body any hurt, yet endeavoured, as he could, to get
their books into his hands ; so, being at Antwerp in
the year 1529, he sent for one Packington, an Eng
hsh merchant there, and desired him to see how
many New Testaments of Tindal's translation he
might have for money. Packington, who was a se
cret favourer of Tindal, told him what the bishop
proposed. Tindal was very glad of it ; for, being
convinced of some faults in liis work, he was design
ing a new aijd more correct edition; but he was
poor, and the former impression not being sold off,
he could not go about it ; so he gave Packington alt
the copies that lay in his hands, for which the bishop
paid the price, and brought them over, and burned
them publicly in Cheapside. This had such a hate
ful appearance in it, being generally called a burning
of the Word of God, that people from thence conclu
ded there must be a visible contrariety between that
book and the doctrines of those who so handled it r
by which both their prejudice against the clergy, and
their desire of reading the New Testament, were in
creased. So that next year, when the second editiott

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

35

Beggars", by Simon Frith of Gray's Inn, 1529.
It was levelled against the begging friars, and
complains that the common poor were ready to
starve, because the alifis of the people were in
tercepted by great companies of lusty, idle fri
ars, who were able to work, and were a burden
to the commonwealth. More and Fisher an
swered the book, endeavouring to move the
people's passions by representing the supplica
tions of the souls in purgatory which were re
lieved bythe masses of these friars. But the
strength of their arguments lay in the sword of
the magistrate, which was now in their hands ;
for while these gentlemen were in power the
clergy made sad havoc among those people who
were seeking after Christian knowledge ; some
-were cited into the bishops' courts for teach
ing their children the Lord's Prayer in Eng
lish ; some for reading forbidden books ; some
for speaking against the vices of the clergy ;
some for not coming to confession and the sac
rament ; and some for not observing the
Church fasts ; most of whom, through fear of
death, did penance and were dismissed ; but
several of the clergy refusing to abjure, or after
abjuration falling into a relapse, suffered death.
Among these were the Rev. Mr. Hitton, curate
of Maidstone, burned in Smithfield, 1530 ; the
Rev. Mr. Bilney, burned at Norwich, 1531 ; Mr.
Byfield, a monk of St. Edmondsbury ; James
Bainhana, Knt. of the Temple; besides two men
and a woman, at York. In the year 1 533, Mr. John
Frith,* an excellent scholar of the University of
Cambridge, was burned in Smithfield, with one
Hewet, a poor apprentice, for denying the corpo
real presence of Christ in the sacrament ; but
upon the rupture between the king and the pope,
and the repeal of the act of King Henry IV. against
heretics, the wings of the clergy were clipped,
and a stop put to their cruelties for a time.
None were more adverse to the Reformation
than the monks and friars : these spoke openly
against the king's proceedings, exciting the peo
ple to rebellion, and endeavouring to embroil
his affairs with foreign princes ; the king, there
fore, resolved to humble them, and for this pur
pose appointed a general visitation of the mon
asteries, the management of which was com
mitted to the Lord Cromwell, with the title of
yisiter-general, who appointed other commis
sioners under him, and gave them injunctions
and articles of inquiry. Upon this, several ab
bots and priors, to prevent a scrutiny into their
conduct, voluntarily surrendered their houses

was finished, many were brought over, and Constan-
tme (a coadjutor of Tindal) being taken m England,
the lord-chancellor, in a private examination, prom
ised him that no hurt should be done him if he would
reveal who encouraged and supported him at An
twerp ; which he accepted of, and told that the great
est encouragement they had was from, the Bishop of
London, who had bought up half the impression.
This made all that heard of it laugh heartily, though
more judicious persons discerned the great temper
of that learned bishop in it." — Burnet's Reform., i ,
260.— C.
* Mr. Frith wrote a tract, published with his other
works, London, 1573, entitled " A Declaration of
Baptism." Sir James Bainham seems, from his examination
before the Bishop of London, Dec. 15, 1531, to have
been an opposer of infant baptism.— CrosJy's Hist, of
the English Baptists, vol. i., p. 31.
Fox's Martyrs, vol. ii., p. 227, 241, 256, 445.— C.

into the king's hands ; others, upon examination,
appeared guilty of the greatest frauds and im
positions on the simplicity .of the people: many
of their pretended relics were exposed and de
stroyed, as the Virgin Mary's milk, showed in
eight places ; the coals that roasted St. Law
rence ; and an angel with one wing that brought
over the head of the spear that pierced our Sav
iour's side ; the rood of grace, which was so
contrived, that the eyes and lips might move
upon occasion ; with many others. The images
of a great many pretended saints were taken
down and burned, and all the rich offerings made
at their shrines were seized for the crown, which
brought an immense treasure into the exchequer.
Upon the report of the visiters, the Parliament
consented to the suppression of the lesser mon
asteries under .£200 a year value, and gave
them to the king to the number of three hundred
and seventy-six. Their rents amounted to about
£32,000 per annum: their plate, jewels, and
furniture, to about £100,000.* The churches
and cloisters were for the.most part pulled down,
and the lead, and bells, and other materials, sold.
A new court, called the Court of Augmentations
of the King's Revenue,t was erected, to receive
the rents and to dispose of the lands, and bring
the profits into the exchequer. Every religious
person that was turned out of his cell had 45s.
given him in money, of which number there
were about ten thousand ; and every governor
had a pension. But to ease the government of
this charge, the monks and friars were put into
benefices as fast as they became vacant ; by
which means it came to pass that the body of
the inferior clergy were disguised papists and
enemies to the Reformation.
The lesser religious houses being dissolved,
the rest followed in a few years : for in the years
1537 and 1539, the greater abbeys and monas
teries were broken up, or- surrendered to the
crown, to prevent an inquiry into their lives and
manners. This raised a great clamour among
the people, the monks and friars going up and
down the country like beggars, clamouring at
the injustice of the suppression. The king, to
quiet them, ga-ve back fifteen abbeys and six
teen nunneries for perpetual alms ; but several
of the abbots being convicted of plots and con
spiracies against his government, his majesty
resumed his grants after two years, and obtained,
an act of Parliament, whereby he was empow
ered to erect sundry new cathedral churches and
bishoprics, and to endow them out of the prof
its of the religious houses. The king intended,
says Bishop Burnet, to convert £18,000 a year
into a revenue for eighteen bishoprics and ca
thedrals ; but of -them he only erected six, viz.,
the bishoprics of Westminster, Chester, Peter
borough, Oxford, Gloucester, and Bristol. This
was the chief of what his majesty did for reli
gion, which was but a small return of the im
mense sums that fell into his hands : for the
clear rents of all the suppressed houses were
cast up at £131,607 6s. id. per annum, as they
were then rated, but were at least ten times as
much in value. Most of the abbey lands were
given away among the courtiers, or sold at easy
rates to the gentry, to engage them by interest
against the resumption of them to the Church.
* Burnet's Hist. Ref, vol. i., p. 223.
t 27 Henry VIII,, cap. xxvii., xxviii.

36

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

In the year 1545, the Parliament gave the king
the chantries, colleges, free chapels, hospitals,
fraternities, and guilds, with their manors and
estates. Seventy manors and parks were alien
ated from the archbishopric of York, and twelve
from Canterbury, and confirmed to the crown.
How easily might this king, with his immense
revenues, have put an end to the being of Par
liaments !
The translation of the New Testament by
Tyndal, already mentioned, had a wonderful
spread among the people ; though the bishops
condemned it, and proceeded with the utmost
severity against those that read it. They com
plained of it to the king ; upon which his majes
ty called it in by proclamation in the month of
June, 1530, and promised that a more correct
translation should be published : but it was im
possible to stop the curiosity of the people so
long ; for, though the bishops bought up and
burned all they could meet with, the Testament
¦was reprinted abroad, and sent over to mer
chants at London, who dispersed the copies
privately among their acquaintance and friends.
At length, it was moved in convocation that
the whole Bible should be translated into Eng
lish, and set up in churches ; but most of the
old clergy were against it They said this
¦would lay the foundation of innumerable here
sies, as it had done in Germany ; and that the
people were not proper judges of the sense of
Scripture : to which it was replied, that the
Scriptures were written at first in the vulgar
tongue ; that our Saviour commanded his hear
ers to search the Scriptures ; and that it was
necessary people should do so now,' that they
might be satisfied that the alterations the king,
had made in religion were not contrary to the
Word of God. These arguments prevailedwith
the majority -to consent that a petition should
be presented t6 the king, that his majesty would
please to give order about it.
But the old bishops were too much disincli
ned to move in it. The RSformers, therefore,
¦were forced to have recourse to Mr. Tyndal's
Bible, which had been printed at Hamburg,
1532, and reprinted three or four years after by
Grafton and Whitchurch. The translators were
Tyndal, assisted by Miles Coverdale, and Mr.
John Rogers, the protomartyr : the Apocrypha
¦was done by Rogers, and some marginal notes
•were inserted to the wholes which gave offence,
and occasioned that Bible to be prohibited. But
Archbishop Cranmer, having now reviewed and
corrected it, left out the prologue and notes,
and added a preface of his own ; arid because
Tyndal was now put to death for a heretic, his
name was laid aside, and it was called Thomas
Matthew's Bible, and by some Cranmer's Bible ;
though it was no more than Tyndal's transla
tion corrected.* This Bible was allowed by au
thority, and eagerly read by all sorts of people.
* " Cranmer began with the New Testament, an
English copy of which he divided into eight or teii
parts, and sent to the most learned men of his day for
their correction. These were returned to Lambfeth
at the appointed time, with the exception of the Acts
of the Apostles, which had been intrusted to Stokes-
ley, bishop of London, who wrote to Cranmer, 'I
marvel 'what my Lord of Canterbury meaneth, that
he thus abuseth the people, in giving them hberty to
read the Scriptures, which doth uothuig else but

The fall of Queen Anne Bullen, mother of
Queen Elizabeth, was a great prejudice to the
Reformation. She was a virtuous and pious
lady, but airy and indiscreet in her behaviour :
the popish party hated her for her religion ; and
having awakened the king's jealousy, put him
upon a nice observance of her carriage, by which
she quickly fell under his majesty's displeasure,
who ordered her to be sent to the Tower, May
1. On the 15th of the same month she was
tried by her peers for incontinence, for a pre
contract of marriage, and for conspiring the
king's death ; and though there was little or no
evidence, the lords found her guilty, for fear of
offending the king ; and four days after she was
beheaded within the Tower, protesting her inno
cence to the last. Soon after her execution the
king called a Parliament to set aside the succes
sion of the Lady Elizabeth, her daughter, which
was done, and the king was empowered to nomi
nate his successor by his last will and testament;
so that both his majesty's daughters were now
declared illegitimate ; but the king having power
to settle the succession as he pleased, in case
of failure of male heirs, they were still in hopes,
and quietly submitted to their father's pleasure.
Complaint being sent to court of the diversity
of doctrines delivered in pulpits, the king sent a
circular letter to all the bishops, July 12 [1536],
forbidding all preaching till Michaelmas ; by
which time certain articles of religion, most
catholic, should be set forth. The king himself
framed the articles, and sent them into convo
cation, where they were agreed to by both hous
es. An abstract of them will show the state
of the Reformation at this time.
1. " All preachers were to instruct the people
to believe the whole Bible, and the three creeds,
viz., the Apostles', the Nicene, and Athanasian,
and to interpret all things according to them.
2. " That baptism was a sacrameqt instituted
by Christ ; that it was nfecessary to salvation ;
that infants were to be baptized for the pardon
of original sin ; and that the opinions of the
Anabaptists and Pelagians were detestable her
esies. [And that those of ripe age, who desired
baptism, must join with it repentance and con
trition for their sins, with a firm belief of the
articles of the faith ]
3. " That penance, that is, contrition, confes
sion, and amendment of life, with works of char-
infect them with heresy. I have bestowed never an
hour upon my portion, nor ever will.' And there
fore my lord shall have this book again, for I will never
be guilty of bringing the simple people into error.'*
So perverted were the views of the dignitaries of the
Church, and so determined the opposition which
Cranmer encountered in his labours for its reforma
tion. His personal sense of the value of the Scrip
tures, and deep conviction of their importance, led
him to persevere in his design, and secured his ulti
mate success." — Dr. Price's Hist, of Nonconformity,
vol. i., p. 49.— C.

* When Cranmer expressed his surprise at the conduct
of Stolcesley, -we are told that Mr. Thomas Lawney, who
stood by,, remarked, "I can tell your grace why my Lord
of London will not bestow any labour or pains this way.
¦your grace knoweth well that his portion is a piece of the
New "Testament ; but he, being persuaded that Christ had
bequeathed him nothing in hi.s Testament, thought it mere
moflness to bestow any labourer pains where no gain was
to be gotten. Aod, besides this, it is the Acts of the Apos
tles, which were simple, poor fellows, and therefore my Lord
of London disdained tb have to do with any of thein."—
Strype's Cranmer, vol. i., p. 48, 49, 59, 82 — C

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

37

ity, was necessary to salvation ; to which must
be added, faith in the mercy of God, that he
will justify and pardon us, not for the worthi
ness of any merit or work done by us, but for
the only merits of the blood and passion of Jesus
Christ ; nevertheless, that a confession to a
priest was necessary, if it might be had ; and
that the absolution of a priest was the same- as
if it were spoken by God himself, according to
our Saviour's words. That auricular confession
was of use for the comfort of men's consciences.
And though -we are justified only by the satis
faction of Christ, yet the people were to be in
structed in the necessity of good works.
4. " That in the sacrament of the altar, under
the form of bread and wine, there was, truly
and substantially, the same body of Christ that
was born of the Virgin.
5. " That justification signified the remission
of sins,, and a perfect renovation of nature in
Christ. 6. " Concerning images : that the use of them
was warranted in Scripture ; that they served
to stir up devotion ; and that it was meet they
should stand in churches ; but the people were
to be taught that, in kneeling or worshipping be
fore them, they were not to do it to the image,
but to God.
7. "Concerning honouring of saints, they were
to be instructed not to expect those favours from
them which are to be obtained only from God,
but they were to honour them, to praise God for
them, and to imitate their virtues.
8. "  For praying to saints : that it was
good to pray to them to pray for us and with us.
9. " Of ceremonies. The people were to be
taught that they were good and lawful, having
mystical significations in them ; such were the
vestments in the worship of God, sprinkling holy
water to put us in mind of our baptism and the
blood of Christ ; giving holy bread, in sign of
our union to Christ ; bearing candles on Can
dlemas day, in remembrance of Christ, the spirit
ual light ; giving ashes on Ash Wednesday, to
put us in mind of penance and our mortality ;
bearing palms on Palm Sunday, to show our
desire to receive Christ into our hearts as he
entered into Jerusalem ; creeping to the cross
on Good Friday, and kissing it, in memory of
his death ; with the setting up of the sepulchre
on that day, the hallowing the font, and other
exorcisms and benedictions.
Lastly. " As to purgatory, they were to de
clare it good and charitable to pray for souls de
parted ; but since the place they were in, and
the pains they suffered, were uncertain by Scrip
ture, they ought to remit them to God's mercy.
Therefore, ail abuses of this doctrine were to
be put away, and the people disengaged from
believing that the pope's pardons, or masses
said in certain places, or before certain images,
could deliver souls out of purgatory."
These articles were signed by the Archbishop
of Canterbury, seventeen bishops, forty abbots
and priors, and fifty archdeacons and proctors
of the lower house of convocation : they were
published by the king's authority, with a preface
in his name requiring all his subjects to accept
them, which would encourage him to take far
ther pains for the honour of God and the wel
fare of his people. One sees here the dawn of
the Reformation; the Scriptures and the an

cient creeds are made the standards of faith
without the tradition of the Church or decrees
of the pope; the doctrine of justification by faith
is well stated ; four of the seven sacraments
are passed over, and purgatory is Jeft doubtful.
But transubstantiation, auricular confession, the
worshipping of images and saints, still remained.
The court of Rome were not idle spectators
of these proceedings ; they threatened the king,
and spirited up the clergy to rebellion ; and
when all hopes of accommodation were at an
end, the pope pronounced sentence of excom
munication against the whole kingdom, depri
ving his majesty of his crown and dignity, for
bidding his subjects to obey him, and all foreign
princes to correspond with him ; all his leagues
with them were dissolved, and his own clergy
were commanded to depart the kingdom, and
his nobility to rise in arms against him. The
king, laying hold of this opportunity, called a
Parliament, and obtained an act requiring all his
subjects, under the pains of treason, to swear
that the king was supreme head of the Church
of England ; and to strike terror into the popish
party, three priors and a monk of the Carthu
sian order were executed as traitors for refu
sing the oath, and for saying that the king was
not supreme head under Christ of the Church of
England ; but the two greatest sacrifices were
John Fisher, bishop of Pvochester, and Sir Thom
as More, late lord-chancellor of England, who
were both beheaded last year, within a fortnight
of each other. This quieted the people for a
time, but soon after there was an insurrection
in Lincolnshire of twenty thousand men, head
ed by a churchman and directed by a monk ;
but upon a proclamation of pardon, they dis
persed themselves : the same year there was
another more formidable in the North, but after
some time the rebels were defeated by the Duke
of Norfolk, and the heads of them executed,
among whom were divers abbots and priests.
These commotions incensed the king against
the religious houses, as nurseries of sedition,
and made him resolve to suppress them all.
In the mean time, his majesty went on boldly
against the Church of Rdme, and published cer
tain injunctions by his own authority, to regu
late the behaviour of the clergy. 'This was the
first act of pure supremacy done by the king,
for in all that went before he had the concur
rence of the convocation. The injunctions were
to this purpose.
1. " That the clergy should twice every quar
ter publish to the people that the Bishop of
Rome's usurped power had no foundation in.
Scripture, but that the king's supremacy was
according to the laws of God.
3, 3. " They were to publish the late articles
of faith set forth by the king, and likewise the
king's proclamation for the abrogation of cer
tain holydays in harvest-time.
4. " They were to dissuade the people from
making pilgrimages to saints, and to exhort
them to' stay at home and mind their famihes,
and keep God's commandments.
5. " 'They were to exhort them to teach their
children the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and Ten
Commandments, in English.*

* "And every incumbent was to explain these,
one article a day, until the people were instructed in
them." — Maddox's Vindic, p. 299. — Ed.

38

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

6. " They were to take care that the sacra
ments were reverently administered in their
parishes. 7. " That the clergy do not frequent taverns
and alehouses, nor sit long at games, but give
themselves to the study of the Scriptures and a
good life.
8. " Every beneficed person of £30 a year that
did not reside, was to pay the fortieth part of his
benefice to the poor.
9. " Every incumbent of £100 a year to main
tain one scholar at the university ; and so many
hundreds a year so many scholars.
10. " The fifth part of the profits of livings
to be given to the repair of the vicarage house,
if it be in decay."
Thus the very same opinions, for which the
followers of Wickliffe and Luther had been
burned a few years before, were enjoined by the
king's authority.
This year a very remarkable book was print
ed by Batchelor, the king's printer, cum privile-
gio, called " The Institution of a Christian Man."
It was called the " Bishop's Book," because it
was composed by sundry bishops, as Cranmer,
archbishop of Canterbury, Stokeley of London,
Gardiner of Winchester, Sampson of Chiches
ter, Reps of Norwich, Goodrick of Ely, Latimer
of Worcester, Shaxton of Salisbury, Fox of
Hereford, Barlow of St. David's, and some
other divines. It is divided into several chap
ters, and contains an explanation of the Lord's
Prayer, the Creed, the Seven Sacraments, the
Ten Commandments, the Ave Maria, Justifica
tion, and Purgatory. " The book maintains the
local descent of Christ into hell, and that all ar
ticles of faith are to be interpreted according to
Scripture and the first four general councils.
It defends the seven sacraments, and under the
sacrament of the altar, afiirms that the body of
Christ that suffered on the cross is substantial
ly present under the form of bread and wine.
It maintains but two orders of the clergy, and
avers that no one bishop has authority over
another according to the Word of God. The
invocation of saints is restrained to interces
sion, forasmuch as they have it not in their
own power to bestow any blessings upon us.
It maintains that no church should be conse
crated to any being but God. It gives liberty
to work on saints' days, especially in harvest-
time. It maintains the doctrine of passive obe
dience. In the article of justification, it says
we are justified only by the merits and satisfac
tion of Christ, and that no good works on our
part can procure the Divine favour or prevail for
our justification."*
This book was recommended and subscribed
by the two archbishops, nineteen bishops, and
the lower house of convocation, among whom
were Gardiner, Bonner, and others, who put
their brethren to death for these doctrines in
the reign of Queen Mary ; but the reason of
their present compliance might be, because all
their hopes from the succession of the Prin
cess Mary were now defeated. Queen Jane be
ing brought to bed of a son October the 12th,
1538, who was baptized Edward, and succeeded
his father.
The translation of the Bible, already mention-
* Strype's Mem. of Cranmer, p. 51.

ed, was this year printed and published. Crom
well procured the king's warrant for all his maj
esty's subjects to read it without control ; and,
by his injunctions, commanded one to be set up
publicly in all the churches in England, that the
people might read it. His majesty farther en
joined the clergy to preach the necessity of
faith and repentance, and against trusting in
pilgrimages and other men's works ; to order
such images as had been abused to superstition
to be iaken down, and to tell the people that
praying to them was no less than idolatry;
but still, transubstantiation, the seven sacra
ments, the communion in one kind only, pur
gatory, auricular confession, praying for the
dead, the celibacy of the clergy, sprinkling of
holy water, invocation of saints, some images
in churches, with most of the superstitious rites
and ceremonies of the popish church, were re
tained. Here his majesty made a stand ; for after
this the Reformation fluctuated, and, upon the
whole, went rather backward than forward ;
which was owing to several causes, as (1.) To
the unhappy death of the queen in qhildbed,
who had possession of the king's heart, and
was a promoter of the Reformation. (2.) To
the king's disagreement with the Protestant
princes of Germany, who would not put him
at the head of their league, because he would
not abandon the doctrine of transubstantiation,
and permit the communion in both kinds. (3.)
To the king's displeasure against the arch
bishop and the other bishops of the new learn
ing, because he could not prevail with them to
give consent in Parliament that the king should
appropriate all the suppressed monasteries to
his own use. (4, ) To his majesty's unhappy mar
riage with the Lady Anne Of Cleves, a Protest
ant ; which was promoted by the Reformers, and
proved the ruin of the Lord Cromwell, who was
at that time the bulwark of the Reformation,
(5,) To the artifice and abject submission of
Gardiner, Bonner, and other popish bishops,
who, by flattering the king's imperious temper,
and complying with his dictates, prejudiced him
against the reformed. And, lastly. To his maj
esty's growing infirmities, which made him so
peevish and positive that it was dangerous to
advise to anything that was not known to be
agreeable to his sovereign will and pleasure.
The king began to discover his zeal against
the Sacramentaries [and Anabaptists*] (as
those were called who denied the corporeal
presence of Christ in the eucharist), by prohib
iting the importing of all foreign books, or

* In the articles of rehgion set forth in 1536, the
sect of Anabaptists is mentioned and condemned.
Fourteen Hollanders, accused of holding then- opin
ions, were put to death in 1535, and ten saved them
selves by recantation. In 1428, there were in the
diocess of Norwich one hundred and twenty who
held that infants were suflSciently baptized if then
parents were baptized before them; that Christian
people be suflSciently baptized in -the blood of Christ,
and need no water ; and that the sacrament of baptism
used in the Church by water is but a light matter,
and of small effect. Three of these persons were
burned alive. Long before this, it was a charge
laid against the Lollards that they held these opin
ions, and would not baptize their new-born children.
— -See Fox as quoted by Crosby, vol. i., p. 24, 40, 41,
—Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

39

printing any portions of Scripture till they had
been examined by himself and council, or by
the bishop of the diocess ; by punishing all that
denied the old rites, and by forbidding all to
argue against the real presence of Christ in the
sacrament, on pain of death. For breaking this
last order, he condemned to the flames this
very year that faithful witness to the truth,
John Lambert, who had been minister of the
English congregation at Antwerp, and after-
"ward taught school in London ; but hearing
Dr. Taylor preach concerning the real presence,
he offered him a paper of reasons against it :
Taylor carried the paper to Cranmer, who was
then a Lutheran, and endeavoured to make him
retract ; but Lambert, unhappily, appealed to
the king, who, after a kind of mock trial in
Westminster Hall, in presence of the bishops,
nobility, and judges, passed sentence of death
upon him, condemning him to be burned as an
incorrigible heretic. Cranmer was appointed
to dispute against him, -and Cromwell to read
the sentence. He was soon after executed
in Smithfield in a most barbarous manner;
his last words in the flames were, " None but
¦Christ ! None but Christ !"*
The Parliament that met next spring disserv
ed the Reformation, and brought religion back
to the standard in which it continued to the
king's death, by the act [31 Hen. VIIL, cap. xiv]
commonly known by the name of the bloody
statute, or the statute of the six articles : it was
entitled. An act for abolishing Diversity of Opin
ions in certain Articles concerning Christian
Religion. The six articles were these :t
1. " That in the sacrament of the altar, after
the consecration, there remains no substance of
bread and wine, but under these forms the nat-
urcd body and blood of Christ are present.
3. " That communion in both kinds is not ne
cessary to salvation to all persons by the law of
God, but that both the flesh and blood of Christ
are together in each of the kinds.
3. " That priests may not marry by the law of
God. 4. " That vows of chastity ought to be observ
ed by the law of God.
5. " That private masses ought to be contin-
- ued, which, as it is agreeable to God's law, so
men receive great benefit by them.
6. "That auricular confession is expedient
and necessary, and ought to be retained in the
Church." It was farther enacted, that if any did speak,
, preach, or write against the first article, they
should be judged heretics, and be burned with
out any abjuration, and forfeit their real and
' personal estate tp the king. Those who preach-
- ed, or obstinately disputed against the other ar
ticles, were to suffer death as felons, without

* Lambert having heard Dr. Taylor preach on the
presence of Christ in the sacrament, he sought an
' interview with him, and stated his objections to the
received doctrine, which he afterward committed to
writing. Taylor showed this paper to Dr. Barnes, a
Lutheran, and they reported the matter to Cranmer,
who summoned Lambert into the archiepiscopal
¦court. It is deserving of notice that Cranmer, Tay
lor, and Barnes, the chief agents in Lambert's death,
' were themselves brought to the stake as heretics I —
Br. Price's Hist, of Noncon., vol. i,, p. 49, 50.— C.
t Cranmer alone had Ike courage to oppose the
¦ passing these articles. — W.

benefit of clergy ; and those who, either in word
or writing, declared against them, were to be
prisoners (luring the king's pleasure, and to for
feit their goods and chattels for the first offence,
and for the second to suffer death. All ecclesi
astical incumbents were to read this act in their
churches once a quarter.
As soon as the six articles took place, Shax
ton, bishop of Salisbury, and Latimer of Wor
cester, resigned their bishoprics, and being pre
sented for speaking against the act, they were
imprisoned. Latimer continued a prisoner to
the king's death, but Shaxton, being threatened
with the fire, turned apostate, and proved a cruel
persecutor of the Protestants in Queen Mary's
reign. Commissions were issued out to the
archbishops, bishops, and their commissaries, to
hold a sessions quarterly, or oftener, and to pro
ceed upon presentments by a jury according to
law ; which they did most severely, insomuch
that in a very little time five hundred persons
were put in prison, and involved in the guilt of
the statute ; but Cranmer and Cromwell obtain
ed their pardon, which mortified the popish cler
gy to such a degree, that they proceeded no far
ther till Cromwell fell.
Another very remarkable act of Parliament,
passed this session, was concerning obedience
to the king's proclamations. It enacts, that the
king, with advice of his council, may set forth
proclamations with pains and penalties, which
shall be obeyed as fully as an act of Parliament,
provided they be not contrary to the laws and
customs in being, and do not extend so far as
that the subject should suffer in estate, liberty,
or person. An act of attainder was also passed
against sixteen persons, some for denying the
supremacy, and others without any particular
crime mentioned ; none of them were brought
to a trial, nor is there any mention in the rec
ords of any -witnesses examined.* There never
had been an example of such arbitrary proceed
ings before in England ; yet this precedent was
followed by several others in the course of this
reign. By another statute, it was enacted that
the councillors of the king's successor, if he were
under age, might set forth proclamations in his
name, which were to be obeyed in the same
manner with those set forth by the king him
self I mention this, because upon this act was
founded the validity of all the changes of reli
gion in the minority of Edward VI. +
Next year [1540] happened the fall of Lord
Cromwell, one of the great pillars of the Refor
mation. He had been lately constituted the
king's vicegerent in ecclesiastical affairs, and
made a speech in Parliament, April 13th, under
that character. On the 14th of April the king
created him Earl of Essex, and Knight of the
Garter ; but within two months he was arrested
at the council-table for high treason, and sent to
the Tower, and on the 28th of July was behead
ed by virtue of a bill of attainder, without being
* Burnet's Hist. Ref, vol. i,, p, 263,
t In this year sixteen men and fifteen women were "
banished for opposing infant baptism : they went to
Delft, in Holland, and were there prosecuted and put
to death as Anabaptists ; the men being beheaded,
and the women drowned. Among other injunctions
issued out in 1539, was one against those who em
braced the opinions, or possessed books containing
the opinions, of Sacramentarians and Anabaptists. —
Crosby, b. i., p. 42.— Ed.

40

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

brought to a trial, or once allowed to speak for
himself He was accused of executing certain
orders and directions, for which he had very
probably the king's warrant, and, therefore, was
not admitted to make answer. But the true
cause of his fall* was the share he had in the
king's marriage with the Lady Anne of Cleves,
¦whom his majesty took an aversion to as soon
as he saw her, and was, therefore, determined
to show his resentments against the promoters
of it ; but his niajesty soon after lamented the
loss of his honest and faithful servant when it
¦was too late.
Two days after the death of Cromwell there
-was a very odd execution of Protestants and
papists at the same time and place. The Prot
estants were Dr. Barnes, Mr. Gerrard, and Mr.
Jerome, all clergymen and Lutherans ; they were
sent to the Tower for offensive sermons preach
ed at the Spittle in the Easter week, and were
attainted of heresy by the Parliament without
being brought to a hearing. Four papists, viz.,
Gregory Buttolph, Adam Damplin, Edmund
Brindholme, and Clement Philpot, were by the
same act attainted for denying the king's suprem
acy, and adhering to the Bishop of Rome, The
Protestants were burned, and the papists hang
ed : the former cleared themselves of heresy by
rehearsing the articles of their faith at the stake,
and died with great devotion and piety ; and the
latter, though grieved to be drawn in the same
hurdle with them they accounted heretics, de
clared their hearty forgiveness of all their ene
mies. About this time [1543] was published a very
remarkable treaties, called A Necessary Erudi
tion for a Christian Man. It was drawn up by
a committee of bishops and divines, and was af-
* Dr. Maddox remarks on this statement of the
cause of Cromwell's fall, that it is expressly contra
dicted by Bishop Bumet, who, speaking of the king's
creating him Earl of Essex, upon his man-iage with
Anne of Cleves, adds, "This shows that the true
causes of Cromwell's fall must be founded in some
other thing than his making up the king's marriage,
who had never thus raised his title if he had intend
ed so soon to pull him down." — Hist. Ref., vol. i.,
p. 275.
In reply to this, Mr. Neal says, " Let the reader
judge : his (i. «., Bishop Burnet's) words are these :
' An unfortunate marriage, to which he advised the
king, not proving acceptable, and he being unwilling
to destroy what himself had brought about, was the
occasion of his disgrace and destruction.' — -Vol. iii., p'.
172. If his lordship has contradicted this in any other
place (which I apprehend he has not), he must an
swer for it himself"
It may be observed, that these two passages stand
in a very voluminous work, at a peat distance from
one another, so that the apparent inconsistency might
escape the bishop's notice ; while his remark in the
first can have little force, when applied to the con
duct of a prince so capricious and fluctuating in his
attachments as was Henry VIIL, and who soon grew
disgusted with his queen. It is with no propriety that
Mr. Neal's accuracy and fidehty are, in this instance,
impeached : it justifies his representation, that nearly
the same is given by Fuller in his Church History,
b. v., p. 231, "Match-makers," says he, " betwixt pri
vate persons seldom find great love for their pains ;
betwixt princes, often fall into danger, as here it
proved in the Lord Cromwell, the grand contriver of
the king's marriage with Anne of Cleves."
The cause of Cromwell's disgrace is more fully and
judiciously investigated by Dr. Warner, in his Eccle
siastical History, vol. ii. , p, 197, 198. — Ed.

terward read and approved by the lords spiritaaf
and tennporal, and the lower house of Parlia
ment. A great part of it was corrected by the
king's own hand, and the whole was pubhshed
by his order, with a preface in the najne of King-
Henry VIIL, dedicated to all his faithful sub
jects. It was called the King's Book, and was
designed for a standard of Christian belief*
The reader, therefore, will judge bythe abstract
below, of the sentiments of our first Reformers^
in sundry points of doctrine and discipline,t

* Burnet's Hist. Ref., vol. i.,p. 286.
t It begins with a description of Faith, " of which,
(says the book) there are two acceptations. (] .) It is
sometimes taken for ' a beUef or persuasion wrought
by God in men's hearts, whereby they assent and
take for true all the words and sayings of God re
vealed in Scripture.' This faith, if it proceeds no far
ther, is but a dead faith, (2,) Faith is sometimes-
considered in conjunction with hope and charity, and
so it signifies ' a sure confidence and hope to obtain
whatsoever God has promised for Christ's sake, and'
is accompanied with a hearty love to God, and obe
dience to his commands.' This is a lively and effect
ual faith, and is the perfect faith of a Christian. It
is by this faith that we are justified, as it is joined
with hope and charity, and includes an obedience-
to the whole doctrine and religion of Christ. But
whether there be any special particular knowledge,
whereby men may be. certain and assured that they
are among the predestinate, which shall to the end
persevere in their calhng, we cannot find either in,
the Scriptures or doctors; the promisesof God being
conditional, so that, though his promise stands, we-
may fail of the blessing for want of fulfilUng our ob-
hgation." After the chapter of Faith follows an excellent par
aphrase on the twelve articles of the Creed, the Lord's,
Prayer, the Ave Maria, or the salutation of the angel
to the blessed Virgin, and the Ten Commandments ;
and here the second commandment is shortened, the-
words ' for I the Lord thy God,' &c., being left out,
and only those that go before set down. Images are
said to be profitable to stir up the mind to emulation,,
though we may not give them godly honour ; never
theless. Censing and kneeUng before them is allowed.
Invocation of saints as intercessors is declared law
ful ; and the fourth commandment only ceremonial,,
and obliging the Jews,
Then follows an article of Free-will, which is de
scribed, " *A certain power of the will joined with-;
reason, whereby a reasonable creature, without con
straint in things of reason, discemeth and wBletlL
good and evil ; but it willeth not that that is accept- ,
able to God unless it be holpen with grace, but that
which is ill it willeth of itself Our wills were ,per-
fect in the state of innocence, but are much impaired
by the fall of Adam ; the high powers of reason and
freedom of will being wounded and corrupted, and
all men thereby brought into such blindness and in
firmity that they cannot avoid sin except they are
made free by special grace, that is, by the supernat
ural working of the Holy Ghost. The hght of rea
son is unable to conceive the things that appertain to-
etemal life, though there remains a sufficient freedom
of will in things pertaining to the present life. ' ¦With
out me,' says the Scripture, 'you can do nothing;'
therefore, when men feel that, notwithstanding their-
diligence, they are not able to do that which they de
sire, they ought with a steadfast faith and. devotion
to ask of him, who gave the beginning, that he would
vouchsafe to perform it. But preachers are to take-
c4re so to moderate themselves, that they neither so
preach the grace of God as to take away free-will,
and make God the author of sin, nor so extol free
will as to injure the grace of God."
In the article of Justification, it asserts, " that all
the posterity of Adam are born in original sin, and-
are hereby guilty of everlJfeting death and damnation ;
but that God sent his own Son, being naturally Goi,.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

41

Which then constituted the established doctrine
of the Church of England ; for by the statute
of 33 Hen. VIII., cap. xxvi., it is enacted " that
all decrees and ordinances which shaU be made

to take our nature and redeem us, which he could
not have done but by virtue Of the union of his two
natures." It then speaks of a twofold justification :
the first is upon our believing, and is obtained by re
pentance and a hvely faith in the passion and merits
of our blessed Saviour, and joining therewith a full
purpose to amend our fives for the future. The sec
ond, or final justification at death, or the last judg
ment, implies, farther, the exercise of all Christian
graces, and the following the motions of the Spirit of
God in doing -good works, which will be considered
and recompensed in the day of judgment. 'When
the Scripture speaks of justification by faith without
mentionmg any other grace, it must not be under
stood of a naked faith, but of a lively, operative faith,
as before described, and refers to our first justifica
tion : thus we are justified by free grace ; and, what
ever share good works may have in our final justifi
cation, they cannot derogate from the grace of God,
because all our good works come of the free mercy
and grace of God, and are done by his assistance ; so
that all boasting is excluded,"
This leads to the article of Good Works, " which
are said to be absolutely necessary to salvation ; but
they are not outward corporeal works, but hiward
spiritual works ; as the love and fear of God, patience,
humility, &c. Nor are they superstitious works of
men's invention ; nor only moral works done by the
power of reason, and the natural will.of man, without
faith in Christ ; which, though they are good in kind,
do not merit everlasting life ; but such outward and
inward good works as are done by faith in Christ, out
of love to God, and in obedience to his commands, and
which cannot be performed by man's power without
Divine assistance. Now these are of two sorts :
(1.) Such as are done by persons already justified ;
and these, .though imperfect, are accepted for Christ's
sake, and are meritonous towards the attaining ever
lasting life. (2.) Other works are of an inferior sort,
as fasting, alms-deeds, and other fruits of penance,
which are of no avail without faith. But, after all,
justification and remission of sins is the free gift of
the grace of God; and it does not derogate from that
grace to ascribe the dignity to good works above
mentioned, because all our good works come of the
grace of God."
The chapter of Prayer for Souls Departed leaves
the matter in suspense : "It is good and charitable
to do it ; but because it is not known what condition
departed souls are in, we ought only to recomraend
them to the mercy of God."
In the chapter of the Sacraments, " all the seven
sacraments are maintained, and in particular the cor
poreal presence of Christ in the eucharist."
In the sacrament of Orders, the book maintains no
real distinction between bishops and priests ; it says
that " St. Paul consecrated and ordered bishops by
imposition of hands ; but that there is no certain rule
prescribed in Scripture for the nomination, election,
or presentation of them; this is left to the positive
laws of every country. That the ofiice of the said
ministers is to preach the word, to minister the sac
raments, to bind and loose, to excommunicate those
that will not be reformed, and to pray for the univer
sal Church ; but that they may riot execute their of
fice without license from the civibmagistrate. The
sacraments do not receive efficacy or strength from
the ministration of the priest pr bishop, but from God ;
the said ministers being only officers, to administer
with their hands those corporeal thmgs by which God
gives grace, agreeably to St. Ambrose, who vvrites
thus : ' The priest lays his hands upon us, but it is
God that gives grace ; ^the priest lays on us his be-
eeecMng hands, but God blesseth us with his mighty
hand.' "
Concerning the order of Deacons, the book says.
Vol. I.— F

and ordained by the archbishops, bishops, and
doctors, and shall be published with the king's
advice and confirmation, by his letters patent,
in and upon the matters of Christian faith, and
lawful rights and, ceremonies, shall be in every
point thereof believed, obeyed, and performed,.'
to all intents and purposes, upon the pains there
in comprised ; provided nothing be ordained con
trary to the laws of the realm." How near the
book above mentioned comes to the qualifica
tions of this statute, is obvious to the reader.
It is no less evident that by the same act the-
king was in a manner invested with the infalli
bility of the pope, and had the consciences and
faith of his people at his absolute disposal.
By this abstract of the erudition of a Chris
tian man,* it appears, farther, that our reformers
" 'Their oflSce in the primitive Church was partly to
minister meat and drink, and other necessaries, to the
poor, and partly to minister to the bishops and priests.
Then follows this remarkable passage : ' Of these
two orders pnly, that is to say, priests and deacons,
Scripture maketh express mention, and how they
were conferred- of the apostles by prayer and imposi
tion of hands ; but the primitive Church afterward
appointed inferior degrees, as sub-deacons, acolytes,-
exorcists, &c. ; but lest, peradventure, it might be
thought by some that such authorities, powers, and
jurisdictions, as patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and.
metropolitans now have, or heretofore at any time
have had, justly and lawfully over other bishops, were
given them by God in Holy Scripture, we think it
expedient and necessary that all men should be ad
vertised and taught, that all such lawful power and".
authority of any one bishop over another, were and
be given them by the consent, ordinances, and posi
tive laws of men only, and not by any ordinance of
God in Holy Scripture ; and all such power and au
thority which any bishop has used over another, which-
have not been given him by such consent and ordi
nance of men, are in very deed no lawful power, hut
plain usurpation and tyranny."
To the view which Mr Neal has given of the doc
trinal sentiments contained in this piece, which was
also called the bishop's book, it is proper to add the
idea it gave of the duty of subjects to their prince.
Its commentary on the fifth commandment runs thus :
"Subjects be bound not to withdraw their fealty,.
truth, love, and obedience towards their prince, for-
any cause, whatsoever it be." In the exposition of
the sixth commandment, the same principles of pas
sive obedience and nonresistance are inculcated, and.
it is asserted " that God Kath assigned no judges ¦
over princes in this world, but will have the judgment
of them reserved to liirnself" — Ed.
Though the Institution of a C hristian Man is a book
now disused, the same sentiments, connected with the-
idea of the jure divino of kings, still run through the
homilies, the articles, the canons, and the rubric of
the Church of England, and have been again and
again sanctioned by the resolutions and orders of our
convocations. Bishop Blake, on his deathbed, sol
emnly professed " that the rehgion of the Church of
England had taught him the doctrine of nonresist
ance and passive obedience, and that he took it to-
be the distinguishing character of that church." —
High-Church Politics, p, 75, 89, and the note in the-
last page. — Ed.
It is not easy to say what sincere or complete alli
ance there can be between the Church and State,.
when the dogmas of the 'former are in such glaring
repugnance to the constitution of the latter; when
the former educates slaves, the latter freemen ; when
the former sanctions the tyranny of kings, the latter
is founded in the rights of thepeople. In this re
spect, surely, the Church needs a reform. — Ed.
* Dr. Warner observes, on this performance, that
there were so many absurdities of the old religion
still retained, so much metaphysical jargon about the

•42

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

built pretty much upon the plan of St. Austin,
with relation to the doctrines of justification and
grace. The sacraments and ceremonies are so
contrived as to be consistent with the six arti-
'Cles established by Parliament. But with re
gard to discipline, Cranmer and his brethren
were for being directed wholly by the civil
magistrate, ¦which has since been distinguish
ed by the name of Erastianism. Accordingly,
they took out commissions to hold their bishop
rics during the king's pleasure, and to exercise
-their jurisdiction by his authority only.
But notwithstanding this reformation of doc-
itrine, the old popish forms of worship were
continued till this year [1544], when a faint at
tempt was made to reform them. A form of
procession was published in English, by the
king's authority, entitled An Exhortation to
Prayer, thought meet by His Majesty and his
Clergy to be read to the People ; also a Litany,
¦with Suffrages to be said or sung in the Time
of the Processions. In the litany they invocate
the blessed Virgin, the angels, archangels, and
all holy orders Of blessed spirits ; all holy patri
archs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors,
virgins, and all the blessed company of heaven,
to pray for them. The rest of the litany is in a
manner the very same as now in use, only a
few more coUects were placed at the end, with
•some psalms, and a paraphrase on- the IjOrd's
Prayer. The preface is an exhortation to the
duty of prayer, and says that it is convenient,
.and very acceptable to God, to use private pray
er in our mother-tongue, that, by understanding
-what we ask,* we may more earnestly and fer
vently desire the same. The hand of Cranmer
was, no doubt, in this performance, but it was
¦little regarded, though a mandate was sent to
•Bonner, bishop of London, to publish it,t
But Cranmer's power was now very much
weakened ; he strove against the stream, and
xould accomplish nothing farther, except a small
mitigation of the rigorous prosecution of the six
articles ; for by the thirty-fifth of Henry VIII
cap. v., it is enacted " that persons shall not
¦be convicted upon this statute but by the oaths
of twelve men ; that the prosecution shall be
-within a year ; and that, if any one preaches
against the six articles, he shall he informed
against within forty days." This rendered the
prosecution more diflicult ; and yet, after all,
several were burned at this time for denying
the doctrine of transubstantiation, as Mrs: Anne
Askew, Mr. Belenian, Adams, Lascels, and oth
ers. The books of Tyndal, Frith, Joy, Barnes,
and other Protestants, were ordered to be burn
ed ; and the importation of all foreign books re
lating to religion was forbid, without special li
cense from the king.
Upon the whole, the Reformation went very
much backward the three or four last years of
the king's life, as appears by the statute of 35
merit of good works, about the essential parts and
consequences of faith, about free-will and grace, that
this book, instead of promoting the Reformation, visi-
blyput it back. — Eccles. Hist., vol. ii., p. 205.
This work was repruited by Bishop Lloyd, in 1825,
under the title of Formularies of Faith put forth by a-u-
thority in the reign of Henry VIII. — C.
* -Burnet's Hist. Ref., vol. i., p. 331, and the Rec
ords, b. iii.. No. 28.
t Burnet's Hist. Ref, vol. iii., p. 164.

Henry VIIL, cap. i., which leads the people
back into the darkest parts of popery. It says
"that recourse must be had to the Catholic and
apostolic Church for the decision of controver
sies ; and therefore all books of the Old and
New Testament in English, being of Tyndal's
false translation, or comprising any matter of
Christian religion, articles of faith, or Holy
Scripture, contrary to the doctrine set forth by
the king [in the six articles], 1540, or to be set
forth by the king, shall be abolished. No per
son shall sing or rhyme contrary to the said
doctrine. No person shall retain any English
books or writings against the holy and blessed
sacrament of the altar, or other books abolished
by the king's proclamation. There shall be no
annotations or preambles in Bibles or New Tes
taments in English. The Bible shall not be read
in Enghsh in any church. No woman, or artif
icers, apprentices, journeymen, serving-men,
husbandmen, or labourers, shall read the New
Testament in English. Nothing shall be taught
or maintained contrary to the king's instruc
tions. If any spiritual person shall be convicted
of preaching or. maintaining anything contrary
to the king's instructions already made, or here
after to be made, he shall for the first offence
recant, for the second bear a fagot, and for the
third be burned.
Here is popei-y and spiritual slavery in its full
extent. Indeed, the pope is discharged of his
jurisdiction and authority, but a like authority
is vested in the king. His majesty's instruc
tions are as binding as the pope's canons, and
upon as severe penalties. He is absolute lord
of the consciences of his subjects. No bishop
or spiritual person may preach any doctrine but
what he approves, nor do any act of govern
ment in the Church but by his special commis
sion. This seems to have been given his maj
esty by the act of supremacy, and is farther
confirmed by one of the last statutes of his reign
[37 Henry VIIL, cap. xvii], which declares that
" archbishops, bishops, archdeacons, and other
ecclesiastical persons, have no manner of juris
diction ecclesiastical, but by, under, and from
his royal majesty ; and that his majesty is the
only supreme head of the Church of England
and Ireland ; to whom, by Holy Scripture, all
authority and power is wholly given to hear and
determine all manner of causes ecclesiastical,
and to correct aU manner of heresies, errors,
vices, and sins whatsoever, and to all such
persons as his majesty shall appoint there
unto." This was carrying the regal power to the ut
most length. Here is no reserve of privilege
for convocations, councils, or colleges of bish
ops ; the king may ask their advice, or call them
in to his aid and assistance, but his majesty has
not only a negative voice upon their proceed
ings, but may himself, by his letters patent, pub
lish injunctions in matters of religion, for cor
recting all errors in doctrine and worship. His
proclamations have the force of a law, and all
his subjects are obliged to believe, obey, and
profess according to them, under the highest
penalties,*

* " When the religion of a people is made to depend
on the pleasure of their rulers, it is necessarily sub
jected to a thousand infusions foreign from its nature.
The kmgly or magisterial ofiice is essentially poUti-

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

43

Thus matters stood when this great and ab
solute monarch died of an ulcer in his leg, being
so corpulent that he ¦was forced to be let up
and down stairs with an engine. The humour
in his leg made him so peevish, that scarce any
body durst speak to him of the affairs of his
kingdom or of another life. He signed his will
December 30, 1546, and died January 28th fol
lowing, . in the thirty-eighth year of his reign,
and the fifty-sixth of his age. He ought to be
ranked (says Bishop Burnet) among the ill prin
ces, but not among the worst.* '

cal. Its power may be wielded by an irreUgious, im
moral, or profane man ; a despiser of Christianity, or
a blasphemer of God. What, therefore, can be more
monstrous tiian to attach to such an ulfice a control
ling power over the faith and worship of the Church ;
to constitute its occupant the supreme head of that
-body, which is represented as a congregation of faith
ful men 'i The Christian faith addresses men individ
ually, soliciting an examination of its character, and
demanding an intelligent and hearty obedience. But
where the pleasure of a king is permitted to regulate
the faith of a nation, authority is substituted for rea
son, and the promptings of fear supplant the percep
tions of evidence, and the confiding attachment of an
enUghtened piety. This is the radical delect of Ihe
Enghsh Reformation. The people were prohibited
J'rom proceeding farther than the king authorized.
They were to beheve as he taught, and to worship as
he enjoined. Suspending their own reason, extin
guishing the light divine within them, they were to
foUow their monarch, licentious and bloodthirsty as
he was, in all matters pertauiing to the moral gov
ernment and eternal welfare of their souls," — Dr.
Price's Hist. Nonconformity, vol. i,, p, 63, 64, — C.
* " The policy of the king continued to vacillate to
the close of his hfe, which happened on the 28th of
January, 1547. Of his character little need be said.
In early life, his personal quahties were brilliant and
imposing, and the contrast he furnished to his pru
dent and parsimonious father attached an unwonted
degree of popularity to the commencement of his
reign. But his temper grew capricious, and his dis
position cruel, as he advanced in years. Casting
aside the tenderness of his youth, he became fero
cious and bloodthirsty ; the indiscriminate persecu
tor of all parties, according as his humour or policy
might'suggest. His claim to our attention is found
ed on the religious revolution he effected. The part
he acted in this great change invested him with a
false glory, which has misled the judgment and per
verted the sympathies of his countrymen. His inti
mate connexion with the first movements of ecclesi
astical reform has obtained him credit for religious
principles of which he was wholly destitute. The
adulatory style in which he was addressed by the
contending religionists of his day has been mistaken
for the sober expressions of truth ; and his name, in
consequence, has passed current as a reformer of re
ligion, a purifier of the temple of God. A veil has
thus been cast over the enormities of his life, which
has preserved him from the execration to which he
is so justly obnoxious. , The motives by which he
wasactuated, in his separation from the papacy, were
anything but religious. The divorce which he caused
Cranmer to pronounce in 1533, as it was designed to
make way for his own gratification, so it precipitated
him into a course of measures, from the spiritual
bearings of which his heart was utterly estranged.
He sought only the satisfaction of his own evil pas
sions. "The man who could profane with blood the
sanctuary of domestic joys ; who could win, with
flattering speech, the confiding attachment of the
female heart, ^nd then consign the beautiful form, in
whose best aflfections he was enshrined, to the block ;
who could raise talent from obscurity, avail himself
of its services, and then, with brutal indifference, re
ward them with a pubhc execution, retamed so httle

CHAPTER n.

REION OF KING EDWARD VI,
The sole right and authority of reforming the
Church of England were now vested in the
crown ; and, by the Act of Succession, in the
king's council, if he were under age. This was
preferable to a foreign jurisdiction ; hut it can
hardly be proved that either the king or his
council have a right to judge for the whole na
tion, and impose upon the people what religion
tliey think best, without their consent. The
reformation of the Church of England was be
gun and carried on by the king, assisted by
Archbishop Cranmer and a few select divines.
The clergy in convocation did not move, in it
but as they were directed and overawed by
their superiors ; nor did they consent till they
were modelled to the designs of the court.
Our learned historian. Bishop Burnet,* en
deavours to justify this conduct, by putting the
following question, " What must he done when
the major part of a church is, according to the
conscience of the supreme civil magistrate, in
an error, and the lesser part is in the right V
In answer to this question, his lordship ob
serves, that " there is no promise in Scripture
that the majority of pastors shall be in the
right ; on the contrary, it is certain that truth,
separate from interest, has few votaries. Now,
as it is not reasonable that the smaller part
should' depart from their sentiments because
opposed by the majority, whose interests led
them to oppose the Reformation, therefore they
might take sanctuary in the authority of the
prince and the law," But is there any prom
ise in Scripture that the king or prince shall
be always in the right % or is it reasonable
that the majority should depart from their sen
timents in religion because the prince, with
the minority, are of another mind ^ If we
ask what authority Christian princes have to
bind the consciences of their subjects, by penal
laws, to worship God after their manner, his
lordship answers, This was practised in the
Jewish state. But it ought to be remembered
that the Jewish state was a theocracy ; that
God himself was their king, and their chief
magistrates only his vicegerents or deputies ;
that the laws of Moses were the laws of God ;
and the penalties annexed to them as much of
Divine appointment as the laws themselves. It
is therefore absurd to make the special com
mission of the Jewish magistrates a model for
the rights of Christian princes. But his lord
ship adds, "It is the first law in Justinian's
code, made by the Emperor Theodosius, that
all should everywhere, under severe pain, follow
that faith that was received by Damasius, bish
op of Rome, and Peter of Alexandria. And
why might not the king and laws of England
give the like authority to the Archbishops of
Canterbury and Yorkl" I answer. Because
Theodosius's law was an unreasonable usur
pation upon the fight of conscience. If the Apos
tle Paul, who was an inspired person, had not
dominion over the faith of the churches, how
came the Roman emperor, or other Christian
of the image of humanity, as to be infinitely removed
from the spirit and temper of Christ." — Doct. Price's
Hist. Nonconformity, vol. i., p. 60, 61. — C.
* Hist. Ref., vol. ii., in preface.

44
princes, by such a jurisdiction, which has no
foundation in the law of nature or in the New
Testament 1
His lordship goes on, "It is not to be ima
gined how any changes in religion can be made
by sovereign princes, unless an authority be
lodged with them of giving the sanction of a law
to the sounder, though the lesser part, of a
church ; for as princes and lawgivers are not
tied to an implicit obedience to clergymen, but
are left to the freedom of their own discerning,
so they must have a power to choose what side
to be of, where things are much inquired into."
And -why have not the clergy and the common
people the same power 1 why must they be
tied to an implicit faith in their princes and law
givers 1 Is there any promise in the Word of
God that princes and lawgivers shall be infalli
ble, and always judge right which is the sound
er, though the lesser part of a church 1 " If," as
his lordship adds, " the major part of synods can
not be supposed to be in matters of faith so as
sisted from Heaven that the lesser part must
necessarily acquiesce in their decrees, or that
the civil powers must always make laws accord
ing to their votes, especially when interest does
visibly turn the scale," how can the prince or
civil magistrate depend upon such assistance 1
Can we be sure that interest or prejudice will
never turn the scale with him ; or that he has
a better acquaintance with the truths of the
Gospel than his clergy or people 1, It is highly
reasonable that the prince should choose for
himself what side he will be of, when things are
much inquired into ; but then let the clergy and
people have the same liberty, and neither the
major nor minor part impose upon the other,
as long as they entertain no principles incon
sistent with the safety of the government,
" When the Christian behef had not the support
of law, every bishop taught his own flock, the
best he could, and gave his neighbours such an
account of his faith, at or soon after his conse
cration, as satisfied them ; and so," says his
lordship, "they maintained the unity of the
Church." And why might it not be so stilll
Is not this better, upon all accounts, than tu
force people to profess what they cannot believe,
or to propagate religion with the sword, as was
too much the case with our Reformers ' If the
penal laws had been taken away, and the points
in controversy between Protestants and papists
had been left to a free and open debate, while
the civil magistrate had stood by and only kept
the peace, the Reformation would certainly have
taken place in due time, and proceeded in a
much more unexceptionable manner than it did.
To return to the history. King Edward VI.
came to the crown at the age of nine years and
four months ; a prince for learning and piety,
for acquaintance with the world, and applica
tion to business, the very wonder of his age.
His father, by his last will and testament, named
sixteen persons executors of his will, and re
gents of the kingdom, till his son should be
eighteen years of age : out of these, the Earl of
Hertford, the king's uncle, was chosen protector
of the king's realms, and governor of his per
son. Besides these, twelve were added as a
privy council, to be assisting to them. Among
the regents, some were for the old religion, and
others for the new ; but it soon appeared that

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

the Reformers had the ascendant, the young
king having been educated in their principles
by his tutor. Dr. Cox, and the new protector,
his uncle, being on the same side. The major
ity of the bishops and inferior clergy were on-
the side of popery, but the government was in
the hands of the Reformers, who began imme
diately to relax the rigours of the late reign.*
The persecution upon the six^ articles was stop
ped ; the prison doors were set open ; and sev
eral who had been forced to quit the kingdom
for their religion, returned home, as. Miles-
Coverdale, afterward Bishop of Exeter; John
Hooper, afterward Bishop of Gloucester ; John
Rogers, the protomartyr ; and many others, who
were preferred to considerable benefices in the
Church. The reforming divines, being deliver
ed from their too awful subjection to the late
king, began to open against the abuses of po
pery. Dr. Ridley and others preached vehement
ly against images in churches, and inflamed the
people, so that in many places they outrun the
law, and puUed them down without authority..
Some preached against the lawfulness of soij-
masses and obits ; though the late king, by his
last will and testament, had left a large sum of
money to have them continued at Windsor,
where he was buried, and for a frequent distri
bution of alms for the repose of his soul, and its
deliverance out of purgatory ; but this charity
was soon after converted to other uses. The
popish clergy were alarmed at these things, and
insisted strongly that till the king, their su
preme head, was of age, religion should continue
in the state in which King Henry left it. But
the Reformers averred that the king's authority
was the same while he was a minor as when
he was of age; and that they had heard the
late king declare his resolution to turn the masj
into a communion if he had lived a little longer,
upon which they thought it their duty to pro
ceed. After the solemnity of the king's coronation,
the regents appointed a royal visitation, and
commanded the clergy to preach nowhere but
in their parish churches without license, till
the visitation was over. The kingdom was di»
vided into six circuits, two gentlemen, a Civil
ian, a divine, and a register, being appointed for
each. The divines were by their preaching to
instruct the people in the doctrines of the Ref
ormation, and to bring them off from their old
superstitions. The visitation began in the month
of August ; six of the gravest divines and most
popular preachers attended it : their names were
Dr. Ridley, Dr. Madew, Mr. Briggs, Cottisford,
Joseph, and Farrar. A book of homilies,t or
sermons, upon the chief points of the Christian
faith,t drawn up chiefly by Archbishop Cranmer,

* The heads of the two parties were these : For
the Reformation — King Edward, duke of Somerset,
protector ; Dr. Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury ;
Dr. Holgate, archbishop of York ; Sir W. Paget, sec
retary of state ; Lord-viscount JLisle, lord-admiral ;
Dr. Holbeach, bishop of Lincoln ; Dr. Goodrick, bish
op of Ely ; Dr. Latimer, bishop of Worcester ; Dr.
Ridley, elect of Rochester. For the old religion-
Princess Mary ; Wriothesley, earl of Southampton,
lord-chancellor ; Dr. Tonstal, bishop of Durham ; Dr.
Gardiner, bishop of Winchester ; Dr. Bonner, bishoj
of London. '
t Burnet's Hist. Ref., vol. ii., p. 27.
t The book consisted of twelve discourses, on th»

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

45

-was printed, and ordered to be left with every
parish priest, to supply the defect of preaching,
which few of the clergy at that time were capa
ble of performing. Cranmer communicated it
to Gardiner, and would fain have gained his ap
probation of it ; but he was so inflamed at being
left out of the king's will, that he constantly op
posed all innovation till the king should be of
-age. With these homilies the visiters were to de
liver sundry injunctions from the king, to the
number of thirty-six.*
The bishops were enjoined to see the articles
put in execution, and to preach themselves four
times a year, unless they had a reasonable ex-
following arguments : 1. Concerning the use of the
Scriptures. 2. Of the misery of mankind by sin. 3.
Of their salvation by Christ. 4. Of a true and lively
faith. 5. Of good works. 6. Of Christian love and-
charity. 7. Against swearing and perjury. 8. Against
apostacy. 9. Against the fear of death. 10. An ex
hortation to obedience. 11. Against whoredom and
adultery. 12. Against strife and contention about
matters of rehgion. These titles of the homilies are
taken verbatim from Bishop Burnet. — Neal's Review.
* The chief were,
1. "That all ecclesiastical persons observe the
laws relating to the king's supremacy.
2. " That they preach once a quarter against pil
grimages and praying to images, and exhort to works
of faith and charity.
3. " That images abused with pilgrimages and of-
ierings be taken down; that no wax candles or ta
pers be burned before them ; but only two lights upon
the high altar before the sacrament shall remain still,
to signify that Christ is the light of the world."
The limitation m this article giving occasion to
great heats among the people, some affirming their
images had been so abused, and others not, the coun
cil sent orders to see them all taken down.
4. " That when there is no sermon, the Paternos
ter, the Creed, and Ten Commandments, shall be re
cited out of the pulpit to the parishioners.
5. " That within three months every church be
provided with a Bible ; and, within twelve months,
with Erasmus's Paraphrase on the New Testament.
9. " That they examine such who come to confes
sion, whether they can recite the Paternoster, Creed,
and Ten Commandments in Enghsh, before they re
ceive the sacrament of the altar, else they ought not
to come to God's board.
21. "That in time of high mass the Epistle and
Gospel shall be read in Enghsh ; and that one chap
ter in the New Testament be read at matins, and one
in the Old at even-song.
23. " No processions shall be used about churches
or churchyards ; but immediately before high mass
the htany shall be said or sung in English ; and all
ringing of bells (save one) utterly forborne.
24. "_That the holydays, at the first beginning god
ly mstituted and ordained, be wholly given to God, in
hearing the Word of God read and taught ; in private
and pubhc prayers, in acknowledging their offences
to God, and promising amendment; in reconcihng
themselves to their neighbours, receiving the com
munion, visiting the sick, &c. Only ft shall be law
ful in time of harvest to labour upon holy and festival
days, in order to save that thing which God hath
sent ; and that scrupulosity to abstain from working
on those days does grievously offend God.
28. " That they take away all shrines, coverings of
shrines, tables, candlesticks, trindills, or rolls of wax,
pictures, paintings, and other monuments of feigned
miracles, so that no memory of them remain in walls
or vrindows ; exhorting the people to do the hke in
their several houses."
The rest of the articles related to the advancement
of learning, to the encouragement of preaching, and
-correcting some very gross abuses.

cuse. They were to give orders to none but
such as were able to preach, and to recall their
licenses from others. The injunctions were to
be observed under the pains of excommunica
tion, sequestration, or deprivation.
In bidding of their prayers, they were to re
member the king, their supreme head, the
queen-dowager, the king's two sisters, the lord-
protector, and the council ; the nobility, the
clergy, and the commons, of this realm. The
custom of bidding prayer, which is still in use
in the Church, is a relic of popery. Bishop Bur
net* has preserved the form, as it was in use be
fore the Reformation, which was this : After the
preacher had named and opened his text, he
called on the people to go to their prayers, teU-
ing them -what they were to pray for. " Ye
shall pray," says he, " for the king, for the pope,
for the Holy Catholic Church," &,c. After which
all the people said their beads in a general si
lence, and the minister kneeled down likewise
and said his : they were to say a Paternoster,
Ave Maria, Deus misereatur nostri, Domine
salvum fac regem, Gloria Patri, &c,, and then
the sermon proceeded. How sadly this bidding
of prayer has been abused of late by some di
vines, to the entire omission of the duty itself,
is too well known to need a remark I
Most of the bishops comphed with the in
junctions, except Bonner of London, and Gar
diner of "Winchester. Bonner offered a reserve,
but that not being accepted, he made an abso
lute submission ; nevertheless, he was sent for
some time to the Fleet for contempt. Gardiner
having protested against the injunctions and
homilies as contrary to the law of God, was
sent also to the Fleet, where he continued till
after the Parliament was over, and was then
released by a general act of grace.
The Parliament that met November the 9th
made several alterations in favour of the Refor
mation. They repealed aU laws that made any
thing treason but what was specified in the act
of 25 Edward III., and two of the statutes
against LoUardies. They repealed the statute
of the six articles, with the acts that followed
in explanation of it ; all laws in the late reign
declaring anything felony that was not so de
clared before ; together with the act that made
the king's proclamation of equal authority with
an act of Parliament. Besides the repeal of
these laws, sundry new ones were enacted,! as
"that the sacrament of the Lord's Supper should
be administered in both kinds," agreeably to
Christ's first institution, and the practice of the
Church for five hundred years : and that all
private masses should be put do"wn : an act
concerning the admission of bishops into their
sees ; which sets forth that the manner of
choosing bishops by a cengi d'elire, being but
the shadow of an election, all bishops, here
after, shall be appointed by the king's letters
patent only, and shall continue the exercise
of their jurisdiction during their natural life,
if they behave well. J One of the first pa
tents with this clause is that of Dr. Barlow,
bishop of Bath and Wells,^ bearing date Feb
ruary 3, in the second year of the king's reign ;
* Hist. Ref, vol. ii.„ p. 30, and Collection of Rec
ords, b. i.. No. 8.
t 1 Edw. VI,, cap, i. t 1 Edw. VI., cap. ii.,
^ Burnet's Hist. Ref., vol. ii., p. 218.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

46
but all the rest of the bishops afterward took
out letters for their bishoprics with the same
clause. In this the archbishop had a princi
pal hand, for it was his judgment that the ex
ercise of all episcopal jurisdiction depended
upon the prince ; and that, as he gave it, he
might restrain or take it away -at his pleas
ure.* Cranmer thought the exercise of his
own episcopal authority ended with the late
king's life, and, therefore, would not act as
archbishop till he had a new commission from
King Edward.t
In the same statute it is declared "that,
since all jurisdiction, both spiritual and tempo
ral, was derived from the king, therefore, all
processes in the spiritual court should from
henceforward be carried on in the king's name,
and be sealed with the king's seal, as in the
other courts of common law, except the Arch
bishop of Canterbury's courts, only in all facul
ties and dispensations ; but all collations, pre
sentations, or letters of orders, were to pass un
der the bishops' proper seals as formerly." 'By
this law, causes concerning wills and marriages
¦were to be tried in the king's name ; but this
was repealed in the next reign.
Lastly : The Parliament gave the king all the
lands for maintenance of chantries not pos
sessed by his father ; all legacies given for
obits, anniversaries, lamps in churches ; to
gether with all guild lands, which any frater
nity enjoyed on the same account :t the mon
ey was to be converted lo the maintenance
of grammar-schools, but the hungry courtiers
shared it among themselves. After this the
houses were prorogued from the 24th of Decem
ber to the 20th of April- following.
The convocation that sat with the Parliament
did little ; the majority being on the side of po
pery, the .archbishop was afraid of venturing
anything of importance with them ; nor are
any. of their proceedings upon record ; but Mr.
Strype has collected, from the notes of a pri
vate member, that the lower house agreed to
the communion in both kinds ; and that, upon a
division about the lawfulness of priests' mar
riages, fifty-three were for the affirmative, and
twenty-two for the negative, §
The Reformation in Germany lying under
great discouragements by the victorious . arms
of Charles V,, who had this year taken the Duke
of Saxony prisoner, and dispossessed him of his
electorate, several of the foreign Reformers, who
had taken sanctuary in those parts, were forced
to seek it elsewhere. Among these, Peter Mar
tyr, a Florentine, was invited by the archbish
op, in the king's name, into England, and had
the divinity-chair given him at Oxford ; Bucer
had the same at Cambridge ; Ochinus and Fa-
gius, two other learned foreigners, had either
pensions or canonries, with a dispensation of
residence, and did good service in the universi
ties ; but Fagius soon after died.
The common people were very much divided
in their opinions about religion, some being
zealous for preserving the popish rites, and oth
ers no less averse to them. The country peo
ple were very tenacious of their old shows, as

* Strype's Mem. of Cranmer, p. 141. App., p. 53.
t Burnet's Hist. Ref, vol. u., p. 42.
t Edw. VL, cap. 42.
ij Strype's Life of Cran., p. 156.

processions, wakes, carrying of candles on Can
dlemas Day, and palms on Palm Sundays, &c.,.
while others looked upon them as heathenish
rites, absolutely inconsistent with the simplici
ty of the Gospel. This was so effectually rep
resented to the council by Cranmer, that a proc
lamation was published, February 6, 1548, for
bidding the continuance of them. And for put
ting an end to all contests about images that ,
had been abused to superstition, an order was
published February 11th, that all images what
soever should be taken out of churches ; and
the bishops were commanded to execute it in
their several diocesses.* Thus the churches
were emptied of all those pictures and statues
which had for divers ages been the objects of
the people's adoration.
The clergy were no less divided than the lai
ty, the pulpits clashing one against the another,
and tending to stir up sedition and rebeUion;
the king, therefore, after the example of his
father, and by advice of his council, issued out
a proclamation, September 3dj in the second
year of his reign, to prohibit all preaching
throughout all his dominions. The words are
these : " The king's highness, minding shortly
to have one uniform order throughout this realm,
and to put an end to all controversies in reli
gion, so far as God shall give grace, doth at this
present, and till such time as the said order
shall be set forth, inhibit all manner of persons
whatsoever to preach in open audience, in the
pulpit or otherwise ; to the intent that the
whole clergy, in the mean space, may apply
themselves in prayer to Almighty God for the
better achieving the same-most godly intent and
purpose." At the same time a committee of divines was
appointed to examine and reform the offices of
the Church :+ these were the Archbishops of
Canterbury and York ; the Bishops of London,
Durham, 'Worcester, Norwich, St. Asaph, Sal
isbury, Coventry and Lichfield, Carhsle, Bris
tol, St, David's, Ely, Lincoln, Chichester, Here
ford, Westminster, and Rochester; with the
Doctors Cox, May, Taylor, Heins, Robertson,
and Redmayn, They began with the sacra
ment of the eucharist, iji which they made but
little alteration, leaving the office of the mass
as it stood, only adding to it so much as chan
ged it into a communion of both kinds. Auricu
lar confession was left indifferent. The priest,
having received the sacrament himself, was to
turn to the people and read the exhortation:
then followed a denunciation, requiring such as
had not repented to withdraw, lest the devil
should enter into them as he did into Judas.
After a little pause, to see if any would with
draw, followed a confession of sins and absolu
tion, the same as now in use ; after which the
sacrament was administered in both kinds, with
out elevation. This office was published, with
a proclamation declaring his majesty's inten
tions to proceed to a farther reformation, and
willing his subjects not to run before his di
rection, assuring them of his earnest zeal in,
this affair, and hoping they would quietly tarry
for it.
In reforming the other offices, they examined

* Burnet's Hist. Ref, vol. ii., p. 61, 64.
t Id. ib.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

¦17

and compared the Romish missals of Sarum,
York, Hereford, Bangor, and Lincoln ; and out
of them composed the morning and evening
service, almost in the same form as it stands at
present ; only there was no confession nor ali-
solution. It would have obviated many objec
tions if the committee had thrown aside the
mass-book, and composed a uniform service in
the language of Scripture, without any regard
to the Church of Rome ; but this they were not
aware of, or the times would not bear it. From
the same materials, they compiled a litany, con
sisting of many short petitions, interrupted by
suffrages ; it is the same with that which is
now used, except the petition to be delivered
from the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome, and
all his detestable enormities ; which, in the re
view of the liturgy in Queen Elizabeth's time,
was struck out.
In the administration of baptism, a cross was
to be made on the child's forehead and breast,
and the devil was exorcised to go out, and en
ter no more into him. The child was to be
dipped three times in the font, on the right and
left side, and on the breast, if not weak. A
white vestment was to be put upon it, in token
of innocence ; and it was to be anointed on
the head, with a short prayer for the unction
of the Holy Ghost.
In order to confirmation, those that came
were to be catechised ; then the bishop was to
sign them with the cross, and lay his hands
upon them, in the name of the Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost.
If sick persons desired to be anointed, the
priest might do it upon the forehead and breast,
only making the sign of the cross, with a short
prayer for his recovery.
In the office of burial, the soul of the depart
ed person is recommended to the mercy of God ;
and the minister is to pray that the sins which
he committed in this world may be forgiven
him, and that he may be admitted into heaven,
and his body raised at the last day.
This was the first service-book or liturgy of
King Edward VI. We have no certain account
of the use of any liturgies in the first ages of the
Church, those of St. Mark, St. James, and that
of Alexandria, being manifestly spurious. It is
not till the latter end of the fourth century that
they are first mentioned ; and then it was left to
the care of every bishop to draw up a form of
prayer for his own church. In St. Austin's
time they began to consult about an agreement
of prayers, that none should be used without
common advice ; but still there was no uniform
ity. Nay, in the darkest times of popery, there
was a vast variety of forms in different sees ;
witness the offices secundum usum Sarum, Ban
gor, York, &c. But our Reformers split upon
this rock, sacrificing the peace of the Church to
a mistaken necessity of an exact uniformity of
doctrine and worship, in which it was impossi
ble for all men to agree. Had they drawn up
divers forms, or left a discretionary latitude for
tender consciences, as to some particular phra
ses, all men would have been easy, and the
Church more firmly united than ever.
The like is to be observed as to rites and cere
monies of an, indifferent nature. Nothing is
more certain than that the Church of Rome in
dulged a variety. Every religious order (says

Bishop Burnet*) had their peculiar rites, with
the saints' days that belonged to their order, and
services for them ; but our Reformers thought
proper to insist upon an exact uniformity of
habits and ceremonies for all the clergy ; though
they knew many of them were exceptionable,
having been abused to idolatry, and were a yoke
which some of the most resolved Protestants
could not bear, Nay, so great a stress was laid
upon the square cap and surplice, that, rather
than dispense with the use of them to some ten
der minds, the bishops were content to part with
their best friends, and hazard the Reformation.
into the hands of the papists. If there must ba
habits and ceremonies for decency and order,
why did they not appoint new ones rather than
retain the old, which had been idolized by the
papists to such a degree as to be thought to
have a magical virtue, or a sacramental effica
cy 1 Or, if they meant this, why did they not
speak out, and go on with the consecration of
theml The council had it some time under consid
eration whether those vestments in which the,
priests used' to officiate should be contintied. It
was objected against them, by those who had
been confessors for the Protestant religion, and
others, that " the habits were a part of the train
of the mass ; that the people had such a super
stitious opinion of them as to think they gave
an efficacy to their prayers, and that Divine ser
vice said without this apparel was insignificant :
whereas, at best, they were but inventions of
popery, and ought to be destroyed with that idol
atrous religion, "t But it was said, on the other
hand, by those divines that had stayed in Eng
land, and weathered the storm of King Henry's
tyranny by a politic compliance, and conceal
ment of their opinions, that " Church habits and
ceremonies were indifferent, and might be ap-
pointed>by the magistrates ; that white was the
colour of the priests' garments in the Mosaical
dispensation; and that it was a natural expres
sion of the purity and decency that became
priests. That they ought to depart no farther
from the Church of Rome than she had.depart-
ed from the practice of the primitive Church."
Besides, " clergy were then so poor that they
could scarce afford to buy themselves decent
clothes." - But did the priests buy their own
garments 1 could not the parish provide a gown,
or some other decent apparel, for the priest to
minister in sacred things, as well as a square
cap, a surplice, a cope, or a tippet '\ were these
the habits of the primitive clergy before the rise
of papacy 1 But upon these slender reasons the
garments were continued, which soon after di
vided the Reformers among themselves, and
gave rise to the two parties of Conformists and
Nonconformists ; Archbishop Cranmer and Rid
ley being at the head of the former, and Bishop
Hooper, Rogers, with the-foreign divines, being
patrons of the latter. .
The Parliamept, after several prorogations,
met the 24th of November, 1548 ; and, on the
15th of January following, the act confirming
the new liturgy passed both houses, the Bish
ops of London, Durham, Norwich, Carlisle,
Hereford, Worcester, Westminster, and Chi-
chester protesting. The preamble sets forth.

* Hist. Ref, vol. ii., p. 72.
t Fuller's Chdrch History, b. vii., p. 402.

-48
^"that the Archbishop of Canterbury, with other
learned bishops and divines, having, by the aid
of the Holy Ghost, with one uniform agree
ment, concluded upon an order of Divine wor
ship agreeably to Scripture and the priiilitive
Church, the Parliament having considered the
book, gave the king their most humble thanks,
and enacted, that from the feast of Whitsun
day, 1549, all divine offices should be perform
ed according to it ; and that such of the clergy
as refused to do it, or officiated in any other
manner, should, upon the first conviction, suf
fer six months' imprisonment, and forfeit a
year's profits of his benefice ; for the second of
fence, forfeit all his Church preferments, and
suffer a year's imprisonment ; and for the third
ofience, imprisonment for life.' Such as writ or
printed against the book were to be fined £10
for the first offence, £20 for the second, and to
forfeit all their goods, and be imprisoned for life
for the third." It ought to be observed, that
this service-book was not laid before the convo-
eation, nor anyrepresentative body of the clergy ;
and whereas it is said to be done by one univer
sal agreement, it is certain that four of the bish
ops employed in drawing it up protested against
it, viz., the Bishops of Norwich, Hereford, Chi
chester, and Westminster. But if the liturgy
had been more perfect than it was, the penal
ties by which it was imposed were severe and
unchristian, contrary to Scripture and primitive
antiquity.* As soon as the act took place, the council ap
pointed visiters to see that the new liturgy was
received all over England. Bonner, who re
solved to comply in everything, sent to the dean
and residentiary of St. Paul's to use it ; and all
the clergy were so pliable, that the visiters re
turned no complaints ; only that the Lady Mary
continued to have mass said in her house, which,
upon the intercession of the emperor, was in
dulged her for a tinie.t Gardiner, bishop of
"Winchester, continued still a prisoner in the
Tower, without being brought to a trial, for refu
sing to submit to the council's supremacy while
the king was under age, and for some other
complaints against him. His imprisonment was
certainly illegal: it was unjustifiable to keep a
man in prison two years upon a bare complaint ;
and then, without producing any evidence in
-support of the charge, to sift him by articles
and interrogatories : this looked too much like
an inquisition ; but the king being in the pope's
room (says Bishop BurnetJ), there were some
things gathered from the canon law, and from
the proceedings ex officio, that rather excused
than justified the hard measures he met with.
When the council sent Secretary Petre to the
bishop, to know whether he would subscribe to
the use of the service-book, he consented, with
some exceptions, which, not being admitted, he
¦was threatened with deprivation.
But the new liturgy did not sit well upon the
minds of the country people, who were for go-

filSTORY OF THE PURITANS.

-* Burnet's Hist. Ref, vol. ii., p. 93, 95.
t The intercession of the Emperor Carolus was
supported by the requisition of the council, and urged
by the importance of preserving amity with him. But
the king, amiable as his temper appears to have been,
with tears opposed the advice of his council, and
finally denied the emperor's suit. — Fox, as quoted by
Crosby, b. i., p. 44. — Ed.
X Hist, Ref, vol, ii., p. 152.

ing on in their old way, of wakes, processions,
church ales, holydays, censing of images, and
other theatrical rites, which strike the minds of
the vulgar : these, being encouraged by the old
monks and friars, rose up in arms in several
counties, but were soon dispersed. The most
formidable insurrections were those of Devon
shire and Norfolk. In Devonshire they were
ten thousand strong, and sent the following ar
ticles or demands to the king : '
1. " That the six articles should be restored.
2. "That mass should be said in Latin.
3. " That the host should be elevated and
adored, 4, " That the sacrament should be given but
in one kind.
5. " That images should be set up in churches,
6. " That the souls in purgatory should be
prayed for.
'/. " That the Bible should be called in, and
prohibited. 8. "That the new service-book should be laid
aside, and the old religion restored."
An answer was sent from court to these de
mands ; but nothing prevailed on the enraged
multitude, whom the priests inflamed with all
the artifice they could devise, carrying the host
about the camp in a cart, that all might see and
adore it. They besieged the city of Exeter, and
reduced it to the last extremity ; but Ihe inhab
itants defended it with uncommon bravery, till
they were relieved by the Lord Russell, who
with a very small force entered the town and
dispersed the rebels. The insurrection in Nor
folk was headed by one Ket, a tanner, who as
sumed to himself the power of judicature under
an old oak, called from thence the Oak of Ref;
ormation. He did not pretend much of religion,
but to place new counsellors about the king, in
order to suppress the greatness of the gentry,
and advance the privileges of the commons.
The rebels were twenty thousand strong ; but
the Earl of Warwick, with six thousand foot
and fifteen hundred horse, quickly dispersed
them. Several of the leaders of both rebellions
were executed, and Ket was hanged in chains,
The hardships the Reformers underwent in
the late reign from the six articles, should have
made them tender of the lives of those who dif
fered from the present standard. Ci-anmer him
self had been a papist, a Lutheran, and was now
a Sacramentary, and in every change guilty of
inexcusable severities ; while he was a Luther
an, he consented to the burning of John Lambert
and Anne Askew, for those very doctrines for
which he himself afterward suffered. He bore
hard upon the papists, stretching the law to
keep their most active leaders in prison ; and
this year he imbrued his hands in the blood of a
poor frantic woman, Joan Booher, more fit for
Bedlam than a stake ; which was owing, not to
any cruelty in the archbishop's temper, but by
those miserable persecuting principles by which
he was governed.
Among others that fled out of Germany into
England, from the Rustic war, there were some
that went by the name of Anabaptists [dissem
inating their errors, and making proselytes],
who, besides the principle of adult baptism, held
several wild opinions about the Trinity, the Vir-
gin Mary, and the person of Christ.* Com-

* It is to be wished that Mr. Neal had notcharac-

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

49

-plaint being made of them to the council, April
12th, a commission was ordered to the Arch
bishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of Ely, Wor
cester [Westminster], Chichester, Lincoln,
Rochester [Sir William Petre, Sir Thomas Smith,
Dr. Cox, Dr. May], and some others, any three
being a quorum, to examine and search after all
Anabaptists, heretics, or contemners of the com
mon prayer, whom they were to endeavour to
reclaim, and after penance to give them absolu
tion ; but if they continued obstinate, they were
to excommunicate, imprison, and deliver them
to the secular arm. This was little better than
a Protestant inquisition. People had generally
thought that all the statutes for burning here
tics had been repealed ; but it was now said
that heretics were to be burned by the common
law of England, and that the statutes were only
for directing the manner of conviction ; so that
the repealing tliem did not take away that which
was grounded upon a writ at common law. Sev-
•eral tradesmen that were brought belore the com
missioners abjured ; but Joan Bocher, or Joan
of Kent, obstinately maintained that " Christ
was not truly incarnate of the Virgin, whose
iBesh being sinful, he could not partake of it ; but
the Word, by the consent of the inward man in
the Virgin, took flesh of her." These were her
¦words : a scholastic nicety not capable of doing
much mischief, and far from deserving so severe
a punishment. The poor woman could not rec-
• oncile the spotless purity of Christ's human
nature with his receiving flesh from a sinful
creature; and for this she is declared an obsti
nate heretic, and delivered over to the secular
power to be burned. When the compassionate
_young king could not prevail with himself to
sign the warrant for her execution, Cranmer
with his superior learning was employed to per
suade him ; he argued from the practice of the
-Jewish Church in stoning blasphemers, which
rather silenced his highness than satisfied'him :
for when at last he yielded to the archbishop's
importunity, he told him, with tears in his eyes,
that if he did wrong, since it was in submission
to his authority, he should answer for it to God.*
This struck the archbishop with surprise, but
yet he suffered the sentence to be executed.!

.terized, in this style, the sentiments of these persons ;
but had contented himself, without insinuating his
-own judgment of their tenets, with giving his readers
the words of Bishop Bumet ; for calling their opin
ions wild rations will have a tendency with many
to soften their resentment against the persecuting
,measures which Mr, Neal justly condemns, and be
considered as furnishing an apology for them. Bishop
Bumet says, " Upon Luther's first preaching in Ger-
¦raany, there arose many who, building on some of his
principles, carried things much farther than he did.
The chief foundation he laid down was, that the
Scripture was to be the only rule of Christians."
Upon this many argued that the mysteries of the
'Trinity, and Christ's incarnation and sufi'erings, of
the fall of ni^n, and the aids of grace, were indeed
philosophical subtilties, and only pretended to be de
duced from Scripture, as almost all opinions of reh
gion were, and therefore they rejected them. Among
these the baptism of infants was one. They held
that to be no baptism, and so were rebaptized. But
from this, which was most taken notice of, as being a
visible thing, they carried all the general name of
Anabaptists, — Burnet's Hist. Ref, vol. u., p. 110, &c.
— Ed. ? Burnet's Hist. Ref, vol. u., p. 112.
t Mr. Neal, representing Joan Bocher as a poor,
Vol. I.— G

Nor did his grace renounce his burning prin
ciples as long as he was in power ; for about
two years after, he went through the same
bloody work again. One George Van Paris, a
Dutchman, being convicted of saying that God
the Father was only God, and that Christ was
not very God, was dealt with to abjure, but re
fusing, he was ccmdemned in the same manner
with Joan of Kent, and on the 25th of April,
1552, was burned in Smithfield ; he was a man
of a strict and virtuous life, and very devout ;
he suffered with great constancy of mind, kiss
ing the stake and fagots that were to burn him.
No part of Archbishop Cranmer's life exposed
him more than this : it was now said by the
papists that they saw men of harmless lives
might be put to death for heresy by the confes
sion of the Reformers themselves. In all the
books published in Queen Mary's days, justify-

frantic woman, more fit for Bedlam thar. the stake,
and as obstinately maintaining her opinion, has not
spoken so respectfully of her as her character and
the truth of the case required. The charge of obsti
nacy wants propriety and candour ; for though an opin
ion in the account of others may be a great and hurt
ful error, it cannot, without insincerity and the viola
tion of conscience, be renounced by the person who
has embraced it until his judgment is convinced of
its falsehood. Arguments which produce conviction
in one mind, do not carry the same degree of clear
ness and strength to other minds ; and men are very
incompetent judges of the nature and force of evi
dence necessary to leave on others the impressions
they themselves feel. The extraordinary efforts used
to brhig.Toan Bocher to retract her opinion, show her
to have been a person of note, whose opinions earned
more weight and respect than it can be supposed
would the chimeras of a frantic woman. The ac
count which Mr. Strype gives of her is truly honour
able. " She was," he says, " a great disperser of
Tyndal's New Testament, translated by him into
English, and printed at Colen, and was a great reader
of Scripture herself Which book, also, she dispersea
in the court, and so became known to certain women
of quality, and was more particularly acquainted with
Mrs. Anne Ascue. She used, for the more secresy,
to tie the books with strings under her apparel, and
so pass with them into the court."* By this it ap
pears that she hazarded her hie in dangerous times,
to bring others to the knowledge of God's Word ; and
by Mr. Neal's own account, her sentiments, were
they ever so erroneous, were taken up out of respect
to Christ, " for she could not reconcile the spotless
purity of Christ's human nature with his receiving
flesh from a sinful creature." — Ed.
When condemned to die, we are informed she said
to her judges, " It is a goodly matter to consider your
ignorance. It was not long ago since you burned
Anne Ascue for a piece of bread, and yet came your
selves soon after to believe and profess the same doc
trine for which you burned her. And now, forsooth,
you will needs burn me for a piece of flesh, and in
the end you will come to believe this also, when you
have read the Scriptures and understand them."
Where was Cranmer's conscience, that this state
ment did not arouse him ? I scarcely know a more
painful and humiliating fact than the part he took in
this criminal affair. It did not arise from cruelty of
disposition, for his heart was humane and benevolent,
but from the perverted views he had early imbibed in
an intolerant and unchristian school. How bitter
must the recollection of it have been during his own
imprisonment at Oxford I — Strype's Mem., vol. u., i.,
335.— C.

* Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials, vol, ii., p. 214, as
quoted in Lintlsey'fi Apology, fourtti edition, p. 43, and iu
his Historical View of tlie Unitarian Doctrine of -yyorsliip,
p. 87.

50
ing her severities against Protestants, these
instances were always produced; and when
Cranmer himself was brought to the stake, they
called it a just retaliation. But neither this,
nor any other arguments, could convince the
divines of this age of the absurdity and wicked
ness of putting men to death for conscience'
Bonner, bishop of London, being accused of
remissness in not settling the new service-book
throughout his diocess, and being suspected qf
disaffection to the government, was enjoined
to declare publicly, in a sermon at St. Paul's
Cross, his belief of the king's authority while
under age, and his approbation of the new ser
vice-book, with some other articles ; which he
not performing to the council's satisfaction,
was cited before the court of delegates, and af
ter several hearings, in which he behaved with
great arrogance, sentence of deprivation was
pronounced against him, September 23d, by the
Archbishop of Canterbury, Ridley, Bishop of
Rochester, Secretary Smith, and the Dean of
St. Paul's. It was thought hard to proceed to
such extremities with a man for a mere omis
sion, for Bonner pleaded that he forgot the ar
ticle of the king's authority in his sermon ; and
it was yet harder to add imprisonment to depri
vation : but he lived to take -a severe re^venge
upon his judges in the next reign. The vacant
see was filled up with Dr. Ridley, •who, on the
24th of February, 1549-50, was declared Bishop
of London and "Westminster, the two bishoprics
being united in him ; but his consecration was
deferred to the next year.
The Parliament that met the 14th of Novem
ber revived the act of the late king, empowering
his majesty to reform the canon law, by naming
thirty-two persons, viz., sixteen of the spiritual
ity, of whom four to be bishops ; and sixteen
of the temporality, of whom four to be common
lawyers, who within three years should compile
a body of ecclesiastical laws, which, not being
contrary to the statute law, should be published
by the king's warrant under the great, seal, and
have the force of laws in the ecclesiastical
courts. This design was formed, and very far
advanced in King Henry Vlll.'s time, but the
troubles that attended the last part of his reign
prevented the finishing it. It was now resu
med, and in pursuance of this act a commission
was first given to eight persons, viz., two bish
ops, two divines, two doctors of law, and two
common lawyers, who were to prepare materi
als for the review of the thirty-two ; but the
preface to the printed book says that Cranmer
did almost the whole himself* It was not fin
ished till the month of February, 1552-53, when
another commission was granted to thirty-two
persons to revise it, of whom the former eight
were a part, viz., eight bishops, eight divines,
eight civilians, and eight common lawyers ;
they divided themselves into four classes, and
the amendments of each class were communi
cated to the whole. Thus the work was finish
ed, being digested into fifty-one titles. It was
translated into Latin by Dr. Hadden and Sir
John Cheek ; but before it received the royal
confirmation the king died ; nor was it ever re
vived in the succeeding reigns. Archbishop
Parker first published it in the year 1571, under
* Strype's Life of Cranmer, p. 271.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

the title of Reformatio Legum Anglicarum, &c,,
and it was reprinted 1640. By this book Cran
mer seems to have softened his burning princi-
pies ; for though, under the third title of judg,
ments for heresy, he lays a very heavy load upon
the back of an obstinate heretic, as that " he shall
be declared infamous, incapable of public trust;
or of being witness in any court, or of having
power to make a will, or of having the benefit
of the law," yet there is no mention of capital
proceedings. Another remarkable act, passed this session,*
was for ordaining ministers ; it appoints "that
such forms of ordaining ministers as should be
set forth by the advice of six prelates and six
divines, to he named by the king, and authori
zed under the great seal, should be used after
April next, and no other," Here is no mention
again of a convocation or synod of divines ; nor
do the Parliament reserve to themselves a right
of judgment, but intrust everything absolutely
with the crown. The committee soon finished.
their Ordinal, which is almost the same with,
that now in use. They take no notice in theii;
book of the lower orders in the Church of Rome,,
as subdeacons, readers, acolytes, &,c., but con
fine themselves to bishops, priests, and dea
cons ; and here it is observable that the form
of ordaining a priest and a bishop is the same
we yet use, there being no express mention in,
the words of ordination whether if be for the
one or the other office :t this has been altered
of late years, since a distinction of the two or
ders has been so generally admitted'; but that
was not the received doctrine of these times,}
The committee struck out most of the modern.
rites of the Church of Rome, and contented:
themselves, says Bishop Burnet, with those
mentioned in Scripture, viz,, imposition of
hands, and prayer. The gloves, the sandals,,
the mitre, the ring, and crosier, winch had been
used in consecrating bishops, were laid aside.
The anointing, the giving consecrated vest
ments, the delivering into the hands vessels fir
consecrating the eucharist, with a power to of
fer sacrifice for the dead and living, which had
been the custom in the ordination of a priest,,
were also omitted. But when the bishop or
dained, he; was to lay one hand on the priest's
head, and with his other hand to give him a Bi
ble, with a chalice and bread in it. The chalice
and bread are now omitted, as is the pastoral
staff in the consecration of a bishop. By the
rule of this Ordinal, a deacon was not to be or
dained before twenty-one, a priest before twen
ty-four, nor a bishop before he was thirty yeara
of age.
The council went on with pressing the new
liturgy upon the people, who were still inclinedi
in many places to the old service ; but, to put it
out of their power to continue it, it was order
ed that all clergymen should deliver up, to such
persons whom the king should appoint, all their
old antiphonals, missals, grails, processionals,
legends, pies, portuasses, &c., and to see to the
observing one uniform order in the Church;,

* 3 and 4 of Edward VI., cap. xii.
t Burnet's Hist. Ref, vol. ii., p. 144. Collyer'J
Eccles. Hist., vol. ii., p. 290.
t For a full vindication of the above assertions,
see Mr. Neal's Review, p. 860-864 of the first vol
ume of the quarto edition of his history. — En.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

51

which the Parliament confirmed, requiring, far
ther, all that had any images in their houses
that had belonged to any church, to deface
them : and to dash out of their primers all pray
ers to the Saints.
l.')50. Ridley, being now bishop- of London,
resolved upon a visitation of his diocess. His
injunctions were; as usual, to inquire into the
doctrines and manners of the clergy ;¦• but the
council sent him a letter in his majesty's name,
to see that all altars were taken down, and to
require the church-wardens of every parish to
provide a table decently covered, and to place
it in such part of the choir or chancel as should
be most meet, so that the ministers and com
municants should be separated from the rest of
the people. The same injunctions were given
to the rest of the bishops, as appears by the col
lection of Bishop Sparrow. Ridley began -with
his own cathedral at St. Paul's, where he or
dered the wall on the back side of the altar to
be broken dOwn, and a decent table to be placed
in its- room ; and this was done in most church
es throughout the province of Canterbury, The
reasons for this alteration were these :
1. "Because our Saviour instituted the sac
rament at a table, and not at an altar.
2. " Because Christ is not to be sacrificed
over again, but his body and blood to be spirit
ually eaten and drunk at the holy supper ; for
which a table is more proper than an altar.
3. " Because the Holy Ghost, speaking of the
Lord's Supper, calls it the Lord's table, 1 Cor ,
X,, 21, but nowhere an altar.
4. " The canons of the Council of Nice, as well
as the fathers St. Chrysostom and St, Augustine,
call it the Lord's table ; and though they some
times call it an altar, it is to be understood
figuratively. 5. " An altar has relation to a sacrifice -, so
that if we retain the one we must admit the
other ; which would give great countenance to
mass-priests. 6. " There are many passages in ancient
¦writers that show that communion-tables were
of wood ; that they were made like tables ;t
and that those who fled into churches for sanc
tuary did hide themselves under them.
7. " The most learned foreign divines have
declared against altars ; as Bucer; CEcolampa-
dius, Zuinglius, Bullinger, Calvin, P. Martyr,
Joannes Alasco, Hedio, Capito, &c., and have
removed them out of their several churches :
only the Lutheran churches retain them."|
Ridley, Cranmer, Latimer, and the rest of
the English Reformers, were of opinion that the
retaining altars would serve only to nourish in
people's minds the superstitious' opinion of a
propitiatory mass, and would minister an occa
sion of offence and division among the godly ;
and the next age will show they were not mis
taken in their conjectures. But some of the

* Among the other articles which he put to the
inferior clergy, this was one :¦ " Whether may Ana
baptists or others, use private conventicles, with
different opinions and forms from those established,
and with other questions about baptism and marri
ages." — Crosby, vol. i., p. 31 — Ed.
t Burnet's Hist. Ref., vol. ii., p. 150. Strype's
Ann., vol. i., p. 160.
t Strype's Ann , vol. i., p. 162. Hist. Ref, vol. hi.,
p. 158. Strype's Ann., vol. i., p. 162.

bishops refused to comply with the council's
order ; as Day, bishop of Chichester, and Heath
of Worcester, insisting on the apostle's words
to the Hebrews, " We have an altar ;" and, ra
ther than comply, they suffered themselves to
be deprived of their bishoprics for contumacy;
October, 1.551, Preachers were sent into the
countries to rectify the people's prejudices,
which had a very good effect ; and if they had
taken the same methods with respect to the
habits, and other reUcs of popery, these would
hardly have kept their ground, and the Reformers
would have acted a more consistent and pru
dent part.
The sad consequences of retaining the popish
garments in the service of the Church began
to appear this year : a debate, one would think,
of small consequence, but at this time appre
hended of great importance to the Reforma
tion. The people, having been bred up in a su
perstitious veneration for the priests' garments,
were taught that they were sacred ; that with
out them no administrations were valid ; that
there was a sort of virtue conveyed into them
by consecration ; and, in a word, that they
were of the same importance to a Christian
clergyman as the priests' garments of old were
in their ministrations; it was time, therefore,
to disabuse them. The debate began upon oc
casion of Dr. Hooper's nomination to the bish
opric of Gloucester, in the room of Dr. Wake-
man, who died in December, 1549.
Dr. Hooper was a zealous, pious, and learned
man : he went out of'England in the latter end
of King Henry's reign, and lived at Zurich at a
time when all Germany was in a flame on ac
count of the Interim, which was a form of wor
ship contrived to keep up the exterior face of po
pery, with the softenings of some other senses
put upon things. Upon this arose a great and
important question among the Germans con
cerning the use of things indifferent,"'' It was
said, " If things were indifferent in themselves,
they were lawful ; and that it was the subject's
duty to obey when commanded," So the old
popish rites were kept up, on purpose to draw
the people more easily back to popery. Out of
this another question arose, " whether it was
lawful to obey in things indifferent, when it
was certain they were enjoined with an ill de
sign." To which it was replied, that the de
signs of legislators were not to be inquired into.
This created a vast distraction in the country :
some conformed to the Interim ; but the major
part were firm to their principles, and were
turned out of their livings for disobedience.
Those who complied were for the most part
Lutherans, and carried the name of Adiapho-
rists, from the Greek word that signifies things
indifferent. But the rest of the Reformed were
for shaking off aU the rehcs of popery, with the
hazard of all that was dear to them in the
world ; particularly at Zurich, where Hooper
was, they were zealous against any compliance
with the Interim, or the use of the old rites pre
scribed by it.
With these principles Hooper came over to
England, and applied himself to preaching and
explaining the Scriptures to the people; he was
in the pulpit almost every day in the week, and

* Hist. Ref., vol. in., p. 199.

52

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

his sermons were so popular, that all the church
es were crowded where he preached,* His fame
soon reached the court, where Dr. Poynet and
he were appointed to preach all the Lent ser
mons. He was also sent to preach throughout
the counties of Kent and Essex, in order to
reconcile the people to the Reformation. At
length, in the mimth of July, 1550, he was ap
pointed Bishop of Gloucester by letters patent
from the king, but declined it, for two reasons :
1. Because of the form of the oath, which he
calls foul and impious. - And,
2. By reason of the -Aaronical habits.
By the oath is meant the oath of supremacy, t
which was in this form : " By God, by the saints,
and by the Holy Ghost ;" which Hooper thought
impious, because God only ought to be appealed
to in an oath, forasmuch as he only knows the
thoughts of men. The young king, being con
vinced of this, struck out the words with his
own pen.t
But the scruple about the habits was not so ea
sily got over, "The king and council were inclined
to dispense with them ; but Ridley and the rest of
the bishops that had worn the habits were of an
other mind, saying " the thing was indifferent,
and, therefore, the lawonght to be obeyed." This
had such an influence upon the council, that all
Hooper's objections were afterward heard with
great prejudice. It discovered but an ill spirit
in the Reformers not to suffer Hooper to decline
his bishopric, nor yet to dispense with those hab
its which he thought unlawful. Hooper was as
much for the clergy's wearing a decent and dis
tinct habit from the laity as Ridley, but prayed
to be excused from the old symbolizing popish
garments, 1 . Because they had no countenance in Scrip
ture or primitive antiquity.
2. Because they were the inventions of anti
christ, and were introduced into the Church in
the corruptest ages of Christianity.
3. Because they had been abused to supersti
tion and idolatry, particularly in the pompous
celebration of the mass ; and, therefore, were
not indifferent.
4. To continue the use of these garments
-was, in his opinion, to symbolize with antichrist,
to mislead the people, and was inconsistent with
the simplicity of the Christian religion.
Cranmer was inclined to yield to these rea
sons ; but Ridley and Goodrick insisted strongly
on obedience to the laws, aflirming that, "in
matters of rites and ceremonies, custom was a
good argument for the continuance of those that
had been long used," But this argument seem
ed to go too far, because it might be used for
the retaining all those other rites and ceremo
nies of popery which had been long used in the
Church, but were now abolished by these Re
formers themselves.
Hooper, not willing to rely upon his own judg
ment, wrote to Bucer at Cambridge, and to Pe-
* He was chaplain to the Duke of Somerset,
Fuller says he was well skilled in Latin, Greek, and
Hebrew, — C.
t Mr. Fuller, when he wrote his Church History,
conceived that the oath Bishop Hooper refused was
that of canonical obedience, but \*fhen he published
his Worthies he was convinced of his mistake, and
corrected it, — Neal's Review. — Ed.
t Hist, Ref, vol. iii,, p. 203.

ter Martyr at Oxford, who gave their opinions
against the habits, as inventions of antichrist,
and wished them removed, as will appear more
fully in the reign of Queen Elizabeth,* but were
of opinion, since the bishops were so resolute,
that he might acquiesce in the use of them for a
time, till they were taken away by law ; and the
rather, because the Reformation was in its infan
cy, and it would give occasion of triumph to the
common enemy to see the Reformers at variance
among themselves. The divines of Switzerland
and Geneva were of the same mind, being un
willing that a clergyman of so much learning
and piety, and so zealous for the Reformation
as Hooper was, should be silenced ; they there
fore advised him to comply for the present, that
he might be the more capable, by his authority
and influence in the Church, to get them laid
aside. But these reasons not satisfying Hoop
er's conscience, he continued to refuse for above
nine months.
The governing prelates being provoked with
his stiffness, resolved not to suffer such a pre
cedent of disobedience to the ecclesiastical laws
to go unpunished. Hooper must be a bishop,
and must be consecrated in the manner others
had been, and wear the habits the law appoint
ed ; and to force him to comply, he was served
with an order of council, first to silence him, and
then to confine him to his house. The doctor
thought this usage very severe : to miss his
promotion was no disappointment ; but to be per
secuted about clothes, by men of the same faith
with himself, and to lose his liberty because he
Would not be a bishop, and in the fashion, this,
says Mr. Collyer, was possibly more than he well
understood. After some time. Hooper was com
mitted to the custody of Cranmer, who, not be
ing able to bring him to conformity, complained
to the council, who thereupon ordered him into
the Fleet, where he continued some months, to
the reproach of the Reformers. At length he
laid his case before the Earl of Warwick, who,
by the king's own motion, wrote to the arch
bishop to dispense with the habit at his conse
cration ; but Cranmer alleged the danger of a
prcemunire ; upon which a letter was sent from
the king and council to the archbishop and other
bishops to be concerned in the consecration,
warranting them to dispense with the garments,
and discharging them of all manner of dan
gers, penalties, and forfeitures they might incur
any manner of way by omitting the same ; but
though this letter was dated August the 5th, yet
such was the reluctance of Cranmer and Ridley,
that Hooper was not consecrated till March fol
lowing ; in which time, says Bishop Burnet,t the
matter was in some sort compromised, Hooper
consenting to be robed in his habits at his con
secration, when he preached before the king, or
in his cathedral, or in any public place, but to
be dispensed with at other times.
Accordingly,! being appointed to preach be-

* CoUyer's Eccles. Hist., vol. u., p. 297.
+ Hist. Ref, vol. ii., p. 166.
t Mr. Neal, in his Review, adds from Mr, Fox,
that "Bishop Hooper was constrained to appear
once in public attired after the manner of other bish
ops, which, unless he had done, some think there
was a contrivance to take away his life ; for his ser
vant told me," says Mr, Fox, " that the 13uke of Suf
folk sent such word to Hooper, who was not himself
ignorant of what was doing." — Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

63

fore the king, he came forth, says Mr. Fox, like ]
a new player on the stage ; his upper garment
was a long scarlet chymere down to the foot,
and under that a white linen rochet that covered
all his shoulders, and a four-square cap on his
head ; hut he took it patiently, for the public
profit of the Church.'^ After this. Hooper re
tired to his diocess, and preached sometimes
two or three times a day, to crowds of people
that hungered for the word of life : he was im
partial and zealous in the faithful discharge of
every branch of his episcopal character, even
beyond his strength, and was himself a pattern
of what he taught to others.
In the king's letter to the archbishop. Hooper
is said to be a divine of great knowledge, deep
judgment, and long study, both in the Scriptures
and profane learning, as also a person of good
discretion^ ready utterance, and of an honest
life ; but all these qualifications must be buried
in silence and a prison, at a time when there
was a famine of the Word, rather than the above-
mentioned uniformity in dress be dispensed with.
Most of the reforming clergy were with Hoop
er in this controversy ; several that had submit
ted to the habits in the late reign laid them aside
in this, as the Bishops Latimer and Coverdale,
Dr, Taylor, Philpot, Bradford, and others, who
laid down their lives for the Protestant faith, t
In some ordinations, Cranmer and Ridley dis
pensed with the habits ; for Mr, Thomas Samp
son, parson of Bread-street, London, afterward
one of the heads of the Puritans, and success
ively Dean of Chichester and Christ Church, in
a letter to Secretary Cecil, writes, " That at his
ordination by Cranmer and Ridley, he excepted
against the apparel, and was, nevertheless, per
mitted and admitted."}: If they had not done
so on some occasions, there would not have
been clergymen to support the Reformation.
Bishop Burnet says they saw their errqr, and
designed to procure an act to abolish the po
pish garments ; but whether this were so or not,
, it is certain that in the next reign they repented
their conduct ; for when Ridley was in prison he
¦wrote a letter to Hooper, in which he calls him
"his dear brother and fellow-elder in Christ,"
and desires a mutual forgiveness and reconcili
ation. And when he and Cranmer came to be
degraded, they smiled at the ridiculous attire
with which they were clothed, and declared they
had long since laid aside all regards to that pa
geantry.^ This behaviour of the bishops towards the
king's natural-born subjects was the more ex
traordinary, because a latitude was allowed to
foreign Protestants to worship God after the
manner of their country, without any regard to
the popish vestments ; for this year a church of
German refugees was established at St. Aus
tin's in London, and erected into a corporation
under the direction of John a Lasco, superin
tendent of all the foreign churches in London,
with whom were joined four other ministers ;

* Fuller's Abel Redivivus, p. 173.
t Pierce's Vind., p. 31-33.
X Strype's Life of Cranmer, p. 192.
^ Bishop Maddox maintained that the habits put
on those Reformers were the popish habits, which
was the ground of their dislike. Mr. Neal, in his
Review, controverts the truth, and exposes the futil
ity, of this distinction. — Ed.

and, as a mark of favour, three hundred and
eighty of the congregation were made denizens
of England. The preamble to the patent sets
forth that the German Church made profession
of pure and uncorrupted religion, and was in
structed in truly Christian and apostolical opin
ions and rites.* In the patent which incorpo
rates them there is the following clause : " Item.
We command, and peremptorily enjoin our lord-
mayor, aldermen, and magistrates of the city
of London, and tlieir successors, with all arch
bishops, bishops, justices of the peace, and all
officers and ministers w-hatsoever, that they per
mit the said superintendent and ministers to en
joy and exercise their own proper rites and cer
emonies, and their own proper and peculiar ec
clesiastical discipline, though differing from the
rites and ceremonies used in our kingdom, with
out impediment, let, or disturbance ; any law,
proclamation, or injunction heretofore published
to the contrary notwithstanding,"
John a Lasco was a Polander of noble birth ;
and, according to the words of the patent, a
man very famous for learning, and for integrity
of life and manners. He was in high esteem
with the gi-eat Erasmus, who says that he,
though an old man, had profited much by his
conversation. And Peter Martyr calls him his
most learned patron, t But he did not please
the ruling prelates, because he took part with
Hooper, and wrote against the popish garments,
and for the posture of sitting rather than kneel
ing at the Lord's Supper,t
1551, Upon the translation of Ridley to the
see of London, Dr. Poynet was declared Bishop
of Rochester, and Coverdale, coadjutor to Vey-
sey. Bishop of Exeter. The see of Winchester
had been two years as good as vacant by the
long imprisonment of Gardiner, who had been
confined all this time without being brought to
a trial : the bishop complained of this to the
council, who thereupon issued out a commission
to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops
of London, Ely, and Lincoln, with Secretary
Petre, Judge Hales, two civilians, and two Mas
ters in Chancery, to proceed against him for
contempt. It was objected to him, that he re
fused to preach concerning the king's power
while under age ; that he had been negligent in
obeying the king's injunctions, and was so ob
stinate that he would not ask the king mercy.
It was the declared opinion of the popish cler
gy at this time, that the king's laws were to be
obeyed, but not the orders of his council ; and,
therefore, that all things should remain as the
late king left them, till the present king, now a
child, came of age. This the rebels in Devon
pleaded, as well as the Lady Mary and others.
For the same opinion Gardiner was deprived of
hisbishopic, April 18th,^ upon which he appealed
to the king when at age ; and so his process end
ed, and he was sent back to the Tower, where
he lay till Queen Mary discharged him. No
thing can be said in vindication of this severity
but this, that both he and Bonner had taken out

* Burnet's Hist. Ref, in Records, vol. ii., No. 51.
t Strype's Life of Cranmer, p. 239.
X About the end of December, 1550, after many
cavils in the state. Bishop Bumet informs us that
an act passed for the king's general pardon, wherein
the Anabaptists were excepted, — Crosby, vol. i., p. 50.
^ Strype's Life of Cranmer, p. 191.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

54
commissions, with the rest of the bishops, to hold
their bishoprics only during the king's pleas
ure, which gave the regents a right to displace
them whensoever they pleased. _ Dr. Poynet
was translated from Rochester to Winchester ;
Dr. Story was made Bishop of Rochester ; and
Veysey resigning, Coverdale was made Bishop
of Exeter in his room ; so that now the bench
of bishops had a majority for the Reformation.
It was therefore resolved, in council, to re
form the doctrine of the Church. Archbishop
Cranmer and Bishop Ridley were appointed to
this work, who framed forty-twb articles upon
the chief points of the Christian faith ; copies
- of which were sent to the other bishops and
learned divines, for-their corrections and amend
ments ; after which, the archbishop reviewed
them a second time, and having given them his
last hand, presented them to the council, -where
they received the royal sanction,* This was
another high act of the supremacy ; for the ar
ticles were not brought into Parliament, nor
agreed upon in convocation, t as they ought to
have been, and as the title seems to express :
when this was afterward objected to Cranmer
as a fraud in the next reign, he owned the
charge, but said he was ignorant of the title,
and complained of it to the council, who told
him the book was so entitled because it was
published in the time of the convocation ; which
"was no better than a collusion. It is entitled,
" Articles agreed upon by the bishops and other
learned men in the convocation held at London,
in the year 1552, for the avoiding diversity of
opinions, and establishing consent touching true
religion. Published by the king's authority,"
These articles are for substance the same with
those now in use, being reduced to the number
of thirty-nine in the beginning of the reign of
Queen Elizabeth, where the reader will meet
with the corrections and alterations.t The

* Hist. Ref, vol. iii., p. 210.
-1 Bishop Maddox objected to this representation,
and said it was confuted by Archbishop Wake, who
had examined the matter lully. Mr. Neal rests the
vindication of his state of it on the authority of Bish
op Bumet, supported by the remark of Mr, Collyer,
who says, " 'Tis pretty plain they were passed by
some members ot convocation only, delegated by
both houses, as appears by the very title, articles,
&c,, agreed upon in the synod of London, by the
bishops and certain other learned men," — Eccles.
Hist., vol. ii., p. 325. Neal's Review. — Ed.
X An alteration in the twenty-eighth article is not
noticed by Mr. Neal, in the place to which he refers.
The last clause of the article was laid down in these
words: "The custom of the Church for baptizing
young children is both to be commended, and by all
means to be retained in the Church." 'This clause
was left out of Queen Elizabeth's articles. It seems
by this, however, observes Crosby, " that the first Re
formers did not found the practice of infant baptism
upon Scripture, but took it only as a commendable
custom, that had been used in the Christian Church,
and, therefore, ought to be retained," — Hist. Eng.
Bapt., vol. i., p. 54, 55. But What shall we think of,
rather, how should we lament the bigotry and ilhb-
erahty of those times, when men were harassed and
put to death for declining a religious practice, which
they who enjoined it did not pretend to enforce on the
authority of Scripture, but only as a custom of the
churches : a plea which would have equally justified
all those other religious ceremonies which they
themselves, notwithstanding this sanction, rejected!
—Ed.

controverted clause of the twentieth article, that
the Church has power to decree rites and cere
monies, and authority in controversies of faith,
is not in King Edward's articles, nor does it
appear how it came into Queen Elizabeth's. It
is evident, by the title of the articles, that they
were designed as articles of truth,- and not of
peace, as some have since imagined, who sub
scribed them rather as a compromise, not to
teach any doctrine contrary to them, than as a
declaration that they believed according to them.
This was a notion the imposers never thought of,
nor does there appear any reason for this conceit.
So that (says Bishop Burnet*) those who sub
scribed did either believe them to be true, or
else they did grossly, prevaricate.
With the book of articles was printed'a short
catechism.t with a preface prefixed in the king's
name. It is supposed to be drawn up by Bishop
Poynet, but revised by the rest of the bishops
and other learned men. It is dated May 7th,
about seven weeks before the king's death;
[and in the first impression of the articles it,
was printed before them.t]
1552. The next work the Reformers were
employed in was a second correction of the
Common Prayer Book, Some things they add
ed, and others that had been retained through
the necessity of the times were struck out.
The most considerable amendments were these.
The daily service opened with a short confes
sion of sins, and of absolution to simh as should
repent. The communion began with a rehearsal
of the Ten Commandinents, the congregation
being on their knees ; and a pause was made be
tween the rehearsal of every commandment, for
the people's devotions. A rubric was also add
ed, concerning the posture of kneeling, which
declares that there was no adoration intended
thereby to the bread and wine, which was gross
idolatry : nor did they think the very flesh and
blood of Christ there present. This clause was
struck out by Queen Elizabeth, to give a lati
tude to papists and Lutherans, but was insert
ed again at the restoration of King Charles II.,
at the request of the Puritans. Besides these
amendments, sundry old rites and ceremonies,
which had been retained in the former book,
were discontinued ; as the use of oil in confirm
ation and extreme unction ; prayer for the dead
in the oflice of burial ; and in the communion
service, auricular confession, the use -of the
cross in the eucharist, and in confirmation. In
short, the whole liturgy was, in a'manner, re
duced to the form in which it appears at pres
ent, excepting some small variations that have
since been made for the clearing some ambigu
ities. By this book of Common Prayer, says
Mr. Strype,^ all copes and vestments were for
bidden throughout England ; the prebendaries
of St, Paul's left off their hoods, and the bish
ops their crosses, &c,, as by act of Parliament
is more at length Set forth.
When the Parliament met January 23d, the
new Common Prayer Book was brought into the
house, with an ordinal or form of ordaining bisli-
ops, priests, and deacons, both which passed the
houses without any considerable opposition.

* Hist. Ref, vol. ii,, p. 169.
t Ibid., vol. in., p. 211, 214.
fj Life of Cranmer, p. 290.

X Neal's Review.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

The act requires " all persons, after the feast of
Allhallows next, to come to common prayer ev
ery Sunday and holyday, under pain of the cen
sures of the Church. All archbishops and bish
ops are required to endeavour the due execution
of this act ; and whereas divers doubts had been
raised about the service-book, it is said the king
and Parliament had now caused it to be perused,
explained, and mad? more perfect." 'The new
service-book was to take place in all churches
after the feast of All Saints, under the same
penalties that had been enacted to the former
book three years before.*
By another act of this session, the marriages
t)f the clergy, if performed according to the ser-
-vice-book, were declared good and valid, and
•their children inheritable accoi-ding to law ; and
by another, the bishopric of Westminster was
suppressed, and reunited to the see of London.
¦Dr. Heath, bishop of Worcester, and Day of Chi
chester, were both deprived this year [1553],
-with Tonstal, bishop of Durham, whose bishop
ric was designed to be divided into two ; but
the act never took effect.
One of the last things the Ifing set his hand
to was a royal visitation, in order to examine
what plate, jewels, and other furniture were in
•the churches. Tlie visiters were to leave in
every church one or two chalices of silver, with
¦linen for the communion-table and for surplices,
but to bring in the best of the church furni
ture into the king's treasury, and to sell the lin
en copes, altar-cloths, &C., and give the money
to the poor. The pretence was, the caUing in
the superfluous plate that lay in churches more
for pomp than use. Some have called this by
no better name than sacrilege, or church theft,
and it really was no better. But it ought to be
remembered, the young king was now languish
ing under a consumption, and near his end.
It must, however, be confessed, that in the
-course of this as well as the last reign, there
was a very great alienation of church-lands :
"the chantry-lands were sold among the laity,
some of whom held five or six prebendaries or
canonries, while the clergy themselves were in
"want. Bishop Latimer complains, in one of his
sermons, " that the revenues of the Church
¦were seized by the rich laity, and that the in
cumbent was only a proprietor in title ; that
many benefices were let out to farm by secular
-men, or given to their servants as a considera
tion for keeping their hounds, hawks, and hor
ses,; and that the poor clergy were reduced, to
.such short allowance that they were forced to
go to service, to turn clerks of the kitchen, sur-
,veyors, receivers," &c. And Camden com
plains " that avarice and sacrilege had strange
ly the ascendant at this time ; that estates for
merly settied for the support of religion and the
poor were ridiculed as superstitious endow
ments, first miscalled and then plundered." The
-bishops were too easy in parting with the lands
-and manors belonging to their bishoprics, and
the courtiers were too eager in grasping at eve
rything they could lay their hands upqn.t If
the revenues of the Church had been abused to
superstition, they might have been converted to
.-other religious uses ; or if too great a propor-

55
tion of the riches of the kingdom was in the
hands of the Chhrch, they should have made an
ample provision for the maintenance of the
clergy, and the endowment of smaller livings,
before they had enriched their friends and fam
ihes. Nor were the lives of many who were zeal
ous for the Reformation free from scandal : the
courtiers and great men indulged themselves in
a dissolute and licentious life, and the clergy
were not without their blemishes. Some that
embraced the Reformation were far from adorn
ing their profession, but rather disposed the peo
ple to return to their old superstitions : never
theless, there were many great and shining lights
among them, who preached and prayed fervent
ly against the corruptions of the times, and were
an example to their flock^, by the strictness and
severity of their lives and manners, but their
numbers were small in comparison to the many
that were otherwise, turning the doctrines of
grace into lasciviousness.*
We have now seen the. length of King Ed
ward's reformation. It was an adventurous un
dertaking for a iew bishops and privy-council
lors to change the religion of a nation only by
the advantage of the supremacy of a minor,
without the consent of the people in Parliament
or convocation, and under the eye of a presump
tive heir, who was a declared enemy of all their
proceedings, as was the case in the former part
of this reign. We have taken notice of the mis
taken principles of the Reformers in making use
of the civil power to force men to conformity,
and of their stretching the laws to reach at
those whom they could not fairly come at any
other, way. But, notwithstanding these and
some other blemishes, they were great and good
men, and valiant in the cause of truth, as ap
pears by their sealing it with their blood. They
made as quick advances, perhaps, in restoring
religion towards its primitive simplicity as the
circumstances of the time would admit ; and it
is evident they designed to go farther, and not
make this the last standard of the Reformation.
Indeed, Queen Elizabeth thought her brother
had gone too far, by stripping religion of too
many ornaments, and, therefore, when she came
to the crown, she was hardly persuaded to re
store it to the condition in which he left it.
King James I,, King Charles I., Archbishop
Laud, and all their admirers, instead of remo
ving farther from the superstitious pomps of the
Church of Rome, have been for returning back
to them, and have appealed to the settlement
of Queen Elizabeth as the purest standard. t
But the Reformers themselves were of an
other mind, as appears by the sermons of Lati
mer, Hooper, Bradford, and others ; by the let
ters of Peter Martyr, Martin Bucer, and John
a Lasco,t who, in his book De Ordinatione Ec-
clesiarum Peregrinarum in Anglia, dedicated to
Sigismund, king of Poland, 1555, says " that
King Edward desired that the rites and cere-

* Bumet's Hist. Ref., vol. ii., p. 190.
t Hist. Ref., vol. hi., p. 218.

* Strype's Life of Cranmer, p. 290.
t It is evident to the careful student of history,
that the Reformation in England produced its happi
est effects in the days of Edward ; that the Church
of England has never been so pure as soon after its
transition from popery ; and that its subsequent alter
ations have ever been in favour of Romanism. — C.
X Voet., Eccl. Pol., hb. ii., cap. vi., part i., p. 421.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

56
monies used under popery should be purged out
by degrees ; that it was his pleasure that stran
gers should have churches to perform all things
according to apostolical observation only, that
by this means the English churches might be
excited to embrace apostolical purity with the
unanimous consent of the states of the king
dom." He adds, " that the king was at the head
of this project, and. that Cranmer promoted it,
but that some great persons stood in the way."
As a farther evidence of this, a passage was
left in the preface of one of their service-books
to this purpose :* " that they had gone as far as
they could in reforming the Church, considering
the times they lived in, and hoped they that
came after them would, as they might, do more."
King Edward, in his Diary, t laments that he
could not restore the primitive discipline ac
cording to his heart's desire, because several of
the bishops, some for age, some for ignorance,
some for their ill name, and some out of love
to popery, were unwilling to it. And the Church
herself, in one of her public oflices, laments the
want of a godly discipline to this day.
Martin Bucer, a German divine, and profes
sor of divinity in Cambridge, a person in high
esteem with the young king, drew up a plan
and presented it to his majesty, in vvhich he
writes largely of ecclesiastical discipline.^: The
king haying read it, set himself to write a gen
eral discourse about reformation, but did not
live to finish it. Bucer proposedij that there
might be a strict discipline, to exclude scanda
lous livers from the sacrament ; that the old po
pish habits might be laid aside. He did not
like the half office of communion, or second
service, to be said at the altar when there was
no sacrament. He approved not of godfathers
answering in the child's name so well as in
their own. He presses much the sanctification
of the Lord's Day, and that there might be
many fastings, but was against the observation
of Lent. He would have the pastoral function
restored to yvhat it ought to be ; that bishops,
throwing off all secular cares, shouldgive them
selves to their spiritual employments. He ad
vises that coadjutors might be given to some,
and a council of presbyters appointed for them
all. He would have rural bishops set over
twenty or thirty parishes, who should gather
* The following quotation, Mr. Neal, in answer to
Bishop Maddox, observes, is transcribed from Mr.
Pierce's Vindication, p. 11, where it is to be found
verbatim, with his authority ; and in Bennett's Me
morial of the Reformation, p. 60, Mr. Strype inti
mates that a farther reformation was intended (Life
of Cran,, p. 299) ; and Bishop Burnet adds, that in
many of the letters to foreign divines, it is asserted
that both Cranmer and Ridley intended to procure
an act for abolishing the habits. — Ed.
t King Edward's Remains, num. 2.
X Burnet's Hist. Ref, vol. ii., p: 156.
^ Bucer died in 1551, and was consulted on the re-
-view of the Common Prayer, 1550. But Mr. Neal
has introduced his sentiments in this place, because
he was here giving a summary of the changes in
King Edward's reign. And in reply to Bishop Mad
dox, who, after Bishop Burnet, says that the most
material things to which Bucer excepted were cor
rected afterward, Mr. Neal observes, that they who
will be at the pains to read over the abstract of his
book, entitled " Of the Kingdom of Christ," in CoU
yer's Eccles. Hist., vol. ii., p. 296, &c,, must be of
another mind. — Review. — Ed.

their clergy often together, and inspect thenn
closely; and that a provincial synod should,
meet twice a year, when a secular man, in the-
king's name, should be appointed to observe
their proceedings.
Cranmer was of the same mind. He disliked
the present way of governing the Church by
convocations as they ate no^w formed, in which
deans, archdeacons, and cathedrals have an in
terest far superior in number to those elected
to represent the clergy. These, says Bishop
Burnet,* can in no soVt pretend to be more than
a part of our civil constitution. They have no
foundation in Scripture, nor any warrant from,
the first ages of the Church ; but did arise from-
the model set forth by Charles the Great, and
formed according to the feud^ law, by,w,|iich a
right of giving subsidies was vested in all who
were possessed of such tenures as qualified
them to contribute towards the support of the-
state. Nor was Cranmer satisfied with the lit
urgy, though it had been twice reformed, if we
may give credit to the learned Bullinger,t who-
told the exiles at Frankfort " that the archbish
op had drawn up a book of prayers a hundred
times more perfect than that which was then.
in being ; but the satne could not take place,,
for that he was matched with such a Wicked
clergy and convocation, and other enemies."!;
The king was of the same sentiments ; but
his untimely death, which happened in the six
teenth year of his age and seventh of his reign,.
put an end to all his noble designs for perfect
ing the Reformation. He was, indeed, an in
comparable prince, of most promising expecta
tions, and, in the judgment of the most impar
tial persons, the very phrenix of his age. It,
was more than whispered that he was poisoned.
But it is very surprising that a Protestant di
vine, Heylin, in his History of the Reforma
tion,^ should say " that he was ill-principled ;
that his reign was unfortunate ; and that his
death was not an infelicity to the Church," only
because he was apprehensive he would have
reduced the hierarchy to a more primitive stand
ard. With good King Edward died all farther
advances of the Reformation ; for the altera
tions that were made afterward by Queen Eliz-
abeth hardly came up to his standard.il

* Hist. Ref, vol. hi., p. 214.
t Strype's Life of Cranmer, p. 266. Benqet's-
Mem,, p. 52.
X The troubles at Frankfort, in the Phcenix, vol,
ii., p. 82, and Pierce's Vindic, p. 12, 13. Mr. Pierce-'
remarks that this is reported, as is plain to him who ¦
looks into the book itself, not on the testimony of
Bullinger, as Strype represents it, but by one of Dr^
Cox's party on his own knowledge.--iJOTe».— En.
^ Pref, p. 4, part vii., p. 141.
II " It is praise enough for young Edward," re
marks Sir James Mackuitosh, " that his gentleness,
as well as his docility, disposed him not to shed
blood. The fact, however, that the blood of no Ro
man Catholic was spilt on account of religion in Ed
ward's reign, is indisputable. The Protestant Church
of England did not strike the first blow. If this pro
ceeded from the virtue of the counsellors of Edward,-
we must allow it to outweigh their faults; if it fol
lowed from their fortune, they ought to have been
envied by their antagonists. Truth and justice re
quire it to be positively pronounced, that Gardiner
and Bonner cannot plead the example of Cranmer
and Latimer for the bloody persecution which involv
ed in its course the destruction of the Protestant prel"^

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS,

We may observe, from the history of this
leign, 1st. That in matters of faith the first Reform
ers followed the doctrine of St. Austin in the
controverted points of original sin, predestina
tion, justification by faith alone, effectual grace,
and good works.
2dly. That they were not satisfied with the
present discipline of the Church, though they
thought they might submit to it till it should be
amended by the authority of the Legislature.
3dly. That they believed but two orders of church
men in Holy Scnplure, viz., bishops and deaj:ons ;
and, consequently, that bishops and priests were but
different ranks or degrees Uf the same order.
4thly. That they gave the right hand of fel
lowship to foreign churches, and ministers that
Tiad not been ordained by bishops ; there being no
dispute about reordirmtion in order to any church
preferment, till the latter end of Queen Eliza
beth's reign !
In all which points most of our modern church
men have departed from them.*
[To Mr. Neal's remarks on the reign of Ed
ward VI. it may be added, that the Reformation
was all along conducted in a manner inconsist
ent with the principles on which it was found
ed. The principles on which the justification
of it rested were, the right of private judgment,
and the sufficiency of the Scriptures as a rule
of faith. Yet the Reformation was limited to
the conceptions and ideas of those who were in
power. No liberty was granted to the con
sciences of dissidents ; no discussion of points
on which they themselves had not doubts was
permitted : such as held sentiments different
from their model, and pursued their inquiries
farther, without consideration of their numbers
or their characters, so far from being allowed
to propose their opinions, or to hold separate
assembhes for religious worship, agreeably to
their own views of things, were stigmatized as
heretics, and pursued unto death. Besides the
instances Mr. Neal mentions, the Anabaptists
were excepted out of the king's general pardon,
that came out in 1550 ;t they were also burned
in divers towns in the kingdom, and met death
with singular intrepidity and cheerfulness, t
Thus inquiry was stifled ; and the Reformation
-was really not the result of a comprehensive
view and calm investigation of all the doctrines
and practices which had been long established,
but the triumph of power in discarding a few
articles and practices which more particularly
struck the minds of those who were in govern
ment. These persons gained, and have exclu
sively possessed, the honourable title of Reform
ers, without any respect to, nay, with a contempt
uous disregard of, those who saw farther, and, in
point of numbers, carried weight. Bishop Lat-
ates. The anti-Trinitarian and the Anabaptist, if they
had regained power, might, indeed, have urged such
a mitigation ; but the Ronaan Catholic had not even
the odious excuse of retaliation." — Hist, of England,
ii., 271, 319.— C.
*. It is with pleasure that mention is made , of the
liberal and able essay of Archbishop Whately on the
Nature of Christ's Kingdom ; this work takes essenti- -
ally different ground from that held by the larger part
of the English and American Episcopalians. — C.
t Burnet's Hist. Ref, vol. ii., p. 143.
t Crosby's History of the Enghsh Baptists," vol. i.,
p. 62.Vot. I.— H

67
iraer, in a sermon before the king, reported, on
the authority of a credible person, that there
were, in one town, five hundred Anabaptists.*
The Reformers, in thus proscribing inquiry and
reformation beyond their own standard, were
not consistent with themselves ; for they ac
knowledged that corruptions had been a thou
sand years introducing, which could not be all
discovered and thrown out at once.t By this
concession they justified the principle, while
they punished the conduct of those who, acting
upon it, endeavoured to discover and wished to-
reject more corruption.] — Ed.

CHAPTER III.
REIGN OF QUEEN MARY.
It will appear, in the course of this reign,^.
that an absolute supremacy over the conscien
ces of men, lodged with a single person, may as
well be prejudicial as serviceable to true reli
gion ; for if King Henry VIII. and his son. King
Edward VI., reformed some abuses by their
supremacy, against the inclinations of the ma
jority of the people, we shall find Queen Mary
making use of the same power to turn things-
back into their old channel, till she had restored
the grossest and most idolatrouspart of popery.
This was begun by proclamations and orders
of council, till her majesty could procure a par
liament that would repeal King Edward's laws-
for rehgion, which she quickly found means to.
accomplish. It is strange, indeed, that whea<
there were but seven or eight peers that op
posed the laws made in favour of the Reforma
tion under King Edward, the same House of
Lords should almost ah turn papists in the reign
of Queen Mary ; but as to the Commons it is
less wonderful, because they are changeable, and
the court took care to new-model the magis
trates in the cities and corporations before the
elections came on, so that not one almost was-
left that was not a Roman Catholic. Bribery
and menaces were made use of in all places ;
and where they could not carry elections by
reason of the superiority of the reformed, the
sheriffs made double returns, t It is sad whea
the religion of a nation is under such a direc
tion ! But so it will be when the management
of religion falls into the hands of a bigoted
prince and ministry.
Queen Mary was a sad example of the truth of
this observation, whose reign was no better than
one continued scene of calamity. It is the genu
ine picture of popery, and should be remembered
by all true Protestants with abhorrence ; the prin
ciples of that religion being such as no man can
receive, till he has abjured his senses, renounced
his understanding and reason, and put off all
the tender compassions of human nature.
King Edward VI, being far gone in a con
sumption, from a concern for preserving the
Reformation, was persuaded to set aside the
succession of his sisters Mary and Elizabeth,
and of the Queen of Scots, the first and last be
ing papists, and Elizabeth's blood being tainted
by act of Parliament ; and to settle the crown,.

* Crosby's Hist,, vol. i., p. 63.
+ Bumet's Hist. Ref, vol. u., p. 190.
X Burnet's Hist. Ref, vol. u., p. 252.

-58

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

¦by will upon Lady Jane Grey, eldest daughter
of the Duke of Suffolk, a lady of extraordinary
qualities, zealous for the Reformation, and next
in blood after the princesses above mentioned.
One mav guess the sad apprehensions the coun-
-eil were'under for the Protestant religion, when
they put the king, who was a minor, and not
¦capable of making a will, upon this expedient,
and set their hands to the validity of it. The
kirx" being dead. Queen Jane was proclaimed
with the usual solemnities, and an army raised
to support her title ; but the Princess Mary,
then at Norfolk, being informed of her brother's
death, sent a letter to the council, jn which she
claims the crown, and charges them, upon their
allegiance, to proclaim her in the city of London
and elsewhere. The council, in return, insisted
upon her laying aside her claim, and submitting
as a good subject to her new sovereign. But
Mary, by the encouragement of her friends in the
North, resolved to maintain her right; and to
make her way more easy, she promised the
Suffolk men to make no alteration in religion.
This gained her an army, with which she march-
-ed towards London ; but before she came thith
er, both the council and citizens of London de-
-olared for her ; and on the 3d of August she made
lier public entry, without the loss of a drop of
-blood, four weeks after the d eath of her brother.
Upon Queen Mary's entrance into the Tower
she released Bonner, Gardiner, and others,
whom she called her prisoners. August 12,
-her majesty- declared in council "that, though
her conscience was settled in matters of reli
gion, yet she was resolved not to compel others,
but by the preaching of t|ie Word." This was
different from her promise to the Suffolk men :
-she assured them that " religion should be left
upon the same foot she found it at the death of
iKing Edward, but now she insinuates that the
told religion is to be restored, but without compul
sion." Next day there was a tumult at St. Paul's,
occasioned by Dr. Bourne, one of the canons of
-that church, preaching against the late Reforma-
¦tion ; he spoke in commendation of Bonner, and
-was going on with severe reflections upon the
late King Edward, when the whole audience was
in an uproar ; some called to pull do wn the preach
er, othei^ throwing stones, and one a dagger,
-which stuck in the timber of the pulpit. Mr.
.Rogers and Bradford, two popular preachers for
.the Reformation, hazarded their lives to save
the doctor, and conveyed him in safety to a
neighbouring house ; for which act of charity
they were soon after imprisoned, and then burned
for heresy.
To prevent the like tumults for the future, the
queen published, an inhibition, August 18th, for
bidding all preaching without special license ;
declaring, farther, that she would not compel her
subjects to be of her religion till public order
should be taken in it by common assent. Here
was another intimation of an approaching storm:
" the subjects were not to be compelled till pub
lic order should be taken for it," And, to pre
vent farther tumults, a proclamation was pub
lished, for masters of families to oblige their
apprentices and servants to frequent their own
parish churches on Sundays and holydays, and
, keep them at home at other times.
The shutting up all the Protestant pulpits at
.once awakened the Suffolk men, who, presu

ming upon their merits and the queen's promise,
sent a deputation to court to represent their
grievances ; but the queen checked them for
their insolence ; and one of their number, hap
pening to mention her promise, was put in the
pillory three days together, and had his ears
cut off for defamation. On the 22d of August,
Bonner of London, Gardiner of Winchester, Ton
stal of Durham, Heath of Worcester, and Day of
Chichester, were restored to theii' bishoprics.
Some of the Reformers, continuing to preach af
ter the inhibition, were sent for into custody,
among whom were Hooper, bishop of Glouces
ter, Coverdale of Exeter, Dr. Taylor of Hadley,
Rogers the protomartyr, and seveVal others.
Hooper was committed to the Fleet, September
1, no regard being had to his active zeal in as
serting the queen's right in his sermon against
the title of Lady Jane ; but so sincerely did this
good man follow the light of his conscience,
when he could not but see what sad consequen
ces it was like to have. Coverdale of Exeter,
being a foreigner, was ordered to keep his house
till farther order. Burnet* says he was a Dane,
and had afterward leave to rethe. But, accord
ing to Fuller,t he was born in Yorkshire. Arch
bishop Cranmer was so silent at Lambeth, that
it was thought he would have returned to the
old religion ; but he was preparing a protesta
tion against it, which taking air, he, was exam
ined, and confessing the fact, he was sent to
the 'Tower, with Bishop Latimer, about the 13th
of September. The beginning of next month,
Holgate, archbishop of York, was committed to
the Tower, and Horn, dean of Durham, was
summoned before the council, but he fled be
yond sea.
The storm gathering so thick upon the Re
formers, above eight hundred of them retired
into foreign parts ; among whom were five bish
ops,. viz., Poynet of Winchester, who died in
exile ; Barlow of Bate and Wells, who was su
perintendent of the congregation at Embden ;
Scory of Chichester ; Coverdale of Exon ; and
Bale of Ossory ; five deans, viz , Dr. Cox, Had-
don, Horn, Turner, and Sampson ; four arch
deacons, and above fifty doctors of divinity and .
eminent preachers, among whom were Grindal,
Jewel, Sandys, Reynolds, Pilkington, White
head, Lever, Nowel, Knox, Rough, Wittingham,
Fox, Parkhurst, and others, famous in the reign
of Queen Elizabeth : besides, of noblemen, mer
chants, tradesmen, artificers, and plebeians,
many hundreds. Some fled in disguise, or went '
over as the servants of foreign Protestants, who,
having come hither for shelter in King Edward's
time, were now required to leave the kingdom;!
among these were Peter Martyr and John a
Lasco, with his congregation of Germans. But
to prevent too many of the English embarking
with them, an order of council was sent to all
the ports that none should be suffered to leave
the kingdom without proper passports. The Ro
man Catholic party, out of their abundant zeal
for their religion, outrun the laws, and celebra
ted mass in divers churches before it was re
stored by authority ;^ while the people that fa
voured the Reformation continued their public
* Burnet's Hist. Ref, vol. ni., p. 221, 239.
i Fuller's Worthies, b. iii., p. 198.
} Strype's Life of Cranmer, p. 314,
^ Burnet's Hist. Ref, vol. iii, p. 223.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

69

-devotion with great seriousness and fervency,
as foreseeing what was coming upon them ; but
the rude multitude came into the churches, in
sulted their ministers, and ridiculed their wor
ship. The court not only winked at these things,
but fined Judge Hales (who alone refused to sign
the act which transferred the crown to Jane
Grey) a thousand pounds sterling, because in
his circuit he ordered the justices of Kent to
conform themselves to the laws of King Edward,
not yet,^repealed ; upon which that gentleman
grew melancholy, and drowned himself
The queen was crowned October 1, 1553, by
Gardiner, attended by ten other bishops, all in
their mitres, copes, and crosiers ; and a Parlia
ment w-as summoned to meet the 10th. What
methods were used intlie elections have been
related. On the 31st of October a bill was sent
down to the Commons for repealing King Ed
ward's laws about religion, which -was argued
six days, and at length carried. It repeals in
general all the late statutes relating to religion,
and enacts, "that afterthe 20th of December
next there should he no other form of Divine ser
vice but what had been used in the last year of
-King Henry VIII." Severe punishments were
decreed against such as should interrupt the
iDublic service, as should abuse the holy sacra
ment, or break down altars, crucifixes, or cross
es. It was made felony for any number of per
sons above twelve to assemble together with an
intention to alter the religion established by law,
November 3d, Archbishop Cranmer, the Lord
Guilford, Lady Jane, and two other sons of the
Duke of Northumberland, were brought to their
trials for high treason, in levying war against
the queen, and conspiring to set up another in
her room. They all confessed their indictments,
but Cranmer appealed to his judges how unwil
lingly he had set his, hand to the exclusion of
the queen : these judgments were confirmed by
Parliament ; after which, the queen's intended
marriage with Philip of Spain being discovered,
the Commons sent their speaker and twenty of
their members humbly to entreat her majesty
not to marry a stranger, with which she was so
displeased, that upon the 6th of December she
dissolved the Parliament.
The convocation that sat with the Parliament
w-as equally devoted to the court. Care had
been taken about their elections. In the collec
tion of public acts, there are found about a hun
dred and fifty presentations to livings before the
choice of representatives, so that the lower
house ,of convocation was of a piece with the
upper, from vvhence almost all of the Protestant
bishops were excluded by imprisonment, depri
vation, or otherwise. Bonner presided as the
first bishop of the province of Canterbury,
Harpsfield, his chaplain, preached the sermon on
Acts, XX,, 28, Feed the flock ; and Weston, dean
of Westminster, was chosen prolocutor. On the
20th of October it was proposed to the mem
bers to subscribe to the doctrine of transub
stantiation, which all complied with but the
following six divines, who by their places had a
light to sit in convocation : Philpot, archdea-
¦con of Winchester ; Philips, dean of Rochester ;
Haddon, dean of Exeter; Cheyney, archdeacon
of Hereford ; Aylnier, archdeacon of Stow ; and
Young, chanter of St. David's : these disputed
upon the argument for three days, but the dis

putation was managed according to the fashion
of the times, with reproaches and menaces on
the stronger side, and the prolocutor ended it
with saying, " You have the word, but we have
the sword,"*
This year [1554] began with Wyat's rebel
lion, occasioned by a general dislike to the
queen's marriage with Philip of Spain : it was
a raw, unadvised attempt, and occasioned great
mischiefs to the Protestants, though religion had
no share in the conspiracy, Wyat himself being
a papist : this gentleman got together four thou
sand men, with whom he marched directly to
London ; but coming into Southwark, February
2, he found the bridge so well fortified that he
could not force it without cannon, so he march
ed about, and having crossed the Thames at
Kingston, he came by Chaiing Cross to Ludgate
next morning, in hopes the citizens would have
opened their gates ; but being disappointed, he
yielded himself a prisoner at Temple Bar, and
was afterward executed, as were the Lady Jane
Grey, Lord Guilford her husband, and others,
the Lady Elizabeth herself hardly escaping.
Wyat, upon his trial, accused her, in hopes of
saving Ills life ; upon which she was ordered
into custody; but when Wyat saw he must die,
he acquitted her on the scaffold ; and upon the
queen's marriage this summer she obtained her
pardon. As soon as the nation was a little settled, her
majesty, by virtue of the supremacy, gave in
structions to her bishops to visit the clergy.
The injunctions were drawn up by Gardiner,
and contain an angry recital of all the innova
tions introduced into the Church in the reign of
King Edward ; and a charge to the bishops
" to execute all the ecclesiastical laws that had
been in force in King Henry Vlll.'s reign, but
not to proceed in their courts in the queen's
name. She enjoins them not to enact the oathof
supremacy any more, but to punish heretics and
heresies, and to remove all married clergymen
from their wives ; but for those that would re
nounce their wives, they might put them into
some other cures. + All the ceremonies, holy-

* Bumet's Hist. Ref, vol. ii., p. 267.
Bishop Wafburton, in his notes on Mr. Neal's His
tory (see a supplemental volume of Hs works, 8vo,
1788, p. 455), with great anger, impeaches the truth
of this passage. " This is tp lie," says his lordship,
" under the cover of truth. Can anybody in bis
senses believe that when the only contention be
tween the two parties was who had the word, that the
more powerful would yield it up to their adversaries ?
Without all doubt, some Protestant member, in the
heat of dispute, said, ' We have the word ;' upon
which the prolocutor insultingly answers, ' But we
have the sword,' without thinking any one would
be so foolish as to join the two propositions into
one, and then give it to the prolocutor." In reply
to these unhandsome reflections, it is sufficient to
say, that Mr. Neal spoke on the authority of Bishop
Burnet, whom he truly 'quotes, and whom it would
have been more consistent with candour and the love
of truth for Bishop Warburton to have consulted the
authority before he insinuated his conjectures against
the statement of a fact, and, without authority, point
ed his charge of folly and falsehood ; of which Mr.
Neal, by quoting his author, stands perfectly clear ;
and which, if well founded, must fall, not on him, but
Bishop Burnet, whose remark on the prolocutor's
speech is, that "by it he truly pointed out wherein
the strength of both causes lay." — En.
t "The married clergy were observed to suffer

60

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

days, and fasts used in King Henry's time
¦were to be revived. Those clergymen who
had been ordained by the late service-book
were to be reordained, or have the defects of
their ordination supplied ; that is, the anoiat-
ing, the giving the priesHy vestments, with
other rites of the Roman pontifical. And, last
ly, it was declared that ah people should be
compelled to come to church."* The Archbish
op of York, the Bishops of St. David's, Chester,
and Bristol, were deprived for being married ;
and the Bishops of Lincoln, Gloucester, and
Hereford, were deprived bythe royal pleasure,
as holding their bishoprics by such a patent. It
was very arbitrary to turn out the married bish
ops, while there was a law subsisting to legiti
mate their marriages ; and to deprive the other
bishops without any manner of process, merely
for the royal pleasure. This was acting up to
the height of the supremacy, which, though the
queen believed to be an linlawfiil power, yet she
claimed and used it for the service orthe Ro
mish Church. The vacant bishoprics were fill
ed up the latter end of March, with men after
the queen's heart, to the number of sixteen, in
the room of so many deprived or dead. ,
The new bishops in their visitation, and par
ticularly Bishop Bonner, executed the queen's
injunctions with rigour. The mass was set up
in all places, and the old popish rites and cere
monies revived. The carvers and makers of
statues had a quick trade for roods and other
images that were to be set up again in church
es. The most eminent preachers in London
were under confinement, and all the married
clergy throughout the kingdom were deprived.
Dr. Parker reckons that of sixteen thousand
clergymen, twelve thousand were turned out ;
-which is not probable, for if we compute by the
diocess of Norwich, which is almost an eighth
part of England, and in which there were but
three hundred and thirty-five deprived, the whole
number will fall .short of three thousand.f Some
-were turned out without conviction, upon com
mon fame : some were never cited, and yet
turned out for not appearing. Those that quit
ted their wives, and did penance, were, never
theless, deprived ; which was grounded on the
vow that (as was pretended) they had made.
Such was the deplorable condition of the re
formed this summer, and such the cruelty of
their adversaries.
The queen's second Parliament met April 2d.
The court had taken care of the elections by
large promises of money from Spain. Their,
design was to persuade the Parliament to ap
prove of the Spanish match;} which they'ac-

with most alacrity. They were bearing testimony
to the validity and sanctity of their marriage against
the foul and unchristian aspersions of the Romis.h
persecutors ; the honour of their wives and children
were at stake ; the desire of leaving them an unsul
lied name and a virtuous example, combined with
the sense of religious duty ; and thus the heart deri
ved strength from the very ties which, in otlier cir
cumstances, might have weakened it." — Southey's
Book of the Church, London ed., vol. ii., p. 151. — C.
* Burnet's History of, the Reformation, vol. ii,, p.
291, 274. Collection of Records, num. 15.
t Bumet's Hist. Ref, vol, iii,, p, 226.
X " This," observes Dr. Warner, " is the first in
stance to be met with in the English history of cor
rupting parliaments ; but the precedent has been so
well followed ever since, that if ever this nation

complished, with this proviso, that the queen-
alone should have the government of the king
dom ; after which the houses were presently
dissolved. King Philip arrived in England*
July 20th, and was married to the queen on the
27th, at Winchester, he being then in the twen
ty-seventh year of his age, and the queen in her
thirty-eighth. He brought with him a vast
mass of wealth : twenty-seven chests of bull
ion, every chest being above a yard long ; and
ninety-nine horse-loads and two cartloads of
coined silver and gold.
The Reformers complaining of their usage in-
the late dispute held in convocation, the court
resolved to give them a fresh mortification, by
appointing another at Oxford in presence of
the whole university ; and because Archbishop-
Cranmer, Bishops Ridley and Latimer, were the-
most celebrated divines of the Reformation,,
they were by warrant from the queen removed
from the Tower to Oxford, to manage the dis
pute: The convocation sent their prolocutor
and several of their members, who arriving on.-
the 13th of April, being Friday, sent for the
bishops on Saturday, and appointed them Mon
day, Tuesday, and Wednesday, every one his
day, to defend their doctrine. The questions
were upon transubstantiation and the propiti
atory sacrifice of the mass. The particulars of
the dispute are in Mr. Fox's Book of Martyrs.
The bishops behaved with great modesty and'
presence of mind ; but their adversaries insult
ed and triumphed in the most barbarous manner.
Bishop Ridley writes, "that there were per
petual shoutings, tauntings, reproaches, noise,
and confusion." Cranmer and old Latimer
were hissed and laughed at ;t and Ridley was
borne down with noise and clamour : " In all
my life," says he, "I never saw anything car
ried more vainly and tumultuously ; I could not
have thought that there could have been found
any Englishman honoured with degrees in learn
ing, that could allow of such thrasonical osten
tations, more fit for the stage than the schools."
On the 28th of April they were summoned again.
to St. Mary's, and required by Weston the pro
locutor to subscribe, as having been vanquished-
in disputation ; but they all refusing, were de
clared obstinate heretics, and no longer mem
bers of the Catholic Church.
It was designed to expose the Reformers by
another disputation at Cambridge ; but the pris
oners in London hearing of it, pubhshed a pa
per, declaring, " that they would not dispute-
but in writing, except it were before the queen
and council, or before either house of Parlia-
ment, because of the misreports and unfair

should lose its liberties and be enslaved and ruined,
it will be by means of Parliament corrupted with.
bribes and places." — Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii., p.
341.— Ed.
* The view of Philip, in this match, was undoubted
ly to make himself master of the kingdom. When af
terward Mary was supposed to be pregnant, he applied'
to Parhament to be appointed regent during the mi
nority of the child, and offered security toresign the
government on its coming of age. The motion was
warmly debated in the House of Peers, and nearly
carried; when the Lord Paget stood up and said,
" Pray, who shall sue the king'sbond '!" ¦ This lacon
ic speech had its intended effect, and the debate was
soon concluded in the negative. — Granger's Biogr^
History of England, vol. i., p. 161, pote, 8vo edition.,
— Ed. t Strype's Life of Cranmer, p. 338.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

61

¦usage they had everywhere met with." At the
same time they printed a summary of their
faith, for which they were ready to offer up
their lives to the halter or the fire, as God
should appoint.*
And here they declared " that they believed
the Scriptures to be the true Word of God, and
the judge of all controversies in matters of re-
digion ; and that the Church is to be obeyed as
long as she followed this word.
"That they adhered to the AposUes' Creed,
and those creeds set out by the Councils of
Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon ;
and by the first and fourth Councils of Toledo ;
and the symbols of Athanasius, Irenseus, Ter-
tuUian, and Damasus.
" Tliey believed justification by faith alone ;
¦which faith was not only an opinion, but a cer
tain persuasion wrought by the Holy Ghost,
which did illuminate the mind, and supple the
heart to submit itself unfeignedly to God,
" They acknowledged the necessity of an in
herent righteousness, but that justification and
pardon of sins came only by Christ's righteous
ness imputed to them.
" They affirmed that the worship of God
ought to be performed in a tongue understood
-by the people.
" That Christ only, and not the saints, was
to be prayed to.
" That, immediately after death, departed
souls pass either into the state of the blessed
¦or of the damned, without any purgatory be-
¦tween. " That baptism and the Lord's Supper are
the sacraments of Christ, which ought to be
administered according to his institutions ; and
therefore, they condemned the denying the cup
to the people, transubstantiation, the adoration
or sacrifice of the mass ; and asserted the law
fulness of marriage to aU ranks and orders of
men." These truths they declared themselves ready
to defend, as before ; and, in conclusion, they
¦charged all people to enter into no rebellion
against the queen, but to obey her in all points,
except where her commands are contrary to the
law of God. This put an end to aU farther tri
umphs of the popish party for the present, and
was a noble testimony to the chief and distin
guishing doctrines of the Protestant faith. But
since the Reformers were not to be run down
by noise and clamour, therefore their steadfast
ness must undergo the fiery trial.
The queen's third Parliament met November
11, 1554. In the writs of summons the title of
^Supreme Head of the Church was omitted,
though it was still by law vested in the crown.
The money brought from Spain had procured a
House of Commons devoted to the court. The
first bill passed in the house was the repeal of
Cardinal Pole's attainder. It had the royal as
sent November 22d, and the cardinal himself
arrived in England two days after in quality of
the pope's legate, with a commission to receive
the kingdom of England into the bosom of the
Catholic Church, under the pope as their su
preme pastor. On the 27th, he made a speech
in Parliament, inviting them to a reconciliation
with the apostolic see. Two days- after, a com
mittee of Lords and Commons was appointed to

* Hist. Ref, vol. ii., p. 285.

draw up a supplication to the king and queen,
to intercede with the legate for a reconciliation,
with a promise to repeal all acts made against
the pope's authority.* This being presented by
both houses on their knees to the king and
queen, they made intercession with the cardi
nal, who thereupon made a long speech in the
house, at the close of which he enjoined them
for penance to repeal the laws above mention
ed, and so, in the pope's name, he granted them
a full absolution, which they received on their
knees, and then absolved the realm from all
censures. The Act of Repeal was not ready till the be
ginning of January, when it passed both houses
and received the royal assent. It enumerates
and reverses all acts since the 20th of Henry
yill. against the Holy See; but then it con
tains the following restrictions, which they pray,
through the cardinal's intercession, may be es
tablished by the pope's authority :
1. " That all bishoprics, cathedrals, or col
leges, now established, may be confirmed for
ever. 2. That marriages within such degrees
as are not contrary to the law of God, may be
confirmed, and their issue legitimated. 3. That
institutions into benefices may be confirmed.
4. That all judicial processes may be confirmed.
5, That aU the settlements of the lands of any
bishoprics, monasteries, or other religious hous
es, may continue as they were, without any
trouble from the ecclesiastical courts,"
The cardinal admitted of these requests, hut
ended with a heavy denunciation of the judg
ments of God upon those who had the goods of
the Church in their hands, and did not restore
them. And to make the clergy more easy, the
statutes of Mortmain were repealed for twenty
years to come. But, after all, the pope refiised
to confirm the restrictions, alleging that the le
gate had exceeded his powers ; so that the pos
sessors of Church lands had but a precarious
title to their estates under this reign ; for, even
before the reconciliation was fully concluded,
the pope published a bull, by which he excom
municates all those persons who were in pos
session of the goods of the Church or monaste
ries, and did not restore them.t This alarmed
the superstitious queen, who, apprehending her
self near her time of child-birth, sent for her min
isters of state, and surrendered up all the lands
of the Church that remained in the crown, lo be
disposed of as the pope or his legate should
think fit. But when a proposal of this kind was
made to the Commons in Parliament, some of
them boldly laid their hands upon their swords,
and said " they well knew how to defend their
own properties." But the queen went on with
acts of devotion to the Church ; she repaired
several old monasteries, and erected new ones ;
she ordered a strict inquiry to be made after
those who had pillaged the churches and monas
teries, and had been employed in the visitations
of Henry VIII, and Edward VI. She command
ed Bishop Bonner to rase out of the public rec-
* Here popery developed its genuine character,
and clearly demonstrated that it could not exist with
freedom of thought and the diffusion of popular
knowledge. 'The Church of Rome has never pos
sessed power in any nation, without calling the peo
ple to make a retrograde march. — C.
t Burnet's Hist. Ref, vol. u., p. 309.

62

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

ords all that had been done against the monks ;
and particularly the accounts of the visitations
of monasteries ; which has rendered the eccle
siastical history of this time defective.
The next act brought into the house was for
reviving the statutes of Richard II,' and Henry
IV. and V. for burning heretics ; which passed
both houses in six days, to the unspeakable joy
of the popish clergy. The houses having been
informed of some heretical preachers, who had
prayed in their conventicles that God would
turn the queen's heart from idolatry to the true
faith, or else shorten her days, they passed an
act " that all that prayed after this manner
should he adjudged traitors." After which, on
the 16th of January, 1555, the Parliament was
dissolved. The kingdom being now reconciled to the
Church of Rome, and the penal laws against
heretics revived, a council was held about the
manner of dealing with the reformed. If is
said that Cardinal Pole was for the gentler
methods of instruction and persuasion, which
is somewhat doubtful ;* but Gardiner was cer
tainly for rigour, imagining that a few examples
of severity upon the heads of the party would
terrify the rest into a compliance. The queen
¦was of his mind, and commanded Gardiner, by
a commission to himself and some other bishops,
to make the experiment. He began with Mr.
Rogers,t Mr. Cardmaker,- and Bishop Hooper,
¦who had been kept in prison eighteen months
without law. These, upon examination, were

* Strype's Memoirs of Cranmer, p, 317 ; and Life
of Whitgift, p. 6. Mr. Strype's words in the former
place are as follows : " In these instructions (given
to the clergy) there are several strictures that make
it appear Pole was not so gentle towards the here
tics as was reported, but rather the contrary, and
that he went hand in hand with the bloody bishops
of these days ; for it is plain that he put the bishops
upon proceeding with them (the Protestants) accord
ing to the sanguinary laws lately revived, and put in
full force and virtue. What an invention was that of
his, a kind of inquisition by him set up, wherein the
names of all such were to be written, that in every
place and parish in England were reconciled ; and
so, whosoever were not found in those books, might
be known to be no friend to the pope, and so to be
proceeded against. And, indeed, after Pole's crafty
and zealous management of this reconciliation (with
Rome), all that good opinion that men had before. of
him vanished, and they found themselves much rnis-
taken in him, insomuch that people spoke against
him as bad as of the pope himself, or the worst of his
cardinals. Indeed, he had frequent conferences with
the Protestants about justification by faith alone,
&c., and would often wish the true doctrine might
prevail ; but now the mask was taken off, and he
showed himself what he was."
In the place answering to the latter reference,
Strype says, "He wholly Italianized, and returned
into England endued with a nature foreign and fierce,
and was the very butcher and scourge of the Enghsh
Church." — Author's Review, p. 896.
Dr. Warner, whose character of Cardinal Pole is
a panegyric, yet says " that he was very inconsistent
in one particular ; which was, that at the same time
he was exclaiming against the persecution of the re
formed, and would not himself take any part in that
slaughter, he was giving commissions to others to
proceed in it, and returned a certificate into the Court
of Chancery of several who had been convicted of
heresy before the commissaries of his appointing."
— Ecclesiastical History, vol. U., p. 402.
t A prebend of St, Paul's. He was a very learned
man and useful oreacher.- — C.

asked whether they would abjure their heretical
opinions about the sacrament, and submit to the
Church as then established ; which they refu
sing, were declared obstinate heretics, and de
livered over to the secular power. Mr, Rogers
was burned in Smithfield, February 4, a pardon
being offered him at the stake, which he refused
though he had a wife* and ten small children
unprovided for. Bishop Hooper was burned at
Gloucester, February 9. He was not suffered
to speak to the people ; and was used so barbar
ously in the fife, that liis legs and thighs wer&
roasted, and one of his hands dropped off before
he expired : his last words were, " Lord Jesus
receive my spirit. "t While he was in prison he-
wrote several excellent letters, full of devoHon.
and piety, to the foreign divines.t In one to
BulHnger, dated December 11, 1554, about two;
months before his martyrdom, are these expres
sions ; "With us the wound which antichrist
had received is healed, and he is declared head
of the Church, who is not a member of it. We
are still in the utmost peril, as we have been for
a year and a half We are kept asunder in pris
on, and treated with all kinds of inhumanity and
scorn. They threaten us every day with death,
which we do not value. We resolutely despise-
fire and sword for the cause of Christ^ 'We
know in whom we have believed, and are sure
we have committed our souls to him by well
doing. In the mean time, help us with your
prayers, that he that has begun the good work
inns would perform it to the end. We are the
Lord's, let him do with us as seemeth good in
his sight."
About the same time, Mr. Saunders, another
minister, was burned at Coventry. ¦When he
came to the stake he said, " Welcoine the cross
of Christ; welcome everlasting life." Dr. Tay
lor, parson of Hadley, suffered next : Gardiner
used him very roughly, and, after condemning
and degrading him, sent him to his own parson
age to be burned, which he underwent with
great courage, February 9, though he had bar
barous usage in the fire, his brains being beat
out with one of the halberts,^
Gardiner, seeing himself disappointed, med
dled no farther, but committed the prosecution
of the bloody work to Bonner, bishop of London.
This clergyman behaved more like a cannibal

* He requested to see his wife before his execu
tion, but this favour was brutally denied by Gardiner.
—Fox. vol. in., p. 98.— C.
t When engaged in prayer at the stake, a box was
laid before him, containing his pardon if he would re
cant ; but he exclaimed, " If you love my soul, away
with it."— C.
X Hist. Ref, vol. in., in Records, numb. 38.
5 Fox tells us the jailer had strict charge not ta
permit any one to speak to him. His wife was, con
sequently, refused admission ; but the keeper, him
self probably a father, took the babe from her arms
and carried it to Saunders. He was delighted with
the sight of his child, exclaiming, " What man, fear
ing God, would not lose this life present, rather than,
by prolonging it here, he should judge this boy to be
a bastard, his wife a whore, and himself a whore
monger? Yea, if there w«re no other cause for
which a man of my estate should lose his life, yet
who would not give it to avouch this child to be \e-
gitimate'. and his marriage to be lawful and holy!
He likewise was offered a pardon at the stake, but
steadfastly refused it, and died exclaiming, "Welcome
the cross of Christ ; welcome everlasting life."— C.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

63

than a Christian ; he condemned without mercy
all that came before him, ordering them to be
kept in the most cruel durance till they were
delivered over to the civil magistrate. He tore
off the beard of Tomkins, a weaver in Shore-
ditch, and held his hand in the flame of a candle
till the sinews and veins shrunk and burst, and
the blood spirted out in Harpsfield's face, who
was standing by. He put others in dungeons,
and in the stocks, and fed them with bread and
¦water ; and when they were brought before him,
insulted over their misery in a most brutish
manner. In the month of March were burned Bishop
Ferrar, at St. David's ; Mr. Lawrence, a priest,
at Colchester ; Mr. Tomkins, a weaver, in Smith-
field ; Mr. Hunter, an apprentice of nineteen
years of age, at Brentwood ; Mr. Causton and
Mr. Higden, gentlemen of good estates, in Es
sex ; Mr ¦William Pigot, at Braintree ; Mr. Ste
phen Knight, at Maiden ; Mr. Rawlings White,
a poor fisherman, at Cardiffe. In the next
month, Mr. March, a priest, at Chester, and one
Flower, a young man, in St. Margaret's church
yard, ¦Westminster.
These burnings were disliked by the nation,
which began to be astonished at the courage
and constancy of the martyrs, and to be start
led at the unrelenting severity of the bishops,
-who, being reproached with their cruelties, threw
the odium upon the king and queen. At the
same time, a petition was printed by the exiles
beyond sea, and addressed to the queen, put
ting her in mind "that the Turks tolerated
Christians, and Christians in the most places
tolerated Jews ; that no papist had been put
to death for religion in King Edward's time.
And then they beseech the nobility and common
people to intercede with her majesty to put a
stop to this issue of blood, and at least grant her
subjects the same liberty she allowed strangers,
of transporting themselves into foreign parts."
But it had no effect. King Philip, being inform
ed of the artifices of the bishops, caused his
confessor, Alphonsus, to preach against these
severities, which he did in the face of the whole
court: Bonner himself pretended to be sick of
them, but after some little recess he went on.
And though Philip pretended to be for milder
measures, yet on the 24th of May he and the
queen signed a letter to Bonner, to quicken him
to his pastoral duty;* whereupon he redoubled
his fury, and in the month of June condemned
nine Protestants at once to the stake in Essex,
and the council wrote to the sheriffs to gather
the gentry together to countenance the burning
with their presence.
In the month of July, Mr. John Bradford, late
prebendary of St. Paul's, and a most celebrated
preacher in King Edward's days, suffered mar
tyrdom. He was a most pious Christian, and is
said to have done as much service to the Refor
mation by his letters from prison as by his
preaching in the pulpit. Endeavours were used
to turn him, but to no purpose. He was brought
to the stake with one John Lease, an apprentice
of nineteen years old ; he kissed the stake and
the fagots, but being forbid to speak to the peo
ple, he only prayed with his fellow-sufferer, and
quietly submitted to the fire. His last words
* Rapm, p. 184, 188.

were, " Strait is the gate and nariow is the way
that leadeth unto eternal life, and few there be
that find it." From Smithfield the persecution
spread all over the country ; in the months of
June and July eight men and one woman were
burned in several parts of Kent ; and in the
months of .-Vugust and September, twenty-five
more in Suffolk, Essex, and Surrey.
But the greatest sacrifice to popish cruelty was
yet to come, for on the 16th of. October the
Bishops Ridley and Latimer were burned at ono
stake, in Oxford, Latimer died presently, but-
Ridley was a long time in exquisite torments,,
his lower parts being burned before the fire
reached his body. His last words to his fellow-
sufferer were, " Be of good heart, brother, for
God will either assuage the fury of the flame op
enable us to abide it," Latimer replied, " Be
of good comfort, for we shall this day light such
a candle in England as, I trust, by God's grace,
shall never be put out." The very same day-
Gardiner, their great persecutor, was struck
with the illness of which he died ; it was a sup
pression of urine, which held him in great ago
nies till the 12th of November, when he expired.
He would not sit down to dinner till he had re
ceived the news from Oxford of the burning of
the two bishops, which was not till four of the
clock in the afternoon, and while he was at din
ner he was seized with the distemper which put
an end to his life.* When Bishop Day spoke to
him of justification through the blood of Christ,
he said, " If you open that gap to the people, then
farewell aU again." He confessed he had sin
ned with Peter, but had not repented with him.
On the 18th of December, Mr. Archdeacon
Philpott was burned, and behaved at the stake
with the courage and resolution of the primitive^
martyrs. On the 21st of March following. Archbishop

* This is said on the authority of Fox. after whom
most historians repeat it. Dr. Warner, however,
gives no credit to the story. He observes " that the
bishops were burned on the 16th of October ; on the
21st the Parliament was opened by a speech from the
lord-chancellor, and on the 23d he appeared again in
the House of Lords ; and had he been seized with a
retention of urine on the 16th, he would scarcely have
been able to come abroad on those days; neither
would he probably have held out till the li!th of No
vember following, which was the day he died. And
Bishop Godwin, who takes no notice of this report,
says he died of a dropsy." — Warner's Ecclesiastical
History, vol. u., p. 382.— En.
t It is not pleasing to dwell on the failings of good
men, especially of those to whose zeal and integrity
the cause of religion and truth is, in a great degree,
indebted ; yet the impartiahty of an historian, and
the instruction and warning of future times, requira
some notice of them. Mr. Neal, in tliis -view, would
not have done amiss, had he uilbrmed his readers
that this eminent Protestant divine and martyr in
curred the blame of his friends, and discovered a
very illiberal and intolerant spirit, by a highly insult
ing and passionate behaviour towards some of liis
fellow-prisoners, who denied the doctrine of the Trin
ity and of the deity of Christ. It gave, even in those
times, so much offence, that he judged it proper to
attempt a -vindication of himself in a httle tract, en
titled, "An apology of John Philpot, written for spit
ting upon an Arian, with an invective against the
Arians, the verie natural children of Antichrist ; with
an admonition to all that be faithful in Christ to be
ware of them, and of other late sprung heyesie'*, aa
of the most enemies of the Gospell." — Fd.

64

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

¦Cranmer suffered. He had been degraded by
the Bishops Thirlby and Bonner on February
14th. Bonner insulted him in an indecent
manner, but Thirlby melted into tears. After
this, by much persuasion, and in hopes of hfe,
he set his hand to a paper, in which he renoun-
'Ced the errors of Luther and Zuinglius, and ac
knowledged his belief of the corporeal presence,
the pope's supremacy, purgatory, and invoca
tion of saints, &c, I'his was quickly published
to the world, with great triumph among the pa
pists, and grief to the Reformers, But the un
merciful queen was still resolved to have- his
life, and accordingly sent down a writ for his
execution : she could never forgive the share
he-had in her mother's divorce, and- in driving
the pope's authority out of England. Cranmer,
suspecting the design, prepared a true confes
sion of his faith, and carried it in his bosom to
St, Mary's Church on the day of his martyrdom,
•where he was raised on an eminence, that he
might be seen by the people and hear his own
funeral sermon. Never was a more awful and
melancholy spectacle ; an archbishop, once the
second man in the kingdom, now clothed in
rags, and a gazing-stock to the world I Cole,
the preacher, magnified his conversion as the
immediate hand of God, and assured him of a
great many masses to be said for his soul. Af
ter sermon he desired Cranmer to declare his
own faith, which he did with tears, declaring
his belief in the Holy Scriptures and the Apos
tles' Creed, and then came to that which he
said troubled his conscience more than anything
he had done in his life, and that was his sub
scribing the above-mentioned paper, out of fear
ot death and love of life ; and, therefore, when
he came to the fire, he was resolved that hand
that signed it should burn first. The assembly
¦was all in confusion at this disappointment ;
and the broken-hearted archbishop, shedding
abundance of tears, was led immediately to the
stake, and, being tied to it, he stretched out his
right hand to the flame, never moving it, but
once to wipe his face, till it dropped off. He
often cried out, "That unworthy hand !"* which
was consumed before the fire reached his body.
His last words were, " Lord Jesus, receive my
spirit." He died in the sixty-seventh year of
his age and twenty-third of his' archbishopric,
and was succeeded by Cardinal Pole.

* " The language of Cranmer," remarks one of
the most philosophical and candid of historians,
" speaks his sincerity, and demonstrates that the
lovo of truth still prevailed in his inmost heart. It
gushed forth at the sight of death, full of healing
power, which engendered a purifying and ennobling
penitence, and restored the mind to its own esteem
-after a departure fi-om the onward path of sincerity.
Courage survived a public, avowal of dishonour, the
hardest test to which that virtue can be exposed;
and if he once fatally failed in fortitude, he in his last
moments atoned for his failure by a magnanimity
equal to his transgression. Let those who require
unbending virtue in the most tempestuous times
condemn the amiable and faulty primate ; others,
who are not so certain of their own steadiness, will
consider his fate as, perhaps, the most memorable
example in history of a soul which, though debased,
is not depraved, by an act of weakness, and preserv
ed a heroic courage after the forfeiture of honour, its
natural spur, and, in general, its inseparable com
panion."— Jfacfa'nfosA's England, vol. h., p. 327, Lon
don edition. — C.

It is not within the compass of my design to
write a martyrology of these times, nor to fol-
low Bishop Bonner and his brethren through
the rivers of Protestant bloud, which they spilt.
The whole year 1556 was one continued perse
cution, in which popery triumphed in all its
false and bloody colours. Bonner, not content
to burn heretics singly, sent them by companies
to the flames. Such as were suspected of her
esy were examined upon the articles of the cor
poreal presence of Christ in the sacrament, au
ricular confession, and the mass ; and if they
did not make satisfactory answers, they were
without any farther proofs, condemned to the
fire. Women were not spared, nor infants in
the womb. In the Isle of Guernsey, a woman
with child being ordered to the fire, was deliv
ered in the flames, and the infant being taken
from her, was ordered by the magistrates to be
thrown back into the fire. At length the butch
erly work growing too much for the hands that
were employed in it, the queen erected an ex
traordinary tribunal for trying of heresy, like
the Spanish Inquisition, consisting of thirty-one
commissioners, most of them laymen ; and in
the month of June, 1555, she issued out a proc
lamation rthat such as received heretical books
should be immediately put to death by martial
law. She forbid prayers to be njade for the
sufferers, or even to say God bless them : so
far did her fiery zeal transport her.* Upon the
whole, the number of them that suffered death
for the Reformed religion in this reign were no
less than two hundred and seventy-seven per-
sons,t of -whom were five bishops, twenty-one
clergymen, eight gentlemen, eighty-four trades
men, one hundred husbandmen, labourers, and
Servants, fifty-five women, and four children.
Besides these, there were fifty-four more under
prosecution, seven of whom were whipped, and
sixteen perished in prison : the rest, who were
making themselves ready for the fire, were de-
hvered by the merciful interposure of Divine
Providence in the queen's death. ^
In a book corrected, if not written, by Lord
Burleigh in Queen Elizabeth's time, entitled the
Executions for Treason, it is said four hundred
persons suffered publicly in Queen Mary's reign,
besides those who were secretly murdered in
prison ; of these, twenty were bishops and dig
nified clergymen ; sixty were women, of whom
some were big with child ; and one was deliv
ered of a child in the fire, which was burned;
and above forty men-children. t I might add,
these merciless papists carried their fury against
the reformed beyond the grave ; for they caused
the bones of Fagius and Bucer to be dug out of
their graves, and having ridiculously cited them
by their commissioners to appear, and give an ac
count of their faith, they caused them to be burn
ed for nonappearance. Is it possible, after such

* Clarke's Martyr., p. 506.
t Bishop Maddox observes, that Bishop Bumet
reckons the nuiriber of sufferers to be two hundred
and eighty-four. But Mr. Strype has presen'ed (Me
morials, vol. iii., p. 291, Appendix) an exact catalogue '
of the numbers, the places, and the times of execu
tion. The general sums are as follows :
("1555— 7.n Total, two hundred, and eighty-
,„ „J 1556—89 I eight, besides those that dyed
^"""¦^ 1557—88 f of famyne in sondry prisons.
1 1558—40 j —Vindication, p. 313.— Ed.
X Hist Ref, vol. hi., p. 264.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

65

:a relation of things, for any Protestant to be in
love with high commissions, with oaths ex officio,
and laws to deprive men of their lives, liberties,
and estates, for matters of mere conscience!
And yet these very Reformers, when the power
returned into their hands, were too much incli
ned to these engines of cruelty.
The controversy about predestination* and
free-will.appeared first among the Reformers at
this time. Some that were in the King's Bench
prison for the profession of the Gospel, denied
the doctrines of absolute predestination and ori
ginal sin. They were men of strict and holy
Jives, but warm for their opinions, and unquiet
in their behaviour. Mr. Bradford had frequent
¦conferences with them, and gained over some
to his own persuasion. The names of their
teachers were, Harry Hart, -Trew, and Abing
don ; they ran their notions as high as the mod
ern Arminians, or as Pelagius himself, despising
learning, and utterly rejecting the authorities of
the fathers, Bradford was apprehensive that
they would do a great deal of mischief in the
Church, and therefore, in concert with Bishop
Ferrar, Taylor, and Philpot, he wrote to Cran
mer, Ridley, and Latimer, at Oxford, to take
some cognizance of the matter, and consult to-
.geilier about remedyingit. Upon this occasion
Ridley wrote back a letter of God's election and
predestination, and Bradford wrote another upon
-the same subject. But the free-willers treated
him rudely: "They told him he was a great
slander to the Word of God in respect of his doc
trine, because he believed and affirmed the sal
vation of God's people to be so certain, that they
should assuredly enjoy the same. 'They said
it hanged partly upon our perseverance to the
end; but Bradford said it hanged upon God's
grace in' Christ, and not upon our perseverance
in any point, otherwise grace was no grace."
When this holy martyr saw he could not con
vince them, he desired they might pray one for
¦ another. "I love you," says he, " mydear hearts,
though you have taken it otherwise without
cause : I am going before you to my God and
your God ; to my Father and your Father ; to
my Christ and your Christ ; to my home and
.your home."
Mr. Careless, another eminent martyr, had
¦much conference with these men in the King's
Bench prison, of whose contentiousness he com
plained in a letter to Philpot. In answer to
which Philpot writes, " that he was sorry to hear
•of the contentions that these schismatics raised,
but that he should not cease to do his endeav
ours in defence of the truth against these arro-
.gant, self-willed, and blinded scatterers; that
these sects were necessary for the trial of our
faith." He advised Mr. Careless to be modest
and humble, that others, seeing his grave con-
¦versation among those contentious babblers,
might glorify God in the truth. He then be
seeches the brethern in the bowels of Christ to
keep the bond of peace, and not to let any root
of bitterness spring up among them.
But this contention could not be laid asleep
for some time, notwithstanding their common
¦sufferings for the cause of religion. They wrote
one against another in prison, and dispersed
their writings abroad in the world. Mr. Care
less wrote a confession of his faith, one article

* Cranmer's Mem., p. 351-353.
Vol. I.— I

Appendix, p. 83.

of which was for predestination, and against
free-will. This confession ho sent to the Prot
estant prisoners in Newgate, whereunto they
generally subscribed, and particularly twelve that
were under sentence of condemnation to be
burned. Hart, having got a copy of Careless's
confession, wrote his own in opposition to it
on the back-side; and would have persuaded
the prisoners in Newgate to subscribe it, but
could not prevail, I do not find any of these
free-willers at the stake (says my author), or if
any of them suffered, they made no mention of
their distinguishing opinions when they came to
die. But these unhappy divisions among men
that were under the cross gave great advantage
to the papists, who took occasion from hence to
scoff at tlie professors of the Gospel, as disagree
ing among themselves. They blazed abroad
their infirmities, and said they were suffering for
they knew not what. Dr. Martin, a great papist,
exposed their weaknesses : but when Martin
came to visit the prisoners. Careless took the
opportunity to protest Openly against Hart's
doctrines, saying " he had deceived many sim
ple souls with his Pelagian opinions."
Besides these free-willers, it seems there were
some few in prison for the Gospel that were Ari
ans, and disbelieved the divinity of Jesus Christ.
Two of them lay in the King's Bench, and rais
ed such unseemly and quarrelsome disputes,
that the marshal was forced to separate the prise
oners from one another ; and in the year 1556
the noise of their contentions reached the ears
of the council, who sent Dr. Martin to the King's
Bench to examine into the affair.*
I mention these disputes to show the frailty
and corruption of human nature even under
the cross, and to point the reader to the first be
ginnings of those debates which afterward oc
casioned unspeakable mischiefs to the Church ;
for though .the Pelagian doctrine was espoused
but by a very few of the English Reformers, and
was buried in that prison where it began for al
most fifty years, it revived in the latter end of
Queen Ehzabeth, under the name of Arminian-
ism, and within the compass of a few years sup
planted the received doctrine of the Reformation.
Many of the clergy that were zealous pro
fessors of the Gospel under King Edward VI.,
through fear of death recanted and subscribed ;
some out of weakness, who, as soon as they
were out of danger, revoked their subscriptions,
and openly confessed their fall ; of this sort
were Scory and Barlow, bishops, the famous
Mr. Jewel, and others. Among the common
people, some went to mass to preserve their
lives, and yet frequented the assemblies of the
Gospellers, holding it not unlawful to be pres
ent with their bodies at the service of the mass
as long as their spirits did not consent.! Brad
ford and others wrote with great warmth against
these temporizers, and advised their brethren
not to trust or consort with them. They also
published a treatise upon this argument, enti
tled the Mischief and Hurt of the Mass; and
recommended the reading it to all that had de
filed themselves with that idolatrous service.
But though many complied with the times,
and some concealed themselves in friends'
houses, shifting from one place to another, oth-

* Strype's Life of Cranmer, p. 352.
t Strype's Life of Cranmer, p. 362, 363.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS,

ers resolved, with the hazard of their lives, to
join together and worship God according to the
service-book of King Edward. There were
several of these congregations up and down the
country, which met together in the night, and
in secret places, to cover themselves from the
notice of their persecutors. Great numbers in
Suffolk and Essex constantly frequented the
private assemblies of the Gospellers, and came
not at all to the pubhc service ; but the most
considerable congregation was in and about
London, It was formed soon after Queen
Mary's accession, and consisted of above two
hundred members. They had divers preachers,
as Mr, Scambler, afterward Bishop of Peter
borough ; Mr. Fowler ; Mr. Rough, a Scotsman,
who was burned ; Mr. Bernher, and Mr Ben-
tham, -who survived the persecution, and, in the
beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, was made
Bishop of Litchfield and Coventry ; Mr. Cuth-
bert Simpson was deacon of the church, and
kept a book with names of all that belonged to
it : they met sometimes about Aldgate, some-
limes in Blackfriars, sometimes in Thames-
street, and sometimes on board of ships, when
they had a master, for their purpose : sometimes
they assembled in the villages about London, to
cover themselves from the bishops' officers and
spies ; and especially at Islington ; but here, by
^the treachery of a false brother, the congrega
tion was at length discovered and broke up :
Mr. Rough their minister, and Mr. Simpson their
deacon, vv-ere apprehended and burned, with
many others. Indeed, the whole church -was
in the utmost danger ; for whereas Simpson
the deacon used to carry the book wherein the
names of the congregation were contained to
their private assemblies, he happened that day,
through the good providence of God, to leave it
¦with Mrs. Rough, the minister's wife. When
he was in the Tower the recorder of London
examined him strictly, and because he would
neither discover the book nor the names, he was
put upon the rack three times in one day.* He
¦was then sent to Bonner, who said to the spec
tators, "You see what a personable man this
is ; and for his patience, if he was not a here
tic, I should much commend him, for he has
been thrice racked in one day, and in my house
has endured some sorrow, and yet I never saw
his patience moved." But notwithstanding this,
Bonner condemned him, and ordered him first
into the stocks in his Coal-house, and from
thence to Smithfield, where, with Mr. Fox and
Davenish, two others of the church taken at
Ishngton, he eiided his life in the flames.
Many escaped the fury of the persecution by
withdrawing from the storm and flying into for
eign countries. Some went into France and
Flanders, some to Geneva, and others into those
parts of Germany and Switzerland where the
Reformation had taken place ; as Basil, Frank
fort, Embden, Strasburgh, Doesburgh, Arrow,
and Zurich, where the magistrates received
them with great humanity, and allowed them
places for public worship. But the uncharitable-
ness of the Lutherans on this occasion was
very remarkable : they hated the exiles because
they were Sacramentarians, and when any Eng
lish came among them for shelter, they expelled

them their cities ; so that they found little hos
pitality in Saxony and other places of Germany
where Lutheranism was professed. Philip Me-
lancthon interceded with the Senate on their
behalf, but the clergy were so zealous for their
consubstantiation.that they irritated the magis
trates everywhere against them. The number
of the refugees is computed at above eight hun
dred ; the most considerable of whom have been
mentioned, as the Bishops of Winchester, Bath,
and Wells, Chichester, Exeter, and Ossory ;
the Deans of Christ Church, Exeter, Durham-,.
Wells, and Chichester ; the Archdeacons of
Canterbury, Stowe, and Lincoln ; with a great
many other very learned divines.* The laity
of distinction were, the Duchess of Suffolk with
her husband. Sir 'Ifhomas, Wroth, Sir Richard:
Morrison, Sir Anthony Cook, Sir John Cheeke,,
and others.
The exiles were most numerous at Frankfort,.
where that contest and division began which
gave ris? to the Puritans, and to that separation.
from the Church of England which continues to
this day. It will, therefore, be necessary to
trace it from its original. On the 27th of June,
1554, Mr. Whittingham, Williams, Sutton, and
Wood, with their families and friends, came to
settle at the city of Frankfort ; and, upon appli
cation to the magistrates, were adinitted to ai
partnership in the French Church for a place of
worship, the two congregations being to meet at
different hours, as- they should agree among-
themselves, but with this proviso, that before
they entered they_should subscribe the French
confession of faith, and not quarrel about cere
monies, to which the English agreed; and af
ter consultation among themselves, they con
cluded, by universal consent of all present, not
to answer aloud after the minister, nor to use
the htany and surplice, but that the public ser
vice should begin with a general, confession of
sins, then the people to sing a psalm in metre,,
in. a plain tune; after which, the minister to-
pray for the assistance of God's Holy Spirit, and
so proceed to the sermon ; after sermon, a gen
eral prayer for all estates, and particularly fof
England, at the end of which was joined the
Lord's Prayer, and a rehearsal of the articles of
belief; then the people were to sing another
psalm, and the minister to dismiss them with a
blessing. They took possession of their church,
July 29th, 1554, and having chosen a minister
and deacons to serve for the present, they sent
to their brethren that were dispersed to invite
them to come to Frankfort, where they might
hear God's Word truly preached, the sacraments
rightly ministered, and Scripture discipline used,
which in their own country could not be ob
tained. The more learned clergymen; and some young
er divines, settled at Strasburgh, Zuriqh, and
Basil, for the benefit of the libraries of those pla
ces, and of the learned conversation of the pro
fessors, as well as in hopes of some littie em
ployment in the way of printing.! The congre
gation at Frankfort sent letters to these places
on the 2d of August, 1554, beseeching the Eng
lish divines to send some of their number, whom
they might choose, to take the oversight of
them. In their letter they commend their neff

Clarke's Martyr., p. 497.

* Strype's Life of Cranmer, p. 354, (Sec.
t Hist, of the Troubles of Franldbrt, printed 1575.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

67

settlement, as nearer the policy and order of
Scripture than the service-book of King Ed
ward. The Strasburgh divines demurring upon
the affair, the congregation at Frankfort sent
for Mr, Knox from Geneva, Mr, Haddon from
Strasburgh, and Mr, Lever from Zurich, whom
they elected for their ministers. At length the
students at Zurich sent them word that, unless
they might be assured that they would use the
same order of service concerning religion as
was set forth by King Edward, they would not
come to them, for they were fully determined
to admit and use no other. To this the Frank
fort congregation replied, that they would use
the service-book as far as God's Word com
manded it, but as for the unprofitable ceremo
nies, though some of them were tolerable, yet,
being in astrange country, they could not be
suffered to use them ; and, indeed, they thought
it better that they Should never be practised.
" If any," say they, " think that the not using
the book in all points should weaken our godly
fathers' and brethren's hands, or be a disgrace
to the worthy laws of King Edward, let them
consider that they themselves have, upon con
sideration and circumstances, altered many
things in it heretofore ; and if God had not in
these wicked days otherwise determined, would
hereafter have altered more ; and in our case
we doubt not but they would have done as we
do." So they made use of the book, but omit
ted the litany and responses.
But this not giving satisfaction, Mr. Cham
bers and Mr. Grindal came with a letter from
the learned men of Strasburgh, subscribed with
sixteen hands, in which they exhort them, in
the most pressing language, to a full conformi
ty. They say they make no question but the
magistrates of Frankfort will consent to' the use
of the English service, and, therefore, they can
not doubt of the congregation's good-wiU and
ready endeavours to reduce their church to the
exact pattern of King Edward's book, as far as
possible can be obtained : " should they deviate
from it at this time, they apprehend they should
seem to condemn- those who were now sealing
it with their blood, and give occasion to their
adversaries to charge them with inconstancy."
The Frankfort congregation, in their letter of
December 3d, reply, that "they had omitted as
few ceremonies as possible, so that there was
no danger of their being charged with incon
stancy. They apprehended that the martyrs in
England were not dying in defence of ceremo
nies, which they allow may be altered ; and as
for doctrine, there is no difference ; therefore, if
the'learned divines of Strasburgh should come
to Frankfort with no other views but to reduce
the congregation to King Edward's form, and to
establish the popish ceremonies, they give them
to understand that they had better stay away."
This was signed by John Knox, now come from
Geneva, John Bale, John Fox the martyrolo-
gist, and fourteen more.
Things being in this uncertain posture at
Frankfort, King Edward's book being used in
part, but not wholly, and there being no pros
pect of an accommodation with their brethren
at Strasburgh, they resolved to ask the advice
of the famous Mr. Calvin, pastor of the church
at Geneva, who, having perused the English lit
urgy, took notice " that there were many toler- j

able weaknesses in , it, which, because at first
they could not be amended, were to be suffered,
but that it behooved the learned, grave, and god
ly ministers of Christ to enterprise farther, and
to set up something more filed from rust, and
purer If religion (says he) had flourished till
this day in England,many of these things should
have been corrected. But, since the Reforma
tion is overthrown, and a church is to be set up
in another place, where you are at liberty to es
tablish what order is most for edification, I can
not tell what they mean who arc so fond of the
leavings of popish dregs." Upon this letter the
Frankfort congregation agreed not to submit to
the Strasburgh divines, but to make use of so
much of the service-book as they had done, till
the end of April, 1555 ; and if any new conten
tion arose among them in the mean time, the
matter was to be referred to Calvin, Musculus,
Martyr, Bullinger, and Vyret.
But upon the 13th of March, Dr. Cox, who
had been tutor to King Edward VI., a man of a
high spirit, but of great credit with his country
men, coming to Frankfort with some of his
friends, broke through the agreement, and in
terrupted the public service by answering aloud
after the minister ; and the Sunday following^
one of his company, without the consent of the
congregation, ascended the pulpit, and read the
whole litany. Upon this, -Mr. Knox, their min
ister, taxed the authors of this disorder in his
sermon with a breach of their agreement ; and
farther affirmed, that some things in the ser
vice-book were superstitious and impure. The
zealous Dr. Cox reproved him for his censori-
ousness ; and being admitted with his company
to vote in the congregation, got the majority to
forbid Mr. Knox to preach any more. But Knox's
friends applied to the magistrate, who command
ed them to unite with the French Church, both
in discipline and ceremonies, according to their
first agreement. Dr Cox and his friends, find
ing Knox's interest among the magistrates too
strong, had recourse to an unchristian method
to get rid of him. This divine, some years
before he was in England, had published an
English book, called An Admonition to Chris
tians, in which he had said that the emperor
was no less an enemy to Christ than Nero. For
which, and some other expressions in the book,
these gentlemen accused him of high treason
against the emperor. The Senate being tender
of the emperor's honour, and not willing to em
broil themselves in a controversy of this nature,
desired Mr. Knox, in a respectful manner, to
depart the city, which he did accordingly, March
25, 1555.
• After this. Cox's party, being strengthened by
the addition of several English divines from
other places, sixteen of them, viz., three doc
tors of divinity and thirteen bachelors, petition
ed the magistrates for the free use of King Ed
ward's service-book, which they were pleased
to grant. Thus the old congregation was broke
up by Dr. Cox and his friends,- who now carried
a,ll before them. They chose new church-offi
cers, taking no notice of the old ones, and set
up the service-book of King Edward without
interruption. Knox's friends would have left
the matter to the. arbitration of divines, which
the others refused, but wrote to Mr Calvin to
countenance their proceedings, which that great

divine could not do ; but after a modest excuse
for intermeddling in their affairs, told iliem that
"in his opinion they were too ™"*,«^d^'<;t^^
to the English ceremonies ¦- ''"'¦^''^'^.^'if^ *°
what purpose it was to burden the Church with
such hurtful and off;ensive things vvhen there
was Hberty to have a ^""P^''. ,^f,„X V" '^
order He blamed their conduct to Mr. Knox,
whfch h^safd was neither godly nor brotherly ;
rnd concludes with beseeching them to prevent
dMsTons among themselves " This pacific ot
ter having no effect, the old congregation left
their countrymen in possession of their church,
and departed the city. Mr. Fox, the martyrol-
ogist, with a few more, went to BasU ; and the
rest to Geneva, where they were received with
great humanity, and having a church appointed
them, they chose Mr Knox and Goodman their
pastors. Here they set up the Geneva disci
pline, which they published in English, under
the title of The Service, Discipline, and Form of
Common Prayers and Administration of Sacra
ments used in the English Church of Geneva,
-with a dedication to their brethren in England
and elsewhere. Dated from Geneva, February
10th, 1 556. The liturgy is too long to be insert
ed in this place, but is agreeable to that of the
French churches. In their dedication, they say
" that their discipline is hmited within the com
pass of God's Word, which is sufficient to gov
ern all OUT actions. That the dilatory proceed
ings of the bishops in reforming church disci
pline and removing offensive peremonies is one
cause of the heavy judgments of God upon the
land. That the late service-book of King Ed
ward being now set aside by Parliament accord
ing to law, it was in no sense the established
worship of the Church of England, and, conse
quently, they were under no obligation to use
it, any farther than it was consonant to the
Word of God. Being, therefore, at liberty, and
in a strange lahd, they had set up such an order
as, in the judgment of Mr. Calvin and other
learned divines, was most agreeable to Scrip
ture, and the best Reformed Churches." Their
reasons for laying aside the late rites and cere
monies were these : " because, being invented
by men, though upon a good occasion, yet they
had since been abused to superstition, and made
a necessary part of Divine worship. Thus Hez-
ekiah was commended for breaking in pieces
the brazen serpent, after it had been erected
eight hundred years, and the high places that
had been abused to idolatry were commanded
to be destroyed. In the New Testament, the
washing the disciples' feet, which was prac
tised in the primitive Church, -was for wise rea
sons laid aside, as well as their love-feasts. Be
sides, these rites and ceremonies have occasion
ed great contentions in the Church in every
ane The Galatian Christians objected to St.
Paul, that he did not observe the Jewish cere
monies as the other apostles did; and yet he
observed them while there was any hope ol

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.
later ages. For which, and other reasons, they

eaining oVer weak brethren ; for this reason he
circumcised Timothy; but when he perceived
that men would retain them as necessary things
in the Church, he called that, which before he
made indiffnont, wicked and impious, saying,
that ' whosoever was circumcised, Christ could
nothing profit him.' The like contentions have
been between the Greek and Latin Church in

have thought fit to lay aside these human in
ventions, which have done so much mischief,
and have contented themselves with that wis
dom that is contained in God's book ; which di
rects them to preach the Word of (>od purely,
to minister the sacraments sincerely, and use
prayers and other orders thereby approved to
the edification of the Church, and increase of
God's glory."
The reader has now seen the first breach or
schism between the English exiles, on account
of the service-book of King Edward, which made
way for the distinction, by which the two parties
were afterward known, of Puritans and Conform
ists. It is evident that Dr. Cox and his friends
were the aggressors,, by breaking in upon the
agreement^ of the congregation of Frankfort,
which was in peace, and had consented to go
on in their way of worship for a limited time,
which time was not then expired. He al-tfully
ejected Mr, Krtox from his ministry among them,
and brought in the, service-book with a high
hand ; by which those who had been in posses
sion of the church about nine months* were
obliged to depart the city, and set up their wor
ship in another place. The doctor and his
friends discovered an ill spirit in this affair.
Tfiey might have used their own forms without
imposing them upon others, and breaking a
congregation to piepes that had settied upon a
different foundation -yvith the leave of the gov
ernment under which they lived. But they in
sisted that, because the congregation of Frank
fort was made up of Englishmen, they ought to
have the form ¦ of an English church ; that
many of them had subscribed to the use of the
service-book ; and that the departing from it at
this time was pouring contempt on the martyrs
whawere sealing it with their blood. "But the
others replied, that the laws of their country re
lating to the service-book were repealed ; and
as for their subscription, it could not bind them
from making nearer approaches to the purity
and simplicity of the Christian worship, es
pecially when there was no established Prot
estant Church of England, and they were in a
strange country, where the vestments and cere
monies gave offence. Besides, it was allo^wed
onaU hands that the book itself was imperfect;
and it was credibly reported that the Archbishop
of Canterbury had drawn up a form of common
prayer ranch more perfect, but that he could
not make it take place, because of the corrup
tion of the clergy. As for discipline, it was out
of the question that it was imperfect, for the
service-book itself laments the want of it; and,
therefore, they apprehend that, if the martyrs
themselves were in their circumstances, they
would practise with the same latitude, and re
form those imperfections in the English service-
book which they attempted, but could not od-
tain, in their own pountry. 
* Mr. Neal has said, "almost two VMrs;'' here,
."_.,.:__ v.1. o,„i,nritv. "the troubles at Frank-

by consulting his authority, ".<- "-,--;-_„,.j w
fort," it appears that he is P™P«;ly,9°"S5
Bishop Maddox. I" .other respec^' h' ,"5^
anuna^versions on this P^^ f «,,f^Xri^, t»
are not just or accuia^e, ^J^^^t:Tc^^^'

feriVil'as givrnrauthentic information.-

-En.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

To return to Dr. Cox's congregation at Frank
fort. The doctor having settled Mr. Horn in
the pastoral offiee, in the room of Mr. White
head, -who resigned, after some time left the
place. But within six months a new division
happened among them, occasioned by a private
dispute between Mr Horn, the minister, and
Mr. Ashby, one of the principal members. Mr.
Horn summoned Ashby to appear at the vestry
before the elders and officers of, the Church;
Ashby appealed from them, as parties, to the
-whole Church, who appointed the cause to he
brought before them ; but Mr. Horn and the
officers protested against it, and chose rather
to lay down their ministry and service in the
Church, than submit to a popular decision. The
congregation being assembled on this occasion,
gave it as their opinion that, in all controversies
among themselves, and especially in cases of
appeals, the dernier resort should be in the
Church. It is hardly credible what heats and
divisions, factions and parties, these personal
quarrels occasioned among a handful of stran
gers, to the scandal of religion, and their own
reproach with the people among whom they
lived. At length the magistrate interposed,
and advised them to bury aU past offences in
oblivion, and to choose new church officers in
the room of those that- had laid down ; and
since their discipline was defective as to the
points of controversy that had been before
them, they commanded them to appoint certain
persons of their number to draw up a new form
of discipline, or correct and amend the old one ;
and to do this before they chose their ecclesias
tical officers, that, being all private persons,
they might agree upon that which was most
reasonable in itself, without respect of persons
or parties. This prpcept was delivered in wri
ting, March 1st, 1557, and signed by Mr. John
Glauburge. Hereupon fifteen persons were ap
pointed to the work, which, after some time,
was finished ; and having been subscribed by
the Church to the number of fifty-seven, was
confirmed bythe magistrate; and on the 21st
of December, twenty-eight more were added to
the Church and subscribed ; but Mr. Horn and
his party, to the number of twelve; dissented,
and appealed to the magistrates, who had the
patience to hear their objections, and the others'
reply. But Mr. Horn and his friends not pre
vailing, left the congregation to their new disci
pline, and departed the city, from which time
they continued in peace till the death of Queen
Mary. During these troubles died Dr. Poynet, late
bishop of Winchester, born in Kent, and edu
cated in Queen's College, Oxon, a very learned
and pious divine, who was in such favour with
King Edward for his practical preaching that
I he preferred him first to the bishopric of Ro
chester, and then to Winchester.* Upon the ac
cession of Queen Mary he fled to Strasburgh,
where he died, August 2, 1556, before he was
fuU forty years old, and was buried with great
lamentations of his countrymen.
To return to England. Both the universities
were visited this year. At Cambridge they
burned the bodies of Bucer and Fagius, with
their books and heretical writings. At Oxford
the visiters went through all the colleges, and
» Fuller's Worthies, b. u., p. 72.

burned all the English Bibles, and such hereti
cal books as they could find. They took up the
body of Peter Martyr's wife out of one of the
churches, and buried it in a dunghiU, because,
having. been once a nun, she broke her vow;
but her body was afterward taken up again in
Queen Elizabeth's time, and mixed with the
bones of St. Fridiswide, that they might never
more be disturbed by papists. The persecution
of the Reformed was carried on with all ima
ginable fury; and a design was set on. foot to
introduce the Inquisition, by giving commis
sions to certain laymen to search for persons
Suspected of heresy, and present them to their
ordinaries, as has been related. Cardinal Pole
being thought too favourable to heretics, be
cause he had released several that were brought
before him upon their giving ambiguous an
swers, had his legatine power taken from
him, and was recalled ; but upon his submis
sion he was forgiven, and continued here till
his death, but had little influence afterward ei
ther in the courts of Rome or England, being
a clergyman of too much temper for the times
he hved in.
Princess Elizabeth was in constant danger
of her life throughout the whole course of this
reign. Upon the breaking out of Wyat's con
spiracy she was sent to the Tower, and led in
by the Traitors' gate ; her own servants being
put from her, and no person allowed to have
access to her : the governor used her hardly,
not suffering her to walk in the gallery or upon
the leads, Wyat and his confederates were
examined about her, and some of them put to
the rack ; but they all cleared her except Wyat,
who once accused her, in hopes to save his life,
but declared upon the scaffold to all the people
that he only did it with that view. After some
time she was sent to Woodstock in custody of
Sir Henry Benefield, who used her so ill that
she apprehended they designed to put her pri
vately to death. Here she was under close
confinement, being seldom allowed to walk in
the gardens. The politic Bishop Gardiner often
moved the queen to think of putting her out
of the way, saying it was to no purpose to lop
off the branches while the tree was left stand
ing. But King Philip was her friend, who sent
for her to court, where she fell upon her knees
before the queen, and protested her innocence
as to aU conspiracies and treasons against her
majesty ; but the queen still hated her : how
ever, after that, her guards were discharged,
and she was suffered to retire into the country,
where she gave herself wholly to study, med-
dhng in no sort of business, for she was always
apprehensive of spies about her. The princess
complied outwardly with her sister's religion,
avoiding as much as she could all discourses
with the bishops, who suspected her of an in
clination to heresy from her education. The
queen herself was apprehensive of the danger
of the popish religion if she died without issue ;
and was often urged by her clergy, especially
when her health was visibly declining, to se
cure the Roman Catholic religion by delivering
the kingdom from such a presumptive heir.
Her majesty had no scruple of conscience about
spilling human blood in the cause of religion ;*

* " In a book entitled '-The Executions for Trea
son,' written by Lord Burleigh, in Queen Ehzabeth's

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

70
the preservation of the princess was, therefore,
little less than a miracle of Divine Providence,
and was owing, under God, to the protection
of King Philip, who, despairing of issue from
the queen, was not without expectations from
the princess.
But the hand of God was against Queen Mary
and her government, which was hardly attended
with one prosperous- event ; for instead of hav
ing issue by her marriage, she 'had only a false
conception, so that there were little or no hopes
afterward of a child. This increased the sour
ness of her temper ; and her husband, being
much younger than herself, grew weary of her,
slighted her company, and then left her to look
to his hereditary dominions, after he had lived
with her about fifteen months. There being a
war between Spain and France, the queen was
obliged to take part with her husband; this ex
hausted the treasure of the nation, and was the
occasion of the loss of all the English dominions
upon the Continent. In the beginning of tiiis
year the strong town of Calais was taken, after
it had been in the possession of the English two
hundred and ten years : afterward the French
took Guines and the rest of that territory, no
thing being left but the isles of Jersey and
Guernsey. The English, says a learned writer,
had lost their hearts ; the government at home
being so unacceptable that they were not much

time, he says, ' Four hundred persons suffered pub
licly in Queen Mary's days, besides those who were
secretly murdered in prison : of these, twenty were
bishops and dignified clergymen ; sixty were women ;
children, more than forty; some women big with
child ; one bore a child in the fire, and the child was
burned.' This is probably the nearest approach we
can make to the facts of the case, and it exhibits a
sufiiciently fearful and horrifying spectacle. Reli
gious persecution had not been unknown to our fa
thers, but the instances of capital punishment for her
esy were few, and the interval between them had
been great. They had not, however, been sufiiciently
numerous to impair the humanity of the nation, much
less so to pervert its sympathies as to induce any
complacency in these horrible exhibitions. The
slaughter of Gardiner and Bonner was therefore re
garded with indignation and abhorrence. Their
names became hateful, and their memory has been
loaded with the reproach of many generations. 'It
was an unusual and an ungrateful thing,' says Bur
net, 'to the English nation, that is apt to compas
sionate all in misery, to see four, five, six, seven, and
once thirteen, burning in one fire; and the sparing
neither sex nor age, nor blind nor lame, but making
havoc of all equally, and, above all, the barbarity of
Guernsey, raised that horror in the whole nation, that
there seems, ever since that time, such an abhorrence
to that rehgion, to be derived down from father to
son, that it is no wonder an aversion so deeply root
ed, and raised upon such grounds, does, upon every
new provocation, or jealousy of returning to it, break
out in most violent and convulsive symptoms.'
While some approach to truth can be obtained, in
calculating the numbers that were burned, it is im
possible to form any adequate conception of the mass
of misery which was involved in the persecutions of
this period. A speedy death, though by fire, was
merciful and kind, compared with the treatment
which some experienced. New methods of torment
were devised by a perverted ingenuity, which might
inflict the pain, without bringing the relief, of death.
Bigotry put on its fiercest and most rancorous form,
and revelled in scenes of wo which might have
touched the hardest heart." —Dr. Price's Hist. Non-
con., vol. i., p. 120-122. — C.

concerned to support it, for they began to think
that Heaven itself was against it.
Indeed, there were strange and unusual ac
cidents in the heavens.'* Great mischief was
done in many places by thunder and lightning,
by deluges, by excessive rains, and by stormy
winds. There was a contagious distemper like
the plague, that swept away great numbers of
people, so that in many places there were not
priests to bury the dead, nor men enough to
reap the harvest. Many bishops died, which
made way for the Protestant ones in the next
reign. The Parliament was dissatisfied with
King Philip's demand for men and money for
the recovery of Calais ; and the queen herself
grew melancholy upon the hiss of that place,
and the other misfortunes of the year. She hail
been declining in health ever since her pretend
ed miscarriage, which was vastly increased by
the absence of her husband, her despair of issue,
and the cross accidents that attended her gov
ernment. _ Her spirits were now decayed, and a
dropsy coming violently upon her, put an end to
her unhappy life and reign, November 17, 1558,
in the forty-third year of her age and sixth of
her feign ; Cardinal Pole, archbishop of Canter
bury, dying the same day.t
Queen Mary was a princess of severe princi
ples, constant at her prayers, and very little giv
en to diversions. She did not mind any branch
of government so much as the Church, being
entirely at the disposal of her clergy, and for
ward to give a sanction to all their cruelties.
She had deep resentments of her own ill-usage
in her father's and brother's reigns, which easily
induced her to take revenge, though she colour
ed it over with a zeal against heresy. She was
"perfectly blind in matters of religion, her con
science being absolutely directed by the pope
and her confessor, who encouraged her in all the
cruelties that were exercised against the Prot
estants, assuring her that she was doing God
and his Church good service. There is but one
instance of a pardon of any condemned for her
esy during her whole reign. Her natural tem
per was melancholy; and her infirmities, to
gether with the misfortunes of her government,
made her so peevish, that her death was lament
ed by none but her popish clergy. Her reign
was in every respect calamitous to the nation,
and " ought to be transmitted down to posterity
in characters of blood."

CHAPTER IV.
FKOM THE BEGINNING OF QUEEN ELIZABETH'S
EEIGN TO THE SEPARATION OF THE PROTESTANT
NONCONFORMISTS.Queen Elizabeth'st accession to the crown

* Burnet's Hist. Ref, vol. u., p. 366. •
t During his residence in Italy, on the demise of
Paul 111., Cardinal Pole had been elected pope, at
midnight, by the conclave^ and sent for to come and
be admitted. He desired that this, as it was not a
work of darkness, might be postponed to the morn
ing. Upon this message, the cardinals, without any
farther ceremony, proceeded to another election, and
chose the Cardinal de Monte, who, before he left the
conclave, bestowed a hat upon a servant who looked
after his monkey. — Granger's Biogr. History, 8vo, vol
i., p. 158, note. — Ed.
X Strype's Ann., vol. i., p. 251, 175.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

71

gave new life to the Reformation : as soon as
it was known beyond sea most of the exiles re
turned home, and those who had hid themselves
in the houses of their friends began to appear ;
but the public religion continued for a time in
the same posture the queen found it ; the popish
priests kept their livings, and went on celebra
ting mass. None of the Protestant clergy who
had been ejected in the last reign were restored,
and orders were given against aU innovations
without public authority. Though the queen
had complied with the changes in her sister's
reign, it was well known she was a favourer of
the Reformation ; but her majesty proceeded
¦with great caution, for fear of raising disturb
ances in her infant government. No prince
ever came to the crown under greater disadvan-
.tages. The pope had pronounced her illegiti
mate, upon which the Queen of Scots put in
her claim to the. crown. AU the bishops and
clergy of the present establishment were her
declared enemies. The nation was at war with
France, and the treasury exhausted ; the queen,
therefore, by the advice of her privy council, re
solved to make peace with her neighbours as
soon as possible, that she might be more at lei
sure to proceed in her intended alterations of re
hgion, which, though very considerable, were
not so entire as the best and most learned Prot
estants of these times desired. The queen in
herited the spirit of her father, and affected a
great deal of magnificence in her devotions, as
weU as in her court. She was fond of many of
the old rites and ceremonies in which she had
been educated. She thought her brother had
stripped religion too much, of its ornaments,
and made the doctrines of the Church too nar
row in some points. It was therefoire with diffi
culty that she was prevailed, on to go the length
-of King Edward's reformation.*
The only thing her majesty did before the
meeting of the Parliament was to prevent pul-
.pit disputes, for some of the reformed that had
been preachers in King Edward's time, began
to make use of his service-book without author
ity or license from their superiors ; this alarmed
the popish clergy, and^ gave occasion to a proc-
Jamation, dated December 27, 1558.-1 By which
•all preaching of ministers or others was pro-
Jiibited ; and the people were charged to hear
no other doctrine or preaching but the Epistle
.and Gospel for the day, and the Ten Command
ments in English, without any exposition or
.paraphrase whatsoever. The proclamation ad
mits of the litany, the Lord's Prayer, and the
creed, in English ; but no public prayers were
to be read in the Church but such, as were ap
pointed by, law, till the meeting of the Parlia
ment, which was to be upon the 23d of Janua-
ry,t While^ the exiles were preparing to return
home, conciliatory letters passed between them ;
those of Geneva desired a mutual forgiveness,
and prayed their brethren of Arrow, Basil,
-Frankfort, Strasburgh, and Worms, to unite
* Burnet's Hist. Ref, vol. u., 376.
t This proclamation was directed against the pa
pists as well as the reformed : "for both," says Strype,
" took their occasions to speak freely their minds in
the pulpits." — Strype's Annals, vol. i.. Appendix, p.
"3. Camden's Eliz., p. 6.
X Burnet's History of the Reform., vol. h., p. 376-
378. ^ Strype's Ann., vol. i., p. 103-105.

with them in preaching God's word, and in en
deavouring to obtain such a form of worship as
they had seen practised in the best Reformed
Churches. The others replied that it would not
be in their power to appoint what ceremonies
should be observed ; but they were determined
to submit in things indifferent, and hoped those
of Geneva would do so too; however, they
would join with them in petitioning the queen
that nothing burdensome might be imposed.
Both parties congratulated her majesty's acces
sion, in poems, addresses, and dedications of
books ; but they were reduced to the utmost
poverty and distress. They came threadbare
home, bringing nothing with them (says Mr.
Strype*) but much experience, as well as learn
ing. Those who could comply with the queen's
establishment were quickly preferred ; but the
rest were neglected, and though suffered to
preach in the churches for some time, they were
afterward suspended, and reduced to as great
poverty as before.
It had been happy if the sufferings of the
exiles had taught them a little more charity
and mutual forbearance ; or that they had fol
lowed the advice of their learned friends and
patrons beyond sea, who advised them to go
through with the Reformation, and clear the
Church of all-the relics of popery and supersti
tion at once. This was the advice of Gualter,
one of the chief divines of Zurich, who, in his
letter to Dr. Masters, the queen's physician,
January 16, 1558-9, wishes " that the Reform
ers among us would not hearken to the coun
sels of those men who, when they saw that
popery could not be honestly defended nor en
tirely retained, would use aU artifices to have
the outward face of religion to remain mixed,
uncertain, and doubtful ; so that while an evan
gelical reformation is pretended, those things
should be obtruded on the Church which will
make the returning back to popery, superstition,
and idolatry, very easy. We have had the ex
perience of this (says he) for some years in Ger
many, and know what influence such persons
may have : their Counsels seem to a carnal
judgment to be fuU of modesty, and WeU fitted
for carrying on a universal agreement ; and we
may well believe the common enemy of our sal
vation will find out proper instruments, by whose
means the seeds of popery may still remain
among you. I apprehend that in the first be
ginnings, while men may study to avoid the
giving some small offence, many things may be
suffered under this colour, that they will be con
tinued but for a littie while, and yet afterward
it will scarce be possible, by aU the endeavours
that can be used, to get them removed, at least
not without great strugglings."t The letter
seems to be written with a prophetic spirit ;
Masters laid it before the queen, who read it all
over, though without effect. Letters of the
same strain were written by the learned Bullin
ger, Peter Martyr, and Weidner, to the Earl of
Redford, who had been some time at Zurich ;
and to Jewel, Sandys, Horn, Cox, Grindal, and
the rest of the late exiles, pressing them vehe
mently to act with zeal and courage, aiid to
take care in the first beginnings to have all
things settled upon sure and sound, foundations.

-* Annals, vol. i., p. 129.
t Bumet's Hist. Ref, vol. iu., p. 276.

72

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

The exifes, in their answers, seem resolved to
follow their advices, and make a bold stand for
a thorough reformation ; and if they had done
so, they might have obtained it. Jewel, in his
letter of May 22, 1559, thanks Bullinger for
quickening their zeal and courage ; and adds,
"they were doing what they could, and that
all things were coming into a better slate." In
another, of April 10, " he laments the want of
zeal and industry in promoting the Reformation ;
and that things were managed in so slow and
cautious a manner, as if the Word of God was
not to be received on his own -authority." In
another,,of November 16, " he complains of the
queen's keeping a crucifix in her chapel, with
lighted candles ; that there was worldly policy
in this, which he did not like ; that all things
-were so loose and uncertain with them, that he
did not know whether he should not be obliged
to return back to Zurich. He complains of the
popish vestments, which he calls the relics of
the Amorites, and wishes they were extirpated
to the deepest roots." The like complaints
¦were made by Cox, Grindal, Horn, Pilkington,
and others, but they -had not the resolution to
persevere : had they united counsels, and stood
by one another, they might at this juncture have
obtained the removal of those grievances which
afterward occasioned the separation.
To return to the Parliament. The court took
such measures about elections as seldom fail
of success ; the magistrates of the counties and
corporations were changed, and thepeople, who
¦were weary of the late persecutions, were as
sisted, and encouraged to exert themselves in
favour of such representatives as might make
them easy ; so that when the houses met, the
majority were on the side of the Reformation,
The temper of the house was'first tried by a bill
to restore to the crown the first-fruits and tenths,
which Queen Mary had returned to the Church.
It passed the Commons without much opposi
tion, February 4th, but in the House of Lords
all the bishops voted against it.* By another
act they repealed some of the penal laws, and
enacted that no person should be punished for
exercising the religion used in the last year of
King Edward. They appointed the public ser
vice to be performed in the vulgar tongue. They
empowered the queen to nominate bishops to
the vacant bishoprics by conge d'elire, as at
present. They suppressed the religious houses
founded by Queen Mary, and annexed them to
the crown ; but the two principal acts passed
this session were the acts of supremacy, and
of uniformity of common prayer.
The former is entitled an act for restoring to
the crown the ancient jurisdiction over the state
ecclesiastical and spiritual, and for abolishing
foreign power. It is the same for substance
with the twenty-fifth of Henry VIIL, already
mentioned, but the Commons ipcorporated sev
eral other bills into it ; for, besides the title of
supreme governor in all causes ecclesiastical
and temporal, which is restored to the queen,
the act revives those laws of King Henry VIII.
and King Edward VI, which had been repealed
in the late reign. It forbids all appeals lo Rome,
and exonerates the subjects from all exactions
and impositions heretofore paid to that court ;
* Strype, p. 07.

and as it revives King Edward's laws, it repeals
a severe act made in the late reign for punish
ing heresy,* and three other old statutes men
tioned in the said act. " Moreover, all persons
in any public employs, whether civil or ecclesi
astical, are obliged to take an oath in recogni
tion of the queen's right to the crown, and of
her supremacy in aU causes ecclesiastical and
civil, on penalty of forfeiting all their promotions
in the Church, and of being declared incapable
of holding any public office." In short, by this
single act of the supremacy, all that had lieeii
done by Queen Mary was in a manner annulled,
and the external policy of the Church restored:
to the same foot as it stood at the death of King:
Edward VI.
Farther : " The act forbids all writing, print
ing, teaching, or preaching, and all other deeds-
or acts whereby any foreign jurisdiction over
these realms is defended, upon pain that they
and their abettors, being thereof convicted, shall
for the first offence forfeit their goods and chat
tels ; and if they are not worth twenty pounds,
suffer a year's imprisonment ; spiritual per
sons shall lose their benefices, and all ecclesi*
astical preferments ; for the second offence they-
shall inpur the penalties of a praemunire ; and
the third offenee shall be deemed high trea
son." There is a remarkable elause In this act,.
which gave rise to a new court, called the Court
of High Commission.t The' words are these:
" The queen and her successors shall have pow
er, by their letters patent under the great seal,
to assign, name, and authorize, as often as they
shall think meet, and for as long time as they
shall please, persons, being natural-born sub
jects, to use, occupy, and exercise, under her
and them, all manner of jurisdiction, privileges,
and pre-eminences, touching any spiritual or
ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the realms of
England and Ireland, &c., to visit, reform, re
dress, order, correct, and amend all errors, her
esies, schisms, abuses, contempts, offences, and
enormities whatsoever. Provided that they
have no power to determine anything to be her
esy but what has been adjudged to be so by the
authority of the canonical Scripture ; or by the
first four general councils, or any oi^ them ; or
by any other general council, wherein the same
was declared heresy by the express and plain-.
words of canonical Scriptui-e ; or such as shall
hereafter be declared to be heresy by the high
court of Parliament, with the assent of- the cler
gy in convocation. "t

* The repeal of this act, it may not be improper to
observe, operated in favour of those only Who denied
the essential and disseminating tenets of po|iery. It
was a necessary step, when government was about
to establish a reformation which would subvert the
reception of those tenets. But it did not proceed
from any just notions of the rights of conscience ^
and, as it appears in the course of this reign, still left
those who went beyond the limits fixed by the new
establishment exposed to the heaviest penalties.—
Ed. t Strype, p. 69. Rapin, p. 237.
t On this statute Mr Justice Blackstone remarks,
that "a man continued still liable to be burned for
what, perhaps, he did not understand to be heresy,
till the ecclesiastical judge so interpreted the words
of the canonical Scriptures." To this a late writer
justly adds: "And even at this day, whoever, of the
sectaries not tolerated, shall dare to interpret the

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

73-

Upon the authority of this clause the queen
appointed a certain number of pommissioners
for ecclesiastical causes, who exercised the
same power that had been lodged in the hands
of one vicegerent in the reign of King Henfy
VIIL And how sadly they abused their power
in this and the two next reigns will appear in
the sequel^ of this history. ¦* They did not trouble
themselves much With the express words of
Scripture, or the first four general counoils, but
entangled their prisoners with oaths ex officio,
and the inextricable mazes of the popish canon
law ; and though all ecclesiastical courts ought
to be subject to a prohibition from the courts
of Westminster, this privilege was seldom al
lowed by the commissioners. The act makes
no mention of an arbitrary jurisdiction of fining,
imprisoning, or inflicting corporeal punishments
on the subjects, and therefore can be construed
to extend no farther than to suspension or dep
rivation ; but notwithstanding this, these com
missioners sported themselves in all the wanton
acts of tyranny and oppression, till their very
name became odious to the whole nation ; in
somuch that their jiroceedings were condemned
by the united voice of the people, and the court
dissolved by act of Parliament, with a clause
that no such jurisdiction should be received for
the future in any court whatsoever.
Bishop Burnet sayst that the supremacy
granted by this act is short of the authority that
King Henry had ; nor is it the whole that the
queen claimed, who sometimes stretched her
prerogative beyond it. But since it was the
basis of the Reformation, and the spring of all
its future movements, it wih be proper to in
quire what powers were thought to be yielded
the crown by this act of supremacy, and some
others made in support of it. King Henry VIIL,
in his letter to the Convocation of York, assures
them that "he claimed nothing more by the su
premacy than what Christian princes in the
primitive times assumed to themselves in their
own dominions."t But it is capable of demon
stration, that the flrst Christian emperors did
not claim all that jurisdiction over the Church

Holy Scriptures for himself, may be punished by ec
clesiastical censures, if au ecclesiastical judge should
decree such interpretation to be erroneous." — High
Church Politics, p. 66. — Ed.
? In addition to our author's remark may be sub
joined the reflections of a modern writer: " On this
foundation," says he, " was erected, in a subsequent
part of her reign, that court of ecclesiastical commis
sion, which, in the sequel, was the source of the most
arbitrary proceedmgs, and of the most shameful tyr
anny, oppression, and persecution. The powers we
have mentioned, as granted to Elizabeth, will appear
to many, in the present enlightened and liberal age,
to have been unreasonable and enormous, and con
trary to the just ends of political government. But
the conferring of such powers accorded with the idea
of the times, which had no conception of introducing
rehgious changes by the mere operation of reason
and argument, and which had not learned to ascer
tain the true nature, objects, boundaries, and dis
tinctions of civil and ecclesiastical authority." — His
tory of Knowledge in the New Annual Register for 1789,
p. 6.— Ed.
t Burnet's Hist. Ref, vol. ii., p. 386.
X The primitive times, as they are called, did not
commence till the beginning of the fourth century,
under Constantine the Great, who was the first
prince that employed the powers of the state in the
aflairs of the Church. — Ed.
Vol. I.— K

in spirituals that King Henry did, who, by the
act of the thirty-first of his reign, was made ab
solute lord over the consciences of his subjects,
it being therein enacted that " whatsoever his
majesty should enjoin in matters of religion
should be obeyed by all his subjects."
It is very certain that the kings and queens
of England never pretended to the character of
spiritual persons, or to exercise any part of the
ecclesiastical function in their own -persons;
they neither preached, nor administered the sac
raments, nor pronounced or inflicted the cen
sures of the Church ; nor did.they-ever conse
crate to the episcopal office, though the right of
nomination is in them : these things were done
by spiritual persons, or by proper officers in the
spiritual courts, deriving their powers from the
crown. When the adversaries of the suprema
cy objected the absurdity of a lay person being
head of a spiritual body, the queen endeavoured-.
to remove the difficulty by declaring, in her in
junctions to her visiters, " that she did not, nor
would she ever, challenge authority and power
to minister Divine service in the Church ; nor
would she ever challenge any other authority
than her predecessors King Henry VIII. anti
Edwar(I VI. used."
But, abating this point, it appears very proba
ble that aU the jurisdiction and authority claim
ed by ttie pope, as head of the Church, in the
times preceding the Reformation, was trans
ferred to the king by the act of supremacy, and
annexed to the imperial crown of these realms,
as far as was consistent with the laws of the-
land then in being ; though since it has under
gone some abatements. The words of the
learned Mr. Hooker* are very express : " If the
whole ecclesiastical state should stand in need
of being visited and reformed ; or when any
part of the Church is infested with errors,.
schisms, heresies, &,c., whatsoever spiritual
powers the legates had from the see of Rome,,
and exercised in right of the pope for remedy
ing Of evils, without violating the laws of God
or nature ; as much in every degree have our
laws fully granted to the king forever, whether
he thinks fit to do it by ecclesiastical synods, or-
otherwise according to law."
The truth of this remark wih appear by con
sidering the powers claimed by the crown in.
this and the following reigns.
1. The kings and queens of England claimed
authority in matters of faith, and to be the ulti
mate judges of what is agreeable or repugnant
to the Word of God. The act of supremacy says
expressly, " that the king has power to redress
and amend, aU errors and heresies; he might
enjoin what doctrines he would to be preached,
not repugnant to the laws of the land ; and if
any should preach' contrary, he was for the third
offence to be judged a heretic, and suffer death :
his majesty claimed a right to forbid all preach
ing for a time, as King Henry VIIL, King Ed
ward VI, , Queen Mary, and Elizabeth did ; or
to limit the clergy's preaching to certain of the
thirty-nine articles established by law, as King
Charles I. did," All the forementioned kings,
and queens published instructions or injunctions
concerning matters of faith, without consent of
the clergy in convocation assembled ; and en-
forced them upon the clergy under the penalties-

* Eccles. Pol., b. viu., ^ 8

74

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

of a prtmiunire. Which made it a little difficult
to understand that clause of the twentieth arti
cle of the Church which says the Church has
authority in matters of faith,
2. With regard to discipline, the kings of
England seem to have had the keys at their gir
dle : for, though the old canon law be in force,
as far as is consistent with the laws of the land
and the prerogative of the crown, yet the king
is the supreme and ultimate judge in the spirit
ual courts by his delegates, as he is in the
courts of common law by his judges. His maj
esty might appoint a single person of the laity
to be his vicar-general in all causes ecclesiasti
cal to refiirm what was amiss, as King Henry
VIII. and Charles I. did, which very much re
sembled the pope's legate in the times before
the Reformation. By authority of Parliament,
the crown was empowered to appoint thirty-two
commissioners, some of the laity and some of
the clergy-, to reform the canons or ecclesiasti
cal laws ; and though the design was not exe
cuted, the power was certainly in the king, who
might have ratified the new canons, and given
them the force of a law, without the consent of
the clergy in convocation, or of the Parliament ;
and, therefore, at the coronation of King Charles
I., the bishop was directed to pray " that God
¦would give the king Peter's key of disciphne,
and Paul's doctrine." '
3. As to rights and ceremonies, the act of
uniformity* says expressly, " that the queen's
majesty, by advice of her ecclesiastical com-
¦missioners, or of her metropolitan, may ordain
and publish such ceremonies or rites as may be
most for the advancement of God's glory and
the edifying of the Church." Accordingly, her
majesty published her injunctions, without send
ing them into convocation or Parliament, and
erected a court of high commission for ecclesi
astical causes, consisting of commissioners of
her own nomination, to see them put in execu
tion. Nay, so jealous was Queen Elizabeth of
this branch of her prerogative, that she would
not suffer her high court of Parliament to pass
any bill for the amendment or alteration of the
'Ceremonies of the Church, it being, as she said,
an invasion of her prerogative.
4. The kings of England claimed the sole
power of the nomination of bishops ; and the
deans and chapters were obliged to choose those
¦whom their majesties named, under penalty of
a praemunire; and after they were chosen and
consecrated, they might not act but by commis
sion from the crown. They held their very
bishoprics for some tirrie durante bene placito ;
and by the statute of the fifth and sixth of Ed
ward VL, chap, i., it was enacted "that arch
bishops and bishops shall punish by censures of
the Church all persons that offend," &c,, which
plainly implies that without such a license or
authority they might not do it.
5, No convopation or synods of the clergy
can assemble but by a writ or precept front the
crown ; and when assembled, they can do no
business without the king's letters patent, ap
pointing them the particular subjects they are
to debate upon ;t and, after all, their canons
are of no force without the royal sanction.
Upon the whole, it is evident, by the ex-

? 1 Eliz., cap. 1.
t Stat. 25 Hen. VIII., and stat. praemun.

press words of several statutes,* that all juris
diction, ecclesiastical as weU as civil, was vest
ed in the king, and taken away from the bish
ops, except by delegation from him. The king
was chief in the determination of all causes in
the Church ; he had authority to make . laws,
ceremonies, and constitutions, and without him
no such laws, ceremonies, or constitutions are,
or ought to be, of force. And, lastly, all ap
peals, which before had been made to Rome,
are forever, hereafter, to be made to his majes
ty's chancery, to be ended and determined, as
the manner now is, by delegates.!
I am sensible that the constitution of the
Church has been altered in some things since
that time ; but let the reader judge, by what
has been recited from acts of Parliament, of the
high powers that were then intrusted with the
crown, and how far they were agreeable with
the natural or religious rights of mankind.
The whole body of the papists refused the oath
of supremacy, as inconsistent with their allegi
ance to the pope ; but the Puritans took it un
der all these disadvantages, with the queen's
explication in her injunctions ; that is, that no
more was intended than " that her majesty, un
der God, had the sovereignty and rule over all
persons born in her realnis, either ecclesiastical
or temporal, so as no foreign power had or ought
to have authority over them." They appre
hended this to be the natural right of all sover
eign princes in their dominions, though there
has been no statute law for it ; but, as they did
not admit the governttient of the Church to be
monarchical, they were of opinion that no sin
gle person, whether layman or ecclesiastic,
ought to assume the title of supreme head of the
Church on earth, in the sense of the acts above
mentioned. This appears from the writings of
the famous Mr. CartWright, in his admonition
to the Parliament.
"The Christian .sovereign," says he,t "ought
not to be called head, under Christ, of the par
ticular and visible churches within his domin
ions : it is a title not fit for any mortal man ;
for whenthe apostle says Christ is ke^o/I??, the
head, it is as much as if he had said Christ,
and no other, is head of the Church. No civil
magistrate, in councils or assemblies for Church
matters, can either be chief moderator, over-
ruler, judge, or determiner ; nor has he such
authority as that, without his consent, it should
not be lawful for ecclesiastical persons to make
any Church orders or ceremonies. Church mat
ters ought, ordinarily, to be handled by church
officers. The principal direction of them is, by
God's ordinance, committed to the ministers of
the Church and to the ecclesiastical governors :
as these meddle not with the making civil laws,
so the civil magistrate ought' not to ordain
ceremonies or determine controversies in the
Church, so long as they do not intrench upon

* 37 Hen. VIll., cap; xvii., 1 EUz., cap. i.
t Thus the power, which had been for ages exer
cised by the pope, was transferred to the temporal
monarch. The acquisition of this power was highly
flattering to the love of authority in princes, espe
cially as they had been so long under subjection to
the pope. To a woman of Queen Elizabeth's spirit
it was, independently of every religious considera
tion, a powerful inducement to support the Reforma
tion. — Ed.
X Admonition to Parhament, lib. ii., p. 4, 11.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

75

Ws temporal authority. Nevertheless, our mean
ing is not to seclude the magistrate fi-om our
Church assemblies; he may call a council of
his clergy, and appoint both time and place ;
he may be there by himself or his deputy, but
not as moderator, determiner, or judge ; he may
have his -voice in the assembly, but the orders
and decrees of councils are not made by his
authority ; for in ancient times the canons of
the councils were not called the decrees of the
emperors, but of the bishops. It is the prince's
province to protect and defend the councils of
his clergy, to keep the peace, to see their decrees
executed, and to punish the contemners of them,
but to exercise no spiritual jurisdiction."
We shall meet with a fuller declaration of
the Puritans upon this head hereafter ; in the
mean time, it may be observed, that the just
boundaries of the civil and ecclesiastical pow
ers were not well understood and stated in
this age.
The powers of the civil magistrates seem
chiefly to regard the civil welfare of his sub
jects : he is to protect them in their properties,
and in the peaceable enjoyment of their civil
and religious rights ; but there is no passage in
the New Testament that gives him a commis
sion to be lord of the consciences of his sub
jects, or to have dominion over their faith.
Nor is this agreeable to, reason, because religion
ought to be the effect of a free and deliberate
choice. Why must we believe as the king be
lieves, any more than as the clergy or pope "i
If every man could believe as he would ; or if
all" men's understandings were exactly of a
size ; or if God would accept of a mere outward
profession when commanded by law, then it
would be reasonable there should be but one
religion, and one uniform manner of worship :
but to make ecclesiastical laws, obliging men's
practice under severe penalties, without or
against the light of their consciences, looks like
an invasion of the kingly office of Christ, and
must be subversive of all sincerity and virtue.
On the other hand, the jurisdiction of the
-Church is purely spiritual. No man ought to
be compelled by rewards or punishments to be
come a member of any Christian society, or to
•continue of it any longer than he apprehends it
Xo be his duty. All the ordinances of the Church
are spiritual, and so are her weapons and cen
sures. The weapons of the Church are Scrip
ture and reason, accompanied with prayers and
tears. These are her pillars, and the waUs of
her defence. The censures of the Church are
admonitions, reproofs, or declarations of per
sons' unfitness -for her communion, commonly
called excommunications, which are of a spirit
ual nature, and ought not to affect men's lives,
hberties, or estates. No man ought to be cut
off from the rights and privileges of a subject
merely because he is disqualified for Christian
communion. Nor has any church upon earth
authority from Christ to inflict corporeal punish-,
ments upon those whom she may justly expel
her society ; these are the weapons of civil
magistrates, who may punish the breakers of
the laws of their countries with corporeal pains
and penalties, as guardians of the civil rights of
their subjects ; but Christ's kingdom is not Of
this world.
If these principles had obtained at the Refor

mation, there would have been no room lor the
disturbance of any whose religious principles
were not inconsistent with the safety of the
government.* Truth and charity would have
prevailed ; the civil powers would have protect
ed the Church in her Spiritual rights ; and the
Church, by instructing the people in their duty
to their superiors, would have supported the
state. But the Reformers, as weh Puritans as
others, had different notions. They were for
one religion, one uniform mode of worship, one
form of discipline or Church government Ibr
the whole nation, with which all must comply
outwardly, whatever were their inward senti
ments ; it was therefore resolved to have an
act of Parliament to establish a uniformity of
public worship, without any indulgence to ten
der consciences ; neither party having the wis
dom or courage to oppose such a law, but both
endeavouring to be included in it.
To make way for this, the papists who were
in possession of the churches were first to be
vanquished ; the queen, therefore, appointed a
public disputation in Westminster Abbey, be
fore her privy council and both houses of Par
liament, March 31st, 1559, between nine of the
bishops and the like number of Protestant di
vines, upon these three points :
1st. Whether it was not against Scripture and
the custom of the ancient Church to use a
tongue unknown to the people in the common
prayers and sacraments 1 2dly. Whether every
church had not authority to appoint, change,
and take away ceremonies and ecclesiastical
rites, so the same were done to edifying 1 3dly.
Whether it could be proved ¦by the Word of God
that in the mass there was a propitiatory sacri
fice for the dead and living 1
- The disputation was to be in writing ; but
the papists, finding the populace against them,
broke it off after the first day, under pretence
that the Catholic cause ought not to be submit
ted to such an arbitration, though they had not
these scruples in the reign of Queen Mary, when
it was known the issue of the conference would
be in their favour. The Bishops of Winchester
and Lincoln said the doctrine of the Catholic
Church was already established, and that it
was too great an encouragement to heretics to
admit them to discourse against the faith before
an unlearned multitude. They added, that the
queen had deserved to be excommunicated ;
and talked of thundering out their anathemas
against the privy council, for which they were
both sent to the Tower. The reformed had a
great advantage by tlieir adversaries quitting
the field in this manner, it being concluded from

* It would have been more consistent with our au
thor's reasoning if, instead of " religious principles,"
he had substituted actions. If religious principles are
to be the. gi-ounds of toleration or protection, accord
ing to their supposed consistency or inconsistency with
the safety of the civil government, there is not only
room for endless disputes concerning this consistency ;
but men of the best views and characters will be lia
ble to suffer through the imputation of consequences
arising from their principles, which they themselves
disavow and abhor. Besides, the pernicious tenden
cy of some principles is counteracted by the influence
of others, and the good dispositions of those who hold
them. Overt acts alone afford a clear, definite rule,
by which to judge of moral or pohtical character.
—Ed.

76
hence that their cause would not bear the light,
¦which prepared the people for farther changes.
The papists being vanquished, the next point
¦was to unite the reformed among themselves,
and get such an establishment as might make
them all easy ; for though the troubles at Frank
fort were hushed, and letters of forgiveness had
passed between the contending parties, and
though all the Reformers were of one faith, yet
they were far from agreeing about discipline and
ceremonies, each party being for settling the
Church according to their own model. Some
were for the late service and discipline of the
English at Geneva ; others were for the service-
book of Kiiig Edward VI. , and for withdrawing
no farther from the Church of Rome than was
necessary to recover purity of faith, and the in
dependence of the Church upon a foreign power.
Rites and ceremonies Were, in their opinion, in
different ; and those of the Church of Rome pref
erable to others, because they were venerable
and pompous, and because the people had been
used to them: these were the sentiments of the
queen, who therefore appointed a committee of
divines to review King Edward's liturgy, and to
see if in any particular it was fit to be changed ;
their names were Dr. Parker, Grindal, Cox,
Pilkington, May, Bill, Whitehead, and Sir Thom
as Smith, doctor of the civil law. Their in
structions were to strike out all offensive pas
sages against the pope, and to make people easy
about the belief of the corporeal presence of
Christ in the sacrament ; but not a word in fa
vour of the stricter Protestants.
Her majesty was afraid of reforming too far ;
she was desirous to retain images in churches,
crucifixes and crosses, vocal and instrumental
music, with all the old popish garments ; it is
not, therefore, to be wondered that, in reviewing
the liturgy of King Edward, no alterations were
made in favour of those who now began to be
called Puritans, from their attempting a purer
form of worship and discipline than had yet been
established, ,'rhe queen was more concerned
for the papists, and, therefore, in the litany this
passage was struck out, " From the tyranny of
the Bishop of Rome, and all his detestable enor
mities, good Lord, deliver us." The ruhrio that
declared, that by kneeling at the saprament no
adoration was intended to any corporeal presence
of Christ, was expunged. The committee of
divines left it at the people's liberty to receive
the sacrament kneeling or standing, but the
queen and Parliament restrained it to kneeling ;
so that the enforcing this ceremony was purely
an act of the state. The old festivals, with their
eves, and the popish habits, were continued, as
theywere in the second year ofKing Edward VI.,
till the queen should please to take them away ;
for the words of the statute are, " They shall
be retained till other order shah be therein taken
by authority of the queen's majesty, with the
advice of the commissioners authorized under
the great seal of England, for causes ecclesias
tical." Some of the collects were a little alter
ed ; and thus the book was presented to the
two houses and passed into a law,* beinghardly
equal to that which was set out by King Ed-
¦ward, and confirmed by Parliament in the fifth
year of his reign. For whereas in that liturgy

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

* Burnet's Hist. Ref., vol. ii., p. 390. Strype's
Ann., p. 83.

all the garments were laid aside except the sur-
phce, the queen now returned to King Edward's
first book, where copes and other garments were
ordered to be used.
The title of the act is, an act for the uniform
ity of common prayer and service in the Church,
and administration of the sacraments. It wa&
brought into the House of Commons April 18,
and was read a third time April 20. It passed
the House of Lords April 28, and took place
from the 24th of June, 1559. Heath, archbishop-
of York,* made an elegant speech against it, in
which, among other things, he observes, very
justly, that an act of this consequence 'ought to
have had the consent of the clergy in convoca
tion before it passed into a law. " Not only the
orthodox, but even the Arian emperors," says
he, " ordered that points of faith should be ex
amined in councils ; and Gallic, by the light of
nature, knew that a civil judge ought not to
meddle with matters of religion." But he was
overruled, the act of supremacy, which passed
the house the very next day, having vested this
power in the crown. t This statute lying open
to common view at the beginning of the Com
mon Prayer Book, it is not worth while to trans
cribe it in this place. I shall only take notice
of one clause, by which all ecclesiastical juris
diction was again delivered up to the crown :
" The queen is hereby empowered, with the ad
vice of her commissioners or metropolitan, to
ordain and publish such farther ceremonies and
rites as may be for the advancement of God's
glory and edifying his Church, and the rev
erence of Christ's holy mysteries and sacra
ments." And had it not been for this clause of
a reserve of power to make what alteration*
her majesty thought fit, she told Archbishop Par*
ker that she would not have passed the act.
Upon this fatal rock of uniformity in thing*
merely indifferent, in the opinion of the impo
sers, was the peaee of the Church of England
split. The pretence was decency and order ;
but it seems a little odd that uniformity should
be necessary to the decent worship of God,
when in most other things there is a greater
beauty in variety. It is not necessary to a de
cent dress that men's clothes should he always
of the same colour and fashion ; nor would
there be any indecorum or disorder if in one
congregation the sacrament should be adminis
tered kneeling, in another sitting, and in a third'
standing ; or if in one and the same congrega
tion the minister were at liberty to read prayers
either in a black gown or a surphce, supposing
the garments to be indifferent, which the ma
kers of this law admitted, though the Puritans
denied. The rigorous pressing of this act was
the occasion of all the mischiefs that befell the
Church for above eighty years. What good
end could it answer to press men's bodies into
the public service -vi'ithout convincing their
minds 1 Ii there must be one established form
* Mr Strype says there is so much learning, and
such strokes therein, that we need not doubt but that
it is his.— Ann. Ref, vol. i,, p. 73. The speech itself
is hi his appendix to vol. i.. No. 6. This prelate was
always honourably esteemed by the queen, and some
times had the honour of a -visit from her He lived
discreetiy in his own house, till by very age he de
parted this hfe. — Annals, vol. i., p. 143. — Ed.
t D'Ew's Journal, p. 39.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

77

of worship, there should certainly have been an
indulgence for tender consciences. When there
-was a difference in the Church of the Romans
about eating flesh and observing festivals, the
apostle did not pinch them with an act of uni
formity, but allowed a latitude, Rom., xiv,, 5 :
" Let not him that eatetii judge him that eateth
not : but let every man be fully persuaded in
his own mind. Why dost thou judge thy broth
er 1 or, why , dost thou set at naught thy broth
er 1 For we must aU stand before the judg
ment-seat of Christ." Had our Reformers fol
lowed this apostolical precedent, the Church
of England would have made a more glorious
figure in the Protestant world than it did by
this compulsive act of uniformity.*

* " The Act of Uniformity, like its kindred statutes,
was fenced round with penalties. He who ventured
to address his Maker in other language than that of
the Book of Common Prayer, wa^s liable to the loss
of goods and chattels for the first oQ^ence, to twelve
months' imprisonment for the second, and to confine
ment during life for the third. How strange it is
that men bearing the Christian name should be so
impious as to prescribe to the Deity the only form of
supplication he shall receive ! This is one of those
species of infatuation, the folly of which would amuse,
if its impiety did not prohibit the indulgence of levi
ty. The statute in question affected both the Protest
ants and Catholics, and was peculiarly offensive to
such of the former as had imbibed an attachment to
a simpler ritual, and a purer form of polity, than was
established in England, It prohibited the shghtest
deviation from the prescribed order of public worship,
and obviously assumed a principle which would go
far to discredit and condemn the Reformation itself
If Elizabeth, by virtue of her office as queen, pos
sessed the right of determining the form of public
worship, that right belonged equally to her sister
Mary, and the fathers of the English Church were,
consequently, wrong in refusing her obedience. But
if it be alleged that the right of the former so to legis
late was founded on the correctness of her creed, by
whom, it may be asked, was this correctness to be
•determined ? By Elizabeth herself, or by her sub
jects r If the former, why is not the same admission
to be made in favour of Mary? and if the latter,
where is the justice of visiting with punishment such
as deemed her creed unscriptural, and her laws per
nicious? Among the innumerable follies to which
men have been addicted, none is more egregious or
absurd than is exhibited in the end which this statute
¦contemplated. Were it attainable, it would be un-
¦worthy of pursuit, for it is wholly apart from reh
gion; and, if compassed, it might exist with the
greatest security where the spirit of religion is not
found. To whatever extent it has been accomplish
ed by human legislation, it has involved the corrup
tion of Christianity, and a most unnatural and perni
cious imprisonment of the human mind. What con
ceivable benefit would flow from the same mode of
worship being enforced in every Christian assembly
throughout England ? But the folly of the attempt
to secure uniformity of religious worship is apparent
in its hopelessness. It has not, it will not, it cannot
succeed. So, long as religious principle endures, or
the human mind retains the power of thought and
the faculty of research, all enactments of this kind
must be futile. They constitute .an Unnatural coer
cion of man's intellect ; and if they appear to succeed
for a season, their ultimate defeat is thereby ren
dered more signal. Uniformity in the modes of reli
gion has usually been sought at the expense of its
living spirit. They have been mistaken for religion
itself; and the energy and zeal which ought to have
been expended on the conversion of an- apostate
world have, consequently, been employed in the estab
lishment of rites with which religion has but httle if.
y connexion. There is not an established sect in

Sad were the consequences of these two laws
both to the papists and Puritans. The papists,
in convocation, made a stand for the old reli
gion ; and, in their sixth session, agreed upon
the following articles, to be presented to the
Parliament for disburdening, their consciences.
1. " That in the sacrament of the altar the
natural body of Christ is really present, by vir
tue of the words of consecration pronounced by
the priest.
2. " That after the consecration there re
mains not the substance of bread and wine, nor
any other substance but God-man.
3. " That in the mass the true body of Christ
is offered as a propitiatory sacrifice for the liv
ing and the dead.
4. " That the supreme power of feeding and
ruling the Church is in St. Peter and his suc
cessors. 5. " That the authority of determining mat
ters of faith and discipline belongs only to the
pastors of the Church, and not to laymen."
These articles or resolutions were presented
to the lord-keeper by their prolocutor Dr. Harps-
field, but his lordship gave them no answer;
nor did the convocation move any farther in
matters of religion, it being apparent that they
were against the Reformation.
As soon as the session was ended, the oath
of supremacy was tendered to the bishops, who
all refused it, except Dr. Kitchen, bishop of
Landaff, to the number of fourteen ; the rest of
the sees being vacant. Qf the deprived bishops
three retired beyond sea, viz.. Dr. Pate, bishop
of Worcester, Scot of Chester, and GoldweU of
St. Asaph ; Heath, archbishop of York, was
suffered to live at his own house, where the
queen went sometimes to visit him ; Tonstal
and Thirleby, bishops of Durham and Ely, resi
ded at Lambeth, in the house of Archbishop
Parker, with freedom and ease ; the rest were
suffered to go at large upon their parole ; only
Bonner, bishop of London, White of Winchester,
and Watson of Lincoln, whose hands had been
deeply stained with the blood of the Protestants
in the late reign, were made close prisoners ;
but they had a sufficient maintenance from the
queen. Most of the monks returned to a secu
lar life ; but the nuns went beyond sea, as did
all others who had a mind to live where they
might have a free exercise of their religion.
Several of the reformed exiles were offered
bishoprics, but refused them, on account of the
habits and ceremonies, &c., as Mr. Whitehead,
Mr. Bernard Gilpin, old father Miles Coverdale,
Mr. Knox, Mr. 'Thomas Sampson, and others.
Many who accepted did it with trembling, from
the necessity of the times, and in hopes by their
Christendom which does not furnish confirmation of
these remarks ; and we shall frequently have occa
sion to observe the evidence of their truth which the
history of ohr own hierarchy supplies. ' The artificial
religion of creeds and rituals withers and dies in the
hands of the most artful priests, and the most abso
lute and prosperous monarchs ; while the artless
practice' of piety and virtue lives with the poor
through successive generations. Penal statutes to
suppress it resemble penal statutes to cleanse the
world of violets ; fashion may banish them from the
burgomaster's garden, but the heavens will unite to
nourish them under the shade of the nettle or at the
foot of an oak.' " — Robinson's Eccl. Researches, p. 186.
Dr. Price, vol. i,, p. 140,— C.

78

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

interest -with the queen to obtain an amendment
in the constitution of the Church ; among these
¦were Grindal, Parkhurst, Sandys, Pilkington,
and others.
The sees were left vacant for some time, to
see if any of the old bishops would conform ;
but neither time nor anything else could move
them ; at length, after twelve months. Dr. Mat
thew Parker was consecrated Archbishop of
Canterbury at Lambeth, by some of the bishops
that had been deprived in the late reign, for not
one of the present bishops would officiate. This,
with some other accidents, gave rise to the
story of his being consecrated at the Nag's
Head tavern in Cheapside, a fable that has
been sufficiently confuted by our church histo
rians ;* the persons concerned in the conse
cration were Barlow and Scory, bishops elect
of Chichester and Hereford ; Miles Coverdale,
the deprived bishop of Exeter, and Hodgkins,
suffragan of Bedford ; the two former appeared
in their chimere and surplice, but the two latter
¦wore long gowns open at the arms, with a fall
ing cape on the shoulders ; the ceremony was
performed in a plain manner, withont gloves or
sandals, ring or slippers, mitre or pall, or even
without any of the Aaronical garments, only by
impositionof hands and prayer Strange I that
the archbishop should be satisfied with this in
his own case, and yet be so zealous to impose
the popish garments upon his brethren.
But still it has been doubted whether Par
ker's consecration was perfectly canonical.
1st. Because the persons engaged in it had
been legally deprived in the late reign, and were
not yet restored. To which it was answered,
that having been once consecrated, the episeopal
character remained in them, and therefore they
might convey it ; though Coverdale and Hodg
kins never exercised it after this time.
2dly. Because the consecration ought by law
to have been directed according to the statute
of the twenty-fifth of Henry VIIL, and not ac
cording to the form of King Edward's Ordinal
for ordaining and consecrating bishops, inas
much as that book had been set aside in the
late reign, and was not yet restored by Parlia
ment. These objections being frequentiy thrown in
the way of the new bishops by the papists, made
them uneasy ; they began to doubt of the valid
ity of their consecrations, or at least of their le
gal title to their bishoprics. The affair was at
length brought before Parliament, and to silence
all future clamours, Parker's consecration, and
those of his brethren, were confirmed by the
two houses, about seven years after they had
filled their chairs.
The archbishop was installed December 17,
1559, soon after which he consecrated several
of his brethren, whom the queen had appointed
to the vacant sees, as Grindal to the bishopric
of London, Hprn to Winchester, and Pilkington
to Durham, &c. Thus the Reformation was

* Life of P-arker, p. 38, 60, 61. Voltaire, though
he knew, or, as a liberal writer observes, should have
known, that this story was refuted even by the Puri
tans themselves, has yet related it as a fact. It was
a calumny, to which the custom of the new-ordained
bishops furni.shing a gi-and dinner or entertainment
gave rise. — Wendtborn's View of England, vol. u., p.
300.— Ed,

restored, and the Church of England settled oij.
its present basis. The new bishops being poor,
made but a mean figure in comparison of their
predecessors : they were unacquainted with
courts and equipages, and numerous attend
ants ; but as they grew rich, they quickly rose
in their deportment, and assumed a lordly su
periority over their brethren.
The hierarchy being now at its standard, if
may not be improper to set before the reader in
one view the principles upon which it stands ^
with the different sentiments of the Puritans,
by which he will discover the reasons why the'
Reformation proceeded no farther :
1. The court-reformers apprehended that every
prince had authority to correct all abuses of
doctrine and worship within his own territories.
From this principle, the Parliament submitted
the consciences and religion of the whole na
tion to the disposal of the king ; and in case of
a minority, to his council ; so that the king was
sole reformer, and might, by commissioners of
his own appointment, declare and remove all
manner of errors, heresies, &p., and model the
doctrine and discipline of the Church as he
pleased, provided his injunctions did not ex
pressly contradict the statute law of the land.
Thus the Reformation took place in sundry
material points in the reigns of King Edward
VI. and Queen Elizabeth, before it had the
sanction of Parliament or convocation ; and
though Queen Mary disallowed of the suprema
cy, <5he made use of it to restore the old reli
gion, before the laws for abolishing it were re
pealed. Hence, also, they indulged the foreign
Protestants with the liberty of their separate
discipline, which they denied to their own coun
trymen. The Puritans disowned all foreign authority
and jurisdiction over the Church as much as
their brethren, but could not admit of that ex
tensive power which the crown claimed by the
supremacy, apprehending it un/easonable that
the religion of a whole .nation should be at the
disposal of a single lay person ; . for let the apos-
tie's rule," that aU things be done decently and
in order," mean what it. will, it was not direct
ed to the prince or civil magistrate. However,
they took -the oath, with the queen's explication
in her injunctions, as only restoring her majes
ty to the ancient and natural rights of sovereign
princes over their subjects.
2. It was admitted by the court-reformers
that the Church of Rome was a true church,
though corrupt in some points of doctrine and
government ; that all her ministrations were
valid, and that the pope was a true Bishop of
Rome, though not of the universal Church. It
was thought necessary to maintain this; for the
support of the character ,of our bishops, who
could not otherwise derive their succession
from the apostles.
But the P^iritans affirmed'the pope to be an
tichrist, the Church of Rome to be no true
church, and all her ministrations to be super
stitious and idolatrous ; they renounced her
communion, and durst not risk the validity of
their ordinations upon an uninterrupted line
of succession from the apostles througli their
hands, 3. It was agreed by all that the Holy Scrip
tures were a perfect rule of faith ; but the bish-

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

79

ops and court-reformers did not allow them a
standard of discipline or church government,
but affirmed that our Saviour and his apostles
left it to the discretion of the civil magistrate,
in those places where Christianity should ob
tain, to accommodate the government of the
Church to the policy of the suite.
But the Puritans apprehended the Holy Scrip
tures to be a standard of church discipline, as
well as doctrine ; at least, that nothing should
be imposed as necessary but what was express
ly contained in, or derived from them by neces
sary consequence. And if it should he proved
that all things necessary to the well govern
ment of the Church could not be deduced from
Holy Scripture, they maintained that the dis
cretionary power was not vested in the civil
magistrate, but in the spiritual officers of the*
Church. 4. The court-reformers maintained that the
practice of the primitive Church for the first
four or five centuries was a proper standard of
church government and discipline, and in some
respects better than that of the apostles, vvhich,
according to them, was only accommodated to
the infant state of the Church while it was un
der persecution, whereas theirs was suited to the
grandeur of a national establishment. There
fore they only pared off the later corruptions of
the papacy, from the time th^ pope usurped the
title of universal bishop, and left those standing
¦which they could trace a little higher, such as
archbishops, metropolitans, archdeacons, suf
fragans, rural deans, &c., which were not known
in the apostolic age, or those immediately fol
lowing. ¦
Whereas the Puritans were for keeping
close to the Scriptures in the main principles
of church government, and for admitting no
church officers or ordinances but such as are
appointed therein. They apprehended that the
form of government ordained by the apostles
was aristocratical, according to the constitution
of the Jewish sanhedrim, and was designed as
a pattern for the churches in after ages, not to
be departed from in any of its main principles ;
and, therefore, they paid no regard to the cus
toms of the papacy, or the practices of the ear
lier ages of Christianity, any farther than they
corresponded with the Scriptures.
5. Our Reformers maintained that things in
different in their own nature, which are neither
commanded nor forbidden in the Holy Scrip
tures, such as rites, ceremonies, habits, &c.,
might be settled, determined, and made neces
sary by the command of the civil magistrate ;
and that in such cases it was the indispensable
duty of aU subjects to observe them.
But the Puritans insisted that those things
¦which Christ had left indifferent ought not to
be made necessary by any human laws, but
that we are to stand fast in the liberty where
with Christ has made us free ; and farther, that
such rites and ceremonies as had been abused
to idolatry, and manifestly tended to lead men
back to popery and superstition, were no longer
indifferent, but to be rejected as unlawful.
6. Both parties agreed too well in asserting
the necessity of a uniformity of public worship,
and of using the sword of the magistrate for the
support and defence of their respective princi
ples, which they made an ill use of in their turns

Whenever they could grasp the power into their
hands. The standard ol uniformity, according
to the bishops, was the queen's supremacy and
the laws of the land ; according to the Puritans,
the decrees of pioviiicial and national synods
ahowed and enforced by. the civil magistrate;
but neither party were for admitting tli.ii liberty
of conscience and fieedoiu of piolesaion wliich
IS every man's right, as far as is consistent
with the peace of the civil governinent he lives
under. The principle upon which the bishops justi
fied their severities against the Puritans, in this
and the following reigns, was the subjects' ob
ligation to obey the laws of their country in all
things indifferent, which are neither command
ed nor forbidden by the laws of God. And the
excellent Archbishop Tillotson, in one of his
sermons, represents the dissenters as a humor
ous and perverse set of people, in not complying
with the service and ceremonies of the Church,.
for no other reason, says lie, but because their
superiors require them. But if this were true,.
it IS a justifiable reason lor their dissent, sup
posing the magistrate requires that which is.
not within the bounds of his commission.
Christ, say the Nonconformists, is the soie law
giver of his Church, and has enjoined aU things^
necessary to be observed in it to the end of
the world ; therefore, where he has indulged a
liberty to his followers, it is as much their duty
to maintain it as to observe any other of his
precepts. If the civil magistrate should, by a
stretch of the prerogative, dispense with the
laws of his country, or enjoin new ones, ac
cording to his arbitrary will and pleasure, witii-
out consent of Parliament, would it deserve
the brand of humour or perverseness to refuse
obedience, if it were for no other reason, but be
cause we win not submit: to an arbitrary dis
pensing power ? Besides, if the magistrate has
a power to impose things indifferent, and make
them necessary in the service of God, he may
dress up religion in any shape, and, instead of
one ceremony, may load it with a hundred.
To return to the history. The Reformation
bqing thus settled, the queen gave out commis
sions for a general visitation,, and published a
body of injunctions, consisting of fifty-three
articles, commanding her loving subjects obe
diently to receive, and truly to observe and
keep them, according to their offices, degrees,
and states. They are almost the same with
those of King Edward. I shall, therefore, only
give the reader an abstract of such as we may
have occasion to refer to hereafter.
Article 1. " All ecclesiastical persons shall see
that the act of supremacy be duly observed, and
shSll preach four times a year against yielding
Obedience to any foreign jurisdiction. 2. They
shall not set forth or extol the dignity of any
images, relics, of miracles, but shall declare the
abuses of the same, and that all grace is from
God. 3. Parsons shall preach once every month
upon works of faith, mercy, and charity, com
manded by God; and shall inform the people
that works of man's devising, such as pilgrim
ages, setting up of candles, praying upon beads,
&c,, are offensive to God. 4. Parsons having
cure of souls shall preach in person once a
quarter at least, or else read one of the homilies
prescribed by the queen to be read every Sun-

80

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

-day in the churches where there is no sermon.
¦5. Every -holyday, when there is no sermon,
they shall recite from the pulpit the Paternos
ter, Creed, and Ten Commandments. 6. With
in three months every parish shall provide a
Bible, and within twelve months Erasmus's
Paraphrase upon the Gospels in English, and
set them up in their several churches. 7. The
-clergy shall not haunt ale-houses or taverns, or
spend their time idly at dice, cards, tables, or
any other unlawful game. 8. None shall be
admitted to preach in churches without license
from the queen or her visiters, or from the
archbishop or bishop of the diocess. 16. Ah
parsons under the degree of M.A. shaU buy
for their own use the New 'Testament in Latin
and English, with paraphrases, within three
months after this visitation.. 17. They shall
learn out of the Scriptures some comfortable
sentences for the sick. 18. There shall be no
popish processions ; nor shall any persons walk
about the church, or depart out of it, while the
priest is reading the Scriptures. 19. Never
theless, the perambulation of parishes or pro
cessions with the curates shall continue, who
shall make a suitable exhortation. 20. Holy-
days shall be strictly observed, except in har
vest-time, after Divine service. 21. Curates
may not admit to the holy communion persons
that live openly in sin without repentance, or
that are at^variance with their neighbours, till
-they are reconciled. 22. Curates, &c., shall
teach the people not obstinately to violate the
.laudable ceremonies of -the Church. 23. Also,
they shall take away, utterly extinguish, and
destroy all shrines, -coverings of shrines; all
-tables, candlesticks, trindals, and rolls of wax,
pictures, paintings, and all other monuments of
feigned miracles, pilgrimages, idolatry, and su
perstition, so that there remain no memory of
Ihe same in walls, glass windows, or else-
"where, within their churches and houses ; pre-
.serving, nevertheless, or repairing, both the
-walls and glass windows; and they shall ex
hort all their parishioners to do the like in their
several houses. 28. Due reverence shall be
paid to the ministers of the Gospel. 29. No
priest or deacon shall marry without allowance
of the bishop of his diocess, and two justices of
the peace ; nor without consent of the parents
of the woman (if she have any), or, others that
¦are nearest of kin, upon penalty of being inca
pable of holding any ecclesiastical promotion,
or ministering in the Word and sacraments.
Nor shall bishops marry without allowance of
their metropolitan, and such commissioners as
the queen shall appoint. 30. All archbishops
-and bishops, and aU that preach and administer
the sacraments, or that shall be admitted "tnto
any ecclesiastical vocation, or into either of the
¦universities, shall wear such garments and
square caps as were worn in the latter end of
the reign of King Edward VI. 33. No person
shall absent from his parish church, and resort
to another, but upon an extraordinary occasion.
34. No innholders or public-houses shall sell
meat or drink in the time of Divine service.
35. None shall keep in their houses any -abused
images, tables, pietures, paintings, and monu
ments of feigned miraeles. 36. No man shall
disturb the minister in his sermon, nor mock
m make a jest of him. 37. No man, woman.

or child shall be otherwise busied in time of
Divine service, but shall give due attendanee to
what is read and preached. 40. No person
shah teach school but such as are allowed by
the ordinary. 41. Schoolmasters shall exhort
their children to love and reverence the true
religion now allowed by authority. 42. They
shall teach their scholars certain sentences of
Scripture tending to godliness. 43. None shall
be admitted to any spiritual pure that are ut
terly unlearned. 44. The parson or curate of
the parish shall instruct the children of his
parish for half an hour before evening prayer
on every holyday and second Sunday in. the
year, in the catechism, and shall teach them
the Lord's Prayer, Creed, and Ten Command
ments. 45. All the ordinaries shaU exhibit to
the visiters a copy of the book containing the
causes why any have been ^mprisoned, famish
ed, or put to death for religion in the late reign.
46. Overseers in every parish shall see that all
the parishioners duly resort to church, and shall
present defaulters to the ordinary. 47. Church
wardens shall deliver to the queen's visiters an
inventory of all their church furniture, as vest
ments, copes, plate, books, and especially of
grayles, couchers, legends, processionals, man
uals; hymnals, portuesses, and such like, apper
taining to the Church. 48. The litany and pray
ers shall be read weekly, on Wednesdays and
Fridays. 49. Singing-men shall be continued
and maintained in collegiate churches, and
there shall be a modest and distinct song so
used in all parts of the common prayers in the
Church, that the same may be as plainly under
stood as if it were read vy-ithout singing ; and
yet, nevertheless, for the comforting such as
delight in music, it may be permitted that, in
the beginning or end of the common prayer,
there may be sung a hymn, or such-like song,
in the best sort of melody and music that may
be conveniently devised, having respect that
the sentences of the hymn may be understood
and perceived. 50. There shall be no vain and
contentious disputes in matters of religion ;
nor the use of opprobrious words, as papist, pa
pistical, heretic, schismatic, or sacramentary.
Offenders to be remitted to the ordinary. 61.
No book or pamphlet shall be printed or made
public without license from the queen, or six of
her privy council, or her ecclesiastical pommis
sioners, or from the Arehbishops of Canterbury
and York, the Bishop of London, the Phancel-
lors of both universities, the bishop being or
dinary, and the archdeacon also of the place,
where any such book shall be printed, or two
of them, whereof the ordinary to be always one:
the names of the licensers to be printed at the
end. Ancient and profane authors are except
ed. 52. In time of reading the htany, and all j
other collects and common prayer, all the peo
ple shall devoutly kneel ; and when the name
of Jesus shall be in any lesson, sermon, or
otherways pronounced in the church, due rev- (
erence shall be made of all persons with low
ness of courtesy, and uncovering the heads of
the men, as has been heretofore accustomed."
These injunctions were to be read in the
churches once every quarter of a year.
An appendix was added, containing one form
of bidding prayer ; and an order relating to ta
bles in churches, which enjoins " that no altar

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

81

•be taken down but by oversight of the curate
and church-wardens, or one of tliem at least,
wherein no riotous or disorderly manner shall
be used ; and that the holy table in every church
be decently made, and set in the place where
the altar stood, and there to stand covered, sa
ving when the sacrament is to be administered ;
at which time it shaU be so placed within the
¦chancel, as thereby the minister may be more
conveniently heard of the communicants, and
the communicants also more conveniently, and
in more numbers, communicate with the said
minister ; and after the communion done, the
holy table shall be placed where it stood before."
The penalties for disobeying these injunc
tions were, suspension, deprivations, sequestra
tion of fruits and benefices, excommunication,
and such other corrections as to those who have
ecclesiastical jurisdiction under her majesty
should seem meet.
The major part of the visiters were laymen,
any two of whom were empowered to examine
into the true state of all churches ; to suspend
or deprive such clergymen as were unworthy,
and to put others in their places ;* to proceed
against the obstinate by imprisonment, church
censures, or any other legal methods. Thpy
were to reserve pensions for such as quitted
their benefices by resignation ; to, examine into
the condition of all that were imprisoned on the
-account of religion, and to discharge them ; and
to restore all such to their benefices who had
been unlawfully deprived in the late times.
This was the first high commission, which
was issued about midsummer, 1559. It gave
¦offence to many, that the queen should give
lay-visiters authority to proceed by ecclesiasti
cal censures ; but this was no more than is fre
quently done by lay-chancellors in the ecclesi
astical courts.! It was much more unjustifia
ble for the commissioners to go beyond the cen
sures of the Church, by fines, imprisonments,
and inquisitory oaths, to the ruin of some hun
dreds of famihes, without the authority of that
statute which gave them being, or any other.
Mr. Strype assures us that the visiters took
-effectual care to have all the instruments and
utensils of idolatry and superstition demolished
and destroyed'out of the churches where God's
pure service was to be performed ; such as roods,
i. e., images of Christ upon the cross, with Mary
and John standing by ; also images of tutelary
saints of the churches that were dedicated to
them, popish books, altars, and the like. But
¦it does not appear that either the second or
twenty-third article of injunctions empowered
them absolutely to remove all images out of
-churches ; the queen herself was as yet unde
termined in that matter.t Bishop Jewel, in his
'letter to Peter Martyr, February 4th, 1560, says
there was to be a conference about the lawful
ness of images in churches the day following, be
tween Parker and Cox, who were for them, and
himself and Grindal, who were against them ;
and if they prevail, says he, I will beno longer a
bishop.^ However, it is certain that the visit
ers commanded the prebendaries and archdea-
? Hist. Ref, vol. h., p. 400.
t This, Dr Warner observes, was justifying one
abuse by another. — Ed.
X Hist. Ref, vol.. hi., p. 290.
i Pierce's Vind., p. 38,
Vol. I.— L

con of London to see that the Cathedral Church
of St Paul's be purged and freed from ah and
singular images, idols, and altars ; and in the
place of the altars, to provide a decent table for
the ordinary celebration of the Lord's Supper ;
and, accordingly, the roods and high altar were
taken away.*
The populace was on the side of the Refor
mation,! having been provoked with the cruel
ties of the late times : great numbers attended
the commissioners, and brought into Cheapside,
Paul's Churchyard, and Smithfield, the roods
and crucifixes that were taken down, and in •
some places the vestments of the priests, copes,
surplices, alter-cloths, books, banners, sepul
chres, and burned them to ashes, as it were, to
make atonement for the blood of the martyrs
which had been shed there. Nay, they went
farther, and in their furious zeal broke the paint
ed glass windows, rased out some ancient in
scriptions, and spoiled those monuments of the
dead that had any ensigns of popery upon them.
" The divines of this time," says Mr, Strype,
¦ " could have been content to have been without
all relics and ceremonies of the Romish Church,
that there might not be the least compliance
with popish devotions." And it had not been
the worse for the Church of England if their
successors had been of the same mind.'
But the queen disliked these proceedings :{
she had a crucifix, with the blessed Virgin and
St. John, still in her chapel ; and when Sandys,
bishop of Worcester, spoke to her against it,
she threatened to deprive him. The crucifix
was after some time removed, but replaced in
1570. To put some stop to these proceedings,
her majesty issued out a proclamation, dated
September 19th, in the second year of her reign,
prohibiting " the defacing or breaking any par
cel of any monument, tomb, or grave, or other
inscription, in memory of any person deceased,
or breaking any images of kings, princes, or no
bles, &c,, set up only in memory of them to
posterity, and not for any religious honour ; or
the defacing or breaking any images in glass
windows in any churches, without consent of
the ordinary." It was with great difficulty, and
not without a sort of protestation froni the bish
ops, that her majesty consented to have so
many monuments of idolatry as are mentioned
* Strype's Ann., vol. i., p. 175.
+ The following anecdotes mark the strong dispo
sition of the people towards a reformation, and are
pleasing specimens of the skill and ingenuity with
which Queen Elizabeth knew how to suit herself to
their wishes. On her releasing the prisoners, con
fined in the former reign on account of religion, one
Rainsford told the queen that he had a petition to
present to her, in behalf of other prisoners, called
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. She readily re
plied that she must first consult the prisoners them
selves, and learn of them whether they desired that
liberty whic'h he had asked for them. At the time
of her coronation, from one of the principal arches
through which she was conducted, a boy personating
Truth was let down, and presented her with a Bible.
She received it on her knees, kissed it, and placing
it in her bosom, said, " she preferred that above all
other presents that were on that day made her." —
History of Knowledge in. the New Annual Register for
1789, p. 4 ; and Burnet's History of the Refomiation,
abridged, 8vo, p. 344. — Ed.
X Hist. Ref, vol. iii., p. 291. Life of Parker, p. 46,
310. Strype's Annals, vol. i., p. 175, 176.

82

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

in her twenty-third injunction removed out of
churches ; hut she would not part with her ahar,
or her crucifix, nor with lighted candles, out of
her own chapel. The gentlemen and singing
children appeared there in their surplices, and
the priests in their copes : the altar was fur
nished with rich plate, and two gilt candlesticks,
¦with lighted candles, and a massy crucifix of
silver in the midst : the service was sung, not
only with the sound of organs, but with the ar
tificial music of coronets, sackbuts, &c., on sol
emn festivals. The eeremonies observed by the
knights of the garter in their adoration towards
the altar, which had been abolished by King Ed
ward, and revived by Queen Mary, were retain
ed. In short, the service performed in the
queen's chapel, and in sundry cathedrals, was
so splendid and showy, that foreigners could
not distinguish it from the Roman, except that
it, was performed in the Enghsh tongue. By
this method, most of the popish laity were de
ceived into ponformity, and oame regularly to
Churph for nine or ten years, till the pope, being
out of all hopes of an accommodation, forbid-
them, by excommunicating the queen, and -lay
ing the- whole kingdom under an interdict.
When the visiters had gone through the king
dom, and made their report of the obedience
given her majesty's laws and injunctions, it ap
peared that not above two hundred and forty-
three clergymen had quitted their livings, viz.,
fourteen bishops, and three bishops elect ; one
abbot, four priors, one abbess, twelve deans,
fourteen archdeacons, sixty canons or preben
daries, one hundred beneficed clergy, fifteen
heads of colleges in Oxford and Cambridge ; to
which may be added about twenty doctors in
several faculties. In one of the volumes in the
Cotton library, the number is one hundred and
ninety-two ; D'Ew's Journal mentions but one
hundred and seventy-seven ; Bishop Burnet one
hundred and ninety-nine; but Camden and Car
dinal Allen reckon as above. Most of the infe
rior beneficed clergy kept their places, as they
had done through all the changes of the three
last reigns,* and, without all question, if the
* " The number of clergy who lost their preferments
by refusing this oath was much smaller than might
have been expected. Strype gives the following list,
ibid., 106.
Bishops . . . . ... 14
Deans . . . .13
Archdeacons ... .14
Heads of colleges  15
Prebendaries . . 50
Rectors of churches . . . . 80
Abbots, Priors, and Abbesses, . 6
In all, 192 ,
Bumet makes the number of deans 12, and of arch
deacons the same. In the other items of this hst he
agrees with Strype. — Burnet's Reform., vol, ii,, 620.
Collier makes the whole number to be about 250. —
Eccles. Hist., vol. ii., 431. The compliance of the
Catholic clergy on this occasion shows the futility of
tests, however cautiously worded, as a means of se
curing uniformity of doctrine. They may drive the
conscientious from the service of the sanctuary, but
will never eject the formalist and hypocrite. How
much more noble and Christian-like was the conduct
of the Nonconformists under Charles the Second,
two thousand of whom resigned their livings rather
than burden tneir conscience by an unprincipled sub
scription 1 It was remarked with equal truth and
wisdom by Bishop Shipley, in the debate on the Dis-

queen had died, and the old religion had been
restored, they would have' turned again ; but the
bishops and some of the dignified clergy having
sworn to the supremacy under King Henry, and
renounced :it again under Queen 'Mary, they
thought it might reflect a dishonour upon their
character to change again, and therefore they
resolved to hold together, and by their weight
endeavour todistress the Reformation. -Upon
so great an alteration of religion the number of
recusants out of r)ine thousand four hundred'
parochial benefices was inconsiderable ; and yet
it was impossible to' find Protestants of a toler
able capacity to supply the vacancies, because
many of the stricter sort, who had been exiles
for religion, could no^^ come .up to thetel-ms of
conformity and the queen'Sinjunctions,*
It may seem strange that,, amid all this con
cern for the new form of -worship; no notice-
should be taken of the doctrinal articles which
King Edward had published for avoiding diversi
ties of opinions, though her majesty might have
enjoined them, by virtue of her supremacy un
der the great seal, as well as- her brother ; hut,
the bishops durst not venture them into convo
cation, because the majority were for the old
religion, and the queen was not very fon,d of fier-
brother's doctrines. To supply this defect for
the present, the bishops drew up a declaration
of their faith, t which all churchmen were obliged.
to read publicly at their entrance upon their
cures. These were the terms of ministerial conform
ity at this time : the oath of supremacy, com
pliance with the act of uniformity, and this dec
laration of faith. There was no dispute among
the Reformers about the first and last of these-
qualifications, but they differed upon the second ;
many of the learned exiles and others refusing:
to accept of livings in the Church according to
the act of uniformity and -the queen's injunc
tions. If the popish habits and ceremonies had,
been left indifferent, or other decent ones ap
pointed in their room, the seeds of division had
been prevented ; but as the case stood, it was.
next to a miracle that the Reformation had not
fallen back into the ,hands of the papists ; and
if some.of the Puritans had not complied for the
present, in hopes of the removal of these griev
ances in more settled times, this would have-
been the sad consequence, for it was impossi
ble, with all the assistance they could get from
both universities, to fill up the parochial vacan
cies with men of learning and character. Many
churches were disfurnished for a considerable-
time, and not a few mechanics, altogether is-
unlearned as the moSt remarkable of those that
were ejected, were preferred to ^dignities and
livings, who, being disregarded by the people,
brought great discredit on the Reformation,
while others of the first rank for learning, piety,
and usefulness in their functions, were laid by
in silence. There was little or no preaching

senters' Rehef BiU, in 1779, ' I am not afraid of those
tender and scrupulous consciences who are over cau
tious of professing and believhig too much; if they
are sipcerely in the ,wrong, I forgive their errors, and
respect their integrity. The men I am afraid of ate
the men who believe everything, who subscribe every
thing, and who vote for everything.' " — Pari. History'
—G. * Strype's Ann., vol. i., p. 72, 73.
t See this declaration, ApperRix No. 1.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

83

all over the country ; the Bishop of Bangor
writes that " he had but two preachers in all his
diocess."* It was enough it the parson could
read the service, and sometimes a homily. The
bishops were sensible of the calamity ; but in
stead of opening the door a little wider, to let in
some of the more conseientious and zealous
Reformers, they adihitted the meanest and most
illiterate who would come up to the terms of the
la-vi's, and pubhshed a second book of homilies
for their farther assistance.
It is hard to say, at this distance of time, how
far the bishops were to blame for their servile
and abject compliance with the queen ; yet one
is ready to think that those who had drunk so
deep of the cup of persecution^ and had seen
the dreadful effects of it in the fiery trial of their
brethren the martyrs, should have insisted as
one man upon a latitude for their conscientious
brethren in points of indifference^; \vhereas
their zeal ran in a quite different channel ; for
when the spiritual sword wa: put into their
hands, they were too forward in brandishing it
over the heads of others, and even to outrun the
laws, by suspending, depriving, fining, and im
prisoning men of true learning and piety, popu
lar preachers declared enemies of popery and
superstition, and of the same faith with them
selves, who were fearful of a sinful compliance
¦with things that had been abused to idolatry.
All the exiles were now come home, except a
few of J;he Puritan stamp that stayed at Geneva
to finish their translation of the Bible, begun in
the late reign. The persons concerned in it were
Miles Coverdale, Christ. Goodman, John Knox,
Ant. Gibbs, Thomas Sampson, William Cole, of
Corpus Christi College, Oxon, and William Whit-
ingham : they compared Tyndal's old English
Jible first with the Hebrew, and then with .the
best modern translations ; they divided the chap
ters into verses, which the former translators
had not done ; they added some figures, maps,
and tables, and pubhshed the whole in 1560, at
Geneva, in quarto, printed by.^Rowland Harle,
with a dedication to the queen, and an epistie to
the reader, dated April 10th, which are left out
in the later editions, beca.use they touched some
what severely upon certain ceremonies retained
in the Church of England, which they excited
her majesty to remove, as having a popish as
pect ; and because the translators had pubhshed
marginal notes, some of which were thought to
affect the queen's prerogative, and to allow the
subject to resist wicked and tyrannical kings ;
therefore, when the proprietors petitioned the
secretary of state for reprinting it in England
for public use, in the year 1565, it was refused,
and the impression stopped, till after the death
of the archbishop, in the year 1576.t The au-
thor-of the Troubles at Frankfort, pubhshed in
the year 1575, complains that "if the Geneva
Bible be such as no enemy of God can justly
find fault with, then may men marvel that such
a work, being bo profitable, should find so small
favour as not to be printed again."t The ex
ceptionable notes were on Exodus, xv., 19, where
disobedience to kings is allowed ; 2 Chron., xix.,
16, where Asa is censured for stopping short at
the deposing of his mother, and not executing
her; Rev., ix., 3, where the locusts that come

* MS., p. 886. X Life of Parker, p. 206.
X Hickman against Heylin, p. 179.

out of the smoke are said to be heretics, false
teachers, worldly, subtle prelates, with monks,
friars, cartiinals, patriarchs, archbishops, bish
ops, doctors, bachelors, and masters. But not
withstanding these and some other exceptiona
ble "passages in the notes, the Geneva Bible was
reprinted in the years 1576' and 1579, and was
in such repute that some, who had been curious
to search into the number of its editions, say
that by the queen's own printers it was printed
above thirty times. However, for a present sup
ply, Tyndal and .(Joverdale's translation, printed
iutbe reign ofKing Henry VIII , was revised and
published for the use of the Chm-ch of England
till the bishops should publish a more correct
one, which they had now undertaken.
Together with the exiles, the Dutch and Gerr
man Protestants, who, in the reign of King Ed
ward VI., had the church in Austin Friars as-
sighed them for a place of worship, returned to
England with JTohn a Lasco, a Polonian, their
superintendent. They petitioned the queen to
restore them to their church arid pri-vileges,
which her majesty declined for some time, be
cause she would riot admit of a stranger to be
superintendent of a church within her bishop's
diocess. To take off this objection, Alasco re
signed, and the jieople chose Grindal, bishop of
London, their superintendent ; and then the
queen confirmed their charter, which they still
enjoy, though they never chose another su
perintendent after him. The French Protest
ants were also restored to their, church in
Threadneedle-street, which they yet enjoy.
The Reformation took place this year ia
Scotland, by the preaching of Mr. John Knox,
a bold and courageous Scotch divine, -who shun
ned no danger, nor feared the face of any man
in the cause of religion. He had been a preach
er in England in King Edward's time, then an
exile at Frankfort, and at last, one of the minis
ters of the English congre'gatibn at Geneva,
from whence he arrived" at Edihburgh, May 2d,
1559, being forty-five years of age, and settled
at Perth, but was a sort; of evangelist over the
whole kingdom. • He maintained this position,
that if kings and princes, refused to reform reli
gion, inferior magistrates and the people, being
directed and instructed in the truth by their
preachers, may lawfully reform within their
own bounds themselves ; and if all, or the far
greater part, be enlightened by the truth, they
may make a public reformation. Upon this
principle the Scots Reformers humbly petition
ed the queen-dowager, regent for her daughter
[Mary], now in France, for liberty to assemble
publicly or privately for prayer, for reading and
explaining the Holy Scriptures, and administer
ing the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's
Supper in the vulgar tongue ; and the latter in
both kinds, according ,to Christ's institution.
This reasonable petition not being admitted,
certain noblemen and barons formed an associ
ation, resolving to venture their lives and for
tunes in this cause ; and they encouraged as
many of the curates of the parishes within their
districts- as were willing to read the prayers
and lessons in English, but not to expound the
Scriptures till God should dispose the queen to
grant them liberty. This being executed at
Perth and the neighbouring parts without dis
turbance, the association spread, and was sign-

84

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

ed by great numbers, even in the capital city of
Edinburgh. Upon this they presented another
petition, representing to the regent the unsea-
sonableness of her rigour against the Protest
ants, considering their numbers ; but she was
deaf to ah moderate councils. At the meeting
of the Parliament the congregation, or heads of
the association, presented the regent with sun
dry articles relating to liberty of conscience, to
lay before the house, which she suppressed, and
would not suffer to be debated ; whereupon
they drew up the following protestation, and
desired it might be recorded : " That since they
could not procure a reformation, agreeable to
the Word of God, from the government, that it
might be lawful for them to fohow.the dictates
of their consciences. That none that joined
with them in the profession of the true faith
should be liable to any civil penalties, or incur
any damages for so doing. They protest that
if any tumults arise on the score of religion, the
imputation onght not to lie upon them who now
humbly entreat for a regular remedy ; and that
in all other things they will be most lojfal sub
jects." The regent acquainted the court of
France with the situation of affairs, and receiv
ed an order to suffer no other religion but the
Roman Catholic to be professed, with a promise
,of large supplies of forces to support her. Upon
this she summoned the magistrates of Perth,
and the Reformed ministers, to appear before
her at Stirling, -with a design to have them ban
ished by a solemn decree. The ministers ap
peared accordingly, being attended by vast
crowds of people armed and prepared to defend
them, agreeably to the custom of Scotland,
which ahowed criminals to come to their trials
-attended with their relations and friends. The
-regent, astonished at the sight, prayed John
Areskin to persuade the multitude to retire, and
gave her parol? that nothing should be decreed
against the ministers ; but they were no sooner
gone quietly home than she condemned them
for non-appearance.
This news being brought to Perth, the burgh
ers, encouraged by great numbers of the nobil
ity and neighbouring gentry, formed an army of
seven thousand men, under the command of the
Earl of Glencairne, for the defence of their min
isters against the regent, who was marching
¦with an army of French and Scots to drive
them out of their country ; but being informed
of the preparation of the burghers, she consented
to a treaty, by which it was agreed that she
should be received with honour into the city,
and be suffered to lodge in it some days, provi
ded she would promise to make no alteration in
religion, but refer all to the Parliament; the
Scots forces on both $ides to be dismissed ; but
the reformed had no sooner disbanded their
army, and opened their gates to the regent, than
she broke all the articles, set up the mass, and
left a garrison of French in the town, resolving
to make it a place of arms. Upon ,thi§ notori
ous breach of treaty, as well as the regent's
declaration that promises were not to be kept
¦with heretics, the congregations of Fife, Perth,
Dundee, Angus, Mearns, and Montrose raised
a little army, and signed an engagement to as
sist each other in maintaining the Reformation
¦with their lives and fortunes. Mr. Knox en
couraged them by his sermons ; and the popu

lace being warmed, pulled down altars and im
ages, plundered the monasteries, and dismantled
the churches of their superstitious ornaments.
The regent marched against them at the head
of two thousand French, and two thousand
Scots in French pay ; but being afraid to ven
ture a battle, she retreated_to Dunbar, and the
confederates made themselves masters of Perth
Scone, Stirling, and Lithgow. At length a truce
was concluded, by which the ministers of the
congregation had liberty to preach in the pulpits
of Edinburgh for the present; but the regent,
having soon after received large recruits from
France, repossessed herself of Leith, and order
ed it to be fortified and stored with all necessa
ry provisions ; the confederates desired her to
demolish the works, alleging it to be a viola
tion of the truce ; but she commanded them
upon their allegiance to be quiet and lay down
their arms ^ and marching directly to Edinburgh,
she obliged them to desert the city and retire
to Stirling, whither the French troops followed
them, and dispersed them into the mountains.
In this low condition they published a procla
mation, discharging the regent of her authority,
and threatening to treat as enemies all that
obeyed her orders ; but not being able to stand
their ground, they threw themselves into the
arms of Queen Elizabeth, who, being sensible
of the danger of the Protestant religion, and of
her own crown, if Scotland should become en
tirely popish, under the governinent of a queen
of France, who claimed the crown of England,
entered into an alliance to support the confed
erate Protestants in their religion and civil lib
erties, and signed the treaty at Berwick, Feb
ruary 27, 1560.
Among other articles of this treaty, it was
stipulated that the queen should send forces into
Scotland, to continue there till Scotland was re
stored to its liberties and privileges, and the
French driven out of the kingdom. According
ly, her majesty sent an army of seven thousand
foot and twelve hundred horse, which joined
the confederate array of like force.'* This army
was afterward re-enforced by a large detachment
from the northern marches, under the pommand
of the Duke of Norfolk ; after whiph they took
the city of Leith, and obliged the queen-regent
to shut herself up in the castle of Edinburgh,
where she died June 10th. The French offered
to restore Calais, if the queen would reeall her
forpes from Scotland ; but she refused. ,^t
length, the troubles of France requiring all their
forces at home, plenipotentiaries were sent into
Scotland to treat with Elizabeth about with
drawing the French forces out of that kingdom,
and restoring the Scots to their parliamentary
government. The treaty was concluded the be
ginning of August, whereby a general amnesty
was granted ; the English and French forces
were to withdraw in two months, and a parlia
ment to be called with aU convenient speed, to
settle the affairs of religion and the kingdom ;
but Francis and Mary refused to ratify it.
Before the Parliament met Francis died, and
left Mary Queen of Scots a young widow. The
late treaty not being ratified, the Parliament had
no direct authority from the crown, but assem
bled by virtue of the late treaty, and received
* Rapin, vol. viii., p. 271.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

86

the following petitions from the barons and gen
tlemen concerning religion :
1. " That the doctrines of the Roman Church
should be suppressed by act of Parliament, in
those exceptionable points therein mentioned.
2. "That the discipline of the ancient Church
be revived.
3. " That the pope's usurped authority be dis
charged." All which was voted, and the ministers'were
desired to draw up a confession of faith, which
they expressed in twenty-five articles, agreeable
to the sentiments of Calvin and the foreign Re
formers. The confession, being read in Parlia
ment, was carried but with three dissenting voi
ces, the popish prelates offering nothing in de
fence of their religion.
By another act the pope's authority was abol
ished, and reading mass was made punishable,
for the first offence, with loss of goods ; for the
second, banishment ; and for the third, death.
This was carrying matters too far ; for to judge
men to death for matters of mere conscience
that do not affect the government, is not to be
justified. "To affirm that we are in the right
and others in the -wrong," says Mr. Collyer,*
" is foreign to the point ; for every one that suf
fers for religion thinks himself in the right, and
therefore ought not to be destroyed for his sin
cerity, for the prejudices of education, or the
'want of a- better understanding, unless his opin
ions have mutiny and treason in them, and shake
the foundations of civil society."
Upon the breaking up of the Parliament a
commission was directed to Mr. Knox, Willock,
Spotiswood, and some other divines, to draw up
a scheme of discipline for the Church, which
they did pretty much upon the Geneva plan,
only admitting superintendents in the room of
bishops, and rejecting imposition of hands in
the ordination of ministers, beeause that mira
cles were eeased, which they apprehended to ac
company that ceremony. Their words are
these :t " Other ceremonies than the public ap
probation of the people, and declaration of the
chief minister, that the person there presented
is appointed to serve the Church, we cannot ap
prove ; for albeit the apostles used imposition of
hands, yet, seeing the miracle is ceased, the using
of the ceremony we judge not necessary." They
also appointed ten or twelve superintendents to
plant and erect kirks, and to appoint ministers
in such counties as should be committed to their
care, where there were none already. But then
they add, these men must not live like idle bish
ops, but must preach themselves twice or thrice
a week, and visit their districts every three or
four months, to inspect the lives and behaviour
of the parochial ministers, to redress grievan
ces, or bring them before an assembly of the
kirk. The superintendents were to be chosen
by the ministers and elders of the several prov
inces, and to be deprived by them for misbeha
viour. The assemblies of the kirk were divided
into classical, provincial, and national, in which
last the dernier resort of all kirk-jurisdiction was
lodged. When this plan of discipline was laid before
the estates, it was referred to farther consider
ation, and had not a pariiamentary sanction, as

* CoUyer's Eccl. Hist., p. 468.
t First Book of Discipline, p. 31,

the Reformers expected. But after the recess
of the Parliament, several noblemen, barons,
and chief gentiemen of the nation met together,
at the instance of Mr. Knox, and signed it, re
solving to abide by the new discipline till it
should be confirmed or altered by Parliament.
From this time the old hierarchical government
was disused, and the kirk was governed by gen
eral, provincial, and classical assemblies, with
superintendents, though there was no law for it
till some years after.
To return to England. The popish bishops
behaved rudely towards the queen and her new
bishops : they admonished her majesty by letter
to return to the religion of her ancestors, and
threatened her with the censures of the Church
in case she refused. This not prevailing. Pope
Pius IV. himself exhorted her by letter, dated
May 5, 1570, to reject evil counsellors, and obey
his fatherly admonitions, assuring her that, if
she would return to the bosom of the Church,
he would receive her with the like affectionate
love as the father in the Gospel received his
son. Parpalio, the nuncio that was sent with
this letter, offered, in the pope's name, to con
firm fihe English liturgy, to allow of the sacra
ment in both kinds, and to disannul the sen
tence against her mother's marriage ; but the
queen would not part with her supremacy.*
Another nuncio, the Abbot Martmegues, was
sent this summer with other proposals, but was
stopped in Flanders, and forbid to set foot in
the realm. The emperor, and other Roman
Catholic princes, interceded with the queen to
grant her subjects of their religion churches to
officiate in after their own manner, and to keep
up a separate communion ; but her majesty was
too politic to trust them, upon which they en
tered upon more desperate measures, as will be
seen hereafter, f
Archbishop Parker visited his diocess this ;
summer, and found it in a deplorable condition,
the major part of the beneficed clergy being
either mechanics or mass-priests in disguise ;
many churches were shut up, and in those that
were open, not a sermon was to be heard ia '
some counties within the compass of twenty;
miles ; the people perished for lack of knowl
edge, while men who were capable of instruct
ing them were kept out of the Church, or, at
least, denied aU preferment in it. But the
queen was not so much concerned for this asv
for maintaining her supremacy ; his grace, -
therefore, by her order, drew up a form of sub
scription to be made by all that held any ec-
plesiastieal preferment,^ wherein they acknowl-
edge and confess " that the restoring the su
premacy to the crown, and the abolishing all
foreign power, as well as the administration of
the sacraments according to the Book of Com
mon Prayer and the queen's injunctions, is
agreeable to the Word of God and the practice
of the primitive Church." Which most that
favoured the Reformation, as well as great
numbers of time-serving priests, complied with;
but some refused, and were deprived.

* Foxes and Firebrands, part in., p. 15, 18.
"Ehzabeth," as Dr. 'Warner expresses it, "was
not to be won with either threats or entreaties to
part with her supremacy, of which she was as fond
as the king her father." — ^Ed.
t Strype's Ann., p. 408. j. Life of Parker, p. 77.

88

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

The next thing the archbishop undertook
was settling the calendar, and the order of les
sons to he read throughout the year, which his
grace, as one of the ecclesiastical commission
ers, procured letters under the great seal to re
form.* Before this time it was left to the dis
cretion of the minister to change the chapters
to be read in course for sorrie others that were
more for edification ; and even after this new
regulation the bishops recommended it ; for in
the preface to the second book of homilies, pub
lished in the year 1564, there is a serious ad
monition to ah ministers ecclesiastical to be
diligent and faithful in their high functions, in
which, among others, is this remarkable instruc
tion to the curates or ministers.! " If one' or
other chapter of the Old Testament falls in or
der to be read on Sundays or holydays, it shall
be weU done to spend your time to consider
well of some other chapter in the New Testa
ment of more edification, for which it may be
changed. By this your prudence and diligence
in your office will appear, so that your people
may have cause to'glorify God for you, and be
the readier to embrace your labours." If this
indulgence had been continued, one consider
able difficulty to the Puritans had been remo
ved, viz., their obligation to read the .Apocrypha
lessons ; and surely there could be no great
danger in this, when the minister was ,confined
within the canon of Scripture.
But this liberty was not long permitted,
though, the admonition being never legally re
versed. Archbishop Abbot was of opinion that
it was in force in his time, and ought to have
been allowed the clergy throughout the course
of this reign. t His words are these, in his book
entitled " Hill's Reasons Unmasked," p. 317 :
" It is not only permitted to the minister, but
recommended to him, if wisely and quietly he
do read canonical Scripture where the Apocry
pha, upon good judgment, seemeth not so fit ;
or any chapter of the canonical may be con
ceived not to have in it so much edification be
fore the simple as some other parts of the same
canonical Scriptures may be thought to have."
But the governing bishops were of another
mind : they would trust nothing to the discretion
of the minister, nor vary a tittle from the act of
uniformity. Hitherto there were few or no peculiar les
sons for holydays and particular Sundays, but
the chapters of the Old and New Testaments
¦were read in course, without any interruption
or variation ; so it is in the Common Prayer
Book of 1549, fol.^ In the second edition of
that book, under KingEdward VL, there were
proper lessons for some few holydays, but none
for Sundays ; but now there was a table of
proper lessons for the whole year, thus entitled,
"Proper lessons to be read for the first lesson,
both at morning and evening prayer, on the
Sundays throughout the year ; and for some
also the second lessons." It begins with the
Sundays of Advent, and appoints Isa., i., for mat
ins, and Isa., ii., for even-song. There is anoth
er table for proper lessons on holydays, begin
ning with St. Andrew; and.' a third table for
proper psalms on certain days, as Christmas,
Easter, Ascension Whitsunday, &c. At the
* M.S. penes me, p. SS: ! Life of Parker, p. 84.
; Strype's Arm., p. 117. 6 Life of Parker, p. 83.

end of this Common Prayer BOok, printed Jiy
Jug and Cawood, 1560, were certain prayers ibr
private and family use, which in the later edi
tions are either shortened or left out; Mr. Strype
cannot account fbr this conduct, but says it was
great pity that the people were disfurnished of
those assistances they so much wanted; but
the design seems to have been to confitie all de
votion to the Church, and to give no liberty to
clergy or laity, even in their closets or families,
to vary from the public forms. An admbnition
was published at the same time, and set up in
all churches, forbidding all parsons under the
degree of master of arts to preach or expound
the Scriptures, or to innovate or alter anything,
or use any other rite but only what is set forth
by authority ; these were only to read the hom
ilies.* And whereas, by reason of the sparcity
of ministers, the bishops had admitted into the
ministry sundry-artificers and dthers, not brought
up to learning, and some that were of base oc
cupation, it was now desired that no more
tradesmen should be ordained till the convoca
tion met and took some better order in this
affair. But it w^s impossible to comply with this ad
monition'; for so many churches in country
towns and villages were vacant, that in some
places there was no preaching, nor So much as
reading a homily, for many months together.
In sundry parishes it was hard to find persons
to baptize,, or bury the dead ; the bishops, there
fore, were obliged to admit of pluralists, non
residents, civilians, and to ordain such as offer
ed themselves, how meanly soever they were
qualified, while others, who had some scruples
about conformity, stood by unprovided for ; the
learned and industrious Mr. John Fox, the mSr-
tyrologist, was of this number, for in a letter
to his friend Dr. Humphreys, lately chosen
President of Magdalen College, Oxon, he writes
thus,: " I still wear the same clothes, arid re
main in the same sordid condition that England
received me in when I first came home out of
Germany, nor do I change my degree or order,
which is that of the Mendicants ; or, if you will,
of the friars-preachers." Thus pleasantly did
this grave and learned divine reproach the in
gratitude of the times. The Puritans complained
of these hardships to the queen, but there was
no remedy.
The two universities could give littie or no
assistance to' the Reformers ; for the professors
and tutors, beingof the popish religion, had train
ed up the youth in their own principles for the
last six or seven years. Some of the heads of
colleges were displaced this summer, and Prot
estants put in their room ; but it was a long
time before they could supply the necessities of
the Church. There were only three Protestant
preachers in the University of Oxford in the
year 1563, and they were all Puritans, viz., Dr
Humphreys, Mr. Kingsmill, and Mr. Satnpson ;
and though by the next year the clergy were so
modelled that the bishops procured a convoca
tion that favoured the Reformation,' yet they
were such poor scholars that many of them could
hardly write their names.
Indeed, ihe Reformation went heavily on.
The queen could scarcely be persuaded to part
with images, nor consent to the marriage of the
*LifeofParker, p. 90.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

87

> clergy ; for she commanded that no head or
member of any collegiate or cathedral church
should bring a wife or any other woman witiiin
the preciriPts of it, to abide in the same, on pain
of forfeiture of all eoclesiastical promotions :*
and her majesty would have absolutely forbid
the marriage of all her clergy, if Secretary Ce
cil had not briskly interposed. She repented
that she had made any married men bishops,
and told the archbishop, in anger, that she in
tended to publish other injunctions, which his
grace understood to be in favour of popery ;
upon which the archbishop wrote to the secre
tary that he was sorry the queen's mind was so
turned, but in such a case he should think it his
duty to obey God rather than man. Upon the
whole, the queen was so far from improving her
brother's reformation, that she often repented
she had gone so far.!
Her majesty's second Parliament met the
12th of January, 1562, in which a remarkable,
act was passed, for assurance of the queen's
royal power over all states and subjects within
her dominions. It was- a confirmation of the
- act of supremacy. "Ah persons that by wri
ting, printing, preaching, or teaching, maintain
ed the pope's authority within this realm, incur
red a praemunire for the first offence, afid the sec
ond was high treason. The oat'u of supremacy
was to be taken by all in holy orders, by all
graduates in the universities, lawyers, school
masters, and all other officers of any court
whatsoever; and by all knights, citizens, and
burgesses, in Parliament, "t But the archbish
op, by the queen's Order, wrote to the bishops
not, to tender the oath but in case of necessity,
and never to press it a second time without his
special direction ; so that none of the popish
bishops or divines were burdened with it except
Bonner and one or two more.
The convocation was opened at St. Paul's the
. day after the meeting of the Parliament. Mr.
Day, provost of Eton, preached the sermon,
and Alexander Nowel, dean of St. Paul's, was
chosen prolocutor. Her majesty having direct
ed letters of license to review the doctrine and
discipline of the Church, they began with the
doctrine, and reduced the forty-two articles of
King Edwal-d VI. to the number of thirty-nine,
as at present, the following articles being, omit
ted : Article 39. The resurrection of the dead
is not passed already. Art. 40. The souls of
men deceased do neither perish with their bod
ies nor sleep idly. Art. 41. Of the Millenariaus.
Art. 42. All men not to be saved at last. Some
of the other articles underwent a new division,
two being joined into one, and in other parts
• one is divided into two ; but there is no remark
able variation in the doctrine.^
* Life of Parker, p. 107, 109.
! Of this Dr. Warner gives the following instances :
¦When the Dean of St. Paul's, in a sermon at court,
spoke with some dislike of the sign of the cross, her
. majesty called alopd to hiin from her closet, com
manding liim to desist from that ungodly digression,
and to return to his text. At another time, when one
of her chaplains preached a sermon on Good Friday
in defence of the real presence, which, without guess
ing at her sentiments, he would scarce have ventured
on, she openly gave film thanks for his pains and pi-
- ety. — BecU$iastical History, vol. ii., p. 427. — Ed.
X Life of Parker, p. 126.
^ The eighth article of £dward VI. had a clause

It has been -warmly disppted whether the
first clause of the twentieth article, " The
Church has power to decree rites and ceremo
nies, and authority in controversies of faith,"
was a part of the article which passed the syn
od, and was afterward confirmed by Parliament
in the year 1571. It is certain that it is not
among King Edward's articles;' nor is it in
that original manuscript of the articles sub
scribed by both houses of convocation with
their own hands, still preserved in Bene't Col
lege library among the rest of Archbishop Par
ker's papers. The records of this convocation
¦ were burned in the fire of London, so that there
is no appealing to them ; but Archbishop Laud
says that he sent to the public records in his
office, and the notary returned him the twenti
eth article with the clause ; and that afterward
he found the book of articles subscribed by the
lower house of convocation in 1571, with the
clause. Heylin says that he consulted the rec
ords of convocation, and that the contested
clause was in the book^ and yet FuUer, a much
fairer writer, who had the liberty of perusing
the same records, declares that he could not
decide the controversy.* The fact is this :
the statute of 1571 expressly confirms English
articles comprised in an imprinted book, enti
tled " Articles, whereupon it was agreed by the
archbishops and bishops of both provinces, and
the whole clergy in the convocation holden at
London in the year 1562, according to the com
putation of the Church of England ; for the
avoiding diversity of opinions, and for the es
tablishing of consent touching true religion :
put forth by the queen's authority." Now there
were only two editions of the articles in Eng
lish before this time, both which have the same
numeripal title with that transeribed in the
statute, and both, says my author, want the
clause of the Church's power. But Mr. Strype,
in his life of Archbishop Parker, says that the
clause is to be found in two printed copies of
1563, which I believe very few have seen.!
However, till the original MS. above mentioned
can be set aside, which is carefully marked as
imputing to the Anabaptists as the Pelagians, the
opinion that original sin consisted in following of
Adam : in this revisal of the articles the part of the
clause charging the Anabaptists -with that opinion
was left out. "rhat article concerning baptism stated
also the grounds of administering that rite to infants
in this manner : " The custom of the Church for
baptizing young children is both to be commended,
and by all means to be retained in the Church." It
seems, by this, that the first Reformers did not found
the practice of infant baptism upon Scripture ; but
took it only as a commendable custom that had been
used in the Christian Church, and, therefore, ought
to be retained. — Crosby's History of the English Bap
tists, vol. i., p. 54. — Ed.
* Church History, b. ix., p. 74.
! The celebrated Mr. Anthony Collins discussed
the question concerning the genuineness of this
clause, in several publications ; and professed to de
monstrate that it was not a part of the articles agreed
on by the convocations of 1562 and 1571. His first
pamphlet was entitled. Priestcraft in Perfection. Its
appearance gave a general alarm to the clergy ; and
a variety of pamphlets, sermons, and larger works,
in reply to it, issued forth from the press. 'The two
principal of which Mr. Colhns answered in 1724, in
" An Historical and Critical Essay on the Thirty-
nine Articles of the Church of England. "^See Brit
ish Biography, voL il., p. 275, 278, &c. — Ed.

88

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

to the number of pages, and the number of hnes
and articles in each page, it seems more proba
ble that the clause was some way or other sur
reptitiously inserted by those who were friends
of the Church's power, than struck out by the
Puritans, as Laud and his followers have pub
lished to the world ; for it is hard to suppose
that a foul copy, as this' is pretended to he,
should be so carefully marked and subscribed
by every member of the synod with their own
hands, and yet not be perfect ; but it is not im
probable that the notary or registrar, who tran
scribed the articles into the convocation-book,
with the names of them that subscribed, might,
by direction of his superiors, privately insert it ;
and so it might appear in the records of 1571,
though it was not in the original draught.
The controversy is of no great moment to
the present clergy, because it is certain the
clause was a part of the article confirmed by
Parliament at the restoration of King Charles
II., 1662; though how far it was consistent
with the act of supremacy, which lodged the
ultimate power of determining matters of faith
and discipline in the crown, I must leave with
the reader. The synod itself seemed to be ap
prehensive of the danger of a praBmunire, and,
therefore, after their names these words were
cautiously added : " Ista subscriptio facta est
ab omnibus sub hac protestatione, quod nihil
statuunt in praejudicium cujusquam senatus
consulti, sed tantum supplicem libellum peti-
tiones suas continentem humiliter offerunt : i.e ,
" This subscription is made by all, with this pro
testation, that they determine nothing in preju
dice of any act of Parliament, but only offer this
little book to the queen or Parliament, contain
ing their requests and petitions."
The articles were concluded, and the sub
scription finished, in the chapter-house of St.
Paul's, January 31, 1562, in the ninth session
of convocation:* All the bishops subscribed
except Gloucester and Rochester, who, I believe,
were absent. Of the lower house there were
upward of a hundred hands ; but, whatever their
learning was, many of them wrote so ih that it
was hard to read their names. Among the
subscribers are several of the learned exiles,
who were dissatisfied with the constitution ; as
the Reverend Mr. Beseley, Watts, Cole, Mul-
lyns, Sampson, Pullan, Spencer, Wisdom, Now
el, Heton, Beaumont, Pedder, Lever, Pownal,
Wilson, Croley, and others. But the articles
did not pass into a law, and become a part of
the establishment, till nine years after, though
some of the more rigid bishops of the ecclesias
tical commission insisted upon subscription from
this time.
The next considerable affair that came under
debate was the rites and ceremonies of the
Chui;ch ; and here, first. Bishop Sandys brought
in a paper of advice to move her majesty,
" 'That private baptism, and baptism by wom
en, may be taken out of the Common Prayer
Book. That the cross in baptism may be dis
allowed, as needless and superstitious. That
commissioners may be appointed to reform the
ecclesiastical laws."
Another paper was presented to the house
with the following requests, signed by thirty-:
three names. * Strype's Annals, p. 329.

"That the psalms may be sung distinctly
by the whole congregation, and that organs
may be laid aside. That none may baptize but
ministers, and that they may leave off the sign
of the cross. That at the ministration of the
communion the posture of kneeling may be left
indifferent. That the use of copes and surplices
may be taken away ; so that all ministers in-
their ministry use a grave, comely, and sad gar
ment, as they commonly do in preaching. That
ministers be not compelled to wear such gowns
and caps as the enemies of Christ's Gospel have
chosen to be the special array of their priest
hood. That the words in the thirty-third arti
cle, concerning the punishment of those whodo^.
not in all things conform to the public order
about ceremonies, may be mitigated. That all i
the saints' days, festivals, and holydays, bear-i
ing the name of a creature, may be abrogated j J
or at least a commemoration only of them re- j
served by sermons, homilies, or common prayer, ¦
for the better instructing the people in history;.,
and that after service men may go to work."
I have subjoined the names of the subscribers/
to this paper, that the reader may take notice
what considerable persons they were for learn
ing and ability, as well as numbers, that desired
a farther reformation in the Church.*
This paper not being approved, another was-
brought into the lower house February 13, con
taining the foUowing articles to be approved or
rejected.! " That all Sundays in the year, and principal
feasts of Christ, be kept holydays, and that all
other holydays be abrogated. That in aU parish
churches the minister, in the common prayer,-
turn his face towards the people, and there read
distinctly the servipe appointed, that the people
may hear and be edified. That in baptism the
press may be omitted, as tending to supersti
tion. Forasmuph as divers pommunicants are

* Alexander Nowel, dean of St. Paul's and prolo
cutor. '
Sampson, dean of Christ Church, Oxon.
Lawrence Nowel, dean of Litchfield.
Ellis, dean of Hereford.
Day, provost of Eton.
Dodds, dean of Exon.
Mullins, a,rchdeacon of London.
Pullan, archdeacon of Colchester.
Lever, archdeacon of Coventry.
Bemont, archdeacon of Huntingdon.
Spencer, archdeacon of Chichester.
Croley, archdeacon of Hereford.
Heton, archdeacon of Gloucester.
Rogers, archdeacon of St. Asaph.
Kemp, archdeacon of St. Alban's.
Prat, archdeacon of St. David's.
Longland, archdeacon of Bucks.
"Watts, archdeacon of Middlesex.

Calfhil,Walker, Saul,
Wibume, Savage, '
W. Bonner,
Avys, Wilson,Nevynson,
Tremayne, Renyger,Roberts,Reeve,
Hills, ! Strype'i

Church of Oxon.
Clergy of Suffolk.
Dean and chapter of Gloucester.
Church of Rochester.
Clergy of Gloucester
Church of Somerset.
, Church of Wigorn.
¦j Church of Wigorn, Worcester.
Clergy of Canterbury.
Clergy of Exeter.
Dean and chapter of Winton.
Clergy of Norwich.
Dean and chapter of Westminster.
.Clergy of Oxon.
Annals, p. 337.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

89

not able to kneel for age and siokness at the
saprament, and others kneel and knopk super-
stitiously, that therefore the order of kneeling
may be left to the" diseretion of the ordinary.
That it be suffioient for the minister, in time of
saying Divine service and ministering of the
sacraments (once), to wear a surplice ; and that
no minister say service or minister the sacra
ments but in a comely garment or habit. That
the use of organs be removed."
These propositions -were the subject of warm
debates ; some approving and others rejecting
them. In conclusion, the house being divided,
it appeared, upon the scrutiny, that the majority
of those present were for approving them, forty-
three against thirty-five ; but when the proxies
were counted, the scale was turned ; those who
were for the propositions being fifty-eight, and
those against them fifty-nine ; so that by the
majority of one single voice, and that not a per
son present to hear the debates but a proxy,* it
¦*¦ " The authenticity of the first part of thefwentieth
article, which affirms that ' the Church hath power to
decree rites or ceremonies, and authority in controver
sies of faith,' has been impugned on grounds which, to
say the least, are entitled to respect. The charge- of
interpolation w?s first advanced by Burton, during
the reign uf Charles the First. In a letter to the tem
poral lords of the privy council, he says, ' The prel
ates, to justify their proceedings, have forged a new
article of religion, brought from Rome (which gives
them full power to alter the doctrine and discipline
of our Church at a blow), and have foisted it into the
twentieth article of our Church. And this is in the last
edition of the Articles, 1628, in affront of his majes
ty's declaration before them; The clause forged is
this: The Church (that is, the bishops, as they ex
pound it) hath power to decree, &c. This clause is
a forgery, fit to be examined and deeply censured in
the Star Chamber For it is not to be found in the
Latin or English Articles of Edward the Sixth, or
of Queen Elizabeth, ratified by Parhament. And if
to forge a will or writing be censurable in the Star
Chamber, which is but a wrong to a private man, how
much more the forgery of an article of religion, to
wrong the whole Church, and overturn rehgion, which
concerns all our souls V Laud denied the charge, al
leging that the Puritans had been guilty of publishing
mutilated editions of the Articles, in which the con
tested clause was omitted. ' I do openly here,' he
said in his speech in the Star Chamber, 'charge upon
that pure sect this foul corruption of falsifying the
Articles of the Church of England. Let them t^e
it off as they can.' This controversy was revived, in
the beginning of the last century, by Mr. Anthony
Collins, in a pubhcation entitled Priestcraft in Per
fection. He attacked the authenticity of'^ the con
tested clause with much ingenuity and force of evi
dence. Several answers appeared, the principal of
which were, A Vindication of the Church of England
from the Assertions of Priestcraft in Perfectinn, &c.,
pubhshed in 1710 ; and. An Essay on the Thirty-nine
Articles, by Dr Bennet, in i715. Collins replied to
these, as well as to Collier and others, in An Histori
cal and Critical Essay on Ihe Thirty-nine Articles of
the Church of England, pubhshed in 1724 : wherein
he undertakes to demonstrate that the clause. The
Church has power, &c,, is not a part of the Articles,
as they were established by act of Parhament in the
thirteenth of Ehzabeth, or agreed on by the convo
cations of 1562 and 1571. It is not easy to form a
decided opinion on the question. Fuller, with his
usual honesty, acknowledges the difficulty, and ab
stains from giving judgment. ' Whether,' he says,
' the bishops were faulty in their addition, or their
opposites in their subtraction, I leave to more cunning
state arithmeticians to decide.' Neal inchnes to the
¦view of Collins, but speaks with hesitation : while
Vol. I.— M

was determined to make no alteration in the
ceremonies, nor any abatement of the present
establishment.* I mention these names, not to detract from
the merit of those who appeared for the present
establishment, for many of them would have
voted for the alterations, had they not been
awed by their superiors, or afraid of a praemu
nire ; whereas, if the contrary vote had prevail
ed, it was only to address the queen or Parlia
ment to alter the service-book in those particu
lars ; but I mention them to show that the
voice of half the clergy in convocation, and of
no less numbers out of it, were for amendments,
or, at least, a latitude in the observation of the
rites and ceremonies of the Church. Indeed,
it was very unkind that, when such consider
able abatements had been made in favour of
the Roman Catholics, nothing should be in
dulged to those of the same faith, and who had
suffered in the same cause with themselves,
especially when the controversy was about
points which one party apprehended to be sin
ful, and the other acknowledged to be indiffer
ent. Sundry other papers and petitions were
drawn up by the lower house of convocation in
favour of a farther reformation, but nothing-
passed into a law.
Strype and CoUier maintain the opposite.-^Fuller's
Ch. Hist., vol. ix., 73. Neal's Puritans, vol. i,, 147.
Strype's Parker, vol. ii., 54. Collier's Eccl. Hist., voL
ii., 486."— C.
* The names of the forty-three that approved the,-
above articles were.
Dean Nowel, prolocutor, St. Paul's.
Mr Archdeacon Lever, Coventry.
Dean Pedder, Wigorniensis.
Mr. Archdeacon Watts, Middlesex.
Dean Nowel, of Litchfield.
Mr Archdeacon Spencer, Cicestrensis-
Mr. Besely, proct. cler. Cant.
Mr. Nevynson, proct. cler.. Cant.
Mr. Bower, proct. cler., Somers.
Mr. Ebden, proct. cler, Wint.
Mr. Archdeacon Longland, Bucks.,
Mr. Lancaster, thesaurar, Sarum.
Mr. Archdeacan "Weston, Lewensis..
Mr Archdeacon Wisdom, Eliensis.
Mr. Saul, proct. dec. cap., Glouc.
Mr "Walker, proct., Suffolk.
Mr Becon.
Mr. Proctor, proct. cler, Sussex.
Mr. Cocerel, proct. cler, Surrey.
Mr. Archdeacon Tod, Bedf.
Mr. Archdeacon Croley, Hereford
Mr. Soreby, proct. cler, Cicest.
Mr Bradbridge, cancellar, Cicest_
Mr Hills, proct. cler., Oxon.
Mr. Savage, proct. cler, Glouc.
Mr Archdeacon Pullan, Colchest-
Mr Wilson, proct., Wigorn.
Mr Burton.
Mr Archdeacon Bemont, Huntingd,
Mr Wibume, proct. eccl., Roft.
Mr. Day, prov., Eton.
Mr. Reeve, proc. dec. cap,, Westm.
Mr. Roberts, proct. cler, Norw.
Mr. Calfhil, proct. cler. Lend, and Oxon.,
Mr Godwin, proct. cler.. Line.
Mr. Archdeacon Prat, St. David's.
Mr. Tremayn, proct. cler, Exon.
Mr. Archdeacon Heton, Glouc.
Mr Archdeacon Kemp, St. Alban's.
Mr. Avys, proct. eccl,, Wigorn.
Mr Renyger, proct. dec. cap., Wmt-
Mr Dean Elis, Hereford.
Mr Dean Sampson, Oxon.

r'SO

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

The Church having carried their point*
against the Puritans in convocation, we are
how to see what use they made of their victory.
The plague being in London and several parts
of the pountry this summer, put a little stop to
¦their zeal fbr uniformity at present ; some were
indulged, but hone preferred that scrupled the
habits. In proof of this, we may produce the
examples of two of the worthiest and most
learned divines of the age ; one was FaUier
Miles Coverdale, formerly bishop of Exeter,
who, with Tyndal and Rogers^ first trans
lated the, Bible into English after Wickliffe.
This prelate was born in Yorkshire, bred at
Cambridge, and proceeded doctor in divinity in
the University of Tubing. Returning to Eng
land in the reign of King Edward, he was made
Bishop of Exeter, 1551.! Upon the accession
of Queen Mary he was imprisoned, and narrow
ly escaped the fire ; btit by the inteircession of
the King of Denmark was sent over into that
country, and coming back at her death, assisted
at the consecration of Queen Elizabeth's first
Archbishop of Canterbury ; yet, because ho
could not comply with the ceremonies and hab
its, he was neglected, and had no preferment.
This reverend man, says Mr. Strype,! being
now old and poor, (Srindal, bishop of London,
gave him the smaU living of St. Magnus, at the
Bridge Foot, where he preached quietly about
two years ; but not ooming up to the ponformity
required, he was "persecuted thence, and obliged
to relinquish his parish a little before his death,
which happened May 20, 1567, at the age of
eighty-one.^ He was a celebrated preacher,
admired and followed by ah the Puritans ; but
the Act of Uniformity bronght down his rever
end hairs with sorrow to the grave. He was
buried iri St. Bartholomew's, behind the Ex
change, and was attended to his grave with
vast crowds of people.
The other was that venerable mart, Mr. John
.Fox, the martyrologist, a grave, learned, and
painful divine, and exile for religion, who em-'
.ployed his time abroad in writing the acts and
monuments of that Church which would hardly
receive him into her bosom, and in collecting
materials relating to the martyrdom of those

* " I conceive," says one of the most accurate and
.impartial of historians, " the Church of England par
ty, that is, the party adverse to any species of ecclesias
tical change, to have been the least numerous oi the
three (Catholic, Church of England, Puritan) during
this reign ; still excepting,- as 1 have said, the neu
trals, who commonly make a numerical majority,
and are counted -along with the dominant religion.
The Puritans, or, at least, those who rather favoured
them, had a majority among the Protestant gentry in
the queen's days. It is agreed on all hands, and is
quite manifest, that they predominated in the House
of Commons. But that house was composed, as it
has ever been, of the principal landed proprietors,
and as much represented the general wish of the
community, when it demanded a farther reform in
religious matters, as on any other subjects. One
would imagine, by the manner in which some ex
press themselves, that the discontented were a small
faction, who, by some unaccountable means, in de
spite of the government and the nation, formed a
majority of all parliaments under Elizabeth and her
two successors." — Hallam's Const. Hist. , i., 257. Such
is the representation of Bishop Maddox in his ani-
>madversions on Neal, p. 37, &c. — C.
! Fuller's Worthies, b. in., p. 198.
,j Ann., p. 405. l) Life of Parker, p. 149.

that suffered for religion in the reigns of King
Henry VIII. and Queen Mary; all which, he
published, first in Latin for the benefit of -for-
eigners, and then in English for the service of
his own country, in the year 1561. No book
ever gave such a mortal wound to popery as
this ; it was dedicated to the queen, and was in
such high reputation, that it was ordered to be
set up in the churches, where it raised in the
people an invincible horror and detestation of
that religion which had shed so much innocent
blood. Queen Elizabeth had a particular es
teem for Mr. Fox, but this excellent and labo
rious divine, though reduced to, very great-pov
erty and want, had no preferment in the Church
because he scrupled the habits, till at length,
by the intercession of some great friend, he ob
tained a prebend in the Church of Sarum, which
he made a shift to hold till his death,, though
not without some disturbance from the bishops,,*
The parochial clergy, both in city and coun
try, had an aversion to the habits ; they wore
them sometimes in obedience to the Taw, but
more frequently administered without them ; for
which some were cited into the spiritual courts,
and admonished, the bishops not having yet as
sumed the courage of proceeding to suspension
and deprivation. At length the matter was laid
before the queen, as appears by a paper found
among Secretary Cecil's MSS., dated February
24, 1564, which acquaints her majesty, that
"some perform Divine service andprayers in the
chancel, others in the body of the Church ; some
in a seat made in the church ; some in a pulpit
with their faces to the people ; some keep pre
cisely to the order of the book, some intermix
psalms in metre ; some say with a surplice, and
others without one.
" The table stands in the body of the church
in some places, in others it stands in the chan
cel ; in some places the table stands altarwise,
distant from the wall a yard ; in others in the
middle of the chancel, north and south ; in some
places the table is joined, in others it stands upon
tressels ; in some the table has a carpet, in others
none. " Some administer the communion with sur
plice and cap ; some with surplice alone ;! others
with none ; some with chalice, others with a
communion-cup, others with a common cup;
some with unleavened bread, and some with
leavened. " Some receive kneeling, others standing, oth
ers sitting ; some baptize in a forit, some in a
basin ; some sign with the sign of the cross,
others sign not ; some minister in a surphce,
others without ; some with a square cap, some
with a round cap, some with a button-cap, some
with a hat ; some in scholars' clothes, some in
others." Her majesty was highly displeased with this-
report, and especiaUy that her laws were so ht
tle regarded ; she therefore directed a letter to
the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, dated
January 25th, " to confer with the bishops of the
ecclesiastical commission, and to inquire what

* Strype's Annals, vol. i., p. 130. Bishop War
burton says that he was also installed in the thud
prebend of Durham, October 14, 1572, but held it not
long ; Bellamy succeedmg to the same stall Octo
ber 31, IS73.— Supplement to Warburton's Works, p.
456.— Ed. t liife of Parker, p. 149.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

91

¦diversities there were among the clergy in doe-
trine, rites, and eeremonies, and to take effectual
methods that an exact order and uniformity be
maintained in all external rites and ceremonies,
as by law and good usages are provided for ; and
that none hereafter be admitted to any ecclesi
astical preferment but who is well disposed to
common order, and shall formally promise to
comply with it."* To give countenance to this
severity, it was reported that some of the warm
er Puritans had turned the habits into ridicule,
and given unhandsome language to those that
wore them, which, according to Mr. Strype,
was the occasion of their being pressed after
ward with so much rigour ; but Whatever gave
occasion to the persecution that followed, or
whoever was at the head of it, supposing the in
sinuation to be just, it was very hard that so
great a number of useful ministers, who neither
censured their brethren, nor abused their indul
gence by an unmannerly behaviour, should be
turned out of their benefices for the indiscretion
of a few. The bishops, in their letters to the
foreign divines, had promised not to urge their
brethren in these things, and, when opportunity
served, to seek reformation of them ; but now
they took themselves to be released from their
promises, arid- set at liberty by the queen's ex
press command to the contrary ; their meaning
being, that they would not do it -with their own
accord, without direction from above.
The Puritans and their friends, foreseeing the
storm, did what they could to avert it. Pilking
ton, bishop of Durham, wrote to the Earl of I,ei-
cester, October 25th, to use his interest with
the queen in their behalf He said " that com
pulsion shoujd not bemused in things of liberty.
He prayed the earl to consider how all reformed
countries had cast away popish apparel, with
the pope, and yet we contend to keep it as a holy
relic! "That many ministers would rather leave
their livings than comply ; and the realm had a
great scarcity of teachers, many places being
¦destitute of any. That it would give incurable
offence to foreign Protestants ; and since we
have forsaken popery as wicked,! do not see,"
says the bishop, " how their apparel can become
saints and professors of the Gospel." Whitting
ham, dean of Durham, wrote to the same- pur
pose. He dreaded the consequence of imposing
that as necessary which at best was only indif
ferent, and, in the opinion of many wise- and
learned men, superstitious. " If tlie apparel
which the clergy wear at present," says he,
" seems not so modest and grave as their vo
cation requires, or does not sufficiently distin
guish them from men of other callings, they re
fuse not to wear that which shall be thought,
by godly magistrcites, most decent for these
uses, provided they may keep themselves ever
pure from the'defiled robe of antichrist. Many
papists," says he, " enjoy their livings and .lib
erty who have not sworn obedience, nor do any
p^rt of their duty to their miserable flock,}:
Alas I my lord, that such compulsion should be
used towards us, and such great lenity towards
the papists. Oh ! noble earl, be our patron and
stay in this behalf, that we may not lose that
liberty that hitherto, by the queen's benignity,
, * Life of Parker, p. 154.
! Life of Parker, p. 1 55, and Appendix, p. 40.
X Life of Parker, p. 157, and Appendix, p. 43.

we have enjoyed." Other letters were written
to the same purpose, and all made what friends
they could among the courtiers.
'The nobihty were divided, and the queen her
self seemed to be at a stand, but the archbishop,
spirited her forward ; and having received her
majesty's letter, authorizing him to proceed, he
entered upon the unpleasing work with vigour
and resolution. The Bishops Jewel and Horn
preached at Paul's Cross to reconcile the people
to the habits. Jewel said he did not pome to
defend them, but to show that they were indif.
ferent, and might be complied with. Horn went
a little farther, and wished those cut off from
the Church that troubled it about white or black
garments, round -or square caps. The Puritans
were not allowed to preach against the habits,
but they expostiilated with the bishops, and told
them that, in their opinions, those ought rather
to be cut off which stopped the course of the
Gospel, and that grieved and offended their weak
brethren, by urging the remnants of antichrist
more than God's commandments, and by pftn-
ishing the refusers of them more extremely than
the breakers of God's laws.
The archbishop, with the Bishops of London,
Ely, Winchester, and Lincoln, framed sundry
articles to enforce the habits, which were after
ward published underthetitle of Advertisements.
But when his grace brought them to court, the
queen refused to give them her sanction. The
archbishop, chafed at the disappointment, said
that the cOurt had put him upon-framing the
Advertisements, and if they would not go on,
they had better never have done anything ; nay,
if the council would not lend their helping hand
against the Nonconformists, as they had done
heretofore in Hooper's days, they should only
be laughed at for ah they had done.* But still
the queen was so cold, that, when the Bishop of
liOndon came to court, she spoke not a word to
him about the redressing the neglect of con
formity in the city of London, where it was most
disregarded. Upon which the archbishop ap
plied to the secretary, desiring another letter
from the queen to back their endeavours for
conformity, adding, in some heat, " If you rem
edy it not by letter, I will no more strive against
the stream, fume or chide who will."
But the wearing of popish garments being one
of the grand principles of nonconformity, it will
be proper to set before the reader the senti
ments of some learned performers upon this
pontroversy, whiph employed the pens of some
of the most judicious divines of the age.
We have related the unfriendly behaviour
of the Bishops, Cranmer and Ridley towards
Hooper, and that those very prelates who once
threatened his life for refusing the habits, if we
may credit Mr. Fox's Latin edition of the Book
of Martyrs, lived to see their mistakes and re
pent ;! for when Brooks, bishop of Gloucester,
came to Oxford to degrade Bishop Ridley, he
refused to put on -the surpliee, and while they
were putting it on him whether he would or no,
he vehemently inveighed against the apparel,
calling it " foolish, abominable, and too fond for
a vice in a play."
Bishop Latimer also derided the garments ;

* Life of Parker p. 159.
! Fox's Book of Martyrs, vol. in., p. 500. Strype's
Ann., vol. ii., p. 555.

92

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

and when they pulled off his surplice at his deg
radation, " Now," says he, " I can make no
more holy water."
In the articles against Bishop Farrar, in King
Edward's reign, it was objected, article forty-
nine, that he had vowed never to wear the cap,
but that he came into his cathedral with a long
gown and hat, which he did not deny, alleging
he did it to avoid superstition, and without any
offence to the people.
When the popish vestments were put upon
Dr. Taylor, the martyr; in order to his degrada
tion, he walked about with his hands by his
sides, saying, " How say you, my lord, am I not
a goodly fool 1 If I were in Cheapside, would
not the boys laugh at these foolish toys and
apish trumpery V And when the surplice was
pulled off, "Now," says he, "I am ridof a fool's
coat," When they were pulling the same off from
Archbishop Cranmer, he meekly replied, "All
this needed not : I myself had done with this
gear long ago."
Dr. Heylin testifies that John Rogers, the pro
tomartyr, peremptorily refused to wear the hab
its unless the popish priests were enjoined to
wear upon their sleeves, by way of distinction,
a chalice-with a host. The same he asserts con
cerning Philpot, a very eminent martyr ; and
concerning one Tyms, a deacon, who was like
wise martyred in Queen Mary's reign.
The holy martyr John Bradford, as well as
Mr. Sampson and some others, excepted against
the habits at their entrance into holy orders, and
were ordained without them.
Bucer and Peter Martyr, professors of our two
famous universities, were both against the hab
its, and refused to wear them. Bucer being
asked why he did not wear the square cap, an
swered. Because his head was not square.* And
Martyr, in one of his letters after his return
home, says, " When I was at Oxford I would
never use those white garments in the choir,
though I was a canon in the Church ; and I am
satisfied in my own reasons for what I did."! In
the same letter, Bucer says he would be content
to suffer some great pain in his body upon condi
tion that these things were utterly taken away.!
And, in such case as we are now [1550], he
willeth that in no case they should be received.
He adds, in his letter from Cambridge to a friend
beyond sea, dated 12th January, 1550, that no
foreigner was consulted about the purity of cer
emonies, " De puritate rituum scito hie neminem
extraneum de his rebus rogari." And though
both he and Peter Martyr thought they might
be borne with for a season, yet, in our case, he
would not have them suffered toremain.
These were the sentiments of our first Re
formers in the reign of King Edward VI. and
Queen Mary.
Upon restoring the Protestant religion, fin
der Queen Elizabeth, the same sentiments con
cerning the habits prevailed among all the Re
formers at first, though they disagreed upon the
grand question whether they should desert their
ministry rather than comply.
Mr, Strype, in his Life of Archbishop Parker,
a most cruel persecutor of the Puritans, says
* Life of Parker, Appendix, p. 41.
! Hist. Ref, p. 65.
X Ann. Ref, vol. ii., p. 554, 555.

that he was not fond of the cap, the surplice,.
and the wafer-bread, and such like injunctions^
and would have been pleased with a toleration ;
that he gloried in having been consecrated with
out the Aaronical garments; but that his con
cern for his prince's honour made him resolute
that her royal will might take place.
Dr Horn, bishop of Winchester, in his letter
to Gaulter, says " that the act of Parliament
which enjoined the vestments was made before-
they were in office, so that they had no hand in
making it ;* but they had obeyed the law, think
ing the matter to be of indifferent nature ; and
they had reason to apprehend that, if they had ¦
deserted their stations on that account, their en
emies might have come into their places ;! but ¦
he hoped to procure an alteration of the act
in the next Parliament, though he believed
it would meet with great opposition from the
papists:" Yet this very bishop, a little aHer^
wished them cut off from the Church that troub
led it about white or black garments.
Bishop Jewel calls the vestments " the habits.
of the stage, the relics of the Amorites, and,
wishes they may be extirpated to the roots, that
all the remnants of former errors, with all the
rubbish, and even the dust that yet remained,.
might be taken away." But, he adds, the queen
is fixed ; and so was his lordship soon after,
when he refused the learned Dr. Humphreys a
benefice within his diocess on this account, and
called the Nonconformists men of squeamish
stomachs.! Bishop Pilkington complains " that the dis
putes which began about the vestments were
now carried farther, even to the whole consti
tution ; that pious persons lamented this, athe
ists laughed, and the papists blew the coals ;
and that the blame of all was cast upon the
bishops. He urged that it might be considered
that all Reformed Churches had cast away po
pish apparel with the pope ; that many ministers
would rather leave their livings than vifear them ;,
and he was well satisfied that it was not an ap
parel becoming those that profess godliness. I
confess," says he, " we suffer many things against
our hearts, groaning under them ; but we can
not take them away, though we were ever so
much set upon. it. "We were under authority,
and can innovate nothing without the queen ;
nor pan we alter the laws ; the only thing left.
to our phoipe is, whether we will bear these
things or break the peaee of the Churph."^
Bishop Grindal was a considerable time im
suspense whether he should accept a bishopric
with the popish vestments. He consulted Pe
ter Martyr on this head, and says that all the
bishops that had been beyond the sea had dealt
with the queen to let the habits fall; but she
was inflexible. This made theni submit to the
laws, and wait for a fit opportunity to reverse
them. Upon, this principle he conformed, and
was consecrated ; and in one of his letters he
calls God to witness that it did not he at their
(the bishops') door that the habits were not
quite taken away.
Dr. Sandys, bishop of Worcester, and Park
hurst of Norwich, inveigh severely against the
habits, and they, with the rest of the bishops.

* Pierce's Vindication, p. 44.
! Hist. Ref, vol. iu., p. 289, 294. Life Of Parker,
p. 154. tMS., p. 873. ^Hist. I^ef,vol.ih.,p. 316^

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

93

threaten to declaim against them " till they are
sent to heU, from whenee they eame."* San
dys, in one of his letters to Parker, says, " I
hope we shall not be forped to use the vest
ments, but that the meaning of the law is, that
others, in the mean time, shall not take them
away,, but that they shall remain for the queen."
Dr. Guest, bishop of Roohester, wrote against
the ceremonies to Secretary Cecil, and gave it
as his opinion "that, having been evil used, and
once taken away, they ought not to be used
again, because the Galatianswere commanded'
to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ had
made them free, and because we are to abstain
from all appearanoe of evil. The Gospel teaches
us to put away needless ceremonies, and to wor
ship God in spirit and truth ; whereas these cer
emonies were no better than the devices of men,
and had been abused to idolatry. He declares
openly against tlie cross, against images in
churches, and against a variety of garments in
the service of God. If a surplice be thought prop
er for one," says his lordship, " it should serve
for all Divine offices. The bishop is for the peo-
¦ple's receiving the sacrament into their hands,
according to the example of Christ and the
primitive Church, and not for putting it into the
people's mouths ; and as for the posture, that it
should be rather standing than kneeling ; but
that this should be left to every one's choice."!
Not one of the first set of bishops after the Ref
ormation approved of the habits, or argued for their
continuance from Scripture, antiquity, or decency,
but submitted to them out of necessity, and to
keep the Church in the queen's favour,! How
¦much are the times altered I our first Reformers
never ascribed any holiness or virtue to the
vestments, but wished and prayed for their re
moval ;() whereas several modern Conformists
have made them essential to their ministrations,
and have represented religion as naked and de
fective without them.
But the question that divided the -Reformers
was the lawfulness of wearing habits that had
been consecrated to idolatrous and superstitious
uses, and were the very marks and badges of
that religion they had renounced. Upon this
they consulted the foreign divines, who all
agreed in the reasonableness of abolishing the
habits, but were divided in their sentiments
about the lawfulness of wearing them in the
mean time : some were afraid of the return of
Lutheranism or popery, if the ministers should
desert their stations in the Church ; and others

* Bishop Burnet quotes this as concerning the cor
ruptions of the spiritual courts, vol. iii, T.
-f MS., p. 891. Strype's Annals, vol. i., p. 38. Ap
pendix, No. 14. t Sti-ype's Annals, vol. i., p. 177.
6 Bishop Warburton aslis here, "Who ascribes any
holiness or virtue to them now, I pray V In reply, it
is sufficient to observe that Mr. Neal refers to the
time when he wrote, about thirty-six years before the
bishop's strictures appear to have been penned,, and
not many years after Dr. Nichols, in his defence of
the Church of England, had called ministers' ordina
ry habit profane ; and when Dr. Grey (System of Ec
clesiastical Law, p. 55) had carried the notion of de
cency, in this respect, very high, representing " the
Church, as by a prescript form of decent and comely
apparel, providing to have its ministers known to the
people, and thereby to receive the honour and esti
mation due to the special messengers and ministers
of Almighty God." This representation approximates
very much to the idea of holiness and vhtue,— Ed.

apprehended that if they did not reject them at
first, they should never obtain their removal af
terward. Dr. Humphreys and Sampson, two heads of
the Nonconformists, wrote to Zurich the follow
ing reasons against the lawfulness of wearing
the habits : " That they did not think the prescri
bing habits to the clergy merely a civil thing;
nor that the habits now prescribed were decent ;
for-how can that habit be decent that serves
only to dress up the theatrical pomp of popery 1
The papists glory in this, that these habits were
brought in by them, for which they Vouch Otho's
Constitutions and the Roman Pontifical. They
add, that in King Edward's time the surphce
was not universally used nor pressed, whereas
the copes then taken away are now to be resto
red. This is not to extirpate popery, but to plant
it again, and instead of going forward in Refor
mation, to go backward. We do not place re
ligion in habits," say they, "but we oppose them
that do [the papists]. Besides, it gives some
authority to servitude, to depart from our hber
ty. We hate contention, nor do we desert our
churches, and leave them exposed to wolves,
but we are driven from them. We leave our
brethren to stand and fall to their own master,
and desire the same favourable forbearance from
them. All that is pretended is, that the habits
are not unlawful ; not that they are good and
expedient ; but forasmuch as the habits of the
clergy are visible marks of their profession, they
ought not to be taken froni their enemies. The
ancient fathers had their habits, but not peculiar
to bishops, nor distinct from the laity. The in
stances of St. John and Cyprian are singular.
In Tertullian's time the pallium was the com
mon habit of old Christians. Chrysostom speaks
of white garments, but with no approbation : he
rather finds fault with them; nOr do we condemn
things indifferent as unlaw-ful ; but we wish
there might be a free synod to settle this mat
ter, in which things may not be carried accord
ing to the minds of one or two persons. The
doctrine of our Church is now pure, and why
should there be any defect in our worship? why
should we borrow anything from popery 1 why
should we not agree in rites, as well as in doc
trine, with the other Reformed Churches 1 we
have a good opinion of our bishops, and bear
with their state and pomp ; we once bore the
same cross with them, and preached the same
Christ with them ; why, then, are we no w turned
out of our benefices, and some put in prison,
only for habits, and publicly defamed 1*
" But the dispute is not only about a cap and
surplice ; there are other grievances which
ought to be redressed or dispensed with ; as, 1.
Music and organs in Divine worship. 2. The
sponsors in baptism, answering in the child's
name. 3. The cross in baptism. 4. Kneeling
at the sacranient, and the use of unleavened
bread. 5. There is also a want of discipline in
the Church. 6. The marriage of the clergy is
not legitimated, but their children are looked
upon by some as bastards. 7. Marriage is not
to be performed without a ring. 8. Women are
not to be churched without the veil. 9. The
court of faculties, pluralities, licenses for non-
residence, for eating flesh' iu Lent, &c., are in
sufferable grievances. 10. Ministers have not
* Hist. Ref., vol. hi, p. 311.

94

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

a free hberty to preach without subscribing to
the use and approbation of all the ceremonies*
And, lastly, the article which explained the man
ner of Christ's presence in the sacrament is ta
ken away."
The bishops alleged, in vindication of their
compliance with these things, the necessity of
the time, the queen's peremptoriness, the in
different nature of the things required, and their
fears of the loss of the whole Reformation if
they should desert their stations in the Church;
promising not to urge them upon their brethren
who were dissatisfied, but to endeavour their
removal in a proper season.
The learned foreigners gave their opinions
upon this nice question with caution and reserve.
Peter Martyr, in his letter to Grindal!, writes
thus : " As to the habits to, be used in holy
things^ since they carry an appe'aVance of the
mass,;' and are rnerely remainders of popery, it
is," says he, " t"he opinion of the learned Bullin
ger, the chief minister of Zurich, that they are
to be refrained from, lest by your example a thing
that is scandalous should be confirmed ;. but," be
adds, " though I have been always against the
use of such ornaments, yet I see the present
danger, lest you should be put fromthe office of
preaching. There may also be some hopes, that
as images and altars are taken away, so also
those appearances of the mass may be removed,
if you and others, who have taken upon you epis
copacy, labour in it. I am therefore more back
ward to advise you rather to refuse the bishop
ric than to submit to the use of those vestures ;
and yet, because I am sensible scandals of this
kind are to be avoided, I am more willing to
yield to Bullinger's opinion aforesaid." But, af
ter all, he advises him to do nothing against his
conscience; Bullinger and Gualter, ministers of Zurich, in
their letters to Horn and Grindal, "lament the
unhappy breach in the Church of England, and
approve of the zeal of those divines who wish
to have the house of God purged from all the
dregs of popery. They are not pleased with
them who first made the laws about habits, nor
with those \*ho zealously maintain them. 'They
declare that they acted unwisely, if they were of
the reformed side ; but if they were disguised
enemies, that they had been laying snares with ih
designs. They are therefore absolutely against
the imposition of these, and other grievances ;
but they think many things of this sort should
be submitted to, rather than men should forsalte
the ministry at this juncture, lest the whole'Ref-
ormation should be lost ; but that they should
press the queen and the nobility to go on and
complete the Reformation, so gloriously be
gun,"! These divines wrote also to the Earl of Bed
ford, and acquainted him "that they were; sorry
to hear that not only the vestments, but many
other things were retained in the Church, which
savoured plainly of popery. They complain of
the bishops printing their letter, and that their
private opinion about the lawfulness of wearing
the habits for the present should be made use
of to oast reproaches on persons, for whom they
should rather have compassion in their suffer-
* Hist. Ref, in Records, p. 335.
! Strype's Life of Grindal, p. 29, 30. Ann., vol. i.,
p. 173. ! Hist. Ref, vol. iii., p. 508. MS., p. 889.

ings, than study to aggravate them. They pray
his lordship to intercede with the queen and no
bility for their brethren that were then under
sufferings, who deserved a very great regard,
forasmuch as it had, appeared what true zeal
they had for religion, since the only thing they
desired was, that the Church should be purged
from all the dregs of popery. This cause, say
they, in general is such, that those who promote
it are worthy of the highest dignity. They do,
therefore, earnestly pray his lordship at this
timeHo exert himself, and employ all the inter
est he has in the queen and nobility, that the
Church of England, so happily reformed to the
admiration of the whole world, may not be de
filed with the remnants of popery: To retain
these things will look like giddiness," say these
divines ; " it will offend the weak, and give great
scandal to their neighbours in France and Scot
land, who are yet under the cross ; and the
very papists wih justify their tyrannical impo.
sitions by such proceedings."*
The divines of Geneva were more perempto
ry in their advices ; for in their letter of Octo
ber 24th, 1564, signed by Theodore Beza, and
seventeen of his brethren, - they say, "If the
case were theirs, they would not receive the
ministry upon these conditions if it were prof
fered, much less would they sue for it. As for
those who have hitherto complied, if they are
obliged not only to wink at manifest abuses, but
to approve of those things which ought to be
redressed, what thing else can we advise them
to, but that they should retire to a private life?
."is for the popish habits, those men that are au
thors of their being imposed,, do deserve most
evil of the Church, arid shaU verily answer it at,
the dreadful bar of Christ's judgment," Then
they argue very strongly against the habits;
and having advised the ministers not to lay
down their ministry presently, for fear of the
return of popery, they conclude, thus : " Never
theless, if ministers are commanded not only to
tolerate these things, but by their subscriptions
to allow them as lawful, what else can we advise
them to, but that, having witnessed their inno
cence, and tried aU other means in the fear of the
Lord, they should give over their functions to
open wrong 1" They then deelare their opin
ions against the cross in baptism ; the validity
of baptism by midwives ; the power of the keys
being in the hands of lay-chancellors and bisli-
ops' courts ; and conclude with an exhortation
and prayer for unity, and a more perfect refor
mation in the English Church.
Though the Reformation in Scotland was not
fully established, yet the superintendent minis
ters and comrinissioners of charges within that
realm directed a letter the very first opportunity
to their brethren the bishops, and pastors of
England, who have renounced the Roman anti
christ, and do profess with them the Lord Je
sus Christ in sincerity. It was dated from Ed
inburgh, December 28th, 1566, and signed by
John Spotswood, and nine of his brethren,
preachers of Christ Jesus. The letter does not
enter into the debate whether the habits are
simply indjfferent or not, but pleads in a most
earnest and pathetic manner for toleration and
forbearance, and that the deprived ministers
may be restored. " If surplice, corner-cap, and .
* Hist. Ref, vol. u., p. 313.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

95

tippet," say they, " have been badges of idola
try, what have the preachers of Christian liber
ty, and the open rebukers of all superstition, to
do with the 'dregS of the Roman beast '! Our
brethren, that of eonspience refuse that unprofit
able apparel, do neither damn yours, nor molest
you that use suph vain trifles. If ye shaU do
the hke by them, we doubt not but you wdl
therein please God, and comfort the hearts of
many." But the whole letter breathes such an
excellent spirit, that I cannot forbear recom
mending it to the reader's perusal in the Ap
pendix. .
It is evident, upon the whole, that it was the
unanimous opinion of the foreign divines that
the habits ought to be laid aside by authority,
and that, in the mean time, they should not be
urged upon those that scrupled them ; but they
were not So well agreed, in the lawfulness of
wearing them till they were taken away ; though
their fears of the return of popery, if the minis
ters should desert their stations ;„ their compas
sion to the souls of the people, who were per
ishing for lack of knovVledge ; and their hopes
that the queen would quickly be prevailed with
to remove them, made ihost of them apprehend
they might be dispensed with for the present.
The English laity were more averse to the
habits than the clergy; as their hatred of po
pery inpreased, so did their aversion to the gar
ments. There was a strong party in the very
pourt against tliem, among whom was the great
Earl of Leicester, Sir Francis Knollys, vice-
chamberlain ; 'Burleigh, lord - treasurer ; Sir
Francis Walsinghara, secretary of state ; the
Earls of Bedford, Warwick, and others. But
the Protestant populace throughout the nation
Were so inflamed that nothing but an awful sub
jection to authority Could have kept them with
in bounds. Great numbers refused to frequent
those places of worship where service was min
istered in that dress; they would not salute
such ministers in the streets, nor keep them
company ; nay, if we may believe Dr. Whitgift,
in his defence against Caftwright, "they spit
in their faces, reviled therti as they went along,
and showed such-like rude behaviour,"* be
cause they took them for papists in disguise,-
for time-servers, and half-faped Protestants that
would be content with the return of that reli
gion whose badge they wore.! There was, in
deed, a warm spirit in the people against every
thing which came from that pretended church,
whose garments had been so lately dyed with
the blood of their friends and relations. Upon
the whole, I leave the reader to determine how
far the wisdom and moderation of the queen
can be vindicated in imposing these habits on
the clergy ; or the bishops be excused for im
prisoning, suspending, and depriving some of
the most iiseful preachers in the kingdom, on
account of things which, in their Own opinion,
were but barely tolerable, but in the judgment
of their brethren were absolutely sinful!

* Strype's Annals, vol. i., p. 178, 460, 602. Mem.
Cranmeij, p. 363. Life of Parker, p. 77.
! 'The grounds on which such a suspicion might
rest may be seen in Mr Neal's Review, in the quar
to edition of his History, vol. i., p. 881 , 882.
" X Strype attributes the rigorous measures hence
forth adopted to the disturbances and insolent beha-
-viour of some of the Puritans. Bishop Maddox, in
his animadversions on Neal, lays great stress on this

We have already mentioned the queen's let
ter of January 25th ; in obedience to which.
Archbishop Parlier wrote to his brethren of the
ecclesiastical commission, and in particular to
Grindal, bishop of London (there being in that
city the greatest number of clergy, and of the
best learning, that refused the apparel), to con
sult proper methods to reduce them to an exact
uniformity.* After some debate, the commis
sioners agreed upon certain advertisements (as
they were called), partiy for due order in preach
ing and administering the sacraments, and part
ly for the apparel of persons ecclesiastical.!

allegation, and thus endeavours to vindicate the bish
ops from a charge of falsehood and tyranny. A pre
text for persecution has never been wanting, when
the. governors of the Church or the State have deter
mined on it. Wyatt's insurrection was thus employ
ed in Mary's time ; and the insolence and disloyalty of
the Puritans were reiterated at subsequent periods,
in vindication of the coercive measures which were
adopted. The indiscretions and violehee pf the Pu
ritans towards the Protestant Church" are not to be
compared with those of the Reformers towards the
Church of Rome ; yet it is customary, with a certain
class of writers, to magnify the former and to gloss
over'and extenuate the latter The one class Of of
fences is represented as justifying the severest meas
ures of a vindictive hierarchy ; the other, as the in
evitable attendants on the earliest movements of re
ligious zeal. Such a procedure betrays more of par
ty-spirit than of the calm decision of an impartial
judgment. The same principle holds in both cases,
and must be fairly applied. Both the Reformers and,
the Puritans frequently mistook an intemperate and
contentious spirit for that of the Gospel. The vio
lence and fierceness of human passion were permit
ted, in some cases, to mirigle with and debase their
rehgious zeal. To deny this fact is to contradict the-
page of history. To regret the Reformation on this
account is to display an ignorance of human nature^
and an utter disregard of the welfare of the Church.
That instances of such misconduct did occur among
the Puritans, may be freely admitted ; but that they
were so numerous as to call for or to justify the
measures w hich their enemies adopted, neither Strype
nor Maddox has succeeded in proving. The fact is,.
that Elizabeth's bishops yielded sorae^vhat to the
corrupting influences of their station, and were,
therefore, indisposed to fulfil their early promises.
When writing to Bullinger, they had pleaded that
the obnoxious ceremonies were enjoined by Parlia
ment before their entrance into it. ' But that, after
it was passed, they, being chosen to be bishops, must
either content themselves to take their places as
things were, or else leave them to papists or Luther
ans. But, in the mean space, they promised not to
urge their brethren in those things, and, when oppor
tunity should serve, to seek reformation of them,' —
Parker, i,, 307. How far they fulfilled this promise,
let the records of histoi-y tell. Some of them were
honestly concerned to do so, but Parker was too in
tolerant to permit it." — Dr. Price's Hist, of Noncon
formity, vol. i., p. 168.— HJ. * Life of Parker, p. 161.
! I'he articles for preaching declare, " that all
Mcenses granted before March 1st, 1564, shall be void
and of none effect ; and that all that shall be thought
meet for the office of preaching shall be admitted
again, paying no more than fourpence for the writing,
parchment, and wax ; and that those who were not
approved as preachers, might read the homilies.
"In the ministration of the communion in ca
thedrals and collegiate churches, the principal min
isters shall wear a cope with gospeller and epistoler
agreeably; but at all other prayers to be, said at the
communion-table, they shall wear no copes, but sur
plices only ; deans and prebendaries shall wear a sur
plice with a silk hood in the choir, and when they
preach, a hood.

«6

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

By the first of these articles, aU preachers
-throughout the nation were disqualified at once,
-and by the last, they subscribed, and promised
not to preach or expound the Scriptures with
out a license from the bishop, which was not to
'be obtained without a promise under the hand
¦of an absolute conformity to the ceremonies.
Here the commissioners surely broke through
¦the act of submission, by which they were obli
ged never to make or executeany canons or
constitutions without the royal assent. But
-the bishops presumed upon their interest with
her majesty ; they knew her mind, though she
refused, for political reasons, to ratify their ad
vertisements, telling them that the oath of ca
nonical obedience was sufficient to bind the in
ferior clergy to their duty, without the interpo
sition of the crown,
Parker therefore went on, and having cited
the Puritan clergy to Lambeth, he admonished
some, and threatened others;* but Grindal with
drew, being naturally averse to methods of se
verity, and afraid of a praemunire. His grace
took a great deal of pains to gain him over, and
by his arguments, says Strype, brought him to a
good resolution. He also applied to the council
for the queen's and their assistance ; and to the
secretary of state, beseeching him to spirit up
the Bishop of London to his duty, which was
done aopordingly. What pains will some men
take to draw their brethren into a snare, and
force them to be partners in oppression and cru
elty I
Among those that the archbishop cited before
him were the Reverend Mr. Thomas Sampson,
dean of Christ Church, and Dr. Lawrence Hum
phreys (regius professor of divinity), president

" Every minister saying the public prayers, or ad
ministering the sacraments, &c., shall wear a sur
plice with sleeves ; and the parish shaU provide a de-
¦cent table standing on a frame for the communion
table ; and the Ten Commandments shall be set on
the east wall, over the said table.
" All dignitaries in cathedral churches, doctors,
¦bachelors of divinity and law, having ecclesiastical
livings, shall wear in their common apparel a broad
side-gown with sleeves, straight at the hands, with
out any cuffs or falhng capes, and tippets of sarse
net, and ai,square cap, but no hats, except in their
journeying. . The inferior clergy are to wear long
gowns and caps of the same fashion, except in case
of poverty, when they may wear short gowns."
To these advertisements certain protestations were
annexed, to be made, promised, and subscribed by
such as shall hereafter be admitted to any office or
cure in the Church. "And here every clergyman
subscribed, and promised not to preach or expound
the Scriptures without special license of the bishop
under his seal, but only to read the homilies ; and
likewise- to observe, keep, and maintain such order
and uniformity in all external polity, rites, and cere
monies of the Church, as by laws, good usages, and
orders are already well provided and established."
These advertisements were enjoined the clergy by
the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of Lon
don and Rochester (commissioners in, causes eccle
siastical), and by the Bishops of Winchester, Ely,
and some others. The prefape says, " that they do
not prescribe these rules as equivalent with the "Word
of God, or as of necessity to bind the consciences of
the queen's subjects, in their own nature considered ;
or as adding any eflicacy or holiness to public prayer,
or to the sacraments ; but as temporal orders merely
ecclesiastical, without any vain superstition, and as
rules of decency, distinction, andorder for the time."
* Life of Parker, p. 161, 216.

of Magdalen Cohege, Oxon, men of high renown
throughout the nation for learning, piety, and
zeal for the Reformation, and exiles for religion
in Queen Mary's reign. Upon their appearance,
the archbishop urged them with the opinions of
Bucer and Peter Martyr ; but the authority of
these divines not being sufficient to remove
their scruples, they were ordered not to depart
the city without leave. After long attendance,
and many checks from some of the council for
their refractoriness, they framed a supplicatory
letter in a very elegant but submissive style,
and sent it to the archbishop, and the rest of the
ecclesiastical commissioners, March 20th, " in
which they protest before God, what a bitter
grief it was to them that there should be such
dissensions about a cap -and surplice among
persons of the same faith. They allege the au
thorities of St. Austin, Socrates, and Theodo-
ret, to show that in their times there was a va
riety of rites and observances, which break not
unity and concord. They beseech the bishops,
therefore, if there was any fehowship in Christ,
that they would follow the direction of St. Paul
about tilings in their own nature indifferent,
' that every one should be persuaded in his own
mind.' Conscience (say they) is a tender thing,
and all men cannot look upon the same things as
indifferent ;- if, therefore, these habits seem so
to you, you are not to be condemned by us ; on
the other hand, if they do not appear so to us,
we ought not to be vexed by you. They then
appeal to antiquity, to the practice of other Re
formed Churches, and to the consciences of the
bishops themselves, and conclude thus : ' Where
fore we most humbly pray that a thing which
is the care and pleasure of papists, and which
you [the bishops] have no great value for your
selves, and which we refuse, not from any con
tempt of authority, but from an aversion to the
common enemy, may not be our snare nor our
crime.' ".*
* In one of their examinations the archbishop put
nine questions to them, tp which they gave the fol
lowing answers :
Quest. I. "Is the surphce a thing evil and wicked,
or is it indifferent ?
Answ. "Though the surplice in substance be in
different, yet in the present circumstance it is not,
being of the" same nature with the vestis peregrina, or
the apparel of idolatry, for which God by the prophet
threatens to visit. '_
Quest. 2. "If it be not indifferent, for what cause 1
Answ. " Because things that have been consecrated
to idolatry are not indifferent.
Quest. 3. " ¦Whether the ordhiary [or bishop] de
testing papistry, may enjoin the surphce to be worn,
and enforce his injunction?
Answ. " It may be said to such a one, in Tertul
lian's words, ' Si tu diaboh pompam oderis, quicquid
ex ea attigeris, id scias esse idolatriam.' That is,
' If thou hatest the pomp and pageantry of the devil,
whatsoever of it thou meddlest with is idolatiy.'
Which if he beUeves, he will not enforce the m-
junction. Quest. 4. "Whether the cope be a thing indiffer
ent, being prescribed by law for decency and rever
ence, and not in respect of superstition or holiness 1
Answ. " Decency is hot promoted by a cope, which
was devised to deface the sacrament. St. Jerome
says that the gold ordained by God, for reverence
and decency of the Jewish temple, is not to be ad
mitted to beautify the Church of Christ ; and if so,
much less copes brought in by papists, and contin
ued in their service as proper ornaments of their-
religion.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

97

The ecclesiastical commissioners were very
much divided in their opinions how to proceed
with these men. Some were for answering
the reasons given below, and for enforcing the
habits, with a protestation that they wished them
taken away. Others were for connivance, and
others for a compromise ; accordingly, a pacific
proposition was drawn up, which Humphreys
and Sampson were willing to subscribe with
the reserve of the apostle, " Ah things are law
ful, hut all things edify not." But the arch
bishop, who was at the head of the commission,
would abate nothing, for on the 29th of April,
1561, he told them peremptorily, in open court,
-that they should conform to the habits ; that is,
to wear the square cap, and no hats, in their
long gowns ; to wear the surplice with non-
regents' hoods in the choirs, according to an
cient custom ; and to communicate kneehng in
Quest. 5. " Whether anything that is indifferent
may be enjoined as godly to the use of common prayer
and sacraments I
jVnsw. " If it be merely indifferent, as time, place,
and such necessary circumstances of Divine worship,
for the which there may be brought a groupd out of
Scripture, we think it may.
Quest. 6. " Whether the civil magistrate may con-
-stitute by law an abstinence from meats on certain
.days? Answ. " Because of abstinence a manifest cora-
,inodity ariseth to the commonwealth in policy, if it
be sufficiently guarded against superstition, he may
.appoint it, due regard being had to persons and times.
Quest. 7. " Whether a law may be made for the
-diflerence of ministers' apparel from laymen ?
Answ. " Whether such prescription to a minister
of the Gospel of Christ be lawful maybe doubted,
because no such thing is decreed in the New Testa
ment ; nor did the primitive Church appoint any such
thing, but would rather that ministers should be dis
tinguished from the laity doctrind, non veste, by their
doctrine, not by their garments.
Quest. 8. " 'Whether ministers going ih such ap-
,parel as the papists used ought to be condemned of
any preacher for so doing ?
-insw. " We judge no man ; to his own master he
¦stands or falls.
Quest. 9. " Whether such preachers ought to be
reformed, or restrained, or no?
Answ. " Irenaeus will not have brethren restrained
from brotherly communion for diversity in cere
monies, provided there be unity of faith and charity ;
and it is. to be wished that there may be the like char
itable permission among us."
To these answers our divines subjoined some
other arguments against wearing and enforcing the
.habits; as, (1.) Apparel ought to be worn as meat
Dught to be eaten ; but, according to St. Paul, meat
(Offered to idols ought not to be eaten ; therefore, po-
ipish apparel ought not to be worn. (2.) We ought
not to give offence in matters of mere indifference ;
therefore, the bishops who are of this opinion ought
not to enforce the habits. (3.) Popish garments
.have many superstitious mystical significations, for
which purpose they were consecrated by the papists ;
-we ought, therefore, to consecrate them also, or lay
them wholly aside^ (4.) Our ministrations are sup
posed by some not to be valid, or acceptable to God,
unless performed in popish apparel ; and this being a
prevailing opinion, we apprehend it highly necessary
to disabuse the people. (5.) Things indifferent ought
not to be made necessary, because then they change
their nature, and we lose our Christian liberty.
(6.) If we are bound to wear popish apparel when
commanded, we may be obhged to have shaven
crowns, and to make use of oil, spittle, cream, and
all the rest of the papistical additions to the ordi
nances of Christ. — Strype's Ann., vol. i., p. 459.
Vol. I— N

wafer-bread, or else they should part with their
preferment. To which our divines replied that
their consciences could, not comply with these
injunctions, be the event what it might.* Upon
this they were both put under confinement ;
but the storm feh chiefly upon Sampson, who
was detained in prison a considerable time, as
a terror to others, and, by special order from
the queen, was, deprived of his deanery; nor
could he ever obtain, after this, any higher pre
ferment in the Church than the government of
a poor hospital,!
Humphrey's place was not at the queen's dis
posal ; however, he durst not return to Oxford,
even after he had obtained his release out of
prison, but retired to one Mrs, Warcup's, in
Berkshire, a most devout woman, vi'ho had run
all hazards for harbouring the persecuted Prot
estants in the late times : from hence he wrote
a most excellent letter to the queen, in which
he " beseeches her majesty's favour about the
habits, forasmuch as she well knew that the
controversy was -about things in their own na
ture indifferent, and in which liberty of con
science ought not to be restrained. He protests
his own and his brethren's loyalty, and then ex
postulates with her majesty why her mercy
should be shut against them, when it was open
to ah others. Did she say she would not yield
to subjects ? Yet she might spare miserable
men. Would she not rescind a public act ? Yet
she might relax and suspend. Would she not
take away a law ? Yet she might grant a tol
eration. Was it not fit to indulge some men's
affections! Yet it was most fit and equal not
to force the minds of men. He therefore ear
nestly beseeched her to consider the majesty of
the glorious Gospel, the equity of the cause, the
fewness of the labourers, the greatness of the
harvest, the multitude of the tares, and the heavi
ness of the'punishment." Humphreys made so
many friends at court, that at length he obtain
ed a toleration, but had no preferment in the
Church till ten or twelve years after, when he
was persuaded to wear the habits.! For al
though the Bishop of Winchester presented him
to a small living within the diocess of Salisbury,
Jewel refused to admit him, and said he was
determined to abide by his resolution till he had
good assurance of his conformity. The Oxford
historianij says Dr. Humphreys was a moderate,
conscientious Nonponformist, a great and gen
eral scholar, an able linguist, a deep divine ;
and that for his exceUence of style, exactness
of method, and substance of matter in his wri
tings, he went beyond most of our theologists.il

* Lifeof Parker, p. 185.
! Mr. Neal appears not to have known that Mr.
Sampson was also appointed a prebendary in St.
Paul's Cathedral, and was permitted by the queen to
be a theological lecturer in Whittingdon College,
in London. And in justice to Archbishop Parker it
should be added, that some favour, though it does
not appear what, was, on his application, granted to
IMr. Sampson by the chapter of Christ Church,
and he also strongly solicited the secretary "that,
as the queen's pleasure had been executed upon him
for example to the terror of others, it might yet be
mollified to the commendation of her clemency." —
British Biography, vol. iii., p. 20, note, and p. 22.
Warner's Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 433. — Ed.
! MS. p. 873. Strype's Annals, vol. ii., p. 451.
Life of Parker, p. 185. I) Athen. Ox., p. 242.
II " That Dr Humphreys's want of preferment, till

98

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

As Sampson was thus deprived, so were oth
ers who would not enter into bonds to wear the
square cap * Of this number was George With
ers, a man of good learning, preacher of Bury
St. Edmonds, in Suffolk ; but at the pressing; in
stances of the people, he sent a letter to the
archbishop to let him know he would rather
strain his conscience a littie than discourage
the godly, or let the wicked have their mind.
He afterward preached at Cambridge, and pressr
ed the university to destroy the superstitious
paintings in the glass windows, which occa
sioned some disorder ; upon which, not long af
ter, he travelled to Geneva, Zurich, and other
places, and after some years returned and be
came parish minister of Danbury, in Essex, sub
mitting to the rites%r peace' sake, though he
did not approve Of them, which was the case of
many others.
While the case of the Oxford divines was un
der consideration, his grace was consulted how
to reduce the London Puritans : he was afraid
to press them with the advertisements, because
the queen could not be prevailed with to put the
seal to them ; he therefore Sent them again to
the secretary, with a letter to the queen, pray
ing- " that if not all, yet at least those articles
that related to the apparel might be returned
with some authority."! But the queen was
firm to her former resolution : she would give
no authority to the advertisements ; but, to sup
port her commissioners, issued a proclamation,
pereiriptorily requiring uniformity in the habits,
upon pain of prohibition from preaching and
deprivation. Hereupon the archbishop consulted with men
learned in the civil law what method to proceed
in ; and then concluded, with the consent of the
rest of the pommissioners, to summons the whole
body of pastors and Curates within the city of
London to appear at Lambeth, and to examine
every one of them upon this question. Whether
they would promise conformity to the apparel
established by law, and testify the same by sub
scription of their hands ? Those who demurred
were immediately to be suspended, and, after
three months, deprived of their livings. To pre
pare the way for this general citation, it was
thought proper first to summon the Reverend
Mr. John Fox, the martyrologist, that the repu
tation of his great piety might give the greater
countenance to the proceedings of the commis
sioners ; but when they called upon him to sub-

1576, was owing to his Puritanical principles, is evi
dent," says Mr. Neal in his Review, " from the tes
timony of Lord Burleigh and Mr Strype, whose
words are these : ' In the latter end of the year 1576, he
(Lord Burleigh) did Humphreys the honour to write
to him, hinting that his nonconformity seemed to be
the chief impediment of his preferment, the queen, and
some other honourable persons at court, considering
him as forgetful of his duty in disobeying her injunc
tions. This impediment being surmounted, to what
ever considerations or influence it was owing, he was
made Dean of Gloucester, and afterward Dean of
Winchester. This last dignity and his professorship,
notwithstanding his non-subscribing. Fuller says, he
held -as long as he hved. But then it appears, by
Strype, that the lord-treasurer was his particular
friend, and had prevailed with him to wear the hab
its,' "—Maddox's Vindication, p. 324, 325 ; and Neal's
Review, p. 898. — En.
* Life of Parker p. 187, 192, 199.
+ .Ibid, p. 212, 214.

scribe, he took his Greek Testament out of his-
pocket, and said, " To this I will subscribe."
And when they offered him the canons he re
fused, saying, " I have nothing in the Church
but a prebend in Salisbury, and much good riiay
it do you if you take it from me."* But the
commissioners had not courage enough to de
prive a divine of so much merit, who held up
the ashes of Smithfield befiire their eyes!
The 36th of March being the day appointed
for the appearance of the London clergy, tlie-
archbishop desired the secretary of state, with
some of the nobility and queen's council, to
countenance the proceedings of the commis
sioners with their presence, but they refused to
be concerned in such disagreeable work. When-
the ministers appeared in court, Mr Thomas
Cole, a clergyman, being placed by the side of
the commissioners in priestly apparel, the bish
op's chancellor, from the bench, addressed them
in these words : "My masters, and ye minis
ters of London, the council's pleasure is that
strictly ye keep the unity of apparel, like this.
man who stands here canonically habited with a
square cap, a scholar's gown priestlike, a tip
pet, and, in the church, a lipen surplice, Ye-
that will subscribe, write Vplo ; those that will
not subscribe, write Nolo; be brief, make no
words." When some of the clergy offered to
speak, he interrupted them, and cried, "Peace,
peace. Apparitor, call over the churches, and
ye masters answer presently, sub pcena contemf-
tus."X Great was the anguish and distress of
those ministers, who cried out for compassion
to themselves and families, saying, "We shall
be killed in our souls for this pollution of ours."
After much persuasion and many threatenings,
sixty-one out of a hundred were prevailed with
to subscribe, and thirty-seven absolutely re-

* " Fuller vol. ix., 76. Heylin's Reform., 164. The
remark of the latter writer' on Fox's reply is charac
teristic. ' This refractory answer,' he says, ' for it
was no better, might well have moved the, bishop to
proceed against him, as he did against some others
who bad stood on the same refusal ; but kissing goes
by kindness, as the saying is, and so much kindness
was shown to him, that he both kept his resolution
and his place together ; which, whether it might not
do more hurt to the Church than that preferment in
the Church did advantage him, I think no wise man
will make a question ; for, cotnmonly, the exemption
or indemnity of some few particulars confirms the
obstinacy of the rest, in hope of being privileged with
the like indemnity,' " — C.
! " When Dr. Humphreys was chosen Presidentof
Magdalen College, in 1561, Fox wrote him a congrat
ulatory letter, couched in a facetious style. ' 'SVIiy
do I trifle thus,' said this estimable man, ' and begin
to congratulate you your preferment, who should
much rather expostulate the case with you? For
come, sir, tell me, why have you thus left us and our
flock and order, and gone away ? Fugitive, runaway
as you are, be you not ashamed ? You ought to have
taken example of greater constancy by me, who still
wear the same clothes, and remain in the same sor
did condition as England received me in when I first
came home out of Germany. Nor do I change ray
degree nor order, which is that of the mendicant, or,
,if you will, of the friars preachers. And in this order
you yourself were, 'and was like enough to continue
an honest companion with us. But now you have
forsaken this our order and classis, and mounted I
know not whither; fortunate success, as- the proverb^
is, waiting on you.' " — Strype's Parker, vol. i., p. 223,
224.— C.
X Life of Grindal, p. 98. Strype's Annals, p. 463,.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

fused ; of which last number, as the archbishop
acknowledged, were the best, and some preach
ers.* These were immediately suspended, and
put from all manner of ministry, with significa
tion that if they did not conform within three
months they were to be deprived. The arch
bishop imagined that their behaviour would
have been rough and clamorous, but, contrary
to his expectations, it was reasonable, quiet,
and modest.
^ The ministers gave in a paper of reasons [see
below] for refusing the apparel.! 

* Life of Parker, p. 215.
! " Reasons, grounded upon the Scriptures, where
by we are persuaded not to admit Ihe use of the out
ward apparel and ministering garments of the pope's
church. " 1st. Our Saviour saith, ' Take heed that you con
temn not one of these httle ones ; for he that of-
fendeth one of these httle ones that believeth in me,
it were good for him that i millstone were hanged
about his neck, and that he were drowned in the
depth of the sea.' To ofiend the little ones in Christ,
is to speak or do anything whereby the simple Chris
tians may take occasion eitherto like that winch is evil,
or to mislike that which is good. Now for us to admit
the use of these things may occasion this mischief;
therefore, in consenting to them, we should- offend
many of these little ones.
i" Farther, St. Paul saith, ' If any man that is in
firm shall see thee that hast knowledge sitting at
meat at the idol's table, will not his conscience be
stirred up to eat that which is offered to idols ? and
so the weak brother, for whom Christ died, shall
perish in thy knowledge ; and in sinning after this
sort against the brethren,. and wounding their weak
consciences, ye do sin against Christ.' — 1 Cor., vui.,
10-12. This place proveth, that whatsoever is done
by him that has knowledge, or seems to have it, in
such sort that he may seem to allow that as good
which in itself cannot be other than evil, is an Occa
sion for the wealt to allow and approve of the thing
that is' evil, and to mislike that that is good, though
the doing of it be indifferent of itself to him that has
knowledge. To- sit at the idol's table, or to eat
things offered to idols^is in him that has knowledge
a thing indifferent, for he knows that the idol is
nothing, and that every creature of God is good, and
to be received with thanksgiving, without asking
any questions for conscience' sake. But to do this
in presence of him that thinks thfit none can do so
but he must be partaker of idolatry, is to enc(»ir-
age him to hke idolatry, and to mislike the true
service of God ; for none can like both. Now the
case of eating and drinking, and of wearing apparel,
is in this point the same ; for though to wear the
outward and ministering garments of the pope's
church is in itself indifferent, yet to wear them in
presence of the infirm and weak brethren, who do
not understand the indifference of them, may occa
sion them to like the pomp of the pope's ministra
tion, which of itself is evil, and to mislike the simple
ministration of Christ, which in itself is good.
" 2dly. We may not use anything that is repug
nant to Christian hberty, nor maintain an opinion of
holiness where none is; nor consent to idolatry, nor
deny the truth, nor discourage the godly, and en
courage the wicked ; nor destroy the Church of God,
which we are bound to edify ; nor show disobedience
where Gad commanded- us to obey; all which we
should do, if jve should consent to wear the outward
and ministering garments of the pope's church, as
appear by the following passages of Scripture : by
St. Paul's exhortation. Gal., v., 1, ' Stand fast in the
liberty wherewith Christ has made you free :' by the
example of Christ, Matth , xv., 2, 3, whp would not
have his disciples maintain an opinion of holiness
which the Pharisees had in washing hands : by the
doctrine of St. Paul, 2 Cor., vi., 15, where he teach-
pth that there ' can be no agreement between Christ

90
To their declaration, and everything else that
was offered, from the danger of the Reforma-
and Belial :' by the example of Daniel, chap, vi.,
who, making his prayer to God contrary to the com
mandment of the king, set open his window towards
Jerusalem, lest he might seem to deny his profes
sion, or consent to the wicked : by the example of St.
Paul, who rebuked Peter sharply because he did, by
his dissimulation, discourage the godly that from
among the heathen were converted to Christ, and
encourage the superstitious Jews ; and again, by his
doctrine, 2 Cor, xiii., where he teacheth that min
isters have power to edify, but not to destroy. It is
farther evident from the exampfes of the patriarchs
and prophets, who, in worshipping God, would not
use the rites and ceremonies of the idolatrous ; and,
to conclude, from the doctrine and example of Peter
and John, Acts, iv., who, refusing to obey the com
mandment of the rulers, in ceasing to preach Christ,
said, ' Whether it be right in the sight of God to obey
you rather than God, be you yourselves judges.'
"3dly, For a farther proof we may bring the testi
mony and practice of the ancient fathers :
" 'fertullian, in his book De Corona Militis, com
pares those men to dumb idols who wear anytliing
like the decking of the idols. Again, he saith, ' Si
in idolio recumbere alienum est a fide, quid in idoU
habitu videri V ' If it be a matter of infidehty to sit at
the idol's feast, what is it to be seen in the habit or
apparel of the idol ?'
" St. Austin, in his eighty-sixth epistle to Casula-
nusy warneth him not to fast on the same day, lest
thereby he might seem to consent with the wicked
Manichees. " The fourth Conned of Toletane [Toledo], canon
fifth, to avoid consent with heretics, decreed that in
baptism the body of the bapti-^ed should be but once
dipped. "The great clerk Origen, as Epiphanius writeth,
tom. i , b. ii., hseres. 64, because he deUvered palm
to those that offered to the image of Serapis, although
he openly said, • Venite accipite non frondes simula-
chri sed frondes Christi,' ' Come and receive the
boughs, not of the image, but of Christ :' yet was
he for this, and such like doings, excommunicated
and cast out of the Church, by those martyrs and
confessors that were at Athens.
",in the Tripartite History, b. vi., chap, xxx., it is
said that the Christian soldiers who, by the subtlety
of Juhan, were brought to offer incense to the idol,
when they perceived their fault, ran forth into the
streets, professing the religion of Christ, testifying
themselves to be Christians, and confessing that their
hands had offended unadvisedly, but that now they
were ready to give their whole bodies to the most
cruel torments and pains for Christ.
, " Farther to prove that wearing the ministering
garments of the pope's church is to confirm the opia-
ion of the necessity and holiness of the same, an.d to
show consent to idolatry, let it be remembered that
the first devisers of them have taught that of neces
sity they must be had ; and have made laws to pun
ish and deprive those that had them not, as appears
in the pontifical De Clerico faciendo, that is, of the
ordering of a clerk, where the surplice is termed the
habit or garment of the holy religion. And Duran-
dus, in his third book, entitled Rationale Divinor,
calls it the linen garment, which those men that are
occupied in any manner at the service of the altar and
holy things must wear oyer their common appareL
" Lindwood, also, in his constitutions for the prov
ince of England, De Habitu Clericali, affirms the ne
cessity of this habit ; so does Ottobonus and others,
appointing grievous punishments for those that re
fuse to wear them ; yea, and the pontifical teaches
that when a clerk has, by murder or otherwise, de
served to die, he must be degraded, by plucking vio
lently from him those garments, with these words
' Authorilate Dei Omnipotentis, Patris, Filu, et Spir-
itus Sancti,' &c. 'By the authority of Almighty
God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and by our au-

100
tion, and the ruin of so many poor families, the
commissioners replied it was not their business
to argue and debate, but to execute the queen's
injunctions. Archbishop Parker seemed pleased
with the resolution of his chancelloV, and said
" that he did not doubt, when the ministers had
feh the smart of poverty and want, they would
comply, for the wood," says he," is yet green."*
He declared, farther, that he was fully bent to
go through with the work he had begun ; and
the rather, because the queen would have him
try with his own authority what he could do
for order. This raised'his ambitiop, and put
him upon soliciting the secretary of state by
letter for his countenance; in one of which he
tehs him that " if he was not better backed
there would be fewer Winchesters, as is de
sired," referring to Stephen Gardiner, the bloody
persecuting Bishop of Winchester in Queen
Mary's reign ; "but for my part," says he, " so
that my prince may win honour, I will be very
gladly the rock of offence ; since ' the Lord is
my helper, I will not- fear what man can do to
me ;' nor will I be amused or daunted ; fremat
mundus, rual ccelum."-\ These were the weap
ons, and this the language, of one whom Mr,
Strype calls the mild and gentle archbi-shop !

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

thority, we take from thee the habit of the clergy,
and we make the naked and bare of the ornaments
of religion ; and we do depose, degrade, spoil, and
strip thee of thy clergy order, benefice, and privi
lege ; and as one that is unworthy of the profession
of a clerk, we bring thee back again into the servi
tude and shame of the secular habit.'
"'These things being thus weighed, with the warn
ing that St. Paul giveth, 1 Thess., chap, v., where
he comniands us to abstain from all appearance of
evil, we cannot but think that in using of these things
we should beat back those- that are coming from su
perstition, and confirm those that are grown in su
perstition, and, consequently, overthrow that which
we have been labouring to build, and incur the dan
ger of that horrible curse that our Saviour has pro
nounced, ' "Wo to the world because of offences.'
" Knowing, therefore, how horrible a thing it is to
fall into the hands of the living God, by doing that
which our consciences (grounded upon the truth of
God's Word, and the example and doctrine of an
cient fathers) do tell us were evil done, and to the
great discrediting of the truth whereof we profess to
be teachers, we have thought good to yield our
selves into the hands of men, to suffer whatsoever
God hath appointed us to suffer, for the preferring of
the commandments of God and a clear conscience,
before the commandments of meii; in complying
with which we cannot escape the condemnation of
our consciences; keeping always in memory that
horrible saying of John in his first Epistle, 'If our
conscience condemn us, God is greater than our con
science ;' and not forgetting the saying of the Psalm
ist, ' It is good to trust in the Lord, and not to trust
in TY,or; ' Psnl jxviii. ' It Is good to trust in the
LordTand not"'to"taust in princes ' And again, Psal.
cxlvi ' Trust not in princes, nor in the children of
men 'in whom there is no health, whose spirit shall
depart out of them, and they shall return lo the earth
from whence they came, and in that day all their de
vices shall come to naught.' , . ^ ,
" Not despising men, therefore, but trusting in O-od
only, we seek to serve him with a clear conscience
so long as we shall live here, assuring ourselves that
those things that we shall suffer for doing so shall
be a testimony to the world that great reward is laid
up for us in heaven, where we doubt not but to rest
forever, with them that have before our days suffered
for the like," — MS. penes me, p. 57, &c.
* Life of Parker, p. 215.
! Life of Parker, p. 219, 220, &c.

The Nonconformists had juster thoughts of
him ; he was at the head of all their sufferings,
and pushed them forward with unrelenting vig
our. The queen might have been softened ; the
secretaVy of state and courtiers declared they
could not keep pace with him ; Grindal relented,
and the Bishop of Durham declared he would
rather lay down his bishopric than suffer such
proceedings in his diocess. But Parker was
above these reproaches, and instead of relaxing,
framed such injunctions for the London clergy
as had never been heard of in a Protestant king
dom or a free government. The commissioners
obliged every clergyman that had cure of souls
to swear obedience, 1. To all the queen's in
junctions and letters patent ; 2. To all letters
from the lords of the privy council ; 3, To the
articles and injunctions of their metropolitan ;*
4, To the articles and mandates of their bishop,
archdeacon, chancellors, somners, receivers,
&c., and in a word, to be silbject to the control
of all their superiors with patience,! To gird
these-iiijunctions close upon the Puritans, there
was appointed in every parish four or eight cen
sors, spies, or jurats, to take cognizance of all
offences given or taken. These were under
oath enjoined to take particular notice of the
ponformity of the clergy and of the parishioners,
and to give in their presentments when requi
red ; so that it was impossible, for an honest Pu
ritan to escape the high coflimission.
By these methods of severity, religion and
virtue Were discountenanced for the sake of
their pretended ornaments ; the consciences of
good men were entangled, and the Reformation
exposed to the utmost hazard.! Many church
es were shut up in the city of London for want
of ministers, to the grief of ah good men and
the inexpressible pleasure of the papists, who
rejoiced to see the Reformers weakening their
own hands, by silencing such numbers of the
most useful and popular preachers, while the
country was in distress for want of them. Bish
op Sandys, in one of his sermons before the
queen some years after, tehs her majesty " that
many of her people, especially in the northern
parts, perished for want of saving food. Many
there are," says he, "that hear not a sermon in
seven years I might safely say in seventeen :
their blood wiU be required at somebody's
hands. "^
But, to make thorough work with the refusers
of the habits, the archbishop called in all licen
ses, according to the advertisements, and ap
pointed all preachers throughout his whole prov
ince to take out new ones ; this was to reach
those who were neither incumbents nor curates
in parishes, but lecturers or occasional preach
ers. AU parsons and 'curates were forbid to
suffer any to preach in their churches upon any
former licenses given by the archbishop ; and
such as took out new licenses bound themselves
for the future not to disturb the public estab
lishment, or vary from it. And because some.

¦* Strype's Ann., p. 463.
! Dr Warner calls this an oath of a most extraor
dinary nature under a free government, and adds,
"with this unrelenting rigour did the archbishop
cany on the severity against the Puritans, and al
most he alone." — Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii,, P-
435.— En. X Life of Parker, p. 224.
() Life of Parker, p. 198.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

when they had been discharged from their min
istry in one diocess for nonconformity, got a
settlement in another, it was now appointed
that such curates as came out of other diocess
es should not be allowed to preach without let
ters testimonial from the ordinary where they
last served. But those Puritans who could not
with a good conscience take out new licenses
kept their old ones, and made the best use of
them they could* "They travelled up and
down the countries, from church to church,
preaching where they could get leave, as if
they were apostles," says Bishop Jewel ; and so
they were with regard to their poverty, for sil
ver and gold they had ,none ; but his lordship
adds, " And they take money for their labours,"
An unpardonable crime ! that honest men of a
liberal education, that had parted with their liv
ings in the Church for a good conscience, should
endeavour, after a very poor manner, to live by
the Gospel.
There was still one door of entrance in the
ministry left open to the Puritans, which the
archbjshop used all his interest to shut, but could
not prevail. It was a privilege granted the Uni
versity of Cambridge, by Pope Alexander VI.,
to license twelve ministers yearly to preach any
where throughout England without obtaining li
censes from any of the bishops. The bull says
that -" the phanpeUor of the university (who was
then Fisher, bishop of Roohester) and his sup-
cessors, shall license twelve preachers yearly,
under the common seal of the university, who
shall have liberty to preach, &c., durante vita
naturali." The archbishop sent to Secretary
Cecil, their chancellor, praying him to set aside
this practice : 1. Because the present lieenses
varied from the original bull, being given out by
the vipe-chancellor whereas they ought to be in
the name of the chancellor only. 2. Because it
was unreasonable to give licenses durante vita
naturali, i. c, for life ; whereas they ought to be
only quam diu nobis placuerint, and dam lauda-
biliter gesserint, i. e., during our pleasure, or
as long as they behave well! 3. But that
which troubled the archbishop most was the
elause which infringed his own and his breth
ren's jurisdiction, that they might preach with
out a license from any of the bishops. -And yet
this clause is in the letters patent of Queen
Elizabeth, granted to the university for this pur-
Dose ; the word,*! am " J.i/.anti.i y^,..i;-...»: 

pose ; the words are, " Licentia ordinariorum
locorum super hoc minime requisita." This
was thought insufferable ; the vice-chancellor,
therefore, was sent for to town to defend the
privilege of the university, which he did to the
satisfaction of the chancellor ; but the archbish
op was so angry that he declared he would not
admit any of tiieir licenses without the chancel
lor s name ; nor could he imagine that the vice-
¦ chancellor, by his pretended experience and
skill in the civil law, could inform his honour of
anything that he was not capable of answering.
But here his grace met with a disappointment,
for the university retained their privilege, and
made use of it to the relief of the Puritans.!
¦* Life of Grindal, p. 99. Pierce, p. 52.
t Life of Parker, p. 193.
, t Bishop Maddox inveighs against them, for avail
ing themselves of a bull granted by the pope, whom
they affirm to be antichrist, and when they loaded the
queen and bishops with heavy accusations as en-

101
In the queen's progress this year [1565], her
majesty visited the University of Cambridge,
and continued there five days, being entertained
by the scholars with speeches and disputations.
On the 3d day of her being there [August 7th],
a philosophy act was kept by Thomas Byng, of
Peter-house, on these two questions : 1. Wheth
er monarehy be not the best form ofgovernmcnf!
2. Whether frequent alterations of the laws are
dangerous ? The opponents were Mr Thomaa
Cartwright, fellow of Trinity College ; Mr Chad-
derton, of Queen's ; Mr. Preston and Mr. Clark,
of King's College ; who performed their parts to
the satisfaction of the queen and the whole au
dience ; but it seems Preston pleased her maj
esty best, and was made her scholar, with the
settlement of a salary. The divinity questions
were, 1. Whether the authority of the Scripture
is greater than that of the Church 1 2. Wheth
er the civil magistrate has authority in ecclesi
astical affairs ? These were the tests of the
times. At the close of the disputation the
queen made a short and elegant oration in Lat
in, encouraging the scholars to pursue their
studies, with a promise of her countenance and
protection. But this learned body was soon after throwa
into confusion by the controversy of the habits,
especially of the surplice. Dr. Longworth, mas
ter of St. John's, being absent from his college,
the students of that house came to chapel on a
festival day without their hoods and surplices,*
to the number of three hundred, and continued
to do so for some time, the master at his return
making no complaint, nor attempting to recover
them to uniformity. In Trinity, College aUt
except three declared against the surplice, and
many in other colleges were ready to follow
their example. The news of this being sent to
court, it was easy to foresee an impending
storm : several members of the university wrote
to the secretary, humbly beseeching his inter
cession with the queen, that they might not be
forced to revive a popish ceremony, which they
had laid aside ; assuring him, before God, that
nothing but reason, and the quiet enjoyment of
their consciences, had induced them to do as
they had done. But Cecil sent them an angry
answer, admonishing them to return quietly to

couragers of popery. The bishop's reflections are
also pointed against our historian for mentioning
this conduct without a censure. To which Mr Neal
replies that this grant from Pope Alexander VI., the
advantage of which the Puritans enjoyed, had been
confirmed to the university by letters patent from
Queen Elizabeth herself; a copy of which may be
seen in the Appendix to Strype's Life of Archbishop
Parker p. 69. Mr. Neal also properly asks, " Would
the Protestants in France have shut up their church
es if the antichristian powers would have given them
a license to preach? Nay, would they not have
preached without any hcense at all if they had not
been dragooned out of the country ?" He asserts
for himself, " If he were a missionary, and could
spread the Chnstian faith by virtue of a hcense from
the pope, or the grand seignor, or the Emperor of
China, in their dominions, he would not scruple to
accept It, but be thankful to the Divine Providence
that had opened such a dooi."—Appendix to the Re
view. — Ed.
* However, they had worn them before.— ffisAoo
Maddox. ^
Stt ^/ *'^ instigation of T. Cartwright.— ii.,/rom

102

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

the habits, as they had used them before. He
also wrote to the vice-chancellor, requiring him
to call together the heads of the colleges, and
let them know that, as they tendered the honour
of God, the preservation of Christian unity, the
reputation of the university, the favour of the
queen, and his own good-will to them, they
should continue the use of the habits.
The heads of the colleges being sensible of
the risk the university would run of being dis
furnished of students if the habits were pressed,
applied again to their Chancellor Cebil to inter
cede with the queen for a dispensation : one of
their letters was signed by the master of Trini
ty College, Dr. Beaumont, who had been an ex
ile ; John Whitgift, afterward Archbishop of
Canterbury ; Roger Kelk, master of Magdalen
College ; Richard Longworth, master of St.
John's ; Matthew Hutton, master of Pembroke
Hall, afterward Archbishop of York, and many
others. In their letter they acquaint his honour
" that a great many persons in the university,
of piety and learning, were fully persuaded of
the unlawfulness of the habits ; and, therefore,
if conformity were urged, they would be forced
to desert their stations, and thus the university
would be stripped of its ornaments ; they there
fore give it as their humble opinion that indul
gence in this matter would be attended with no
inconveniences ; but, on the other hand, they
were afraid religion and learning would suffer
very much by rigour and imposition."* This
letter was resented at court, and especiahy by
the eeplesiastical commission ; Longworth, mas-
tor of St. John's, was sent for before the com
missioners, and obliged to sign a recantation,
and read it publicly in the Church ; the rest
made their peace by letters of submission : all
the heads of (Colleges were commanded to assist
the vice-chancellor in bringing the scholars to a
uniformity in the habits, which, nevertheless,
they could not accomplish formanyyears. Whit
gift, seeing which way the tide of preferment
ran, drew his pen in defence of the hierarchy in
all its branches, and became a most potent ad
vocate for the habits. But the University of
Cambridge was still a sanctuary for the Puri
tans. To return to the Puritan clergy ; April 2d,
Mj-. Crowley, the suspended minister of CJripple-
gate, seeing a corpse coming to be'buried at his
church, attended with clejks in their surplices
singing before it, threatened to shut the chuf-ch
doors against them ; but the singing-men resist
ed, resolving to go through with their work, till
the alderman's deputy threatened to lay them
by the heels for breaking the peace ; upon which
they shrunk away, but complained to the arch
bishop, who, sending for Crowley, deprived him
of his living, and confined him to his house, for
saying he would not suffer the wolf to come to
his flock. He also bound the deputy in £100 to
be. ready when he shall be called for! This
Mr. Crowley was a learned man, and had been
an exile in Queen Mary's days, at Frankfort ;
he was very diligent in disputing against pertain
priests in the Tower, and took a great deal of
pains to bring them over to their allegiance to
the queen, upon the principle of the unlawful-
ness of deposing princes upon any pretence
* Life of Parker, p. 194. , App., p. 69.
! Life of Parker, p. 218, 219.

whatsoever. He wrote divers learned books,
and died a Nonconformist, in the year 1588, and
was buried in the Church of Cripplegate. Among
the deprived ministers, some betook themselves
to the study of physio, and others to secular em
ployments ; some went into Scotland, or beyond
sea ; others got to be chaplains in gentlemen's
families ; but many who had large families were
reduced to beggary. Many churches were now
shut up, and the people ready to mutiny for want
of ministers. Six hundred persons came to a
churph in London to reeeive the pommunion on
Palm Sunday,' but the doors were shut, there
being none to offieiate. The pries of the people
reached the eourt ; the secretary wrote to the
archbishop to supply the churches, and release
the prisoners ; but his grace was inexorable, and
had rather the people should have no sermons
or sacraments than have them -without the sur
plice and cap. He acquainted the secretary in
a letter, " that when the queen put him upon
what he had done, he told her that these precise
folks would offer their goods and bodies to pris
on rather than relent ; and her highness then
willed him -to imprison them.* He confessed
that there were many parishes unserved; that
he underwent many hard speeches, and much
resistance from the people, but nothing more
than was to be expected. That he had sent his
chaplains into the city to serve in some of the
great parishes, but they could not administer
the saprament, beeause the oflipers of the parish
had provided neither surplice nor wafer-bread.
That on Palm Sunday, one of his' chaplains
desinging to administer the sacrament to some
that desired it, the table was made ready, but
while hewas reading the chapter of the passion,
one of the parishioners drew from the table
both the cup and the wafer-bread, because the
bread was not common ; and so the people
were disappointed, and his chaplain derided.
That divers church-wardens would provide nei
ther surplice nor wafer-bread. He acquainted
the secretary, farther, -that he had talked with
several of the new preachers, who were movers
of sedition and disorder, that he had command
ed them silence, and had put some into prison.
That on Maunday-Thursday he had many of the
Bishop of London's parishioners, church-war
dens, and others, before him ; but that he was
fully tired, for some ministers would not obey
their suspensions, but preached in defiance of
them. Some church-wardens would not provide
the church furniture, and others opposed and
disturbed those that were sent to officiate in
the prescribed apparel. He then calls upon the
secretary to spirit up [Grindal], bishop of Lon
don, to his duty ; and assures him that he had
spoken to him to no purpose ; that he was
younger, and nearer the city, and had vapant
priests in his ehurph, who might supply the
plapes of the deprived ministers ; he therefore
bewailed that he should be put upon the over
sight of the parishes Of London, whieh was an
other man's charge ; and that the burden should
be laid on his neck when other men drew
back-."* The truth is, Grindal was weary of
the unpleasant work, and having a real concern
to promote the preaching of the Word of God,
he could not act against the ministers other
wise than as he was pushed forward; and

» Life of Parker, p. 228.

t Ibid, p. 229

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

¦when the eyes of his superiors were turned
another way, he would relax again. When the
secretary and archbishop sent to him to provide
for his charge and fill up the vacant pulpits, he
told them it was impossible, there being no
preachers; all he could do was to supply the
churches by turns, which was far from stop
ping the murmurs of the people.
This was the sad condition of the city of Lon
don, the very bread of life being taken from
the people, for the sake of a few trifling cere
monies ;* and if it was thus in the city, how
much wo'rse must it be in those distant coun
ties where her majesty's injunctions were ri
gidly executed 1 And yet, with all this rigour,
it was not in the power of the queen and her
bishops to reconcile the clergy and common
people to the habits. The queen herself was in
earnest, and her archbishop went into the most
servile measures to fulfil the commands of his
royal mistress ; the high-commission was furi
ous, but the council were backward to counte-
nance'their proceedings.
All applications to the" queen and her com
missioners being ineffectual, the suspended min
isters thought it their duty to lay their case be
fore the world; accordingly, they published a
small treatise in this year [1566], in vindipation
of their oonduot, entitled "A Deelaration of the
Doings of those Ministers of God's Word and
Sapraments in the City of London whieh have
refused to wear the upper Apparel- and minis
tering Garments of the Pope's Church," In
this book they show " that neither the prophets
in the Old l^stament, nor the apostles in. the
-New, were distinguished by their garments ;
that the hnen garment was peculiar to the
priesthood of Aaron, and had a signification of
something to be fulfilled in Christ and his
: Church. That a distinction of garments in the
Christian Church did not generally obtain till
long after the rising of antichrist ; for the whole
clergy of Ravenna, writing to the Emperor Car-
-olus Calvus, in the year of our Lord 876, say,
We are distinguished from the laity not by our
clothes, but by our doctrines; not by our habits,
but our conversation. That the surplice, or
-white linen garment, came from the Egyptians
* " The fact that so large a proportion of the first
Reformers, and those confessedly among the most
learned, zealous, and devout of their day, were at
tached to the pecuUarities of the Puritans, should
shame the intemperate and ignorant partisans who
refer to them in anger and contempt. In libelhng
-¦the Puritans, they asperse the men who exerte'd
themselves most diligently in laying the foundation
- of their church, and were ever foremost to endure
the loss of hberty and life on behalf of a common
Protestantism. 'The most eminent churchmen of
the day were favourable to the alterations proposed
by the Puritans, and were only prevented from seek
ing their introduction into the oflices of the Church
by the opposition and threats of the queen. Had it
not been for her influence, Puritanisih would have
triumphed in the Church, and a purer, reformation
than was consonant with her views have been, in
consequence, effected. ' This arbitrary monarch had
a leaning towards Rome in almost evefything but
the-dootrine of papal supremacy. To the real pres
ence she was understood to have no objection ; the
- celibacy of the clergy she decidedly approved ; the
gorgeous rites of the ancient form of worship she ad
mired, and in her own chapel retained.' " — Dr. Price's
Hist. Nonconformity, vol 1., p. 163 ; also London Quar
terly, June, 1827, p. 31.— C.

103
into the Jewish Church ; and that Pope Sylves
ter, about the year 320, was the first that ap
pointed the sacrament to be administered in a
white linen garment ; giving this reason for it,
because the body of Christ was buried in a
white linen cloth. They represent how all these
garments had been abused to idolatry, sorcery,
and all kinds of conjurations ; for, say they, the
popish priests can perform none of their pre
tended consecrations of holy water, transub
stantiation of the body of Christ, conjurations
of the devil out of places or persons possessed,
without a surplice, or an albe, or some hallowed
stole. They argue against the habits as an of
fence to weak Christians, an encouragement to
ignorant and obstinate papists, and as an affec
tion to return to their communion. That at
best they were but human appointments, and
came within the apostle's reproof. Col,, ii,, 20,
22 : ' Why as though living in the world are ye
subject to ordinances, after the commandments
and doptrines of men? whieh all are to perish
with the using. Touph not, taste not, handle
not.' That, supposing the garments were indif
ferent (which they did not grant), yet they ought
not to be imposed, because it was an infringe
ment of the liberty wherewith Christ had made
them free. Lastly, they call in the suffrages
of foreign divines, who all condemned the hab
its, though they were not willing to hazard the
Reformation in its infancy for them. Even
Bishop Ridley, who contended so zealously for
the habits, when Dr. Brooks, at his degradation,
would have persuaded him to put on the sur
plice with the rest of the massing garments, ab
solutely refused, saying, ' If you put the surplice
upon me, it shall be against my will.' And
when they forced it upon him, he inveighed
against the apparel, as foolish an^ abominable."
At the end of the book is a prayer, in which
are these words : " .A.re not the relics of Romish
idolatry stoutly retained ? Are we not bereav
ed of some of our pastors, who by word and
example sought to free thy flock from these of
fences 1 Ah, g()od Lord ! these are now by pow
er put down from pastoral care ; they are forbid
to feed us ; their voice we cannot hear. This
is our great discomfort ; this is the joy and tri
umph of antichrist ; and, which is more heavy,
the increase of this misery is of some threaten
ed, of the wicked hoped for, and of us feared,
as thy judgments against us for our sins." At
the conclusion is the Lord's Prayer and Creed,
after this manner : " In thy name, O Christ our
Captain, we ask these things, and pray unto
thee, 0 Heavenly Father, saying. Our Father,"
&c. After this, " O Lord, increase our faith,
whereof we make confession, I believe in God
the Father Almighty," &c. And in. the end is
this sentence: "Arise, 0 Lord, and let thine
enemies be confounded."*
Other pamphlets of the same kind were pub
lished in defence of the suspended ministers,
which the bishops appointed their chaplains to
answer. Mr. Strype is of opinion that the arch
bishop himself published an answer to their dec
laration ; but whoever be the author, he is a man
of a bad spirit and abusive language :! the min
isters printed a reply, entitled " An Answer for
the time to the examination put in print with the

* Strype's Annals, p. 555. Pierce,,p. 61.
t Pierce's Vindication, p. 62.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

104
author's name, pretending to maintain the ap
parel prescribed, against the declaration of the
ministers of London :" it answers the adversary
paragraph by paragraph, with good temper and
judgment. But the bishops printed some new
testimonies of foreign divines, without their
consent, with a cohection of tracts of obedience
to the magistrate, and Melancthon's exposition
of Rom. xiii., 1., " L^t every soul be subject to
the higher powers :" from whence they conclude
that, because things are barely tolerable, though
offensive, dangerous, and, in their own opinions,
tc be removed out of the Church as soon as an
opportunity shaU offer, yet, in the mean time,
they may be imposed under the penalties of sus
pension, deprivation, and imprisonment, from a
mistaken interpretation of the apostle's words,
" Let every soul be subject to the higher pow
ers." The Puritans replied to ah these attempts of
their adversaries ; their tracts were , eagerly
sought after, and had a wide spread among the
people ; upon which the commissioners had re
course to their last remedy, which was the far
ther restraint of the press. They complained
to the council that, notwithstanding the queen's
injunctions, the differences in the Church were
kept open by the printing and publishing sedi
tious libels ; and hereupon procured the follow
ing decree of the Star Chamber, viz :
1. " That no person shah print or publish any
book against the queen's injunctions, ordinan
ces, or letters patent, set forth or to be set
forth, or against the meaning of them.*
2. " That such offenders should forfeit all
their books and copies, and suffer three months'
imprisonme/nt, and never practise the art of
printing any more.
3. " That no person shall sell, bind, or stitch
such books, upon pain of twenty shiUings for
every book.
4. " That aU forfeited books should be brought
to Stationers' Hall, and half the money forfeited
to be reserved for the queen, the rest for the in
former, and the books to be destroyed or made
waste-paper. 5. " That the wardens of the company may,
from time to time, search all suspected places,
and open aU packs, dry fats, &c., wherein paper
or foreign books may be contained ; and enter
all warehouses where they have reasonable sus
picion, and seize aU books and pamphlets against
the queen's ordinances, and bring the offender
before the eeplesiastical pommissioners.
6. " AU stationers, booksellers, and merehants
trading in books shall enter into reeognisaupes
of reasonable ¦ sums of money to observe the
premises, or pay the forfeitures."
This was signed by eight of the privy pounoil,
and by the Bishops of Canterbury and London,
with five more of the ecclesiastical commission,
and published June 29th', 1566, in the eighth
year of the queen's reign, j 
* Life of Parker, p. 221. ! Ibid., p. 222.
It is a just remark of a modem writer here, that,
without entering into the controversy between the
bishops and the Puritans, we may at least venture to
affirm that the former did no credit to their cause by
this arbitrary restraint of the press. This is an expe
dient utterly incompatible with the very notion of a
free state, and, therefore, ever to be detested by the
friends of liberty. And it is an expedient which can
never be of any service to the cause of truth, what-

The Puritans being thus foreclosed, and shut
out of the Church by sequestrations, impris
onments, the taking away of their licenses to
preach, and the restraint of the press, most of
them were at a loss how to behave, being nn-
wiUing to separate from the Church where the
Word and sacraments were truly administered,
though defiled with some popish superstitions ;.
of the number were Dr. Humphreys, Sampson,
Fox the martyrologist, Lever, 'Wliittinghain,
Johnson, and others, who continued preaching
up and down, as theyhad opportunity and could
be dispensed with for the habits, though they,
were excluded all parochial preferment.
But there were great numbers of the common.-
people who abhorred the habitsas much as the
ministers, and.would not frequent the churches
where they were used, thinking it as unlaw
ful to countenance such superstitions with their
presence as, if they themselves were to put on
the garments. These were distressed whefe to-
hear ; some stayed without the church till ser
vice was over, and the minister was entering
upon his prayer before sermon ; others flocked
after Father Coverdale, who preaphed Without
the habits ; but, being turned out of his ehurch at
St, Magnus, London Bridge, they were obliged
to send to his house on Saturdays to know-
where they might hear him the next day : the
government took umbrage at this, insomuch
that the good old rhan was obliged to tell his
friends that he durst not inform them any more
of his preaohing, for fear of offending his superi
ors. At length, after having waited about eight
weeks to see if the queen would have pompas-
sion on them, several of the deprived ministers
had a solemn ponsultation with their friends, in
whieh, after prayer, and a. serious debate about
the lawfulness and necessity of separating from>
the established Church, they came to this-
agreement : that, since they could not have the
Word of God preached, nor the sacraments ad
ministered without idolatrous gear ,(as , they
called it), and since there had been a separate
congregation in London, and another at Gene
va, in Queen Mary's time, which, used a book
and order of preaohing, administration of sacra
ments, and discipline, that the great Mr. Calvin
had approved of, and which was free from the
superstitions of the English service ; that, there
fore, it was their duty, in their present circum
stances, to break off from the public churches,
and to assemble, aS they had opportunity, iw
private houses, or elsewhere, to worship God in
a manner that might not offend against the light
of their consciences.* Had the use of habits-
and a few ceremonies been left discretionary,
both ministers and people had been easy ; but
it was the compehing these things by law, as
they told the archbishop, that made them sep
arate. It was debated among them whether th'ey
should use as much of the common prayer and
service of the Church as was not offensive, or
resolve at once, since they were cut off irom
the Church of England, to set up the purest
and best form of worship most consonant to
the Holy Scriptures and to the practice of the
foreign Reformers ; the latter of these was con-
ever it may to error superstition, and tyranny.—-
British Biography, vol. iii., p. 25.— C.
* LifeofParker, p. 241.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

eluded upon, and, accordingly, they laid aside
the English liturgy, and made use of the Gene
va service-book.
Here was the era or date of.the separation,
a most unhappy event, says Mr. Strype, where
by " people of the same country, of the same
religion, and of the same judgment in doctrine,
parted communions ; one part being obliged to
go aside into secret houses and chambers, to
serve God by themselves, which begat strange
ness between neighbours, Christians, and Prot
estants." And not only strangeness, but un
speakable mischiefs to the nation in this and the
following reigns. The breach might easily have
been made up at first, but it widened by de
grees ; the passions of the contending parties
increased, till the fire, which for some years
was burning under ground, broke out into a
civil war, and, with unspeakable fury, destroyed
the constitution both of Church and State.
I leave the reader to judge at whose door
the beginnings of these sonows are to be laid,
each party casting the blame on the other. The
Conformists charged the deprived ministers
with disobedience to the queen, and obstinacy,
preciseness, and with breaking the peace of the
Church for matters of no consequence to salva
tion. The ministers, on the other hand, thought
it cruel usage to be turned out of the Church
for things which their adversaries acknowledged
to be of mere indifference ; whereas they took
it upon their consciences, and were ready to
aver, in the most solemn manner, that they
deemed them unlawful. They complied as far
as they could with the establishment while they
were within it,, by using as much of the liturgy
as was not offensive, and by taking the oath of
supremacy ; they were as dutiful subjects to
the queen as the bishopsl and declared them
selves ready to obey their sovereign in all things
lawful ; and when they could not obey, patient
ly to suffer her displeasure. After ah this, to
impute the behaviour'of the Nonconformists to
obstinacy and peevishness was very unchari
table.* What could move them to part with
their livings, or support them under the loss,
but the testimony of a good conscience 1 when
they could hot but be sensible their noncon
formity would be followed with poverty and
disgrace, with the loss of their characters and
usefulness in the Church ; and with numberless
unforeseen calamities to themselves and fam
ilies, unless it should please God, in his all- wise

* " Schism, in fact, is a thing bad in itself, bad in
its very nature; separation may be good or bad, ac
cording to circumstances. A schismatic is an epi
thet of criminality ; it indicates the personal charac
ter of the individual, and it describes that character
as bad. A separatist is merely a name , of circum
stance : in itself it is neither bad nor good ; it indi
cates nothmg as to the personal character of the in
dividual, it merely describes his position in relation
to others. Schism can exist, as we have seen, where
there is no separation, and separation itself is not
necessarily schism; not necessarily so, for whde
it may be occasioned by crime, it may be occa
sioned by virtue ; it may result, in those who depart
from intolerance attempted, or intolerance sustained,
from the pride of faction, or the predominance of
principle; attachment to party or attachment to
truth. A schismatic, in short, must be a sinner on
whichever side he stands; a separatist may be 'more
sinned against than sinning.' "—Dissent not Schism.
By the Rev. Thomas Binney.—C. "
Vol. 1.-0

103

providence, to softeri the queen's heart in their
favour. In Scotland all things were in confusion.
The young queen, Mary, after the death of her
husband, Francis II., returned into her own
country, August 21st, 1501, upon ill terms
with Queen Elizabeth, who could not brook her
assuming the arms of England, and putting in
her claim to the crown, on the pretence Vf her
bastardy, which most of the popish powers
maintained, because she was born during the
life of Queen Katharine, whose marriage had
been declared valid by the pope. Elizabeth of
fered her a safe conduct if she would ratify the
treaty of Edinburgh, but she chose rather to
run all risks than submit. Mary was a bigoted
papist, and her juvenile amours and fohies sooa
entangled her government and lost her crown.
As soon as she arrived in Scotland, she had th&
mortification to see the whole nation turned
Protestant, and the Reformation established by
laws so secure and strict, that only herself was-
allowed the liberty of mass in her own chapel,
and that without pomp or ostentation, 'fhe
Protestants of Scotiand, by the preaching ot
Mr. Knox and otheirs, having imbibed the strong
est aversion to popery, were for removing at
the greatest distance from its superstitions.
The General Assembly petitioned her majesty-
to ratify the acts of Parliament for abolishing
the mass, and for obliging all her subjefets to
frequent the reformed worship. But she replied
that she, saw no impiety in the mass, and was
determined not to quit the religion in which she
was educated, being satisfied it was founded on
the Word of God. To which the General As
sembly answered a littie coarsely, that Turkism-
stood upon as good ground as popery ; and
then required her, in the name of the eternal
God, to inform herself better, by frequenting,
sermon's and conferring with learned men ; but,
her majesty gave no heed to their counsels.
In the year 1564, the queen married Henry
Stuart, Lord Darnley, who was joined with her
in the government. By him she was brought
to bed of a son, June the 15th, 1566, afterward
James I., king of England ; and while she was
with child of him she received a fright by her
husband's coming into her chamber with his
servants and putting to death her favourite, Da
vid Rizzio, an Itahan musician, who was sitting
with her at table. This was thought to have
such an influence upon the prince that was born,
of her, that he neveir loved the sight of a sword-
Soon after this the king himself was found
murdered in a garden, the house in which the-
murder was committed being blown up with
gunpowder to prevent the discovery. Upon the-
king's death the Earl of Bothwell became the
queen's favourite, and, as soon as he had ob
tained a divorce from his legal wife; she took
him into her marriage-bed, to her very great
infamy, and the regret of the whole Scots' na
tion, who took up arms to revenge the late
king's murder, and dissolve, the present inces
tuous marriage. When the two armies were
ready to engage, Bothwell fled to Dunbar, and.
the queen, being apprehensive her soldiers would
not fightin such an infamous cause, surrender
ed herself to the confederates, who shut her up-
in the castle of Loch Levin, and obliged her to
resign the crown to her young son, under the-

106

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

regency of the Earl of Murray. From hence
she made her escape into England in the year
1568, where she was detained prisoner by Queen
Elizabeth almost eighteen years, and then put to
death. Bothwell turned pirate, and being taken
by the Danes, was shut up for ten years in a
noisome prison in Denmark, till he lost his
-senses and died mad.*
The Earl of Murray being regent of Scotland,
convened a parliament and assembly at Edin
burgh, in which the pope's authority was again
discharged, and the act of Parliament of the
year 1560, for renouncing the jurisdiction of the
courtof Rome, was confirmed, and aU acts pass
ed in former reigns for the support of popish
idolatry were annulled. The new confession of
faith was ratified, and the Protestant ministers,
and those of their communion, declared to be
the true and only kirk within that realm. The
examination and admission of ministers is de
clared to be only in the power and disposition
of the Church, with a saving clause for lay-pa
trons. By another act,' the kings at their coro
nation, for the future, are to take an oath to
maintain the reformed religion then professed ;
and by another, none but such as profess the re
formed religion are capable of being judges or
proctors, or of practising in any of the courts of
justice, except those who held offices heredita
ry, or for life.
The General Assembly declared their approba
tion of the discipline of the Reformed Churches
•of Geneva and Switzerlapd ; and for a parity
among ministers, in opposition to the claim of
the bishops, a? a superior order. Ah Church
affairs were managed by provincial,, classical,
^nd national assemblies ; but these acts of the
General Assembly not being confirmed by Parlia
ment, episcopal government was not legally abol
ished, but tacitly suspended till the king came of
age. However, the General Assembly showed
their power of the keys at this time, by deposing
the Bishop of Orkney for marrying the queen to
BothweU, who was supposed to have murdered
the late king, and by making the Countess of
_Argyle do penance for assisting at the ceremony.

CHAPTER V.
.FROM THE SEPARATION OF THE PROTESTANT NON
CONFORMIST.'' TO THE DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP
PARKER.
Thouoh all tne Puritans of these times would
have remained within the Church, might they
have been indulged in the habits and a few cer
emonies, yet they were far from being satisfied
with the hierarchy. They had other objeetions
besides those for which they were deprived,
which they laboured incessantly throughout the
whole course of this reign to remove. I wih
set them before the reader in one view, that he
may form a complete judgment of the whole
controversy. First. They complained of the bishops affect
ing to be thought a superior order to presby
ters, and claiming the sole right of ordination,
and the use of the keys, or the sole exercise of
-ecclesiastical discipline. They disliked the tem-

* Rapin, p. 357.

poral dignities and baronies annexed to their of
fice, and their engaging in secular employments
and trusts, as tending to exalt them too much
above their brethren, and not so agreeable to
their characters as ministers of Christ, nor con
sistent with the due discharge of their spiritual
function. Secondly. They excepted to the titles and of
fices of archdeacons, deans, chapters, and oth
er officials belonging to cathedrals, as having no
foundation in Scripture or primitive antiquity,
but intrenching upon the privileges of the pres
byters of the several diocesses.
Thirdly. They complained of the exorbitant
power and jurisdiction'of the bishops and their
phanpellors in their spiritual pourts, as derived
from the eanon law of the pope, and not from
the Word of God or the statute law of the land.
They pomplained of their fining, imprisoning, de
priving, and putting men to exeessive eharges
for smaU offenees ; and that the highest cen
sures, such as excom-munication and absolution,
Were in the hands of laymen, and not in the
spiritual-officers of the Church.
Fourthly. They lamented the want of a god
ly discipline, and were uneasy at the promiscu
ous and general aepess of all persons to the
Lord's table. The Church being described in
her articles as a congregation of faithful persons,
they thought it necessary that a power should
be lodged somewhere, to inquire into the quali
fications of such as deshed to be of her com
munion. Fifthly. Though they did not dispute the law
fulness of set forms of prayer, provided a due
liberty was allowed for prayers of their own
composure before and after sermon, yet they
disliked some things in the public liturgy estab
lished by law ; as the frequent repetition of the
Lord's Prayer ; the interruption of the prayers
by the frequent responses of the people, which
in some places seem to be little better than vain
repetitions, and are practised in no other Prot
estant Church in the world. They excepted to
some passages in the offices of marriage and
burial, &c., which they very unwihingly complied
with ; as, in the ofiice of marriage, " With my
body I thee worship ;" and in the oflice of bu
rial, " In shre and certain hope of the resurrec
tion to eternal life," to be pronounced over the
worst of men, unless in a, very few excepted ca
ses. Sixthly. They disliked the reading of the apoc
ryphal books in the Church, while some parts of
canonical Scripture were omitted; and though
they did not d isapprove the homilies, they thought
that no man ought to be ordained a minister
in the Church who was incapable of preaching
and expounding the Scriptures. One of their
great complaints, therefore, throughout the
course of this reign was, that there were so
many dumb ministers, pluralists, and nonresi
dents ; and that presentations to benefices were
in the hands of the queen, bishops,' or lay-pa
trons, when they ought to arise from the election
of the people.
, Seventhly. They diapproved of the observa
tion of sundry of the Church festivals or holy-
days, as having no foundation in Scripture or
primitive antiquity. We have no example, say
they, in the Older New Testament, of any days
appointed in commemoration of saints ; to on-

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

107

serve the fast in Lent of Friday and Saturday,
&c., is unlawful and superstitious, as also buy
ing and selling on the Lord's Day.
Eighthly. They disallowed of Uie Cathedral
mode of worship ; of singing their prayers, and
of the antiphone, or chanting the psalms by
turns, which the ecclesiastical commissioners
in King Edward VI. 's time advised the laying
aside. Nor did they approve of musical instru
ments; as trumpets, organs, &c,, which were
not in use in the Church for above twelve hun
dred years after Christ.
Ninthly. They scrupled conformity to cer
tain rites and ceremonies which were enjoined
by the rubric, or the queen's injunctions ; as,
1. To the sign of the cross in baptism, which
is no part of the institution as recorded in Scrip
ture ; and though it was usual for Christians, in
the earher ages, to cross themselves, or make a
cross in the air upon some occasions, yet there
is no express mention of its being used in bap
tism till about the fifth century. Besides, it hav
ing been abused to superstition by the Church
of Rome, and been had in such reverence by
some Protestants, that baptism itself has been
thought imperfect without it, they apprehend it
ought to be laid aside. They also disallowed
of baptism by midwives, or other women, in
cases of sickness ; and of the manner of church
ing women, which looked to them too much like
the Jewish purification.
2. They excepted to the use of godfathers
and godmothers, to the exclusion of- parents
from being sureties for the education of their
own children. If parents were dead, or in a dis
tant country, they were as much for sponsors to
undertake for the education of the child as
their adversaries ; but when the education of
children is by the laws of God and nature in
trusted to parents, who are bound to form them
to virtue and piety, they apprehended it very
unjustifiable to release them totally from that
promise, and deliver up the chdd to a stranger,
as was then the constant practice, and is since
enjoined by the twenty-ninth canon, which says,
" No parent shall Jie.tirged to be present, nor be
admitted to answer as godfather to his own
child." In giving names to children, it was
their opinion that heathenish names should be
avoided, as not so fit for Christians ; and also
the names of God and Christ, and angels, and
the peculiar oflices of the Mediator. They also
disliked the godfathers answering in the name
of the child, and not in their own.
3. They disapproved, the custom of confirming
children as soon as they could repeat the Lord's
Prayer and their Catechism, by which they
had a right to come to the sacrament, without
any other qualification ; this might be done by
children of five or six years old. They were
also dissatisfied with that part of the offiee
where the bishop, laying his hand upon the ehil-
dren, prays that God would by this sign pertify
them of his favour and goodness, which seems
to impute a sacramental efficacy to the imposi
tion of his hands.
4. They excepted against the injunction of
kneehng at the sacrament of the Lord's Supper,
which they apprehended not so agreeable to the
example of Christ and his apostles, who gave it
tb his disciples rather in a posture of feasting
than of adoration. Besides, it has no founda

tion in antiquity for many hundred years after
Christ; and having since been grossly abused
by the papists to idolatry, in their worshipping
the host, it ought, say they, to be laid aside ;
and if it should be allowed that tho posture
was indifferent, yet it ought not to be imposed
and made a necessary term as communion ;
nor did they approveof either of the sacraments
being administered in private ; no, not in cases
of danger.
5. To bowing at the name of Jesus, grounded
Upon a false interpretation of that passage of
Scripture, " .-Yt the name of Jesus every knee
shall bow ;" as if greater external reverence
was required to that name than to the person
of our blessed Saviour, under the titles of Lord,
Saviour, Christ, Immanuel, &c., and yet upon
this mistake was founded the injunction of the
queen and the eighteenth canon, which says,
" When, in time of Divine service, the name of
Jesus shall be mentioned, due and lowly rever
ence shall be done by ah persons present." But
the Puritans inaintained that all the names of
God and Christ were to be had in equal rever
ence, and therefore it was beside all reason to
bow the knee, or uncover the head, only at the
name of Jesus.
6. To the ring in marriage. This they some
times complied with, but wished it altered. It
is derived from the papists, who make marriage
a sacrament, and the ring a sort of sacred sign
or symbol. ,The words in the liturgy are, " Then
shah they again loose their hands, and the man
shall give unto the woman a ring, laying the
same upon the book ; and the priest, taking the
ring, shall deliver it to the man, to put it on the
fourth finger of the woman's left hand ; and the
man holding the ring there, and taught by the
priest, shall say, ' With this ring I thee wed,
with my body I thee worship, and with all my
worldly goods I thee endow,' in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost." 'They also disallowed the forbidding
of marriage at certain times of the year, and
then licensing it for money, say they, is more
intolerable. Nor is it lawful to grant licenses
that some may marry without the knowledge of
the congregation, who ought to be acquainted
with it, lest there should be any secret lets or
hinderances. 7. To the wearing of the surplice, and other
ceremonies to be used in Divine service ; con
cerning which the Church says, in the preface
to her Liturgy, that though they were devised
by men, yet they are reserved for decency, or
der, and edification. And, again, they are apt
to stir up the dull mind of man to the remem
brance of his duty to God by some notable and
special signification, whereby he might be edifi
ed. But the Puritans saw no decency in the
vestments ; nay, they thought them a disgrace
to the Reformation, and, in the present circum
stances, absolutely unlawful, because they had
been defiled with superstition and idolajry, and
because many pretended Protestants placed a
kind of holiness in them. Besides, the wearing
them gave countenance to popery, and looked
as if we were fund of being thought a branch of
that communion which we had so justiy renoun
ced. But, suppose them to be indifferent, they
gave great offence to weak minds, and there
fore ought not to be imposed, when there was

108

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

no foundation for the use of them in Scripture
or primitive antiquity.
"These things, say they, every one should en
deavour to reform in his place : ministers by the
Word, magistrates by their authority, according
to the Word of God, and the people by prayer.
There was no difference in points of doctrine
between the Puritans and Conformists :* so that
if we add but one article more, we have the
chief head of controversy between the Church
of England and the Protestant Dissenters at
that day ; and this is the natural right that ev
ery man has to judge for himself, and make pro
fession of that religion he apprehends most
agreeable to truth, as far as it does not affect
the peace and safety of the government he lives
under, without being determined by the preju
dices of education, the laws of the civil magis
trate, or the decrees of councils, churches, or
synods.! This principle would effectually put
an end to all impositions ; and unless it be al
lowed, I am afraid our separation from the
Church of Rome can hardly be justified, " The
Bible," says Mr. Chillingworth, "and that only,
is the religion of Protestants ; and every one,
by making use of the helps and assistances that
God has put into his hands, must learn and un
derstand it for himself as well as he can."
It will appear hereafter what sort of discipline
the Puritans would have introduced ; but these.
were the objections that hindered their compli
ance with the present establishment, and for
which they were content to suffer the loss of all
things. Those who remained within the Church
became itinerant preachers, lecturers, or chap
lains. The chief leaders of the separation, ac-
* This was, undoubtedly, true with respect to the
majority ; but this history has furnished difl'erent in
stances of objections in point of doctrine. The es
tablished sentiments concerning the Trinity and the
person of Christ, though they did not form the
grounds of that separation of which our author
T(vrites, were yet called in question, and, as we bave
seen in the note, p. 61, were by no means universally
received. But it would not have been surprising if,
in that early period of the Reformation, there had been
a perfect acquiescence in every doctrinal principle
that did not appear to have been peculiar to the sys
tem of popery ; for the progress of the mind and of
inquiry is necessarily gradual. The gross corruptions
of popery were at first sufficient to occupy and fill
the thoughts of the generality. A kind of sacred awe
spread itself over questions connected with the char
acter and nature of God and his Christ, w^hich would
deter many from a close and free, examination of
them. And ceremonies and habits, being more ob
vious to the senses, continually coming into use and
practice, and being enforced with severity, the ques
tions relative to them more easily engaged attention,
were more level to the decision of common under
standings, and became immediately interesting. In
this state of things there was little room and, less in
clination to push inquiries on matters of speculation.
—Ed. ! Bishop Warburton is displeased with Mr Neal
for speaking of the natural right every man has to
judge for himself as one. of the heads of controversy
between the Puritans and Conformists, when, his
lordship adds, " his whole history shows that this
was a truth unknown to either party." It is true
that neither party had clear, full,.and extensive views
on this point, nor were disposed to grant the conse
quences arising from it. But each in a degree ad
mitted It, and acted upon it. And the Puritans, it ap
pears, by p., 109 of this edition, rested their vindica
tion, in part, upon this principle. — Ed.

cording to Mr. Fuher, were the Reverend Mr
Colman, Mr. Button, Mr. Halingham, Mr Ben
son, Mr. White, Mr. Rowland, and Mr. Hawk
ins, ah beneficed within the diocess of London.
These had their followers of the laity, who for
sook their parish churches, and assembled with
the deprived ministers in woods and private
houses, to worship God without the habits and
ceremonies of the Church.
The queen, being informed of their proceed
ings, sent to her commissioners to take effect
ual measures to keep the laity to their parish
churches, and to let them know that, if they fre
quented any separate conventicles, or broke
through the ecclesiastical laws, they should for-
the first offence be deprived of their freedom of
the city of London, and, after that, abide what ¦
farther punishment she should direct. This was
a vast stretch of the prerogative,* there being
no law, as yet, to disfranchise any man for not
coming to church.
But, notwithstanding this threatening mes
sage, they went on with their assemblies, and'
on the 19th of June, 1567, agreed to have a ser
mon and a communion at Plumbers' Hall, which
they hired for that day, under pretence of a wed
ding; but here the sheriffs of London detected
and broke them up, when they were assembled
to the number of about one hundred ; most of
them were taken info custody, and some sent to
the Compter, and next day seven or eight of the
chief were brought before the Bishop of London,
Dean Goodman, Mr. Archdeacon Watts, and Sir
Roger Martin, lord-mayor of London.! The
bishop charged them with absenting from their
parish churches, and with setting up separate
assemblies for prayer and preaching, and minis
tering the sacrament. He told them that by
these proceedings they condemned the Church
of England, which was well reformed according
to the Word of God, and those martyrs who had
shed their blood for it. To which one of them
replied, in the name of the rest, that they con
demned them not, but only stood for the truth
of God's Word. Then the bishop asked the
ancientest of them, Mr. John Smith, what he
could answer ; who replied " that they thanked
God for the Reformation ; that as long as they
could hear the Word of God preached without
idolatrous gear about it, they never assembled
in private houses ; but when it came to this
point, that all their preachers were displaced
who would not subscribe to the apparel, so that
they could hear none of them in the church, for
the space of seven or eight weeks, except Fa
ther Coverdale, they began to consult what fo
do ; and remembering there had been a congre
gation of Protestants in the city of London in
Queen Mary's days, and another of English ex
iles at Geneva, that used a book framed by them
there, they resolved to meet privately together
and use the said book." And, finally, Mr. Smith
offered, in the name of the rest, to yield and do
penance at St. Paul's Cross, if the bishop, and
the commissioners with him, could reprove that
book, or anything else that they held, by the
Word of God.
The bishop told him they could not reprove
the book, but that was no sufficient answer for

* 'Which, adds Dr Warner, " plainly showed Elis
abeth to be the true daughter of Henry."
! Life of Grmdal, p. 242. Life of Parker, p. 342.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

109

his not going to church.* To which Mr. Smith
replied, that "he would as soon go to mass as
to some churches, and particularly to his own
parish church, for the minister that oflSciated
there was a very papist." Others said the
same of other parish priests. The bishop asked
if they accused any of them by name ; upon
which one of them presently named Mr Bedel,
¦who was there present, but the bishop would
not inquire into the accusation.
The Dean of Westminster, who was one of
the ecclesiastical commission, charged them
with derogating from the queen's authority of
appointing indifferent things in God's worship.
To which one of them answered, that " it lay
not in the authority of a prince, nor the liberty
of a Christian man, to use and defend that
-tt'hich appertained to papistry, idolatry, and the
pope's canon law." Another said that " these
things were preferred before the Word of God
and the ordinances of Christ." The- bishop
asked them what was preferred : one of them
answered boldly, " that which was upon the bish
op's head, and upon his back ; their copes and
surplices, and canon laws." Another said " that
he thought both prince and people ought to obey
the Word of God." To which the bishop yield
ed, except in things that were indifferent, which
God had neither commanded nor forbidden ; in
these he asserted that princes had authority to or
der and command. Whereupon several of them
cried out, '- Prove that ; where find you that 1"
But the bishop would not enter into the debate,
alleging the judgment of the learned Buhinger ;
to w-hich Mr. Smith replied, that perhaps they
could show Bullinger against Bullinger in the
affair of the habits.
The bishop asked them whether they would
be determined by the Church of Geneva. Mr.
Smith replied, " that they reverenced the learn
ed in Geneva, and in other places, but did not
build their faith and religion upon them." The
bishop produced the foUowing passage out of
one of Beza's letters against them : "that against
the bishops and princes' will they should exer
cise their office, they [the ministers of Geneva]
did much the more tremble at it," "Mark,"'
says the bishop, " how the learned Beza trem
bles at your case." Whereupon one of them
said they knew the letter well enough, and that
it made nothing against them, but rather against
the prince and the bishops. Beza and his learn
ed brethren trembled at their case in proceeding
to such extremities with men as to drive them,
against their wills, to that which they did not
care to mention. Their words are these : " We
hope that her royal majesty, and so many men
of dignity and goodness, will endeavour that
care may rather be taken of so many pious and
learned brethren, that so great an evil should
happen, to wit, that the pastors should be forced,
against their consciences, to do that which is
evil, and so to involve themselves in other
men's sins, or to give over ; for we more dread
that third thing, viz., to exercise their ministry
contrary to the will of her majesty and the bish
ops, for causes which, though we hold our peace,
may well enough be understood."! How the
bishop could- think this was levelled against the
Konconformists is hard to understand.
To go on with the examination. One of the
•* Pierce, p. 42. ! Life of Grindal, Records, No. 16.

prisoners said, that " before they compelled the
•ceremonies, so that none might ofliciate with
out tliein, ah was quiet." Another (viz., Mr.
Hawkins) produced a passage out of Melancthon,
that " when the opinion of holiness or necessi
ty is put unto things indifferent, they darken the
light of the Gospel." The bishop replied "that
the ceremonies and habits were not commanded
of necessity." To which Hawkins rejoined that
-they had made them matters of necessity, as
many a poor man had felt to his cost, who had
been discharged of his living for nonconformity.
When the bishop had occasionally observed that
he had formerly said mass, but was sorry for it,
one of them answered, he went still in the habit
of a mass-priest. To which he replied, that he
had rather minister without a cope and surplice,
but for order's sake and obedience to the queen.
When some of the commissioners urged them
with the Reformation of King Edward, one said
that " they never went so far in his time as to
make a law that none should preach or minister
without the garments." Sundry other expres
sions of warmth passed on both sides ; at length
one of them delivered to Justice Harris their book
of order [the-Geneva book], and challenged any
of the commissioners to disprove it by the Word
of God, and they would give over. The bishop
said they reproved it not, but they liked not
their separate assemblies to trouble the common
quiet of the realm against the queen's will. But
the others insisted on their superior regards to
the Word of God. In conclusion, the prisoners,
not yielding to the bishop, were sent to Bride
well, where they, with their brethren and sun
dry women, were kept in durance above a year :
at length, their patience and constancy having
been sufficientiy tried,, an order was sent from
the lords of the council to release them," with
an admonition to behave themselves better for
the future.! Accordingly, twenty-four men and
seven women were discharged.! Whether these
severities were justifiable by the laws of God or
the land, I leave with the reader.
There was a spirit of uncommon zeal in these
people to suffer all extreinities for the cause in
which they were engaged. In one of their let
ters, directed to all the brethren that believed
in Christ, the writer, who was but a layman,
says, " The reason why we wih not hear our
parish ministers is, because they wih not stand
forth and defend the Gospel against the leavings
of popery, for fear of loss of goods, or punish
ment of body, or danger of imprisonment, or
else for fear of men more than God." He then
calls up their courage : " Awake, 0 ye cold and
lukewarm preachers, out of sleep ; gird up your
selves with the truth ; come forth and put your
necks [to the yoke], and think with Peter that
perseeution is no strange thing ; for whieh of
the prophets were nqt persecuted as well as
Christ and his aposties ; not for evil doing, but
* This was done at the motion and counsel of
Bishop Grindal.— Ed. ! Grindal's Life, p. 135.
! The names of the men were John Smith, John
Roper, Robert Tod, Robert Hawkins, James Ireland,
William Nickson, Walter Hynkesman, Thomas Row
land, George Waddy, William Turner John Nashe,
James Adderton, WiUiam "Wight, Thomas Lydlbrd,
Richard Langton, Alexander Lacy, John Leonard,
Roger Hawkswoith, Robert Sparrow, Richard King,
Christopher Cohnan, John Benson, John Bolton, Rob
ert Gates.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

110
for preaching God's Word, and for rebuking the
worid of sin, and for their faith in Jesus Christ 1.
This is the ordinance of God, and this is the
highway to heaven, by corporeal death to eternal
life, as Christ saith, John, v. : Let us never fear
death, that is killed [conquered] by Christ, but
believe iu him and live forever. 'There is no
condemnation to them that are in Christ.' 'O
death ! where is thy sting 1 thanks be to God
that has" given us the victory.' Let us not, then,
dissemble, as some do, to save their pigs, but
be valiant for the truth. I doubt not but all
they who beheve the truth, and will obey it, will
consider the cause ;* and the Lord, for his
Christ's sake, make Ephraim and Manasses to
agree, that we may ah with one heart and mind
unfeignedly seek God's glory, and the edification
of his people, that we may live in all godly peace,
unity, and concord I This grant, 0 Lord, for
Christ Jesus' sake, to whom, with thee and the
Holy Ghost, be all praise, glory, and honour,
forever and ever."
Another, in a letter to Bishop Grindal, occa
sioned by his lordship's discourse to the prison
er at his examination before him, December 19,
begins thus : " Pleaseth your wisdom, my duty
remembered, &c., being grieved at certain words
spoken by you, and at your extreme dealing
with us of late, I am bold to utter my grief
in this manner. You said, if discipline did not
tend to peace and unity, it were better refused ;
whereas our Saviour Christ commandeth dis
cipline as one part of the Gospel, most necessa
ry for the Church's peace and order ; the apos
tles practised it, and Mr Calvin and other learn
ed men cah it the sinews of the Church that
keep the members together; and Beza says,
where discipline is wanting, there will be a li
centious life and a school of wickedness. Sec
ondly, you seemed to be offended with a late
exercise of prayer and fasting, saying that you
had not heard of any exercise of this kind with
out public authority; to which the example of
the Ninevites plainly answers, who proclaimed
a fast before they acquainted the king with it ;
nor did the king blame his subjects for going
before him in well-doing, but approved it by do
ing the like. Thirdly, you said you would nev
er ask God mercy for using the apparel,! and
should appear before him with a better con
science than we ; whereas you said in a sermon,
as many can witness, that you was sorry, for
that you knew you should offend many godly
consciences by wearing this apparel ; requiring
your auditory to have patience for a time, fbr
that you did but use them for a time, to the end
you might the sooner abolish them ; and now
you displace, banish, persecute, and imprison
such as will not wear nor consent thereunto,
and, at the same time, say you fear not to ap
pear before God for so doing. But if the Co
rinthians, for eating meat to the offence of their
brethren, are said to sin against Christ, how
much more do you, who not only retain the
remnants of antichrist, but compel others to do
the same 1 Better were it for you to leave your
lordly dignity, not given you by Christ, and to
suffer affliction for the truth of the Gospel, than,
by enjoying thereof, to become a persecutor of
your brethren. Consider, I pray you, if through-
out the whole Scriptures you can find one that

* MS., p. 42.

! MS., p. 22.

was first a persecutor, and after was persecuted
for the truth, that ever fell to persecuting again
and repented. I desire you, in the bowels of
Christ, to consider your own case, who, by your
own confession, was once a persecutor, and
have since been persecuted, whether displacing,
banishing, and imprisoning God's children more
straitly than felons, heretics, or traitors, be per
secuting again or nol They that make the
best of it say you buffet your brethren, which,
if the master of the house find you so doing, you
know your reward. I desire you, therefore, in
the bowels of Christ, not to restrain us of the
liberty of our consciences, but be a means to
enlarge our liberty in the truth and sincerity of
the Gospel ; and use your interest that aU the
remnants of antichrist may be abolished, with
every plant that our heavenly Father has not
planted. Signed, Yours in the Lord to com
mand, WiUiam 'White, who joineth with you in
every speck of truth, but utterly detesteth whole
antichrist, head, body, and tail, never to join
with you, or any, in the least joint thereof; nor
in any ordinance of man, contrary to the "Word
of God, by his grace unto the Church."
But neither the arguments nor sufferings of
the Puritans, nor their great and undissembled
piety, had an influence upon the commissioners,
who had their spies in all suspected places to
prevent their religious assemblies ; and gave out
strict orders that no clergyman should be per
mitted to preach in any of the pulpits of London
without a license from the Archbishop of Can
terbury or the Bishop of London.
The persecution of the Protestants in France-
and the Low Countries was hot and terrible-
about this time. The King of France broke-
through all his edicts for the free exercise of
the reformed religion ; he banished their minis
ters, and much blood was spilt in their religious
wars. In the Netherlands, the Duke d'Alva:
breathed out nothing but blood and slaughter,,
putting multitudes to death for religion. This
occasioned great numbers to fly into England,
which multiplied the- Dutch churches in Nor
wich, Colchester, Sandwiph, Canterbury, Maid
stone, Southampton, London, Southwark, and
elsewhere. The queen, for their encouragement,
allowed them the liberty of their own mode of
worship, and afe they brought their manufactures
over with them, they proved very beneficial to
the trade and commerce of the nation.
Even in England the hearts of all good men
were ready to fail, for fear of the return Of po
pish idolatry ; the queen being suddenly seized
with a severe fit of sickness this summer [1568],
which brought her to the very point of death,
and the presumptive heir, Mary, late Queen of
Scots, being a bigoted papist. The queen, to
gether with her bodily distemper, was under
great terror of mind for her sins, and for not
discharging the duty of her high station as she
ought : she said she had forgotten her God ! to
whom she had made many vows, and been un
thankful to him. Prayers were composed, and
publiply read in ah ehurches for her msjesty's
reeovery, in which they petitioned that God
would heal her soul, and cure her mind as well
as her body. The papists were never more san
guine in their expectations, nor the Reformation
in greater danger, than now ; and yet Bride-
weU and other prisons were fuh of Puritans, as

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

Ill

appears by a manuscript letter of Mr. Thomas
Lever, now before me, dated December 6, 1568,
in which he endeavours to comfort the prison
ers, and declares that, though the popish gar
ments and ceremonies were not unclean in
themselves,* yet he was determined for himself,
by God's grace, never to wear the square cap
and surplice, because they tended neither to de
cency nor edification, but to offence, dissension,
and division in the Church of Christ ; nor would
he kneel at the communion, because it was a
symbolizing with popery, and looked too much
like the adoration of the host. But at length it
pleased Almighty God to dissipate for the pres
ent the clouds that hung over the Reformation,
by the queen's recovery.
This year! was published the Bible in folio,
called the Bishops' Bible, with a preface by
Archbishop Parker. It was only Cranmer's
translation revised and corrected by several
bishops and learned men, whose names may be
seen in the Records of Bishop Burnet's History
of the Reformation. The design was to set
aside the Geneva translation, which had given
offence. In the beginning, before the Book of
Genesis, is a map of the land of Canaan ; before
the New Testament is inserted a map of the
places mentioned in the four evangelists, and
the journeys of Christ and his apostles. "There
are various cuts dispersed through the book,
and several genealogical and chronological ta
bles with the arms of divers noblemen, partic
ularly those of Cranmer and Parker. There are
also some references and marginal notes for
the explication of difiicult passages.! This was
the Bible that was read in the churches till the
last translation of King James I. took place.
But there was another storm gathering abroad,
which threatened the Reformation all over Eu
rope, most of the popish princes having enter
ed into a league to extirpate it out of the world :
the principal ponfederates were, the pope, the
emperor, the Kings of Spain, Franee, and Por
tugal, with the Duke of Savoy, and some lesser
princes : their agreement was, to endeavour, by
force of arms, to depose all Protestant kings or
potentates, and to place Catholics in their room ;
and to displace, banish, and condemn to death
all well-wishers and assistants of the clergy of
Luther and Calvin, while the pope was to thun
der out his anathemas against the Queen of
England, to interdict the kingdom, and to ab
solve her subjects from their allegiance. In
prosecution of this league, war was already be
gun in France, Holland, and in several parts of
Germany, with unheard-of cruelties against the
reformed. Under these difliculties, the Protest
ant princes of Germany entered into a league
for their common defence, and invited the
Queen of England to accede to it. Her majesty
sent Sir Henry KiUigrew over to the elector
palatine with a handsome excuse, and, at the
same time, ordered her ambassador in France
to offer her mediation between that king and
his Protestant subjects ; but the confederacy
was not to be broken by treaties ; upon which
her majesty, by way of self-defence, and to
ward off the storm from her own kingdom, as
sisted the confederate Protestants of France
and Holland with men and money. This was

* MS., p. 18. ! Strype's Ann., vol. i., p. 623.
X Strype's Ann., p. 216.

the second time the queen had supported theiji-
in their religious wars against their natural
kings. The fiireign popish princes reproached
her for it, and her majesty's ministers had
much ado to reconcile it lo the court doctrines
of passive obedience and non-resistance.
At home the papists were in motion, having
vast expectations, from certain prophecies, that
the queen should not reign above twelve years:
their numbers were formidable; and such was
their latitude, that it was not easy to bring them
within the verge of the laws. In Lancashire
the Common Prayer Book was laid aside, church
es were shut up, and the mass celebrated open
ly. The queen sent down commissioners of in
quiry, but all they could do was lo bind some
of the principal gentlemen to their good behav
iour in recognisances of one hundred marks.*
Two of the colleges of Oxford, viz:. New Col
lege and Corpus Christi, were so overrun with
papists that the Bishop of Winchester, their vis
iter, was forced to break open the gates of the
coUege, and send for the ecclesiastical commis
sion to reduce them to order,! Great numbers
of papists harboured in the inns of court, and in
several other places of public resort, expecting,
with impatience, the death of the queen, and th&
succession of the presumptive heir, Mary, late
queen of Scotland.
Towards the latter end of the year, the Jlarls
of Northumberland and Westmoreland, with
their friends, to the number of four thousand,,
broke out into open rebellion ; their pretence
was, to restore the popish religion, and deliver
the Queen of Scots, In the city of Durham they
tore the Bible and. Common Prayer Book to pie
ces, and restored the mass in all places wherev
er they came ; but hearing of the advance of
the queen's army, under the Earl of Suffolk,.
they fled northward, and mouldered away, with
out standing a battle ; the Earl of Northumber
land was taken in Scotland, and executed at
York, with many of his confederates ; but the
Earl of Westmoreland escaped into Flanders,,
and died in poverty. No sooner was this rebel
lion over, but the Lord Dacres excited another
on the borders of Scotland ; but after a small
skirmish with the Governor of Berwick, he was.
defeated, and fled, and the rabble were pardon
ed. There was a general commotion among
the papists in ah parts of the kingdom, who
would have united their forces if the northern,
rebels had maintained their ground.
To give new life to the Cathohc cause, the
pope published a biih, excommunicating the-
queen, and absolving her subjects from their al
legiance. In this buU he calls her majesty a
usurper, and a vassal of iniquity; and having
given some instances of her aversion to the
Catholic religion, he declares "her a heretic,,
and an encourager of heretics, and anathemati
zes all that adhere to her. He deprives her of
her royal crown and dignity, and absolves all
her subjects from aU obligations of fidelity and
obedience.! He involves all those in the same
sentence of excommunication who presume to
obey her orders, commands, or laws for the fu
ture, and excites aU foreign potentates to take
up arms against her." This ahirmed the ad-
ministration, and put them upon their guard ;
* Strype's Ann., p. 541. ! Grmdal's Life, p. 13X
! Collyer, p. 523.

112

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

feut it quickly appeared that the pope's thunder
bolts had lost their terror, for the Roman Cath
olic princes not being for-n-ard'to encourage the
Court of Rome's pretended power of excommu-
Tiicating princes, continued their correspondence
with the queen ; and her own Roman Catholic
Bubjecls remained pretty quiet, though from
this time they separated openly fromthe Church,
But the queen took hold of the opportunity to
require aU justices of peace, and other officers
in commission, throughout all the counties in
England, to subscribe their names to an instru
ment, professing their conformity and obedience
to the act of uniformity in religion, and for due
resorting to their parish churches to hear com
mon prayer. This affected Puritans as well as
papists. The gentlemen of the Inns of Court
were also cited before the ecclesiastical com
mission, and examined about their resorting to
church and receiving the sacrament, of which
most of them were very negligent. This raised
a clamour, as if the queen intended to ransack
into men's consciences ; in answer to which she
published a declaration that she had no such
intention ; " that she did not inquire into the
sentiments of people's mind, but only required
an external conformity to the laws ; and that
all that came to the Church and observed her
injunctions, should be deemed good subjects."
So that if men would be hypocrites, her majes
ty would leave them to God; but if they would
not conform, they must suffer the law.
When the next Parliament met, they passed
a law making it high treason to declare the
queen to be a heretic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel,
or usurper ; to publish or put in use the pope's
buUs ; to be reconciled to the Church of Rome,
or to receive absolution by them :* the conceal
ing or not discovering offenders against this
act is misprision of treason. A protestation
was likewise drawn up, to be taken by all repu
ted papists, in these words : " I do profess and
confess before God that Queen Elizabeth, my
sovereign lady^ now reigning in England, is
rightfully, and ought to be and continue, queen,
and lawfully bearelh the imperial crown of these
realms, notwithstanding any act or sentence
that any pope or bishop has dOne or given, or
can do or give, and that if any pope or other
say or judge to the contrary, whether he say it
as pope, or howsoever, he erreth and affirmeth,
•holdeth and teacheth, error." And that the Pu
ritans might not escape without some note of
disloyalty, another protestation was drawn up
for them ;! in which they profess before God
that "they believe in their consciences that
Queen Elizabeth is and ought to be the lawful
queen of England, notwithstanding any act or
sentence that any church, synod, consistory, or
ecclesiastical assembly hath done or given, or
can give ; and that if any say or judge the con
trary, in what respect soever he saith it, he er
reth and affirmeth, holdeth and teacheth, error
and falsehood."
There was no manner of occasion for this
last protestation ; for in the midst of these com
motions the Puritans continued the queen's
faithful and dutiful subjects, and served her
majesty as chaplains in her armies and navy,
though they were not admitted into the church-
-cs. One would have thought the formidable

* Eliz., cap.

! Life of Parker, p. 224.

conspiracies of the Roman Catholics should
have ahenated the queen's heart from them,
and prevailed with her majesty to yield some
thing for the sake of a firmer union among her
Protestant subjects ; but instead of this, the
edge of the laws that were made against popish
recusants was turned against Protestant Non
conformists, which, instead of bringing them
into the Church, like ah other methods of sever
ity, drove them farther from it.
This year [1570] died Mr, Andrew Kingsmill,
born in Hampshire, and educated in AU.Souls
College, Oxon, of which he was elected fellow
in 1558. He had such a strong memory, that
he could readily rehearse in the Greek language
all St. Paul's ipistles to the Romans and Gala-
tians, and other portions of Scripture, memoriter.
He was a most pious and religious person, un
dervaluing ah worldly profit in comparison of
the assurance of his salvation. In the year
1563, there were only three preachers in the
university, of whom Kingsmill was one ; but af
ter some time, when conformity was pressed, and
Sampson deprived of his deanery, he withdrew
from the kingdom, resolving to live in one of
the best reformed churches for doctrine and dis
cipline, the bel;i:erto prepare himself for the ser
vice of the Church ;* accordingly, he lived tiiree
years at Geneva ; from thence he removed to
Lausanne, where he died this year, in the prime
of his days, leaving behind him an excellent
pattern of piety, devotion, and all manner of
virtue. The rigorous exeeution of the penal laws
made business for the pivilians : many were ci
ted into the spiritual courts, and after long at
tendance, and great charges, were suspended
or deprived ; the pursuivant, or messenger of
the court, was paid by the mile ; the fees were
exorbitant, which the prisoner must satisfy be
fore he is discharged ; the method of proceed
ing was dilatory and vexatious, though they
seldom called any witnesses to support tbe
charge, but usually tendered the defendant an
oath, to answer the interrogatories of the court ;
and if he refused the oath, they examined him
without it, and convicted him upon his own
confession ; if the prisoner was dismissed, he
was almost ruined with the costs, and bound in
a recognisance to appear again whensoever the
court should require him. We shaU meet with
many sad examples of such proceedings in the
latter part of this reign. The honest Puritans
made conscience of not denying anything they
were charged with if it was true, though they
might certainly have put the accusers on proof
of the charge : nay, most of them thought them
selves bound to confess the truth, and bear a
public testimony to it before the eivil magis
trate, though it was made use of to their disad
vantage.!

* Wood's Athen. Ox., vol, i,, p. 125, 126.
! I have an example of this now before me. The
Reverend Mr. Axton, minister of Morton Corbet in
Leicestershire, was cited into the bishop's court three
several times this year, and examined upon the rea
sons of his refusing the apparel, the cross in baptism,
and kneeling at the sacrament, which he debated
with the bishop and his oflScers with a decent free
dom and courage. At the close of the debate the
bishop said,
Bish. Now, Mr Axton, I would know of you what
you think of the calhng of the bishops of England?

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

113

The controversy with tne Church, which had
hitherto been chiefly confined to the habits, to
Axton. I may fall into danger by answering this
question. Bish. 1 may compel you to answer upon your oath.
Axt. But I may choose whether 1 will answer upon
oath or not. 1 am not bound to bring myself into
danger ; but because 1 am persuaded it wiU redound
to God's glory, I will speak, be the consequence what
it will ; and 1 trust in the Holy Spirit that I shaU be
wiUing to die in defence of the truth.
Bish. Well, what do you think of my calhng?
A.xt. You are not lawfully caUed to be a bishop,^
according to the 'Word of God.
Bish. 1 thought so ; but why ?
Axt. For three causes-: 1. Because you vveve not
ordained by the consent of the eldership.
Bish. But 1 had the hands of three or four bishops.
Axt. But that is not the -eldership St. Paul speaks
of, Tim., iv., 14.
Bish. By what eldership were you ordained ? Was
it by a bis&opi
Axt. 1 had, indeed, the laying on of the hands of
one of the bishops of England, but that was the
least part of my calhng.
Bish. 'What calling had you more ?
Axt. I having exercised and expounded the Word
several times in- an ordinary assembly of ten minis
ters; they joined in prayer, and, being required to
speak theu- consciences in the presence of God, de
clared, upon the trial they had of me, that they were
persuaded. 1 might become a profitable labourer in
the house of God ; after which I received the laymg
on of the hands of the bishop.
Bish. But you had not the laying, on of the hands
of those preachers.
Axt. No; I had the substance, but I wanted the
accident, wherein I beseech the Lord to be merciful
to me ; for the laying on of hands, as it is the Word,
so it is agreeable with the rnighty action of ordaining
the ministers of God.
Bish. Well, then, your ordination is imperfect as
well as mine. What is your second reason ?
Axt. Because you are not ordained bishop over
-any one flock ; nay, you are not a pastor over any
one congregation, contrary to 1 Pet., v., 2, " Feed the
flock ;" and to Acts, xiv., 23, from whence it is man
ifest that there should be bishops andelders through
every congregation.
Bish. 'What is a congregation?
Axt. Not a whole diocess, but such a number of
people as ordinarily assemble in one place to hear
the Word of God.
Bish. What if you had a parish six or seven miles
long, where many could not come to hear once in a
¦quarter of a year ?
Axt. 1 would not be pastor over such a flock.
Bish. What is your third reason ?
Alt. Because you are not chosen by the people ;
Acts, xiv., 23 : " And they ordained elders by elec
tion in every church," ^etporov^aavrts, " by the lifting
up of hands."
B.'s Chanc. How come you to be parson of Mor
ton Corbet '!
Axt. I am no parson.
Chanc. Are you, then, vicar ?
Axt. No ; I am no vicar. I abhor those names
as antichristian ; I am pastor of the congregation
there. Chanc. Are you neither parson nor vicar ? How
hold you your living ?
Axt. I receive these temporal things of the people,
because I, being theh pastor, do minister to them
spiritual things.
Chanc. If you are neither parson nor vicar, you
must reap no profit.
Axt. Do you mean good faith in that you say ?
Chanc. Yea, if you wiU be neither parson nor vicar,
there is good cause why another should.
Bish. You must understand that all livings in the
¦Church are given to ministers as parsons and -vicars.
Vol. I.— P

the cross in baptism, and kneeling at the Lord's
Supper, began now to open into several more

and not as pastors and ministers. How were you
chosen pastor?
Axt. By the free election of the people and leave
of the patron : after 1 had preached about six weeks
by way of probation, 1 was chosen by one consent of
them all, a sermon being preached by one of my
brethren, setting forth the mutual duties of pastor
and people.
Bish. May the bishops of England ordain minis
ters ?
Axt. You ought not to do it in the matter ye do ;
that is, without the consent of the eldership, without
sufficient proof of their quaUfications, and without
ordaining them to a particular congregation.
Bish. Well, Mr Axton, you must yield somewhat
to me, and I will yield sornewhat to you ; I will not
trouble you for tjie cross in baptism ; and if you will
wear the surplice but sometimes, it shall suffice.
Axt. 1 can't consent to wear the surplice : it is
against my conscience ; I trust, by the help of God, I
shall never put on that sleeve, which is a mark of the
beast. Dish. Will you leave your flock for the surplice ?
Axt. Nay, wiU you persecute me from my flock
for a surplice ? 1 love my flock in Jesus Christ, and
had rather have my right arm cut Off than be remo
ved from them.
Bish. Well, I will not deprive you this time.
Axt. I beseech you consider what .you do in re
moving me from my flock, seeing I am not come in
at the window, or by simony, but according to the
institution of Jesus Christ.
Oi the 22d of November foUowihg Mr. Axton ap
peared again, and was examined touching organs,
music in churches, and obedience to the queen's
laws, &c.
Bish. You, in refusing the surphce, are disloyal to
the queen, and show a contempt of her laws.
Axt. You do me great injury in charging me with
disloyalty ; and especially when you caU me and my
brethren traitors, and say that we are more trouble
some subjects than the papists.
Bish. I say still the papists are afraid to stir, but
you are presumptuous, and disquiet the state more
than they.
Axt. If I, or any that fear God, speak the truth,
doth this disquiet the state ? The papists have for
twelve years been plotting treason against the queen
and the Gospel, and yet this doth not grieve you.
But 1 protest in the- presence of God, and of you all,
that 1 am a true and faithful subject to her majesty ;
also I do pray daUy both publicly and privately for
her majesty's safety, and for her long and prosperous
reign, and for the overthrow of all her enemies, and
especially the papists. I do profess myself an enemy
to her enemies, and a friend to her friends ; therefore,
if you have any conscience, cease to charge me with
disloyalty to my prince.
Bish. Inasmuch as you refuse to wear the sur
plice, which she has commanded, you do, in effect,
deny her to be supreme governess in all causes, ec
clesiastical and temporal.
Axt. I admit her majesty's supremacy so far as, if
there be any error in the governors of the Church,
she has power to reform it ; but I do not admit her
to be an ecclesiastical elder, or church-governor
Bish. Yes; butsheis, and hath full power and au
thority all manner of ways ; indeed, she doth not ad
minister the sacraments and preach, but leaveth
those things to us. But if she were a man, as she is
a woman, why might she not preach the Word of God
as well as we ? ..
Axt. May she, if she were a man, preach the Word
of God ? Then she may also administar the sacra
ments. Bish. Tliis does not foUow, for you know Paul
preached, and yet did not baptize.
Axt. Paul confesses that he did baptize, though he
was sent especiaUy to preach.

114 HISTORY
considerable branches, by the lectures of the
Reverend Mr. Thomas Cartwright, B^D,, fellow
of Trinity CoUege, Cambridge, and Lady Mar
garet's professor, a courageous man, a popular
preacher, a profound scholar, and master of an
elegant Latin style ; he was m high esteem in
the university, his lectures being frequented by
vast crowds of scholars ; and when he preach
ed at .St Mary's, they were forced to take down
the windows, Beza says of him, that he thought
there was not a more learned man under the
sun This divine, in his lectures, disputed
against certain blemishes of the English hierar
chy, and particularly against these six, which
he subscribed with his own hand,*
" The names and functions of archbishops and
archdeacons ought to be abolished, as having no
foundation in Scripture, The offices of the law
ful ministers of the Church, viz,, bishops and
deacons, ought to be reduced to the apostolical
institution ; the bishops to preach the Word of
God and pray, and deacons to take care of the
poor. The government of the Church ought
not to be intrusted with bishops' chancellors, or
the officials of archdeacons; but every church
should be governed by its own minister and
presbyters. Ministers ought not to be at large,
but every one should have the charge of a cer
tain flock. Nobody should ask, or stand as a
candidate, for the ministry. Bishops should not
be created by civil authority, but ought to be
fairly chosen by the Church."
These propositions are said to be untrue, dan
gerous, and tending to the ruin of learning and
religion ; they were, therefore, sent to Secreta
ry Cecil, chancellor of the university, who ad
vised the vice-chancellor to silence the author,
or oblige him to recant. Cartwright challenged
Dr. Whitgift, who preached against him, to a
pubhc disputation, which he refused unless he
had the queen's license ; and Whitgift offered a
Bish. Did not Moses teach the people ? and yet he
was their civil governor
Axt. M oses's calling was extraordinary. Remem
ber the King of Judah, how he would have sacrificed
in the temple of God. Take heed how you confound
those offices which God has distinguis'hed.
Bish. You see how he runneth.
Bickley. You speak very confidently and rashly.
Bish. This is his arrogant spirit.— M/S., p. 55, 56.
Thus the dispute broke off, and the good man, not-
"withstanding all his supplications, was deprived of
his living, and driven to seek his bread in another
country, though the bishop owned he was a divine
of good learning, a ready merijory, and well quahfied
for the pulpit.
One sees here the difficulties the Puritans labour
ed under in their ordinations ; they apprehended the
election of the people, and the examination of presby
ters, vvith the imposition of their hands, necessary to
the call of a minister ; but this, if it were done in En"--
land -without a bishop, would hardly entitle them to
preach in the Church, or give them a legal title to
the profits of their livings ; therefore, after they had
passed the former trials, thpy applied to the bishop
for the imposition of his hands ; but others, being dis
satisfied with the ordination of a single person not
rightly called, as they thought, to the office of a bish
op, went beyond sea, and were ordained by the pres
byteries of foreign churches ; for though the English
i'uritans had their synods and presbyteries, yet it is
i^Ti? ¦ . "^at they never ordained a single person
to the ministry,
ker, p.'sia"'^ ^''"¦' ™"- ^-' P- ^2^' ^^^- ^^^^ of P="'-

OF THE PURITANS.
private debate by writing, which the other de
dined, as answering no valuable purpose.
Other dangerous and seditious propositions,
as they were called, were collected out of Cart-
wright's lectures, and sent to court by Dr. Whit
gift, to incense the queen and chancellor against
him ; as,
1. "In reforming the Church, it is necessary
to reduce aU things to the apostolical institution.
2. " No man ought to be admitted 'into tho
ministry but who is capable of preaching.
3. "None -but such a minister of the Word
ought to pray publicly in the Church, or admin
ister the sacraments.
4. " Popish ordinations are not valid.
5. " Only canonical Scripture ought to be
read publicly in the Church.
6, " The public liturgy should he so framed
that there be no private praying or reading fn,
the Church, but that all the people attend to the
prayers of the minister.
7. " The care of burying the dead does not
belong more to the ministerial office than to the-
rest of the Church.
8. " Equal reverence is due to all canonical
Scripture, and to aU the names of God ; there
is, therefore, no reason why the people should:
stand at the reading of the Gospel, or bow at
the name of Jesus.
9. " It is as lawful to sit at the Lord's table'
as to kneel or stand.
10. " The Lord's Supper ought not to be ad
ministered in private ; nor should baptism be
administered by women or lay-persons.
11. " The sign of the cross in baptism is su
perstitious. 12, " It is reasonable and proper that the pa
rent should offer his own child to baptism, ma
king a confession of that faith he intends to ed
ucate it in, without being obliged to answer in
the ehild's name, I will, I wiU not, I believe,,
&p. ; nor ought it to be allowed that women, or
persons under age, should be sponsors.
13. " In giving names to children, it is conve-
nipnt to avoid paganism, as well as^the names
and offices of Christ, angels, &c.
14, " It is papistical to forbid marriages at
certain times of the year ; and to give licenses
in those times is intolerable.
15. " Private marriages, that is, such as are
not published before the congregation, are high
ly inconvenient.
16. " The observation of Lent, and fasting on,
Fridays and Saturdays, is superstitious.
17. " The observation of festivals is unlawful.
18. " Trading, or keeping markets on the
Lord's Day, is unlawful.
19. " In ordaining of the ministers, the pro
nouncing those words, ' Receive thou the Holy
Ghost,' is both ridiculous and vvicked.
29. " Kings and bishops should not be anoint
ed." These were Cartwright's dangerous doctrines,.
which he touched occasionally in his lectures,
but with no design to create discord, as appears
by a testimonial sent to the secretary of state
in his favour, signed by fifteen considerable
names in the university, in which they declare
that they had heard his lectures, and that "he
never touched upon the controversy of the hab
its ; and, though he had advanced some propo
sitions with regard to the ministry, according

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

115

to which he wished things might he regulated,
he did it with all imaginable caution and mod
esty."* Other letters were written in his fa
vour, signed by twenty names or upward, of
whom some were afterward bishops, but it was
resolved to make him an example. Cartwright
himself sent an elegant Latin letter to the sec
retary, in which he declares that he waived all
occasions of spe-aking concerning the habits, but
owns he had taught that our ministry declined
from the ministry of the apostolical Church in
some points, according to which he wished it
might be modelled ; however, that he did this
with all imaginable caution, as almost the whole
¦university would witness, if they might be allow
ed. He prayed the secretary to hear and judge
the cause himself, which was so far from novelty,
that it was as venerable for its antiquity as the
apostolic age ; but, though the secretary was
convinced! that his behaviour was free from ar-
rogancy, or an intention to cause trouble, and
that only as a public reader in the university he
had given notes of the difference between the
ministry in the times of the apostles and the
present ministry of the Church of England, yet
he left him to the mercy of his enemies, who
poured upon him all the infamy and disgrace
their power would admit. They first denied
him his degree of doctor in divinity, then forbade
his reading public lectures, and at last deprived
him of his fellowship, and expelled him the uni
versity. A short and compendious way of con
futing an adversary I
Mr. Cartwright being liow out of all employ
ment, travelled beyond sea, and settled a corre
spondence with the most celebrated divines in
the Protestant universities of" Europe. WhUe
he was abroad he was chosen minister to the
English merchants at Antwerp, and afterward
at Middleburgh, where he continued two years
with httle or no profit to himself; and then re
turning to England, being earnestly solicited
thereunto by letters from Mr. Deering, Fulk,
AViburne, Fox, and Lever, we shall hear more
of the sufferings-of this eminent divine for his
nonconformity.! This year [1570] Grindal, bishop of London,
being translated to York, Sandys, bishop of
Worcester, was removed to London ; in his pri
mary visitation, January 10, he charged his cler
gy, 1. To keep strictly to the Book of Common
Prayer. 2. Not to preach without a lieense.
3. To wear the apparel, that is, the square cap
and scholar's gown, and in Divine service, the
surplice. 4. Not to admit any of other parishes
to their communion. He also ordered all clerks'
tolerations to be called in ; by which it appears
that some few of the Nonconformists had been
tolerated, or dispensed with hitherto, but now
this was at an end.^ However, the Puritans
encouragedone another, by conversation andlet-
ters, to steadfastness in opposition to the cor
ruptions of the Church, and not to fear the re
sentments of their adversaries.
There was a spirit in the Parliament, which
was convened April 2, 1571, to attempt some
thing in favour of the Puritans, upon whom the
bishops bore harder every day than other. Mr.
* Strype's Annals, vol, u., p. 2.
! Pierce's Vindication, p. 77.
X Clarke's Life of Cartwright, p. 18.
i Strype's Annals, vol. u., p. 29.

Strickland, an ancient gentieman, offered a bill
fbr a farther reformation in the Church, April 6,
and introduced it with a speech, proving that
the Common Prayer Book, with some supersti
tious remains of popery in the Church, might
easily be altered without any danger to rehgion.
He enforced it with a second speech, April 13,
upon which the treasurer of the queen's house
hold stood up, and said, " AU matters of cere
monies were to be referred to the queen, and for
them to meddle with the royal prerogative was
not convenient." Her majesty was so displeas
ed with Mr. Strickland's motion, that she sent
for him before the council, and forbade him the
Parliament House, which alarmed the members,
and occasioned so many warm speeches, that
she thought fit to restore him on the 20th of
April. ' This was a bold stroke at the freedom
of parliaments, and carrying the prerogative to
its utmost length. But Mr Strickland moved,
farther, that a confession of faith should be pub
lished and confirmed by Parliament, as it was in
other Protestant countries ; and that a commit
tee might be appointed to confer with the bish
ops on his head. The committee drew up cer
tain articles, according to those which passed
the convopation of 1562, but left out others.
The arphbishop asked them why they left out
the artiple for homilies, and for the ponseprating
of bishops, and some others relating to the hie-
rarphy. Mr. Peter Wentworth replied, because
they had not yet examined how far they were
agreeable to the Word, of God, having confined
themselves chiefiyto doctrines. The archbish
op replied, Surely you wiU refer yourselves whol
ly to us the bishops in these things ? To which
Mr Wentworth replied, warmly, "No, by the
faith I bear to God, we will pass nothing before
we understand what it is, for that were but to
make you popes. Make you popes who list, for
we will make you none." So the articles rela
ting to discipline were waived, and an act was
passed confirming all the doctrinal articles
agreed'upon in the synod of 1562.
The act is entitled, " For reformation of dis
orders in the ministers of the Church,"* " and
enjoins aU that have any ecclesiastical livings to
declare their assent before the bishop of the dio
cess to all the articles of religion, which only
concern the confession of the true faith, and the
doctrine of the sacraments, comprised in the
book imprinted and entitled 'Articles, where
upon it was agreed by the arehbishops and bish
ops, (fee, and the whole clergy, in the convoca
tion of 1562, for avoiding diversity of opinions,
and for the establishing of consent touching true
religion,' and to subscribe them ; which was to
be testified by the bishop of the diocess, under
his seal ; which testimonial he was to read pub
licly with the said articles, as the confession of
his faith, in his church on Sunday, in the time
of Divine service, or else to be deprived. If any
clergyman maintained any doctrine repugnant
to the said articles, the bishop might deprive
him. None were to be admitted to any benefice
with cure except he was a deacon of the age
of twenty-three years, and would subscribe and
declare his unfeigned assent to the articles above
mentioned. Nor might any administer the sac
raments under twenty-four years of age."
It appears from the words of this statute, that
* 13 Eliz., cap. xii.

116

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

those artieles of the Churoh which relate to its
disciphne were not designed to be the terms of
ministerial conformity ; and if the queen and
the bishops had governed themselves apcording-
ly, the separation had been stifled in its infancy,
for there was hardly a Puritan in England that
refused subscription to the doctrinal articles : if
all the thirty-nine articles had been established,
there had been no need of the following clausCj
" Which only concern the confession of the true
Christian faith, and the doctrine of the sacra
ments." And yet, notwithstanding this act,
many that held benefices and ecplesiastieal pre
ferments, and that offered to conform to the
statute, -u'ere deprived. in the following part of
this reign ; which was owing to the bishops' ser
vile compliance with the prerogative, and press
ing subscription to more than the law required.*
It deserves farther to be taken notice of, that
by a clause in this act, the Parliament admits
of ordination by presbyters without a bishop ;
which was afterward disallowed by the bishops
in this reign, as well. as at the restoration of
King Charles II., when the Church was depri
ved of great numbers of learned and useful
preachers, who scrupled the matter of reordina-
tion, as they would at this time, if it had been
insisted on. Many of the present clergy had
been exiles for religion, and had been ordained
abroad, according to the custom of foreign
churches, but would not be ordained, any more
than those of the popish communion ; therefore,
to put an end to all disputes, the statute in
cludes both; the words are these: "That every
person under the degree of a bishop that doth
or shah pretend to be a priest or minister of
God's Word and sapraments, by reason of any
form of institution, consecration, or ordering,
than the form set forth in Parliament in the
time of the late King Edward VI. , or now used
in the reign of our most sovereign lady Queen
Elizabeth, shall, before Christmas next, declare
his assent, and subscribe the articles aforesaid."
The meaning of which clause, says Mr. Strype,
is undoubtedly to comprehend papists, and hke-
wise such as received their orders in some of
the foreign Reformed Churches, when they were
in exile under Queen Mary.!
It is probahle that the controverted clause of
the twentieth article, " The Church has power
to decree rites and ceremonies, and authority
in controversies of faith," was not among the
articles of 1562, as has been shown under that
year ; though it might be (according to Laud
and Heylin) inserted in the convocation-book
of 1571 ; but what has this to do with the act of
Parhament, which refers to a book printed nine
years before ? Besides, it is absurd to eharge
the Puritans with striking out the clause as
Archbishop Laud has done, they having no
share in the government of the Church at this
time, nor interest to obtain the least abatement
in their favour ; nor does it appear that they
disapproved the clause under proper regulations :
one might rather suppose that the queen should
take umbrage at it as an invasion of her prerog
ative, and that, therefore, some zealous church
man, finding the articles defective upon the head
of the Church's authority, might insert it pri
vately, to avoid the danger of a praemunire.
But, after all, subscription to the doctrinal

articles of the Church only has been reckoned
a very great grievance by many pious and learn
ed divines, both in Church and out of it ; for it
is next to impossible to frame thirty-six propo
sitions in any human words, to which ten thou
sand clergymen can give their hearty assent and
consent. Some that agree to the doctrine itself
may dissent from the words and phrases by
which it is expressed ; and others that agree lo
the capital doctrines of Christianity, may have
some doubts about.the deeper and more abstruse
points of speculation. It would be hard to de
prive a man of his living, and shut him out from
all usefulness in the Church, because he doubts
of the local descent of Christ into hell ; or wheth
er the best actions of men before their con
version have the nature of sins ;* or that every
thing in the three creeds, commonly called the
Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian, may
¦be proved by most certain warrants of Holy
Scripture, and are therefore to be believed and
received.! Wise and good men may have dif
ferent sentiments upon the doctrine of the de
crees, which are a depth which no man can
fathom. These, and some other things, have
galled the consciences of the clergy, and driven
them to evasions destructive to morality and
the peace of their own minds. Some have sub
scribed them as articles of peace, contrary to
the very title, which says they " are for avoid
ing the diversity of opinions." Others have
tortured the words to a meaning contrary to
the known sense of the compilers. Some sub
scribe them with a secret reserve, as far as they
are agreeable to the Word of God ; and so they
may subscribe the Council of Trent, or even
Mohammed's Alcoran. Others subscribe them,
not as doctrines which they believe, but as doc
trines that they will not openly contradict and
oppose ; and others, I am informed, put no sense
upon the articles at all, but only subscribed
them as a test of their obedience to their supe
riors, who require this of them as the legal way
to preferment in the Church. How hard must
it be for men of learning and probity to submit
to these shifts ! when no kinds of subscriptions
can be a barrier against ignorant or dishonest
minds. Of what advantage is uniformity of
profession without an agreement in principles ?
If the fundamental articles of our faith were
drawn up in the language of Holy Scripture ; or
if those who were appointed to examine into the
learning and other qualifications of ministers
were to be judges of their orthodox confessions
of faith, it would answer a better purpose than
subscription to human creeds and artieles.
Though the Commons were forbid to concern
themselves with the discipline of the Church,
they ventured to present an address to the
queen,! complaining " that, for lack of true dis
cipline in the Church, great numbers are ad
mitted ministers that are infamous in their lives
and conversations ; and among those that are
of ability, their gifts in many places are use
less, by reason of pluralities and nouiresidency,
whereby infinite numbers of your majesty's sub
jects are like to perish for lack of knowledge.
By means of this, together with the common
blasphemingof the Lord's name, the most wick
ed licentiousness of life, the abuse of excommu
nication, the commutation of penance, the great

Strype's Ann., vol. u., p. 72. ! Ibid., p. 71. | * Art. 13. '

! Art. 8.

X MS., p. 92.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

117

numbers of atheists, schismatics daily springing
up, and the increase of papists, the Protestant
religion is in imminent danger ; wherefore, iu
regard first and principally to the glory of God,
and next in discharge of our bounden duty to
your majesty, besides being moved with pity
towards so many thousands of your majesty's
subjects, daily in danger of being lost for want
of the food of the Word, and true discipline,
we, the commons in this present Parliament
assembled, are humbly bold to open the griefs,
and to seek the salving of the sores of our coun
try, and to beseech your majesty, seeing the
same is of so great importance, if the Parlia
ment at this time may not be so long continued
as that, by good and godly laws, provision may
be made for supply and reformation of these
great and grievous wants and abuses, that yet, by
such other means as to your majesty's wisdom
shah seem meet, a perfect redress of the same
may be had ; by which the number of your
majesty's faithful subjects will be increased,
popery wUl be desttoyed, the glory of God wUi
be promoted, and your majesty's renown will
be recommended to all posterity." But the
queen broke up the Parliament without taking
any notice of the supplication.
The convocation which sat with this Parlia
ment assembled April 3d, 1571, when the Rev
erend Mr. Gilbert Alcock presented a supplica
tion to them in behalf of the deprived ministers,
praying their interest with the queen for a re
dress of their grievances:* "If a godly minis
ter," says he, " omit but the least ceremony for
conscience' sake, he is immediately indicted,
deprived, cast into prison, and his goods wasted
and destroyed ; he is kept from his wife and chil
dren, and at last excommunicated. We there
fore beseech your fatherhoods to pity our case,
and take from us these stumbling-blocks." But
the convocation were of another spirit, and, in
stead bf removing their burdens, increased them
by framing certain new canons of discipline
against the Puritans ; as, that the bishops
should call in all their licenses for preaching,
and give out new ones to those who were best
qualified ;! and among the qualifications, they
insist, not only upon subscription to the doc
trines of the Church enjoined by Parliament,
but upon subscription to the Common Prayer
Book and ordinal for the consecration of arch
bishops, bishops, priests, and deacons, as con
taining nothing contrary to the Word of God.
And they declare that all such preachers as do
not subscribe, or that disturb people's minds j
with contrary' doctrine, shall be excommuni
cated. But as these canons never had the
sanction of the broad seal, surely the enforcing
them upon the Puritans was a stretch of power
hardly to be justified. Bishop Grindal confess
ed theyhad not the force of a law, and might
possibly involve them in a praemunire ; and yet
the bishops urged them upon the clergy of their
several diocesses. They cancelled all the licen
ses of preachers, and insisted peremptorily on
the subscription above mentioned.
The complaints of the ministers, under these
hardships, reached the ears of the Elector Pal
atine of the Rhine, who was pleased to order
the learned Zanchy, professor of divinity in the
University of Heidelberg, to write to the Queen

MS., p. 92.

! Sparrow, p. 223.

of England in their behalf, beseeching her maj
esty not to insist upon subscriptions, or upon
wearing the habits, which gave such offence to
great numbers of the clergy, and was like to
make a schism in the Church.* The letter was
enclosed to Bishop Grindal, who, when he had
read it, would not so much as deliver it to the
queen, for fear of disobliging her majesty, whose
resolution was to put an end to all distinctions
in the Church, by pressing the Act of Uniform
ity. Instead, therefore, of relaxing to the Puri
tans, orders were sent to aU church-wardens
" not to suffer any to read, pray, preach, or
minister the sacraments, in any churches, chap
els, or private places, without a new license
from the queen, or the archbishop, or bishop of
the diocess, to be dated since May, 1571." The
more resolved Purit ans were therefore reduced
to the necessity of assembling in private,- or of
laying down their ministry.
Though all the bishops were obliged to go
into these measures of the court, yet. some
were so sensible of the want of discipline and
of preaching the Word, that they permitted
their clergy to enter into associations for the
promoting of both. The ministers of the town
of Northampton, with the consent and approba
tion of Dr. Scambler, their bishop, the mayor of
the town, and the justices of the county,
agreed upon the following regulations for wor
ship and discipline :!
" That singing and playing of organs in the
choir shall be put down, and common prayer
read in the body of the church, with a psalm
before and after sermon. That every Tues
day and Thursday there shall be a lecture from
nine to ten in the morning, in the chief church
of the town, beginning with the confession in
the Book of Common Prayer, and ending with
prayer and a confession of faith. Every Sunday
and holyday shaU be a sermon after morning
prayer, with a psalm before and after. Service
shall be ended in every parish church by nine
in the morning every Sunday and holydays, to
the end that people may resort to the sermon
in the chief church, except they have a sermon
in their own. None shaU walk abroad, or sit
idly in the streets, in time of Divine service.
The youth shah every Sunday evening be ex
amined in a portion of Calvin's Catechism,
which the reader shall expound for an hour.
There shah be a general communion once a
quarter in every parish, with a sermon. A fort
night before each communion, the minister, with
the church-wardens, shaU go from house to
house, to take the names of the communicants
and examine into their lives ; and the party
that is not in charity with his heighbour shall
be put from the communion. After the com
munion, the minister shah visit every house, to
understand who have not received the commu
nion, and why. Every cominunion-day each
parish shall have two communions, one begin
ning at five in the morning, with a sermon of an-
hour, and ending at eight, for servants ; the
other, from nine to twelve, for masters and
dames. The manner of the communion shall
be according to the order of the queen's book,
saving that the people, being in their confes
sion upon their knees, shall rise up from their
pews, and so pass to the communion-table.

* Strype's Ann., vol. il, p. 97.

t Ibid.

118

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

where they shall receive the sacrament in com
panies, and then return to their pews, the min
ister reading in the pulpit. The communion
table shall stand in the body of the church, ac
cording to the book, at the upper end of the
middle aisle, having three ministers, one in the
middle to deliver the bread, the other two at
each end for the cup, the ministers often calling
upon the people to remember the poor. The
communion to end with a psalm. Excessive
ringing of bells on the Lord's Day is prohibited ;
and carrying of the bell before corpses in the
streets, and bidding prayers for the dead, which
was used till within these two years, is re
strained." Here was a sort of association, or voluntary
disciphne, introduced, independent of the queen's
injunctions or canons of the Church ; this was
what the Puritans were contending for, and
would gladly have acquiesced in, if it might
have been established by a law.
Besides these attempts for discipline, the cler
gy, with leave of their bishop, encouraged reli
gious exercises among themselves, for the in
terpretation of some texts of Scripture, one
speaking to it orderly after another ; these were
called prophesyings from the apostolical direc
tion, 1 Cor., xiv., 31, "Ye may aU prophesy one
by one, that aU may learn, and all be comfort
ed." They also conferred among themselves
touching sound doctrine and good life and man
ners. The regulations or orders for these exercises
in Northampton were these :
"That every minister, at his first allowance
to be of this exercise, shall by subscription de
clare his consent in (Christ's true religion with
his brethren, and submit to the discipline and
order of the same. The names of all the mem
bers shaU be written in a table, three of whom
shall be concerned at each exercise : the first,
beginning and ending with prayer, shall explain
his text, and confute foolish interpretations, and
then make a practical reflection, but not dilate
to a commonplace. Those that speak after
may add anything they think the other has
omitted tending to explain the text ; but may
not repeat what has been said, nor oppose their
predecessor, unless he has spoken contrary to
the Scriptures. The exercise to continue from
nine to eleven ; the flrst speaker to end in three
quarters of an hour, the second and third not to
exceed each one quarter of an hour ; one of the
moderators always to conclude. After the ex
ercise is over, and the auditors dismissed, the
president shall call the learned brethren to him
to give him their judgment of the performances,
when it shall be lawful for any of the brethren
to oppose their objections against them in wri
ting, which shall be answered before the next
exercise. If any break orders, the president
shall command him, in the name of the eternal
God, to be silent ; and after the exercise, he
shall be reprimanded. When the exercise is
finished, the next speaker shall be appointed,
and his text given him."
The confession of faith which the members
of these prophesyings signed at their admission
was to the following purpose :
"That they believed the Word of God, Con
tained in the Old and New Testament, to be a
perfect rule of faith and manners ; that it ought

to be read and known by all people ; and that the
authority of it exceeds all authority, not of the
pope only, but of the Church also, and of coun
cils, fathers, men, and angels.
" They condemn, as a tyrannous yoke, what
soever men have set up of their own invention
to make articles of faith, and the binding men's
consciences by their laws and institutes ; in
sum, all those manners and fashions of serving
God which men have brought in without the au
thority of the Word for the warrant thereof,
though recommended by custom, by unwritten
traditions, or any other names whatsoever ; of
which sort are the pope's supremacy, purgatory,
transubstantiation, man's merits, free-will, justi
fication by works, praying in an unknown tongue,
and distinction of meats, apparel, and days, and,
briefly, all the ceremonies and whole order of pa
pistry, which they call the hierarchy, which are
a devilish confusion, established, as it were, in
spite of God, and to the reproach of religion.,
" And we eontent ourselves," say they, *' with
the simplieity of this pure 'Word of God, and
doctrine thereof, a summary of which is in the
Apostles' Creed ; resolving to try gnd examine,
and also to judge all other doctrines whatsoev
er by this pure Word, as by a certain rule and ,
perfect touchstone. And to this Word of God
we humbly submit ourselves and aU our doings,
willing and ready to be judged, reformed, or far
ther instructed thereby, in all points of religion."
Mr. Strype caUs this a well-minded and reli
giously-disposed combinatidn of both bishop,
magistrates, and people. It was designed to
stir up an ehiulation in the clergy to study the
Scriptures, that they may be more capable of
instructing the people in Christian knowledge ;
and though men of loose principles censured it,
yet the ecclesiastical commissioners, who had
a special letter from the queen to inquire into
novelties, and were acquainted with the scheme
above mentioned, gave them, as yet, neither
check nor disturbance ; but when her majesty
was informed that they were nurseries of Puri
tanism, and tended to promote alterations in the
government of the Church, she quickly sup
pressed them, as wUl be seen in its proper place.
This year [1571] put a period to the life of
the eminent John Jewel, bishop of Salisbury,
author of the famous Apology for the Church of
England. He was born in Devonshire, 1522,
and educated in Christ Church College, Oxon,
where he proceeded M.A. 1544. In King Ed
ward's reign he was a zealous promoter of the
Reformation ; but, not having the courage of a
martyr, he yielded to some things against his
conscience in the reign of Queen Mary, for
which he asked pardon of God and the Church
among the exiles in Germany, where he contin
ued a confessor of the Gospel till Queen Eliza
beth's accession, when he returned home, and
was preferred to the Bishopric of Salisbury in
1559. He was one of the most learned men
among, the Reformers, a Calvinist in doctrine,
but for absolute obedience to his sovereign in
all things of an indifferent nature, which led
him not only to comply with aU the queen's in
junctions about the habits when he did not ap
prove them, but to bear hard upon the conscien
ces of his brethren who were not satisfied to
comply. He published several treatises in his
lifetime, and others were printed after his death ;

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

119

but that which gained him greatest reputation
was his Apology, which was translated into the
foreign languages, and ordered to be chained
in all the churches in England.* He was a
truly pious man, and died in a comfortable frame
of mind. Some of his last words were, " I have
not so lived that I am ashamed to die ; neither
am I afraid to die, for we have a gracious Lord.
There is laid up for me a crown of righteous-
¦ness. Christ is my righteousness. Lord, let
thy servant depart in peace ;" which he did at
Monkton Farley, September 23, 1571, in the fif-
.tieth year of his age, and lies buried in the mid
dle of the choir of the Cathedral of Salisbury.
In the same year died the Rev. Mr. David
Whitehead, a great scholar, and a most excel
lent professor of divinity. He was educated at
Oxford, and was chaplain to Queen Anne Bul
len, and one of the four divines nominated by
Archbishop Cranmer to bishoprics i.n Ireland.
In the beginning of Queen Mary's reign he went
into voluntary exile, and resided at Frankfort,
where he answered the objections, of Dr. Horn
concerning Church discipline and worship. Upon
his return into England he was chosen one of
the disputants against the popish bishops, and
showed himself so profound a divine, that the
queen, out of her high esteem for him, offered
him the archbishapric of Canterbury; but he
refused it from Puritanical principles, and would
accept of no preferment in the Church as it then
stood : he excused himself to the queen by say
ing he could live plentifully on the Gospel with
out any preferment ; and, accordingly, did so :
he went up and down like an apostle, preaching
the Word where it was wanted ; and spent his
life in celibacy, which gained him the higher es
teem with the queen, who had no great affec
tion for married priests. He died this year, in
-a good old age,! but in what church or chapel
he was buried I know not.
Our archbishop was very busy this summer,
with the Bishops of Winchester and Ely, in har
assing the Puritans ;, for which purpose he sum
moned before him tbe principal clergy of both
^provinces who were disaffected to the uniform
ity established by law, and acquainted them
that, if they intended to continue their ministry,
they must take out new licenses, and subscribe
. the articles, framed according to a new act of
.Parhament, for reforming certain disorders in
ministers ; otherwise they might resign quietly
or be deprived. He took in the bishops above
mentioned to countenance his proeeedings, but
Grindal deelared he would not be eoncerned if his
grace proceeded to suspension and deprivation :
upon which Parker wrote back that " he thought
it high time to set about it ; and, however the
world may judge, he would serve God and his

* This book was originally written in Latin, but,
for the use of the generaUty of the people, it was
translated into English, with remarkable accuracy,
by Anne, Lady Bacon, the second of the four learned
.-daughters of Sir Anthony Coke. Such was the es
teem in which it was held, that there was a design
¦oi its being joined to the thirty-nine artictes, and of
¦causing it to be deposited not only in all cathedrals
. and collegiate churches, but also in private houses. It
^promoted the Reformation from popery more than any
-other pubhcation of that period. — The New Annual
Register for 1789, History of Knowledge, p. 19. —Ed.
! Ath. Ox., vol. i., p. 135, 136. Pierce's 7mdic., p.
45, 46.

prince, and put her laws in execution ; that
Grindal was too timorous, there being no dan
ger of a praemunire ; that the queen was content
the late book of articles (though it had not the
broad seal) should be prosecuted ; and in case
it should hereafter be repealed, there was no
fear of a priemunire, but only of a fine at her
pleasure, which he was persuaded her majesty,
out of love to the Church, would not levy : but
Grindal being now at York, wisely declined the
affair."* , In the month of June the archbishop cited
the chief Puritans about London to Lambeth,!
viz., Messrs. Goodman, Lever, Sampson, Walk
er, Wyburn, Goff, Percival, Deering, Field,
Browne, Johnson, and others. These divines,
being wUling to live peaceably, offered to sub
scribe the articles of religion as far as concern
ed the doctrine and sacraments only, and the
Book of Common Prayer as far as it tended to
edification, it being acknowledged on all hands
that there were some imperfections in it ; but
they prayed, with respect to the apparel, that
neither party might condemn the other, but that
those that wore them, and those that did not,
might live in unity and concord. How reason
able soever this was, the archbishop told them
peremptorily that they must come up to the
queen's injunctions or be deprived.! Goodman
was also required to renounce a book that he
had written many years ago, when he was an
exile, against the government of women, which
he refused, and was therefore suspended. Mr.
Strype says that he was at length brought to a
revocation of it, and signed a protestation be
fore the commissioners at Lambeth, April 23,
1571, concerning his dutiful obedience to the
queen's majesty's person and her lawful govern
ment.^ Lever quietly resigned his .prebend in
the Church of Durham, Browne being domes
tic chaplain to ' the Duke of Norfolk, his patron
undertook to screen him ; but the archbishop
sent him word that no place within her majes
ty's dominions was exempt from the jurisdic
tion of the pommissioners, and, therefore, if his
grace did not forthwith send up his chaplain,
they should be forced to use other methods.
This was that Robert Browne who afterward
gave name to that denomination of dissenters
called Brownists ; but his famUy and relations
covered him for the present. Johnson was do
mestic chaplain to the Lord-keeper Bacon, at
Gorambury, where he used to preach and ad
minister the sacrament in his family : he had
also some place at St. Alban's, and was feUow
of King's CoUege, Cambridge. He appeared be
fore the pommissioners in July, but, refusing to
subscribe to the Book of Common Prayer as
agreeable to the Word of God, he was suspend
ed, though he assured them he used the book,
and thought, for charity's sake, it might be suf
fered till God should grant a time of more per
fect reformation ; that he would wear the ap
parel, though he judged it neither expedient nor
for edification ; and.that he was wUltng to sub
scribe all the doctrinal articles of the Church,
according to the late act of Parliament ; but the
commissioners insisting peremptorily upon an
absolute subscription, as above, he was sus
pended, and resigned his prebend in the Church

* Life of Grindal, p. 166. ! MS., p. 117.
X Life of Parker, p. 326, 327. ^ An. Ref, vol. u., p. 95.

122

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

the most learned foreign divines complained of
might be removed, to the preventing any schism
or separation in the Church.* However, the
treasurer had not courage to intermeddle with
an affair which might embroil him with the
queen, or, at least, with her ecclesiastical com
missioners, though it was well enough known
he had a good wi'U to the cause. But the com
missioners, not content with the severity of the
law, sported themselves in an arbitrary man
ner with the miseries of their fellow-creatures ;
detained them in prison beyond the time limited
by the statute, as appears by their humble sup
plication to the Earl of Leicester, representing
" that they had been condemned, according to
the Act of Uniformity, to a year's imprisonment,
which they had now suffered patiently in the
common jaU of Newgate, besides four months'
close imprisonment before their conviction,
which they apprehended to be contrary to law ;.
that by this means they and their poor wives
and children were utterly impoverished ; their
health very much impaired by the unwholesome
savour of the place and the cold weather ; and
that they were likely to suffer yet greater ex
tremities : they therefore humbly beseech his
lordship, for the tender mercies of God, and in
consideration of their poor wives and children,
to be a means to the most honourable privy
-councU, that they may be enlarged ; or, if that
could not be obtained, that they might be con
fined in a more wholesome prison," They pre
ferred another petition of the same nature to
¦the lords of the council ; and a third was sent
in the names of their wives and children. They
also wrote a confession of their faith, dated
from Newgate, December 4, 1572, with a pref-
¦ ace, in which they complain of the reproaches
and calumnies of their adversaries: because
<say they) we would have bishops unlorded, ac
cording to God's Word, therefore it is said we
seek the overthrow of civil magistrates ; be-
• cause we say all bishops and ministers are
equal, and, therefore, may not exercise their
-sovereignty over one another, therefore they
say, when they have brought this in among the
bishops, we shall be for levelling the nobility of
the land. Because we find fault with the regi
men of the Church as drawn from the pope,
therefore they say we design the ruin of the
¦state. Because we say the ministry must not
be a bare reading ministry, but that every min
ister must be learned, able to preach, to refute
gainsayers, to comfort, to rebuke, and to do all
the duties of a shepherd, a watchman, and a
steward, therefore they bear the world in hand
that we condemn the reading of the Holy
Scriptures in churches. Because we are afraid
of joining with the Church in all her riles
and ceremonies, therefore we are branded
with the odious names of Donatists, Anabap
tists, .iErians, Arians, Hinckfeldians, Puritans,"
•&C.! The confession itself is orthodox, according
to the doctrinal articles of the Church of Eng
land, and must give a geperal satisfaction to
them who read it ; it is written by the authors
¦of the first admonition to the Parliament, to
testify their persuasion in the faith, against the
uncharitable surmises of Dr. Whitgift, uttered
in his answer to their Admonition, in defence
* Strype's Ann., vol. ii., p. 186. ! MS., p. 120.

both of themselves and their fautors, and is
subscribed Johannes Fieldus.!
* I have the whole before me, but shall only tran
scribe a few passages relating to the present contro
versy. " We hold and believe that we ought to keep invi-
olably that kind of government that is left us in the
Gospel. That the office of a pastor is to preach the
Word and administer tbe sacraments, and, therefore
that bare readers, or single sayers, are no more fit for
pastors than women or children that can read well ;
yet we deny not the reading of the Scriptures in all
congregations, but this is not a part of thfe minister's
office. " We think it unlawful to withdraw from the
Church where the Word is truly preached, the sac
rament sincerely ministered, and true ecclesiastical
discipline exercised. We are not for an unspotted
Church on earth, and, therefore, though the Church
of England has many faults, we would not willingly
withdraw from it ; and yet we believe that God,'s chil
dren, when they are threatened, with persecution,
and the church doors are shut against them, may
draw themselves into private assemblies, separating
from cursed idolatry and pestUent popery, though
the laws of princes are against it ; and whosoever
refuseth to be subject to these congregations sep
arating themselves, resisteth the ordinances of God,
" We affirm that the Church of God is a company
or congregation of the faithful, called and gathered
out of the world by the preaching of the Gospel, uni
ted in the true faith, and resolving to form their lives,
government, order, and ceremonies according to the
Word of God,
" We hold that there ought to be joined to the
pastors of the Church, elders and deacons, for the
bridling of vices and providing for the poor ; that no
pastor ought to usurp dominion over another, nor any
church exercise lordship or rule over another,
¦ " We believe that the pastor should be chosen by
the congregation, and being chosen, should be con-
firmed in his vocation by the elders, with public
prayer and imposition of hands.
" Concerning ceremonies, we hold that they ought
to be few, and such as have no show of evil, but
manifestly tend to decency and good order. 'We re
ject, therefore, all the popish ceremonies and apparel.
We hold that churches may differ in order and cere
monies, and yet keep the unity of the faith ; and,
therefore, we condemn not other Churches that have
ceremonies different from ours. Concerning pubhc
worship, we hold that there ought to be places ap
pointed for this purpose, and that there may be a pre
script form of prayer and service in the known tonguel
because all have not the gift of prayer, but we would
not have it patched out of the pope's portuises-; but
be the form of prayer never so good, we affirm that
ministers may not think themselves discharged
when they have said it over, for they are not sent to
say service, but to preach deliverance through Christ :
preaching, therefore, must not be thrust out of doors
for reading. Neither ought the minister so to be tied
to a prescript form that at all times he must be
bound of necessity to use it ; for who can draw a
form of prayer necessary for all times, and fit for all
congregations ? We deny not but it- is well that
there be various manners of prayers, but we must
take heed that they be not long and tedious ; where
fore preaching, as it is the chief part of a minister's
office, so all other things must give place to it.
" Concerning singing of psalms, we allow of the
people's joining with one voice in a plain tune, but
not of tossing the psalms from one side tothe other,
with the interminghng of organs.
" Touching holydays, we say that religion is tied
to no time, nor is one day more holy than another;
but because time must be had to hear the Word of
God, and to administer the holy sacraments, there
fore we keep the Lord's Day as we are commanded,
but without all Jewish superstition. We think that
those feast-days of Christ, as of his birth, ctrcum-

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

123

The authors of this confession lay in prison
a considerable time, for though the inhabitants
of Aldermary, London, presented two suppli
cations for the enlargement of their valuable
pastor, and learned and faithful preacher, as
they called Mr, Field, and though some great
friends interceded for them, they could not ob
tain their release. The archbishop sent his
chaplain to confer -with them in prison after
they had been there three months, for which
they were thankful. The conference began
with a suitable prayer, which Mr. Field made,
and was carried on with such decency as moved
the chaplain's compassion ; but nothing would
prevail with the inexorable commissioners to
release them till they had suffered the extremity
of the law, and paid their fees, though the keep
er gave it under his hand that they were so
poor as not to have money to pay for their
lodgings or victuals.
"To return to tlie Admonition, which consisted
-of twenty-three chapters, under the foUowing
titles :
Chap. I. Whether Christ forbiddeth rule or su
periority to ministers.
II. Of the authority of the Church in
things indifferent.
III. Of the election of ministers.
I^V. Of ministers having no pastoral charge ;
and of ceremonies used in ordering
ministers.
Y. Of the residence of the pastors.
VI. Of ministers that cannot preach, and
of licenses to preach.
VII. Of the apparel of ministers.
¦VIII. Of archbishops, metropolitans, bish-
'' ops, archdeacons, &c.
IX. Of the communion-book.
X. Of holydays.
XI. What kind of preaching is most effect
ual.
XII. Of preaching before the administra
tion of the sacraments.
XIII. Of reading the Scriptures.
XIV. Of ministering and preaching by dea
cons.
XV. Of matters touching the communion.
XVI. Of matters touching baptism.

¦cision, passover, resurrection, and ascension, &c.,
may by Christian liberty be kept, because they are
¦only devoted to Christ, to whom all days and times
belong. But days dedicated to saints, with fasts on
their eves, we utterly dislike, though we approve of
¦the reverend memory of the saints, as examples to
be propounded to the people in sermons ; and of pub
hc and private fasts, as the circumstances qf nations
or private persons require."
The confession concludes with an article concern-
mg the office of the civil magistrate: "We hold
that Christians may bear offices ; that magistrates
may put offenders to death lawfully ; that they may
wage war, and require a lawful oath of the subject ;
that subjects are bound to obey all their just and
lawful commands ; to pray for them, to give them all
honour ; to call them by their lawful titles ; and to
be ready with their bodies and goods, lives, and all
that they have, to serve them with bodily service ;
yea, all these things we must do, though they be
infidels, and obtain their dominion either by inherit
ance, by election,1)y conquest, or otherwise. On the
other hand, it is, the magistrates' duty to pro-vide for
the public peace and quiet of their subjects ; and to
set forth Christ's pure rehgion, by advancing the
preaching of the Gospel, and tooting out all super
stition and idolatry."— JlfiS., p. 131.

XVII. Of seniors, or government by elders.
XVIII. Of certain matters concerning dis
cipline of the Church.
XIX. Of deacons and widows.
XX. Of the authority of the civil magistrate
in eoclesiastical matters.
XXI. Of subscribing the communion-book.
XXII. Of cathedral churches.
XXIII. Of civil officers in ecclesiastical per
sons.
These' were the chief heads of complaint ;
which the Puritans having laid before the world,
the bishops thought themselves obliged to an
swer. Dr. John Whitgift, master of Trinity
College and vice-chancellor of Cambridge, was
appointed to this work, which he performed with
great labour and study, and dedicated it to the
Church of England. His method was unex
ceptionable, the whole text of the Admonition
being set down in paragraphs, and under each
paragraph the doctor's answer* Before it was
printed, it was revised and corrected by Arch
bishop Parker, Dr. Cooper, bishop of Lincoln,
and Pern, bishop of Ely ; so that in this book,
says Mr, Strype, may be seen all the arguments
for and against the hierarchy, drawn to the best
advantage. Dr. "Whitgift's book was answered by Mr.
Cartwright, whose performance was called a
master-piece in its kind, and had the approbation
of great numbers in the University of Cam
bridge, as weU as foreign divines. 'Whitgift re
plied again tb Cartwright, and had the thanks of
the bishops and the queen, who, as a reward for
his excellent and learned pains, made him Dean
of Lincoln ; while' Cartwright, to avoid the rig
our of the commissioners, was forced to abscond
in friends' houses, and at length retire into ban
ishment. But it was impossible for these divines to set
tle the controversy, because they were not agreed
upon one and thp' same standard or rule of judg
ment. Mr. Cartwright maintained that "the
Holy Scriptures were not only a standard of
doctrine, but of discipline and government ; and
that the Church of Christ, in all ages, was to
be regulated by them." He was, therefore, for
consulting his Bible only, and for reducing all
things as near as possible to the apostolical
standard. Dr. Whitgift went upon a different
principle, and 'maintained " that, though the
Holy Scriptures were a perfect rule of faith,
they were not designed as a standard of church
discipline or government ; but - that this was
changeable, and might be accommodated to the
civil government we live under ; that the apos
tolical government was adapted to the Church
in its infancy, and under persecution, but was
to be enlarged and altered as the Church grew
to maturity, and had the civil magistrate on its
side." The doctor, therefore, instead of redu
cing the external pohcy of the Church to Scrip
ture, takes into his standard the first four cen
turies after Christ ; and those customs that he
can trace up thither, he thinks proper to be re
tained, because the Church was then in its mature
state, and not yet under the power of antichrist.
The reader will judge of these, principles for
himself. One is ready to think that the nearer
we can come to the apostolical practice the bet
ter, and the less our religion is encumbered with

* Life of "Whitgift, p. 42.

122

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

the most learned foreign divines complained of
might be removed, to the preventing any schism
or separation in the Church.* However, the
treasurer had not courage to intermeddle with
an affair which might embroil him with the
queen, or, at least, with her ecclesiastical com
missioners, though it was well enough known
he had a good wiU to the cause. But the com
missioners, not content with the severity of the
law, sported themselves in an arbitrary man
ner with the miseries of their fellow-creatures ;
detained them in prison beyond the time limited
by the statute, as appears by their humble sup
plication lo the Earl of Leicester, representing
" that they had been condemned, according to
the Act of Uniformity, to a year's imprisonment,
which they had now suffered patiently in the
common jail of Newgate, besides four months'
close imprisonment before their conviction,
which they apprehended to be contrary to law ;
that by this means they and their poor wives
and children were utterly impoverished ; their
health very much impaired by the unwholesome
savour of the place and the cold weather ; and
that they were likely to suffer yet greater ex
tremities : they therefore humbly beseech his
lordship, for the tender mercies of God, and in
consideration of their poor wives and children,
to be a means to the most honourable privy
-councU, that they may be enlarged ; or, if that
could not be obtained, that they might be con
fined in a more wholesome prison." They pre
ferred another petition of the same nature to
the lords of the council ; and a third was sent
in the names of their wives and chUdren, They
also wrote a confession of their faith, dated
from Newgate, December 4, 1572, with a pref
ace, in which they complain of the reproaches
and calumnies of their adversaries: because
<say they) we would have bishops unlorded, ac-
•cording to God's Word, therefore it is said we
seek the overthrow of civil magistrates ; be-
¦ cause we say all bishops and ministers are
equal, and, therefore, may not exercise their
sovereignty over one another, therefore they
say, when they have brought this in among the
bishops, we shall be for levelling the nobility of
the land. Because we find fault with the regi
men of the Church as drawn from the pope,
therefore they say we design the ruin of the
-state. Beeause we say the ministry must not
be a bare reading ministry, but that every min
ister must be learned, able to preaeh, to refute
gainsayers, to eomfort, to rebuke, and to do all
the duties of a shepherd, a watehman, and a
steward, therefore they bear the world in hand
that we pondemn the reading of the Holy
Spriptures in churches. Because we are afraid
of joining with the Churoh in all her rites
and peremonies, therefore we are branded
with the odious names of Donatists, Anabap
tists, jErians, Arians, Hinekfeldians, Puritans,"
&P.! The ponfession itself is orthodox, aecording
to the doctrinal articles of the Church of Eng
land, and must give a general satisfaction to
them who read it ; it is written by the authors
-of the first admonition to the Parliament, to
testify their persuasion in the faith, against the
uncharitable surmises of Dr. Whitgift, uttered
in his answer lo their Admonition, in defence
* Strype's Ann., vol. u., p. 186. ! MS., p. 120.

both of themselves and their fautors, and is
subscribed Johannes Fieldus.!
* 1 have the whole before me, but shall only tran
scribe a few passages relating to the present contro
versy. " We hold and beheve that we ought to keep invi
olably that kind of government that is left us in the
Gospel. That the office of a pastor is to preach the
Word and administer the sacraments, and, therefore,
that bare readers, or single sayers, are no rhoro fit for
pastors than women or children that can read well ;
yet we deny not the reading of the Scriptures in all
congregations, but this is not a part of the minister's
office. " We think it unlawful to withdraw from the
Church where the Word is truly preached, the sac
rament sincerely ministered, and true ecclesiastical
discipline exercised. We are not for an unspotted
Church on earth, and, therefore, though the Church
of England has many faults, we would not willingly
withdraw from it ; and yet we believe that God,'s chil
dren, when they are threatened with persecution,
and the church doors are shut against them, may
draw themselves into private assemblies, separating
from cursed idolatry and pestilent popery, though
the laws of princes are against it ; and whosoever
refuseth to be subject to these congregations sep
arating themselves, resisteth the ordinances of God.
" We affirm that the Church of God is a company
or congregation of the faithful, called and gathered
out of the world by the preaching of the Gospel, uni
ted in the true faith, and resolving to form their lives,
government, order, and ceremonies according to the
Word of God.
" We hold that there ought to be joined to the
pastors of the Church, elders and deacons, for the
bridling of vices and providing for the poor ; that no
pastor ought to usurp dominion over another, nor any
church exercise lordship or rule over another.
¦ " We believe that the pastor should be chosen by
the congregation, and being chosen, should be con-
firmed in his vocation by the elders, with public
prayer and imposition of hands.
" Concerning ceremonies, we hold that they ought
to be few, and such as have no show of evil, but
manifestly tend to decency and good order. We re
ject, therefore, all the popish ceremonies and apparel.
We hold that churches may differ in order and cere
monies, and yet keep the unity of the faith ; and,
therefore, we condemn not other Churches that have
ceremonies different from ours. Concerning public
worship, we hold that there ought to be places ap
pointed for this purpose, and that there may be a pre
script form of prayer and service in the known tongue,
because all have not the gift of prayer, but we would
not have it patched out of the pope's portuises ; but
be the form of prayer never so good, we affirm that
ministers may not think themselves discharged
when they have said it over, for they are not sent to
say service, but to preach deliverance through Christ ;
preaching, therefore, must not be thrust out of doors
for reading, Neither ought the minister so to be tied
to a prescript form that at all times he must be
bound of necessity to use it ; for who can draw a
form of prayer necessary for all times, and fit for all
congregations ? We deny not but it is well that
there be various manners of prayers, but we must
take heed that they be not long and tedious ; where
fore preaching, as it is the chief part of a minister's
office, so all other things must give place to it.
" Concerning singing of psalms, we allow of the
people's joining with one voice in a plain tune, but
not of tossing the psalms from one side to the other,
with the interminghng of organs.
" Touching holydays, we say that religion is tied
to no time, nor is one day more holy than another ;
but because time must be had to hear the Word of
God, and to administer the holy sacraments, there
fore we keep the Lord's Day as we are commanded,
but without all Jewish superstition. We think that
those feast-days of Christ, as of his bhth, chcum-

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

123

The authors of this confession lay in prison
a considerable time, for though the inhabitants
of Aldermary, London, presented two suppli
cations for the enlargement of their valuable
pastor, and learned and faithful preacher, as
they called Mr. Field, and though some great
friends interceded for them, they could not ob
tain their release. The archbishop sent his
chaplain to confer with them in prison after
they had been there three months, for which
fiiey were thankful. The conference began
with a suitable prayer, which Mr. Field made,
and was carried on with such decency as moved
the chaplain's compassion ; but notiiing would
prevail with the inexorable commissioners to
release them till they had suffered the extremity
of the law, and paid their fees, though the keep
er gave it under his hand that they were so
poor as not to have money to pay for their
lodgings or victuals.
¦To return to tlie Admonition, which consisted
-of twenty-three chapters, under the following
titles :
Chap. I. Whether Christ forbiddeth rule or su
periority to ministers.
II. Of the authority of the Church in
things indifferent.
III. Of the election of ministers.
IV. Of ministers having no pastoral charge ;
and of ceremonies used in ordering
ministers.
V. Of the residence of the pastors.
VI. Of ministers that cannot preach, and
of licenses to preach.
VII. Of the apparel of ministers.
VIII. Of archbishops, metropolitans, bish-
; ops, archdeacons, &c.
IX. Of the communion-book.
X. Of holydays.
XI. What kind of preaching is most effect
ual.
XII. Of preaching before the administra
tion of the sacraments.
XIII. Of reading the Scriptures.
XIV. Of ministering and preaching by dea
cons.
XV. Of matters touching the communion.
XVI. Of matters touching baptism.

«ision, passover, resurrection, and ascension, &c.,
may by Christian liberty be kept, because they are
¦only devoted to Christ, to whom all days and times
belong. But days dedicated to saints, with fasts on
their eves, we utterly dislike, though we approve of
the reverend memory of the saints, as examples to
be propounded to the people in sermons ; and of pub
hc and private fasts, as the circumstances of nations
¦or private persons require."
The confession concludes with an article concern
ing the office of the civil magistrate: "We hold
that Christians may bear offices ; that magistrates
may put olfenders to death lawfully ; that they may
wage war, and require a lawful oath of the subject ;
that subjects are bound to obey all their just and
lawful commands ; to pray for them, to give them all
¦honour ; to caU them by their lawful titles ; and to
be ready with their bodies and goods, lives, and all
that they have, to serve them with bodily service ;
yea, all these things we must do, though they be
infidels, and obtain their dominion either by inherit
ance, by election, by conquest, or otherwise. On the
other hand, it is the magistrates' duty to provide for
the pubhc peace and quiet of theh subjects ; and to
¦set forth Christ's pure religion, by advancing the
preaching of the Gospel, and rooting out all super
stition and idolatry."— Jlf^S., p. 131.

XVII. Of seniors, or government by elders.
XVIII. Of certain matters concerning dis
cipline of the Church.
XIX. Of deacons and widows.
XX. Of the authority of the civil magistrate
in ecclesiastical matters.
XXI. Of subscribing the communion-book.
XXII. Of cathedral churches.
XXIII. Of civil officers in ecclesiastical per
sons.
These were the chief heads of complaint ;
which the Puritans having laid before the world,
the bishops thought themselves obliged to an
swer. Dr. John Whitgift, master of Trinity
College and vice-chancellor of Cambridge, was
appointed to this work, which he performed with
great labour and study, and dedicated it to the
Church of England. His method was unex
ceptionable, the whole text of the Admonition
being set down in paragraphs, and under each
paragraph the doctor's answer.* Before it was
printed, it was revised and corrected by Arch
bishop Parker, Dr. Cooper, bishop of Lincoln,
and Pern, bishop of Ely ; so that in this book,
says Mr. Strype, may be seen all the arguments
for and against the hierarchy, drawn to the best
advantage. Dr. 'Whitgift's book was answered by Mr.
Cartwright, whose performance was called a
master-piece in its kind, and had the approbation
of great numbers in the University of Cam
bridge, as weU as foreign divines. 'Whitgift re
plied again to Cartwright, and had the thanks of
the bishops and the queen, who, as a reward for
his excellent arid learned pains, made him Dean
of Lincoln ; while Cartwright, to avoid the rig
our of the commissioners, was forced to abscond
in friends' houses, and at length retire into ban
ishment. But it was impossible for these divines to set
tle the controversy, because they were not agreed
upon one and the same standard or rule of judg
ment. Mr. Cartwright maintained that " the
Holy Scriptures were not only a standard of
doctrine, but of discipline and government ; and
that the Church of Christ, in all ages, was to
be regulated by them." He was, therefore, for
consulting his Bible only, and for reducing all
things as near as possible to the apostolical
standard. Dr. Whitgift went upon a different
principle, and "maintained " that, though the
Holy Scriptures were a perfect rule of faith,
they were not designed as a standard of church
discipline or government ; but that this was
changeable, and might be accommodated to the
civil government we live under ; that the apos
tolical government was adapted to the Church
in its infancy, and under persecution, but was
to be enlarged and altered as the Church grew
to maturity, and had the civil magistrate on its
side." The doctor, therefore, instead of redu
cing the external policy of the Church to Scrip
ture, takes into his standard the first four cen
turies after Christ ; and those customs that he
can trace up thither, he thinks proper to be re
tained, because the Church was then in its mature
slate, and not yet under the power of antichrist.
The reader wiU judge of these, principles for
himself. One is ready to think that the nearer
we can come \o the apostolical practice the bet
ter, and the less our religion is encumbered with

* Life of Whitgift, p. 42.

124

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

rites and ceremonies of later invention, the more
it must resemble the simplicity that is in Christ.
If our blessed Saviour had designed that his
worship should be set off with pomp and gran
deur, and a multitude of ceremonies, he would
have told us so, and, it may be, have settied
them, as was done for the Church of the Jews ;
but nothing of this appearing, his followers
should be cautious of inserting human com
mandments or traditions into the religion of
Christ, lest they cast a reflection upon his kingly
office. The dispute between Whitgift and Cartwright
was managed with some sharpness ; the latter
thought he had reason to complain of the hard
ships himself and his brethren suffered ; and
Whitgift having the government on his side,
thought he stood upon higher ground, and might
assume a superior air. When Cartwright and
his friends pleaded for indulgence because they
were brethren, the doctor replies, " What signi
fies their being brethren 1 Anabaptists, Arians,
and other heretics, would be accounted brethren ;
their haughty spirits will not suffer them to see
their error ; they deserve as great punishment
as papists, because both conspire against the
Church. If they are shut up in Newgate, it is
a meet reward for their disorderly doings ; for
ignorance may not excuse libels against a pri
vate man, much less when they slander the whole
Church." How would the doctor have liked
this language in the mouth of a papist sixteen
years before ? But this has been the method
of warm and zealous disputants ; the knpts
they cannot untie with their fingers, they would
fain cut asunder with the sword.
Thus Dr. Whitgift routed his adversary ; he
had already deprived him of his professor's chair,
and of his degree of D.D.; and being now Vice-
chancellor of Cambridge, he got him expelled
from the University upon the following pretence :
Mr. Cartwright, being senior fellow of his col
lege, was only in deacon's orders ; the doctor
being informed of this, and that the statute re
quiring such to take upon them the order of
priesthood might be interpreted to priests' or
ders, concluded he was perjured ;¦* upon which
he summoned, the heads of the coUeges together,
and declared that Mr. Cartwright had broken
his oath, and, without any farther admonition,
pushed his interest among the, masters, to rid
the college of a man whose popularity was too
great for his ambition, insomuch that he declared
he would not establish order in the University
while a person of his principles was among
them. After this, he wrote to the archbishop,
September 21, 1573, and begged his grace to
watch at court, that Cartwright might get no
advantage against him, for (says he) he is flatly
perjured, and it is God's just judgment that he
should be so punished, for not being a fuU min
ister. A very mean and pitiful triumph ! '
The queen, also, and her commissioners,
brandished their swords against Cartwright and
his followers. Her majesty, by proclamation,
caUed in the Admonition, commanding aU her
subjects who had any in their possession to
bring them to the bishop of the diocess, and
not to sell them, upon pain of imprisonment ;
upon which Mr. Stroud, the publisher, brought
in thirty-four, and his wife burned the rest that
* Life of Whitgift, p. 46.

were unsold. This Mr. Stroud was the suspend
ed minister of Cranbrook, an excellent preacher,
and universally beloved ; but being reduced to
poverty, he was forced to condescend to the
low offices of correcting the press, and of pub
lishing books for a livelihood.* 'When he ap
peared before the Bishop of London upon this
occasion, his lordship reproached him for laying
down the ministry, though Parker had actually
deprived him, and forbid him to preach six years
before. The bishops were no less careful to crush the
favourers of the Admonition; for when Mr
Wake, of Christ Church, had declared in favour
of it, in a sermon at St. Paul's Cross, the Bishop
of London sent for him next morning into custo
dy ; but he made his escape. Mr. Crick, chap
lain to the Bishop of Norwich, having also com
mended the book iri a sermon at the same place,
the archbishop sent a special messenger te ap
prehend him ; and though he escaped for the
present, he afterward fell into the hands of the
commissioners, and was deprived.! The like
misfortune befell Dr. Aldrich, an eminent divine-
and dignitary of the Church, with many others ;
notwithstanding which. Dr. Sandys, bishop of
London, in his letter to the treasurer, calls for
farther help : " The city," says he, " will never
be quiet till these authors of sedition, who are
now esteemed as gods, as Field, Wilcox, Cart
wright, and others, be far removed from the
city ; the people resort to them, as in popery they
were wont to run on pilgrimages ; if these idols,.
who are honoured^as saints, were removed from
hence, their honour would faU into the dust, and
they would be taken for blocks, as they are. A
Sharp letter from her majesty would cut the
courage of these men. Good my lords, for the
love you bear to the Church of Christ, resist the
tumultuous enterprises of these new-fangled
fellows." These were the weapons with which
the doctor's answer to the Admonition were en
forced ; so that we may fairly conclude, with
Fuller the historian, " that if Cartwright had the
better of his adversary in learning, Whitgift had
more power to back his arguments ; and by this^
he not only kept the field, but gained the victory."
On the other hand, it is certain vast numbers
of the clergy, both in London and the two uni
versities, had a high opinion of Cartwright's-
writings ; he had many admirers, gnd, if ^ve may
believe his adversaries, wanted not for presents
and gratuities : many hands were procured ia
approbation and commendation of his reply t*
¦Whitgift, and some said they would defend it
to death.! In short, though Whitgift's writings
might be of use to confirm those who had already
conformed, they made no converts among the-
Puritans, hut rather confirmed them in their
former sentiments.
To pursue this controversy to the end: m
the year 1573, Dr Whitgift pubhshed his de
fence against Cartwright's reply,^ in which he
states the difference between them thus : " The
question is not whether many things mentioned
in your platform of discipline were fitly used in-
the apostles' time, or may now be well used in
sundry Reformed Churches ; this is not denied;
* MS., p. 1915.
! Life of Whitgift, p. 53. Life of Parker, p. 428.,
! Life of Parker p. 427.
i Whitgift's Life, p. 56.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

125

¦-but whether, when there is a settled order in
doctrine and government established by law, it
may stand with godly and Christian wisdom to
attempt so great alteration as this platform must
needs bring in, with disobedience to the prince
and laws, and unquietness of the Church, and
offence of many consciences." If this were
the whole question, surely it might stand with
the wisdom of the Legislature in settled times
to make some concessions in favour of pious
and devout men ; nor can it be inconsistent
with godly and Christian wisdom for subjects to
attempt it by lawful and peaceable methods.
Two years after [1575] Mr. Cartwright pub
lished a second reply to Whitgift's defence ; it
consisted of two parts ; the first was entitled
" The Second Reply of T. C. against Dr. Whit
gift's Second Answer touching the Church Dis
cipline ;" with these two sentences of Scripture
in the title-page : " For Zion's sake I will not
hold my tongue ; for Jerusalem's sake I will not
rest, till the righteousness thereof break forth
as the light," &c. ; " Ye are the Lord's remem
brancers : keep not silence," Isa., Ixii., 6, 7. It
is dedicated to the Church of England, and all
that love the truth in it. In his preface he an
swers divers personal matters between the doc
tor and himself: he remembers him of his ille
gal depriving him of his fellowship, and pro
nouncing him perjured. He says he never Open
ed his lips for the divinity chair, as he had falsely
charged him ; that he had never desired the de
gree of a doctor, but by the advice of more than
a dozen learned ministers, who, considering his
office of divinity reader, thought he ought to as
sume the title. He added, that he never refused
a private conference with him [Whitgift], but
that he offered it, and the other refused it, saying
he was incorrigible ; indeed, he did refuse pri
vate conference by Writing, having had expe
rience of his adversary's unfaithfulness, and be
cause he thought that the doc1;rine he had taught
¦openly should be defended openly. Whitgift
charged him that, after he was expelled the col
lege, he went up and down doing no good, but
living at other men's tables.* How ungenerous
was this, after the doctor had taken away his
adversary's bread, and stopped his mouth that
he might not preach, to reproach him with doing
no good, and being beholden to his friends for a
dinner! Cartwright owned that he was poor;
that he had no wife nor house of his own ; and
that it was with small delight that he hved upon
his friends, but that he still did what littie good
he could in instructing their children. Whitgift
¦charged his adversary farther with want of learn
ing, though he had filled the divinity chair with
vast reputation, and had been styled by Beza Sol,
the very sun of England ; hetaxed him with ma
king extracts of other men's notes, and that he
had scarce read one of the ancient authors he
had quoted. To which Cartwright modestly
replied, that as to great reading, he would let it
pass ; for if Whitgift had read all the fathers,
and he scarce one, it would easily appear to the
learned worid by their writings ; but that it
was sufficiently known that he had hunted him
with more hounds than one.
The strength of his reply lies in reducing the
policy of the Church as near as possible to the
standard of Scripture, for when Dr. Whitgift al-'

* Whitgift's Life, p. 64.

leged some of the fathers of the fourth and
flf^th century on his side, Cartwright replied,
" that forasmuch as the father's have erred, and
that corruptions crept early into the Church,
therefore they ought to have no farther credit
than their authority is warranted by the Word
of God and good reason ; to press their bare
authority without relation to this, is to bring an
intolerable tyranny into the Church of God."
The second part of Cartwright's reply was
not published till two years forward, when he
was fled out of the kingdom;* it is entitled
" The Rest of the Second Reply of Thomas Cart
wright against Master Doctor Whitgift's Answer
touching the Church Discipline, imprinted 1577,"
in which he shows that chUrch government by
an eldership is by Divine appointment, and of
perpetual obligation. He then considers the de
fects of the Church of England, and treats of
the power of the oivU magistrate in ecclesias
tical matters, of ecclesiastical persons bearing
civU offices, and of the habits. He apologizes
for going through with the controversy at such
a distance of time, but he, thought it of impor
tance, and that it need not be ashamed of the
light. Speaking of his own poverty, disgrace,
and banishment for appearing in this cause, he
says, " It were an intolerable delicacy if he could
not give up a little ease and commodity for that
whereunto his life was due if it had been asked ;
or that he would grudge-to dwell in another cor
ner of the world for that cause for which he
ought lo be ready altogether to depart out of
it." But he was sensible he strove against the
stream, and that his work might be thought un
seasonable, his adversary being now advanced
so much above him ; for this year Whitgift was
made a bishop, when poor Cartwright was little
better than a wandering beggar.!
Thus ended the controversy between these
two champions : so that Fdller, Heylin, and
Collyer must be mistaken when they say Whit
gift kept the field and parried off a complete
victory, when Cartwright had certainly the last
word. But, whoever had the better of the ar
gument, Whitgift got the most by it, and, when
he was advanced to the pinnacle of church pre
ferment, acted an ungenerous part towards his
adversary, for many years prosecuting him with
continual vexations and imprisonments, and
pointing all his church-artillery against him, not
suffering him so much as to defend the common
cause of Christianity against the papists, when
he was caUed to it ; however, at length, being
wearied out with the importunities of great men,
or growing more temperate in his old age, he
suffered him to govern a small hospital in 'War
wick, given him by the Earl of Leicester, where
this great and good man's hairs came down
with sorrow to the grave.!
* Strype's Ann. ! Ibid.
! "Sir George Paule, the, panegyrist rather than
the biographer of 'Whitgift, has attempted to discredit
Cartwright by impugning his motives. In the year
1564, on the occasion of Elizabeth's visit to the uni
versity, Cartwright, as one of the most learned of that
body, was chosen, with others, to dispute before her.
Paule represents him as mortified by the neglect with
which the queen treated him, and as proceeding im
mediately to Geneva, ' that he might the better feed
his humour' ' Mr Cartwright,' he says, ' immedi
ately after her majesty's neglect of him, began to
wade into diverse opimons, as that of the discipline.

126

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

To return : Notwithstanding aU this opposi
tion from the queen and her commissioners, the
Puritans gained ground ; and, though the press
was restrained, they galled their adversaries
with pamphlets, which were privately dispersed
both in city and country. Parker employed all
his emissaries to discover their printing press
es, but to no purpose ; whereupon he complain
ed' to the treasurer in these words : " I under
stand throughout all the realm," says he, "how
the matter is taken ; the Puritans are justified,
and we judged to be extreme persecutors ; t
have observed this for seven years ; if the sin
cerity of the Gospel should end in such judg
ments, I fear the council will be overthrown.
The Puritans slander us with books and libels,
lying they care not how deep, and yet the more
they write the more they are applauded and
comforted'."* The scholars of Cambridge were
generally with the Puritans, but the masters
and heads of coUeges were against them ; so
that many who ventured to preach for the dis
cipline were deprived of their fellowships and
expeUed the university, or obhged to a public
retraction. There being no farther prospect of a public
reformation by the Legislature, some of the
leading Puritans agreed to attempt it in a more
and to kick against her ecclesiastical government.' —
Life of Whitgift, 10. Heylin, Hist, of Reformation,
164, and Collier, Ecclesiastical Hist., ii., 492, have
retailed this slander, in which unworthy conduct
they have been followed by several modern writers.
Fuller mentions the charge wilh evident marks of
distrust. ' We find one great scholar,' he remarks,
'much discontented, if my author may be behoved,
namely, Mr Thomas Cartwright. He and Thomas
Preston were appointed two of the four disputants in
the Philosophy Act before the queen. Cartwright
had dealt most with the muses, Preston with the
graces, adorning his learning with comely carriage,
graceful gesture, and pleasing pronunciation. Cart
wright disputed like a great, Preston like a genteel,
scholar, being a handsome man ; and the queen, upon
parity of deserts, always preferred properness of per
son in conferring her favours.' And he -adds, ' Mr.
Cartwright's followers credit not the relation. Ad
ding, moreover, that the queen did highly commend,
though not reward him.' — Hist, of the University of
Cambridge, 139. Cartwright's general character is
sufficient to discredit this account. But its inaccu
racy is rendered more apparent by the fact that his
visit to Geneva, which Paule represents as the con
sequence of his disgust at the queen's neglect, and as
the source of those opinions for which he was depri
ved of his professorship, did not take place tiU after
his expulsion from the university. Strype exoner
ates Cartwright, alleging that, ' by the relation of the
queen's reception at Cambridge (now in the hands of
a learned member of that university), there appears
no clear ground for any such discontent. For the
queen is said there to have approved them all ; only
that Preston pleased her most, and was made her
scholar, with the settlement of a yearly honorary sal
ary on him.' — Annals, i., n., 107. His elevation to
the divinity chair, in 1569, is ample evidence of the
estimation in which he was held by the university,
and would have sufficed to calm his spirit had it been
perturbed by such emotions as his enemies were for
ward in attributing to him. 11 was due to the mem
ory of this eminent man to vindicate him from so
foul an aspersion. But what must we think of those
modem libellers who, passing over the ' admission of
Strype, and the mistrust of FuUer, retail the venom
of Paule, Heylin, and Collier?" — Clarke's Lives of
Thirty-two Divines, p. 17. Dr. Price's Hist. Noncon.,
vol. i, p. 215.— C. * Life of Parker, p. 389.

private way ; for this purpose they erected a.
presbytery in Wandsworth, a vUlage five miles
from the city, conveniently situated for the Lon
don brethren, as standing on the banks of the
River Thames. The heads of the association
were Mr. Field, lecturer of Wandsworth, Mr.
Smith of Mitcham, Mr. Crane of Roehampton,
Messrs. Wilcox, Standen, Jackson, Bonham
Saintloe, and Edmonds, to whom afterward
were joined Messrs. Travers, Chake, Barber,
Gardiner, Crook, Bgerton, and a number of very
considerable laymen. On the 20th of Novem
ber eleven elders were chosen, and their offices
described in a register entitled " The Orders of
Wandsworth." 'This was the first Presbyterian
Church in England. AU imaginable care was
taken to keep their proceedings secret, but the
bishop's eye was upon them, who gave immedi
ate intelligence to the high commission, upon-
which the queen issued out a proclamation for
putting the Act of Uniformity in execution ; but,,
though the pommissioners knew of the presby
tery, they could not discover the members of it,
nor prevent others being erected in neighbottr-
ing counties.
While the queen and bishops were defending
the outworks of the Church against the Puri
tans, and bracing up the building with articles,,
canons, injunctions, and penal laws, enforced
by the sword of the civil magistrate, the papists-
were sapping the very foundation ; for upon
publishing the pope's bull of excommunication
against the queen, great numbers deserted the
public worship, and resorted to private conven
ticles to hear mass, "while others who kept their
stations in the Church were secretly undermi
ning it, -"There were at this time," says a
learned writer,* " certain ministers of the
Church that were papists, who subscribed and
observed the orders of the Church, wore a side-
gown, a square cap, a cope, and surplice. They
would run into corners, and say to the people.
Believe not this new doctrine ; it is naught, it
will not long endure ; although I use order
among them outwardly, my heart is not with
them, but with the mother-church of Rome.
No, no, we do not preach, nor yet teach openly;
though we read their new-devised homilies for
a colour to satisfy the time for a season." In
Yorkshire they went openly to mass, and were
so numerous that the Protestants stood in awe
of them. In London there was a great resort
to the Portugal ambassador's chapel ; and when
the sheriff, by order of the Bishop of London,
sent his officers to take some of them into cus
tody, the queen was displeased, and ordered
them immediately to be released.
Sad was the state of religion, says Mr. Strype,
at this time : " the substantials being lost in
contending for externals ; the churchmen heap
ed up many benefices upon themselves, and re
sided upon none, neglecting their cures.! Many
of them alienated their lands, made unreasona
ble leases and waste of woods, and granted re
versions and advowsons to their wives and
children. Among the laity there was littie de
votion ; the Lord's Day greatly profaned, and
little observed; the common prayers not fre
quented ; some lived without any service of
God at all; many -were mere heathens and
atheists ; the queen's own court a harbour for

Strype's Ann., p. 98. ! Life of Parker, p. 395.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

127

epicures and atheists, and a kind of lawless
place, because it stood in no parish ; which
things make good men fear some sad judgments
impending over the nation." The governors of
the Church expressed no concern for suppress
ing of vice and encouraging virtue ; there were
no citations into the Commons for immoralities ;
but the bishops were every day shutting the
iVrouths of the most pious, useful, and industri
ous preachers in the nation, at a time when the
queen was sick of the smaUpox and troubled
with fainting fits, and the whole Reformation
depended upon the single thread of her life.
This precarious state of religion was the
more terrible because of the Parisian massacre,
which happened this very summer [1572], on
the 24th of August, being Bartholomew Day,
when great numbers of Protestants having been
invited to Paris, on pretence of doing honour to
the King of Navarre's marriage to the king's sis
ter, ten thousand were massacred in one night,
and twenty thousand more in other parts of the
kingdom, within the compass of a few weeks,
by his majesty's commission ; no distinction
being made between lords, gentlemen, justices,
lawyers, scholars, physicians, and the meanest
of the people ;* they spared neither women,
maids, chUdren in the cradle, nor infants in
their mother's womb. Many who escaped fled
to Geneva and Switzerland, and great numbers
into England, to save their lives. The Protest
ant princes of Germany were awakened with
this butchery ; and the queen put the coasts
into a posture of defence, but made no conces
sions for uniting her Protestant subjects among
themselves.! .
This year died the reverend and learned Mr.
John Knox, the apostle and chief Reformer of
the Kirk of Scotland. This divine came into
England in the reign of King Edward VI , and
was appointed one of the itinerant preachers
for the year 1552 ; he was afterward offered a
parochial living in London, but refused it ; upon
King Edward's death he retired beyond sea,
and became preacher to the English exiles at
Frankfort, tiU he was artfully spirited away by
the contrivance of Mr. Cox, now bishop of Ely,
for not reading the English service. He after
ward preached to the English at Geneva ; and
upon the breaking up of, that congregation in
the year 1559, he returned to Scotiand, and was
a great. instrument in the hand of Providence
for the reformation of that kirk. He was a son
of thunder, and feared not the face of any man
in the cause of religion, which betrayed him
sometimes into too coarse treatment of his su
periors.! However, he had the respect of all
the Protestant nobility and gentry of his coun
try ; and after a life of great service and labour,
he died comfortably in the midst of his friends,
in the sixty-seventh year of his age,^ being
greatly supported in his last hours from the sev-

* Strype's Ann., p. 160.
! Edinburgh Review, No. 87.
! It has been justly observed, "that though the
praise of sincerity and piety cannot be denied him, it
is to be regretted that those virtues were accompani
ed with a narrow and bigoted turn of mind. In the
time of John Knox, the havmg suffered persecution
did not hinder men from exercising persecution when
it was in their power." — -The New Annual Register
for 1189. History of Knowledge, p. 31.
Ij Life of Parker P- 366.

enteenth chapter of St. John, and 1 Cor., xv.,
both which ho ordered to be frequently read to
'him : his body was attended to the grave with,
great solemnity and honour.
The queen being incensed against the Puri
tans for their late applications to Parliament,
reprimanded the bishops for not suppressing
them, resolving lo bend all the powers of the
crown that way. Accordingly, commissioners
were appointed under the great seal,* in every
shire, to put in execution the penal laws by
way of oyer and terminer, and the queen pub
hshed a proclamation in the month of October,
declaring her royal pleasure that all offenders
against the Act of Uniformity should be severely
punished. Letters were also sent from the
lords of the council to the bishops, dated No
vember 7th, 1573, to enforce her majesty's proc
lamation,! in which, after having reproached
them with holding their courts only to get mon
ey, or for such like purposes, they now require
them in her majesty's name, either by them
selves, which is most fit, or by their archdea
cons, personally to visit and see that the habits,
with all the queen's injunctions, be exactly and
uniformly observed in every church of their di
ocess, and to punish all refusers according to
the ecclesiastical laws. The lord-treasurer,
also, made a long speech before the ¦ commis
sioners in the Star Chamber,! in which, by the
queen's order, " he charged the bishops with
neglect, in not enforcing her majesty's procla
mation : he said the queen could not satisfy her
conscience without crushing the Puritans ; for
she thought none of her subjects worthy of her
protection that favoured innovations, or that di
rectly or indirectly countenanced the alteration
of anything established in the Church ; that by
too much lenity some might be apt to think the
exceptions of these novelists against the cere
monies were reasonable and well founded, or
but trifling matters of disputation ; but the
queen was resolved that her orders and injunc
tions should not be contemned ; that the public-
rule should be inviolably observed ; and that
there should be an absolute obedience, because
the safety of her government depended upon it."
The treasurer, therefore, as some other mem
ber, proposed in council that aU ministers
throughout the kingdom should he bound in a
bond of £200 to conform in all things to the Act
of Uniformity, andincaseof default, their names
to be returned into the exchequer by the bishop,
and the bond to be sued.^ If this project had
taken place, it would have ruined half the cler
gy of the kingdom.
Another occasion of these extraordinary pro-

* Life Of Parker, p. 447, 479. Strype's Annals, vol.
ii., 260. ! Life of Parker, App., vol. u., 454.
! Life of Parker P- 456, 458.
The letter from the lords of the council, and the
speech of the lord-treasurer, are alleged by Bishop
Maddox as convincing proofs of the mild conduct of
the bishops. How far his conclusion is justly drawn ;
whether it prove anything more than that the zeal
and activity of the bishops did not keep pace with
the wishes of the court, the reader will judge from
the facts Mr Neal's History has exhibited. But,
however this evidence may exculpate the bishops, it
certainly impeaches the lenity of the queen, and is a
direct proof of the severity, the unyielding severity,
of her government. — En.
^ Strype's Ann., p. 260 ; vol. u,, p. 288. Life of
Grmdal, p. 185.

128

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

ceedings of the court is said to arise from the
accidental madness of one Peter Birchet, of the
Middle Temple, who had the name of a Puritan,
but was disordered in his senses ; this man
came out of the Temple in his gown, October
14, 1573, about eleven in the morning, and see
ing Mr. Fitzgerald, lieutenant of the pensioners.
Sir William Winter, and Mr. Hawkins, officers
of the queen's navy, riding through the Strand,
with their servants on foot, came up to them,
and suddenly struck Hawkins with a dagger
through the right arm into the body, about the
arm hole, and immediately ran into the Bell Inn,
where he was taken, and, upon examination,
being asked whether he knew Mr, Hawkins, he
answered he took him for Mr. Hatton, captain
of the guards, and one of the privy chamber,
whom he was moved to kiU by the Spirit of
God, by which he should do God and his coun
try acceptable service, because he was an ene
my of God's Word, and a maintainor of papistry.
In which opinion he persevered, without any
signs of repentance, tiU, for fear of being burned
for heresy, he recanted before Dr. Sandys, bish
op of London, and the rest of the commission
ers. The queen asked her two chief-justices
-and attorney-general what corporeal punish
ment the villain might undergo for his offence ;
it was proposed to put him to death as a felon,
because a premeditated attempt with an inten
tion of killing had been so punished by King
Edward II,, though the party wounded did not
die ; but the judges did not apprehend this to
be law. It was then moved that the queen, by
virtue other prerogative, should put him to death
by martial law ; and, accordingly, a warrant was
made out under the great seal for his execution,
though the fact was committed in time of peace.
This made some of the council hesitate, appre
hending it might prove a very bad precedent.
At length the poor creature put an end to the
¦dispute himself, for on the 10th of November,
in the afternoon, he kiUed his keeper Longworth
with one blow, striking him with a billet on the
hinder part of the head, as he was looking upon
a book in the prison window of the Tower ; for
this crime he was next day indicted and arraign
ed at the King's Bench, where he confessed the
fact, saying that Longworth, in his imagination,
•was Hatton : there he received judgment for
murder, and the next day, November 12, had
his right hand flrst cut off at the place in the
Strand where he struck Hawkins, and was then
immediately hanged on a gibbet erected purpose
ly between eight and nine of the clock in the
morning, and continued hanging there for three
days. The poor man talked very wUdly, and
was by fits downright mad, so that if he had
been shut up in Bedlam after his first attempt,
as he ought to have been, all farther mischief
had been prevented.* However, it was very
tinreasonable lo lay this to the charge of the
.Puritans, and to take occasion from hence to
spread a general persecution over the whole
kingdom ; but the queen was for laying hold of
all opportunities to suppress a number of con
scientious men whom, she would often say, she
Aated more than the papists.!
The commissioners, being thus pushed for
ward from above, sent letters to the bishops,
exhorting them to command their archdeacons,
* MS., p. 870.

! Life of Parker, p. 454.

and other ecclesiastical officers, to give it in
charge to their clergy-and questmen to present
the names and surnames of all Nonconformists
in their several parishes, before the first week
in Lent.* A letter of this sort was sent, among
others, by the old Bishop of Norwich to his
-chancellor, dated from Ludham, January 30,
1573. This was very unacceptable work to a
man who was dropping into his grave ;! but he
gave orders as he was commanded ; and many
ministers of his diocess being returned uncon
formable, were suspended from reading pom-
mon prayer and administering the sacraments,
but allowed still to catechise youth ;! several
of whom offered to preach to some congrega
tions- as the bishops should appoint, of which
his lordshjp wrote to the archbishop, but his
grace refused to set them on work, and continue
their parts in t"he public exercises or prophesy
ings, ibr which the bishop was severely repri
manded, and threatened by the commissioners
with the queen's high displeasure ; whereupon
he allowed his chancellor to silence them total
ly, though it was against his judgment ; for, in
his letter to a gentleman on this occasion, he
writes : " — I was obhged to restrain them, un
less I would wUlingly procure my own danger.
Therefore, let not this matter seem straqge to
you, for the matter was of importance, and
touched me so near, that I could do no less if I
would avoid extreme danger."^ But, after all,
his lordship being suspected of remissness, Par
ker directed a special commis,«ion to commis
saries of his own appointing, to visit his diocess
parochially ; whieh they did, and reported that
some ministers were absent, and so pould not
be examined ; other ehurphes had no surplices,
but the ministers said they would wear them
when provided ; but that there were about three
hundred Nonconformists whom they had sus
pended, one of whom, as the good old bishop
wrote, was godly and learned, and had done
much good, II
The heads of the Puritans, being debarred
the liberty of preaching and printing, challenged
their adversaries to a public disputation ; this
had been allowed the Protestants in Queen Ma
ry's reign, and the papists at the accession of
Queen Elizabeth ; but the queen and council
would not now admit that what was establish
ed by law should be exposed to question, and
referred to the hazard of a dispute. Instead,
therefore, of a conference, they took a shorter
way, by summoning the disputants before the
ecclesiastical commission, to answer to sundry
articles exhibited against them, and, among oth
ers, to this. Whether the Common Prayer Book
is every part of it grounded upon Holy Scrip
ture? an honour hardly to be allowed to any
human composure ; and for not answering tothe
satisfaction of the commissioners, Mr. 'Wyburn,
Johnson, Brown, Field, Wilcox, Sparrow, and
King were deprived, and the last four commit
ted to Newgate,! from whence two of them had
been but lately released. They were told, far-

* Strype's Annals, vol. ii., p. 261.
! Life of Parker p. 159, 246, 251, 252, 449.
1 Strype's Annals, vol. u., p. 261, 262. Life of Par
ker p- 336.
^ Life of Parker p. 246, 259, 449, 451, 452,479,
Strype's Annals, vol. u., p. 109, 261-263, 343.
II Life of Parker, p. 336. IT Ibid., P- -413.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

129

Uher, that if they did not comply in a short time,
they should be banished, though there was no
law for inflicting such punishment.
Mr. Cartwright was summoned among the
rest, but wisely got out of the way, upon which
the commissioners issued out the following or
der : " To all mayors, bailiffs, sheriffs, consta-
.bles, headboroughs, and all others the queen's
officers, to be aiding and assisting to the bearer
[their messenger] with the best means they can
-devise, to apprehend one Thomas Cartwright,
-Student in divinity, wheresoever he be within
the realm, and to bring him up to London with
a sufficient guard, to appear before us, her maj
esty's commissioners in causes ecclesiastical,
for his misdemeanors in matters of religion:*
December 15lh, 1.573. Signed by John RiverS,
mayor; Edwin, bishop of London ; Alex, Now-
-ell, dean of St. Paul's ; Gabriel Goodman, dean
,of Westminster ; together with the attorney-
general, recorder, master of the rolls, and mas
ter of the requests." But Mr. Cartwright lay
concealed among his friends liU an opportunity
offered of leaving the kingdom.
The Reverend Mr. Deering, reader of St.
Paul's, was also suspended for some trifling
words spoken against the hierarchy in conver
sation ; and in order to his restoration, was obli
ged to subscribe four articles, viz., to the su
premacy ; to the thirty-nine articles ; to the
Book of Common Prayer ; and that the Word
and sacraments are rightly administered in the
Church of England ; which he did, with some
few exceptions. The commissioners then ex
amined him upon fifteen or twenty articles more,
of which these were some :
" Whether we be tied by God's Word to the
<order and use of the apostles, and of the primi
tive Church, in all things 1 Whether nothing
may be in the Church concerning ceremonies or
regimen but only that which Christ himself has
¦commanded in his word ] Whether every par
ticular parish church, of necessity and by order
of God's Word, Ought to have their pastors, el
ders, and deacons chosen by the people, and they
only to have the whole government of the Church
in ecclesiastical matters 1 "Whether there should
be an equality among the ministers of this realm,
-as well concerning government and disciphne
as the ministration of the Word and sacraments 1
Whether the patrimony of the Church, as glebe-
lands and tithes, &c., ought to be taken from
themi Whether the present ministers of the
Church of England are true ministers, and their
administrations effectual 1 Whether it be more
agreeable to God's Word, and more for the profit
of the Church, to use a form of common prayer ;
or that every minister pray publicly, as his own
spirit shall direct him 1 Whether the children
of papists ought to be rebaptized 1 Whether an
ecclesiastical person may have more livings
than one ! Whether a minister of Christ may
exercise a oivU functionl"!
The rest of the articles, making in all above
twenty, were about the obligation of the judi
cial law of Moses, and the power of the civil
magistrate in matters -of religion. To aU which
Mr. Deering gave wise and modest answers,
.yielding as much as his principles and the na
ture of things would admit : but being caUed,

* Strype's Annals, vol. h., p. 282.
! Pierce's Vindication, p. 80, 81.
Vol. I.— R

as it wore, before an inquisition, as he thought
himself not bound to be his own accuser, so he
prayed their honours that what he had said
might not be interpreted to his preJL,iice ; yet
the commissioners ungenerously look advantage
of his answers, and deprived him of his lecture.
Mr. Deering appealed from the commission
ers to the council, who were pleased to restore
him, which galled the archbishop, as appears by
his letter to one of the commissioners, dated
July Bth, 1573, in which are these words : "We
have sent you certain articles taken out of
Cartwright's book, by the counoil propounded
to Mr. Deering, with his answers to the same ;
and also a popy of the councU's letter to Mr.
Deering, to restore him to his former reading
and preaching, notwithstanding our advices
never required thereunto. These proceedings
puff them up with pride, make the people hate
us, and magnify them with great triumphing,
that her majesty and her privy councU have
good Uking of this new building ; but we are
persuaded that her majesty has no liking there
of, howsoever the matter be favoured by others."
Mr. Deering was a learned, pious, and peace
able Nonconformist ; his printed sermons are
polite and nervous. In his letter to the Lord-
treasurer Burleigh, on this occasion, he offered
to show, before any body of learned men, the
difference between the bishops of the primitive
Church and those of the present Church of
England, in the foUowing particulars : Bishops
and ministers then were in one degree ; now
they are divers. There were then many bish
ops in one town ; now there is but one in a
whole country. No bishop's authority was more
than in one city, but now it is in many shires.
Bishops then used no bodily punishments ; now
they imprison, fine, &c. The primitive bishops
could not excommunicate or absolve merely by
their own authority; now they may. Then,
without consent of presbyters, they could make
no ministers ; now they do. They could confirm
no children in other parishes ; they do now in
manyshires. Theyhad then but one living; now
they have divers. They had neither officials,
commissaries, nor chancellors. They dealt in
no civil government by any established author
ity.* They had no right to alienate any par
sonage, or let it in lease. Then they had a
church where they served the Cure, as those
we call parish priests, though they were metro
politans or archbishops ; so that Ambrose, St.
Austin, and others, who lived as late as the
fourth or fifth century, and were called bishops,
had very little agreement with ours. But for
this our archbishop never left him tUl he was
silenced again and deprived.
On the 29th of January, 1573, the Reverend
Mr. Arthur Wake, parson of Great- Willing,
value ilOO a year; Eusebius Paget, parson ot
Owld, £100 a year; Thurston Mosely, parson
of Hardingston, £40 a year ; George Gilderd,
parson of Collingtrowge, and WUIiam Dawson,
parson of Weston-Favel, one hundred marks
(all in the diocess of Peterborough, of which Dr.
Scambler was Bishop, and James ElUs, LL.D.,
chancellor), were first suspended for three
weeks, and then deprived of their livings. They
were all preachers ; four of them were licensed
by the university as learned and religious di-

* CoUyer's Church History, p. 543.

130

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

vines, and three of them had been moderators
in the exercises. The reasons of their depri
vation were not for errors in doctrine or de.-
pravity of life, but for not subscribing two forms
of the commissioners' devising, one called /or-
ina promissionis, the other forma oljuraJionis.
In the forma promissionis they swear and sub
scribe " to use the service and Common Prayer
Book, and the public form of administration of
sacraments, and no other ; that they will serve
in their cures according to the rites, orders.
forms, and oei-emonies prescribed ; and that
they will not hereafter preach or speak any
thing tending to the derogation of the said hook,
or any part thereof, remaining authorized by
the laws and statutes of this realm." In the
fmma oljurationis they subscribe and' protest
upon oath " that the book of consecration of
archbishops and bishops, and of the ordering of
deacons, set forth in the time of King Edward
VL, and confirmed by authority of Parliament,
doth contain in it aU things necessary for such
consecration and ordering, having in it nothing
that is either superstitious or ungodly, accord
ing to their judgment ; and, therefbre, that they
which be consecrated and ordered according to
the same book be duly, orderly, and lawfully
ordained and consecrated, and that they do ac
knowledge their duty and obedience to their or
dinary and diocesan as to a lawful magistrate
under the queen's majesty, so set forth as the
laws and statutes do )-equire ; which obedience
they do promise, according as the laws shall
bind them to perform. In testimony whereof
they do hereunto subscribe their names,"*
¦The ministers offered to use the Book of
Common Prayer, and no other, and not to
preach against the same before the meeting of
the next Parliament ; but apprehending the
oath and subscription to be contrary to the laws
of God and the realm, they appealed to the
Archbishop of Canterbury, who denied their
appeal.! Hereupon they presented a supplica
tion to the queen, and another to the Parlia
ment, but could, not be heard, though their case
was most compassionate, for they had wives
and large families of children, which were now
reduced to poverty and want, so that (as they
say in their supplication), if God in his provi
dence does not help, they must beg.
In the room of the deprived ministers, cer
tain outlandish men succeeded who could hardly
read so as to be understood ; the people were
left untaught ; instead of having two sermons
every Lord's Day, there was now but one in a
quarter of a year, and for the most part not that.
"The parishioners signed petitions to the bishop
for their former preachers, but to no purpose ;
they must swear and subscribe, or be buried in
silence. On the 20th of September, 1573, the Rev. Mr.
Robert Johnson, already mentioned, some time
domestic chaplain to the Lord-keeper Bacon, now
parson of St. Clement's, near Temple Bar, was
tried at Westminster Hall for Nonconformity ;!
it was aUeged against him that he married with
out the ring, and that he had baptized without
the cross. Mr. PierceiJ says he was also ac
cused of a misdemeanor, because, when once he
Was administering the sacrament, the wine fall-

* MS,, p, 198.
1 MS., p. 199.

! MS., p. 202.
^ Vhidirat., p. 83.

ing short, he sent for more, but did not conse
crate it afresh, accounting the former consecra
tion sufficient for what was to be applied to the
same use; "nut nothing of this kind appears in
his two indictments which are now before me,
with the names of all the witnesses ; but for the
other offences, viz., for omitting these words in
the office of baptism, " I receive this child into
the congregation of Christ's flock, and do sign
him with the sign of the cross, in token," &c,,
and for omitting these words in the marrying of
Leonard Morris and .4gnes Miles, " With this
ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship,
and with all my worldly goods I thee endow, in
the name of the F-ather," &c,, and for refusing
to subscribe, he was shut up in close prison for
seven weeks, till he died in great poverty and
want. The forms of subscription varied in the sev
eral diocesses, though the usual Subscription-
and protestation for such clergymen as were
cited before the commissioners for Nonconform
ity* was this : " I promise unfeignedly by these
presents, and subscribe with my hand, that I
will teach the Word of God soberly, sincerely,
and truly, according to the doctrine established
by law, without moving unnecessary conten
tions ; and that I will never suffer any person to
use my license of preaching, by rasing out the
name or abusing the seal ; and that I will de
liver up my license, being so required by that
authority from whence I had it.
" I acknowledge the book of articles agreed
on in the synod of 1563, and confirmed by the-
queen, to be sound and agreeable to the Word
of God. That the queen's majesty is supreme
governor of the Church of England next under
Christ, as well in ecclesiastical as in civil caus
es. That in the Book of Ommon Prayer there
is nothing evil, or repugnant to the Word of
God, and that it may be well used in this our
Christian Church of England. That as the pub
lic preaching of the Word in the Church of Eng
land is sound and sincere, so the public order of
administration of sacraments is consonant to
the Word of God. And whereas I have in pub
lic prayer and administration of sacraments
neglected and omitted the order by public au
thority set down, following my own fancy in al
tering, adding, or omitting of the same, not using
such rites as by law and order are appointed, I
acknowledge ray fault therein, and am sorry for
it, and humbly pray pardon for that disorder
And here I do submit myself to the order and
rites set down ; and I do promise that I vvilt
from henceforth, in public prayer and adminis
tration of the sacraments, use and observe the
same. The which I do presentiy and willingly
testify with the subscription of mine ovifn hand."
But this not reaching the laity, many of whom
deserted their own parish churches and went
to hear the Nonconformists, the commissioners
framed the following subscription for such of
them as should be presented as defaulters :
"I acknowledge the queen's majesty to be
chief governor of the Church of England under
Christ. That in the Book of Common Prayer
there is nothing repugnant to the Word of God.
That as the public preaching in this Church of
England- is sound, so the public administration
of the sacraments is Consonant to the 'Word of
* MS., p. 200.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

131

God. And whereas I have absented myself
troin my parish church, and have refused to join
with the congregation in public prayer, and in
receiving the sacrament, according to the pub
lic order set down, and my duty in that behalf,
I am right sorry for it, and pray that this my
fault may be pardoned ; and do promise that
from henceforth I will frequent my parish
church, and join with the congregation there,
as well in prayer as in the administration of the
sacraments, according to such order as by pub
lic authority is set down and established ; and
to witness this my promise, I do hereunto wUl
ingly subscribe my name."*
The officers of the spiritual courts planted their
spies in all suspected parishes to make obser
vation of those who came not to church, and
caused them to be summoned into the commons,
where they were punished at pleasure. The
keepers were charged to take notice of such as
came to visit the prisoners or bring them relief;
and, upon notice given, spies were set upon
them to bring them into trouble. Complaints
have been made of their rude language to the
bishops and the rest of the commissioners ; and
it is possible that their lordly behaviour and ar
bitrary proceedings might sometimes make their
passions overflow. " Oppression will make a
wise man mad.'" But I have the examinations
of several before me, in which nothing of this
kind appears. On the other hand, it is certain
the conduct of the commissioners was high and
imperious ; their under officers were ravenous,
and greedy of gain ; the fees of the court were
exorbitant,! so that if an honest Puritan fell
into their hands, he was sure to be half ruined
before he got out, though he was cleared of the
accusation.!

* MS., p. 201. ! MS., p. 176.
! The commissioners treated those that came be
fore them neither like men nor Christians, as will ap
pear, among many others, by the following examina
tion of Mr. White, a substantial citizen of London,
January 18, 1573, who had been fined, and tossed
from one prison to another, contrary to law and jus
tice, only for not frequenting his parish church. His
examiners were, the lord-chief-justice, the master of
the rolls, the master of the requests, Mr. Gerard, the
dean of Westminster the sheriff of London, and the
clerk of the peace. After sundry others had been de
spatched, Mr White was brought before them, whom
his lordship accosted after tliis manner :
L. C.J. Who is this?
White. White, an't please your honour
L. C. J. White, as black as the devU.
White. Not so, my lord ; one of God's children,
L. C. J. Why will you not come to your parish
church? White. My lord, I did use to frequent my parish
church before my troubles, anri procured several godly
men to preach there, as weU as in other places of
preaching and prayer ; and since my troubles 1 have
not frequented any private assemblies, but, as I have
had leave and liberty, have gone to my parish church ;
and therefore those that presented me, have done it
out of malice; for if any of these things can be pro
ved against me simply, or that 1 hold all things in com
mon, your lordship may dismiss me from hence to the
gallows. _
Mr Ger You have not usually frequented your
own parish church
White. 1 aUow I have more used other places,
where 1 was better edified.
Mr Ger. Then your presentment is in part true ?
White. Not, an't please you, for 1 am presented for
not commg at all to my parish church.

Notwithstanding the dangers already men
tioned, " people resorted to the suffering Puri-

Mr. Ger. Will you, then, come to prayers when
there is no sonnon ?
White. I would avoid those things that are an of
fence to me and others, and disturb the peace of the
Church ; however, 1 crave the hberty of a subject,
and if 1 do not publicly frequent both preaching, pray
er, and the sacraments, deal with me accordingly.
Dean of West. What fault find you in the common
prayer !
'White. Let them answer to whom it appertains ;
for being in prison almost a year about these matters,
1 was, upon a statute relating to that book, indicted,
and before 1 came to liberty almost outlawed, as your
worship, Mr. Gerard, knows.
Mast. Req. What Scripture have you to ground
your conscience against these garments?
White. The whole Scriptures are for destroying
idolatry, and everything that belongs to it.
Mast. Req. These things never served to idolatry.
White. Shough ! they are the same which hereto
fore were used to that purpose.
Mast. Req. Where is the place wherethese are for
bidden ?
White. In Deuteronomy, and other places, the Is
raelites are commanded, not only lo destroy the altars,
groves, and images, with all thereto belonging, but
also to abolish the very names ; and God by Isaiah
commandeth not to pollute ourselves with the gar
ments of the image, but to cast it away as a menstru-
ous clout.
Mast, RoUs. These are no part of idolatry, but are
commanded by the prince for civil order ; and if you
will not be ordered, you show yourself disobedient to
the laws.
White. I would not willingly disobey any law, only
I would avoid those things that are not warranted by
the Word of God.
Mast. Req. These things are commanded by act of
Parliament, and in disobeying the laws of your coun
try you disobey God.
White. 1 do it not of contempt, but of conscience ;
in all other things 1 am an obedient subject.
L. C. J. Thou art a contemptuous fellow, and wUt
obey no laws.
'White. Not so, my lord : I do and will obey laws ;
and therefore refusing but a ceremony out of con
science, and not refusing the penalty for the same, I
rest still a true subject.
L. C. J. The queen's majesty was overseen not to
make you of her council, to make laws and orders for
religion. White. Not so, my lord ; I am to obey laws war
ranted by God's Word.
L. C. J. Do the queen's laws command anything
against God's Word ?
White. I do not so say, my lord.
L. C. J. Yes, marry do you, and there I will hold
you. White. Only God and his laws are absolutely per
fect ; all men and their laws may err
L. C. J. This is one of Shaw's darlings ; I tell thee
what, I will not say anything of affection, for I know
thee not, saving by this occasion ; thou art the wick
edest and most contemptuous person that has come
before me since 1 sat in this commission.
White. Not so, my lord; my conscience witnesseth
otherwise. Mast. Req. 'What if the queen should command to
wear a gray frieze gown, would you come to church
then ?
White. That were more tolerable than that God's
ministers should wear the habit of his enemies.
L: C. J. How if she should command to wear a
fool's coat and a cock's comb ?
White. That were very unseemly, my lord, for
God's ministers.
Dean of West. You will not, then, be obedient to
the queen's commands ?
¦White. I would only avoid those things that have

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

132
tans in prison, as in popery they were wont to
run on pilgrimage (they are the Bishop of Lon-
no warrant in the Word of God, that are neither de
cent nor edifying, but flatiy the contrary, and are con
demned by the foreign Reformed Churches.
L. C. J. You would have no laws.
White. If there were no laws, I would live a Chris
tian and do no wrong ; if I received any, so it were.
L. C. J. Thou art a rebel.
¦White. Not so, my lord : a true subject.
L. C. J. Yea, I swear by God, thou art a very reb
el ; for thou wouldst draw thy sword, and hft up thy
hand against thy prince, if time served.
White. My lord, I thank God my heart standeth
right towards God and my prince ; and God wUl not
condemn, though your honour hath so judged.
L. C. J. Take him away.
White. I would speak a word which I am sure will
offend, and yet I must speak it ; 1 heard the name of
God taken in vain ; if I had done it, it had been a
.greater offence than that which 1 stand here for.
Mr. Ger. White, White, you don't behave yourself
well. White. I pray your worship show me wherein, and
1 will beg pardon and amend it.
L. C. J. 1 may swear in a matter Of charity.
"White. There is no such occasion ; but because it
is bruited that at my last being before you I denied
the supremacy of my prince, I desire your honours
and worships, with -all that be present, to bear wit
ness that I acknowledge her majesty the chief gov
ernor, next under Christ, over all' persons and causes
within her dominions, and to this I will subscribe. 1
acknowledge the book of articles, and the Book of
Common Prayer, as far as they agree with the Word
of God. 1 acknowledge the substance of the doctrine
and sacraments of the Church to ,be sound and sin
cere ; and so I do of rites and orders, as far as they
agree with tbe Word of God.
Dean of West. You will not, then, allow that all
things in the Book of Common Prayer are taken out
rof the Word of God ?
White. Though they should be so, yet, being done
-by man, I cannot give them the same warrant as to
the writings of the Holy Ghost.
L. C. J. Take him away.
White. I would to the Lord Jesus that my two
years' imprisonment might be a means of ha-ving these
matters fairly decided by the Word of God, and the
judgment, of other Reformed Churches.
L. C. J. You shall be committed, I warrant you.
White. Pray, my lord, let me have justice ; I am
unjustly committed; I deshe a copy of my present
ment. L. C. J. You shall have your head from your shoul
ders ; have him to the Gatehouse.
¦White. I pray you to commit me to some prison in
.London, that I may be near my house.
L. C. J. No, sir, you shall go thither.
White. I have paid fines and fees in other prisons ;
send me not where I shall pay them over again.
L. C. J. Yes, marry shall you: this is your glory.
White. I desire no such glory.
L. C. J. It will cost you twenty pounds, I warrant
y'-'^. before you come out.
'While. God'.s will be done.
These severities against zealous Protestants of pi
ous and sober lives raised the compassion of the
common people, and brought them o-i'er to their inter
ests. " It was a great grief to the archbishop,".says
Mr. Strype, " and to other good bishops, to see per
sons going off from the first establishment of the
Protestant religion among us, making as if the ser-
-vice-hook was unlawful, and the ecclesiastical state
anti-Christian ; and labouring to set up another gov
ernment and discipline—" But who drove them to
these extremities ? Why were not a few amendments
in the liturgy yielded to at first, whereby conscien
tious men might have been made easy; or liberty
given them to worship God in their own way ?

don's words). Some aldermen and several
wealthy citizens gave them great and stout
countenances, and persuaded others to do the
like." Separate communions were established, where
the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was ad
ministered privately, after the manner of the
foreign Reformed Churches ; and those who
joined with them, according to Archbishop Par
ker, signed the following protestation :
" Being thoroughly persuaded in my con
science, by the working and by the Word of the
Almighty, that these relics Of antichrist are
abominable before the Lord our God ; and, also,
for that by the power, mercy, strength, and
goodness of the Lord our God only, I am esca
ped from the fillhiness and pollution of these de
testable tradhions, through the knowledge of
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ; and, last of
all, inasmuch as by the working also of the Lord
Jesus his Holy Spirit, I have joined in prayer
and hearing God's Word with those that have
not yielded to this idolatrous trash, notwith
standing the danger for not coming to my par
ish church, &c. Therefore I come not back
again to the preaching of them that have re
ceived the marks of the Romish beast.
" Because of God's commandment to go for
ward to perfection. — Heb., vi., 1 ; 2 Cor., vii., 1 ;
Psalm Ixxxiv., 1 ; Ephes., iv., 15. Also to avoid
them. — Rom,, xvi., 17; Ephes., v., H; 1 Thess.,
v., 22.
" Beeause they are an abomination before the
Lord our God. — Deut., xxvii., 25, 26, and xiii.,
17 ; Ezek:, xiv., fi.
" I wiU not beautify with my presenee- those
filthy -rags, which bring the heavenly Word of
the Eternal our Lord God into bondage, subjec
tion, and slavery.
" Because I would not communicate with
other men's sins. — John, ii., 9-11 ; 1 Cor., vi.j
17. Touch no unclean thing, &c. — Sirach,
xhi., 1.
" They give offence both to preacher and
hearers. — Rom., xvi., 17; Luke, xvu., 1.
" They glad and strengthen the papists in
their errors, and grieve the godly. — Ezek., xiii.,
21, 22. [Note this 21st verse.]
" They do persecute our Saviour Jesus Christ
in his members. — Apts, ix., 4, 5 ; 2 Cor., i., 5.
Also they reject and despise our Lord and Sav
iour Jesus Christ. — Luke, x., 16. Moreover,
those labourers who, at the prayer of the faith
ful, the Lord hath sent forth into his harvest,
they refuse, and also reject.;— Matt., ix., 38.
" These popish garments are now become
very idols indeed, because they are exalted
above the Word of the Almighty.
" I come not to them because they should be
ashamed, and so leave their idolatrous gar
ments, &c.— 2 Thess., iii,, 14. If any man obey
not our sayings, note him.
" Moreover, I have now joined myself to the
Church of Christ, wherein I have yielded my
self subject to the disciphne of God's Word, as
I promised at my baptism, which, if I should
now again forsake, and join myself wilh their
traditions, I should forsake the union wherein I
am knit to the body of Christ, and join myself
to the discipline of antichrist ; for in the Church
of the traditionaries there is no other discipline
than that which has been maintained by the an

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

133

ti-Christian Pope of Rome, whereby the Church
of God has always been afl3licted, and is until
this day, for the which cause I refuse them.
" God give us grace still to strive in suffering
under the cross, that the blessed Word of our God
may only rule and have the highest place, to
cast down strongholds, to destroy or overthrow
policy or imaginations, and every high thing
that is exalted against the knowledge of God,
and to bring into captivity or subjection every
thought to the obedience of Christ, — 2 Cor,, x,,,
4, 6, That the Name and Word of the Eternal
our Lord God may be exalted, and magnified
above all things. — Psalm viii., 2. Finis."*
To this protestation the congregation did
severally swear, and then resolved the com
munion for the ratification of their assent, if
we may believe the relation of Archbishop Par
ker, who wrote this last paragraph with his
own hand ; though his grace had not always the
best information, nor was sufficiently careful to
distinguish between subscribing and swearing.
Sundry Nonconformists, who were wiUing lo
be at ease, and avoid the hazard of persecution,
took shelter in the French and Dutch churches,
and joined themselves to their communion :
there were not many of this sort, because they
understood not their language. But the queen
and council had their eye upon them, and re
solved to drive them from this shelter ; for this
purpose a letter was written from the council-
board to the ministers and elders of the Dutch
Church in London, bearing date April, 1573, in
which they say " that they were not ignOranl,
that from the beginning of the Christian reli
gion various churches had various and divers
rites and ceremonies ; that in their service and
devotions some stood, some kneeled, and others
lay prostrate, and yet the piety and religion was
the same, if they directed their prayers to the
true God, without impiety and superstition.
They added, farther, that they contemned not
their rites ; nay, that they approved their cere
monies as fit and convenient ibr them, and that
state whence they sprang. They expected,
therefore, that their congregation should not
despise the customs of the English Church, nor
do anything that might create a suspicion of
disturbing its peace ; and, in particular, that
they should not receive into their communion
any of this realm that offered to join with them,
and leave the customs and practice of their na
tive country, lest the queen should be moved to
banish them out of the kingdom."!
Endeavours had been used to bring these
churches under the jurisdiction or superintend
ence of the bishop of the diocess for the time
being ; hut they pleaded their charter, and that
Grindal, while Bishop of London, was their su
perintendent only by their own consent ; how
ever, a quarrel happening some tune after in
the Dutch Church at Norwich, the queen's com
missioners interposed ; and because the elders
refused to own their jurisdiction, they banished
aU their three ministers ; which struck such a
terror into those of London, that when they re
ceived the council's letter they Vere perfectly
submissive, and after returning thanks for their
own hberties, they promised to expel all such
out of their church, and for the future not to
receive any English who from such principles
* Life of Parker, p. 435. ! Ibid., p. 364.

should separate themselves from the customs
of their own country.*
Gualter, Bullinger, and other foreign divines,
again this year addressed the bishops their por-
respondents for moderation, but nothing pould
be obtained ; only Parkhurst, bishop of Norwich,
lamented the case, and wished to God that all
the English people would follow the Church of
Zurich, as the most absolute pattern. "The
papists," says he, " lift up their Crests, while
Protestants walk about the streets dejected and
sorrowful ; for at this time there are not a ifew
preachers that have laid down their cures of souls,
and left them to fools and idiots, and that for
this reason, because they would not use the
linen garment called a surplice. New and se
vere edicts are lately published here against
such as refuse to observe our ceremonies : pray
God give a good issue, and have mercy upon all
the churches of Christ."
The prophesyings of the clergy, begun in the
year 1571, had by this time [1574] spread into
the diocesses of York, Chester, Durham, and
Ely ; the Bishop of London set them up in sev
eral parts of his diocess, as did most of the
other bishops. The clergy were divided into
classes, or associations, under a moderator ap
pointed by the bishop ; their meetings were
once a fortnight ; the people were present at
the sermon ; and after they were dismissed,
the members of the association, whose names
were subscribed in a book, censured the per
formance. These exercises were of great ser
vice to expose the errors of popery, and spread
the knowledge of the Scriptures among the
people. But the queen was told by the archbishop
that they were no better than seminaries of
Puritanism ;! that the more averse the people
were to popery, the more they were in danger
of nonconformity ; that these exercises tended
to popularity, and made the people so inquisitive
that they would not submit to the orders of theh
superiors, as they ought. It was said farther,
that some of the ministers disused the habits,
and discoursed on church disciphne ; and that
others were too forward to show their abilities,
to the discouragement of honest men of lower
capacities ; and that all this was notorious in
the diocess of Norwich. Hereupon the queen-
gave the archbishop private orders to put them.
down everywhere, and to begin with Norwich ;
his grace, accordingly, wrote to Matchet, one
of the chaplains in that diocess, requiring him:
to repair to his ordinary, Euid show him how the
queen had wUled him to suppress those vain
prophesyings ; and that thereupon he should re
quire the said ordinary, in her majesty's name,
immediately to discharge them from any farther
such doings.
This was very unacceptable news to the good
old bishop, who, taking hold of the word vain,
wrote to the archbishop, desiring to be resolved
whether he meant thereby the abuse, or some
vain speeches used in some of these conferen
ces ; or, in general, the whole order of those ex
ercises ; of which he freely declared his own
approbation, saying "that they had, and still
did bring, singular benefit to the Church of
God, as well in the clergy as in the laity, and

* Strype's Ann., vol. ii., p. 284.
! Life of Parker, p. 461.

134

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

were right necessary exercises to be continued,
so the same were not abused, as, indeed, they
had not been, unless in one or two places at
the most ; whereof after he had knowledge he
wrote an earnest letter to his chancellor, that
such persons as were over-busy speakers should
be put to silence, unless they would subscribe
to the articles of conformity in religion, or else
promise not to intermeddle with any matter es
tablished and commanded by her majesty ;
whiph was performed appordingly, sinoe which
time he had not heard but aU things had suc
ceeded quietly without offence to any."
The archbishop was vexed at this letter, and
wrote back to his chaplain " that it was one of
his old griefs, that this bishop had shown his
letter to his friends, who had eluded its true
meaning, by standing upon the word vain. It
is pity, says he, that we should show any vani
ty in our obedience." In the mean time, the
Bishop of Norwich applied to the privy council,
who knew nothing of this affair ; but were sur
prised at the archbishop's order, and gave his
lordship instruction to uphold the prophesyings.
Their letter was as follows :
" Salutem in Christo. Whereas, we under
stand that there are certain good exercises of
prophesyings and expounding of Scriptures in
Norfolk, as, namely, at Holt-town and other pla
ces, whereby both speakers and hearers do profit
much in the knowledge of the Word of God,
And whereas, some not well minded towards
true religion, and the knowledge of God, speak
evil and slanderously of these exercises, as com
monly they used to do against the sincere preach
ing of God's holy Word ; these are to require
your lordship, that so long as the truth is godly
and reverently uttered in their prophesyings,
and that no seditious, heretical, or schismatical
doctrine, tending to the disturbance of the peace
of the Church, can be proved to be taught or
maintained in the same ; that so good a help
and means to further true religion may not be
hindered and stayed, but may proceed and go
forward to God's glory, and the edifying of the
people. Thus, not doubting of your forward
ness herein, your office and calling dutifully re
quiring the same at your hands, we bid your
lordship right heartily farewell.*
" Your lordship's loving friends,
" T. Smith, Edwin, bp. London,
" Wa. Mildmay, Fean. Knollys.
" From London, this 6th of May, 1574."
The archbishop was surprised to see his or
ders countermanded by the privy council ; but
his grace took no notice of it to them, only ac
quainting the queen with it ; by whose direc
tion he wrote again to the bishop, that whereas
he understood he had received letters from the
council to continue the prophesyings, contrary
to the queen's express command, he desired to
know what warrant they had given him for their
proceedings ; upon this the Bishop of Norwich
wrote back to the Bishop of London, who was
one of those who had signed the letter, for ad
vice ; but his lordship and the councU were
afraid to meddle any farther.
Parker, being thus supported by the queen,
wrote again to Norwich, commanding the bishop
peremptorily to obey the queen's orders, upoii

» Life of Parker, p. 460, 461.

pain of her majesty's high displeasure ; and ad
vised him not to be led by fantastical folk, noi
take such young men into his counsels, who,
when they had brought him into danger, could
not bring him out of it. Of my care I have for
you and the diocess (says the archbishop) I write
thus much.*
Upon this the good old bishop submitted, and
wrote to his chancellor from Ludham, June the
7th, " Whereas, by the receipt of my Lord of
Canterbury's letter, I am commanded by him,
in the queen her majesty's name, that the proph
esyings throughout my diocess should be sup
pressed, these are therefore to will you that, as
conveniently as you may, you give notice to
every of my commissaries that they in their
several circuits may suppress the same. And
so I leave you to God." -Thus were these reli
gious exercises suppressed in one diocess, which
was but the prologue to their downfall over the
whole kingdom.
But his lordship did not long survive this dis
tinguishing mark of the archbishop's displeas
ure, for towards the latter end of the year he
departed this life, to the great loss of his dio
cess, and of the whole Church of England.
John Parkhurst, bishop of Norwich, was born
at Guildford, in Surrey, 1511, and educated in
Merton College^, Oxon. He had been domestic
chaplain to Queen Katharine Parr, tutor to Bish
op Jewel, and rector of the rich parsonage of
Cliye ; all which he forsook in the reign of Queen
Mary, and was an exile at Zurich, in Switzer
land, where he wasso delighted with the order
and discipline of that church, that he would
often wish the Church of England were model
led according to it. He was an open favourer
of the Puritans, and never entered willingly into
any methods of severity against them. "I find,"
says he, in one of his letters to Archbishop Par
ker, " that rough and severe methods do the
least good, and that the contrary has won over
divers ; and therefore I choose to go in this waiy,
rather than with others to overrule by rigour
and extremity."! He would wiUingly have al
lowed a liberty of officiating in the Church to
such as could not conform to the ceremonies,
but by command from above he was forced some
times to obey his superiors, contrary to his judg
ment. The bishop was a zealous Protestant,
and a great enemy to popery ; a learned divine,
a faithful pastor, a diligent and constant preach
er, and an example to his flock in righteousness,
in faith, in love, in peace, in word, and in purity.
He was exceeding hospitable, and kept a table
for the poor;' and was universally beloved, hon
oured, and esteemed by his whole diocess. This
character is given him, says Mr. Strype, by one
that knew him well, Thomas Becon, a native of
Norfolk, and of known eminence in those days.
He was made Bishop of Norwich, 1560, and died
of the stone this year [1574], in the sixty-third
year of his age..
Sundry well-disposed people in the parishes
of Balsham in Cambridgeshire, and of Strethall
in Essex, niet together on holydays, and at other
times, after they had done work, to read the
Scriptures, and to confirm one another in the
Christian faith and practice ; but as soon as the
commissioners were informed of these assem-
¦* Lffe of Parker, p. 462. Strype's Annals, vol ii.,
p. 323. ! Strype's Annals, voL u., p. 343.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

136

1-blies, the pareons of the parishes were sent for,
and ordered to suppress them ; though the hon
est people declared themselves conformable to
the orders of the Church, and that they met to
gether after dinner, or after supper, upon holy-
days only, for their own and their families' in
struction, for the reformation of vice, and for a
farther acquaintance with the Word of God.
The occasion of their assemblies we have in
their own words : " For that heretofore," say
they, " we have at divers times spent and con
sumed our holydays vainly, in drinking at the
alehouse, and playing at cards, tables, dice, and
other vain pastimes, not meet for us and such
¦of our calling and degree, for the which we have
been often blamed of our parson : we thought
it better to bestow the time in soberly and godly
reading the Scriptures, only for the purposes
•aforesaid, and no other. "We do not favour or
maintain any of the opinions of the Anabaptists,
Puritans, papists, or hbertines, but would be
-glad to learn our duty towards God, our prince,
and magistrates, towards our neighbours and
our famUies, in such sort as becomes good, and
faithful, and obedient subjects; and it is oui
greatest and only desire to live, follow, and per
form the same accordingly, as God shall give us
„grace." But our archbishop had rather these
poor people should be drinking and gaming at
an alehouse than engaged in a religious assem
bly not appointed by public authority.*
The Rev. Mr. Sampson, late dean of Christ
Church, Oxon, was this year struck with the
dead palsy on one side, which made him resign
his lecture in the church at Whittington Col
lege, which he had held to this time, and for
wliich he had £10 a year : it was in the gift of
the cloth-workers' company, to whom he rec
ommended Mr. Deering for his successor ; but
Deering being silenced for nonconformity, the
•archbishop utterly refused him, which Sampson
complained of in a letter to the treasurer, say
ing, " that though my Lord of Canterbury liked
not to take pains in the congregation himself,
yet should he not forbid others who were both
able and wiUing ; that he could find no fault
with Mr. Deering's doctrine or manner of life ;
and that this was no great promotion."! He
therefore humbly desired, that if the cloth-work
ers chose him, that his lordship would use his
interest with the archbishop not to refuse him ;
but his grace, was inflexible, and so the business
miscarried. This Mr. Sampson was a most exact man in
'his principles and morals ; and, having suffered
the loss of all things for a good conscience, he
look the liberty to write freely to his superiors
tipon proper occasions ; and, among others, to
Grindal, archbishop of 'York, who had been his
copipanion in exile, though now advanced to
the dignity of a lord- archbishop, Sampson, in
¦one of his letters, put him in mind of his former
low condition, and cautioned him against being
too much exalted with his high title. Grindal
told him he did not value the title of a lord, but
that his great care was to discharge his func-
'tion faithfully until tbe great day of the Lord.
rSarnpson replied, " that if he, whom worldly
policy had made a lord, kept the humUity of an
iumble brother and minister of the Gospel, he
was a phcenix; but his port, his train of waiting-

* Life of Parker, p. 473.

! Ibid, p. 478.

men in the streets, his gentlemen-ushers going
before him with bare heads, and his family fuU
of idle serving-men, looked very lordly." He
adds, " that his own and his brethren's revenues
should not be laid out in maintaining a parcel
of lazy, idle servants, but rather upon these,
who wore labourers in the harvest of the Lord
Jesus. That whereas the archbishop had called
them Puritans, it was a name unjustly imposed
on brethren with whose doctrine and life none
could find fault ; if by Puritans such were meant
as, following Novatus, dissembled themselves
to be teachers, and wished the ceremonies
might be observed, while they hated the cus
toms of the ancient Church, then might a num
ber of churchmen be caUed Puritans ; and he
prayed God to purge them and make them more
pure." And whereas the archbishop in his
letter had pitied his complaints of poverty and
lameness, he said "he complained of nothing;
if he should complain of the former, it would be
before he had need ; but when he had need he
would complain to those to whom he might
complain. Concerning his lameness, he was
so far from complaining of that, that he hunjbly
thanked God for it ; and these chains he would
choose to carry before the clogs and cares of a
bishopric."* Such was the plain dealing of this
confessor to one of the highest dignitaries in
the Church.
Parker's zeal against the Puritans betrayed
him sometimes into great inconveniences ; like
a true inquisitor, he listened to every idle story
of his scouts, and sent it presentiy to the queen
or council ; and the older he grew the more did
his jealousies prevail. In the month of June, one
of his servants acquainted him that there was a
design of the Puritans against the life of the lord-
treasurer and his own ; and that the chief con
spirator was one Undertree, encouraged by the
great Earl of Leicester : the old archbishop was
almost frighted out of his wits at the news, as
appears by the following passage in his letter
to the treasurer : " This horrible conspirapy,"
says he, " has so astonished me, that my will
and memory are quite gone ; I would I were
dead before I see with my corporeal eyes that
which is now brought to a full ripeness." He
then prays that the detector of this conspiracy
may be protected and honourably considered,
and the conspirators punished with the utmost
severity, otherwise the end would be worse than
the beginning. And, that he might not seem to
express all his concern for his own safety, he
tells the treasurer that it was for his sake and
the queen's that he was so jealous, " for he
feared that when rogues attempted to destroy
those that were so near her majesty's person,
they would at last make the same attempt upon
her too ; and that even some that lay in her bo
som [Leicester], when opportunity served, would
sting her." The archbishop sent out his scouts
to apprehend the conspirators that his steward
had named, who pretended a secret correspond
ence with Undertree ; and among others who
were taken into custody were the Rev. Mr.
Bonham, Brown, and Stonden, divines of great
name among the Puritans : Stonden had been
one of the preachers to the queen's army, when
the Earl of Warwick was sent against the
northern rebels. Many persons of honour were

* Life of Parker, p. 469.

t Ibid., p. 466.

136

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

also accused, as the Earls of Bedford, Leicester,
and others. But when Undertree came to be
e.xamined before the councU, the whole appear
ed to be a sham between Undertree and the
archbishop's steward, to disgrace the Puritans,
and pun ish them as enemies to the State as well
as the Church. So eariy w-as the vile practice
of fathering sham plots upon the Puritans be
gun, which was repeated so often in the next
age ! Undertree had forged letters in the names
of Bonham, Stonden, and others ; as appeared
to a demon^ration when they were produced
before the council, for they were all written
with one hand. When he was examined about
his accomplices he would accuse nobody, but
took the whole upon himself; so that their hon
ours wrote immediately to the archbishop to
discharge his prisoners.* But, which is a lit
tle unaccountable, neither Undertree nor the
archbishop's steward received any punishment.
His grace's reputation suffered by this plot ;
all impartial men cried out against him for
shutting up men of character and reputation in
prison upon such idle reports. The Puritans
and their friends reflected upon his honour and
honesty ; and in particular the Bishop of Lon
don and Dr. Chatterton, master of Queen's Col
lege, Cambridge, whom in his wrath he called-
a chatterer, and in his letter to Grindal, arch
bishop of York, said " that he cared not three
chips for aught that could be proved as to his
allegiance, he doing it so secretly, faithfully,
and prudently, as he did, and would do the
same again if he knew no more than he did at
that time." The Earl of Leicester could not
but resent his Ul-usage of him, which he had an
opportunity to repay had he been so minded,
the archbishop having executed an act of justice
[as he called it] upon a person in the late plot
after he had received a letter from court forbid
ding him to do it, which was not very consist
ent with his allegiance. But the archbishop
braved out his conduct against everybody, after
his own brethren the bisliops, and all the world,
had abandoned him. He told the lord-treasurer
" that he cared not for Leicester, though he
was informed he took council with the Pre
cisians to undo him ; that though he had writ
ten to the earl, and to another Puritan courtier,
it was not in way of submission, as some of
the crew reported and took it.! That the earl
had peaceably written again to him, dissembling
his malice like a right courtier ; but he, not
withstanding, knew what was purposed against
him, and for religion's sake he took it." This
was the spirit and language of our archbishop !
One of the last public acts in which his grace
was employed was visiting the diocess of Win
chester, and, in particular, the Isle of Wight, in
1575 ; and here he made use of such methods
of severity, says Mr. Strype, as made him talk
ed against aU over the country. This island
was a place of resort for foreign Protestants
and seafaring men of all countries, which occa
sioned the habits and ceremonies not to be so
strictiy observed as in other places, their trade
and commerce requiring a latitude : when the
archbishop came thither with his retinue, he
gave himself no trouble about the welfare of
the island, but turned out all those ministers
-who refused the habits, and shut up their

* Life of Parker, p. 466.

+ Ibid., p. 477.

churches. This was so great a concern to the
inhabitants that they sent up their complaints-
lo the Earl of Ijcicester, who made such a re
port to the queen of the archbishop's proceedJ
ings that her majesty immediately gave, order
that things should return to their former chan^
nel;* and when his grace came to court after
his visitation, her majesty received him coldly^,
and declared her displeasure against his unsea
sonable severities. The Bishop of Winchester
also complained that the clergy of his diocess
had been sifted in an unmerciful manner ; all-
which, instead of softening this prelate, drew
from him the following angry letter to the lord-
treasurer, wherein he complains " of the strong
interest the Puritans had at court; and of the
inconstancy of some of the bishops ; that sev-;
oral of that order lay by and did little, while
others endeavoured to undermine him. That
the queen was almost the only person that
stood firm to the Church ; but if the Precisians
had the advantage, her majesty would be un
done. That he was not so much eonpcrned for
the cap, tippet, surpliee, wafer-bread, and such
like ceremonies, as for the authority of the
laws that enjoined them. The queen, indeed,
had told him that he had the supreme govern
ment eeclesiastipal, but, upon experiment, he
found it very much hampered and embarrassed.
Before God," says he, " I fear that her high-
ness's authority is not regarded ; and if public-
laws are onee disregarded, the government must-
sink at onee."!
There was but one eorner of the British do--
minions that our arphbishop's arm pould not-
reaeh, viz., the isles of Guernsey and Jersey ;
these had been a reeeptacle- for the French ref
ugees from the Parisian massaere, and, lying
upon the coasts of France, the inhabitants were
chiefly of that nation, and were allowed the
use of the Geneva or French diseipline by the
lords of the eounpil. An order of the states or
Franee had been formerly obtained to separate
them from the jurisdiption of the Bishop of Con—
stanpe in Normandy, but no form of discipline
having been settled by law sinee the Reforma
tion, Mr. Cartwright and Mr. Snape were in
vited to assist the ministers in framing a proper
diseipline for their ehurphes ; this fell out hap
pily for Cartwright, who, being forced to aban
don his native country, made this the plaoe of
his retreat. The two divines being arrived, one
was made titular pastor of Mount Orgueil, in-
the isle of Jersey ; and the other of Castle Cor
net, in Guernsey. The representatives of the-
several ehurches being assembled at St. Pe
ter's Port, in Guernsey, they communicated to-
them a draught of discipline, which was deba
ted and accommodated to the use of those
islands, and finally settled the year following,
as appears by the title of it, which is this :
"The ecclesiastical discipline observed and
practised by the churches of Jersey and Guern
sey, after the reformation of the same, by the
ministers, elders, and deacons of the isles of
Guernsey and Jersey, Sark and Alderney, con
firmed by the authority, and in the presence, of
the governors of the same isles, in a synod
holden in Guernsey, June 28, 1576 ; and after
ward reeeived by the said ministers and elders,.

* Lifeof Parker p. 421.
t II ., Appendix, No. 99.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

137

and confirmed by the said governors in a synod
holden in Jersey the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th,
and 17th days of October, 1577." The book
consists of twenty chapters, and each chapter
of several articles, which were constantly ob
served in these islands tiU the latter end of the
reign of King James I., when the liturgy of the
Church of England supplanted it.*
Though the papists were the queen's most
dangerous enemies, her majesty had a peculiar
tenderness for them;! she frequently released
them out of prison, and connived at their reli
gious assemblies, of which there were above five
hundred in England at this time : many of the
queen's subjects resorted to the Portugal am
bassador's house in Charter House yard, where
mass was publicly celebrated ; and because the
sheriffs and recorder of London disturbed them,
they were committed to the Fleet by the queen's
express command. At the same time, they
were practising against the queen's life ; and
that their religion might not die with the prf s-
ent age, seminaries were erected and endowed,
in several parts of Europe, for the education of
English youth, and for providing a succession
of missionaries to be sent into England for the
propagation of their faith. The first Of these
was erected when the kingdom was excommu
nicated ; after which many others were found
ed, to the unspeakable prejudice of the Protest
ant religion. To set them before the reader in
one view : colleges were erected at the follow
ing places :
The 1st at Douay, 1569, by Philip, king of
Spain.
2d at Rome, 1379, by Pope Gregory XIII.
3d at Valladolid, 1589, by the King of
Spain.
4th at Seville, 1593, by the same.
5th at St. Omer's, 1596, by the same.
6th at Madrid, 1606, by Joseph Creswel,
Jesuit.
7th at Louvain, 1606, by PhUip III. of
Spain.
8th at Liege, 1616, by the archbishop of
that country.
9th at Ghent, 1624, by Philip IV. '
The popish nobUity and gentry sent over their
children to these colleges for education ;! and
it is incredible what a mass of money was col
lected in England for their maintenance, by
their provincials, sub-provincials, assistants,
agents, coadjutors, familiars, &c., out of the
estates of such Catholics as were possessed of
abbey-lands : the pope dispensing with their
holding them on these considerations. The
oath taken by every student at his admission
was this :
" Having resolved to offer myself wholly up
to Divine service, as much as I may, to fulfil the
end for which this our college was founded, I
promise and swear, in the presence of Almighty
God, that I am prepared from mine heart, with
the assistance of Divine grace, in due time to
receive holy orders, and to return into England,
to convert the souls of my countrymen and kin
dred, when and as often as it shaU seem good
to the superior of this college."
* Heylin's Aerius Redivivus, p. 276,
! Strype's Annals, p. 329, 410, 622. Lffe of Par
ker p. 352-354, Appendix, p. 47.
X Fuller b. ix., p. 92.
Vol. I.— S

The number of students educated in these
colleges may be collected from hence ; that
whereas, according to Saunders, an eminent po
pish writer,* there were but thirty old priests
remaining in England this year [1575], the two
coUeges of Douay and Rome alone, in a very
few years, sent over three hundred ; and it is
not to be doubted but there was a like proportion
from the rest.
-About this time began to appear the family
of love, which derived its pedigree from one
Henry Nicholas, a Dutchman.! By their con
fession of faith published this year it appears
that they were high enthusiasts ; that they al
legorized the doctrines of revelation, and, under
a pretence of attaining to spiritual perfection,
adopted some odd and whimsical opinions, while
they grew too lax in their morals, being in their
principles something akin to the Quietists of
the Church of Rome, and the Quakers among
ourselves. They had their private assemblies
for devotion, for which they tasted of the sever
ities of the government.
But the weight of the penal laws fell heaviest
upon some of the German .\nabaptists, who re
fused to join with the Dutch or English church
es. There were two sorts of Anabaptists that
sprung up with the Reformation in Germany ;
one was of those who differed only about the-
subject and mode of baptism, whether it should
be administered to infants, or in any other
manner than by dipping the whole body under
water But others who bore that name were
mere enthusiasts, men of fierce and barbarous
tempers, who broke out into a general revolt,,
and raised the war called the Rustic war. They
had an unintelligible way of talking of religion,,
which they usually turned into allegory; and
these being joined in the common name of An-,
abaptists, brought the others under an ill charac
ter. Twenty-seven of them were apprehended
in a private house without Aldersgate-bars, on
Easter Day, 1575, where they were assembled
for worship : of these, four recanted the follow
ing errors : (1.) That Christ took not flesh of the
substance of the Virgin. (2.) That infants-
born of faithful parents ought to be rebaptized:
(3.) That no Christian man ought to be a ma
gistrate. (4.) That it is not lawful for a Chris
tian man to take an oath. But others refusing.
to abjure, eleven of them, all Dutchmen, were
condemned in the consistory of St. Paul's to be
burned, nine of whom were banished, and two-
suffered the extremity of the fire in Smithfield,,
July 22. 1575, viz,, John Wielmacker and Hen-
drick Ter Woort. Thus the writ de hceretico-
* De Schismat. Aug., p. 305.
! This is an error : the founder of the Familists-
was David George, of Delft. He fled from Holland,,
and settled at Basil, and took the name of John of
Bridges; he affirmed that he was the true David,,
senl from God, who should restore the kingdom again
to Israel, He w,is the author of several works ; his-
chief production is entitled " The Wonder Book."
His history was written by his son-in-law, Nicholas
Blesdyke, and was published at Daventry, 1033. His
doctrines are set down in 30 articles. He died Au
gust 16, 1550. He had promised his disciples that
he should not die. or, if he did, he should rise again.
Henry Nicholas, or as he is often called. Henry
of Amsterdam, then maintained the same doctrines-
For very curious particulars respecting this debt
siou the reader is referred to Ephraim Pagitt's Here.
siography, 1046. — C.

138

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

comSurendo, which had hung up only in lerrorem
for seventeen years, was taken down, and put
in execution upon these unhappy men. 'The
Dutch congregation interceded earnestly for
their lives ; as did Mr. Fox, the martyrologist,
in an elegant Latin letter to the queen,* but she
was immovable ; so distant was her majesty
from the tender spirit of her brother, King Ed
ward.! * " To roast the living bodies of unhappy men,"
he says, "who err rather through blindness of judg
ment than perverseness of will, in fire and flames,
raging with pitch and- brimstone, is a hard-hearted
thing, and more agreeable to the practice of the Ro
manists than the custom of the Gospellers. I do
not speak these things because I am pleased with
their wickedness, or favour thus the errors of any
men-; but, seeing I myself am a man, I must favour
the life of man ; not that he should err, but that he
might repent Wherefore, if I may be so bold, 1 hum
bly beg of your royal highness, for the sake of Christ,
who was consecrated to suffer for the lives of many,
this favour at my request, which even the Divine
clemency would engage you to, that if it may be
(and what cannot your authority do in such cases?),
these unhappy men may be spared, fhere are ex
communications and imprisonments ; there are bonds ;
there is perpetual banishment; burning of the hand,
whipping, or even slavery. This one thing I most
earnestly beg, that the piles and flames of Smith-
field, so long ago extinguished by your happy gov
ernment, may not be revived. But, if 1 may not ob
tain this, I pray with the greatest earnestness, that
out of your great pity, you would grant us a month
or two, in which we may try whether the Lord will
grant that tiiey may turn from their dangerous er
rors, lest, with the destruction of their bodies, their
souls be in danger of eternal rain."
" AU his topics," says Sir James Mackintosh, re
ferring to this letter, "are not, indeed, consistent
with the true principles of religious liberty. But
they were more likely to soften the antipathy of his
contemporaries, and to win the assent of his sover
eign, than bolder propositions ; they form a wide step
towards liberty of conscience. Had the exceUent
writer possessed the power of showing mercy, and
once tasted tlie sweetness of exercising it towards
deluded fanatics, he must doubtless have been at
tracted to the practice of unbounded toleration." —
Hist, of Eng., iii., 170. Dr. Price's Hist, of Noncon
formity, vol. i., p. 295. — C.
! 1 he remarks of that valuable historian, Gerard
Brandt, on these cruel proceedings, are so just and
liberal that they deserve to be laid before the reader.
¦" This severity," says he, " which was not the first
that had been practised in England since the Ref
ormation, appeared to many Protestants, who were
still under the cross in Flanders and Brabant, both
strange and incredible. They lamented that those
who not long before had been persecuted themselves
were now harassing others for the sake of their reli
gion, and offering violence, with fire and sword, to the
consciences, of other men, though they had before
taught, and that with great truth, ' that it did not be
long to any mortal man to lord it over the conscien-
¦ces of others. That faith was the gift of God, and
-not to be implanted in the minds of men by any ex
ternal force, but by the Word of God, and iUumina-
tion of the Holy Spirit ; that heresy was not a carnal,
but spiritual crime, and to be punished by God alone ;
* that error and falsehood were not to be overcome
with violence, but truth ; that the obligation which
the children of God he under is not to put others to
death for the faith, but to die themselves in bearuig
witness to the truth. Lastly, that the shedding of
blood for the sake of religion is a mark of antichrist,
who thereby sets himself in the judgment-seat of
God, assuming to himself the dominion over con
science, which belongs to none but God only.' " See
JJrandt's History of the Reformation in the Low

A little before the burning of these heretics,
Matthew Parker, archbishop of Canterbury, da-
parted this life : he was born at Norwich, 1504,
and educated in Bene't College, Cambridge. In
the reign ofKing Edward VI.* he married, and
was, therefore, obliged to live privately under
Queen Mary. Upon Queen Elizabeth's accession,
he was advanced to the archbishopric of Can
terbury ; and how he managed in that high sta
tion may be collected from the foregoing history.
He wrote a book entitled Antiquitates i3ritan-
nicae, which shows him to have had some skill
in ecclesiastical antiquity ; but he w,as a severe
churchman, of a rough and uncourtiy temper,
and of high and arbitrary principles, both in
church and state ; a slave to the prerogative
and the supremacy, and a bitter enemy to the
Puritans, whom he persecuted to the length of
his power, and beyond the limits of the law.
His religion consisted in a servile obedience to
the queen's injunctions, and in regulating the
public service of the church ; but his grace had
too littie regard for public virtue,! his entertain
ments and feastings being chiefly on the Lord's
day : nor do we read, among, his episcopal qual
ities, of his diligent,preaching or pious example.!

Countries, quoted in Mr Lindsey's Second Address
to the Youth of the Two Universities, p. 230, &c.,
or La Roche's Abridgment of Brandt, p. 168.— Ed.
* In this reign he was initiated into the exercise
of power and measures of persecution ; , for in the
year 1551 he was put into a commission, with thirty
other persons, for correcting and punishing Anabap
tists. — British Biography, vol. iu., p. 4. — Ed.
! Life of Parker, p. 524.
X " As primate of the Church of England, he com
mitted a capital error in not availing himself of the
influence of his station to heal the divisions which
early ensued. It was in his power greatly to have
diminished, if not entirely to have prevented them.
But the rigidity of Parker's temper aggravated the
wound he should have healed, and thus entailed on
his successors the necessity of measures whose cru
elty has stamped them with indelible infamy. Mis
trusting the stability of his church, he was perpetu
ally alarmed for its safety, and unscrupulously em
ployed in its support every means which force or
fraud could supply. The least deviation from the
ordinary routine of religious services awakened hia
suspicions and fears. The simplest and most fervent
piety failed to secure his complacency, unless it were
clothed hi the habiliments which authority had sanc
tioned, and expressed itself in language borrowed
from the offices of his church. That'men were ad
vancing in conformity to God, and in benevolence
towards their species, failed to interest his mind, if
the slightest taint of Puritanism were suspected, pr
the least irregularity in religious services were known.
" Placed in a station of commanding influence, he
prostituted his power to the support of the queen's
prerogative and the maintenance of ecclesiastical
uniformity. To this he sacrificed the higher purposes
of his vocation, and set an example of servility in
the state, and of despotism in the Church, which
Whitgift, Bancroft, and Laud fatally imitated. He
had refused submission to the pope, yet he claimed
it from others, and enforced the demand with a hard-
heartedness which penury and weeping innocence
could not move. Nor can it be justiy pleaded m
his defence that his course was shaped by the com
mands of the queen and her council. In a few in
stances this might have been the case, but in gen
eral it was otherwise. He was Elizabeth's princi
pal adviser in ecclesiastical affairs. She relied on
his churchmanship, and found him ever ready to ex
ecute her severest edicts. He rarely, if ever, mani
fested sorrow when employed as the minister of her
wrath; though his joy knew no bounds when he

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

139

FuUer calls him a Parker indeed, careful to keep
the fences and shut the gates of disciplineagainst
all such night-stealers as would invade the same ;
and, indeed, this was his chief excellence. He
was a considerable benefactor to Bene't Col
lege, the place of his education, where he or
dered his MS. papers to be deposited, which
have been of considerable service to the writers
of the English Reformation.* Ho died of the
stone on the 17th of May, 1575, in the seventy-
second year of his age, and was interred in
Lambeth Chapel the 6th of June foUowing,
where his body rested till the end of the civil
wars ; when Colonel Scot, having purchased
that palace for a mansion-house, took down the
ihonuraent, and buried the bones, says Mr.
Strype,! in a stinking dunghiU, where they re
mained tiU some years after the Restoration,
when they were decently reposed near the place
where the monument had stood, which was now
again erected to his memory.!

CHAPTER VI.
FROM THE DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP PARKER TO THE
DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP GRINDAL.
Dr. Edmund Grindal, archbishop of York,
succeeded Parker in the see of Canterbury, and
was confirmed February 15, 1575-5. He was a
divine of moderate principles, and moved no
faster in courses of severity against the Puritans
than his superiors obliged him, being a friend to
their preachings and prophesyings. Sandys was
translated from London to York, and Aylmer
was advanced to the see of London. This last
was one of the exiles, and had been a favourer
of Puritanism ; for in his book against Knox,
entitled "An Harbour of Faithful Subjects," he
was sanctioned by her authority to execute the per
secuting code wliich he had mainly contributed to
form. ' On the review of his whole behaviour,' says
Mr. HaUam, 'he must be reckoned, and always has
been reckoned, the most severe disciplinarian of Eliz
abeth's first hierarchy, though more violent men
came afterward.' Yet it is due to the memory of
Parker to observe, that the errors of his administra
tion, serious and criminal as they were, sprung natu
rally out of the system he represented. The Re
formed Church of England was unsound at heart.
It had its origin in force ; it was shaped and moulded
by humari laws, and could only be maintained by the
exercise of an authority unsanctioned by the Word
of God. It was based on principles subversive of
human rights, and could not fail its supporters in
measures which reason condemns, and which revela
tion represents as destructive of those graces with
which God seeks to embellish the human soul. His
name will be handed down to the latest posterity as
a persecutor of the saints of God." — Dr. Price's Hist.
Nonconf, vol. i., p. 291-3.— C.
* It should be added, that literature was indebted
to him for editions of our best ancient historians :
Matthew of "Westminster, Matthew Paris, Thomas
Walsingham, and Asser's Life of King Alfred. It
.should also, says Mr. Granger, be remembered, to
his honour, that he was the first founder of the So
ciety of Antiquaries in England. — Ed.
! Life of Parker, p. 499.
! As a balance to this, the bodies of nineteen or
twenty Puritan divines were dug up in Westminster
Abbey, and thrown into a pit in the yard : Dr. Trap,
Mr. MarshaU, Mr Strong, &c. See, in, Strype,
wfiat a poiflbous funeral Parker had ordered for him
self.— Ed.

declaims against the wealth and splendour of
the bishops, and speaks with vehemence against
their lordly dignities and civU authority. In
the convocation of 1.562, when the question
about the habits was debated, he withdrew, and
would not be concerned in the affair ; but, upon
his advancement lo the episcopal order, he be
came a new convert, and a cruel persecutor of
the Puritans. He was a little man, of a quick
spirit, and of no extraordinary character.
The Pariiament being now sitting, a bUl was
brought into the House of Lords to mulct such
as did not come to church and receive the
sacrament, with the payment of certain sums
of money, but it was thought proper to drop it
for the present.
The convocation was busy in framing articles
touching the admitting able and fit persons to
the ministry, and establishing good order in the
Church.* Thirteen of them were published
with the queen's license, though they had not
the broad seal ; but the other two, for marrying
at aU times of the year, and for private baptism
by a lawful minister, in cases of necessity, her
majesty would not countenance. One of the
articles makes void all licenses for preaching,
dated before the 8th of February, 1575, but pro
vides that such as should be thoughtmeetfor that
office should be readmitted without difficulty or
charge. This had been practised once and
again in Parker's time, and was now renewed,
that by disqualifying the whole body of the
clergy, they might clear the Church of all the
Nonconformists at once ; and if all the bishops
had been equally severe in renewing their li
censes, the Church would have been destitute
of all preaching, for the body of the conforming
clergy were so ignorant and illiterate that many
who had cure of souls were incapable of preach
ing, or even of reading to the edification of the
hearers ; being obliged by law only to read the
service and administer the sacrament in person
once in half a year, on forfeiture of five pounds
to the poor.
The Nonconformist ministers, under the
character of curates or lecturers, supplied the
defects of these idle drones for a small recom
pense from the incumbent and the voluntary
contribution of the parish, and by their warm
and affectionate preaching gained the hearts ot
the people ; they resided upon their curacies,
and went from house to house visiting their
parishioners and instructing their children ;
they also inspected their lives and manners,
and, according to the apostolical direction, re
proved, rebuked, and exhorted them with all
long-suffering and doctrine, as long as they
could keep their licenses. Thus most of the
Puritan ministers remained as yet within the
Church, and their followers attended upon the
Word and sacraments in such places where
there were sober and orthodox preachers.
But still they continued their associations
and private assemblies for recovering the dis
cipline of the Church to a more primitive stand
ard ; this was a grievance to the queen and
court bishops, who were determined against all
innovations of this kind. Strange, that men
should confess in their public service every
first day of Lent, " that there was a godly dis
cipline in the primitive Church ; that this dis-

Strype's Life of Grmdal, p. 194.

140

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

cipline is not exercised at present in the Church
of England, but that it is much to be wished
that it were restored," and yet never attempt
to restore it, but set themselves with violence
and oppression to crush ah endeavours that
way ! For the reader wUl observe that this
was one chief occasion of the sufferings of the
Puritans in the following part of this reign.
Some of the ministers of Northampton and
Warwickshire, in one of their associated meet
ings, agreed upon certain rules of discipline in
their several parishes, but, as soon as they be
gan to practice them, the court took the alarm,
and sent letters to the new archbishop to sup
press them.* His grace accordingly sent to
the bishops of these diocesses to see things
reduced to their former channel, and, if need
were, to send for assistance from himself or
the ecplesiastieal pommissioners ; appordingly,
Mr. Paget and Mr. Oxenbridge, the two heads
of the association, were taken into custody and
sent up to London.
Some time after there was another assembly
at Mr. Knewstub's church, at Cockfield in Suf
folk, where sixty clergymen of Norfolk, Suffolk,
and Cambridgeshire met together to confer of
the Common Prayer Book, and come to some
agreement as to what might be tolerated and
what was necessary to be refused. They con
sulted also about apparel, holydays, fastings,
injunctions, &c.! From thence they adjourned
to Cambridge, at the time of the next com
mencement, and from thence to London, where
they hoped to be concealed by the general re
sort of the people to Parliament ; in these as
semblies they came to the foUowing conclu
sions, which were drawn up in an elegant Latin
style by Mr. Cartwright and Travers, and given
to the ministers for their direction in their sev
eral parishes. Concerning Ministers.
" Let no man, though he be a university
man, offer himself to the ministry ; nor let any
man take upon him an uncertain and vague
ministry, though it be offered unto him.
" But such as are called by some church, let
him impart it to the classis or conference of
which they are members, or to some greater
church assemblies ; and if the called be ap
proved, let them be commended by letters to
the bishop, that they may be ordained ministers
by him.
" Those ceremonies in the Book of Common
Prayer whieh, being taken from popery, are in
controversy, ought to be omitted, if it may be
done without danger of being put from the min
istry ; but if there be imminent danger of being
deprived, then let the matter be communicated
to the classis in which that church is, to be de
termined by them.
" If subscription to the articles and Book of
Common Prayer shall be again urged, it is
thought that the book of articles may be sub
scribed, according to the stat. 13 Eliz., that is,
' to such only as contain the sum of the Chris
tian faith and the doctrine of the sacraments.'
But neither the Common Prayer Book nor the
rest of the articles may be allowed ; no, though
a man should be deprived of his ministry for re
fusing it.

* Life of Grindal, p. 215. ! Fuller, b. ix., p. 135.

Concerning Church-wardens.
" It seems that church- wardens and coUectors-
for the poor may be thus turned into elders and
deacons. " Let the Church have warning of the time
of election, and of the ordinance of the realm, fif
teen days beforehand ; but especiaUy of Christ's
ordinance, touching appointing of watchmen and
overseers in his Church, who are to take care
that no offence or scandal arise in the Church ;
and if any such happen, that it be duly abol
ished. Of Collectors for the Poor, or Deacons.
" Touching deacons of both sorts, viz., mem
and women, the Church shall be admonished
what is required by the apostle ; and that they
are not to choose men of custom or course, or
for their riches, but for their faith, zeal, and in
tegrity ; and that the Church is to pray, in the
mean time, to be so directed that they may
choose them that are meet.
" Let the names of those that are thus chosen
be published by the next Lord's Day, and after
that, their duties to the Church and the Church's
duty towards them ; then let them be received
into their office with the general prayers of the
whole Church. Of Classes.
" The brethren are to be requested to ordain
a distribution of all the churches, according to
the rules set down in the synodical discipline,
touching classical, provincial, comitial, and as
semblies for the whole kingdom.
" The classes are to be required to keep acts
of memorable matters, and to deliver them to
the comitial assembly, and from thence to the
provincial assembly.
" They are to deal earnestly with patrons, to
present fit men whensoever any Church faUs
void in their classis.
"The comitial assemblies are to be admon
ished to make collections for the relief of the
poor, and of scholars, but especially for the re
lief of such ministers as are deprived for not
subscribing the articles tendered by the bishops ;
also for the relief of Scots ministers, and others ;
and for other profitable and necessary uses.
" Provincial synods must continuaUy foresee
in due time to appoint the keeping of their next
provincial synods ; and for the sending of chosen
persons with certain instructions to the national
synod, to he holden whensoever the Parliament
for the kingdom shaU be caUed, at some certain
time every year."
The design of these conclusions was to intro
duce a reformation into the Church without a
separation. The chief debate in their assem
blies was, how far this or the other conclusion
might consist with the peace of the Church,
and be moulded into a consistency with episco
pacy. They ordained no ministers ; and, though
they maintained the choice of the people to be
the essential call to the pastoral charge, yet
most of them admitted of ordination and induc
tion by the bishop only, as the officer appointed
by law, that the minister might be enabled to
demand his legal dues from the parish.
In the room of that pacific prelate, Parkhurst,
bishop of Norwich, the queen nominated Dr
Freke, a divine of a quite different spirit, who,

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

141

in his primary visitation made, sad havoc among
the Puritan ministers. Among others that were
suspended in that diocess were Mr. John More,
Mr. Richard Crick, Mr. George Leeds, Mr. Thom
as Roberts, and Mr. Richard Dowe, all minis-
-ters in or near the city of Norwich; they ad
dressed the queen and council for relief, but
were told that her majesty was fully bent to re
move all those that would not be persuaded to
conform to est-ablished orders. The Reverend
Mr Gavs'ton, minister of Goring in the same
diocess, being charged with not wearing the
-surplice, nor observing the order of the queen's
book. Be confessed the former, but said that in
other things he was conformable, though he did
not keep exacrty to the rubric* "When the
bishop charged him with holding divers errors,
he answered, " We are here not above half a
dozen unconformable ministers in thiscity [Nor-
-wich] ; and if you will confer with us by learn
ing, we wiU yield up our very lives if we are
not able to prove the doctrines we hold to be
consonant to the Word of God." After his sus
pension he sent his lordship a bold letter, in
which he maintained that Christ was the only
lawgiver in his Churoh. " If any king or prince
in the world ordain or aUow other officers than
Christ has allowed, we wiU," says he, "rather
lay down our necks on the block than consent
thereunto ; wherefore do not object to us so
often the name of our prince, for you use it as
a cloak to cover your cursed enterprises. Have
you not thrust out those who preached the lively
Word faithfully and sincerely 1 Have you not
plucked out those preachers where God set
them in 1 And do you think that this plea will
excuse you before the high Judge, 'I did but
execute the law 1' "
Mr. Harvey, another minister of the same
city, was cited before the bishop. May 13th, for
preaching against the hierarchy of bishops and
J;heir ecclesiastical officers ; and at a court held
at St. George's Church he was suspended from
his ministry, with Mr. Vincent Goodwin and
John Mapes.
Mr. Rockrey, B.D. of Queen's College, Cam-
"bridge, a person of great learning and merit,
was expeUed the university for nonconformity
to the habits.! Lord Burleigh, the chancellor,
got him restored and dispensed with for a year,
at the end of which the master of his college
admonished him three times to conform him
self to the custom of the university in the hab
its, which he refusing, was finally discharged,
as an example to keep others to their duty.
About the same time, Mr. Richard Greenham,
minister of Drayton, was suspended,! a man of
a most excellent spirit, who, though he would
not subscribe or conform to the habits, avoided
speaking of them, that he might not give offence ;
and whoever reads his letter to Cox, bishop of
Ely, will wonder what sort of men they must
be who could bear hard on so peaceable a di
vine. Some time before the death of Archbishop
Parker, Mr. Stroud, the suspended minister of
Cranbrook, returned to his parish church ; but
being represented to the present archbishop as
a disturber of the peace, he was forbid to con
tinue his accustomed exercises in the Church,

* MS., p. 253. Strype's Annals, p. 448.
! MS., p. 285. X Pierce's Vindication, p. 97.

and commanded to leave the country ; but the
good man was so universally beloved that the
whole county of Kent almost signed petitions
to the archbishop for his continuance among
them. " We know, most reverend father," say they,
" that Mr Stroud has been several times beaten
and whipped with the untrue reports of slander
ous tongueSj and accused of crimes whereof he
has most cleariy acquitted himself to the satis
faction of others. Every one of us, for the
most part, most gracious lord, hath heard him
preach Christ truly, and rebuke sin boldly, and
hath seen him hitherto apply to his calling faith
fully, and live among us peaceably ; so that not
only by his diligent doctrine our youth has been
informed, and ourselves confirmed in true reli
gion and learning, but also by his honest con
versation and example we are daily allured to
a Christian life, and the exercises of charity ;
and no one of us, reverend father, hath hitherto
heard from his own mouth, or by credible rela
tion from others, that he has publicly in his
sermons, or privately in conversation, taught
unsound doctrine, or opposed the discipline,
about which great controversy, alas ! is now
maintained ; yea, he has given faithful promise
to forbear the handling any questions concern
ing the policy of the Church, and we think in
our consciences he has hitherto performed it. In
consideration whereof, and that our country
may not be deprived of so dUigent a labourer in
the Lord's harvest ; nor that the enemies of
God's truth, the papists, may flnd matter of joy
and comfort ; nor the man himself, in receiving
a kind of condemnation without examination,
be thus wounded at the heart and discouraged :
we most humbly beseech your grace, for the
poor man's sake, for your own sake, and the
Lord's sake, either to take judicial knowledge
of his cause, to the end he may be confronted
with his adversaries ; or else, of your great
wisdom and goodness, to restore him to his lib
erty, of preaching the Gospel among us. And
we, as in duty bound, shall ever pray, &c."
¦rhis petition was signed by nineteen or twen
ty hands ; another was signed by twenty-four
ministers ; and a third by George Ely, vicar of
Tenderden,andtwenty-oneparishioners; Thom
as Bathurst, Sen., minister of Staplehurst, and
nine parishioners ; William Walter, of Fritten-
den, and fourteen of his parishioners ; Antony
Francis, minister of Lamberhurst, and four pa
rishioners ; Alexander Love, minister of Rolen-
den, and eighteen parishioners ; Christopher
Vinebrook, minister of Helcorne, and nine pa
rishioners ; William Vicar, of Tysherst, and ten
parishioners ; Matthew Wolton, curate of Ben-
eden, and eleven parishioners ; WUIiam Cocks,
minister of Marden, and thirteen parishioners ;
WUIiam Hopkinson, minister of Saleherst, and
eight parishioners.*
Such a reputation had this good man among
all who had any taste for true piety and zeal
for the Protestant religion ! He was a peacea
ble divine, and by the threatening of Aylmer,
bishop of London, had been prevailed with to
subscribe with some reserve, for the support of
a starving family ; and yet he was continually
molested and vexed in the spiritual courts.
Two eminent divines of Puritan principles

* MS., p. 196.

142
died this year : one was James Pilkington, B.D.,
and Bishop of Durham ; he was descended from
a considerable family near Bolton in Lanca
shire, and was educated in St. John's College,
Cambridge, of which he was master In the
reign of Queen .Mary he was an exUe, and con
fessor for the Gospel ; upon the accession of
Queen Elizabeth he was nominated to the See
of Durham, being esteemed a learned man and
a profound divine ; but could hardly be prevaU-
ed with to accept it on account of the habits, to
which he expressed a very great dislike ; he
was always a very great friend and favourer of
the Nonconformists, as appears by his letters,
and a truly pious and Christian bishop.* He
died in peace at his house. Bishop's Auckland,
January 23, 157.5-fi, in the sixty-fifth year of
his age ; Dr. Humphreys, and Mr. Fox the
martyrologist, adorning his tomb with their fu
neral verses.
The other was Mr. Edward Deering, a Non
conformist divine, of whom mention has been
made already ; he was born of an ancient and
worthy family in Kent, and bred fellow of
Christ's College, Cambridge ; a pious and pain
ful preacher, says FuUer,! but disaffected to
bishops and ceremonies ; he was a learned man
and a fine orator, but in one of his sermons be
fore the queen he took the liberty to say, that
when her majesty was under persecution her
motto was Tanquam ovis ; but now it might be,
Tanquam indomita juvenca, as an untamed heif
er.! For vvhich he was forbid preaching at
court for the future, and lost all his preferments
in the Church ^
Archbishop Grindal had endeavoured to regu
late the prophesyings, and cover them from the
objections of the court, by enjoining the minis
ters to observe decency and order, by for
bidding them to meddle with politics and church
government, and by prohibiting aU Noncon
formist ministers and laymen from being speak
ers. The other bishops, also, in their several
diocesses, published [in 1577J the following
regulations :
That the exercises should be only in such
churches as the bishop, under his hand and seal,
should appoint.
That the archdeacon, or some other grave
divine appointed and aUowed by the bishop,
should be moderator.
That a list of the names of those that are
thought fit to be speakers in course be made
and aUowed of by the bishop ; and the bishop to
appoint such part of Scripture they shaU treat of.
That those ministers that are judged not fit
to speak publicly be assigned some other task
by the moderator, for the increase of their learn
ing' * Ath. Ox,, i„ 590. ! Fuller b. ix., p. 109.
! Life of Parker, p. 380.
^ Strype, in his Life of Parker, says that Deering
was dishked of the bishops, because he wouW teU
them of their swearing and covetousness, yet, he
adds, that he was given to tell lies. This looks like
slander. Dr Sampson, who knew him weU, gives him an
exalted character as a man and a Christian, and
Granger, in his Biographical History, vol. i., p. 215,
observes, " The happy death of this truly religious
man was suitable to the purity and integrity of his
life," — See Brook's Lives of ihe Puritans, vol. i., p.
193-211. Strype's Parker, p. 381-429.— C.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

Ante omnia, that no lay-person be admitted to-
speak publicly in the exercises.
That if any man glance at affairs of state,
the moderator shall immediately silence him
and give notice to the bishop.
If any man inveighs against the laws con
cerning rites and ceremonies, and discipline es
tablished, he shaU immediately be silenced, and
not be admitted to speak any more till he has
given satisfaction to the auditory, and obtained
a new admission and approbation of the bishop
And No suspended or deprived ministers shaU be
suffered to be speakers, except they shaU first
conform to the public order and discipline of
the Church, by subscription and daily practice.
But the queen was resolved to suppress them ;
and having sent for the archbishop; told him she-
was informed that the rites and ceremonies of
the Church were not duly observed in these
prophesyings ; that persons not lawfully called
to be ministers exercised in them ; that the as
semblies themselves were illegal, not being al
lowed by public authority ; that the laity neg-
leeted their seeular affairs by repairing to these
meetings, whieh filled their heads with notions,
and might oppasion disputes and seditions in
the state ; that it was good for the Church to
have but few preaehers, three or four in a pounty
being suffipient.* She farther declared her dis
like of the number of these exercises, and there
fore commanded him peremptorily to put them
down. Letters of this tenour were sent to all
the bishops in England.!

* MS., p. 203.
! The copy of her majesty's letter to the Bishop
of London, with his lordship's order thereupon, being
before me, I shall impart it to the reader.
" Salutem in Christo.
" Having received from the queen's majesty letters
of strait commandment touching the reformation of
certain disorders and innovations within my diocese,
the tenour whereof 1 have inserted, as foUoweth :
'"ELIZABETH.
" ' Right Reverend Father in God,
" ' We greet you well. We hear, to our great
grief, that in sundry parts of our realm there are no
small number of persons presuming to be preachers
and teachers in the Church, though neither lawfully
thereunto called, nor yet meet for the same; who,
contrary to our laws established for the public Di
vine service of Almighty God, and the administration
of his holy sacraments within this Church of Eng
land, do daily devise, imagine, propound, and put
in execution, sundry new rites and forms in the
Church, as well by the inordinate preaching, reading,
and ministering the sacraments, as by unlawfully pro
curing of assemblies, and great numbers of our peo
ple, out of their ordinary parishes, and from places
far distant ; and that also of some of our subiecis of
good callings (though therein not weU advised), to be
hearers of their disputations and new-devised opin
ions upon pomts of divinity, far unmeet for vulgar
people ; which manner of ministrations they in some
places term prophesyings, and in some other places
exercises ; by means of which assemblies, great num
bers of our people, especially of the vulgar sort (meet
to be otherwise occupied with some honest labour for
their living), are brought to idleness, seduced, and in
manners schismatically divided among themselves
into variety of dangerous ophuons, not only in towns
and parishes, but even some families are manifestly
thereby encouraged to the violation of our laws, and
to the breach of common orders, and not smally to
the offence of all our quiet subjects, that desire to-
live and serve God according to the uniform orders

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

US

Most of the bishops complied readily with the
queen's letter, and put down the prophesyings ;
but some did it with reluctance, and purely in
obedience to the royal command, as appears by
the following letter of the Bishop of Litchfield
and Coventry to his archdeacon :
" Salutem in Christo.
" Whereas the queen has been informed of
some matters handled and abused in the exer
cise at Coventry, and thereupon hath written to
me a strait charge to inhibit the said exercise ;
these are therefore to wiU and require you,, and,
nevertheless, in her majesty's name to charge
you, to forbear and stay yourselves from that

estabhshed in the Church, whereby these [exercises]
cannot but be dangerous to be suttered. 'Wherefore,
considering it should be the duty of bishops, being
the principal ordinary officers in the Church of God
(as you are one), to see these disorders against the
honour of God and the quietness of the Church re
formed, and that by the increase of these, through
sulierance, great danger may arise, even to the de
crease of Christian faith, whereof we are by God ap
pointed the defender ; besides the other inconvenien
ces, to the disturbance of our peaceable government.
" ' ¦We, therefore, according to the authority which
we have, do charge and command you, as bishop oi that
diocess, with all manner of dihgence to take order
throughout your diocess, as well in all places exempt
or otherwise, that no manner of public or Divine ser
vice, nor other form of ministration of the holy sacra
ments, or any other rites and ceremonies, be in any sort
used in the Church, but directly according to the order
established by our laws : neither that any manner of
person be suffered in your diocess to teach, preach,
read, or exercise, any function in the Church but
such as shall be lawfully approved and licensed, as
persons able by their knowledge, and conformable to
the ministrations in the rites and ceremonies of this
Church of England. And where there shall not be
sufficient able persons for learning in any cure to
preach and instruct their cures as are requisite, then
shall you limit the curates to read the public homi
lies, according to the injunctions heretofore by us
given for like cause.
" ' And furthermore, considering the great abuses
that have been in sundry places of our realm, by rea
son of the aforesaid assemblies called exercises ; and
for that these are not, nor have been appointed or
warranted by us or our laws, we will and straightly
charge you that you do cause the same forthwith to
cease, and not to be used ; but if any shall attempt
to continue or renew the same, we will you not only
to commit them to prison, as maintainers of disor
ders, but also to advertise us or our council of the
names and qualities of them, and of their maintain
ers and abettors ; that thereupon, for better example,
their punishment may be made more sharp, for their
reformation. And in these things we charge you to
be so careful and vigilant, as by your negligence (if
we shall hear of any person attempting to offend in
th« 'pi-emises without your correction or information
to us), we be not forced to make some example in
reforming of you according to your deserts. Given
under our signet, at our manor of Greenwich, the 7th
of May, 1577, and in the nineteenth year of our reign."
—MS., p. 283.
" Therefore I wiU and straightly charge you, in
hei: majesty's name, that, immediately upon the re
ceipt hereO'f, yoo do diligently and carefully pUt in
execution, -hi every point, all such things as therein
be contained, throughout and in every place within
your whole archdeaconry ; so that at my visitation,
which, 'God wiUing, shall be shortly, suflicient ac
count may be given of that your doing and dUigence
in that behalf accorduigly. Fail you not so to do, as
you will answer the contrary, at your peril.
" Your loving brother
" John London."

exercise tUl it shall please God we may either
by earnest prayer or humble petition obtain the
fuU use thereof, with her good pleasure and full
authority ; and, in the mean time, so to use tho
heavenly and most comfortable gift of preach
ing, that you may seek and set forth Jesus
Christ and his kingdom without contempt and
controlment of the state and laws, under which
we ought to live in unity and peace ; which I
beseech God grant unto you and m6, and all
that look for the coming of our Saviour Christ,,
to whose direction I commit you, this 18th of
June, 1577.*
" 'Your loving friend and brother in Christ,
" Thomas Cov. and Litohf.,
"To my very loving friend and brother in
Christ, Thomas Lever, archdeacon of Cov.,,
or, in his absence, to the censors of the ex
ercise there."
But our archbishop could not go this length ;
he who had complied with all the queen's in
junctions, and with the severities of the eccle
siastical commissioners against the Puritans
hitherto, is now distressed in conscience, and
constrained to disobey the commands of his
royal mistress in ah affair of much less conse
quence than others lie had ibrmeriy complied
with. Instead, therefore, of giving directions
to his archdeacons to execute the queen's com
mands, he writes a long and earnest letter to
her majesty, dated December 10, 1576, to inform
her of the necessity and usefulness of preach
ing, and of the subserviency of the exercises to-
this purpose :
" With regard to preaching, nothing is more
evident from Scripture," says his grace, "than
that it was a great blessing to have the Gospel
preached, and to have plenty of labourers sent
into the Lord's harvest. That this was the or
dinary means of salvation, and that hereby
men were taught their duty to God and their
civil governors. That, though reading the hom
ilies was good, yet it was not comparable to
preaching, which might be suited to the diver
sity of times, places, and hearers, and be de
livered with more efiicacy and affection. That
homUies were devised only to supply the want
of preachers, and were, by the statute of King
Edward VI., to give place to sermons whenso
ever they might be had. He hoped, therefore,.
her majesty would not discountenance an ordi
nance so useful, and of Divine appointment.
" For the second point, concerning the exer
cises, he apprehended them profitable to the
Church ; and it was not his judgment only, but
that of most of the bishops, as London, Winton,
Bath and Wells, Litchfield, Gloucester, Lincoln,.
Chichester, Exon, and St. David's, who had
signified to him by letter, that by means of these
exercises the clergy were now better versed in
the Scripture than heretofore; that they had
made them studious and diligent : and that no
thing had beat down popery like them. He af
firms that they are legal, forasmuch as, by the
canons and constitutions of the Church now in
force, every bishop has authority to appoint
such exercises, for inferior ministers to increase
their knowledge in the Scriptures, as to hiiir
shall seem most expedient."! Towards the

close of this letter his grace declares himself

* MS., p. 284.

! Ibid., p. 245.^

144

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

wUling to resign his province, if it should be her
majesty's pleasure, and then makes these two
requests: "(1.) That your majesty would refer
ecclesiastical matters to the bishops and divines
of the realm, according to the practice of the
first Christian emperors. And (2.) That when
your majesty deals in matters of faith and reli
gion, you would not pronounce so peremptorily
as you may do in civil matters ; but remember
that in God's cause, his wUl, and not the wiU
of any earthly creature, is to take place. It is
the antichristian voice of the pope, ' Sic volo
sic jubeo, stet pro ratione voluntas.' " He then
puts her in mind that, though she was a great
and mighty princess, she was nevertheless a
¦mortal creature, and accountable to God ; and
concludes with a declaration, that whereas be
fore there were not three able preachers, now
there were thirty fit to preach at Paul's Clross,
¦forty or fifty besides able to instruct their own
cures. That therefore he could not, without
offence of the majesty of God, send out injunc
tions for suppressing the exercises.
The queen was so inflamed with this letter,
that she determined to make an example of the
honest archbishop, as a terror to the whole
bench : she would not suffer her commands to
be disputed by the primate of aU England, but
by an order from the Star Chamber confined him
immediately to his house, and sequestered him
from his archiepiscopal function for six months.
This was a high display of the supremacy, when
the head of the Church, being a woman, with
out consulting the bishops or any of the clergy
if\ convocation assembled, shall pronounce so
(Peremptorily in a matter purely respecting reli
gion ; and for noncompliance tie up the hands
of her archbishop, who is the first mover under
the prince in all ecclesiastical affairs.
Before the expiration of the six months, which
was in December, Grindal was advised to make
his submission, which he did so far as to ac
knowledge the queen's mildness and gentleness
in his restraint, and to promise obedience for
the future ; but he could not be persuaded to
retract his opinion, and confess his sorrow for
what was past ; there was, therefore, some talk
of depriving him, which being thought too se-
¦yere, his sequestration was still continued till
.about a year before his death ; however, his
grace never recevered the queen's favour. Thus
ended the prophesyings, or religious exercises
of the clergy, a useful institution for promoting
¦Christian knowledge and piety, at a time when
both were at a very low ebb in the nation. The
queen put them down for no other reason but
chiefly because they enlightened the people's
minds in the Scriptures, and encouraged their
inquiries after truth ; her majesty being always
of opinion that knowledge and learning in the
laity would only endanger their peaceable sub
mission to her absolute wUl and pleasure.
This year put an end to the life of that emi
nent divine, Mr. Thomas Lever, a great favour
ite of Queen Elizabeth tiU he refused the habits.
He was Master of St. John's College, Cambridge,
in the reign of King Edward VI., and was reck
oned one of the most eloquent preachers in those
times. He had a true zeal for the Protestant
religion, and was an exile for it all the reign of
Queen Mary. Upon Queen Ehzabeth's accession
he might have had the highest preferment in the

Church, but could not accept it upon the terms
of subscription and wearing the habits ; he was
therefore suspended by the ecclesiastical com
missioners ; till his great name and singular
merit, reflecting an odium upon those who had
deprived the Church of his labours, and exposed
him a second time to poverty and want after his
exile, he was at length dispensed with, and
made Archdeacon of Coe, and master of Sher
burne Hospital, near Durham, where he spent
the remainder of his days in great reputation
and usefulness. He was a resolute Nonconform
ist, and wrote letters to encourage the deprived
ministers to stand by their principles, and wait
patiently for a farther reformation. He was
buried in the chapel of his own hospital, hav
ing this plain inscription on a flat marble stone
over his grave : " "Thomas Lever, preacher to
King Edward VI." Had he lived a littlelonger
he had been persecuted by the new bishop, as
his brother "Whittingham was ; but God took
him away from the evil to come. He died in
July, 1577, and was succeeded in the hospital
by his brother Ralph Lever.'*
Mr. Cartwright, upon his return from the Isle'
of Guernsey, was chosen preacher to one of the
English factories at Antwerp: these factories
submitted to thedisciplineof the Dutch Church
es among whom they lived, and their ministers
became members of their consistories. While
Cartwright was here, many of the English, who
were not satisfied with the terms of conformity,
or the English manner of giving orders, went
over thither, and were ordained by the presby
ters of those churches ; nay, some who had re
ceived deacons' orders in the Church of Eng
land chose to be made full ministers by the for
eign consistories ; among these were Mr. Cart
wright, Fenner, Ashton, and Travers.! Trav
ers was bachelor of divinity in the University
of Cambridge before he left England, and was
ordained at Antwerp, May 14, 1578. The copy
of his testimonials! is to this effect :
" Forasmuch as it is just and reasonable that
such as are received into the number of the
ministers of God's Word should have a testimo
nial of their vocation, we declare that, having
caUed together a synod of twelve ministers of
God's Word, and almost the same number of
elders, at Antwerp, on May 8th, 1578, our very
learned, pious, and excellent brother, the Rev.
Dr. Gualter Travers was, by the unanimous votes
and ardent desires of all present, received and
instituted into the ministry of God's Holy Word,
and confirmed according to our accustomed
manner, with prayer and imposition of hands ;
and the next day after the Sabbath having
preached before a full congregation of English,
at the request of the ministers, he was aeknowl-

* FuUer says that " whatever preferments in the
Church he pleased courted his acceptance." — Wor
thies, part ii., p, 284. Strype denominates him "a
man of distinguished eminence for piety, learning,
and preaching the Gospel." — Strype's Parker, p. 211.
He was the intimate friend of Bernard Gilpin. His
spirit as a genuine Reformer rested upon his poster
ity, and I find Henry Lever, his grandson, and Rob
ert Lever, his great-grandson, were among the ejected
ministers in 1662. His writings are very valuable,
but exceedingly scarce. They are chiefly sermons,
and a commentary on the Lord's Prayer — C.
! Strvpe's Ann., vol. ii,, p. 524.
1 Fuller, b. ix., p. 214.

En, 1 raved bv Gunber /rofw an. OriJ^maZ, poj/ited in.1656

ii £ y ^ J 0 IJ M D y/ L fl , :ij}.|j ,

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

145

'tcBged and received most affectionately by the
whole Church. That Almighty God would pros
per the ministrjr of this our reverend brother
among the English, and attend it with great suc
cess, is our most earnest prayer, through Jesus
Christ. Amen.
"Given at Antwerp, May 14, 1578, and signed
" Joannes Taffinus, V.D M.,
" LOGELEBIUS ViLEKinS, V.D.M.,
"Joannes Hocheleds, V.D.M."
Pilkington, late bishop of Durham, was suc-
-ceeded by Dr. Barnes, bishop of Carlisle, a prel
ate of severer principles than his predecessor ;
who, having in vain attempted to reduce the
clergy of his diocess to an absolute conformity,
complained to his metropolitan of the lax gov
ernment of his predecessor, and of the numbers
of Nonponformists whom^e eould not reduce to
the established orders of the Church. Upon this,
Sandys, the new archbishop of York, resolved to
visit his whole province, and to begin with Dur
ham, where Dean Whittingham was the principal
man under the bishop ; he was a divine of great
learning, and of long standing in the Church, but
not ordained according to the form of the Eng
lish service-book. The accusation against him
was branched out into thirty-five articles and
forty-nine interrogatories, the chief whereof was
his Geneva ordination.* The dean, instead of
answering the charge, stood by the rights of the
Church of Durham, and denied the archbishop's
power of visitation, upon which his grace was
pleased to excommunicate him ; but Whitting
ham appealed to the queen, who directed a
commission to the arehbishop, to the lord-presi
dent of the council in the north, and to the
Dean of York, to hear and determine the valid
ity of his ordination; and to inquire into the
other misdemeanors contained in the artiijles.
The president of the north was a favourer of the
Puritans, and Dr. Hutton, dean of York, was of
Whittinghain's principles, arid boldly averred
-" that the dean was ordained in a better sort
.than even the archbishop himself;" sb that the
commission came tp nothing. But Sandys, vex
ed at the disappointment, and at the calling in
question his right of visitation, obtained another
commission directed to himself, the Bishop of
Durham, the lord-president, the chancellor of
the diocess, and some others whom ,he could
depend upon,, to visit the Church of Dtirham.
The chief design was to deprive Whittingham
as a layman ; when the dean appeared belore
the commissioners, he produced a, certificate un
der the hands of eight persons, for the manner
of his ordination, in these words : " It pleased
God, by the suffrages of the whole congregation
[at Geneva], orderly to choose -Mr, W. Whit
tingham unto the office of preaching the Word
of God and ministering the sacraments ; and
he was admitted minister, and so published,
with such other ceremonies as here are used
and accustomed."! It was objected, that here
was no mention of a bishop or superintendent,
nor of any external solemnities, nor so much as
of imposition of hands, The dean replied, there
was mention in general of the ceremonies of
that church, and he was able to prove his vo
cation to be the same that aU the ministers of
¦Geneva had ; upon which the lord-president

* Strype's Annals, vol. ii., p. 481.
Vol. I.— T.

! Ibid, p. 523.

rose up and said- that he could not, in con
science, agree to deprive him for that cause
only ; for (says he) it will be ill tak^h by all the
godly and learned, both at home and abroad,
that we should allow of the popish mmsing priests
in our ministry, and disallow of ministers made in
a Reformed Church ; whereupon the commission
was adjourned sine die. 'These proceedings of the
archbishop againfet the dean were invidious, and
lost him his esteem both in city and cotmtry.
The caUing his ordination in question was ex
pressly contrary to the statute 13 Eliz., by which,
says Mr. Strype, the ordination of foreign Re
formed Churches was declared valid ; and those
that had no other orders were made of like ca
pacity with others, to enjoy any place of minis
try within England.
But the death of Mr. Whittingham, which
happened about six months after, put an end to
this and all his other -troubles. He was born in
the city of Chester, 1524, and educated in Bra-
zenn'osd College, Oxon; he was afterward
translated to Christ Church, when it was found
ed by King Henry VIIL, being reckoned one of
the best scholars in the university ; in the
year 1550 he travelled into France, Germany,
and Italy, and returned about the latter end of
King Edward VL In the reign of Queen Mary
he was with the exiles at Frankfort, and upon
the division there, went with part of the congre
gation to Geneva; and became their minister.
He had a great share in translating the Geneva
Bible, and the Psalms in metre, as appears by
the first letter of his name [W] over many of
them. Upon his return home he was preferred
to the deanery of Durham, 1563, by the interest
of the Earl of Leicester, where he spent the re
mainder of his life. He did good service, says
the. Oxford historian,* against the popish rebels
in the north, and in repeUing the Archbishop of
York from visiting the Church of Durham ; but
he was' at best but a lukevvarm Conformist, an
enemy to the habits, and a promoter of the Ge
neva doctrine and discipline. However, he
was a truly pious and religious man, an excel
lent preacher, and an ornament to rehgion. He
died while the cause of his deprivation, for not
being ordained according to the rites of the
English Church, was depending, June 10, 1579,
in the sixty-fifth year of his age.!
We have mentioned the Bishop of Norwich's*
severity in his prirtlary visitation ; his lordship
went on still in the same method, not without
some marks of unfair designs ;! for the incum
bent of Sprowton being suspected td be of the
Family of Love, his lordship deprived him, and
immediately begged the living for his son-in-
law, Mr. Maplesdon, who was already archdea
con of Suffolk,^ He showed no mercy '.o his
suspended clergy, though they offered to sub
scribe as far as the laws of the realm required.
At length they petitioned' their metrijpolitan,
Grindal, who, though in disgrace, licensed them
to preach throughout the whole diocess of Nor
wich, durante bene placito, provided they did not
preach against the established orfiers of the

» Ath. Ox., vol i., p. 154.
! Some? of his versions are still used in the Church.
Those which are from his pen have W, W. annexed.
The 119th Psalm is one' of theml —Wood's Atherm,
vol.i., p.eS, 36, 153.— C.
! Strype's Ann., vol. a., p. 284. ^ MS., p. 280.

146

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

Church, nor move contentions about ceremonies; I
Jiut stUl they were deprived of their livings.
The Reverend Mr. Lawrence, an admired
preacher, and incumbent of a parish in Suffolk,
was suspended by the same bishop for not com
plying with the rites and ceremonies of the
Church.* Mr. Calthorp, a gentleman of quality
in the county, applied to the lord-treasurer in
his behalf ; and the treasurer wrote to the bish
op requesting him to take off his sequestration ;
but his lordship replied, that what he had done
was by virtue of the queen's letter to him, re
quiring him to allow of no ministers but such
as were perfectly conformable. Mr. Calthorp
replied, and urged the great want the Church
had of such good men as Mr. Lawrence, for
whose fitness for this work he would undertake
the chief gentlemen of credit in the county
should certify ; but his sequestration was still
continued. The like severities were used in
most other diocesses.
The Bishop of London! came not behind the
chief of his brethren the bishops, in his perse
cuting zeal against the Puritans ; he gave out
orders for apparitors and other officers to go
from church to church, in time of Divine ser
vice, to observe the conformity of the minister,
and to make report to her majesty's commis
sioners. As this prelate had no compassion in
his nature, he had little or no regard to the
laws of his country, or the cries of the people
after the Word of God.!
Great was the scarcity of preachers about
England at this time ; in the large and populous
town of Northampton there was not one, nor
had been for a considerable time, though the
people apphed to the bishop of the diocess by
most humble supplication for the bread of life.
In the county of Cornwall there were one hun
dred and forty clergymen, not one of which was
capable of preaching a sermon, and most of
them were pluralists and non-residents. Even
the city of London was in a lamentable case, as
appears by their petition to the Parliament which
met this winter, in which are these words-:
" May it please you, therefore, for the tender
mercies of God, to understand the woful estate
of many thousands of souls dwelling in deep
darkness, and in the shadow of death, in this
famous and populous city of London ; a place,
jjf in respect to others, accounted as the morning
star, or, rather, as the sun in its brightness, be
cause of the Gospel, supposed to shine gloriously
and abundantly in the same ; but being near
looked into, will be found sorely eclipsed and
darkened through the dim cloud of unlearned

* Strype's Ann., p. 285.
! This Bishop 'WarbuTton censures as " an unfah
charge which runs through the History. The ex
acting conformity of the ministry of any church by
the governors of that church is no persecution."
This is a strange sentiment to come from the pen of
a Protestant prelate. There was no persecution,
then, in the reign of Queen Mary. It was no perse
cution when the Jewish sanhedrim agreed " that, if
any man did confess that Jesus was the Christ, he
should be put out of the synagogue." It was no per
secution when the Parhament imposed the Scots
Covenant. — Ed.
! He declared that he would surely and severely
punish those who would not comply with the Act of
Uniformity, or " I wiU he," said he, " in the dust for
\t."— Strype.— En.

ministers, whereof there be no small number.
There are in this city a great number of churches,
but the one half of them at the least are utter
ly unfurnished of preaching ministers, and are
pestered with candlesticks not of gold, but of
clay, unworthy to have the Lord's light set in
them, with watchmen that have no eyes, and
clouds that have no water ; in the other half,
partly by means of non-residents, which are'
very many, partly through the poverty of many
meanly qualified, there is scarcely the tenth man
that makes conscience to wait upon his eharge
whereby the Lord's Sabbath is ofttimes wholly, j
neglected, and for the most part miserably ?
mangled ; ignorance increaseth, and wickedness
comes upon us like an armed man. As sheep;
therefore, going astray, we humbly, on our knees,
beseech this honourable assembly, in the bowels
and blood of Jesus Christ, to become humble
suiters to her majesty, that we may have guides;
as hungry men bound to abide by our empty
rackstaves, we do beg of you to be means that
the bread of life may be brought home to us ;
that the sower may come into the fallow ground;
that the pipes of water may be brought into our
assemblies ; that there may be food and refresh
ing for us, our poor wives, and forlorn children r
so shall the Lord have his due honour; you
shall discharge good duty to her majesty ; many
languishing souls shaU be comforted ; atheism
and heresy banished ; her majesty have more
faithful subjects, and you more hearty prayers
for your prosperity in this life, and fuU happiness
in the life to come, through Jesus Christ our
alone Saviour. Amen."*
In the supplication of the people of Cornwall, )
it is said,! " We are above the number of four- \
score and ten thousand souls, which, for the
want of the Word of God, are in extreme mis
ery and ready fo perish, and this neither for
want of maintenance nor place; for besides
the impropriations in our shire, we allow yearly
above £9200, and have one hundred and sixty
churches, the greatest part of which are sup
plied by men who are guilty of the grossest
sins ; some fornicators, some adulterers,, some
felons, bearing the marks in their hands for
the said offence; some drunkards, gamesters
on the Sabbath-day, &c. We have many non
residents who preach but once a quarter so
that, between meal and meal, the silly sheep
may starve. We have some ministers who I
labour painfully and faithfully in the Lord's hus- )
bandry ; but these men are not suffered to at- \
tend their caUings, because the mouths of pa- V
pists, infidels, and filthy livers are open against j
them, and the ears of those who are called lords ;
over them, are sooner open to their accusations,
though it he but, for ceremonies, than to the
others' answers , Nor is it safe for us to go and
hear them ; for, though our own fountains are
dried up, yet, if we seek for the waters ,of life
elsewhere, we are cited into the spiritual courts,
reviled, and threatened with excommunication. „¦
Therefore, from far we come, beseeching this
honourable house to dispossess these dumb
dogs and ravenous wolves, and appomt us faith
ful ministers, who may peaceably preach the
Word of God, and not be disquieted by every
apparitor, registrar, official, commissioner, chan-
ceUor, &c., upon every light occasion — "
* MS., p. 302. ! MS., p. 300.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS

147

The ground of this scarcity was no other than
the severity of the high-commission, and the
narrow terms of conformity. Most of the old
incumbents, says Dr. Keltridge,* are disguised
papists, fitter to sport with the timbrel and pipe
than to take into their hands the book of the
Lord ; and yet there was a rising generation of
valuable preachers ready for the ministry, if
they might have been encouraged ; for in a sup
plication of some of the students at Cambridge
to the Parliament about this time, they acknowl
edge that there were plenty of able and well-
furnished men among them, but that they could
not get into places, upon equal conditions ; but
unlearned men, nay, the scum of the people,
were preferred before them, so that, in this
great want of labourers, we (say they) stand
idle in the market-place all the day, being urged
with subscriptions before the bishops to approve
the Romish hierarchy, and all the effects of that
government to be agreeable to the Word of
God, which with no safety of conscience we
can accord unto. They then offer a conference
or disputation, as the queen and Parliament
shall agree, to put an amicable end to these dif
ferences, that the Church may recover some
discipline, that simony and perjury may be ban
ished, and that all that are willing to promote
the salvation of souls may be employed ; but
the queen and bishops were against it.
All the public conversation at this time ran
¦upon the queen's marriage with the Duke of
Anjou, a French papist, which was thought to
be as good as concluded ; the Protestant part
of the nation were displeased with it, and some
warm divines expressed their dark apprehen
sions in the pulpit. The Puritans in general
made a loud protest against the match, as dread
ing the consequences of a Protestant body being
under a popish head. Mr. John Stubbs, a stu
dent of Lincoln's Inn, whose sister Mr. Cart
wright had married, a gentleman of exceUent
parts, published a treatise this summer, entitled
"The Gaping Gulf, wherein England wiU be
swallowed up with the French Marriage ;"
wherewith the queen was so incensed that she
immediately issued out a proclamation , to sup
press the book, and to apprehend the author and
printer. At the same time, the lords of the
councU wrote circular letters to the clergy to
¦ remove all surmises about the danger of the
Reformation in case the match should take
place, assuring them the queen would suffer no
alterations in reUgion by, any treaty with the
duke, and forbidding them in their sermons or
discourses to meddle with such high matters.
Mr. Stubbs, the author. Singleton, the printer,
and Page, the disperser, of the above-mentioned
book, were apprehended, and sentenced to have
their right hands cut off, by virtue of a law made
in Queen Mary's reign against the authors and
dispersers of seditious writings : the printer -was
pardoned but Mr. Stubbs and Page were brought
to a scaffold erected in the market-place at
Westminster, where, with a terrible formality,
their right hands were cut off, by driving a cleav
er through the wrist with a maUet ;! but I re-

* Life of Aylmer, p. 32.
! " This," says Bishop Warburton, " was infinite
ly more cruel than all the years under Charles t.,
whether we consider the punishinent, the crime, or
the man." — Ed.

member (says Camden, being present) that, as
soon as Stubbs's right hand was cut off, he
pulled off his hat with his left, and said with a
loud voice, God save the queen, to the amaze
ment of the spectators, who stood silent, either
out of horror of the punishment, or pity to the
man, or hatred to the match. Mr. Stubbs pro
ved afterward a faithful subject to her majes
ty, and a valiant commander in the -wars of Ire
land. At the beginning of the next session of Par
hament, which was January 10, 1580, the Com
mons voted " that as many of their members as
convenienfly could, should, on the Sunday fort
night, assemble and meet together in the Temple
Church, there to have preaching, and to join to
gether in prayer, with humiliation and fasting,
for the assistance of God's Spirit in aU their
consultations during this Parliament ; and for
the preservation of the queen's majesty, and her
realms."* The house was so cautious as not
to name their preachers, for fear they might be
thought Puritanical, but referred it to such of
her majesty's privy council as were members
of the house. There was nothing in this vote
contrary to law or unbecoming the wisdom of
Parliament ; but the queen Was no sooner ac
quainted with it, than she sent word by Sir Chris
topher Hatton, her vice-chamberlain, that " she
did much admire at so great a. rashness in
that house as to put in execution such an inno
vation, without her privity and pleasure first
made known to them." Upon which it vvas-
moved by the courtiers that " the house should
acknowledge their offence and contempt, anxli
humbly crave forgiveness, with a fuU purpose
to forbear committing the like for the future ;"
which was voted accordingly. A mean and ab
ject spirit in the representative body of the na
tion I
Her majesty having forbid her Parliament to
appoint times for fasting and prayer, took hold
of the opportunity, and gave the like injunctions-
to her clergy ; some of whom, after the putting
down of the prophesyings, had ventured to agree
upon days of private fasting and prayer for the
queen and Church, and for exhorting the people
to repentance and reformation of life, at such
times and places where they could obtain a
pulpit. All the Puritans, and the more devout
part of the conforming clergy, fell in with these
appointments : sometimes there was one at Lei
cester ; sometimes at Coventry and at Stamford,
and in other places, where six or seven neigh
bouring ministers joined together in these exer
cises ; but as soon as the queen was acquainted
with them, she sent a warm message to the
archbishop to suppress them, as being set up by
private persons, without authority, in defiance
of the laws, and of her prerogative.!'
Mr. Prowd, the Puritan minister of Burton
upon Dunmore, complains, in a melancholy let
ter to Lord Burleigh, of the sad state of religion,
by suppressing the exercises ; and by forbidding
the meeting of a few ministers and Christians,
to pray for the preservation of the Protestant
religion; in this dangerous crisis 'of the queen's
marrying with a papist. He doubted whether
his lordship dealt so plainly with her majesty
as his knowledge of these things required, and

'' Heylm, p. 287.
! Heylhi's Aerius Redivivus, p. '286.

148

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

begs him to interpose. But the queen was de
termined against aU prayers except what her
self should appoint.
We have already taken notice of the petitions
and supplications to Pariiament from London,
Cornwall, and some other places, for redress of
grievances ; but the house was so intimidated
by the queen's spirited behaviour, that they durst
not interpose, any farther than, in conjunction
with some of the bishops, to petition her majesty,
as head of the Church, to redress them. The
queen promised to take order about it, with all
convenient speed ; putting them in mind, at the
same time, that all motions for reformation in
religion ought to arise from none but herself
But her majesty's sentiments differed from
the Parliament's ; her greatest grief was the in
crease of Puritans and Nonconformists, and
therefore, instead of easing them, she girt the
laws closer about them, in order to bring them
to an exact conformity. Information being giv
en that some who had livings in the Church,
and preached weekly, did not administer the sac*
rament to their parishioners in their own persons,
her majesty commanded her bishops, in their vis
itations, to inquire after such half-conformists
as disjoined one part of their function from the
other, and to compel them by ecclesiastical cen
sures to perform the whole at least twice a year.
The Puritan ministers being dissatisfied with
the promiscuous access of all persons to the
communion, and with several passages in the
office for the Lord's Supper, some of them used
to provide a qualified clergyman to administer
the ordinance in their room ; but this was now
made a handle for their ejectment: inquisition
was made, and those who, after admonition,
would not conform to the queen's pleasure, were
sent for before the commissioners, and deprived
Though the springs of discipline moved but
slowly in the diocess of Canterbury, because the
metropolitan, who is the first mover in ecclesi
astical causes under the queen, was suspended
and in disgrace, yet the sufferings of the Puri
tans were not lessened ; the other bishops, who
were in the high commission, doubled their dil
igence ; the Rev. Mr. Nash was in the Mar-
shalsea, Mr. Drewet in Newgate, and several
others were shut up in the prisons in and about
London, Those thatwere at liberty had nothing
to do, for they might not preach in public with
out full conformity ; nor assemble in private to
mourn over their own and the nation's sins, with
out the danger of a prison.
This exasperated their spirits, and put them
upon writing satirical pamphlets* against their
adversaries ; in some of which there are severe
expressions against the unpreaching clergy, caU
ing them (in the language of Scripture) dumb
dogs, because they took no pains for the instruc
tion of their parishioners ; the authors glanced
at the severity of the laws, at the pride and am
bition of the bishops, at the illegal proceedings
of the high commission, and at the unjustifiable
rigours of the queen's government ; which her

* Bishop Warburton censures Mr. Neal for not
speaking in much severer terms of these pamphlets.
But he should have adverted to our author's grave
censure of them in chap, viu., and have rejiollected
that " the writers on the Church-side came not be
hind their adversaries in buffoonery and ridicule."
(These were the weapons of the age.— Ed.

majesty being informed of, procured a statute
this very Parliament* [1580], by which it is en
acted, that " if any person or persons, forty days
after the end of this season, shall devise, or
write, or print, or set forth, any manner of book
rhyme, baUad, letter, or writing, containing any
false, seditious, or slanderous matter to the def
amation of the queen's majesty, or to the en
couraging, stirring, or moving of any insurrec
tion or reheUion within this realm, or any of the
dominions to the same belonging ; or if any per
son or persons shaU procure such books, rhymes-
or ballads to be written, printed, or published
(the said offence not being within the compass
of treason, by virtue of any former statute), that
then the said offenders, upon sufficient proof
by two witnesses, shaU suffer death and loss of
goods, as in case of felony." This statute was
to continue in force only during the life of the
present queen ; but within that compass of time,
sundry of the Puritans were put to death by virl
tue of it. ^
In the same session of Parliament, another
severe law was made, which, like a two-edged
sword, cut down both papists and Puritans ; it
was entitled An Act to retain the Queen's Sub
jects in their due Obedience:! "by which it is
made treason for any priest or Jesuit to seduce
any of the queen's subjects from the established
to the Romish religion. If any shall reconcile
themselves to that religion, they shall be guilty
of treason ; and to harbour such above twenty
days, is misprision of treason. If any one shaU
say mass, he shall forfeit two hundred marks,
and suffer a year's imprisonment; and they that
are present at hearing mass shall forfeit one hun
dred marks, and a year's imprisonment." Buf,
that the act might be more extensive, and com- ',
prebend Protestant Nonconformists, as weU as \
papists, it is farther enacted " that all persons
that do not come to church or chapel, or other ¦
plaoe where common prayer is said, according
to the Act of Uniformity, shall forfeit twenty
pounds per month to the queen,- being thereof
lawfully convicted, and suffer imprisonment till
paid. Those that are absent for twelve months
shall, upon certificate made thereof into the
King's Bench, besides their former fine, be bound
with two sufficient sureties, in a bond of two
hundred pounds, for then good behaviour. Ev
ery schoolmaster that does not come to common
prayer ShaU forfeit ten pounds a month, be dis
abled from teaching school, and suffer a year's J
imprisonment." This was making merchandise
of the souls of men, says a reverend author ;%
for it is a sad case to sell men a license to do
that which the receivers of their money conceive
to be unlawful. Besides, the fine was unmerci
ful ; by the Act of Uniformity, it was twelvepence
a Sunday for not coming to church, but now f 20
a month ; so that the meaner people had nothing
to expect but to rot in jails, which made the of
ficers unwilling to apprehend them. Thus the
queen and her parliament tacked the Puritans to
the papists, and subjected them to the same pe
nal laws, as if they had been equal enemies to
her person and government, and to the Protest
ant religion. A precedent foUowed by several
parliaments in the succeeding reigns.
The convocation did nothing but present an

* 23 Eliz:, cap. u.
X Fuller, b. ix., p. 131.

! 23 Ehz., cap. i.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

149

humble petition to the queen to take off the arch
bishop's sequestration, which her majesty was
not pleased to grant.
This summer, Aylmer, bishop of London, held
a visitation of his clergy, at the convocation
house of St. Paul's, and obliged them to sub
scribe the foUowing articles : 1. Exactly to
keep to the Book of Common Prayer and sac
raments. 2. To wear the surplice in all their
ministrations, 3. Not add or diminish anything
in reading Divine service. He then made the
following inquiries: 1. Whether all that had
cure of souls administered the sacraments in
person 1 2. Whether they observed the cere
monies to be used in baptism and marriage 1
3. Whether the youth were catechised 1 4.
Whether their ministers read the homilies 1
5. "Wliether any of them called others that did
not preach by Ul names, as dumb dogs 1 Those
who did not subscribe, and answer the interrog
atories to his lordship's satisfaction, were im
mediately suspended and synced.
But these violent measured, instead of recon
ciling the Puritans to the Church, drove them
farther from it. Men who act upon principles*
will not easUy be beaten from them with the
artUlery of canons, injunctions, subscriptions,
fines, imprisonments, &c., much less will they
esteem a church that fights with such weapons.
Multitudes were by these methods carried off
to a total separation, and so far prejudiced as
not to allow the Church of England to he a true
church, nor her ministers true ministers ; they
renounced all communion with her, not only in
the prayers and ceremonies, but in hearing the
Word and the sacraments. These were the peo
ple caUed Brownists,! from one Robert Brown, a
preacher in the diocess of Norwich, descended
of an ancient and honourable family in Rutland
shire, and nearly related to the Lord-treasurer
Cecil ; he was educated in Corpus Christi Col
lege, Cambridge, and preached sometimes in
Bene't Church, where the vehemence of his de
livery gained him reputation with the people.
He was first a schoolmaster, then a lecturer at
Islington ; but being a fiery, hotheaded young
man, he went about the countries inveighing
against the discipline and ceremonies of the
' Church, and exhorting the people by no means
tb comply with them. He -viras first taken no
tice of by the Bishop of Norwich, who com
mitted him to the custody of the sheriff of the
county in the yeaj: 1580, but, upon acknowledg
ment of his offence, he was released. In the
year 1582, he published a book caUed " The Life
and Manners of true Christians ; to which is
prefixed a Treatise of Reformation without tar
rying for any ; and of the Wickedness of those
Preachers who will not reform themselves and
* To do so is highly virtuous and praiseworthy.
It is the support of intepity, and constitutes excel
lence of character : yet, in this instance. Bishop War
burton could allow himself to degrade and make a
jest of it. " It is just the same," says he, " with men
who act upon passion and prejudice, for the poet says
truly, " ' Obstinacy's ne'er so stifi'
As when 'tis in a wrong befief ' " — Ed.
! With them commenced the third period of Pu
ritanism. 'The increasing severity of the bishops in
flamed, instead of subduing, the sphits of'the Non
conformists, and drove them to a greater distance
from the estabhshment. — Ed.

their Charge, because they will tarry tUl the
Magistrate command and compel them," For
this he was sent for again into custody, and
upon examination confessed himself the author,
but denied that he was acquainted with the
publication, of the book ; whereupon he was
dismissed a second time, at the intercession of
the lord-treasurer, and sent home to his father,
with whom he continued four years ; after
which he travelled up and down the countries
in company with his assistant, Richard Harri
son, preaching against bishops, ceremonies, ec
clesiastical courts, ordaining of ministers, &c,,
for which, as he afterward boasted, he had been
committed to thirty-two prisons, in some of
which he could not see his hand at noonday.
At length he gathered a separate congregation
of his own principles ; but the queen and her
bisliops watching them narrowly, they were
quickly forced to leave the kingdom. Several
of his friends embarked with their effects for
HoUand ; and having obtained leave of the ma
gistrate to worship God in their own way, set
tled at Middleburgh, in Zealand. Here Mr.
Brown formed a church according to hi« own
model : but when this handful of people were
delivered from the bishops their oppressors,
they crumbled into parties among themselves,
insomuch that Brown, being weary of his office,
returned to England in the year 1589, and hav
ing renounced his principles of separation, be
came reptor of a church in Northamptonshire :
here he lived an idle and dissolute life, accord
ing to Fuller,* far from that Sabbatarian strict
ness that his followers aspired after. He had a
wife, with whom he did not live for many years,
and a churph in whiph he never preached ; at
length, being poor and proud, and very passion
ate, he struek the constable of his parish fbr de
manding a rate of him ; and being beloved by
nobody, the officer summoned him before Sir
Roland St. John, a neighbouring justice of
peace, who committed him to Northampton jail ;
the decrepit old man, not being able to walk,
was carried thither upon a feather-bed in a cart^
where he feU sick and died, in the year 1630,
and in the eighty-first year of his age.
The revolt of Mr. Brown broke up his con
gregation at Middleburgh, but was far from de
stroying the seeds of separation that he had
sown in several parts of England; his followers
increased, and made a considerable figure to
wards the latter end of this reign ; and because
some of his principles were adopted and im
proved by a considerable body of Puritans in
the next age, I shall here give an account of
them. The Brownists did not differ from the Church
of Eilgland in any articles of faith, but were
very rigid and narrow in points of discipline.
They denied the Church of England to be a
true church, and her ministers to be rightly or
dained. They maintained the discipline of the
Church of England to be popish and antichris
tian, and aU her ordinances and sacraments in
valid. Hence they forbade their people to join
with them in prayer, in hearing, or in any part
of public worship ; nay, they not only renoun
ced communion with the' Church of England,
but with all other Reformed churches, except
such as should be of their own model.

* B. X., p. 263.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

150
They apprehended, according to Scripture, 1
that every church ought to be confined within
the limits of a single congregation, and that
the government should be democratical. When
a church was to be gathered, such as desired
to be members made a confession of their faith
in presence of each other, and signed a cove
nant obhging themselves to walk together in the
order of the Gospel, according to certain rules
and agreements therein contained.
The whole power of admitting and excluding
members, with the deciding of all controversies,
was in the brotherhood. Their church ofl[icers,
for preaching the Word and taking care of the
poor, were chosen from among themselves, and
separated to their several offices by fasting and
prayer and imposition of the hands of some of
the brethren. They did not allow the priest
hood to be a distinct order, or to give a man an
indelible character ; but, as the vote of the
brotherhood made him an oflicer, and gave him
authority to preach and administer the sacra
ments among them, so the same power could
discharge him from office, and reduce him to
the state of a private member.
When the number of communicants was
larger than could meet in one place, the church
divided, and chose new officers from among
themselves as before, living together as sister
churches, and giving each other the right hand
of feUowship, or the privilege of communion
with either. One church might not exercise
jurisdiction and authority over another, but
each might give the other counsel, advice, or
admonition, if they walked disorderly, or aban
doned the capital truths of religion ; and if the
offending church did not receive the admonition,
the others were to withdraw, and publicly dis
own them as a Church of Christ. The powers
.of their church officers were confined within
the narrow limits of their own society ; the
pastor of one church might not administer the
sacrament of baptism or the Lord's Supper to
any but those of his own communion'and their
immediate children. They declared against aU
prescribed forms of prayer. Any lay-brother
had the liberty of prophesying, or giving a word
of exhortation, in their church assemblies ; and
it was usual, after sermon, for some of the
members to ask questions, and confer with each
other upon the doctrines that had been deliver
ed ; but as for church censures, they were for
an entire separation of the ecclesiastical and
eivil sword. In short, every church or society
of Christians meeting in one place was, accord
ing to the Brownists, a body corporate, having
full power within itself to admit and exclude
members, to choose and ordain officers, and,
when the good of the society required it, to
depose them, without being accountable to
classes, convocations, synods, councUs, or any
jurisdiction whatsoever.
Some of their reasons for withdrawing from
the Church are not easily answered ; they al
leged that the laws of the realm and the
queen's injunctions had made several unwar
rantable additions to the institutions of Christ.
That there were several gross errors in the
Church service. That these additions and er
rors were imposed and made necessary to com
munion. That if persecution' for conscience'
fiake was the mark of a false church, they could |

not believe the Churoh of England to be a true
one. They apprehend, farther, that the consti
tution of the hierarchy was too bad to be mended,
that the very pillars of it were rotten, and that
the structure must be begun anew. Since,
therefore, aU Christians are obliged to preserve
the ordinances of Christ pure and undefiled,
they resolved to lay a new foundation, and keep
as near as they could to the primitive pattern,
though it were with the hazard of all that was
dear to them in the world.
This scheme of the Brownists seems to he
formed upon the practice of the apostolical
churches before the gifts of inspiration and
prophecy were ceased, and is therefore hardly
practicable in these latter ages, wherein the in
firmities and passions of private persons too
often take the place of their gifts and graces.
Accordingly, they were involved in frequent
quarrels and divisions'; but their chief crime
was their uncharitableness, in unchurching the
whole Christian wca^, and breaking of all man
ner of communion m hearing the Word, in pub
lic prayer, and in the administration ofthe.sac-
raments, not only with the Church of England,
but with aU foreign Reformed churches, which,
though less pure, ought certainly to be owned
as churches of Christ.
The heads of the Bro-wnists were, Mr. Brown
himself, and his companion Mr. Harrison, to
gether with Mr. Tyler, Copping, Thacker, and
others, who were now in prison for spread
ing his books ; the last two being afterward
put to death for it. The Bishop of Norwich
used them cruelly, and was highly displeased
with those that showed them any countenance.
¦When the prisoner above mentioned, with Mr.
Handson and some others, complained to the
justices, at their quarter-sessions, of their long
and iUegal imprisonment, their worships were
pleased to move the bishops in their favour,
with which his lordship was so dissatisfied that
he drew up twelve articles of impeachment
against the justices themselves, and caused
them to be summoned before the queen and
council to answer for their misdemeanors,*
In the articles they are charged with counte
nancing Copping, Tyler, and other disorderly
clergymen. They are accused of contempt of
his lordship's jurisdiction, in refusing to admit
divers ministers whom he had ordained, be
cause they were ignorant, and could only read;
and for removing one Wood from his living on
the same account. Sir Robert Jeimin and Sir
John Higham, knights, and Robert Ashfield and
Thomas Badley, esquires, gentlemen of Suffolk
and Norfolk, and of the number of the aforesaid
justices, gave in their answer to the bishop s
artieles in the name of the rest, in which, after
asserting their own ponformity to the rites and
peremonies of the Churph, they very justly tax
his lordship with oruelty in keeping men so
many years in prison without bringing th™ '»
trial, aecording to law ; and are ashamed that
a bishop of the Churoh Of England should be a
patron of ignoranoe andan enemy to the preach
ing the Word of God. Upon this the justices
were dismissed. B ut though the lord-treasurer,
Lord North, Sir Robert Jermin, and others,
wrote to the bishop that Mr. Handson, who
* Strype's Annals, vol. iii., p. 20.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

151

was a learned and useful preacher, might have
a license granted him, the angry prelate de
clared peremptorily that he never should have
one, unless he would aeknowledge his fault, and
enter into bonds for his good behaviour for the
future. While the bishops were driving the Puritans
out of the pulpits, the nobUity and gentry reeeiv
ed them into their houses as chaplains and tu
tors to their children, not merely out of com
passion, but from a sense of their real worth
and usefulness ; for they were men of undis
sembled piety and devotion ; mighty in the Scrip
tures ; zealous for the Protestant religion ; of
exemplary lives ; far remote from the liberties
and fashionable vices of the times ; and inde-
fatigably dUigent in instructing those committed
to their care. Here they were covered from
their oppressors ; they preached in the family,
and catechised the chUdren ; which, without
all question, had a considerable influence upon
the next generation.
The papists were now very active all over the
country: swarms of Jesuits came over from the
seminaries abroad, in defiance of the law,* and
spread their books of devotion and controversy
among the common people ; they had their pri
vate conventicles almost in every market-town
in England ; in the northern counties they were
more numerous than the Protestants. This put
the government upon inquiring after the priests ;
many of whom were apprehended, and three
were executed, viz., Edmund Champion, a learn
ed and subtle Jesuit, educated in Cambridge,
where he continued tiU the year 1569, when he
travelled to Rome and entered himself into the
society of Jesus, 1573. Some years after he
came into England, and travelled the countries
to propagate the Catholic faith. Being appre
hended, he was put on the rack to discover the
gentlemen who harboured him, and afterward
was hanged, draw|i, and quartered, when he was
but forty-one years of age. The other two that
suffered with him were Ralph Sherwin and
Alexander Bryant. These were executed for
an, example, but the rest were spared, because
the queen's match with the Duke of Anjou was
stUl depending. However, the Protestants in
the Netherlands being in distress, the queen as
sisted them with men and money, for which
they delivered into her majesty's hands the most
important fortresses of their country, which she
garrisoned with English. She also sent relief
to the French Protestants who were at war with
their natural prince, and ordered a collection
all over England for the relief of the city of
Geneva, besieged by the Duke of Savoy : meas
ures which were hardly consistent with her
own principles of government ; but, as Rapin
dbserves,! Queen Elizabeth's zeal for the Prot-

* Bishop Warburton asks here, " Were the Jes-
-uits more faulty in acting in defiance of the laws than
•the Puritans ?" and repUes, " I think not. They had
both the same plea, conscience, and both the same
provocation, persecution," This is candid and perti
nent, as far as it applies to the rehgious principles of
each: but certainly the spirit and views of these
parties were very different ; the former was engaged,
once and again, in plots against the life and govern
ment of the queen ; the loyalty of the other was, not
withstanding all theh suilerings, unimpeached. — Ed
! Vol. vui., p. 475.

estant religion was always subordinate to her
private interest.
About this time [1583] the queen granted a
commission of concealments to some of her
hungry courtiers, by which they were empow
ered to inquire into the titles of Church lands
and livings ; all forfeitures, concealments, or
lands for which the parish could not produce a
legal title, were given to them : the 'articles of
inquiry seemed to be leveUed against the Puri
tans, but, through their sides, they must have
made sad havoc with the patrimony of the
Church.* They were such as these : 'What right
have you to your parsonage ' How came you
into it 1 Who ordained you 1 and at what age
were you ordained 1 Have you a licensed
Were you married under the hands of two jus
tices of the peace 1 Do you read the whole ser
vice 1 Do you use all the rites, ceremonies, and
ornaments appointed by the queen's injunctions 1
Have you publicly read the articles, and sub
scribed them ] The church- wardens of every
parish had also twenty-four interrogatories ad
ministered to them upon oath concerning their
parson and their church lands ; aU with a de
sign to sequester them into the hands of the
queen's gentiemen-pensioners. This awakened
the bishops, who fell upon their knees before the
queen, and entreated her majesty, if she had
any regard for the Church, to supersede the
commission ; which she did, though, it is weU
enough known, the queen had no scruple of
conscience about plundering the Church of its
revenues. To return to the Puritans. The Rev. Robert
Wright, domestic chaplain to the late Lord
Rich, of Rochford, in Essex, fell into the hands
of the Bishop of London last year! [1581] ; he
was a learned man, and had lived fourteen years
in the University of Cambridge ; but being dis
satisfied with episcopal ordination, went over to
Antwerp, and was ordained by the laying on of
the hands of the presbytery of that place. Upon
his return home. Lord Rich took him into his
family at Rochford, in the hundreds of Essex,
where he preached constantiy in his lordship's
chapel, and nowhere else, because he could
obtain no license from the bishop. He was an
admired preacher, and universally beloved by
the clergy of the county for his great serious
ness and piety. WhUe his lordship was alive
he protected him from danger, but his noble pa
tron was no sooner dead than the Bishop of Lon
don laid hands on him, and confined him in the
Gatehouse, for saying that to keep the queen's
birthday as a holyday was to make her an idol.
When the good man had been shut up from his
family a|d friends several months, he petitioned
the bishap to be brought to his trial, or admitted
to bad. But all the answer his lordship returned
was, that " he deserved to lie in prison seven
years." This usage, together with Mr. Wright's
open and undisguised honesty and piety, moved
the compassion of his keeper, insomuch that, his
poor wife being in chUdbed and distress, he
gave him leave, with the private aUowance of
the secretary of state, to make her a visit at
Rochford upon his parole ; but it happened that
Dr. Ford, the civilian, meeting him upon the
road, acquainted the bishop with his escape
* Strype's Annals, vol. iii., p. 114
! Id. ibid, p 123.

152
who thereupon fell into a violent passion, and
sending immediately for the keeper, demanded
to see his prisoner. The keeper pleaded the
great compassion of the case ; but the bishop
threatened to complain of him to the queen, and
have him turned out, Mr. Wright being in
formed of the keeper's danger, returned imme
diately to his prison, and wrote to the lord-
treasurer on his behalf " Oh I my lord," says
he, " I most humbly crave your lordship's fa
vour that I may be delivered from such unpiti-
ful minds ; and especially that your lordship wiU
stand a good lord to my keeper, that he may not
be discouraged from favouring those that pro
fess true religion." Upon this the keeper was
pafdoned. But the bishop resolved to take full satisfac
tion of the prisoner: accordingly, he sent for
him before the commissioners, and examined
him upon articles concerning the Book of Com
mon P.rayer ; concerning rites and ceremonies ;
concerning prayer for the queen and the Church ;
and concerning the established form of ordain
ing ministers. He was charged with preaching
without a license, and with being no better than
a mere layman. To which he made the follow
ing answers : " That he thought the Book of
Common Prayer, in the main, good and godly,
hut could not answer for every particular. That
as to rites and ceremonies, he thought his re
sorting to churches where they were used was
a sufficient proof that he allowed them. That
he prayed for the queen, and for all ministers
of God's Word, and, consequently, for archbish
ops and bishops, &c. That he was but a pri
vate chaplain, and knew no law that required
a license for such a place." But he could not
yield himself to be a mere layman, having
preached seven years in the university with li
cense ; and since that time having been regu
larly ordained, by the laying on of the hands of
the presbyters at Antwerp. The bishop having
charged him with saying that the election of
ministers ought to be by their flopks, he owned
it, and supposed it not to be an error ; and ad
ded, farther, that in his opinion every minister
was a bishop, though not a lord-bishop ; and
that his lordship of London must tie of the same
opinion, because, when he rebuked Mr. White
for striking one of his parishioners, hp aUeged
that text that a "bishop must be no striker:"
which had been impertinent, if Mr, White, be
ing only a nainister, had not been a bishop.
When his lordship charged him with saying
there were no lawful ministers in the Church
of England, he replied,* " I will be content to
be condemned, if I bring not two hundred wit
nesses for my discharge of this accusation. I
do as certainly believe that there aiP lawful
ministers in England as that there is a sun in
the sky. In Essex, I can bring twenty godly
ministers, all preachers, who will testify that
they love me, and have cause to think that I
love and reverence them. I preached seven
years in the University of Cambridge wilh ap
probation, and have a testimonial to produce
under the hands and seals of the master and
feUows of Christ College, being aU ministers at
that time, of my good behaviimr." However,
all he could say was to no purpose : the bishop
would not allow his orders, and therefore pro-
* Strype's Arm., vol. iu. Appendix, No. 23, 24.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

nounced him a layman, and incapable of holding-
any living in the Church.
The Lord Rich, and divers honourable knight*
and gentlemen in Essex, had petitioned the
Bishop of London for a license, that Mr. Wright
might preach pubUcly in any place within his.
diocess ; but his lordship always refused it, be
cause he was no minister, that is, had only been
ordained among the foreign churches. But this
was certainly contrary to law ; for the statute
13 Eliz,, cap. xii., admits the ministration of
those who had only been ordained according to
the manner of the Scots, or other foreign church
es ; there were some scores, if not hundreds of
them, now in the Church ; and the Archbishop-
of Canterbury at this very time commanded jDr.
Aubrey, his vicar-general, to license Mr. John
Morrison, a Scots divine, who had had no other
ordination than what he received from a Scots
presbytery, to preach over his whole province.
The words of the license are as follows : "Since-
you, the aforesaid John Morrison, about five
years past, in the town of Garret, in the county
of Lothian, of the kingdom of Scotland, were
admitted and ordained- to sacred orders and tlie
holy ministry, by the imposition of hands, ac
cording to the laudable form and rite of the Re
formed Church of Scotland ; and since the con
gregation of that county of Lothian is conform
able to the orthodox faith, and sincere religion
now received in thjs realm of England, and es
tablished by public authority : we, therefore, as
much as lies in us, and as by rjght we may, ap
proving and ratifying the form of your ordina
tion and preferment done in such manner afore
said, grant unto'you a hcense and faculty, -with
the consent and express command of the most
reverend father in Christ, the Lord Edmund, by
the Divine Providence Archbishop of Canterbu
ry, to us signified, that in such orders by you
taken, you may and have power in apy conve
nient places in and throughout the whole prov;
ince of Canterbury, to celebrate Divine offces,
to minister the sacraments, &c., as much as in
us lies ; and we may de jure, and as far as the
laws of the kingdom do allojv," This license
was dated AprU 6, 1582, and is as fuU a 'testi
monial to the validity of presbyterial ordinatifln
as can be desired. But the other notion was
growing into fashion ; aU orders of meh are for
assuniing some peculiar characters and powers
to themselves ; the bishop wiU be a distinct and
superior order to presbyters ; and no man mpst
be a minister of Christ but on whpm they lay
their hands.*
The behaviour of the Bishop of Lpndpn to
wards the Puritans moved the compassion of
some of the conforniing clergy ; the Rev. Mr.
Wilkin, rector of 'Danbury, in Essex, in a letter
to the lord-treasurer, writes thus : " As some
might be thought over-earnest about trifles, so,.

* Here BishOp Warburton remarks, i' The Puri
tans were even with them ; and to the jus divm/m
oi episcopacy, opposed the jus divinum oi presbytery,
which was the making each other antichristian.
His lordship goes into this conclusion too hastily,
and applies it without, nay, against authority, to the
Puritans: they never required such as had been
episcopally ordained to be reordainpd; but, in the
height of their power, declared, " We hqld brdinatioq,
by a bishop to be for substance valid, and not to be
disclaimed by any that have received it." — Spe put"
author, vol. iii. — Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

15J.

on the other hand, there had been too severe
and sharp punishment for the same. Though I
myself think reverently of the Book of Common
Prayer, yet surely it is a reverence due only to
the sacred writings of Holy Scripture to say
the authors of them erred in nothing, and to
none other books of men, of what learning so
ever. I have seen the letters of the bishops to
Bullinger and Gualter, when I was at Zuricli in
the year 1567, in which they declare that they
had no hand in passing the book, and had no
other choice but to leave their places to papists
or accept them as they were ; but they profess
ed and promised never to urge their brethren
to those things ; and also, when opportunity
should serve, to seek reformation." How dif
ferent was the practice of these prelates from
their former professions I
But not only the clergy, but the whole coun
try also, exclaimed against the bishops for their
high proceedings ; the justices of peace of the
county of .Suffolk were so moved, that, notwith
standing his lordship's late citation of them be
fore the council, they wrote again to their hon
ours, praying them to interpose in behalf of the
injuries that were offered to divers godly min
isters. The words of their supplication are
worth remembering, because they discover the
cruelty of the commissioners, who made no dis
tinction between the vilest of criminals and con
scientious ministers : " The painful ministers of
the Word," say they, " are marshalled with the
malefactors, presented, indicted, arraigned, and
condemned for matters, as we presume, of very
slender moment : some for leaving the holydays
unbidden ; some for singing the psalm Nunc
Dimittis in the moining ; some for-turning the
questions in baptism concerning. faith from the
infants to the godfathers, which is but you for
thou ; some for leaving out the cross in baptism ;
some for leaving out the ring in marriage. A
most pitiful thing it is to see the back of the
law turned to the adversary [the papists], and
the edge with aU sharpness laid upon the sound
and true-hearted subject.*
" We grant order to be the rule of the Spirit
of God, and desire uniformity in all the duties
of the Church, according to the proportion of
faith ; but if these weak ceremonies are so in
different as to be left to the discretion of minis
ters, we think it (under correction) very hard
to have them go under so hard handling, to the
utter discredit of their whole ministry and the
profession of truth."
" We serve her majesty and the country [as
magistrates and justices of the peace] according
to law ; we reverence the law and lawmaker ;
when the law speaks, we keep sUence ; when it
commandeth, we obey. By law we proceed
against aU offenders ; we touch none that the
lawspareth, and spare none that the law touoh-
eth ; we allow not of papists ; of the Family of
Love ; of Anabaptists, or Brownists. No, we
puqish all these.!

* Strype's Annals, vol. in., p. 183, 184.
! Bishop Maddox observes the expressions m
Strype are stronger. " We aUow not of the papists,
then: subtleties and hypocrisies : we allow not of the
Family of Love, an egg of the same nest : we allow
not of the Anabaptists and their communion : we al
low not of Brown, the overthrower of Church and
commonwealth : we abhor all these ; no, (we) pun-
VoL. I.— U

" And yet we are ehristened with the odious
name of Puritans ; a term pompounded of tho
heresies above mentioned, which we disclaim.
The papists pretend to be pure and immaculate ;
the Family of Love connot sin, they being dei
fied (as they say) in God. But we groan under
the burden of our sins, and confess them to
God, and, at the same time, we labour to keep
ourselves and our profession unblameable ; this
is our Puritanism ; a name given to such magis
trates, and ministers, and others, that have a,
strict eye upon their juggling,
" We think ourselves bound in duty to unfold
these matters to your lordships ; and if you ¦
shall please to call us to the truth of them, it is
the thing we most desire,"
This supplication produced a letter from the
councU to the judges of the assize, command
ing them not to give ear to malicious informers •
against peaceful and faithful ministers, nor to
match them at the bar with rogues, felons, or
papists, but to put a difference in the face of the
world between those of another faith and they
who differ only about ceremonies, and yet dUi-
gently and soundly preach true religion. The
judges were struck with this letter, and the
Bishop of London, with his attendants, returned
from his visitation full of discontent. Indeed,
his lordship had made himself so many enemies
that he grew weary of his bishopric, and peti
tioned the queen to exchange it for that of, Ely,
that he might retire and be out of the way ; but
her majesty refused his request.
Notwithstanding these slight appearances iu
favour of the Puritans two ministers of the
Brownist persuasion were condemned and put
to death this summer for nonconformity, viz.,
Mr. Elias Thacker, hanged at St. Edmund's-
bury, June 4th, and Mr. John Copping two days
after, June 6th, 1583. Their indictments were
for spreading certain books seditiously penned
by Robert Brown against the Book of Common
Prayer established by the laws of this realm.
The sedition charged upon Bro-wn's book was,.
that it subverted the constitution of the Church,
and acknowledged her majesty's supremacy
civilly, but not otherwise, as appears by the-
report which the judges sent to court, viz.,
That the prisoners, instead of acknowledging
her majesty's supremacy in all pauses, would
aUow it only in civU.* This the judges took
hold of to aggravate their offence to the queen,
after they had passed sentence upon them on
the late statute of the 23d Eliz. against spread
ing seditious libels, and for refusing the oath of
supremacy. Mr. Copping had suffered a long
and illegal imprisonment from the bishop of his
diocess ; his wife being brought to bed while he
was under confinement, he was charged with
not suffering his child to be baptized ; to which
he answered, that his conscience could not ad
mit it to be done with godfathers and god
mothers, and he could get no preacher to do it
without. He was accused, farther, with saying
the queen '"'as perjured, because she had sworn
to set forth (jod's glory directly as by the
Scriptures are appointed, and did not ; but these
were only circumstances to support the grand
ish all these." This, we must own with his lord
ship, was not the language of real and consistent
friends to liberty of conscience. — Ed,
* Strype's Annals, vol. hi., p. 186.

il54

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

charge of sedition in spreading Brown's book.
However, it seemed a UtUe hard* to hang men
for spreading a seditious book, at a time when
the author of that very book [Brown] was par
doned and set at liberty. Both the prisoners
died by their principles ; for though Dr. StiU,
the archbishop's chaplain, and others, traveUed ,
and conferred with them, yet at the very hour
of their death they remained immovable ; they
were both sound in the doctrmal articles of the
Church of England, and of unblemished lives.!
One WUsford, a layman, should have suffered
with them, but upon conference with Secretary
WUson, who told him the queen's supremacy
might be understood only of her majesty's civU
power over ecclesiastical persons, he took the
oath and was discharged.
While the bishops were thus harassing hon
est and conscientious ministers for scrupling
the ceremonies of the Church, practical religion
was at a very low ebb ; the fashionable vices of
the times were, profane swearing, drunkenness,
revelling, gaming, and profanation of the Lord's
Day ; yet there was no discipline for these of
fenders, nor do I find any such cited into the
spiritual courts, or shut up in prisons. If men
came to their parish churches, and approved of
the habits and ceremonies, other offences were
overlooked, and the court was easy. At Paris
Gardens, in Southwark, there were public sports
on the Lord's Day for the entertainment of
great numbers of people ¦vvho resorted thither ;
but on the 13th of January, being Sunday, it
happened that one of the scaffolds, being crowd
ed with people, fell down, by which accident
some were killed and a great many wounded.
This was thought to be a judgment from heav
en ; for the lord-mayor, in the account he gives
of it to the treasurer, says " that it gives great
occasion to acknowledge the hand of God for
such abuse of the Sabbath day, and moveth me
in conscience to give order for redress of such
contempt of God's service; adding, that for
this purpose he had treated with some justices
of peace in Surrey, who expressed a very good
zeal, but alleged want of commission, which he
referred to the consideration of his lordship."!
But the court paid no regard to such remon
strances, and the queen had her ends in en
couraging the sports, pastimes, and reveUings
of the people on Sundays and holydays.
This year died the famous northern apostle,
Mr. Bernard Gilpin, minister of Houghton, in
the bishopric of Durham. He was born at
Kentmire, in Westmoreland, 1517, of an an
cient and honourable family, and was entered
into Queen's CoUege, Oxford, in the year 1533.

* Bishop Warburton imputes it to party and preju
dice in Mr. Neal that he doth not point out the dif
ference in this case, which his lordship states to be
the same as between " the dispensers of poison
hanged for going on obstinately in mischief, and of
him who compounded the poison, but was, on his
repentance, pardoned." But no such distinction ex
isted, and has lordship lost sight of the real state of
the case. Brown did not renounce his principles
till seven years after he was committed to prison for
publishing his book, and was dismissed, not on his
repentance, but at the intercession of the lord-treas
urer. So far from repenting, he went up and down
inveighing against bishops, &c., and gathered a sep
arate congregation on his own principles. — See our
.author, p. 268. — Ed.
! Strype's Ann., vol. ii., p. 532, 533. ! Id. ibid.

He continued a papist aU the reign of King
Henry VIII., but was converted by the lectures
of Peter Martyr, in the beginning of the reign
of Edward VI. * He was remarkably honest
and open to conviction, but did not separate
from the Romish communion till he was per
suaded the pope was antichrist. Cuthbert Ton
stal, bishop of Durham, was his uncle by the
mother's side, by whose encouragement he
travelled to Paris, Louvaine, and other parts,
being stUl for the real presence of Christ in the
sacrament, though not for transubstantiation.
Returning home in the days of Queen Mary, his
uncle placed him first in the rectory of Essing-
ton, and afterward at Houghton, a large parish
containing fourteen viUages ; here he laboured
in the work of the ministry, and was often
exposed to danger, but constantly preserved
by his uncle, Bishop Tonstal, who was averse
to burning men for religion. Miserable and
heathenish was the condition of these northern
counties at this time with respect to religion!
Mr. Gilpin beheld it with tears of compassion,
and resolved, at his own expense, to visit the
desolate churches of Northumberland and the
parts adjoining, called Riddesdale and Tindale,
once every year, to preach the Gospel and dis
tribute to the necessities of the poor, which he
continued till his death ; this gained him the
veneration of all ranks of people in those parts ;
but though he had such a powerful screen ae
Bishop Tonstal, yet the fame of his doctrine,
which was Lutheran, reaching the ears of Bon
ner, he sent for him to London ; the reverend
man ordered his servant to prepare him a long
shirt, expecting to be burned, but before he came
to London Queen Mary died. Upon the acces
sion of Queen .Elizabeth, Mr. Gilpin, having a
fair estate of his own, erected a grammar-
school, and allowed maintenance for a master
and usher ; himself choosing out of the school
such as he hked best for his own private in
struction. Many learned men, who afterward
adorned the Church by their labours and up
rightness of life, were educated by him in his
domestic academy. Many gentlemen's sons
resorted to him, some of whom were boarded
in the town, and others in his own house ; be
sides, he took many poor men's sons under his
care, giving them meat, drink, clothes, and
education. In the year 1560 he was offered the bishopric
of Carlisle, and was urged to accept it by the
Eari of Bedford, Bishop Sandys, and others,
with the most powerful motives ; but h* desi
red to be excused, and in that resolution re
mained immovable ; his reasons were taken
from the largeness of the diocesses, which were
too great for the inspection of one person; for
he was so strongly possessed of the duty of
bishops, and of the charge of souls that was
committed to them, that he could never be per
suaded to keep two livings, over both of which

In 1552 GUpin was appointed to preach before
King Fdward, at Greenwich, and in his discourse ne
censured the avarice of the clergy and the comip-
tions of the Church with great freedom. His aa-
dress to the kmg, the clergy, and magistrates, is one
of the boldest and most honest remonstrances in oe-
haff of truth to be found in the annals of the EngUsn
hierarchy. This sermon, the only one he ever puo-
lished, is to be found in Carleton and Gilpm's " Uii
of Bernard Gilpin."— C.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

155

lie could not have a personal inspection, and
perform aU the offices of a pastor ; he added,
farther, that he had so many friends and rela
tives in those parts to gratify or connive at,
that he could not continue an honest man and
be their bishop. But though Mr. Gilpin would
not be a bishop, he supplied the place of one, by
preaching, by hospitality, by erecting schools,
by taking care of the poor, and providing for
destitute churches ; in aU which he was coun
tenanced and encouraged by the learned and
reverend James Pilkington, then bishop of
Durham, by whom he was excused from sub-
6criptions,-habits, and a strict observance of
ceremonies, it being his fixed opinion that no hu
man invention should take place in the Church,
instead of a Divine institution. After Bishop
Pilkington's death. Dr. Barnes was chosen his
successor, who was disgusted at Mr. GUpin's
popularity, and gave him trouble : once, when
he was setting out upon his annual visitation to
Riddesdale and Tindale, the bishop summoned
him to preach before him, which he excused in
the handsomest manner he could, and went his
progress ; but upon his return he found himself
suspended, for contempt, from aU ecclesiastical
employments. The bishop afterward sent for
him again on a sudden, and commanded him to
preach, but then he pleaded his suspension, and
his not being provided ; the bishop immediately
took off his suspension, and would not excuse
his preaching, upon which he went into the pul
pit, and discoursed upon the high charge of a
Christian bishop ; and having exposed the cor
ruptions of the clergy, he boldly addressed him
self to his lordship in these words : " Let not
your lordship say. These crimes have been
committed without my knowledge, for whatso
ever you yourself do in person, or suffer through
your connivance to be done by others, it is
wholly your own ; therefore, in the presence of
God, angels, and men, I pronounce your father
hood to be the author of all these evils ; and I
and this whole congregation wUl be a witness in
the day of judgment, that these things have come
to your ears." All men thought the bishop
would have deprived Mr. Gilpin for his freedom
as soon as he came out of the pulpit, but, by the
good providence of God, it had quite a different
effect ; the bishop thanked him for his faithful
reproof, and after this suffered him to go on
with his annual progress, giving him no farther
disturbance. -At length, his lean body being
quite worn out with labour and travail, and
feeling the approaches of death, he commanded
the poor to be called together, and took a sol
emn leave of them ; afterward he did the like
by his relatives and friends ; then giving him
self up to God, he took his bed about the end
of February, and died March 4, 1583, in the
sixty-sixth year of his age. He was a heaven
ly man, endued with a large and generous soul,
of a taU stature of body, with a Roman nose :
his clothes were neat and plain, for he was
frugal in his own dress, though very bountiful
to others. His doors were always open for the
entertainment of strangers. He boarded in his
own house twenty-four scholars, most of whom
were upon charity. He kept a table for the
poor every Lord's Day, from Michaelmas to
Easter, and expended £500 for a free school
ibr their chUdren. Upon the whole, he was a

pious, devout, and open-hearted divine ; a con
scientious Nonconformist, but against separa
tion. He was accounted a saint by his very
enemies, if he had any such, being full.of faith
and good works ; and was at last put into his
grave as a shock of corn fully ripe.*
The same year died Edmund Grindal, arch
bishop of Canterbury, born at Copland, in the
county of Cumberiand, in the year 1519, and
educated in Cambridge. He was a famous
preacher in King Edward's days, and was nom
inated by him to a bishopric when he was only
thirty-three years of age ; but that king dying
soon after, Jie went into exUe, and imbibed the
principles of a farther reformation than had as
yet obtained in England. Upon Queen Eliza
beth's accession he returned to England, and
was advanced, first to the See of London, and
then to York and Canterbury, though he could
hardly persuade himself for some time to wear
the habits and comply with the ceremonies of
the Church ; nor did he ever heartily approve
them, yet thought it better to support the Ref
ormation on that foot than hazard it back into
the hands of the papists.! He was of a mUd
and moderate temper, easy of access, and affa
ble even in his highest exaltation. He is blamed
by some for his gentle usage of the Puritans,
though he used them worse than he would have
done if he had been left to himself About a
year or two after his promotion to the See of
Canterbury, he lost the queen's favour on the
account of the prophesyings, and was suspended
for some years, during which time many Puri
tan ministers took shelter in the counties of
Kent and Surrey, &c,, whiph made more work
for his suceessor. The good old archbishop be
ing blind and broken-hearted, the queen took off
his sequestration about a year before his death,
and sent to acquaint him that if he would resign
he should have her favour and an honourable
pension, which he promised to accept within
six months ; but Whitgift, who was designed for
his successor, refusing to enter upon the see
whUe Grindal lived, he made a shift to hold it
till his death, which happened July 6th, 1583, in
the sixty-third year of his age. Camden caUs
him a religious and grave divine. HoUingshead
says he was so studious that his book was his
bride, and his study his bridechamber, in which
he spent his eyesight, his strength, and his
health. He was certainly a learned and vener
able prelate^nd had a high esteem for the name
and doctrines of Calvin, with whom, and with
the German divines, he held a constant corre
spondence. His high stations did not make him
proud ; but if we may believe his successor in
the See of York, Archbishop Sandys, he must
be tainted with avarice (as most of the queen's
bishops were), because, within two months after
he was translated to Canterbury, he gave to his
kinsmen and servants, and sold for round sums
of money to himself, six score leases and pat
ents, even then when they were thought not
to be good in law.! But, upon the whole, he
was one of the best of Queen Elizabeth's bish-

* " The worth and labours of this excellent man,"
it was observed in the New Annual Register for
1789, " have been amply displayed in the present
century, by the elegant pen of one of his own name
and family." — Ed. ! Grindal's Life, p. 295.
! Strype's Annals, vol. ult., Suppl., p. 21.

156

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

ops. He lies buried in the chancel of the Church
at Croydon, where his eflRgy is to be seen at
length in his doctor's robes, and in a praying
posture.-*

CHAPTER VII.
FEOM THE DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP GRINDAL TO THE
SPANISH INVASION IN 1588.
Upon the death of Grindal, Dr. John Whit
gift, bishop of Worcester, was translated to the
See of Canterbury, and confirmed September
23d, 1 583. He had distinguished himself in the
controversy against the Puritans,! and was
therefore thought the most proper person to re
duce their numbers. Upon his advancement,
the queen charged him "to restore the disci
pline of the Church, and the uniformity estab
lished by law, which (says her majt>sty), through
the connivance of some prelates, the obstinacy
of the Puritans, and the power of some noble
men, is run out of square." Accordingly, the
very first week his grace published the following
articles, and sent them to the bishops of his
province, for their direction in the government
of their several diocesses :
" That all preaching, catechising, and pray
ing, in any private faraUy, where any are pres
ent besides the family, be utterly extinguished.!
That none do preach or catechise, except also he
wiU read the whole service, and administer the
sacraments four times a year. That all preach
ers, and others in ecplesiastieal orders, do at all
times wear the habits preseribed. That none be
admitted to preaeh unless he be ordained aepord-
ing to the manner ofthe Churph of England. That
none be adinitted to preaeh, or exeeute any part
ofthe ecclesiastical function, unless he subscribe
the three foUowing articles: 1st, To the queen's
supremacy over all persons, and in all causes
ecclesiastical and civil within her majesty's do
minions. 2dly, To the Book of Common Prayer,
and of the ordination of priests and deacons,
as containing nothing contrary to the Word of
God ; and that they wiU use it in all their public
ministrations, and no other. 3dly, To the thirty-
nine articles of the Churoh of England, agreed
upon in the synod of 1562, and afterward confirm-

* This prelate is the Algrind of Spencer, which is
the anagram of his name. The Frenc# Protestants
were very much indebted to his influence and activi
ty in obtaining for them a settlement in England, in
their own method of worship. This was the begin
ning ofthe Walloon Church, situated in Threadnee
dle-street, London, which has ever since been ap
propriated to the use of the French nation. — British
Biography, vol. ui., p. 161. Granger's Biographical
History, vol. ii., p. 204, note, 8vo. — En.
!" It is seldom good policy," says Mr. Hallam, when
referring to ¦Whitgift's elevation, " to confer such eiri-
inent stations in the Church on the gladiators of the
ological controversy ; who, from vanity and resent
ment, as well as the corfrse of their studies, will al-
vvays be prone to exaggerate the importance of the
disputes wherein they have been engaged, and to
turn whatever authority the laws or the influence of
their place may give them against their adversaries.
This was fully illustrated by the conduct of Arch
bishop Whitgift, whose elevation the wisest of Eliz
abeth's counsellors had ample reason to regret. "-
Hallam's Constitutional Hist., vol. i., p. 269. — C.
! Life of Whitgift, p. 118.

ed by Parhament."* And with what severity-
his grace enforced these articles will be seen
presently. It is easy to observe that they were all level
led at the Puritans ; but the most disinterested
civil lawyers of these times were of opinion that
his grace had no legal authority to impose those
or any other articles, upon the clergy, without
the broad seal ; and that all his proceedings
upon them were an abuse of the royal preroga
tive, contrary to the laws ofthe land, and, con
sequently, so many acts of oppression upon the
subject. Their reasons were,
1. Because the statute of the twenty-fiflfc
Henry VIIL, chap. 20, expressly prohibits "the
whole body of the clergy, or any one of them, to
put in use any constitutions or canons aheady
made, or hereafter to be made, except they be
made in convocation assembled by the king's
writ, his royal assent being also had thereunto,
on pain of fine and imprisonment,"
2, Because, by the statute ofthe 1st of Eliz,,
chap, iii., " all such jurisdictions, privUeges, su
periorities, pre-eminences, spiritual or eoclesi
astical power and authority, which hath hereto
fore been, or may lawfuUy be, executed or used
for the visitation of the ecclesiastical state and
persons, and for reformation ofthe same, and of
aU manner of errors, heresies, schisms, abuses,
contempts, and enormities, are forever united to
the imperial crown of these realms." Whence
it follows that aU power is taken from the bish
ops except that of governing their diocesses ac
cording to the laws of the land, or according to-
any farther injunctions they may receive from
the crown under the broad seal.
3. Because some of the archbishop's articles
were directly contrary to the statute laws ofthe
realm, which the queen herself has not power
to alter or dispense with. By the 13th Eliz.,
chap, xii., the subscription of the clergy is lim
ited to those articles of the Church which re
late to the doctrines of faith and administration
of the sacraments only ; whereas the bishop
enjoined them to subscribe the whole thirty-
nine. And, by the preamble of the same stat
ute, aU ordinations in the times of popery, or
after the manner of foreign Reformed Church
es,- are admitted to be valid, so that such
may enjoy any ecclesiastical .preferment in the
Church ; but the archbishop says [art, 4th],
"that none shall be admitted to preach unless
he be ordained according to the manner of the
Church of England." Upon these accounts, if
the queen had fallen out with him, he might
have incurred the guilt of a prsemunire.
To these arguments it was rephed by his
grace's lawyers,
1. That, by the canon law, the archbishop
has power to make laws for the well-govern
ment of the Church, so far as they do not en
counter the peace of the Church and quietness
of the realm. To which'it was answered, this
might be true in times of popery, but the case
was very much altered since the Reformation,
because now the archbishops' and bishops' au
thority is derived from the person ofthe queen
only ; for the late Queen Mary having surren
dered back all ecclesiastical jurisdiction into
the hands of the pope, the present queen, upon
her accession, had no jurisdiction resident ift.
¦* MS., p. 429.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

157

her person tiU the statute of recognisance, 1st
of Eliz., by which the archbishops and bish
ops of this realm, being exempted from the
jurisdiction of the pope, are made subject to
the queen, to govern her people in ecclesias
tical causes, as her other subjects govern the
same (according to their places) in civil caus
es ;* so that the clergy are no more to be called
the archbishops' or bishops' chUdren, but the
queen's liege people, and are to be governed by
them according to the laws, which laws are
such canons, constitutions, and synodals pro
vincial, as were in force before the twenty-fifth
of Henry VIIL, and are not eontrary nor repug
nant to the laws and pustoms of the realm, nor
derogatory to her majesty's prerogative royal ;
and, therefore, all oanons made before the twen
ty-fifth of Henry VIIL, giving to the arehbish
ops or bishops an unlimited power over the
clergy, as derived from the See of Rome, are ut
terly void, such canons being directly against
the laws and pustoms of the realm, whieh do
not admit of any subject executing a law but by
authority from the prince ; and they are derog
atory to her majesty's prerogative royal, be
cause hereby some of her subjects might claim
an unlimited power over her other subjects, in
dependent of the crown, and, by their private
authority, command or forbid what they please.
Since, then, the archbishop's articles were
framed by his own private authority, they can
not be justified by any of the canons now in
force. And as for the peace ofthe Church and
quiet of the realm, they were so far from pro
moting them, that they were like to throw both
into confusion.
2. It was said that the queen, as head of the
Church, had power to publish articles and in
junctions for reducing the clergy to uniformity,
and that the archbishop had the queen's license
and consent for what he did. 13ut the queen
herself had no authority to publish articles and
injunctions in opposition to the laws ; and as
for her majesty's permission and consent, it
-could be no warrant to the archbishop except it
had been under the great seal. ¦ And if the arph
bishop had no legal authority to pommand, the
clergy were not obliged to obey; the oath of
canonipal obedience does not bind in this case,
because it is limited to licitis et honeslis, things
lawful and honest ; whereas the present arti
cles being against law, they were enforeed by
no legal authority, and were such as the minis
ters could not honestly consent to.
Notwithstanding these objections, the arch
bishop, in his primary metropolitical visitation,
insisted, peremptorily, that aU who enjoyed any
olhce or benefice in the Church should subscribe
the three articles above mentioned ; the second
of which he knew the Puritans would refuse :
accordingly, there were suspended for not sub-
-soribing —
In the county of Norfolk, 64 ministers.
" " Suffolk, 60 "
" " • Sussex, about 30 "
" " Essex, 38 "
" " Kent, 19 or 20 "
" " Lincolnshire, 21 "
In aU, 233
* MS., p. 661.

AU whose names are now before me ; besides
great numbers in the diocess of Peterborough,
in the city of London, and proportionable in
other counties ; some of whom were dignitaries
in the Church, and most of them graduates in the
university ; of these some were allowed time,
but forty-nine were absolutely deprived at once.*
Among the suspended ministers his grace
showed some particular favour to those of Sus
sex, at the intercession of some great persons ;
for after a long dispute and many arguments
before himself at Lambeth, he accepted of the
subscription of six or seven, with their own ex
plication of the rubrics, and with declaration
that their subscription was not to be under
stood in any other sense than as far as the
books were agreeable to the Word of God, and
to the substance of religion established in the-
Church of England, and to the analogy of faith ;
and that it did not extend to anything not ex
pressed in the said books.! Of all which the
archbishop aUowed them an authentic copy in
writing, dated December 6th, 1583, and ordered
his chancellor to send letters to Chichester that
the rest of the suspended ministers in that
county might be indulged the same favour.
Many good and pious men strained their con
sciences on this occasion ; some subscribed the
articles with this protestation in open court,
"as far as they are agreeable, to the Word of
God ;" and others demplo secundo, that is, ta
king away the second. Many, upon better con
sideration, repented their subscribing in this
manner, and would have rased out their names,
but it was not permitted. Some, who were al
lured to subscribe with the promises of favour
and better preferment, were negleeted and for
gotten, and troubled in the commissaries' court
as much as before.! The court took no notice
of their protestations or reserves ; they wanted
nothing but their hands, and when they had got
them, they were all listed under the same col
ours, and published to the world as absolute
subscribers. The body of the inferior clergy wished and
prayed for some amendments in the service-
book, to make their brethren easy. " I am
sure," says a learned divine of these times,
" that this good would come of it, ( 1 , ) It would
please Almighty God, (2,) The learned minis
ters would be more firmly united against the
papists. (3.) The good ministers and good
subjects, whereof many are now at Weeping-
cross, would be cheered ; and many able stu
dents encouraged to take upon them the minis
try. And (4.) Hereby the papists, and more
careless sort of professors, would be more ea
sily won to religion. If any object that excel
lent men were publishers of the Book of Prayer,
and that it would be some disgrace to the
Church to alter it, I answer, 1st, That though
worthy men are to be accounted of, yet their
oversights in matters of religion are not to be
honoured by subscriptions. 2dly, The reforma
tion of the service-book can be no disgrace to
us nor them, for men's second thoughts are
wiser than their first ; and the papists, in the
late times of Pius V., reformed our Lady's Psal
ter. To conclude, if amendments to the book

* MS., p. 436.
! MS., p. 323, 405. Life of Whitgfft, p. 129.
X Fenner's Answer to Dr. Bridges, p. 119, 120.

HISTORY OP THE PURITANS,

158
be inconvenient, it must be either in regard of
Protestants or papists ; it cannot be in regard
of Protestants, for very great numbers of them
pray heartily to God for it. And if it be in re
gard of the papists, we are not to mind them ;
fbr they, whose captains say that we have nei
ther church, nor sacraments, nor mmisters, nor
queen in England, are not greatly to he regard
ed of us."'*
But Whitgift was to be influenced by no such
arguments ; he was against all alterations in
the Liturgy, for this general reason, lest the
Church should be thought to have maintained
an error : which is surprising to come from the
mouth of a Protestant bishop, who had so lately
separated from the infaUible Church of Rome.
His grace's arguments for subscription to- his
articles are no less remarkable. 1st, If you do
not subscribe to the Book of Common Prayer,
you do in effect say, there is no true service of
God, nor administration of sacraments, in the
land. 2dly, If you do not subscribe the Book
of Ordination of Priests, &c., then our caUing
must be unlawful, and we have no true minis
try nor church in England. 3dly, If you do not
, subscribe the Book of the Thirty-nine Articles,
you deny true doctrine to be established among
us, which is the main note of a true church,!
Could an honest man, and a great scholar, be
in earnest with this reasoning 1 Might not the
Puritans dislike some things in the service-
book, without invalidating the whole 1 Did not
his grace know that they offered to subscribe
to the use of the service-book, as far as they
could apprehend it consonant to truth, though
they could not give it under their hands that
there was nothing in it contrary to the Word
of God, nor promise to use the whole, with
out the least variation, in their public minis
try? But, according to the archbishop's logic,
the Church must be infallible or no churph
at aU. The Liturgy must be perfeet in every
phrase and sentenee, or it is no true servipe of
God ; and every article of the Church must be
agreeable to Scripture, or they contain no true
doctrine at all. He told the ministers that all
who did not subscribe his articles were schis
matics ; that they had separated themselves
from the Church ; and declared peremptorily
that they should be turned out of it.
This conduct of the archbishop was exposed
in a pamphlet entitled, "The Practipe of Prel
ates,"! whieh says that none ever used good
ministers so severely since the Reformation as
he ; that his severe proceedings were against
the j udgment of many of his brethren the bish
ops, and that the devil, the common enemy of
mankind, had certainly a hand in it. For who
of the ministers, says this ¦writer, have been
tumultuous or unpeaceable 1 Have they not
striven for peace in their ministry, in their wri
tings, and by their example; and sought for
their disciphne only by lawful and dutiful
means 1 'Why, then, should the archbishop tyr
annise over his feUow-ministers, and starve
many thousand souls, by depriving all who re
fuse subscription? Why should he lay such
stress upon popish opinions, and upon a hierar
chy that never obtained tiU the approach of
antichrist 1
* MS., p, 156. f Lffe of Whitgift, p. 125.
! Life of Whitgift, p. 122.

Loud were the oriefe of these poor sufferers
and their distressed famUies to Heaven for
mercy, as weU as to their superiors on earth !
Their temptations were strong ; for as men,
they were moved with compassion for their
wives and little -ones, and as faithful ministers
of Christ, they were desirous to be useful, and
to preserve the testimony of a good conscience.
Some, through frailty, were overcome and sub
mitted, but most of them cast themselves and
families upon the providence of God, having
¦vi'ritten to the queen, to the archbishop, and to
the lords of the councU, and, after some time,
to the Parliament, for a friendly conference or
a public disputation, when, and where, and be
fore whom they pleased, though without suc
cess.* The supplication of the Norfolk ministers to
the lords of the council, signed with twenty
hands ;! the supplication of the Lincolnshire
ministers, with twenty-one hands ; the suppli
cation ofthe Essex ministers, with twenty-seven
hands ; the supplication of the Oxfordshire min
isters, with  hands ; the supplication ofthe
ministers of Kent, with seventeen hands, are
now before me ; besides the supplication ofthe
London ministers, and of those of the diocess
of Ely and Cambridgeshire, representing in
most moving language their unhappy circum
stances: "We commend," they say, "to your
honours' compassion our poor families, but
much more do we commend our doubtful, fear
ful, and distressed consciences, together with
the cries of our poor people, who are hungering:
after the Word, and are now as sheep haviiig>;
no shepherd. We have applied to the areh--
bishop, but can get no relief; we therefore-
humbly beg it at your honours' hands."! They
deelare their readiness to subscribe the doctri
nal articles of the Chureh, apcording to the stat.
13 Eliz., cap. xii., and to the other articles, as
far as they are not repugnant to the Word of

* In the year 1583 one John Lewis, for denying
the deity of Cluist, was bumed at Norwich. Many
of the popish persuasion, under the dharge ot trea
son, were executed in different places. But, not
withstanding these severities, "her majesty," says
Fuller, " was most merciful unto many popish male
factors whose lives stood forfeited to the law in the- ¦
rigour thereof - Seventy, who had been condemned,
l3y one act of grace were pardoned and sent beyond
sea."— Church History, b. ix., p. 169, 170.— En.
! " We dare not yield to these ceremonies," say
several of the NorfoUc ministers, in a supplication
which they presented to the council, " because,-
so far from edifying and building up the Church,
they have rent it asunder, and tom it m pieces, to its.
great misery and ruin, as God knoweth; although
her majesty be incensed against us, as if we would,
obey no laws, we take the Lord of heaven and earth
to witness that we acknowledge, from the bottom of
our hearts, her majesty to be our lawful queen,
placed over us by (jod for our good; and we give
God our most humble and hearty thanks for her-
happy government, and, both in pubhc and private,
we constantly pray for her prosperity. We renounce
aU foreign power, and acknowledge her majesty s
supremacy to be lawful and just. We detest all er
ror and heresy. Yet we desue that her majesty will
not think us disobedient, seeing we sufier ourselves
to be displaced rather than yield to some thin^ re
quired. Our bodies, and goods, and aU we have,
are in her majesty's hands ; only our souls we re
serve to our God, who alone is able to save us or .
condemn us." — MS., p. 253.
! MS., p. 328, 330, &c.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

189

God. And they promise farther, if they may
be dispensed with as to subscription, that they
wUl make no disturbance in the Church, nor
separate from it.
The Kentish ministers, in their supplication
to the lords of the councU, -professed their rev
erence for the established Church,* and their
esteem for the Book of Common Prayer, so
far as that they saw no necessity of separating
from the unity of the Churoh on that aopount :
that they believed the Word preached, and the
sapraments administered according to author
ity, touching the substanee, to be lawful. They
promised to show themselves obedient to the
queen in aU pauses eeclesiastipal and eivil ;
but then they added, that there were many
things that needed reformation, whieh there
fore they pould not honestly set their hands
to.! They ponclude with praying for indul
gence, and subscribe themselves their honours'
daily and faithful orators, the ministers of Kent
suspended from the execution of their ministry.
The London ministers applied to the convo
cation, and fifteen of them offered to subscribe
to the queen's supremacy, to the use of the
Common Prayer Book, and to the doctrinal ar
ticles ofthe Church, if they might be restored;
but then add, " We dare not say there is nothing
in the three books repugnant to the Word of
God, tUl we are otherwise enlightened ; and
therefore humbly pray our brethren in convo
cation to be a means to the queen and Parlia
ment that we may not be pressed to an abso
lute subscription, but be suffered to go on in the
quiet discharge of the duties of our caUing, as
we have done heretofore, to the honour of Al
mighty God, and the edification of his Church.
We protest, before God and our Saviour Jesus
Christ, that if by any means, by doing that
which is not wicked, we might continue stiU
our labours in the Gospel, we would gladly and
wiUingly do anything that might procure that
blessing, esteeming it more than aU the riches
in the world ; but if we cannot be suffered to
continue in our places and caUings, we beseech
the Lord to show greater mercy to those by
whom this affliction 'shall be brought upon us,
and upon the people committed to our charge,
for whom we will not cease to pray, that the
good work which the Lord has begun by our la
bours may still be advanced, to that day when
the Lord shall give them and us comfort one in
another, and in his presence everlasting happi
ness and eternal glory."! This petition was
presented to the convocation, in the first sessions
ofthe next Parliament, in the name of the min
isters of London that had refused to subscribe
the articles lately enforced upon them ; with an
humble request to have their doubts satisfied by
conference, or any other way.
Among the suspended ministers of London
was the learned and virtuous Mr. Barber, who
preached four times a week at Bow Church :
his parishioners, to the number of one hundred
* This has been considered, by Bishop 'Warbur
ton, as inconsistent with calling the " established
Church an hierarchy, that never obtained till the ap
proach of antichrist." But the charge of inconsist
ency does not lie against the Kentish ministers who
speak above, unless it be proved that they were the
authors of the pamphlet entitled " The Practice of
Prelates," which contains the other sentiments. — Eb.
! MS., p. 326., ! MS., p. 595, 632.

and twenty, signed a petition to the lord-
mayor and court of aldermen for his release,
but that court could not obtain it.* March 4,.
1584, the learned Mr. Field and Mr. Egerton-
were suspended. Mr. Field had been often in-
bonds for nonconformity ; he was minister of
Aldermary, and had admitted an assembly of
ministers at his house, among whom were some
Scots divines, who, being disaffected to the hie
rarchy, the assembly was declared an unlawful
conventicle, and Mr. Field was suspended from
his ministry for entertaining them ; but the rest
were deprived for not subscribing.
Many gentlemen of reputation both in city
and country appeared for the suspended minis
ters, as well out of regard to their poor families
as for the sake of religion, it being impossible
to supply so many vacancies as were made in
the Church upon this occasion. The gentle
men of Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, and Kent in.-
terceded with the archbishop, alleging that it
was very hard to deal with men so severely for
a few rites and ceremonies, when they were
neither heretics nor schismatics, and when the
country wanted their useful preaching. The
parishioners of the several places from whence
the ministers were ejected signed petitions to
the lord-treasurer, a'hd others of the queen's
councU, beseeching them, in the bowels of Jesus
Christ, that their ministers, being of an upright
and holy conversation, and diligent preachers
of the 'Word of God, might be restored, or other
wise (their livings being only of smaU value)
their souls would be in danger of perishing for
lack of knowledge.!
The inhabitants of Maiden in Essex sent up
a complaint to the council, " that since their
ministers had been tiken irom them, for not
subscribing to certain articles neither confirmed
by the law of God nor of the land, they had
none left but such as they could prove unfit for
that office, being altogether ignorant, having
been either popish priests or shiftless men,
thrust in upon the ministry when they knew not
else how to live ; men of occupation, serving-
men, and the basest of aU sorts ; and which is
most lamentable, as they are men of no gifts, so
they are of no common honesty, but rioters,
dicers, drunkards, &c., and of offensive lives.
These are the men," say they, "that are support
ed, whose reports and suggestions against others
are readily received and admitted ; by reason
of which, multitudes of papists, heretics, and
other enemies to God and the queen, are in
creased, and we ourselves in danger of being in
sulted. We therefore humbly beseech your
honours, in the bowels of Jesus Christ, to be a
means of restoring our godly and faithful minis
ters ; so shall we and many thousands of her
majesty's subjects continue our daUy supplica
tions to Almighty God," &c.
The petition of the inhabitants of Norwich,
signed with one hundred and seventy-six hands,
and many letters and supplications from the most
populous towns in England, td the same purpose,,
are now before me. But these appeals of the
Puritans and their friends^did them no service ;
for the watchful archbishop, whose eyes were
about him, wrote to the councU to put them in
mind, " that the cause of the Puritans did not
lie before them ; that he wondered at the pre-
* MS., p. 460, 568, &c. ! Ibid., p. 457.

160

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

sumption of the ministers, to bring his doings in
question before their lordships; and at their
proud spirit, to dare to offer to dispute before so
great a body against the religion established by
law, and against a book so painfully penned, and
•confirmed by the highest authority." He then
-adds; " that it was not for him to sit in his place,
if every curate in his diocess must dispute with
him ; nor could he do his duty to the queen; if
he might not proceed without interruption ; but
if they would help him, he should soon bring
them to comply."* As to the gentlemen who
petitioned for their ministers!, he told them to
their faces that he would not suffer their fac
tious ministers, unless they would subscribe
that no church ought to suffer its laudable rites
to be neglected ; that though the ministers
were not heretics, they were schismatics, be
cause they raised a contention in the Church
about things not necessary to salvation. And
as for lack of preaching, if the gentlemen or
parishioners would let him dispose of their liv
ings, he would take care to pro-vide them with
able men. Thus this great prelate, who had
complied with the popish religion,! and kept
his place in the university through all the reign
of Queen Mary, was resolved to bear down aU
opposition, and to display" his sovereign power
against those whose consciences were not as
flexible as his own.
But not content with his episcopal jurisdic
tion, his grace solicitedi the queen for a new ec
clesiastical commission, and gave her majesty
these weighty reasons for it, among others.
Because the Puritans continue the ecclesiasti
cal censures. Because the commission may
order a search for seditious books, and examine
the writers or published upon oath, which a
bishop cannot. Because the ecclesiastical com
mission can punish by fines, which are very
commodious to the government ; or by impris
onment, which wiU strike more terror into the
Puritans. Because a notorious fault cannot be
notoriously punished but by the commission.
Because the whole ecclesiastical law is but a
-carcass without a soul, unless it be quickened
by the commission.^
The queen, who was already disposed to
methods of severity, easily gave way to the
archbishop's arguments, and ordered a new high
commission to be prepared, which she put the
great seal to, in the month of December, 1583,
and the twenty-sixth year of her reign. II
* Life of 'Whitgift, p. 127.
! Strype's Life of "Whitgift, p. 4.
! Bishop Maddox here censures Mr. Neal, and says
that the reverse was true. The fact, from all his bi
ographers, appears to be, that on'the expectation of a
visitation of the university, in Queen Mary's reign, to
suppress heresy, and to oblige such as were qualified
to take the first tonsure, Whitgift, foreseeing his dan
ger, and fearing not only an expulsion, but for his life,
particularly because he could not comply with this
requisition, would have gone abroad ; but Dr. Peam
encouraged and persuaded him to stay, bidding him
to keep his own counsel, and not utter his opinion,
and engaging to conceal him without incurring any
danger to his conscience in this visitation. He con
tinued, therefore, in the College throughout this reign.
But it is not to be conceived but that he must have
preserved an outward conformity to the pubhc and
usual services of the Church. — Ed.
^ Life of 'Whitgift, p. 134.
II There had been five high commissions before

The Court of High Commission was so call
ed, because it claimed a larger jurisdiction and

this, in most of which the powers of the commission
ers had been enlarged ; but forasmuch as the court
was now almost at its height, I will give the reader
an abstract of their cortunission frOm an attested
copy, under the hand and seal of Abraham Hartwell
a notary public, at the special request and command
of the archbishop liimself, dated January 7th, 1583-4.
The preamble recites the act of the first of the
queen, commonly caUed the act for " restoring to the
crown the ancient jurisdiction of the state ecclesias
tical and civU, and the abohshing aU foreign power
repugnant to the same ;" and another of the same
year, " for uniformity of common prayer and service
of the Church and administration of the sacrament -"
and a third of the fifth of the queen, entitled " An Act
of Assurance of the Queen's Powers over all States,"
(Sic. ; and a fourth of the thirteenth' Eliz., entitled
" An Act for reforming certain Disorders touching
Ministers of the Church," as the foundation of her
ecclesiastical jurisdiction and power. Her majesty
then names forty-fourcommissioners, whereof twelve
were bishops ; some were privy-councillors, lawyers,
and officers of state, as Sir Francis Knollys, treasu
rer of the household. Sir Francis ¦Walsingham, sec
retary of state, Sir Walter Mildmay, chancellor of
the exchequer. Sir Ralph Sadher, chancellor of the
Duchy of Lancaster, Sir Gilbert Gerard, mastrt of
the rolls. Sir Robert Manhood, lord-chief-bpron of
the exchequer. Sir Owen Hopton, lieutenant of the
Tower of London, John Popham, Esq., attorney-gen
eral, Thomas Egerton, Esq., soUcitor.general ; the
rest were deans, archdeacons, and civilians. Her
majesty then proceeds :
" We, earnestly minding to have the above-men
tioned laws put in execution, and putting special
trust and confidence in your wisdoms and discretions,
have authorized and appointed you to be our com
missioners ; and do give full pOwer and authority to
you, or any three of you, whereof the Archbishop of
Canterbury, or one of the bishops mentioned in the
commission, or Sir Francis Walsingham, Sir Gilbert
Gerard, or some of the civihans, tb be one, to inquire
from time to time during our pleasure, as well by the
oaths of twelve good and lawful men, as also by wit
nesses, and all other means and ways you can de
vise ; of all offences, contempts, misdemeanors, &c.,
done and committed contrary to the tenour of the
said several acts and statutes; and also to inquire of
aU heretical opinions, seditious books, contempts,
conspiracies, false rumours or talks, slafiderous words
and sayings, &c,, contrary to the aforesaid laws, or
any others, ordained for the maintenance of religion
in this realm, together with their abettors, counsel
lors, or coadjutors.
" And farther, we do give fuU power to you, or any
three of you, whereof the Archbishop of Canterbury,
or one of the bishops mentioned in the commission,
to be one, to hear and determine concerning the
premises, and to order, correct, reform, and punish all
persons dwelling in places exempt or not exempt,
that wilfully and obstinately absent from church, or
Divine service estabhshed by law, by the censures
of the Church, or any other lawful ways and means,
by the Act of Uniformity, or any laws ecclesiastical
of this realm Hmited and appointed; and to Jake or
der of your discretions, that the penalties and forfeit
ures limited by the said Act of Unifomuty against
the offenders in that behalf may be duly levied, ac
cording to the forms prescribed in the said act, to tne
use of us and the poor, upon the goods, lands, ana
tenements of such offenders, by way of distress, ac
cording to the true meanuig and hmitalion ot the
statute. " And we do farther empower you, or any three
of you, during our pleasure, to visit and reform all
errors, heresies, schisms, &.C., which may lawfullf
be reformed or restrained by censures ecclesiastical,
deprivation, or otherwise, according to the power

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

161

higher powers than the ordinary courts of the
bishops ; its jurisdiction extended over the whole
kingdom, and was the same, in a manner, with
that which had been vested in the single person
of Lord CromweU, vicar-general to King Henry
VIIL, though now put into commission. The
and authority limited and appointed by the laws, or
dinances, and statutes ol this realm.
" And we do hereby farther empower you, or any
three of you, to call before you such persons as have
ecclesiastical hvings, and to deprive such of them as
wUfuUy and advisedly maintain any doctrine contra
ry to such articles of reUgion of the synod of 1562
which only concern the confession of the true faith
and doctrine of the sacraments, and wiU not revoke
the same.
" And we do farther empower you, or any three of
you, to punish all incests, adulteries, fornications,
outrages, misbehaviours, and disorders in marriage ;
and all grievous oS'ences punishable by the ecclesias
tical laws, according to the tenour of the laws in that
behalf, and according to your wisdoms, consciences,
and discretions, commanding you, or any three of
you, to devise all such lawful ways and means for
the searching out the premises as by you shall be
thought necessary ; and upon due proof thereof had,
by confession of the party, or lawful witnesses, or by
any other due means, to order and award such pun
ishment, by fine, imprisonment, censures of the
Church, or by aU or any of the said ways, as to your
wisdom and discretions shall appear most meet and
convenient. " And farther we do empower you, or any three of
you, to call before you all persons suspected of any
of the premises, and to proceed against them, as the
quality of the offence and suspicion shall require, to
examine them on their corporeal oaths, for the better
trial and opening of the truth ; and if any persons
are obstinate and disobedient, either in not appearing
at your command, or not obeying your orders and
decrees, then to punish them by excommunication,
©r other censures ecclesiastical, or by line, accord
ing to your discretions ; or to commit the said of
fenders to ward, there to remain till he or they shall
be by you, or three of you, enlarged or dehvered ;
and shall pay such costs and expenses of suit as the
cause shall require, and you, in justice, shall think
reasonable. " And farther, we give full power and authority
to you, or three of you as aforesaid, to command
all our sheriffs, justices, and other officers by your
letters, to apprehend, or cause to be apprehended,
such persons as you shall think meet to be convened
before you ; and to take such bond as you shall think
fit for their personal appearance ; and in case of re
fusal, to commit them to safe custody, tUl you shall
give oi-der for their enlargement ; and, farther, to
take such securities for their performance of your
decrees as you shaU think reasonable. And, farther,
you shall keep^ a register of your decrees, and of
your fines, and appoint receivers, messengers, and
other officers, with such salaries as you shall think
fit ; the receiver to certify into the exchequer, every
Easter and Michaelmas term, an account of the-fines
taxed and received, under the hands of three of the
commissioners. " And we do farther empower you, or any six of
you, whereof some to be bishops, to examine, alter,
review, and amend the statutes of colleges, cathe
drals, grammar-schools, and other public foundations,
and to present them to us to be confirmed.
" And we do farther empower you to tender the
oath of supremacy to all ministers, and others com
pellable by act of Parliament, and to certify the names
of such as refuse it into the King's Bench.
" And, lastly, we do appoint a seal for your office,
having a crown and a rose over it, and the letter E
before and R after the same; and round about the
seal these words, ' Sigil. commiss. regiae maj. ad
causas ecclesiasticas.' "
Vol. I.— X

court was erected upon the authority of the acts
mentioned in the preamble, and therefore its
powers must be limited by those statutes ; but
the counsel for Mr. Cawdrey, whose case was
argued before aU the judges in Trinity term,
1591, questioned whether the court had any
foundation at ah in law ; it being doubtful
whether the queen could delegate her ecclesias
tical authority, or the commissaries act by vir
tue of such delegation.
But admitting the court to be legal, it will ap
pear that both the queen and her commission
ers exceeded the powers granted them by law ;
for it was not the intendment of the act of su
premacy to vest any new powers in the crown,
but only to restore those which were supposed
to be its ancient and natural right. Nor do the
acts above recited authorize the queen to dis
pense with the laws of the realm, or act contra
ry to them ; or to set aside the ordinary legal
courts of proceeding in other courts of judica
ture, by indictments, witnesses, and a jury of
twelve men ; nor do they empower her to le-vy
fines, and inflict what corporeal punishments
she pleases upon offenders ; but in all criminal
cases, where the precise punishment is not de
termined by the statute, her commissioners
were to be directed and governed by the com
mon law of the land.
Yet, contrary to the proceedings in other
courts, and to the essential freedom of the Eng
lish Constitution, the queen empowered her com
missioners to " inquire into all misdemeanors,
not only by the oaths of twelve men, and wit
nesses, but by aU other means and ways they
could devise ;"' that is, by inquisition, by the
rack, by torture, or by any ways and means
that forty-four sovereign judges should devise.
Surely this should have been limited to ways and
means warranted by the laws and customs of
the realm.
Farther, her majesty empowers her " commis
sioners to examine such persons as they sus
pected upon their corporeal oaths, for the better
trial and opening of the truth, and to punish those
that refused the oath by fine or imprisonment,
according to their discretion." This refers to
the oath ex officio mero, and was not in the first
five commissions.
It was said in behalf of this oath, by Dr. Au
brey,* that though it was not warrantable by the
letter of the statute of the 1st of Elizabeth, yet
the canon law being in force before the making
of that statute, and the commission warranting
th^ commissioners to proceed according to the
law ecclesiastical, they might lawfully adminis
ter it according to ancient custom.! To which
it was answered, " that such an oath was never
allowed by any canon of the Church, or general
council, for a thousand years after Christ ; that
when it was used against the primitive Chris
tians, the pagan emperors countermanded it ;
that it was against the pope's law in the decre
tals, which admits of such an inquisition only
in cases of heresy ; nor was it ever used in Eng
land tiU the reign of King Illnry IV., and then
it was enforced as law only by a haughty arch
bishop, without consent ofthe commons of Eng
land, tiU the 25th of Henry VIIL, when it was

* And nine others, learned civUians ; and most of
them, Strype says, judges in the civil and ecclesias
tical courts.^Eo. ! Life of Whitgift, p. 340.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

Utterly abrogated. This pretended law was
again revived by Queen Mary, but repealed again
by the 1st of Queen Elizabeth, and so remain
ed.* Besides, as this purging men by oath has
no foundation in the law of the land, it is un
doubtedly contrary to the law of nature and na
tions, where this is a received maxim, Nemo te-
netur scipsum accusare : No man is bound to ac
cuse himself The queen, therefore, had no pow
er to authorize her commissioners to set up an
inquisition, and administer an oath to the sus
pected person, to answer all quAtions the court
should put to him, and to convict him upon those
answers ; or, if they could confront his declara
tions, to punish him as perjured.
If any persons disobeyed the orders and de
crees of the court, by not appearing at their sum
mons, &c., the commissioners were empowered
to punish them by fine or imprisonment, at their
discretions. This also was contrary to law, for
the body of a subject is to be dealt with, secun
dum legem terra, according to the law of the land ,
as Magna Charta and the law saith. The clerk
felon in the bishop's prison is the king's prison
er, and not the bishop's, and therefore bythe 1st
of Henry VII., cap. iv., "the bishop of the dio
cess is empowered to imprison such priests, or
other religious persons within his jurisdiction,
as shall by examination, and other lawful proofs
requisite by the law of the Church, be convicted
of fornication, incest, or any fleshly ineontinen-
py, and there to detain them for such time as
shall be thought by their diseretions eonvenient,
according to the quality of the offence ; and that
none of the said archbishops or bishops shall be
ehargeahle with an action of false imprisonment
for so doing.! Which plainly implies, that a
bishop cannot by law commit a man to prison,
except in the cases above mentioned ; and that
in all others, the law remains in force as before.
If, then, the queen, by her ecclesiastical commis
sion, could not dispense with the laws of the
land, it is evident that the long and arbitrary
imprisonments of the Puritan clergy, before they
had been legally eonvicted, and all their confine
ments afterward, beyond the time limited by the
statutes, were so many acts of oppression ; and
every acting bishop or commissioner was hable
to be sued in an action of false imprisonment.
Tlie law says no man shall be fined ultra tc-
nemenlum, beyond his estate or ability. But the
hnes raised by this court, in the two next reigns,
were so exorbitant, that no man was secure in
his property or estate ; though, according to Lord
Clarendon, their power of levying fines at all
was very doubtful. Some for speaking an un
mannerly word, or writing what the court was
pleased to construe a libel, were fined from
£500 to £10,000, and perpetual imprisonment;
some had their ears cut off, and their noses slit,
after they had been exposed several days in the
pillory ; and many families were driven into ban
ishment ; tUl, in process of time, the court be
came such a general nuisance, that it was dis
solved by Parliament, with a clause that no such
court should be erelted for the future.
Farther, the commission gives no authority to
the court to frame articles and oblige the clergy
to subscribe them. It empowers them to reform
all errors, heresies, and schisms which may
* Life of Whitgift, p. 393, 394.
! Life of Aylmer, p. 145.

lawfully be reformed, according to the power
and authority limited and appointed by the laws
and statutes of the realm. But there never was
a clause in any of the commissions empowering
them to enforce subscription to articles of their
own devising,* Therefore, their doing this
without a special ratification under the great
seal was no doubt a usurpation of the suprem
acy, and brought them within the compass of a
praemunire, according to the statutes of 25 Hen
ry VIIL, cap XX., and 1 Eliz., cap, ni.
Lastly : Though all spiritual courts (and, con
sequently, high commission) are and ought to he
subject to prohibitions from the supreme courts
of law, yet the commissioners would seldom or
never admit them, and at length terrified the
judges from granting them : so that, upon the
whole, their proceedings were for the most part
contrary to the act of submission of the clergy,
contrary to the statute laws of the reahii, and
no better than a spiritual inquisition.!
If a clergyman omitted any of the ceremonies
of the Church in his public ministrations, or
if a parishioner bore an ill-wiU to his minister,
he might inform the commissioners by letter
that he was a suspected person ; upon which a
pursuivant or messenger was sent to his house
with a citation.!
The pursuivant who brought them up had
thirty-three shUlings and fourpence for forty-one
mUes, being about nine or ten pence amUe. Upon
their appearing before the commissioners, they
were committed prisoners to the Clink Prison
seven weeks before they were called to their
trial. When the prisoners were brought to the
bar, the court immediately tendered them the
oath to answer aU questions to the best of their
knowledge, by which they were obliged not
only to accuse themselves, but frequently to

* MS., p. 573.
! In this view it was considered by the Lord-treas
urer Burleigh. " According to my simple judgment,"
says he, in a letter to the archbishop, "this kind of
proceeding is too much savouring the Romish inqui
sition, and is rather a device to seek for offenders
than reform any."— Fuller's Church, Bistmy, b. ix., p.
] 55. Mr. Hume stigmatizes this court not only as a.
real inquisition, but attended with all the iniquities,
as well as cruelties, inseparable from that horrid tri
bunal. — Ed.
! The citation was to the foUowing effect:
" We wUl and command you, and every of you, in
her majesty's name, by virtue of her high commission
for causes ecclesiastical, to us and others directed,
that you, and every of you, do make your personal
appearance before us, or others her-majesty s com
missioners in that behalf appointed, in the consistory
within the Cathedral Church of St. Paul's, London
[or at Lambeth], the seventh day next after the sight
hereof, if we or other our coUeagues shaU then hap
pen to sit in commission, or else at our next sittuig
there, then next immediately following ; and that al
ter your appearance there made, you, and every oi
you, shaU attend, and not depart without our special
hcense ; willing and commanding you, to whom tnese
our letters shaU first be delivered, to show the same,
and give intimation and knowledge thereof, to tne
others nominated upon the endorsement hereol, as
you, and every of you, wiU answer to the contrary at
your perils. Given at London, the 16th of May, fSM.
' ^ John Cant.
Gabriel Goodman. John London.
Endorsed,
To Ezekias Morley, 1
Robert Pamnet,and > of RidgweU m Essex,"
Wilham Bigge, )

HISTORY OF THEPURITANS.

163

bring their relations and friends into trouble.
The party to be examined was not to be ac
quainted with the interrogatories beforehand,
nor to have a copy of his answers, which were
lodged with the secretary of the court, against
the day of his trial. If the commissioners could
not convict him upon his own confession, then
they examined their witnesses, but never clear
ed him upon his own oath. If they could not
reach the prisoner by their ordinary jurisdiction
as bishops, they would then sit as ecclesiastical
commissioners. If they could not convict him
upon any statute, then they had recourse to
their old obsolete law ecclesiastical ; so that the
prisoner seldom knew by What law he was to
be tried, or how to prepare for his defence.
Sometimes men were obliged to a long attend
ance, and at other times condemned in haste,
without any trial. The Rev. Mr. Brayne, a
Cambridge minister, being sent for to Lambeth,
made his appearance before the archbishop and
two other commissioners, on Saturday, in the
afternoon, and being commanded to answer the
interrogatories of the court upon oath, he re
fused, unless he might first see them, and write
down his answers with his own hand, which his
grace refusing, immediately gave him his ca
nonical admonitions, once, twice, and thrice,
and caused him to be registered for contempt,
and suspended.*
Let the reader cai;efuUy peruse the twenty-
four articles themselves, which the archbishop
framed for the service of the court, and then
judge whether it were possible for an honest
man to answer them upon oath without expo
sing himself to the mercy of his adversaries.!

* Life of Whitgift, p. 163.
! The articles were these that follow :
1. Imprimis. "Objicimus, ponimus, et artiCulamur,
i. e.. We object, put, and article to you, that you are
a deacon or minister, and priest admitted ; declare
by whom and what time you were ordered ; and
hlcewise, that your ordering was according to the book
in that behalf by the law of this land provided. Et
objicimus conjunctiin de omni et divisim de quohbet,
i. e., ' And we object to you the whole of this article
taken together, and every branch of it separately.'
2. Item. " Objicimus, ponimus, et articulamur.
That you deem and judge such your ordering, admis
sion, and calling into your ministry, to be lawful, and
not repugnant to the ¦Word of God. Et objicimus ut
supra, i. e., 'And we object as before.'
3. Item. '¦ Objicimus, ponimus, &c. That you have
sworn, as well at the time of your ordering as insti
tution, duty and allegiance to the queen's majesty,
and canonical obedience to your ordinary and his suc
cessors, and to the metropolitan and his successors,
or to some of them. Et objicimus ut supra.
4. Item. " Oojicimus, &c. That by a statute or
act of Parliament made in the first year of the
queen's majesty that now is, one -virtuous and godly
book, entitled The Book of Common Prayer and Ad
ministration of Sacraments, &c., was authorized and
estabhshed to stand and be from and after the feast
of the Nativity of St. John Baptist then next ensuing,
in fuU force and effect, according to the said statute,
and so yet lemaineth. Et obj. ut supra.
5. Item. " Obj., That by the said statute all minis
ters within her majesty's dominions, ever since the
said feast, have been, and are bound to say and use,
a certain form of morning and evening prayer called
in the act matins,, even-song, celebration of the Lord's
Supper, and administration of each of the sacraments ;
and aU other common and open prayer in such order
and form as is mentioned jn the same book, and none
other, nor otherwise. Et obj. ut supra.

When the Lord-treasurer Burleigh had road
them over, and seen the execution thoy. had

6. Item. " Obj., That in the said statute her maj
esty, the lords temporal, and all the commons, in that
Parhament assembled, do in God's name earnestly
charge and require aU the archbishops, bishops, and
other ordinaries, that they shaU ¦ endeavour them
selves, to the uttermost of their knowledge, that the
due and true execution of the said act might be had
throughout their diocess and charge, as they would
answer it before Almighty God. Et obj. ut supra.
7. Item. " Obj. ponunus, &c. That you deem and
judge the said whole book to be a godly and a virtu
ous book, agreeable, or at least not repugnant, to th&
Word of God ; 'if not, we require and command you
to declare wherein, and in what points.' Et objici
mus ut supra.
8. Item. " Obj., That for the space of these three
years, two years, one year, half a year ; three, two,,
or one month last past, you have at the time of com
munion, and at all or some other times in your min
istration, used and worn only your ordinary apparel,.
and not the surpUce, as is required. ' Declare how
long, how often, and for what cause, consideration,
or intent you have so done, or refused so to do.' Et
obj. ut supra.
9. Item. "Obj., That within the time aforesaid you
have baptized divers, or at least one infant, and have
not used the sign of the cross in the forehead, with
the words prescribed to be used in the said Book of
Common Prayer. ' Declare how many you have, so
baptized, and for what cause, consideration, and in
tent.' Et obj. ut supra.
10. Item. " Obj., &c.. That within the time afore
said you have been sent unto, and required divers
times, or at least once, to baptize chUdren, or some
one child being weak, and have refused, neglected,
or at least so long deferred the same, till the cliild or
children died without the sacrament of baptism. ' De
clare whose child, when, and for what considera
tion.' Et obj. ut supra.
11. Item. " Obj., &c.. That within the time afore
said you have celebrated matrimony otherwise than
the book prescribes, and without a ring, and have re
fused at such times to call for the ring, and to use
such words in that behalf as the book appoints, and
particularly those words, ' that by matrimony is sig
nified the spriritual marriage and unity between
Christ and his Church.' ' Declare the circumstan
ces of time, person, and place, and for what cause,
intent, and consideration.' Et obj. ut supra.
12. Item. " Obj., &c.. That you have within the
time aforesaid neglected, or refused to use, the form
of thanksgiving for women, or some one woman af
ter childbirth, according to the said book. ' Declare the
like circumstances thereof, and for what intent, cause,
or consideration you have so done, or refused so tO'
do.' Et obj. ut supra.
13. item. " Objicimus, &c.. That you within the
time aforesaid baptized divers infants, or at the least
one, otherwise and in other manner than the said
book prescribeth, and not used the interrogatories to
the godfathers and godmothers in the name of the
infant, as the said book requireth. ' Declare the like
circumstances thereof, or for what cause, intent, or
consideration you have so done, or refused so to do."
Et objicimus ut supra.
14. Item. " We do' object, that you have within the
time aforesaid used any other form of htany, in divers
or some points, from the said book ; or that you have
often, or once, wholly refused to use the said litany.
' Declare the like circumstances thereof, or for what
cause, intent, or consideration you have so done, or
refused so to do,'
15. Item. "We do object, &c.. That you have
within the time aforesaid refused and omitted to
read divers lessons prescribed by the said book, and
have divers times either not read any lessons at all,
or read others in their places. ' Declare the like ch-
cumstance thereof, and for what intent, cause, or

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

164
done upon the clergy, he ¦wrote his grace the
foUowing letter : 
consideration you have so done or refused.' Et obj.
ut supra. , , ,
16. Item. " Objicimus, That within the tune afore
said you have either not used at aU, or else used an
other manner of common prayer or service at burial,
from that which the said book prescribeth, and have
refused there to use these words. We commit earth
to earth, in sure and certain hope of resurrection to
eternal life. ' Declare the like circumstances there
of, and for what intent, cause, or consideration you
have so done or refused so to do.' Et obj. ut supra.
17. Item. " Objicimus, &c.. That within the time
aforesaid you have advisedly, and of set purpose,
not only omitted and refused to use the aforesaid
parts, or some of them, of the said book, but also
some other parts of the said Book of Common Pray
er, as being persuaded that in such points it is repug
nant to the Word of God. ' Declare what other
parts of the said book you have refused to use, for
what intent, cause, or consideration.' Et objic. ut
supra. 18. Item. "Objic.,&c., That within the time afore
said you have at the communion, and in other parts of
your ministration, advisedly added unto, diminished,
and taken from, altered, and transposed, manifoldly
at your own pleasure, sundry parts of the said Book
of Common Prayer. ' Declare the circumstances of
time and place, and for what intent, cause, and con
sideration.' Et obj. ut supra.
19. Item. " Objic, That within the time aforesaid
you have advisedly, and of set purpose, preached,
taught, declared, "set down, or pubhshed by writing,
-public or private speech, matter against the said Book
-of Common Prayer, or of something therein contain
ed, as being repugnant to the Word of God, or not
convenient to be used in the Church ; or something
have written or uttered tending to the depraving, de
spising, or defacing of some things contained in the
said book, ' Declare what, and the like circumstan
ces thereof and for what cause or consideration you
have so done.' Et objic. ut supra.
20. Item. " Objicimus, &c.. That you at this pres
ent do continue all or some of your former opinions
against the said book, and have a settled purpose to
continue hereafter such additions, diminutions, alter
ations, and transpositions, or some of them, as you
heretofore unlawfully have used in your public min
istration; and that you have used private conferen-
-ces, and assembled, or been present, at conventicles,
for the maintenance of their doings herein, and for the
animating and encouraging of others to continue in
the like disposition in this behalf that you are of
-" Declare the like circumstances, and for what intent,
-cause, and consideration,' Et objic, ut supra.
21. Item. " Objicimus, &c.. That you have been
heretofore noted, defamed, presented, or detected
publicly, to have been faulty in all and singular the
premises, and of every or some of them; and that
you have been divers and sundry times, or once
at the least, admonished by your ordinary, or other
ecclesiastical magistrate, to reform the same, and to
observe the form and order of the Book of Common
Prayer, which you have refused, or defer to do.
' Declare the like circumstances thereof Et objic.
ut supra.
22. Item. " That for the testification hereafter of
your unity with the Church of England, and your
conformity to laws established, you have been re
quired simply and absolutely to subscribe with your
hand, (1.) That her majesty, under God, hath, and
ought to have, the sovereignty and rule over all
manner of persons born within her realm, dominions,
and countries, of what estate either ecclesiastical or
temporal soever they be ; and that none other foreign
power, prelate, state, or potentate hath, or ought have,
any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or
authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within her maj
esty's s^d realms, dominions, or countries. (2.) That
the Book of Common Prayer, and of ordering bish-

" It may please your grace,
" 1 am sorry to trouble you so oft as I do, but
I am more troubled myself, not only with many
private petitions of sundry ministers, recom
mended for persons of credit and peaceable in
their ministry, who are greatly troubled by your
grace, and your colleagues in commission ; but
I am also daily charged by counsellors and pub
hc persons with neglect of my duty, in not stay
ing your grace's vehement proceedings against
ministers, whereby papists are greatly encour
aged, and the queen's safety endangered.* I
have read over your twenty-four articles, found
in a Romish style, of great length and curiosity,
to examine aU manner of ministers in this time,
without distinction of persons, to be executed
ex officio mero. And I find them so curiously
penned, so full of branches and circumstances,
that I think the Inquisition of Spain used not so
many questions to comprehend and to trap their
priests. I know your canonists can defend
these with aU their particles ; but surely, under
correction, this judicial and canonical sifting
poor ministers is not to edify or reform. And
in charity I think they ought not to answer all
these nice points, except they were notorious
papists or heretics. I write with the testimony
of a good conscience. I desire the peace and
unity of the Church. I favour no sensual and
wilful recusant ; but I conclude, according to
my simple judgment, this.kind of proceeding is
too much savouring of the Romish Inquisition,
and is a device rather to seek for ofi'enders than
to reform any. It is not charitable to send poor
ministers to your common registrar, to answer
upon so many articles at one instant, without a
copy of the articles or their answers. I pray
your grace bear with this one (perchance) fault,
that I have willed the ministers not to answer
these articles except their consciences may suf
fer them. " July 15, 1584. W. Cecii.,"
This excellent letter was so far from soften
ing the archbishop, that, two days after, he re
turned his lordship a long answer, vindicating
his interrogatories, from the practice of the

ops, priests, and deacons, containeth in it nothing
contrary to the Word of God, and that the same may
be lawfully used ; and that you who do subscribe will
use the form in the said book prescribed, in public
prayer and administration of the sacraments, and
none other. (3.) That you allow the book of articles
of religion, agreed upon bythe archbishops and bish
ops of both provinces, and the whole clergy m the
convocation holden at London in the year of our
Lord God 1562, and set forth by her majesty's au
thority ; and do believe all the articles therem con
tained to be agreeable to the 'Word of God. ' De
clare by whom, and how often, which hitherto you
have advisedly refused to perform, and so yet do per
sist.' Et Objic. ut supra.
23. Item. "That you have taken upon you to
preach, read, or expound the Scriptures, as well in
public places as in private houses, not being licensed
by your ordinary, nor any other magistrate having au
thority by the laws of this land so to hcense you.
' Declare the hke circumstances hereof Et objic.
ut supra. ,
24. Item. " Quod prremissa omnia et singula, sc,
i. e., ' That aU and singular the premises,.'" i&c
Could the wit of man invent anything more liM
an inquisition! Here are interrogatories enough to
entangle all the honest men in the kingdom, ann
bring them into danger.
* Lffe of "Whitgift, b. iv., Rec. No. 4.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

105

Star Chamber, the Court of Marches, and other
places.* The treasurer found it was to no pur
pose to contend, and therefore replied in a short
but smart letter, iu which he tells him " that
* "Whitgift rephed to the lord-treasurer, aUeging
that he had uniformly acquainted him with his pro
ceedings, and had acted on his advice. ' Touching
the twenty-four articles,' he says, ' which your lord
ship seemeth so much to dislike, as written in a Ro
mish style, smelling of the Romish Liquisition, &.C., I
cannot but greatly marvel at your lordship's vehe
ment speeches against them (I hope without cause),
seeing it is the ordinary course in other courts hke-
wise; as in the Star Chamber, the Court of the
Marches, and other places. And (without offence
be it spoken) I think these articles to be more toler
able, and better agreeing with the rule of justice and
charity, and less captious, than those in other courts.
 For my own part,' he adds, ' I neither do
nor have done anything in this matter, which I do
not think myself in duty and conscience bound to do ;
which her majesty hath not with earnest charge com
mitted unto me ; and the which I am well able to
justify, to be most requisite for this State and
Church ; whereof, next to her majesty, though most
unworthy, or, at the least, most unhappy, the chief
care is committed to me ; which 1 may not neglect,
whatsoever come upon me therefor. I never es
teem the honour of the place (which is to me gravis-
simum onus), nor the largeness of the revenues (for
the which I am not yet one penny the richer), nor
any other worldly thing, I thank God, in the respect
of the doing of my duty. Neither do I fear the dis
pleasure of man, nor regard the wicked tongues of
the uncharitable, which call me tyrant, pope, papist,
knave, and lay to my charge things which 1 never
did, nor thought upon.'
"The archbishop expresses his deep concern at
the lord-treasurer's dissatisfaction with his proceed
ings. ' God knoweth,' he said, * how desirous I have
been, from time to time, to satisfy your lordship in
all things, and to have my doings approved by you.
For which cause, since my coming to this place, I
did nothing of importance without your advice. I
have risen up early and sat up late, to write unto you
such objections and answers as are used on either
side. I have not done the like to any man. And
shall I now say that I have lost my labour ? Or shall
my just dealing with two of the most disordered min
isters in a whole diocess (the obstinacy and contempt
of whom, especiaUy of one of them, yourself would
not bear in any subjected to your authority) cause
you so to think and speak of my doings and of my
self? No man living should have made me believe
it. My lord, an old friend is better than a new. And
I trust your lordship will not so lightly cast off your
old friends for any of these new-fangled and factious
sectaries ; whose endeavour is to make division where
soever they come, and separate old and assured
firiends  'Your lordship seemeth to burden
me with wilfulness, &c. I think you are not so per
suaded of me ; I appeal therein to your own conscience.
There is a difference betwixt wilfulness and constan
cy. I have taken upon me the defence of the religion
and rites oi this church ¦ the execution of the laws
concerning the sariie ; the appeasing of the sects and
schisms therein ; the reducing the ministers thereof
to uniformity and due obedience. Herein I intend
tp be constant ; which also my place, my person, my
duty, the laws, her majesty, and the goodness of the
cause requireth of me ; and wherein your lordship
and others (all things considered) ought, as I take
it, to assist and help me. It is more than strange
that d man in my place, dealing by so good warran
ty as 1 do, should be so hardly used, and for not
yielding be counted wilful. But Virwit qui patitur,
overcomes. And if my friends herein forsake me, I
trust God wUl not, nor her majesty, who have laid
the charge on me, and are able to protect me ; upon
whom only I will depend.' " — Dr. Price's Hist. Ncm-
conformity, vol. i., 341-2. — C.

after reading his grace's long answer, he was
not satisfied in the point of seeking by exami
nation to have ministers accuse themselves,
and then punish them for their own confession ;
that he would not call his proceedings captious,
but they were scarcely charitable ; his grace
might therefore deal with his friend Mr. Brayne
as he thought fit, but when, by examining him,
it was meant only to sift him with twenty-four
articles, he had cause to pity the poor man."*
The archbishop, being desirous to give satis
faction to the treasurer, sent him two papers
of reasons, one to justify the articles, and the
other the manner of proceeding ex mero officio.
In the former he says, that by the ecclesiastical
or canon laws, articles of inquiry may be ad
ministered, and have been ever since the Ref
ormation ; and that they ought not to be com
pared with the Inquisition, because the Inquisi
tion punished with death, whereas they only
punished obstinate offenders with deprivation.!
In the latter his lordship gives the foUowing rea
sons, among others, for proceeding ex mero offi
cio : If we proceed only by presentment and
witnesses, then papists, Brownists, and famUy
men would expect the like measure. It is hard
to get witnesses against the Puritans, because
most of the parishioners favour them, and
therefore wUl not present them, nor appear
against them. Tliere is great trouble and
charge in examining witnesses, and sending
for them from distant parts. If archbishops
and bishops should be driven to use proofs by
witnesses only, the execution of the law would
be partial ; their charges in procuring and pro
ducing witnesses would be intolerable ; and
they should not be able to make quick despatch
enough with the seetaries. These were the
arguments of a Protestant arehbishop I I do
not wdnder that they gave no satisfaotion to
the wise treasurer ; for surely, all who have
any regard for the laws of their pountry, or the
pivU and religious rights of mankind, must be
ashamed of them.
The treasurer having given up the arehbish
op, the lords of the pounpil took the pause in
hand, and wrote to his, grape and the Bishop of
London, in favour of the deprived ministers,
September 20th.! In their letter they teU their
lorships "that theyhad heard of sundry eom-
plaints out of divers counties, of proceedings
against a great number of ecclesiastical persons,
some parsons, some vicars, some curates, but
all preachers ; some deprived, and some sus
pended by their lordships' officers, chancellors,
&c., but that they had taken no notice of these
things, hoping their lordships would have stay
ed their hasty proceedings, especially against
such as did earnestly instruct the people against
popery. But now of late, hearing of great num
bers of zealous and learned preachers suspend
ed from their cures in the county of Essex, and
that there is no preaching, prayers, or sacra
ments in most of the vacant places ; that in
some few of them persons neither of learning
nor good name are appointed ; and that in other
places of the country great numbers of persons
that occupy cures are notoriously unfit ; most
for lack of learning ; many chargeable with
great and enormous faults, as drunkenness,

* Life of Whitgift, p. 160.
! Ibid., p. 166.

! Ibid.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

filthiness of life, gaming at cards, haunting of
alehouses, &c., against whom they [the coun
cU] heard of no proceedings, but that theywere
quietly suffered." To fix this charge home on
the bishops, they sent with their letter a cata
logue of names ; one column of learned minis
ters deprived ; a second of unlearned and vi
cious persons continued : " A matter very la
mentable," say they, "for this time!" and a
third of pluralists and nonresidents ; " Against
these latter we [the council] have heard of no
inquisition ; but of great dUigence, and extreme
usage against those that were known to be dil
igent preachers ; we, therefore, pray your lord
ships to have some charitable consideration of
their causes, that people may not be deprived
of their diligent, learned, and zealous pastors,
for a few points ceremonial, which entangled
their consciences." This letter was dated from
Oatlands, September 20th, 1584, and signed by
Lord Burleigh, the Earls of Warwick, Shrews
bury, and Leicester ; the Lord Charles Howard,
Sir James Crofts, Sir Christopher Hatton ; and
Sir Francis Walsingham, secretary of state.
But this exceUent remonstrance had no man
ner of influence upon our archbishop.* After
this, Mr. Beale, clerk of the queen's councU, a
man of great learning and piety, drew up a trea
tise, showing the injustice and unlawfulness of
the bishop's proceedings ; and delivered it in man
uscript into the archbishop's own hands, which,
together with some freedom of speech, inflamed
his grace to that degree, that he complained of
him to the queen and council, and used all his
interest to have him tried in the Star Chamber,
,and turned out of his place.! Among his mis
demeanors, drawn up by the archbishop, were
these : that he had printed a hook against eccle
siastical oaths ; that in the Plouse of Commons
he had spoke of ecclesiastical matters, contrary
to the queen's command ; that he had defended
his book against the practice of the ecclesiasti
cal courts ; that he had disputed against , the
queen's having authority, by virtue of the stat
ute of the 1st of Elizabeth, to grant power to
her ecclesiastical commissioners to imprison
whom they please, to impose fines upon offend
ers, and to administer the oath ex officio, say
ing they are within the statute of praemunire ;
that he had condemned racking for grievous of
fenders, as contrary to law and the liberty of
the subject ; and advised those in the marches
of Wales that execute torture by virtue of in
structions under her majesty's hands to look to
it that their doings are weU warranted : but
the court would not prosecute upon this charge.
All that the Puritans could obtain was a kind
of conference between the Archbishop of Can
terbury and the Bishop of Winchester on the
one part, and Dr. Sparke and Mr. Travers on
the other, in presence of the right honourable
the Earl of Leicester, the Lord Grey, and Sir
Francis Walsingham. The conference was at
Lambeth, concerning things needful to be re
formed in the Book of Common Prayer.
The archbishop opened it with declaring,
" that my Lord of Leicester, having requested
for his satisfaction to hear what the ministers
could reprove, and how their objections were
to be answered, he had granted my lord to pro-
cure such to come for that purpose as might

* Life of Whitgift, p. 143.

! Ibid., p. 212.

seem best to his good lordship ; and now I per
ceive," said he, " you are the men, of whom one
I never saw or knew before [Dr. Sparke] ; the ,
other I know well. Let us hear what things in
the Book of Common Prayer you think ought
to be mended : you appear not now judicially
before me, nor as caUed in question by author
ity for these things, hut by way of conference -
for which cause it shaU be free for you (speak
ing in duty) to charge the book with such mat
ters as you suppose to be blameworthy in it."
Dr. Sparke replied, "We give most humble
and hearty thanks to Almighty God, and to this
honourable presence, that after so many years
wherein our cause could never be admitted to
an indifferent hearing, it hath pleased God of
his gracious goodness so to dispose things, that
we have now that equity and favour showed
us, that before such honourable personages, as
may be a worthy means to her most excellent
majesty for reformation of such things as are
to be redressed, it is now lawful for us to de
clare with freedom what points ought to be re
viewed and reformed which our endeavour is,
because it concerns the service of God, and the
satisfaction of such as are in authority ; and for
that the good issue depends on the favour of
God, I desire, that before we enter any farther,
we may first seek for the gracious direction and
blessing of God by prayer." At which words,
framing himself to begin to pray, the archbish
op interrupted him, saying he should make no
prayers there, nor turn that place into a conven
ticle. Mr. Travers joined with Dr. Sparke, and de
sired that it might be lawful for them to pray
before they proceeded any farther ; hut the
archbishop not yielding thereunto, terming it a
conventicle if any such prayer should be off'ered
to be made, my Lord of Leicester and Sir Fran
cis Walsingham desired Dr. Sparke to content
himself, seeing they doubted not but that he
had prayed already before his ooming thither.
Dr. Sparke, therefore, omitting to use such pray
er as he had proposed, made a short address to
God in very few words, though the archbishop
continued to interrupt him aU the while.
The heads that the ministers insisted uptin
were, 1st. Putting the apocryphal writings (in
which were several errors and false doctrines)
upon a level with the Holy Scriptures, by read
ing them publicly in the Church, while several
parts of the canon were utterly omitted. This
they said had been forbidden by councils, and
particularly that -of Laodicea. The archbishop
denied any errors to be found in the Apocrypha ;
which led the ministers into a long detail of
particulars, to the satisfaction (says my author)
of the noblemen. 2dly. The second head was
upon baptism ; and here they objected against
its being done in private. Against its being
done by laymen or women. And against the
doctrine from whence this practice arises, viz.,
that children not baptized are in danger of dam
nation ; and that the outward baptism of water
saveth the child that is baptized. Against the
interrogatories in the name of the child, which
Mr. Travers charged with arising from a false
principle, viz., that faith was necessary in an
persons to be baptized ; he added, that the in
terrogatories crept into the Church but lately,
and took their rise from the baptism of those

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

167

that were of age ; from whence, very ignorantly,
they were transferred to infants. Against the
cross, as a mystical rite and ceremony, and an
addition lo the sacrament of human invention :
here they argued, that though the foreign di
vines did not condemn the use of the cross, yet
aU agreed it ought to be abohshed ; and Beza
gives counsel to the ministers, rather to forego
their ministry, than subscribe to the allowance
of it. After many words upon this head, my
Lord of Leicester said it was a pitiful thing that
so many of the best ministers, and painful in
their preaching, should be deprived for these
things. 3dly. 'They objected to private com
munion. 4thly. To the apparel ; and here they
produced the judgment of Bishop Ridley at his
degradation, as reported by Mr. Fox, who said
it was too bad to be put upon a fool in a play.
6thly. They objected to the bishop's aUowing
of an insufficient ministry, non-residence, and
pluralities.'* The conference continued two days, at the
close of which, neither party being satisfied, the
noblemen requested some favour for the minis
ters. Mr. Strype says! the ministers were
convinced and confirmed ; but it is evident he
knew not the disputants, nor had seen the de
bate, a copy of which is before me. Travers
was a Nonconformist to his death, and Sparke
appeared at their head, at the Hampton Court
conference, the beginning of the next reign.
Uor was the archbishop softened, but rather
confirmed in his former resolution.
Aylmer, bishop of London, came not behind
,his metropolitan in acts of severity. Mr. Strype
says he was the chief mover in the ecclesiasti
cal commission, and had as high a spirit as the
greatest lord in the land. During Grindal's dis
grace, he harassed the London clergy with new
interrogatories and articles, three or four times
3. year. He advised the heads of the Universi
ty of Cambridge (with whom he had nothing to
-do) to call in all their licenses, and expel every
man who would not wear the apparel, saying
" that the folly that is Ijound up in the heart of
a chUd is to be expelled with the rod of disci
pline."! * MS., p. 562, &c. ! Life of Whitgift, p. 170.
! Life of Aylmer, p. 84, 94. In his visitation this
summer [1584], he suspended the following clergy
men in -Essex, &;c. Mr. Whiteing, of Panfield,
Messrs. 'VVyresdale and Gififord, of Maiden, Mr.
JHawkdon, vicar of Fryan, Mr. Carre, of Rain, Mr.
Tonstal, of Much-Tottam, Mr. Huckle, of Atrop-
Rooding, Mr. Piggot, of TUly, Mr. Cornwal, of Mark-
stay, Mr. Negus, of Leigh, Mr. Carew, of Hatfield,
Mr. Ward, of Writtie, Mr. Dyke, afterward of St.
Alban's, Mr. Rogers, of Weathersfield, Mr. Northey,
of Colchester, Mr. Newman, of CoxaU, Mr. Taye,
,of Peldon, Mr. Parker, of Dedham, Mr. Morley, of
Ridswell, Mr. Nix (or Knight), of Hampstead, Mr.
Winkfield, of Wicks, Mr. Wilton, of Aldham, Mrj
Dent, of South Souberry, Mr. Pam, of Tolbeny, Mr.
Larking, of Little-Waltham, Mr. CamUlus Rusticus,
Sastor Of Tange, Mr. Seredge, of East-Havingfield,
Ir. Howel, of Pagelsam, Mr. Chadwick, of Danbu
ry, Mr. Ferrar, of Langham, Mr. Serls, of Lexdon,
Mr. Lewis, of St. Peter's, Colchester, Mr. Cock, of
fit. GUes's, Colchester, Mr. Beaumont, of East-
Thorp, Mr. Redridge, of Hutton, Mr. Chaplain, of
Hempsted, Mr. CulverweU, of Felsted, Mr. D. Chap
man, preacher at Dedham, and Mr Knevit, of Mile-
End, Colchester ; in all, about thirty-eight. These,
says my author, are the painful ministers of Essex,
.whom the bishop threatens to deprive for the sur-

Mr. Carew, of Hatfield-Pcveril, was a zeal
ous promoter ofthe welfare of souls, and mourn
ed over the want of a learned and preaching
ministry ; he was ordained by the Bishop of
Worcester, and licensed by Archbishop Grindal
and the Bishop of London himself, who com
mended his preaching ; but being too forward
in acquainting his diocesan by letter, that in
Essex, within the compass of sixteen miles,
there were twenty-two non-residents, thirty in
sufficient ministers, and, at the same time,
nineteen preachers sUenced for not subscribing ;
his lordship, instead of being pleased with the
information, sent for Carew before the commis
sioners, and charged him falsely, without the
least evidence, with setting up a presbytery,
and with contemning ecclesiastical censures.
It was alleged against him farther, that he was
chosen by the people ; that he had defaeed the
Book of Common Prayer, and had put several
from the communion, when there was more
need to allure them to it, &c. But to make
short work, the bishop tendered him the oath
ex officio, which Carew refusing, he was com
mitted to the Fleet, and another clergyman sent
down to supply his plaee. Mr. Allen, the pa
tron, in whom the right of presentation was by
inheritanee, refusing to admit the bishop's read
er, was summoned before his lordship, and pom-
mitted to prison ; beeause (as the warrant ex
presses it) he behaved seditiously in withstand
ing the authority ofthe eourt : nay, the very sex
ton was reprimanded, and ordered not to meddle
with the Churph any more ; and beeause he
asked his lordship simply whether his meaning
was that he should not eome to ehurph any
more, he pommitted him for ridiculous beha
viour. Both Allen and Carew offered baU,
whiph was refused, unless they would admit
his lordship's elergyman.* After eight weeks'
imprisonment, they appealed to the privy eoun
pil and were released ; with whieh his lordship
was so displeased that he sent the pouncil a
very angry letter, calling the prisoners knaves,
rebels, rascals, fools, petty gentlemen, precis
ians, &.C., and told their honours that if such
men were countenanced, he must yield up his
authority ; and the bishop never left him tiU he
had hunted him out ofthe diocess.
Mr. Knight suffered six months' imprison
ment for not wearing the apparel, and was
fined one hundred marks. Mr. Negus was sus
pended on the same account : twenty-eight of
his parishioners, who subscribed themselves his
hungry sheep that had no shepherd, signed a
letter, beseeching him to conform ; but he pro
tested he could not do it with a good conscience,
and so was deprived.
The Rev. Mr. Gifford, of Maiden, was a
modest man, irreprovable in his life, a great and
dUigent preacher, says Mr. Strype, and esteem
ed by many of good rank. He had written learn
edly against the Brownists, and by his dUigence
had wrought a wonderful reformation in the ¦
town ; but being informed against for preaching
up a limited obedience to the magistrate, he was
suspended and imprisoned,! After some time
he was brought to his trial, and his accuser fail-

pUce, saying. We shall be white with him, or he wfll
be black with as.— MS., p. 584, 741.
* Life of Aylmer, p. 122. MS., p. 662, 658.
! MS., p. 410, 420.

168

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

ing in his evidence, he was released. But the
Bishop of London setting his spies upon him,
he was imprisoned again for nonconformity.*
Upon this he applied to the lord-treasurer, who
applied to the archbishop in his favour ; but his
grace having consulted his brother of London,
told his lordship that he was a ringleader of the
Nonconformists ; that he himself had received
complaints against him, and was determined to
bring him before the high commission. The
parishioners of Maiden presented a petition in
behalf of their minister, signed with fifty-two
hands, whereof two were hadiffs of the town,
two justices of the peace, four aldermen, fifteen
head burgesses, and the vicar ; but to put an end
to aU farther applieation, the arphbishop wrote
to the treasurer, "that he had rather die, or live
in prison all the days of his life, than relax the
rigour of his proceedings, by showing favour to
one, which might give oceasion to others to ex-
peet the same, and undo all that he had been
doing ;! he therefore beseeehes his lordship not
to animate this forward people by writing in
their favour." Sir Francis Knollys, the queen's
kinsman, and treasurer of her chamber, second
ed the treasurer, beseeching his grace to open
the mouths of zealous preachers, who were
sound in doctrine, though they refused to sub
scribe to any traditions of men, not compeUable
by law ; but all was to no purpose ; for as Ful
ler observes,! "This was the constant custom
of Whitgift : if any lord or lady sued for favour
to any Nonconformist, he would profess how
glad he was to serve them, and gratify their de
sires, assuring them, for his part, that aU possi
ble kindness should be indulged to them, but at
- the same time he would remit nothing of his rig
our. Thus he never denied any man's desire,
and yet never granted it ; pleasing them for the
present with general promises, but stUl kept to
his own resolution ; whereupon the nobility, in
a little time, ceased making farther applications
to him, as knowing them to be ineffectual."
Some of the ministers were indicted at the as
sizes,^ for omitting the cross in baptism, and
for not wearing the surplice once every month,
and at every communion. Most of them were
deprived, or, to avoid it, forced to quit their liv
ings and depart the pountry.
Among these was the exeellent Mr. Dyke,
preacher first at Coggeshall in Essex, and after
ward at St. Alban's in Hertfordshire, whose
character was without blemish, and whose prac
tical writings discover him to be a divine of con
siderable learning and piety ; he was suspend
ed, and at last deprived, because he continued
a deacon, and did not enter into priest's orders,
which (as the bishop supposed) he accounted
popish. He also refused to wear the surplice,
and troubled his auditory with notions that
thwarted the established religion. The parish
ioners, being concerned for the loss of their min
ister, petitioned the Lord Burleigh to intercede
for them, setting forth " that they had lived
without any ordinary preaching tUl within these
four or five years, by the want of which they
were unacquainted with their duty to God, their

* Life of Aylmer, p. 111.
! Fuller, b. ix., p. 162. ! Fuller, b. ix., p. 218.
i M. Beaumont of East-Thorp, Mr. WUton of Ald
ham, Mr. Hawkdon of Fiyan, M. Seredge of East-
Havingfield.

sovereign, and their neighbours ;* but that of
late it had pleased the Lord to visit them with
the means of salvation, the ordinary ministry of
the Word, in the person of Mr. Dyke, an author
ized minister, who, according to his function
had been painful and profitable, and both in life
and doctrine had carried himself peaceably and
dutifully among tiiem, so as no man could justly
find fault with him, except of malice. There
were some, indeed, that could not abide to hear
their faults reproved, but through his preaching
many had been brought from their ignorance
and evil ways to a better life, to be frequent
hearers of God's Word, and their servants were
in better order than heretofore.
"They then give his lordship to understand
that their minister was suspended, and that they
were as sheep without a shepherd, exposed to
manifold dangers, even to return to their former
ignorance and cursed vanities, that the Lord
had spoken it, and thereforq it must be true, that
where there is no -visionthe people perish. They
therefore pray his lordship, in the bowels of his
compassion, to pity them in their present misery,
and become a means that they may enjoy their
preacher again."
Upon this letter. Lord Burleigh wrote to the
bishop to restore him, promising that if he troub
led the congregation with innovations afiymore,
he would join with the bishop against him ; but
his lordship excused himself, insinuating that he
was charged with incontinence ; this occasion
ed a farther inquiry into Dyke's character, which
was cleared up by the woman herself that ac
cused him, who confessed her wicked contri
vance, and openly asked him forgiveness. His
lordship, therefore, insisted upon his being resto
red, forasmuch as the best clergymen in the world
might be thus slandered ; besides, the people of
St. Alban's had no teaching, having no curate
but an insufficient doting old man. For this fa
vour (says the treasurer) I shaU thank your lord
ship, and will not solicit you any more, if hereaf
ter he should give just cause of pubhc offence
against the orders of the church estabhshed.
But all that the treasurer could say was ineffect
ual ; the Bishop of London was as inexorable
as his grace of Canterbury.
The inhabitants of Essex had a vast esteem
for their ministers ; they could not part from
them without tears ; when they could not pre
vail with the bishop, they applied to the Pariia
ment, and to the lords of the privy counoil. I
have, before me two or three petitions from the
hundreds of Essex, and one from the county,.
signed by Francis Barrington, Esq., at the head
of above two hundred gentiemen and tradesmen,
housekeepers, complaining, in the strongest
terms, that the greatest number of their pres
ent ministers were unlearned, idle, or otherwise
of scandalous lives ; and that those few from
whom they reaped knowledge and comfort were
molested, threatened, and put to silence, for
small matters in the common prayer, though
they were men of godly lives and conversations.
"The bishop was equally severcin other parts
of his diocess. The Rev. Mr. Barnaby Beni-
son, a city divine of good learning, had been
suspended and kept in prison several years, on
pretence of some irregularity in his marriage :
the bishop charged him with being married ia

Life of Aylmer, p. 303.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

169

an afternoon, and in presence of two or three
hundred people, by Mr. Field, a Nonponformist ;
for this he was pommitted to the Gate-house,
where he had lain ever sinee the year 1579. At
length he applied to the queen and council, and
in the state of his case he declares that he had
invited only forty persons to the ceremony, and
that of them there were only twenty present ;
that he was married in a morning, and accord
ing to law ; that when the bishop sent for him
and charged him with sedition, he cleared him
self to his satisfaction ; but that after he was
gone home he gave private order under his own
hand for his being apprehended and sent to the
Gate-house ; that he was shut up there in a dun
geon eight days, without knowing the cause of
his imprisonment, though Dr. Hammond, and
his faithful father Fox, who were both at the
wedding, and saw the whole proceeding, went
to the bishop and assured him that he was with
out wickedness or fault in that way he went
about to charge hun ; but his lordship would
not release him without such bonds for his good
behaviour and appearanoe as the prisoner could
not procure. " 'Thus I continue," says Mr. Ben-
ison, " separated from my wife before I had been
married to her two weeks, to the great trouble
of her friends and relations, and to the stagger
ing ofthe patient obedience of my wife ; for since
my imprisonment his lordship has been endeav
ouring to separate us, whom God has joined
together in the open presence of his people.
Wherefore I most humbly beseech your godly
honours, for the everlasting love of God, and
for the pity you take upon God's true Protest
ants and his poor people, to be a means that my
pitiful cry may be heard, and my just cause with
some credit be cleared, to God's honour and her
majesty's, whose favour I esteem more than all
the bishop's blessings or bitter cursings ; and
that, I now being half dead, may recover again
to get a poor living with the little learning that
God has sent me, to his glory, to the discharging
some part of my duty, and to the profit of the
land." The councU were so moved with Benison's
case, that they sent his lordship the following
letter :
"Whereas Barnaby Benison, minister, has
given us to understand the great hinderance he
has received by your hard deahngwith him, and
his long imprisonment, for which if he should
bring his action of false imprisonment he should
recover damages, which would touch your lord
ship's credit ; we therefore have thought fit to
require your lordship to use some consideration
towards him, in giving him some sum of money
to repay the wrong you have done him, and in
respect of the hinderance he hath incurred by
your hard dealing towards him. Therefore,
praying your lordship to deal with the poor man,
that he may have occasion to turn his complaint
into giving to us a good report of your charita
ble dealing, we bid you heartily farewell. Hamp
ton Court, November 14th, 1584. Signed,
Ambrose Warwick, Fr. Bedford,
' Fr. Knollys, Rob. Leicester,
Walter Mildmay, Charles Howard,
Fr. Walsingham, James Crofts,
Wm. Burghley, Chr. Hatton."
Bromley, chan.
Vol. I.— Y

After some time the bishop returned this an
swer :
" I beseech your lordships to consider, that it
is a rare example thus to press a bishop for his
zealous service to the queen and the peace of
the Church, especially the man being found wor
thy to be committed for nonconformity, to say
- nothing of his contemptuous using of me ; nev
ertheless, since it pleaseth your lordships to re
quire some reasonable sum of money, I pray you
to consider my poor estate and great charges
otherwise, together with the great vaunt the
man wUl make of his conquest over a bishop.
I hope, therefore, your hirdships wUl be fovoura-
ble to me, and refer it to myself, either to bestow
upon him some small benefice, or otherwise to
help him as opportunity offers. Or if this shall
not satisfy the man, or content your lordships,
leave him to the trial of the law, which I hope
wUl not be so plain with him as he taketh it.
Surely, my lords, this and the like must greatly
discourage me in this poor service of mine in
the commission."
What recompense the poor man had for his
long imprisonment I cannot find. But he was
too wise to go to law with a bishop of the court
of high commission, who had but little con
science or honour, and who, notwithstanding
his "poor estate ani great charges," left behind
him about £16,000 in money, an immense sum
for those times !
His lordship complained that he was hated
like a dog, and commonly styled the oppressor
of the children of God ;* that he was in danger
of being mobbed in his progress at Maiden, and
other places ; which is not strange, considering
his mean appearance, being a very little man,
and his high and insulting behaviour towards
those that were examined by him, attended with
Ul language and a cruel spirit. This appears in
numberless instances. "When Mr. Merbury, one
of the ministers of Northampton", was brought
before him, he spake thus :
B. Thou speakest of making ministers ; the
Bishop of Peterborough was pever more over
seen in his life than when he admitted thee to
be a preacher in Northampton.
Merbury. Like enough so (in some sense) : t
pray God these scales may fall from his eyes.
B. Thou art a very ass; thou art mad; thou
courageous ! Nay, thou art impudent-; by my
troth, I think he is mad ; he careth for nobody.
M. Sir, I take exception at swearing judges ;
I praise God I am not mad, but sorry to see you
so out of temper.
B. Did you ever hear one more impudent 1
M. It is not, I trust, impudence to answer for
myself B. Nay, I know thou art courageous ; thou,
art foolhardy.
M. Though I fear not you, I fear the Lord.
Recorder of London. Is he learned 1
B. He hath an arrogant spirit: he can scarce
construe Cato, I think.
M. Sir, you do not punish me because I am
unlearned ; howbeit, I understand boththe Greek
and Latin tongues ; assay me to prove your
disgrace. B. Thou stakest upon thee to be a preacher,.

* Lffe of Aylmer, p. 96.

.70

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

but there is nothing in thee ; thou art a very
ass, an idiot, and a fool.
M. I humbly beseech you, sir, have patience ;
give this people better example ; I am that I
am through tiie Lord ; I submit the trial of my
sufficiency to the judgment of the learned ; but
this wandering speech is not logical.
There is a great deal more of the same lan
guage in this examination ; one thing is remark
able, that he insults poor Merbury, because he
was for having a minister in every parish. At
parting he gave him the salutation of an " over-
thwart, proud, Puritan knave ;" and sent him
to the Marshalsea, though he had been twice
in prison before.*
How different was this from the apostolic
character of a bishop I " A bishop," saith St.
Paul, " should be blameless, of good behaviour,
no brawler, nor striker, nor greedy of filthy lu
cre. The servant of the Lord must not strive,
but be gentle to aU men, patient, in meekness
instructing those that oppose themselves, that
they may recover them out of the snare of the
devil." Nay, how different was this bishop
from himself before he put on lawn-sleeves ! For
in his book entitled " The Harbour for Faithful
Subjects," published soon after the queen's ac
cession, are these words : " Come off, ye bishops,
away with your superfluities, yield . up your
thousands ; be content with hundreds, as they
be in other Reformed churches, where be as
great learned men as you are. Let your portion
be priestlike, and not princelike ; let the queen
have the rest of your temporalities and other
lands, to maintain these wars which you pro
cured, and your mistress left her ; and with the
rest to buUd and found schools throughout the
realm ; that every parish may have his preacher,
every city his superintendent, to live honestly,
and not pompously; which wiU never be, unless
your lands be dispersed and bestowed upon many,
whieh now feedeth and fatteth hut one ; re
member that- Abimelech, when David in his
~ banishment would have dined with him, kept
such hospitality that he had no bread in his
house to give him but the shew bread. Where
was aU his superfluity to keep your pretended
hospitality 1 For that is the cause you pretend
why you must have thousands, as though you
were commanded to keep hospitality rather with
a thousand than with a hundred. I would our
countryman Wickliffe's book, De Eoplesia, were
in print ; there should you see that your wrinch-
es and cavillations be nothing worth."! When
the bishop was put in mind of this passage, he
made no ot.her reply than that of St. Paul, " When
I was a child I spake as a child, I thought as a
child." The case of those clergymen who were sent
for up to Lambeth from the remotest parts of
the kingdom was yet harder. Mr. Miston,
vicar of Preston, made seven journeys to Pe
terborough, which was thirty-six miles from his
house, and ten to London, within the compass
of two years, besides several to Leicester and
Northampton, at his own cost and charge ; and,
after aU, was deprived for not subscribing. To
whom might be added, Mr. Stephen 'Turner, Mr.
WiUiam Fleming of Beccles, Mr. Holden of
-Biddlestone, and others.
* Part of a register, p. 382. Pierce's Vindic, p. 97.
! Life of Ayhner, p. 269.

Among these, the case of the Rev. Mr. Eu-
sebius Paget, minister of the parish church
of Kilkhampton, in the diocess of Exon, was
very moving ; this divine, at the time of his
presentation, acquainted his patron and ordina
ry that he could not with quietness of conscience
use some rites, ceremonies, and orders appoint
ed in the service-book ; who promised, that if
he would take the charge of the said cure, he
should not be urged to the precise observation
of them ; upon which condition he accepted the
charge, and was admitted and regularly induct
ed.* Mr. Paget was a lame man, but, in the
opinion of Mr. Strype, a learned, peaceable, and
quiet divine, who had comphed with the cus
toms and devotion of the Church, and was in
defatigable in his work, travelling up and down
the neighbouring country, to preach the plain
principles of rehgion ; but Mr. Farmer, curate
of Barnstaple, envying his popularity, complain
ed of him to the high commission, because he
did not mention in his prayers the queen's su
premacy over both estates ; beeause he had said
that the saeraments were but dumb elements,
and did not avaU without the Word preached ;
beeause he had preached that Christ did nolde-
spend into hell both body and soul ; that the
pope might set up the (east of jubilee, as well
as the feasts of Easter and Penteeost ; that holy
days and fasting days were but the traditions
of men, whieh we were not obliged to follow;
that he disaUowed the use of organs in Divine
serviee ; that he eaUed ministers that do not
preaeh dumb dogs, and those that have two
benefioes knaves ; that he preaehed that the
late Queen Mary was a detestable woman and
a wieked Jezebel.
But when Mr. Paget appeared before the com
missioners, January Uth, 1584, he was only ar-
tieled aepording to the eommon form, for not
observing the Book of Common Prayer, and the
rites and peremonies of the Chureh. "To which
he made the following answer :
" I do acknowledge that, bythe statute Of the
1st of Eliz., I am bound to use the said Common
Prayer Book in such a manner and form as is
preseribed, or else to abide suph pains as bylaw
are imposed upon me.
" I have not refused to use the said common
prayer, or to minister the sacraments in such
order as the book appoints, though I have not
used aU the rites, ceremonies, and orders set
forth in the said book : 1. Partly .because to my
knowledge there is no common prayer book in
the Church. 2. Because I am informed that you
before whom I stand, and mine ordinary, and
the most part of the other bishops and minis
ters, do use greater liberty in omitting and al
tering the said rites, ceremonies, and orders. 3.
And especiaUy for that I am not fully resolved
in conscience, I may use divers of them. 4.
Because, when I took the charge of that church,
I was promised by my ordinary that I should
not be urged to such ceremonies, which I am
informed he might do by law.
" In these things which I have omitted I have
done nothing obstinately ; neither have I used
any other rite, ceremony, order, Ibrm, or man
ner of administration of the sacraments, or open
prayers, than is mentioned in the said book ; al-

* MS., p. 582.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

171

though there be some things which I doubt
whether I may use or practise.
" Wherefore I humbly pray that I may have
the liberty allowed by the said book, to have in
some convenient time a favourable conference
either with mine ordinary, or with some other
by you to be assigned ; which I seek not for any
desire I have to keep the said living, but only
for the better resolution and satisfaction of my
own conscience, as God knoweth. Subscribed
thus — by me, " Lame Eusebius Paget, minister."
This answer not proving satisfactory, he
was immediately suspended ; and venturing to
preach after his suspension, was deprived ; the
principal causes of his deprivation were these
two :
1. Omission of part ofthe public prayers, the
cross in baptism, and the surplice.
2. Irregularities incurred by dealing in the
ministry after suspension.
But in the opinion of the civUians neither of
these things could warrant the proceedings of
the court :* 1. Because Mr. Paget had not time,
nor a conference, as he craved, and as the stat
ute in doubtful matters warrenteth. 2. Because
he had not three several admonitions, nor so
much as one, to do that in time which the law
requires. If this had been done, and upon such
respite and admonition he had not conformed,
then the law would have deemed him a recu
sant, but not otherwise. 3. If this course had
been taken, yet Mr. Paget's omissions had so
many favourable circumstances (as the parish's
not having provided 'a book, and his ordinary's
promising not to urge him with the precise ob
servance of aU the ceremonies), that it was
hardly consistent with the prudent consideration
and charity of a judge to deprive him at once.
As to his irregularity, by exercising the minis
try after suspension, the suspension was thought
to be void, because it was founded upon a meth
od not within the cognizance of those who gave
sentence ; for the ground was, refusing to sub
scribe to articles tendered by the ecclesiastical
commissioners, who had no Warrant to offer any
such articles at all ; for their authority reaches
no farther than to reform and correct facts done
contrary to certain statutes expressed in their
commission, and contrary to other ecclesiastical
laws ; and there was never yet any clause in
their commission to offer subscription to articles
of their own devising. But suppose the suspen
sion was good, the irregularity was taken away
by the queen's pardon long before his depriva
tion. Besides, Mr. Paget did not exercise his
ministry after suspension, till he had obtained
from the Archbishop of Canterbury a release
from that suspension, which, if it was not suffi
cient, it was apprehended by him to be so, the
archbishop being chief in the commission ; and
aUthe canonists aUow that simplicity, and ig
norant mistaking of things, being void of wilful
•contempt, is a lawful excuse to discharge irreg
ularity. But the commissioners avowed their
own act, and the patron disposed of the living
to another.
Mr. Paget, having a numerous family, set up a
little school, but the arms ofthe commissioners
leaehed him there ; for, being required to take
? MS., p.lTi!

out a license, they tendered him the articles to
subscribe, which he refusing, they shut up his
school and sent him a begging. Let us hear
his own relation of his case in a letter that he
sent to that great sea-ofRcer Sir John Hawkins,
who had a high esteem for this good man, " I
was never present at any separate assembly
from the Church," says he, "but abhorred them.
I always resorted to my parish church, and was
present at service and preaching; and' received
the sacrament according to the book. I thought
it my duty not to forsake a church because of
some blemishes in it ; but while I have endeav
oured to live in peace, others have prepared
themselves for war. I am turned out of ray liv
ing by commandment. I afterward preached
without living or a penny stipend ; and when I
was forbid, I ceased. I then taught a few
children, to get a httle bread for myself and
mine to eat ; some disliked this, and wished me
to forbear, which I have done, and am now to
go as an idle rogue and vagabond from door to
door to beg my bread, though I am able in a
lawful caUing to get it."* Thus this learned
and useful divine was silenced till the death of
Whitgift, after Which he was instituted to the
living of St. Anne within Aldersgate.
The Rev. Mr. Walter Travers, B.D., some
time fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, al
ready mentioned, came into trouble this year.
He had been ordained at Antwerp, and being an
admired preacher, a fine gentleman, and of great
learning, he became domestic chaplain to Sec
retary Cecil, and lecturer at the Temple. Dr.
Alvey the master dying about this time, Travers
was recommended to succeed him bythe doctor
on his deathbed, and by the benchers of the
house, in a petition to the treasurer on his be
half; but the archbishop interposed, and de
clared, peremptorily, that unless he would be
reordainpd according to the usage of the Church
of England, and subscribe to his articles, he
would not admit him. Upon which he was set
aside, and Mr. Hooker preferred. Travers con
tinued lecturer about two years longer, and was
then deprived of his lectureship, and deposed
from the ministry. The treasurer, and others of
Travers's friends, advised him for peace' sake
to be reordained ; but he replied in a letter to
his lordship, that this would be to invalidate his
former orders ; and not only so, but as far as in
him lay, to invalidate the ordinations of aU for
eign churches. " As for myself," says he, " I
had a sufficient title to the ministerial office,
having been ordained according to God's holy
Word, with prayers and impositions of hands,
and according to the order of a church of the
same faith and profession with the Church of
England, as appears by my testimonials." He
prayed hisJordship to consider, farther, whether
his subscribing the articles of religion, which
only concern the profession , of the Christian
faith and doctrine of the sacraments, as agreed
upon in the convocation of 1562, which most
willingly and with aU his heart he assented to
according to the statute, did not qualify him for
a minister in the Church, as much as if he had
been ordained according to the English form.
But the archbishop was determined to have a
strict eye upon the inns of court, and to bring
them to the public standard ; and the rather, in-
' *LffeofWhitgfft, p. 377.

172

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

asmuch as some of them pretended to be ex
empted from his jurisdiction ; for though in all
other places the sacrament was received in the
posture of kneeling, the templers received it to
this very time sitting. Travers would have in
troduced the posture of standing at the side of
the table, but the benchers insisted upon their
privUege,' and would receive it in no other pos
ture than sitting.* The archbishop, in order to
put an end to this practice, would admit none
but a high Conformist, that they might be obli
ged to receive it kneeling, or not at all.
The harder the Church pressed upon the Pu
ritans, the more were they disaffected to the
national establishment, and the more resolute
in their attempts for a reformation of discipline.
There was a book in high esteem among them
at this time, entitled Disciplina ecclesicE sacra ex
Dei verba descripla ; that is, " The Holy Disci
pline of the Church described in the Word of
God." It was drawn up in Latin by Mr. Trav
ers, and printed at Gerifeva about the year 1574,
but since that time had been dUigently reviewed,
corrected, and perfected by Mr. Cartwright, and
other learned ministers; at their synods. It was
translated into English this year, with a preface
by Mr. Cartwright, and designed to be published
for more general use ; but as it was printing at
Cambridge it was seized at the press ; the arch
bishop advised that all the copies should be
burned as factious and seditious, but one was
found in Mr. Cartwright's study after his death,
and reprinted in the year 1654, under this new
title, "A Directory of Government anciently
contended for, and as far as the time would suf
fer, practised by the Nonconformists in the
Days of Queen Elizabeth, found in the Study of
the most accomplished Divine, Mr. Thomas
Cartwright, after his decease, and reserved to
be published for such a time as this. Published
by authority." It contains the substance of
those alterations in discipline which the Puri
tans of these times contended for, and was sub
scribed by the brethren hereafter named, as
argeeable to the Word of God, and to be pro
moted by all lawful means, that it may be es
tablished bythe authority of the magistrate and
ofthe Church ; and in the mean time to be ob
served, as far as lawfuUy they may, consistently
with the laws of the land and peace of the
Church. I have therefore given it a place in
the Appendix, to which I refer the reader.!
Another treatise, dispersed privately about
this time, against the discipline of the Church,
was entitled "An Abstract of certain Acts of Par
hament, and of certain of her Majesty's Injunc
tions and Canons, i&c, printed by H, Denham,
1584." The author's design! was to show that
the bishops in their eoclesiastical courts had ex
ceeded their power, and broke through the laws
and statutes of the realm ; which wts so nolo
rious, that the answerer, instead of confuting
the abstracter, blames him for exposing their
father's nakedness, to the thrusting through of
religion, by the sides of the bishops. But who
was in fault 1 Shall the liberties and properties
of mankind be trampled upon by a despotic
power, and the poor sufferers not be allowed to
hold up the laws and statutes of the land to

their oppressors, because of their great names
or religious characters 1
¦The affairs of the Church were in this fer
ment when the Parliament met November 23d,
1584, in which the Puritans, despairing of aU
other relief, resolved to make their utmost ef
forts for a farther reformation of church disci
phne. Fuller says* their agents were soliciting
at the door of the House of Commons aU day
and making interest in the evening at the cham
bers of Parhament men ; and if the queen would
have taken the advice of her two houses, they
had been made easy. December 14th, three
petitions were offered to the House : one touch
ing liberty for godly preachers ; a second to ex
ercise and continue their ministry ; and a third,
for a speedy supply of able men for destitute
places, ! The first was brought in by Sir Thom
as Lucy, the second by Sir Edward Dymock,
and the third by Mr. Gates. Soon after this Dr.
Turner stood up, and put the House in remem
brance of a bill and book which he had hereto
fore offered to the House ; the biU was entitled
" An Act concerning the Subscription of Minis
ters," and proposes " that no other subscription
but what is enjoined by the 13th of Queen Eliz
abeth be required of any minister or preacher
in the Church of England ; and that the refusing
to subscribe any other articles shall not be any
cause for the archbishops or bishops, or any
other persons having ecclesiastical jurisdiction,
to refuse any of the said ministers to any eccle
siastical office, function, or dignity; but that
the said archbishops, bishops, &c., shall insti
tute, induct, admit, and invest, or cause to be
instituted, &c., such persons as shall be present
ed by the lawful patrons, notwithstanding their
refusal to subscribe any other articles not set,
down in the statute 13th Eliz. And that no
minister for the future shall be suspended, de
prived, or otherwise molested in body or goods,
by virtue of any ecclesiastical jurisdiction, but
only in the cases of obstinately and wilfully de
fending any heresies condemned by the express
Word of God, or their dissolute lives, which shall
be proved by two credible witnesses, or by their
own voluntary confession." The book consist
ed of thirty-four articles of complaint, but by
advice of the House, the substance of the peti
tions was reduced by the ministers in sixteen ar
ticles, which he desired might be imparted to the
House of Lords, and they be requested to join
with the Commons in exhibiting them, by way of
humble suit, to the queen. The first five were
against insufficient ministers ; then followed,
6. That all pastors to be admitted to cures.
might be tried and allowed by the parishes.
7. That no oath or subscription might be ten
dered to any at their entrance into the ministry
but such as is expressly prescribed by the stat
utes of this realm, except the oath against cor
rupt entering.!
8. That ministers may not be troubled for
omission of some rites or portions prescribed in
the Book of Common Prayer.
9. That they may not be caUed and Urged to
answer before the officials and commissaries,
but before the bishops themselves.
10. That such as had been suspended or de-

* Strype's Annals, p, 244. ! Appendix, No. 4.
} Strype's Annals, vol. iii., p. 233, 283. I

* B. ix., p. 173. ! Life of 'Whitgift, p; 176, ITT..
! MS., p. 466. Fuller, b. ix., p. 189, 190.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

173

prived for no other offence, but only for not sub
scribing, might be restored.
11. "That the bishops would forbear their ex
communication ex officio mero of godly and learn
ed preachers, not detected for open offence of
life, or apparent error in doctrine ; and that they
might not be called before the High Commission,
or out of the diocess where they lived, except
for some notable offence.
12. That it might be permitted to them in ev
ery archdeaconry to have some common exer
cises and conferences among themselves, to be
-limited and prescribed by the ordinaries.
13. That the high censure of excommunica
tion may not be denounced or executed for small
matters. 14. Nor by lay-chanceUors, commissaries, or
officials, but by the bishops themselves, with the
assistance of grave persons.
15, 16. That nonresidence and pluralities may
be quite removed out of the Church, or at least
that, according to the queen's injunctions (arti
cle 44), no nonresident having already a license
or faculty may enjoy it, unless he depute an
able curate, who may weekly preach and cat
echise, as is required in her majesty's injunc
tions. This petition was attended with a moving sup
plication to the queen and Parliament, in the
name of thousands of the poor untaught people
of England, drawn up by Mr. Sampson, in which
they complain, that in many of their congrega
tions they had none to break the bread of life,
nor the comfortable preaching of God's Holy
Word ;* that the bishops in their ordinations
had no regard to such as were qualified to
preach, provided they could only read, and did
but conform to the ceremonies ; that they de
prived such as were capable of preaching'on ac
count of peremonies whiph do not edify, but are
rather unprofitable burdens to the Church ; and
that they molest the people that go from their
own parish churches to seek the bread of life,
when they have no preaching at home.. They
complain that there are thousands of parishes
destitute of the necessary means of salvation,
and therefore pray the queen and Parliament to
provide a remedy.
In answer to the petition last mentioned, the
Bishop of Winchester, in the name of his breth
ren, drew up the following reply :
The first five petitions tend to one thing, that
is, the reformation of an unlearned and insuffi
cient ministry : to which we answer, that though
there are many such in the Church, yet that
there was never less reason to complain of them
than at present, and that things are mending
every day.
To the sixth article they answered, that it sa
voured of popular elections long since abroga
ted ; that it would breed divisions in parishes,
and prejudice the patron's right.
To the seventh and four following articles
they reply, that if they are granted, the whole
hierarchy will be unbraced ; for the seventh ar
ticle shakes the ground of all ecclesiastical gov
ernment, by subverting the oath of canonical
obedience to the bishop in " omnibus licitis et
honestis."! The eighth article requires a dis
pensation from the civU magistrate, to the sub-
verting the Act of Uniformity of common prayer,
* Strype's Ann., p. 223. ! Life of Whitgift, p. 189.

&c., and confirmation of the rites and ceremo
nies of the Church.
The ninth desires a dispensation from the ju
risdiction of our ecclesiastical courts, as chan
cellors, officials, &c., which will in the end sub
vert all episcopal authority. To the tenth they
say, that tiie ministers who have been suspend
ed are heady, rash, and contentious ; and it is
a perilous example to have sentences revoked
that have been given according to law, except
they would yield. The eleventh petition cutteth
off another considerable branch Of ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, viz., the oath ex officio, whieh is.
very neeessary in some eases, where the parish
ioners are so perverse that, though the minister
varies the service of the Church as by law ap
pointed, they will not complain, much less be
witnesses against him.
The exercises mentioned in the twelfth article
are by the queen's rtiajesty suppressed.
To the thirteenth and fourteenth they answer,
that they are willing to petition the queen that
the sentence of excommunication may be pro
nounced by the bishop, with such assistance as
he shall call in, or by some ecclesiastical person
commissioned by him.
To the fifteenth and sixteenth articles they
answer, that the smaU value of many ecclesias
tical livings made pluralities and nonresidence
in a manner necessary.*
, The debates upon this last head running very
high, a biU was ordered to be brought in imme
diately against pluralities and nonresidences,
and for appeals from ecclesiastical courts. It
was said in favour of the bill, that nonresiden
ces and pluralities were mala in se, evU in their
own nature ; that they answered no valuable
purpose, but hindered the industry of the clergy,
and were a means to keep the country in igno
rance, at a time when there were only three
thousand preachers to supply nine thousand par
ishes. The archbishop drew up his reasons
against the bill, and prevailed with the convoca
tion to present them in an address to the queen,
wherein they style themselves her majesty's
poor distressed supplieants, now in danger from
the biU depending in the House of Commons
against pluralities and nonresidenpes ; " whiph,"
say they, " impeacheth your majesty's preroga
tive ; lesseneth the revenues of the crown ;
overthrows the study of divinity in both univer
sities ; will deprive men of the livings they law
fully possess ; will beggar the clergy ; will bring
in a base and unlearned ministry ; lessen the hos
pitality of cathedrals ; be an encouragement to
students to go over to foreign seminaries, where
they may be better provided for ; and, in a word,
will make way for anarchy and confusion."!
And to give some satisfaction to the public,
they presented six articles to the queen, as the
sum of all that needed amendment,! The first
was, that none should be admitted into holy or
ders under twenty-four years of age ; that they
should have presentation to a cure ; that they
should bring testimonials of their good life ; and
that the bishop might refuse whom he thought
fit, without the danger of a quare impedit. The
second was to restrain the commutation of pen
ance, except upon great consideration, of which
the bishop to be judge. The third was, to re-

* Life of "Whitgift, p. 190.
! Ibid., p; 209.

! Ibid., p. 193.'

174

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

strain- licenses to marry without bans. The
fourth, to moderate some excesses about excom
munication. The fifth, for restraining plurali
ties of benefices. The sixth, concernmg fees to
ecclesiastical ofiicers and their servants. But
even these articles lay by till the year 1597,
when they were' confirmed in convocation, and
afterward incorporated among the canons.
In the mean time, the bill against pluralities
passed the House of Commons, and was sent
up to the Lords, where the Archbishops of Can
terbury and York, and Bishop of Winchester,
made long speeches, showing that neither the
cathedrals nor professors in the universities
could subsist without them. To prove this, they
produced a list of the small value of many ec
clesiastical livings, according to the queen's
books. .To which it was replied, that there
were many suspended preachers would be glad
of the smallest of those livings, if they might
have them without molestation ; however, that
it was more proper to go upon ways and means
for the augmentation of smaller livings than to
suffer the poor people to perish for lack of knowl
edge, -while the incumbents were indulged in idle
ness and sloth ; but the weight of the bench of
bishops, with the eourt interest, threwout the bUl.
This exasperated the Commons to that de
gree; that after the holydays they resumed the
debate of the BiU of Petitions, and ordered sev
eral other bills to be brought in to clip the wings
of the bishops, and lessen the power of the spir
itual courts. One was for swearing bishops in
the courts of Chancery and King's Bench, that
they should act nothing against the common law
ofthe land ; another, to reduce their fees ; a third,
for liberty to marry at all times of the year ; a
fourth, for the qualification of ministers ; and a
fifth, for restoring of discipline. The act for
qualifying ministers annuls aU' popish ordina
tions, and disqualifies such as were not capable
of preaching, as well as those who were con
victed of profaneness, or any kind of immorali
ty ; but obliges the successor to allow the de
prived minister a sufficient maintenance, at the
discretion of the justices ofthe quarter sessions;
and if the living be not sufficient, it is to be done
by a parish rate. It insists upon a careful ex
amination and trial of the qualifications of can
didates for the ministry by the bishop, assisted
by twelve of the laity ; and makes the election,
or consent of the people, necessary to his in
duction to the pastoral charge. The biU for
discipline is for abolishing the canon law and
all the spiritual courts,* and for bringing the
probates of testaments, and all civil business,
into the courts of Westminster Hall ; it appoints
a presbytery or eldership in each parish. Which,
together with the minister, shall determine the
spiritual business of the parish, with an appeal
to higher judicatories in cases of complaint.
Mr. Strype says! the bill for the qualification
of the ministers passed the Commons, which
put the archbishop into such a fright, that the
very next day he, wrote the foUowing letter to
the queen :
" May it please your majesty to be advertised,
" That notwithstanding the charge of late
given by your highness to the lower house of
Parhament for dealing in causes of the Church;
* MS., p. 208, 213. ! Lffe of Whitgfft, p. 198.

albeit also, according to your majesty's good li
king, we have sent down order for the admitting
of meet men in the ministry hereafter ; yet have
they passed a b'Ul in that house yesterday touch
ing that matter ; which, besides other inconveni
ences (as, namely, the trial ofthe minister's suf
ficiency by twelve laymeh, and such like), hath
this also, that if it pass by Parliament it cannot
hereafter but in Parliament be altered, what ne
cessity soever shall urge thereunto : which I
am persuaded in a short time wUl appear, con
sidering the multitudes of livings, not fit for men
so qualified, by reason of the smaUness thereof; ,
whereas, if it be but as a canon from us, or by
your majesty's authority, it may be observed or
altered at pleasure.
"They have also passed. a biU gi-ving liberty
to marry at all times of the year without re
straint, contrary to the old canons continually
observed among us, and containing matter
which tendeth to the slander of this Church, as
having hitherto maintained an error.
" There is likewise now in hand in the same
house a bUl concerning ecclesiastical courts,
and visitation by bishops ; which may reach to
the overthrow of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and
study of the civU laws. The pretence of the
bUl is against excessive fees and exactions in
ecclesiastical courts ; which fees are none other
than have been of long time accustomed to be
taken ; the law already estabhshed providing a
sharp and severe punishment for such as shaU
exact the same ; besides an order also whieh
we have at this time for the better performance
thereof " I therefore most humbly beseech your maj
esty to continue your gracious goodness to
wards us, who with all - humUity submit our
selves to your highness, and cease not daily to
pray for your happy state, and long and pros
perous reign over us. From Lambeth, the 24th
of March, 1584.
" Your majesty's chaplain,
" And daily orator most bound,
" Jo. Cantuar."
The queen was pleased with the archbishop's
advice of making alterations by canon, and not
by statute, that she might reserve the power in
her own hands ; and immediately sent a mes
sage to the Commons by the lord-treasurer, to
reprimand them " for encroaching upon her su
premacy, and for attempting what she had for
bidden, with which she was highly offended ;
and to command the speaker, in her majesty's
name, to see that no bills touching reformation
in causes ecclesiastical should be exhibited ; and
if any such were exhibited, she commands him
upon his allegiance not to read them." The
Commons now saw their mistake in vesting the
whole power of reforming the policy of the
Church in the single person of the qiieen, who
knew how to act the sovereign and display her
prerogative as weU as her father. Had it been
reserved to the whole Legislature, queen, lords,
and Commons, with advice of the representa
tive body "of the clergy, it had been more equi
table ; but now, if the Whole nation were dissat
isfied, not an insignificant rite or ceremony must
be changed, or a biU brought into either house
of Parliament, without an infringement of the
prerogative : no lay-person in the kingdom must
meddle with religion except the queen; the

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

175

hands of Lords and Commons are tied up, her
majesty is absolute in the affairs of the Churoh,
and no motion for reformation must arise from
any but herself
The archbishop's reasons against the biU for
marrying at any time of the year are very ex
traordinary ; it is contrary (says his grace) to
the old canons. But many of these are contrary
to the canon of Scripture ; and they who framed
this seem a little to resemble the character which
the apostle gives of an apostate from the faith,
1 Tim., iv,, 3, "Forbidding to marry, and com
manding to abstain from meats." He adds, " It
tendeth to the slander of the Church, as having
hitherto maintained an error." Is it, then,, a
slander to the Church of England, or to any
Protestant church, to say she is faUible, and
may have maintained an error 1 Have not fa
thers and councUs erred 1 Nay, in the very
Church of Rome, which alone lays claim to in-
falhbUity, have we not read of one pope and
council reversing the decrees of another 1 The
twenty-first article of the Church of England
says that " general councUs may err, and some
times have erred, even in things pertaining to
God." And if a general council may err, even
in things of importance to salvation, surely it
can be no slander to say a convocation, a par
liament, or a single person, may mistake in
commanding to abstain from meats, and forbid
ding to marry at certain times of the year.
While the Puritans were attending the Par
liament they did not neglect the convocation :
a petition was presented to them in the name
of the ministers who refused to subscribe the
archbishop's three articles, wherein they desire
to be satisfied in their scruples, which the law
admits, but had not hitherto been attempted.*
The ponvopation rejeeting their petition, the
ministers printed their " Apology to the Church
and humble Suit to the High Court of Parlia
ment," in which they mention several things in
the public service as repugnat to the Word of
God : as, requiring faith in an infant to_ be bap
tized ; confounding baptism and regeneration ;
adding to the pure and perfect institutions of
Christ the cross in baptism, and the ring in mar
riage ; advancing the writings of the Apocliry-
pha to a level with Holy Scripture, by reading
them in the Church ; with many others. They
conclude with an earnest supplication to their
superiors to be continued in their callings, con
sidering their being set apart to the ministry,
and the obligations they were under to God and
their people ; they protest they will do anything
they can without sin, and the rather, because
they are apprehensive that the " shepherds being
stricken, their flocks wiU be scattered."
The Puritans' last resort was to the arch
bishop, who had a prevailing interest in the
queen; a paper was therefore published, enti
tled " Means how to settle a Godly and Charita
ble Quietness in the Church," humbly address
ed to the archbishop, and containing the follow
ing proposals :
That it would please his grace not to press
such subscription as had been of late required,
seeing in the Parliament that established the
articles the Subscription was misliked, and put
out ;! that he would not oblige men to accuse
themselves by the oath ex officio, it being contra-
* MS., p. 595. ! Life of Whitgift, p. 196.

ry to law and the liberty of the subject ; that
those ministers who have been of late suspend
ed may be restored, upon giving a bond and se
curity not to preach against the dignities of
archbishops, bishops, &c., nor to disturb the or
ders ofthe Churph, but to maintain it as far as
they can, and soberly to teach Jesus Christ
crucified ;* that ministers inay not be exposed
to the malicious prosecution of their enemies,
upon their omission of any tittle in the service-
book ; that they may not be obliged to read the
Apochrypha, seeing in the first book printed in
her majesty's reign the same was left out, and
was afterward inserted without warrant of law,
and contrary to the statute, which allows but
three alterations ; that the cross in baptism may
not be enforeed, seeing in King Edward's second;
book there was a note which left that and some
,other rites indifferent ; which note ought to have
been in the queen's book, it not being among
the alterations appointed by statute : they far
ther desire, that in baptism the godfathers may
answer in their own names, and not in the
child's ; that midwives and women may not
baptize ; that the words upon delivery of the
ring in marriage may be left indifferent ; that
his grace would not urge the precise wearing of
the gown, cap, tippet, and surplice, but only thett
ministers be obliged to wear apparel meet and
decent for their caUings ; that lecturers who
have not cure of souls, but are licensed to
preach, behaving themselves well, be not en
forced to minister the sacraments unless they
be content so to do.
But the archbishop would abate nothing, nor
admit of the least latitude from the national es
tablishment. He framed an answer to the pro
posals, in which he insists upon a full conform
ity, teUing the petitioners that it was none of
his business to alter the ecclesiastical laws or
dispense with them : which was all they were
to expect from him. What could wise and good
men do more in a peaceable way for the liberty
of their consciences, or a farther reformation in
the Church 1 They petitioned the queen, appli
ed to both houses of Parhament, and addressed
the convocation and bishops ; they moved no
seditions nor riots, but fasted and prayed for the
queen and Church as long as they were allowed ;
and when they could serve them no longer, they
patiently submitted to suspensions and depriva
tions, fines and imprisonments, till it should
please God, of his infinite mercy, to open a door
for their farther usefulness.
The papists made their advantages of these
divisions : a plot was discovered this very year
11585] against the queen's life, for which Lord
Paget! and others fled their country ; and one
Parry was executed, who was to have kiUed
her majesty as she was riding abroad ; to which
( it is said! ) the pope encouraged him, by
granting him his blessing, and a plenary indul
gence and remission of aU his sins ; assuring
* To this proposal the archbishop answered, " I do
not mislike ofthe bond ; but he that shaU enter into
it, and yet refuse to subscribe, in my opinion is a mere
hypocrite, or a very wilful fellow ; for this condition
containeth more than doth the subscription." — Mad
dox's Vindication, p. 348. — -Ed.
! See Bishop Carleton's thankful Remembrance
of God's Mercy, 1627 : a very curious volume, with
remarkably fine illustrations.— C.
X Strype's Ann., vol. u., p. 249.

176

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

him that, besides the merit of the action in
heaven, his holiness would make himself his
debtor in the best manner he could, and there
fore exhorted him to put his " most holy and
honourable purposes" in execution; this was
written from Rome, January the 30th, 1584, and
signed by tiie Cardinal of Como. Mary, queen
of Scots, was big with expectation of the crown
of England at this time, from the preparations of
foreign popish princes, who were determined to
make the strongest efforts to set her lipon the
throne, and to restore the Catholic religion in
England ; but they could not get ready before
her bead was laid down upon the block.
The Parliament, which met again in Novem-
der, being sensible of the importance of the
queen's life, entered into a voluntar/association
to revenge her death, if that should happen
through any violence :* they also made a severe
statute against Jesuits and seminary priests, or
others who engaged in plots by virtue of the
bull of excommunication of Pope Pius V., and
against any subject of England that should go
abroad for education in any of the popish sem
inaries. Yet none of these things could move
the queen or bishops to take any steps towards
uniting Protestants among-themselves.
' But to put an effectual stop to the pens ofthe
Church's adversaries, his grace applied to the
queen for a farther restraint of the press, which
he obtained and published by authority of the
Star Chamber (says Mr. Strype!), June 23d, 28
Eliz. It was framed by the archbishop's head,
who prefixed a preface to it : the decree was to
this purpose, " that there should be no printing-
presses in private places, nor anywhere but in
London and the two universities. No new
presses were to be set up but by license from
the Archbishop and Bishop of London, for the
time being ; they to signify the same to the war
dens of the Stationers' Company, who should
present such as they chose to be masters of
printing-presses before the ecclesiastical com
missioners for their approbation. No person to
print any book unless first aUowed according to
the queen's injunctions, and to be seen and pe
rused by the Archbishop or Bishop of London,
or their chaplain. No book to be printed against
any ofthe laws in being, nor any of the queen's
injunctions. Persons that should seU or bind
up such books to suffer three months' imprison
ment. And it shall be lawful for the wardens
of the Stationers' Company to make search after
them, and seize them to her majesty's use ; and
the printers shall be disabled from exercising
their trade for the future, and suffer six months'
imprisonment, and their presses be broken."
Notwithstanding this edict, the archbishop was
far from enjoying a peaceable triumph, the Pu
ritans finding ways and means from abroad to
propagate their writings, and expose the sever
ity of their adversaries.
Some faint attempts were made this summer
for reviving the exercises called prophesyings,.
in the diocess of Chester, where the clergy were
very ignorant : Bishop Chadderton drew up
proper regulations, in imitation of those already
mentioned, but the design proved abortive.
TThe Bishop of Litchfield and Coventry also pub
lished some articles for his visitation which sa

voured of Puritanism, as against nonresidents,
for making a more strict inquiry into the quali
fications of ministers, and for restraining un
worthy communicants.* He also erected a kind
of judicatory,! consisting of four learned divines
with himself, to examine such as should be pre
sented for ordination. When the archbishop
had read them over, he called them the well-
spring of a pernicious platform, and represented
them to the queen as contrary to law, and the
settled state of the Church ; the bishop wrote a
defence of his articles to the archbishop, show-
ing their consistency with law, and the great
advantage which might arise from them ; but
Whitgift would hear of nothing that looked like
a Puritanical reformation.!
The Lord's Day was now very much profaned
by the encouragement of plays and sports in the
evening, and sometimes in the afternoon. The
Rev. Mr. Smith, M.A., in his sermon before the
University of Cambridge, the first Sunday in
Lent, maintained the unlawfulness of these
plays ; for which he was summoned before the
vice-chancellor, and upon examination offered
to prove that the Christian Sabbath ought lo be
observed by an abstinence from all worldly bu
siness, and spent in works of piety and charity;
though he did not apprehend we were bound to
the strictness of the Jewish precepts.^ The
Parhament had taken this matter into consider
ation, II and passed a biUfor the better and more
reverent observation of the Sabbath, which the
speaker recommended to the queen in an ele
gant speech ; but her majesty refused to pass
it, under pretence of not suffering the Parlia
ment to meddle with matters of religion, which
was her prerogative. However, the thing ap
peared so reasonable, that, without the sanction
of a law, the religious observation of the Sab
bath grew in esteem with aU sober persons, and
after a few years became the distinguishing
mark of a 'Puritan.
This summer Mr. Cartwright returned from
abroad, having spent five years in preaching to
the English congregation at Antwerp ; he had
been seized with an ague, which ended in a hec
tic, for which the physicians advised him to his
native air. Upon this he wrote to the Eari of
Leicester and the lord-treasurer for leave to
come home ; these noblemen made an honour
able mention of him in Pariiament, but he could
not obtain their mediation with the queen for
his pardon, so that as soon as it was known he
was landed, though in a weak and languishing
condition, he was apprehended and thrown into
prison ; when he appeared before the archbishop
he behaved with that modesty and respect as

* Strype's Ann., vol. u., p. 293.
! LifeofWhitgift, p. 223.

* Strype's Ann., vol. hi., p. 328.
! Here Mr. Neal is censured by Bishop Warbur
ton, as partial, for reckoning the Bishop of Liteh"
field's conduct to be agreeable to law, because m fa
vour ofthe Puritans; and for representing before, p.
348, the archbishop's publishing articles without the
great seal as illegal, because against the Puntans.
Not to say that the articles in one case are very dif
ferent from the object of the judicatory in the other,
Mr. Neal, it will appear on examining, doth not de
cide on the legality oi the measure in either case, but,
as an historian, states what was offered on this head
by the parties ; and this he does with respect to the
archbishop very fully pro and con.— Ed.
X MS., p. 55. ^ Strype's Ann., p. 341.
II Ibid., vol. hi., p. 296.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

177

softened the heart of his great adversary, who,
upon promise of his peaceable and quiet beha
viour, suffered him to go at large ; for which
the Earl of Leicester and Mr. Cartwright return
ed his grace thanks ; but aU their interest could
not procure him a lieense to preach. " Mr.
Cartwright," says the archbishop to the earl,
" shaUbe welcome to me at all times, but to grant
him a license to preach tUl I am better satisfied
of his conformity, is not consistent with my duty
or conscience." However, the earl made him
governor of an hospital in Warwick, where he
was connived at for a time, and preached with
out a license : his salary was a house, and XlOO
per annum.
Mr. Fenner and Wood, two other suspended
ministers, were released after twelve months'
imprisonment, upon a general subscription to
the articles, as far as the law required, and a
promise to use the Book of Common Prayer,
and no other ; but such was the clamour on all
hands, by reason of the three articles to be sub
scribed by all who had livings already, as well
as those that shopld hereafter take orders, that
Secretary Walsingham went over to Lambeth,
and told his grace that it would stop, in a great
measure, the complaints which were brought to
court, if he would require subscription only of
such as were hereafter to enter into holy orders,
and suffer those already in places to proceed in
the discharge of their duty, upon condition of
their giving bond to read the common prayer
according to the usages and laws prescribing
the same ; which the archbishop promised to
comply with.*
But the nonsubscribing divines, who were un-
preferred, might not so much as teach school
for a livelihood, for the archbishop would grant
no license without subscribing ; and from this
time his licenses to teach grammar, and even
reading and writing, were granted only from
year to year : the schoolmasters were to be fuU
conformists ;! they were limited to a particular
diocess, and were not authorized to teach else
where ; they were to instruct their scholars in
nothing but what was agreeable to the laws
and statutes ofthe realm ; and all this only du
ring the bishop's pleasure. Such was the rig
our of these times !
Mr. Travers had been lecturer at the Temple
with Mr. Hooker, the new master, about two
years, but with very little harmony or agree
ment, one being a strict Calvinist, the other a
person of larger principles ; the sermon in the
morning was very often confuted in the after
noon, and vindicated again the next Lord's Day.
The writer of Hooker's life! reports that the
morning sermon spoke the language of Canter
bury, the afternoon that of (5eneva. Hooker
complaining of this usage, the archbishop took
the opportunity to suspend Mr. Travers at once.

* Life of Whitgift, p. 226, 227. ! Ibid., p. 246.
! Bishop Warburton deems it disingenuous in Mr.
Neal to quote the language of this biographer as he
knew that, so quoted, it would be understood to re
flect upon Mr. Hooker as only a tool or creature of
the archbishop. But is not Bishop Warburton here
unnecessarily captious ? To me it appears that the
opposition lying between Canterbury and Geneva is
sufficient to screen Mr. Neal's use of the biogra
pher's words from the imputation of such a meaning.
—Ed. Vol. I.— Z

without any warning; for, as he was going up
into the pulpit to preach on the Lord's Day af
ternoon, the officer served him with a prohibi
tion upon the pulpit stairs ; upon which, instead
of a sermon, he acquainted the congregation
with his suspension, and dismissed them.* The
reasons given for it were, 1. That he was not
ordained according to the rites of the Churoh
of England. 2. That he had broken the orders
of the 7th of the queen, " That disputes should
not be brought into the pulpit."
Mr. Travers, in his own vindication, drew up
a petition or supplication to the councU, in which
he complains of being judged and condemned
before he was heard, and then goes on to an
swer the objections alleged against him in the
prohibition. First, it is said " that I am not lawfully
caUed to exercise the office of a minister, nor
allowed to preach, according to the laws of the
Church of England."
To which I answer, that my call was by such
methods as are appointed in the national synods
of the foreign Reformed churches ; testimonials
of which' I have shown to my Lord Archbishop
of Canterbury ; so that, if any man be lawfully
called to the ministry in those countries, I am.
But "I am not qualified to he a minister in
England, because I am not ordained according
to the laws of this country."
I beseech your lordships to weigh my answer :
Such is the communion of saints, as that, what
solemn acts are done in one true church of
Christ, according to his Word, are held lawful in
aU others : the constituting or making of a min
ister being once lawfully done, ought not to be
repealed : pastors and teachers in the New
Testament hold the same manner of calling as
I had : the repeating ordination makes void the
former ordination, and, consequently, all such
acts as vvere done by virtue of it, as baptism,
confirmation, marriage, &c. By the same rule,
people ought to be rebaptized and married over
again, when they come into this country from
a foreign.! Besides, by the statute 13 Elizabeth, those
who have been ordained in foreign Protestant
churches, upon their subscribing the articles
therein mentioned, are qualified to enjoy any
benefice in the kingdom, equally with them who
are ordained according to the laws now in be
ing ; which, comprehending all that are priests
appording to the order of the Churph of Rome,

* Many who approved of the silencing of Travers
were indignant at the way in which it was done.
Fuller gives the foUowing account of it. " All the
congregation, on a Sabbath in the afternoon, were
assembled together, their attention prepared, the
cloth (as I may say) and napkins were laid, yea, the
guests set, and their knives drawn for their spiritual
repast ; when suddenly, as Mr. Travers was going
up into the pulpit, a sorry fellow served him with a
letter prohibiting him to preach any more. In obe
dience to authority, Mr. Travers calmly signified the
same to the congregation, and requested them quiet
ly to depart to their chambers.
"Thus was our good Zecharias struck dumb in the
Temple, but not for infidelity. Meantime, his audi
tory, sent sermonless home, manifested in their va
riety of passion, some grieving, some frowning, some
murmuring, and the wisest sort, who held their
tongues, shook their heads as disliking the managing
of the matter." — Church History, ch. ix., p. 217. — C.
! Whitgift's Life, p. 251.

178

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

must certainly be as favourable to ministers or
dained among foreign Protestants. In conse
quence of this law many Scots divines are now
in possession of benefices in the Church, as was
Mr. Whittingham, though he was the first who
was called in question in this case.
But it is said, " I preached without presenta
tion or license."
To which I answer, that the place where I
exercised my ministry required no presentation,
nor had I a title, or reaped any benefit by law,
but only received a voluntary contribution, and
was employed in preaching only ; and as to a
license, I was recommended to be a minister of
that place by two several letters of the Bishop
of London to the gentlemen of the Inner Tem
ple, without which letters that society would
not have permitted me to officiate.
Secondly, "I am charged with indiscretion
and want of duty to Mr. Hooker, master ofthe
Temple ; and ¦with breaking the order of the 7th
of the queen, about bringing disputes into the
pulpit." As to "want of duty," I answer, though some
have suspected my want of good-will to Mr.
Hooker, because he succeeded Dr, Alvey in the
place I desired for myself; this is a mistake,
for I decUned the place because I could not
subscribe to my Lord of Canterbury's late arti
cles, which I would not do for the mastership
of the Temple, or any other place in the Church
I was glad the place was given Mr. Hooker, as
well for the sake of old acquaintance as to some
kind of affinity there is between us, hoping we
should hve peaceably and amicably together, as
becomes brethren ; but when I heard'him preach
against the doctrine of assurance, and for sal
vation in the Church of Rome, with all their er
rors and idolatry, I" thought myself obliged to
oppose him ; yet, when I found it occasioned a
pulpit war, I declared publicly that 1 would con
cern myself no farther in that manner! though
Mr. Hooker went on with the dispute.
But it is said, " I should then have complain
ed of him to the high commission."
To which I answer. It was not out of con
tempt or neglect of lawful authority, but because
I was against all methods of severity, and had
declared my resolution to trouble the pulpit with
those debates no more.
Upon the whole, I hope it wiU appear to your
lordships that my behaviour has not deserved
so severe a punishment as has been inflicted
upon me ; and therefore I humbly pray that your
lordships would please to restore me to my min
istry, by such means as your wisdoms shall
think fit ; which wUl lay me under farther obli
gations to pray for your temporal and eternal
happiness. But if your lordships cannot pro
cure me this favour, I recommend myself to your
lordships' protection, under her majesty, in a
private life, ancf the Church to Almighty God,
who fn justice wiU punish the wicked, and in
mercy reward the righteous with a happy im
mortality. Mr. Hooker wrote an answer to Mr. Trav
ers's supplication, in a letter to his patron, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, in which he takes
no notice of Travers's ordination, but confines
himself to his objections against his doctrines ;
some of which he undertakes to refute, and in
other places complains of misrepresentation.

But let all be granted that he would have, say*
Mr. Hooker, what will it advantage him' He
ought to have complained to the high commis
sioners, and not have confuted me in the pulpit;
for schisms and disturbances will arise in the
Church, if aU men may be tolerated to think as
tliey please, and publicly speak what they think.
Therefore, by a decree agreed upon by the
bishops, and confirmed by her majesty, it was
ordered that, if erroneous doctrine should he
taught publicly, it should not be publicly refu
ted, but complained of to such persons as her
majesty should appoint to hear apd determine
such pauses ; for breach of which order he is
charged with want of duty ; and all the faults
he alleges against me can signify nothing in his
own defence. Mr. Hooker concludes wilh his,
unfeigned desires that both Mr,, Travers's and
his papers may be burned, and ail animosities
buried in oblivion, and that there be no strife
among them but this, who shall pursue peace,
unity, and piety with the greatest, vigour and
diligence. But the councU interfered not in the affair
Travers was left to the mercy ofthe archbishop,
wlio could never be prevailed with to take off
his suspension or license him to preach in any
part of England ; upon which he accepted an
invitation into Ireland, and became Provost of
Trinity College in the University of Dublin ;
here he was tutor to the famous Dr Usher, af
terward .Archbishop of Armagh, who always
had him in high esteem ; hut being driven from
thonce by the wars, he returned after some
years into England, and spent the remainder of
his days in silence, obscurity, and great pover
ty ; he was a learned man, a polite preacher,
an admirable orator, and one of the worthiest
divines of his age. But all these qualifications
put together could not atone for the single crime
of nonconformity.
Mr. Cartwright being forbid preaching, had
been encouraged by the Earl of Leicester and
Secretary Walsinghanj to answer the Rhemist
translation of the New Testament, published
with annotations in favour of popery; divers doc
tors and heads of houses of the' University of
Cambridge solicited him to the same work, as
appears by their epistle prefixed to the book :
the like encouragement he received from sundry
ministers in London and Suffolk, none being
thought so equal to the task as himself; and
because Cartwright was poor, the secretary of
state sent him £100, with assurance of such far
ther assistance as should be neoessaTy,* This
was about the year 1583, Cartwright accord
ingly applied himself to the work, but the arch
bishop, by his sovereign authority, forbade him
to proceed, being afraid that his writings would
do the hierarchy more damage than they would
do servipe to the Protestant pause : the book,
therefore, was left unfinished, and not published
till the year 1618, to the great regret of the
learned world, and reproach ofthe archbishop.
The sufferings of Mr. Gardiner, the depnved
minister of Maiden, in Essex, would have moved
pompassion in any except the Bishop of London.
I wiU represent them in his, own words, as they
were sent to him in form of a supphcation, dated
September 7th, 1586,!

* Life of Whitgfft, p. 253.

t MS,, p. 752.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

17»

'= To the right reverend father in God, the Lord-
bishop of London :
" My duty in humble wise remembered, my lord,
" I am cast into prison by your lordship for a
matter which about seven years past was slan
derously raised up against me ; I was by course
of law cleared, and the Lord God which search-
eth the hearts, before whom both you and I
shall shortly appear, doth know, and him I call
to witness, that I was and am falsely accused.
I have been extremely sick in prison ; I thank
God I am amended, but yet so that the physi
cians say my infection from the prison will be
very dangerous. I have a poor wife and five
chUdren, whieh are in lamentable ease ; I had
six ehildren at the beginning of my imprison
ment ; but by reason of my sickness in prison,
my wife being constrained to attend upon me,
one of my children, for want of somebody to
oversee them, was drowned in a tub of wort,
being two years and half old. If your lordship
have no compassion on me, yet take pity upon
the widow and fatherless (for in that state are
now my wife and poor infants), whose tears are
before the Lord. I crave no more but this, to be
baUed ; and if I am found guilty of any breach of
law, let me have extremity without any favour.
" Your lordship's to command in Christ,
" John Gardiner.''
Mr. GUes Wiggington, M.A., minister of Sed-
burgh, having been deprived at Lambeth for
nonconformity, and another inducted into his
living, went home, and being denied entrance
into the Church, preached a kind of farewell
sermon to his parishioners in the churchyard,
and administered the sacrament, having no
peace in his mind tUl he had done it, though his
brethren in the ministry would have dissuaded
him ; after this he retired with his wife and chil
dren to Burrough-bridge, but was arrested in his
journey by a pursuivant from the Arehbishop of
York, and sent to Lancaster jail, fifty miles dis
tant from the plaee where he was arrested, in
a hard and pold winter ; there he was shut up
among felons and condemned prisoners, and
worse used than they, or than the recusant pa
pist. From hence he sent up his case to Sir
Walter MUdmay, one of the privy council, but
with httle success ; for he was a warm noncon
formist, and a bold preacher against the lordly
proceedings of the bishops, for which, and for
refusing the oath ex officio, he suffered a long
imprisonment.* He was afterward apprehend
ed again, upon suspicion of his being one of the
authors of Martin Mar- Prelate, which he denied ;
but confessing he did not dislike the book, he
was therefore confined in the Compter and the
Gate-house, tUl, I believe, he eonsented to leave
the realm.
In the Parliament that met this year, Ooto-
ber 29th, 1586, and 28 Eliz., the Puritan minis
ters made another effort for parliamentary re
lief, for whieh purpose they presented an hum
ble supplication to the House of Commons ; in
which they say, " It pierces our hearts with
grief to hear the cries of the country people for
the Word of God. The bishops either preach
not at all, or very seldom ; neither can they for
their manifold business, their diocesses being
too large for their personal inspection ; besides,

MS., 754, 843, &c.

they are encumbered with civil affairs, not only
in their own ecclesiastical courts, in causes tes
tamentary, &c,, but as lord-barops, justices of
peace, members of the Star Chamber, Council-
table, and Ecclesiastical Commission ; all which
is contrary to the words of Christ, who says
his kingdom is not of this world , and contrary
to the practice of aU other Reformed churches.
And whereas the Scriptures say that ministers
of the Gospel should be such as are, able to teach
sound, doctrine and convince gainsayers, yet the
bishops have made priests of the basest of the
people, not only for their occupations and trades
whence they have taken them, as shoemakers,
barbers, tailors, water-bearers, shepherds, and
horse-keepers, but also for their want of good
learning and honesty. How true this our com
plaint is, may appear by the survey of some
shires and counties hereunto- annexed, even
some of the best, whereby the rest may be es
timated. " We do acknowledge that there are a num
ber of men within the ministry who have good
and acceptable gifts, and are able to preach the
Word of God to edification ; of which number
there are two sorts : there are a great number
that live not upon the place where they are ben
eficed, but abandon their flocks, directly contrary
to the charge of Christ to Peter, saying, ' Feed
my sheep ;' and of the apostle Paul to the elders
of Ephesus, ' Take heed to yourselves, and the
flock over which the Holy Ghost has made you
overseers, to feed the Church of God.' Of this
sort are sundry bishops, who ,have benefices in
commendam; university men, and chaplains at
court ; others get two or three benefices into
their hands, to serve them fbr winter and sum
mer houses ; which pluralities and nonresiden
ces are the more grievous because they are tol
erated by law. There are, indeed, several that
reside upon their benefices, but content them
selves with just satisfying the law ; that is, to
have Divine service read, and four sermons a
year. " But great numbers of the best qualified for-
preaching, and of the greatest industry and ap
plication to their spiritual functions, are not suf
fered quietly to discharge their duties, biit are
followed with innumerable vexations, notwith
standing they are neither heretics nor schismat
ics, but keep within the pale of the Church, and
persuade others to do so, who would otherwise
have departed from it. They fast and pray for
the queen and the Church, though they have
been rebuked for it, and diversely punished by
officers both civil and- ecclesiastical. They are
suspended and deprived of their ministry, and
the fruits of their livings are sequestered for the
payment of such a chaplain as their superiors-
think fit to employ ; this has continued for many
months and years, notwithstanding the interces
sion of their people, of their friends, and some
times of great personages, for their release.
Last of all, many of them are committed to
prison, whereof some have been chained with >
irons, and continued in hard durance for a long
time. " To bring about these severities, they [the
bishops] tender to the suspected persons an oath
ex officio, to answer all interrogatories that shall
be put to them, though it be to accuse them
selves ; and when they have gotten a confea-

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

180
sion, they proceed upon it to punish them with
all rigour, contrary to the laws of God and ol
this land, and of all nations in Christendom ex
cept it be in Spain by the Inquisition. Those
who have refused the oath have been cast into
prison, and commanded there to he without bad
tiU they .yield to it.
" The grounds of these troubles are, not im
piety, immorality, want of learning or dUigence
in their ministerial work, but for not being sat
isfied in the use of certain ceremonies and or
ders of the Church pi Rome, and for not being
able to declare that everything in the Common
Prayer Book is agreeable to the 'Word of God,
Alas ! that for these things good preachers
should be so molested, and the people deprived
of the food of their souls, and that by fathers of
the same faith with ourselves,
" "We therefore most humbly, and for the
Lord's sake, crave of this high and honourable
court of Parliament that it may please you to
hear and read this our supplication, and take
such order for it as to your godly wisdom shall
be thought necessary.*" November, 1586."
The grievances annexed to this supplication
were these :
1. The absolute power of the bishop to give
and take away licenses to preach at his pleas
ure : 2. The proceedings of the ecclesiastical

commissioners according to their own discre
tions, without regard to law : 3. The small num
ber ofcommissioners, viz., three, who may decide
the most weighty causes : 4 The not allowing
an appeal to any other court : 5. The double
character of the bishops, who sit on the bench
both as bishops and as commissioners : 6. The
oath ex officio, in which this is always one of
their interrogatories, " Do you wholly keep, ob
serve, and read in your church, all the parts of
the Book of Common Prayer, and wear the
habits \"
The survey mentioned in the supplication, by
which the miserable state of the Church for
want of an able and efficient ministry appears,
is too large to be inserted ; it was taken in the
years 1585 and 1586, by some persons employed
for that purpose apainst the meeting of the Par
liament ;* it is divided into eight columns :
The first contains the name of the benefice.
The second, the yearly value.
The third, the number of souls.
The fourth, the name of the incumbent, and
whether a preacher or not.
The fifth, what other benefices he has, and
what curates do serve him.
The sixth, his character and conversation.
The seventh, who made him minister. And,
The eighth, the patron of the living ; accord
ing to the following plan :

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» MS., p, 673.
* MS., p. 684, and seq.
HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

181

It must he uncommon diligence and appli
cation, as well as a very great expense, to col
lect so many names and characters of men ;
the exact valuation of so many livings ; the
number of nonresident ministers ; ol such as
had been mass-priests; and of mechanics and
tradesmen : but such was the zeal of these pi
ous men ! The survey of Lincolnshire was
signed by the justices of the peace of that coun
ty, and the others are attested by some of the
principal clergymen of those parts, and are so
particular in all circumstances, as leave little
room to doubt of their truth in general, though
there may be some few mistakes in characters
and numbers : upon the whole, the survey takes
notice that, after twenty-eight years' establish
ment of the Church of England, there were
only two thousand preachers to serve near ten
thousand parish churches, so that there were
almost eight thousand parishes without preach
ing ministers.* To this account agrees that of
Mr. Fenner, wfio lived in these times, and says
that a third part of the ministers of England
were covered with a cloud of suspensions ;t
that if persons would hear a sermon, they
must go in some places five, seven, twelve,
yea, in some counties twenty miles, and at the
same time be find 12A a Sabbath for being ab
sent from their own parish church, though it be
proved they were hearing a sermon elsewhere,
because they had none at home. Nor is it at all
strange it should be thus in the country, when
the Bishop of London enjoined his clergy in his
visitation this very year, 1. That every person
should have a Bible in Latin and English. 2.
That they should have BuUinger's Decads. 3.
That they should have a paper book, and write in
it the quantity ol a sermon every week. 4. That
such as could not preach themselves, should be
taxed at four purchased sermons a year.J
¦What a miserable state of things was this !
when many hundreds of pious and conscientious
preachers were excluded the Church, and starv
ing with their famUies for want of employment.
¦With the supplication and survey above men
tioned, a bill§ was offered to the House of Com-

* MS., p. 206. t Answer to Dr. Bridges, p. 48,
} Life of Aylmer, p. 148.
^ Bishop 'Warburton condemns " the ofi'ering of
this bill to the house as such a mutinous action in
the Puritan ministers," that he wonders a writer of
Mr. Neal's " good sense could mention them without
censure, much more that he should do it with com
mendation." It is not easy to see where his lordship
found Mr. Neal's commendation of this bill ; the edi
tor can discern a bare statement of the proeeedings
only. And by what law, or by what principle of the
constitution, is the offering of a bill and a represent
ation of grievances to the house an act of mutiny ?
The bill of the Puritans undoubtedly went to new
model the establishment, but only by enlarging the
terms of communion ; not by substituting new cere
monies in the room of those which were burdensome
to themselves. It went, it is true, to introduce a new
discipline, but not to abolish episcopacy. And was
not the spiritual jurisdiction then exercised oppres
sive? Were not the proceedings of the bishops
arbitrary! If so, how was it "insufferable inso
lence" to seek a parliamentary reform'? It would
have been, as his lordship grants, just and reasonable
if the Puritans had moved for toleration only. This
would have been more consistent in those who
sought only their own liberty. But his lordship did
not allow for the very different ideas we may have
on the measures that should have been pursued, who I

mons for a farther reformation ; wherein, after
# recital of their grievances, they pray that the
loks hereunto annexed, entitled " A Book of
the Form of Common Prayer, &c., and every
thing therein contained, may be from hence
forth authorized and put in use and practice,
throughout all her majesty's dominions, any
former law, custom, or statute to the contrary,
in any wise notwithstanding." The book con
tained prayers before and after sermon, but left
a liberty for variation, if it was thought proper.*
The minister was to pray and give thanks in
the words there prescribed, or such like. In
the Creed it leaves the article of Christ's de
scent into hell more at large. It omits three of
the thirty-nine articles, viz., the thirty-fourth,
thirty-fifth, and thirty-sixth. It takes the juris
diction of the Church out of the hands of the
spiritual courts, and places it in an assembly of
ministers and elders in every shire, who shall
have power to examine, approve, and present
ministers to the several parishes for their elec
tion, and even to depose them, with the con
sent of the bishop, upon their misbehaviour.
At the same time a pamphlet was dispersed
without doors, entitled " A Request of all true
Christians to the Honourable House of Parlia
ment." It prays "that every parish church
may have its preacher, and every city its super
intendent, to live honestly, but not pompously."
And to provide for this it prays " that all cathe
dral churches may be put down, where the ser
vice of God is grievously abused by piping with
organs, singing, ringing, and trowling of psalms
from one side of the choir to another, with the
squeaking of chanting choristers, disguised (as
are all the rest) in white surplices ; some in
corner caps and filthy copes, imitating the fash
ion and manner of antichrist the pope, that man
of sin and child of perdition, with his other
rabble of miscreants and shavelings. These
unprofitable drones, or, rather, caterpillars of
the world, consume yearly, some £2500, some
£3000, some more, some less, whereof no profit
comefh to the Church of God. They are the
dens of idle, loitering lubbards ; the harbours
of time-serving hypocrites, whose prebends and
livings belong, some to gentlemen, some to
boys, and soibae to serving-men and others. If
the revenues of these houses were applied to
augment the maintenance of poor, dUigent,
preaching parish ministers, or erecting schools,
religion would then flourish in the land."t

view these transactions at this distance of time, and
many years after a toleration act has passed, from
what those had whose minds, in the infancy of a
separation from the Ctiurch, felt all the a'ttachments
to it produced by education and habit, and were nat
urally averse to a total and final secession from it.
He considers " the House of Commons in a temper
to have passed a bill for toleration." But he forgets
that the success of such a bill, or of any bill, did not
depend on the temper of the house, but on the pleas
ure of the queen. Besides, for the first twelve or
fourteen years of her majesty's reign the prayer of
the petitions presented by the Puritans was, if not
for a toleration in a separation from the Church, yet
only for a dispensation for the use of the habits and
three or four ceremonies, and a redress of a few no
torious abuser. As the queen and bishops continued
unyielding, and grew more vigorous, new questions
were started, and now burdens were felt, and new
demands arose. — See Mr. Neale^s Review. — En.
* Life of Whitgift, p. 258. ' t MS.^p. 814.

182

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

Some bold speeches were made in Parliament
against the arbitrary proceedings ofthe bishop^
by Mr. "Wentworth and others, for which thosB^
members were sent to the Tower ; at which
the house was so intimidated that they would
not sufl:"er the biU to 'be read. Besides, the
cjueen sent both for the biU and petition out of
the house, and ordered the speaker to acquaint
them " that she was already settled in her reli
gion, and would not begin again ; that changes
in religion were dangerous ; that it was not
reasonable for them to call in question the es
tablished religion, while others were endeav
ouring to overthrow it ; that she had consider
ed the objections, and looked upon them as
frivolous ; and that the platform itself was most
prejudicial to her crown, and to the peace of
her government."* Nay, so incensed was the
queen with these attempts of the Puritans, that
in drawing up a general pardon to be passed in
Parhament, she ordered an exception to be
made of such as committed any offence against
the Act of Uniformity, or were publishers of
seditious books or pamphlets. t
The convocation, contrary to all custom and
usage, continued sitting after the Parliament,
and gave the queen a subsidy or benevolence.
This precedent Archbishop Laud made us of in
the year 1C40 to prove the lawfulness of a con
vocation sitting without a Parliament. AU they
did farther was to address the queen with an
offer to maintain by disputation that the plat
form ofthe Puritans was absurd in divinity, and
dangerous to the state ; which the Nonconform
ists would willingly have debated, but the others
knew the queen and council would not admit it.
The press was in the hands of the archbish
op, who took all possible care to stifle the wri
tings of the Puritans, while he gave licensel to
Ascanio, an Italian merchant, and bookseller in
London, to import what popish books he thought
fit, upon this very odd pretence, that the adver
saries' arguments being better known by learn
ed men, might be more easily confuted. ij But
was it not a shorter way to confute them in the
high commission 1 Or might not the same rea
son have served for licensing the books of the
Puritans 1 But his grace seems to have been
in no fear of popery, though this very year
another assassination-plot was discovered, for
¦which Ballard, a priest, and about twelve or
fourteen more, were executed, || Remarkable
are the words of this BaUard, who declared, upon
examination, to Sir Francis Knollys, treasurer
of the queen's household, and a privy counsellor,
" that he would desire no better books to prove
his doctrine of popery than the archbishop's
* Life of 'Whitgift, p. 259. f Heyl. Aer., p. 269.
X 'This license was not absolute and unhmited, but
restrained the importation to a few copies of every
such sort of books, and on this condition only, that any
of them be not showed or dispersed abroad ; but a de
livery of them was to be made to one of the privy
council, or to such only as they or some one of them
should judge meet to have the perusal of them. As
canio was obliged to enter into strict bonds to per-
form these conditions. This method of licensing
popish books was not so inconsistent with the re
straint laid on the liberty of the press, and on the cir
culation of the hooks of the Puritans, as our author
represents il, and appears to have conceived of it. —
Maddox s Vindication, p, 350. — Ed.
^ Life of 'Whitgift, p. 268. || Ibid., p. 265.

writings against Cartwright, and his injunctions
set forth in her majesty's name. That if any
men among the Protestants lived virtuously,
they were the Puritans, who renounced their
ceremonies, and would not be corrupted with
pluralities. That unlearned and reading minis
ters were rather a furtherance than a hinderance
to the Catholic cause. That though the bishops
owned her majesty to be supreme governor in
causes ecclesiastical, yet they did not keep their
courts in her majesty's name ; and that, though
the names and authority of archbishops and bish
ops, &c., were in use in the primitive Church,
they forgot that they were then lords or magis
trates of order only, made by the prince, and not
lords of absolute power, ruling without appeal."
This was written by Mr. Treasurer himself, Oc
tober 15th, 1586, upon which Sir Francis advi
sed in council " that special care should be fa-
ken of popish recusants ; and that the absolute
authority of private bishops, without appeal,
should be restrained ; that they might not con
demn zealous preachers against the pope's su
premacy for refusing to subscribe unlawful arti
cles, nor without the assembly of a synodical
councU of preachers, forasmuch as the absolute
authority of the bishops, and their ambition and
covetousness, had a tendency to lead people
back to popery." But how much truth soever
there was in these observations, the queen and
archbishop were not to be convinced.
The Puritans being wearied out with repeated
applications to their .superiors for relief, began
to despair, and in one of their assemblies came
to this conclusion : that since the magistrate
Could not be induced to reform the discipline of
the Church, by so many petitions and supplica
tions (which we all confess in the liturgy is to
be wished), that therefore, after so many years'
waiting, it was lawful to act without him, and
introduce a reformation in the best manner they
could. "We have mentioned their private classes
in Essex, 'Warwickshire, Northamptonshire, and
other parts, in which their book, entiUed "The
Holy Discipline of the Church, described in the
"Word of God," being revised, was subscribed
by the several members in, these words, accord
ing to Mr. Strype, whieh are something different
from the form at the end ofthe book in the Ap
pendix : " We acknowledge and confess the
same, agreeable to God's most holy 'Word, so
far as we are able to judge or discern of it, ex
cepting some few points [which they sent to
their reverend brethren in some assembly of
them, for their farther resolution], and we affirm
it to be the same which we desire to be estab
lished in this Church, by daily prayer to God,
which we profess (as God shall offer opportunity,
and gives us to discern it so expedient) by hum
ble suit to her majesty's most honourable privy
council and Parliament, and by all other lawful
means to farther and advance, so far as the law
and peace of the present state of our Church
wUl suffer it, and not to enforce the contrary.
We promise to guide ourselves according to it,
and follow the directions set down in the chap
ter ' Of the Office of the Ministers of the Word.'
"We promise to frequent our appointed assem
blies, that is, every six weeks classical confer
ences, every half year provincial assemblies, and
general assemblies every year."*

-* Among those that subscribed or declared their

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

183

Besides tho Puritans already mentioned as
suffering this year, the learned Dr, John "Wal-
ward, divinity professor at Oxford, was enjoin
ed a public recantation, and suspended till he
had done it, for teaching that the order of the
Jewish synagogue and eldership was adopted
by Christ and his apostles into the Christian
Churoh, and designed as a perpetual church
giiveninirnt,* He was also hound in a recog
nizance of £100 for his good behaviour. Mr.
H.-irsnet, of Pembroke Hall, was imprisoned at
the same time for not wearing the surplice. Mr.
Edward GUlibrand, fellow of Magdalen CoUege,
Cambridge, was forbid preaching, and bound in
-a recognizance of £100 to revoke his errors in
such words as the commissioners should ap
point. His crime was speaking against the hie
rarchy, and against the swelling titles of arch
bishops and bishops, for which Whitgift told him
he deserved not only to be imprisoned and sus
pended, but to be banished the university. Mr.
Farrar, minister of Langham in Essex, was
¦charged with rebellion against the ecclesiastical
laws, and suspended for not wearing the habits.
Bishop .Aylmer told himt that except he and his
companions would be conformable, in good faith,
he and his brethren the bishops would, in one
quarter ofa year, turn them all out ofthe Church,
September Uth, Mr Udall, of Kingston-upon-
Thames, was suspended and imprisoned for
keeping a private fast in his parish. In the
month of January. Mr. WUson, Mr. More, and
two other ministers were imprisoned, and obli
ged to give bond fbr their good behaviour.
fn the month of May the Rev. Mr, Settle was
summoned before the Archbishop of Lambeth,
and charged with denying the article, " Of the
descent of our Saviour's soul into hell," or the
place of the damned. Mr. Settle confessed it
was his opinion that Christ did not descend lo-

approhation of the Book of Discipline, were the Rev.
Messrs. Cartwright, Travers, Dr. Knewstubs, Messrs.
Charke, Edgerton, Reynolds, Gardiner, Gifford, Bar
ber, Spicer, Greenham, Payne, Fenner, Field, Snape,
Johnson, Nichols, Dr, Sparkes, Messrs. Ward, Stone,
Warktoii, Larke, Fletcher, Lord, Farmer, Rushbrook,
Littleton, Oxenbridge, Seyntclere, Standen, Wilcox,
Dr. Whitaker, Messrs. Chadderton, Perkins, Allen,
Edmunds, Gillibrand, Bradshaw, Harrison, Massie,
Hidershatn, Dod, Briglitman, Cawdrey, Rogers, Udall,
Dyke, Wight, Paget, and others to the number of
.above five hundred, all beneficed in the Church of
England, useful preachers, of unspotted lives and
characters, and many of tb^m of the University of
Cambridge, where they had a strong and powerlbl
interest. Bishop Maddox triumphs in the representation of
Mr. Neal, that five hundred who subscribed the holy
discipline were all beneficed in the Church, as a proof
ol the lenity of government. Mr. Neal, in his reply,
adds, " that there were more than twice five hundred
clergymen who made a shift to keep their places in
the Church," But when, at the same time, they
were continually exposed to suffer fromthe rigour of
government; when, as Dr. Bridges declared, a third
part of the ministers of England were covered with
a cloud of suspensions ; when many smarted severely
for attempting a reformation, for which they all wish
ed and prayed; when Cartwright, Travers, Field,
Johnson, Cawdery, Udall, and other leaders of the
Puritans, .vere suspended, imprisoned, and frequently
in trouble, not to say dying under the hand of power,
the reader will judge vvith what propriety his lord
ship e.xulls over our author. — See Mr. Neal's Review,
,p, K7-i, 873.— Ed.
* MS., p. 798. t Ibid., p. 800, 805.

cally into heU, and that Calvin and Beza were
of his mind, which put the archbishop into
such a passion that he called him ass, dolt, fool.
Mr. Settle said he ought not to rail at him, be
ing a minister ofthe Gospel. What, said the
archbishop, dost thou think much to be caUed
ass and dolt 1 I have called many of thy bet
ters so. True, said Mr. Settle, but the question
is. How lawfully you have done sol Then said
the archbishop, Thou shalt preach no more in
my diocess. Mr, Settle answered, I am called
to preach the Gospel, and I will not cease to do
it. The archbishop replied, with a stern coun
tenance. Neither you nor any one in England
shall preach without my leave. He then char
ged Mr. Settle with not observing the order of
the service-book ; with not using the cross in
baptism ; with disallowing the baptism of mid-
wives ; and not using the words in marriage,
" With this ring I thee wed." The Dean of
Winchester asked him if he had subscribed.
Settle answered. Yes, as far as the law requi
red, that is, to the doctrines of faith and the sac
raments, but as touching other rites and cere
monies he neither could nor would. Then said
the archbishop. Thou shalt be subject to the
ecclesiastical authority. Mr. Settle repUed, I
thank God you can use no violence but upon my
poor body. So his grace committed him to the
Gate-house, there to be kept close prisoner.*
Sandys, archbishop of York, was no less ac
tive in his province ; I have many of his exam
inations before me ; he was a severe governor,
hasty and passionate ; but it was said in ex
cuse for him and some others, that the civilians
by their emissaries and spies turned informers,
and then pushed the bishops forward, to bring
business into the spiritual courts.
About this time Dr. Bridges, afterward bishop
of Oxford, wrote against the Puritans, and main
tained that they were not grievously afflicted,
unless it were caused by their own deserts.
The doctor was answered by Mr. Fenner, who
appealed to the world in these words : " Is it no
grievous alfliction by suspension to be hung up
between hope and despair for a year or two, and,
in the mean time, to see the wages of our labour
ers eaten up by loiterers 1 Nay, our righteous
souls are vexed with seeing and hearing the ig
norance, the profane speeches, and evil exam
ples of those' thrust upon our charges, while we
ourselves are defamed, reproached, scoffed at,
and caUed seditious and rebellious ; cited, ac
cused, and indicted, and yet no redress to be
found. All this' we have patiently bore, though
we come daUy to the congregations to prayers,
to baptisms, and to the sacrament, and by our
examples and admonitions have kept away many
from excesses whereunto rashness of zeal have
carried them. And though to such as you, who
swarm with deaneries, with double benefices,
pensions, advowsons, reversions, &c., these mo
lestations seem light, yet surely, upon every
irreligious man's complaint in such things as
many times are incredible, to be sent for by pur
suivants, to pay twopence for every mile, to find
messengers, to defray our own charges, and this
by such as can hardly, with what they have,
clothe and feed themselves and their famUies, it
is not only grievous, but, as far as weU can be,
a very heart-burning. It is grievous to a free-

* MS., p. 798.

184
man, and to a free minister, for a light cause-
as, for an humble supplication to her majesty
and the whole Parliament, and to the fathers of
the Church— to be shut in close prison, or, upon
every trifling complaint, to be brought into a sla
vish subjection to a commissary, so as at his
pleasure to be summoned into the spiritual
courts, and coming thither, to be sent home
again at least with unnecessary expenses, mas
terlike answers, yea, and sometimes with open
revilings. We wUl not justify ourselves," says
Mr, Fenner,* "in aU things, but acknowledge,
that when coming by dozens and scores before
the bishop, after half a day's disorderly reason
ing, some not being heard to the full, some rail
ed on and miscalled, none with lenity satisfied,
but all suspended from our office because we
would not subscribe his last two articles, there
might pass from us some infirmities afterward ;
this and many other things we are wiUing to im
pute to ourselves, " But, after aU, it may be ques
tioned whether the history of former ages can
furnish an example of so many severities against
divines of one and the same faith, for a few tri
fling ceremonies, or of a more peaceable and
Christian behaviour under sufferings.
Camden, indeed, complains of their disper
sing pamphlets against the Church and prelates,
in a time of common danger, when the nation
was in arms against the Spanish invasion ; but
these pamphlets were only to show that the
danger of the return of popery (which all men
were now apprehensive of) arose from stopping
the mouths of those ministers who were most
zealous against it. It had been easy at this
time to have distressed the government and the
hierarchy, for the cry of the people was against
the bishops ; but the Puritans both here and in
Scotland were more afraid of the return of po
pery than their adversaries : those in Scotland
entered into an association to assemble in arms
at what time and place their king should require,
to assist the Queen of England against the
Spaniards ; and their brethren in London took
the opportunity to petition the queen for the
liberty of their preachers.t " That the people
might be better instructed in the duties of obe
dience to their civU governors, and not be left a
prey to priests and Jesuits, who were no better
than traitors to her majesty and the kingdom.
They assure her majesty that tlte people wiU
give their ministers a good maintenance ; that
they [the people] wUl always pray for her maj-
e.sty's safety, and be ready to part with their
goods, and pour out their blood like water for
her preservation, if they may but have the Gos
pel." But the queen gave them no answer ;
the whole Reformation must be hazarded rath
er than the Puritans relieved.
After this, they applied to the lord-mayor and
court of aldermen, beseeching them to address
the queen, to make some better provision for
the city ; and to enforce their petition, they laid
before them a new survey of the ministry of
London, taken this very year, with the names
of every parish-priest .and curate set down
against his living and curacy, which is now be
fore me ;t and it appears at the foot of the ac
count that there were,
Double-beneficed men within the city . 18
* Answer to Dr. Bridges, p. 45, 46.
t MS., p. 838. X Ibid., p. 482.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

Double-beneficed men without . . 27
Simple preachers (as the survey calls
them)  10
Dumb, or unpreaching ministers . . 17
Resident preachers, abiding in London
only  19
With the survey they offered divers reasons
to prevail with the court to appear for them -
as. Because the laws of the realm have provided
very well for a learned preaching ministry
whereas by the account above, it appears that
many are pluralists and nonresidents, others il
literate, being brought up to trades, and not to,
learning, and others of no very good character
in life : because divers of the principal preach--
ers of this land have of late been put to silence :
because of the prevaiUng ignorance and impiety
that is among the common people for want of
better instruction ; and because we now pay
our money and dues to them that do little or
nothing for it : but the aldermen were afraid to-
interpose.* Such was the scarcity of preachers, and the
thirst of the people after knowledge, that the
suspended ministers of Essex petitioned the
Parliament, March Sthy 1587,, for some remedy.
" Such," fay they, " is the cry of the people to
ns day ana night for the bread of life, that our
bowels yearn within us ; and remembering the
solemn denunciation of the apostle, ' Wo be to
us if we preach not the Gospel,' we begin to
think it our duty to preach to our people as we
have opportunity, notwithstanding our suspen
sion, and to commit our lives and whole estates
to Almighty God, as to a faithful Creator ; and
under God to the gracious clemency of the
queen, and of this honourable house." Many
suspended preachers came out ofthe countries,
and took shelter in the city. But to prevent as
much as possible their getting into any of the
pulpits of London, the foUowing commission
was sent to all the ministers and church-ward
ens of the city.
" Whereas sundry preachers have lately come
into the city of London, and suburbs of the
same ; some of them not being ministers, others
such as have no sufficient warrant for their
calling, and others such as have been detected
in other countries, and have, notwithstanding,
in the city taken upon them to preach publicly,
to the infamy of their calling ; others have in
their preaching rather stirred up the people to
innovation than sought the peace ofthe Church.
These are, therefore, in her majesty's name, by
virtue of her high commission for causes eccle
siastical to us and others directed, straitly to
enjoin, command, and charge aU persons, vic
ars, curates, and church-wardens of aU church
es in the city of London, and the suburbs there
of, as well in places exempt as not exempt, that
they nor any of them do suffer any to preach in
their churches, or to read any lectures, they not
being in their own cures, but only such whose
licenses they shall first have seen and read, and
whom they shall find to be licensed thereto,
either by the queen's majesty, or by one ofthe
universities of Cambridge or Oxford, or by the
Lord-archbishop of Canterbury, or the Bishop
of London for the time being, under seal.
" And that this may be published and take the
better effect, we wiU that a true copy thereof
* MS., p. 839.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

1S5

shall be taken and delivered to every curate and
church-warden of every of the churches afore
said. The 16th day of August, 1587.*
(Subscribed) "John Canterbohy,
"John London,
" Val. Dale,
" Edward Stanhope,
"Rich. Cozin."
Under all these discouragements the Puri
tans kept close together, hoping one time or
other that Providence would make way for their
relief. They maintained their classes and as
sociations, wherein they agreed upon certain
general rules for their behaviour : one was, that
they should endeavour in their preaching and
conversation to wipe off the calumny of schism,
forasmuch as the brethren communicated with
the Church in the Word and sacraments, and in
all other things, except their corruptions ; and
that they assumed not authority to themselvest
of compelling others to observe their decrees.
In their provincial synod, held at Warwick,
June 4th, 1,')88, it was agreed that it was not
lawful to baptize in private ; nor sufficient for
a minister to read homUies in churches ; nor
lawful to use the cross in baptism. They agreed,
farther, that they were not obliged to rest in
the bishop's deprivation, nor to appear in their
courts, without a protestation of their unlawful
ness. In another synod it was determined that
no man should take upon him a vague or wan
dering ministry ; that they who take upon them
a cure of souls should be called by the church
-whom they are to serve, and be approved by
the classes or some greater assembly ; and if by
them they are found meet, they are to be rec
ommended to the bishop for ordination, if it
might be obtained without subscribing the Book
of Common Prayer, t It was farther agreed
how much ofthe common prayer might be law
fully read for the preserving their ministry, and
how far they might exercise their discipline
without the civil magistrate. In another pro
vincial synod about Michaelmas, it was agreed
that the oppressions offered to others, and es-
, peciaUy to the ministers, by the bishops and
their officials in their spiritual courts, should be
collected and registered : if this had been pre
served entire, more of the sufferings of these
great and good men would have appeared, and
many works of darkness, oppression, and cru
elty would have been brought to light, which
now must be concealed tiU the day of judg
ment. The danger with which the nation was
threatened from a foreign invasion gave a little
check to the zeal of the bishops against the Pu
ritans for the present ; however, this year Mr.
Cawdrey, minister of South Luffingham, was
suspended, imprisoned, and deprived by the
Bishop of London ;^ he had a wife and seven
chUdren, which were cast upon Providence ;
but this .divine gave his lordship some farther
trouble, as wiU be seen hereafter. Mr. Wilson,
who had been suspended some time before,
moved for a release in the bishop's court ; but

* MS., p. 835.
t There was, as Bishop Warburton hints, an im
propriety in disclaiming the use of authority, when,
being a small and oppressed party, no authority from
the state was invested in them. — Ed.
X Life of Whitgift, p. 192. ^ MS., p. 825.
Vol. I.— A a

because he refused to subscribe his suspension
was continued, and himself treated by the ci
vilians with great inhumanity.
Mr. .Arthur Hildera'ham, whom Mr. Fuller
represents as a heavenly divine, being at this
time fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, was
suspended by the commissioners for preaching
occasionally before he had taken orders, and
obliged to sign the foUowing recantation :* " I
confess that I have rashly and indiscreetly ta
ken upon me to preach, not being licensed nor
admitted into holy orders, contrary to the orders
of the Church of England, contrary to the ex
ample of aU antiquity, and contrary to the di
rection of the apostle in the Acts ; whereby I
have given great and just offence to many ; and
the more, because I have uttered iu my sermons
certain impertinent and very unfit speeches for
the auditory, as moving their minds to discon
tent with the state, rather than tending to god
ly edification ; for which my presumption and
indiscretion I am very heartily sorry, and de
sire you to bear witness of this my confession,
and acknowledging my said offences." This re
cantation was, by the archbishop's appointment,
to be uttered in Trinity Hall Chapel, before
Easter. In the mean whUe, he was suspended
from the profits of his fellowship, and stood
bound to appear before the commissioners the
first court day of Easter term, if he did not be
fore that time recant. Whether Mr. Hildersham
recanted I am not certain, but September 14,
1587, he left the university, and settled at Ash
by de-la-Zouch, in Leicestershire, where he con
tinued a deep sufferer for nonconformity forty-
three years, having been suspended and put to
sUence by the High Commission no less than
four times, and continued under that hardship
almost twenty years.
This year put an end to the life of the famous
martyrologist, John Fox, a person of indefatiga
ble labour and industry, and an exile for reU
gion in Queen Mary's days ; he spent all his
time abroad in compiling the acts and monu
ments of the Church of England, which were
published first in Latin, and afterward, when he
returned to his native country, in English, with
enlargements ; vast were the pains he took in
searching records and collecting materials for
this work ; and such was its esteem, that it
was ordered to be set up in all the parish church'
es in England. Mr. Fox was born at Boston, in-
Lincolnshire, 1517, educated in Brazen-nose
College, Oxon, where he proceeded M.A. in the
year 1543. He was afterward tutor to the Duke
of Norfolk's children, who, in the days of Queen
Mary, conveyed him privately out of the king
dom. • He was a most learned, pious, and judi
cious divine, of a catholic spirit, and against all
methods of severity in religion. But he was
shamefully neglected for some years, because
he was a Nonconformist, and refused to sub
scribe the canons and ceremonies ; nor did he
get any higher preferment in the Church than
a prebend of Salisbury, though the queen used
to call him father, and professed a high venera
tion for him, as, indeed, he deserved. He died
in London in the seventieth year of his age,
and lies buried in Cripplegate Church, where
his monument is stUl to be seen, against the-
* FuUer, b. ix., p. 642.

186

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

-with a flat marble

south wall of the chancel,
stone over his remains,*
It has been observed, that our Reformers ad
mitted only two orders 'of church officers to be
of Divine appointment, viz,, bishops and dea
cons, a presbyter and bishop, according to them,
being two names for the same office ; but Dr,
Bancroft, the archbishop's chaplain, in a ser
mon at Paul's Cross, January 12, 1588, main
tained that the bishops of England were a dis
tinct order from priests, and had superiority
over them jure dimno, and directly from God,
He affirmed this to be God's own appointment,
though not by express words, yet by necessary
<;onsequence, and that the denial of it was
heresy. The doctor confessed that Aerius had
maintained there was no difference between a
priest and a bishop ; but that Epiphanius had
pronounced his assertion full of folly, and that
it had been condemned as heresy by the gener-

* Fox's Acts and Monuments of the Martyrs have
long been, still remain, and will ever continue, sub
stantial pillars of the Protestant Church ; of more
force than volumes of bare arguments, to withstand
the tide of popery ; and, like a Pharos, should be kept
kindled in every age, as a warning to aU posterity.
Strype pronounces the following encomium on this
work: " Mr. Fox," says he, "hath done such ex-
-quisite service to the Protestant cause, in showing,
from abundance of ancient books, records, registers,
and choice manuscripts, the encroachments of popes
and papalins, and the stout oppositions that were
made in all ages and countries by learned and good
men against them, especially under King Henry and
Queen Mary in England. He hath preserved the me
moirs of those holymen and women, those bishops and
divines, together with their histories, acts, sufferings,
and death, willingly undergone for the sake of Christ
and his Gospel, and for refusing to comply with the
popish doctrines and superstitions ; and, as he hath
been found most dihgent, so most strictly true and
faithful in his desc'riptions." — Strype's Annals, vol. i,,
p, 239-241. Mr. Fox -enjoyed the friendship of Grin
dal, Parkhurst, Pilkington, Sir Francis Walsingham,
Sir Thomas Gresham, and Queen Elizabeth, and by
them could have received any preferment, but he
would not subscribe nor conform to the ceremonies.
Fuller says, "How learnedly he wrote, how con
stantly he preached, how piously he lived, how
cheerfully he died, may be fetched from his hfe at
large, prefaced before his book. One page therein
omitted we must here insert, having received it
from witnesses beyond exception : In the year 88,
-when the Spanish half moon did hope to rule all the
motion in our seas. Master Fox was privately in his
chamber at prayers, battering heaven with his impor
tunity in behalf of this sinful nation. And we may
justly presume that his devotion was as actually in
strumental to the victory as the wisdom of our ad
miral, valour of his soldiers, skill and industry of his
seamen. On a sudden, coming down to his parish,
he cried out. They are gone, they are gone ! which, in
deed, happened m the same instant, as, by exact
computation, did afterward appear." — Abel Redivivus,
p. 381-2.
His epitaph stUl remains on his tombstone.
In memory of John Fox,
» Ihe most faithful martyrologist of our EngUsh Church,
a most dUigent searcher into historical antiquity,
a most strong bulwark
and fighter for evangehcal truth ;
who hath revised the Marian martyrs
as so many Phcenixes.
from the dust of oblivion,
is this monument erected,
in grief and affliction,
by his eldest son, Samuel Fox.
He died AprU 18, A.D. 1588.- C.

al councU of the Church ; that Martin and hij
companions had maintained the same opinion ;
but that St. Jerome and Calvin had confessed
that bishops have had superiority over presby
ters ever since the times of St, Mark the evan
gelist. This was new and strange doctrine to
the churchmen of these times. It had been al
ways said that the superiority of the order of
bishops above presbyters had been a politic liumait
appointment, for the more orderly government
of the Church, begun about the third or fourl\
century ; but Bancroft was one of the first who
by the archbishop's directions, advanced it into
a Divine right.* His sermon gave offence to
¦many of the clergy and to all the friends of the
Puritans about the court, who would have
brought the preacher into a praemunire for say
ing that any subject of this realm hath superi
ority over the persons of the clergy, otherwise
than from and by her majesty's authority. Bui
the doctor retorted this argument upon the dis
ciplinarians, and added, that it was no better
than a sophism, because the prince's authority
may, and very often does, confirm and corrob
orate that which is primarily from the laws of
God. Sir Francis Knollys, who had this affair
at heart, told the archbishop that Bancroft's as.
sertion was contrary to the command of Christ,
who condemned all superiority among the apos
tles. " I do not deny," says he, " that bishops
may have lordly authority and dignity, provided
they claim it not from a higher authority than
her majesty's grant. If the bishops are not un-
der-governors to her majesty of the clergy, but
superior governors over their brethren by God's
ordinance [i. e., jure divino], it will then follow
that her majesty is not supreme governor over
her clergy." The same gentleman, not relying
upon his own judgment, wrote to the learned
Dr. Reynolds, of Oxford, for his opinion of Ban
croft's doctrine, which he gave' him in alette:
now before me.t
* Life of Whitgift, p. 292. The first English Re
formers acknowledged only two orders of church of
ficers, bishops and deacons, to be of Divine appoint
ment. — C.
t The letter is to this effect :
 "Though Epiphanius says that Aerius's as
sertion is fuU of folly, he does not disprove his rea
sons from Scripture ; nay, his arguments are so weak,
that even Bellarmine confesses they are not agreea
ble to the text. As for the general consent of the
Church, which, the doctor says, condemned Aerius's
opinion for heresy, vvhat proof does he bring for it '
It appears (he says) in Epiphanius ; but 1 say ft does ^
not ; and the contrary appears by St. Jerome, and '
sundry others who lived about the same time. I
grant that St. Austin, in his book of heresies, ascribes
this to Aerius for one ; that he said there ought to be
no difference between a priest and a bishop, because
this was to condemn the Church's order, and to make
a schism therein. But it is a quite different thing to
say that, by the Word of God, there is a difference
between them, and to say that it is by the order and
custom of the Church ; which is all that St. Austin
maintains. When Harding the jiapist alleged these
very witnesses to prove the opinion of bishops and
priests being of the same order to be heresy, our
learned Bishop Jewel cited to the contrary Chrysos
tom, Jerome, Ambrose, and St. Austin himself and
concluded his answer with these words : All these,
and other more holy fathers, together with the Apes.
tie Paul, for thus saying, by Harding's advice, must
be held for herel ics. Michael Medina, a man of peat
account in the CouncU of Trent, adds to the foremen-

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

187

We shaU meet with this controversy again
hereafter. Whitgift said the doctor's sermon
had done much good, though he himself rather
wished than believed it to be true: it was new
tinned testhnonies, Theodorus, Prunarius, Seduhus,
Theophylact, with whom agree QScumenius the
Greek scholiast, Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury,
-Gregory, and Gratian ; and after them, how many '.'
it being once enrolled in the canon law for Catholic
doctrine, and thereupon taught by learned men.
" Besides, cdl that have laboured in reforming the
Church for five hundred years have taught that alt
pastors, be tliey entitled bishops or priests, have equal
authority and power by God^s Word ; as, first, the Wal-
denses, next 'Marsilius Patavinus, then Wickliffe and
his scholars, afterward Hiisse and the Hussites ; and
last of all, Luther, Calvin, Brentius, BuUinger, and
Musculus. Among ourselves we have bishops, the
^jueen's professors of divinity in our universities, and
other learned men consenting herein, as Bradford,
Lambert, Jewel, Pilkington, Humphreys, Fulke, &c.
But what do I speak of particular persons ? It is the
common judgment oi\!he Reformed churches of Helvetia,
Savoy, France, Scotland, Germany, Hungary, Po-
Jand, the Low Countries, and our own. 1 hope Dr.
Bancroft wUl not say that all these have approved
that for sound doctrine which was condemned by the
general consent of the "whole Church for heresy, in
a most flourishing time : I hope he wiU acknowledge
that he was overseen when he avouched the superi
ority which bishops have among us over the clergy
to be God's own ordinance.
" As for the doctor's saying that St. Jerome, and
Calvin from him, confessed that bishops have had
'the same superiority ever since the time of St, Mark
the evangehst, I think him mistaken, because neither
Jerome says it, nordoes Calvin seem to confess it on
his report ; for bishops among us may do sundry oth
er things besides ordaining and laying on of hands,
which inferior ministers or priests may not ; where
as, St, Jerome says. What does a bishop except or
dination which a priest does not? me-aning, that in
his time, bishops had only that power above priests ;
which Chrysostom also witnesses in Homily xi., on
1 Timothy. Nor had they this privUege alone in all
places, for in the Council of Carthage it is said
that the priests laid their hands together with the
bishops on those who were ordained. And St. Je
rome having proved by Scripture that, m the apos
tle's time, bishops and priests were all one, yet grant-
eth that afterward bishops had that peculiar to them
selves somewhere, bUt nothing else ; so that St, Je
rome does not say, concerning the superiority in
<juestion, that bishops have had it ever since St,
Mark's time.
"Nor does Calvin confess it; he says that, in old
time, ministers chose one out of their company in
•every city, to whom they gave the title of bishop ;
yet the bishop was hot above them iU honour and
-dignify, but, as consuls in the Senate, propose mat
ters, ask their opinions, direct others by giving ad
vice, by admonishing, by exhorting, and so guide the
whole action,, and by their authority see that per-
'foriried which was agreed on by common consent ;
the same charge had the bishop in the assembly of
ministers ; and having showed from St. Jerome that
this was brought in by consent of men, he adds, that
it was an ancient order of the Church, even from
St. Mark ; from whence it is apparent that the Order
'Of the Church he mentions has relation to that above
described, in which he affirms, 'that the bishop was
not so above the rest in honour as to have rule over
them.' It follows, therefore, that Calvni does not so
ttiuch as seem to confess of St Jerome's report, that,
¦-ever since St, Mark's time, bishops have had a ru
ling superiority over the clergy."
Dr. Reynolds, on account of his uncommon skiU in
Greek and Hebrew, was appointed by James, in 1604,
¦one of the translators of the Bible. His name is oft
-«n found ia history, spelled Rainolds, — C.

doctrine at this time. Most of the clergy who
approved the superiority of the episcopal order
were against the Divine right ; but the bishops
in the next age revived the debate, and carried
their pretensions so high as to subvert the very
foundations upon which they built.
I'he queen having suffered Mary, queen of
Scots, to be beheaded at Fotheringay Castle,
February, 1687-8, aU the Roman Catholic prin
ces were alarmed, and threatened revenge ;
among others, the Spaniards hasted their invin
cible armada, to reduce England to the Catholic
faith, which had been three years preparing at a
prodigious expense : the fleet was well manned,
and furnished with strange instruments of tor
ture for the English heretics ; they came through
the Channel like so many floating castles, being
to take in a land army from the Low Couni-ries ;
but partly by storms, and partly by the valour
and wise conduct of the queen's admirals and
sea captains, the whole fleet was burned and
destroyed, so that not a Spaniard set foot upon
English ground ; nor was there a ship left entire
to carry the news back to Spain. The queen
ordered the coasts to be weU guarded, and raised
a land army, which she animated by appearing
at the head of them. A terror was spread
through the whole nation by reports of the en
gines of cruelty that were aboard the fleet ; their
barbarous usage of the poor Protestants in the
Low Countries under the Duke d'Alva was re
membered, as well as tlieir bloody massacres
of the poor Indians in America ; but the storm
blew over, and, by the blessing of God upon the
queen's arms, the nation was soon restored to
its former tranquillity.
The following winter the queen summoned a
Parliament to meet [February 4lh, 1588], in or
der to defray the extraordinary expenses of the
year, and make some new laws against the pa
pists. The Puritans having expressed their zeal
for the queen and the Protestant religion by
listing in her army and navy, thought it advisa
ble once more to address the houses for some
favour in point of subscription. Upon the de
livery of the petition, one of the members stood
up and moved that an inquiry might be made
how far the bishops had exceeded the laws in
the prosecution of her majesty's Protestant sub
jects. Another moved for reviving the bill
against pluralities and nonresidents, which was
brought in, and having passed the Commons, was
sent up Ip the Lords. This alarmed the convo
cation, who addressed the queen to protect the
Church ; and having flattered her with the title
of a goddess, "Odea certe I" they tell her, "that
the passing of the bill will be attended with the
decay of learning, and the spoUing of their liv
ings ; that It will take away the set forms of
prayer in the Church, and bring in confusion
and barbarism. They put her in mind how dan
gerous innovations are in a settled state : and
add, that all the Reformed churches in Europe
cannot compare with England in the number of
learned ministers. We therefore," say they,
" not as directors, but as humble remembran
cers, beseech your highness's favourable behold
ing of our present stale, and nox to suffer the
bill against pluralities to pass,"* ' Hereupon the
queen forbade the Huuse of Lords to proceed,
and sent fiir those members of the House of
* Life of Whitgift, p. 280. I '

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

188
Commons into custody who had dared to break
through her orders, of not meddling with affairs
of religion without her special aUowance ; which
put an end to aU expectations of relief for the
present. , , , , ,,
This year died the reverend and learned Mr.
Thomas Sampson, of whom mention has been
made already ; he was born about the year 1517,
and educated at Oxford ; he afterward studied
at the Temple, and was a means of converting
the famous martyr John Bradford to the Prot
estant religion ; he took orders from Archbishop
Cranmer and Ridley in the year 1549 (who dis
pensed with the habits at his request), and be
came Rector of AUhallows, Bread -street : he
-was a famous preacher in the reign of King Ed-
-ward ; but upon the accession of Queen Mary
he fled to Strasburgh,* and was highly esteem
ed by the learned Tremelius. "When Queen
Elizabeth came to the prown, she offered him
the Bishopric of Norwich, which he refused, for
no other reason but because he could not con
form to the habits and ceremonies. In the year
1561, he was installed Dean of Christ Church,
Oxon ; but soon after, in the year 1564, was
deprived by sentence of Archbishop Parker for
nonconformity. He afterward contented him
self with the mastership of an hospital in Lei
cester, where he spent the remainder of his
days in peace. He was seized with the dead
palsy on one side many years before he died ;
but continued preaching and writing to the last,
and was in high esteem over all England for his
learning, piety, and zeal for the Protestant reli
gion. He died at his hospital, with great tran
quillity and comfort in his nonconformity, the
latter end of March or the beginning of April,
1588-9, in the seventy-second year of his age.-f
Soon after him died the very learned Dr.
Lawrence Humphreys, a great friend and com
panion of Sampson's ; he was born at Newport-
Pagnel, in Buckinghamshire, and educated in
Magdalen College, Oxon, of which- he was per
petual fellow. In the reign of Queen Mary he
obtained leave to travel, and continued at Zu
rich tiU Queen Elizabeth's accession, when he
-was made queen's professor in divinity ; he was
afterward President of Magdalen College, and
Dean of Gloucester, which was the highest pre
ferment he could obtain, because he was a Non
conformist from the ceremonies of the Church.
The Oxford historian says he was a moderate
and conscientious Nonconformist, and stocked
his coUege with a generation of that sort of men
that could not be rooted out in many years : he
was certainly a strict Calvinist, and a bitter
enemy of the papists ; he was a great and gen
eral scholar, an able linguist, and a deeper di
vine than most of his age : he published many
learned works, and at length died in his college,
in the sixty-third year of his age, 1589, having
had the honour to see many of his pupils bish-
ops,t whUe he who was every way their superi-
-* The particular cause of his leaving the kingdom
was a discovery that he was concerned with Richard
Chambers, a zealous Protestant, in collecting money
in the city of London for the use of poor scholars in
the universities who had imbibed the reformed doc
trines — British Biography, vol. iii,, p. 20, the note.
¦ — Ed.
t Wood's Ath. Ox., vol. i., p. 192.
X Strype's Ann., vol. 1., p. 472; vol. ii., p. 451.

or -was denied preferment for his Puritanical
principles. To these we may add the venerable Edwin
Sandys, archbishop of York, an excellent and
frequent preacher in his younger days, and an
exile for religion in Queen Mary's reign. He
was afterward successively Bishop of Worces
ter, London, and York, and a zealous defender
of the laws against Nonconformists of all sorts -
when arguments failed, he would earnestly im
plore the secular arm ; though he had no great
opinion of the discipline or ceremonies of the
Church, as appears by his last will and testa
ment, in which are these remarkable expres
sions : " I am persuaded that the rites and cer
emonies, by political institution appointed intlie
Church, are not ungodly nor unlawful, but may
for order and obedience' sake be used by a good
Christian ; but I am now, and ever have been,
persuaded that some of these rites and ceremo
nies (ire not expedi&nt for this church wow; but
that in the Church reformed, and in all this time
of the Gospel, they may better be disused by lillli
and little, than more and more urged."* Such a
testimony, from the dying lips of one who had
been a severe persecuto.rj- of honest men, for
things which he always thought had better be
disused than urged, deserves to be remembered.
He diedt in the month of July, 1588, in the six
ty-ninth year of his age, and was buried in the
collegiate church of SouthweU, where there is
a monument erected to his memory, with his
own effigies on the top, and a great number of
his chUdren kneeling round the sides o( it.

CHAPTER VIII.
FROM THE SPANISH INVASION TO THE DEATH OP
QUEEN ELIZABETH.
While there "were any hopes of compromi
sing matters between the Church and Puritans,
the controversy was carried on with some de
cency ; but when aU hopes of accommodation
were at an end, the contending parties loaded
each other with the heaviest reproaches. The
public printing-presses being shut against the
Puritans, some of them purchased a private one,
and carried it from one country to another to
prevent discovery : it was first set up at Moul-
sey in Surrey, near Kingston-on-Thames ; from
thence it was conveyed to Fawsley in North
amptonshire ; from thence to Norton, from
thence. to Coventry, from Coventry to Woolston
in Warwickshire, and from thence to Manches
ter in Lancashire, where it was discovered.
Sundry satirical pamphlets were printed by this
press, and dispersed aU over the kingdom ; a3i_

* Life of 'Whitgift, p. 287.
t Life of Parker, p. 428, 438. Pierce's Vmdica-
tion, p. 89. ,
X Bishop Sandys was one ofthe translators ol tne
Bible in this reign, and the author of a volume oi
sermons esteemed superior to any of his contempo
raries. The words of his last wUl, quoted above,
agree with his former declaration to Bishop ParRer,
produced by our author, p. 160. But his treatmeni
of the Puritans was a contradiction to b"'"' *"?u,
one proof, among the several instances furaisnea ny
these times, ofthe influence of preferment and pros
perity in corrupting the human mind or blmdmgiM
judgment. For, in the same wUl, he entered his se
rious protest against the platforms offered by the ru-
ritans. — See Maddox's Vindication, p. 352.— EB.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

189

" Martin Mar-Prelate," written, as is suppo
sed, by a club of separatists, for the authors
were never discovered : it is a violent satire
against the hierarchy and all its supporters ; it
calls the lord-bishops petty antichrists, petty
popes, proud prelates, enemies to the Gospel,
and most covetous, wretched priests. It says
" that the Lord has given many of our bishops
over to a reprobate sense, because they wilfully
oppose and persecute the truth ; and supposes
them to have committed the unpardonable sin,
because they have manifested in their public
writings, &c,, most blasphemous and damnable
doctrines." The author then addresses him
self to the clergy who had subscribed, and who
were for pressing subscription upon others, in
such punning language as this : " Right puissant
and terrible priests, my clergy masters of the
confocation or conspiration house, whether fickers
{vicars], paltripolitans, or others of the holy
league of subscription. Right poisoned, perse
cuting, and terrible priests ; my horned masters,
your government is antichristian, your cause is
desperate, your grounds are ridiculous ; Martin
understands all your knavery ; you are intoler
able withstanders of reformation, enemies of
the Gospel, and most covetous, wretched, and
popish priests," &c.* There are a great many
sad truths in the book, but delivered in rude
and unbecoming language, and with a bitter, an
gry spirit.
The titles of the rest were,
"Theses Martinians ; i. e., certain demon
strative conclusions set down and coUected by
Martin Mar-Prelate the Great, serving as a
manifest and sufficient confutation of all that
ever the college of eater-caps, with their whole
band of clergy-priests, have or can bring for the
defence of their ambitious and antichristian prel
acy. Published by Martin, Junior, 1589, in oc
tavo, and dedicated to John Kankerbury" [i. e.,
Canterbury], The author of this tells the bish
ops that he would plant young Martins in every
diocess and parish, who should watch the beha
viour of the clergy, that when anything was
done amiss it might be made public.
" Protestation of Martin Mar- Prelate ; where
in, notwithstanding the surprising of the print
er, he maketh it known to the world that he
feareth neither proud priest, antichristian pope,
tyrannous prelate, nor godless eater-cap, &c.
Printed 1589." Octavo.
" His appellation to the High Court of Parlia
ment from the bad and injurious dealing of the
Archbishop of Canterbury, and other his col
leagues of the High Commission, &c.t Printed
1589," Octavo,
" Dialogue, wherein is plainly laid open the
tyrannical dealings of the lords-bishops against
God's chUdren, Printed 1589," Quarto.
" A Treatise, wherein is manifestly proved
that Reformation, and those that sincerely fa
vour the same, are unjustly charged to be ene
mies to her majesty and the state. Printed
1590." Quarto.
"Ha' ye any work for the Cooper 1" This
was written against Dr. Thomas Cooper, bishop
of Winchester, and is said to be printed in Eu
rope, not far from some of the bouncing priests,
1590.

* LifeofWhitgift, p. 290.
t Ath. Oxon., vol., i., p., 259.

"Epitome ofthe First Book of Dr. John Bridges
against the Puritans," with this expression in
the title-page, " Oh I read over Dr. John Bridg
es, for it is a worthy work. Printed over sea
in Europe, within two furlongs of a bouncing
priest, at the cost and charges of Martin Mar-
Prelate, gent., in quarto."
" The Cobbler's Book,"* which denies the
Church of England to be a true church, and
charges her with maintaining idolatry under the
name of decency, in the habits, fonts, baptism
by women, gang-days, saints' eves, bishoping
of children, organs, wafer-cakes, &c.
" Ha' ye any more work for the Cooper V* In
printing of which the press was discovered and
seized, with several pamphlets unfinished ; as,
Episto [Episco] Mastix, Paradoxes, Dialogues,
MisceUanea, 'Variae Lectiones, Martin's Dream,
The Lives and Doings of English Popes, Itine-
rarium or 'Visitations, Lambethisms.
The last two of these were imperfect ; but to
complete the Itinerarium, the author threatens
to survey all the clergy of England, and note
their intolerable pranks ; and for his Lambeth
isms he would have a Martin at Lambeth. Oth
er books were published of the same nature ;
as, " A Demonstration of Discipline," " The
Counter-poison," &c.
The writers on the Church side came not be
hind their adversaries in buffoonery and ridi
cule, as appears by the following pamphlets
printed at this time :
" Pappe with an hatchet, alias, A fig for my
godson ; or, Crack me this nut, that is, a sound
box of the ear for the idiot Martin to hold his
peace. Written by one that dares call a dog a
dog. Imprinted by John Anoke, and are to be
sold at the sign of the Crab Tree Cudgel, in
Thwack-Coat-Lane,"t " Pasquil's Apology, In the first part whereof
he renders a reason of his long silence, and gal
lops the field with the treatise of Reformation.
Printed where I was, and where I shall be ready,
by the help of God and my muse, to send you a
May-game of Martinism. Anno 1.593." Quarto.
" An Almond for a Parrot ; or. An Alms for
Martin Mar-Prelate, &c, By Cuthbert Curry-
Knave," Quarto,
" The return of the renowned Cavaliero Pas-
quU to England, and his meeting with Marforius
at London, upon the Royal Exchange, London,
1589, against Martin and Martinism,"
" A Counter-cuff given to Martin, Junior, by
the PasquU of England, Cavaliero. 1589." 8vo.
It is sad when a controversy about serious
matters runs these dregs : ridicule and personal
reflection may expose an adversary and make
him ashamed, but will never convince or recon
cile ; it carries with it a contempt which sticks
in the heart, and is hardly ever to be removed,
nor do I remember any cause that has been
served by such methods. Dr. Bridges answer
ed Martin in a ludicrous style; but Cooper,
bishop of Winchester, did more service by his
grave and sober reply, with the assistance of
the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, being mis
erably aspersed, furnished the bishop with re
plies to the particular charges brought against
him. The book is entitled " An Advertisement
to the People of England," wherein the slan-

* Life of Whitgift, p. 296.
X Ath. Ox., vi., 280.

t Ibid., p. 288.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

190
ders of Martin Mar- Prelate the libeUer are dis
tinctly answered. But, after aU, it was impos
sible for the bishops to wipe off from them
selves the charge of persecution and violation
of the laws.
«To put a stop to these pamphlets, the queen
sent a letter to the archbishop, cunmanding him
to make diligent inquiry after the printing-press,
and issued out her royal proclamation, dated
February 13th, 1589, " for the bringing in aU sedi
tious and schismatical books, whether printed
or written, to the ordinary, or to one of the
privy councU, as tending to bring in a monstrous
and dangerous innovation of aU manner of ec
clesiastical government now in use, and with a
rash and malicious purpose to dissolve the state
of the prelacy, being one of the three ancient
estates of this realm under her highness, where
of her majesty mmdeth to have a reverend re
gard ; she therefore prohibits any of her sub
jects from keeping any books in their custody
against the order of the Church, or the rites and
ceremonies of it, her majesty being minded to
have the laws severely executed against the
authors and abetters of them, as soon as they
shall be apprehended,'
As soon as the printing-press was discovered,
his grace wrote to the treasurer to prosecute
the persons with whom it was found ; but, like
an able politician, wishes it might be done by
the lords of the councU rather than by the ec
clesiastical commissioners, because they had
already suffered for supporting the government,
which was wounded through their sides.t Ac
cordmgly. Sir Richard Knightly, Sir  Wig-
ston, who had entertained the press, together
with' the printer, and Humphrey Newman, the
disperser, were deeply fined in the Star Cham
ber, and others were put to death.J
The archbishop, being now in his visitation,
had framed twenty-two articles of inquiry, upon
which the church-wardens of every parish were
to be examined upon oath. By these articles
they were to swear that their minister was ex
actly conformable to the orders of the Church,
or else to impeach him ; and to declare, farther,
whether they knew any of their neighbours or
fellow-parishioners. that were "common swear
ers, drunkards, usurers, -witches, conjurers,
heretics ; any man that had two wives, or
woman that had two husbands; whether they
knew any that went to conventicles or meet
ings for saying prayers in private houses ;
any that were of age, and did not receive the
sacrament at church three times a year ;"^

* Life of Whitgift, in Rec., b. ui., no. 41.
t Ibid., p. 314. FuUer, b. ix., p. 194.
X Fuller adds. Archbishop Whitgift improved his
interest with the queen tiU, though she was at first
angry with his solicitations, they were deUvered out
of prison and eased of their fines. Bishop Maddox
censures Mr. Neal for passing this over in silence ;
but he himself omits the construction put on this
apparently kind conduct of the prelate, "which,
whUe some highly commended, so others," says Ful
ler, " imputed it to the decUning of envy, gaining of
applause, and remorse of conscience for over-rigor
ous proceedings ; it being no charity to cure the
wound he had caused, and soUcit the remitting those
fines which he had procured to be imposed." Our
author proceeds: "Thus impossible is it to please
froward spirits, and to make them like the best deed
who dislike the doer."— Eo.
^ LUe of 'Whitgift, p. 309, 311.

with others calculated to dissolve all friendship
in country towns, and set a whole diocess in a
flame. When Sir Francis KnoUys had read the
articles, he sent them to the treasurer, calling
them by their proper name, " articles of inqui-
sition, highly prejudicial to the royal preroga
tive ;" but there was no stopping his grace's
career.* Among the divine^ that suffered deatht for
the libels above mentioned were the Rev. Mr.
Udal, whose case being peculiarly hard, I shall
give the reader an abstract of it. He had heea
minister of Kingston-upon-Thames, where
having been silenced by the official, Dr. Hone|
he lay by for half a year, having no farther pros
pect of usefulness in the, Chruch. At length,
the people of Newcastle-upon-Tyne wanting a
minister, prevaUed with the Earl of Huntingdon
to send him to them ; -when he had been there
about a year he was sent for up to London by
the Lord Hiinsdon and the lord-chambqrlain, ia
the name of the whole privy councU. Mr. Udal
set out December 29, 1589, and on the 13th of
January, 1590, appeared at Lord Cobham's
house before the commissioners, Lord Cobhara,
Lord Buckhurst, Lord-chief-justice Anderson,
Dr. John Young, bishop of Rochester, Mr. For-
fescue, Mr. Egerton, the queen's sohcitor; Dr.
Aubrey, and Dr. Lewin. 'The bishop began the
examination in this manner : Bishop. Have you
the allowance of the bishop of the diocess to
preach at Newcastle 1 Udal. There was neither
bishop of the diocess nor Archbishop of York at
that time. Fortescue. By what law, then, did
you preach at Newcastle, being sUenced at
Kingston ? Udal. I know no law against it,
seeing I was sUenced only by the official, whose
authority reaches not beyond his archdeaconry.
L. C. J. Anderson. You are called to answer
concerning certain books thought to he of your
writing. Udal. If it be any of Martin's hooks,
I have disowned them a year and a half ago at
Lambeth, L. C. J. Anderson. Who was the
author of the Demonstration, or the Dialogue ?
Udal. I shall not answer. Anderson. Why will
you clear yourself of Martin, and not of these!
Udal. Because I would not be thought to handle
the cause of discipline as Martin did; but I
think otherwise of the other books, and care
not though they should be fathered upon me ; I
think the author did well, and, therefore, would
not discover him if I knew him, but would hin
der it all I could. L. C. J. Anderson. Why
dare you not confess if you be the author.
Udal. I have said I liked of the books, and the
matter handled in them ; but whether I made
them or no I wiU not answer, for by the law I

* Pierce's Vindic, p. 129.
t Bishop Warburton is very severe in his censure
of Mr. Neal for using this language ; " whw"' "?
says, " in common English, means dying by the nana
of tjie executioner ;" whereas Mr. Udal died m pn«-
on. But when he died quite heart-broken with sor
row and grief through imprisonment and the severe
treatment he met with on account of the libels, ms
death was as much the consequence of the P""f?''"^
commenced against him as if it had been infiictfd oj '«
executioner. At most there was only an maccuracy
in the expression, which it was very unworthy tne
bishop to censure as " unworthy a candid histonan
or an honest man."— Ed. There is no attempt ai
deception in Neal, for he goes on and minutely re
lates his dying daily in the prison.— C.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

191

am not .obliged to it. Anderson. That is true,
if it concerned the loss of your life. [And yet
the judges tried and condemned him for his
life.] Udal. I pray your lordship, does not the
law say. No man shall be put to answer with
out presentment before justices on matters of
record, or by due proofsand writ original, &c. !
(A. 42 Edw. III., cap. in.). Anderson. That is
law if it be not repealed. Bishop of Rochester,
Pray let me ask you a question concerning your
book. But Udal was upon his guard, and said.
It is not yet proved to be mine. Mr. Solicitor.
I am sorry, Mr. Udal, you will not answer nor
take an oath, which by law you ought to do ;
but he did not say by what law. Udal. Sir, if I
have a liberty by law, there is no reason why I
should not challenge it ; show pie by what law
I am obliged to accuse myself. Dr. Lewin.
You have taken the oath heretofore, why should
you not take it now 1 Udal. I then voluntarily
confessed certain things concerning my preach
ing ofthe points of discipline, which could never
have been proved, and when my friends labour
ed to have me restored to my ministry, the
archbishop answered there was sufficient mat
ter against me, by my own confession, why I
should not be restored ; whereupon I covenant
ed with my own heart never to be my owu ac
cuser again.
-At length the bishop told him his sentence
for that time was to be sent to the Gate-house ;
take it in his own words. " I was carried to
the Gate-house by a messenger, who delivered
me with a warrant to be kept close prisoner,
and not to be suffered to have pen, ink, or pa
per, or anybody to speak with me. Thus I re
mained half a year, in all which time my wife
could not get leave to come to me, saving only
that in the hearing of the keeper she might
speak to me, and I to her, of such things as she
should think meet. All which time my cham-
ber-feUows were seminary priests, traitors, and
professed papists. At the end of the half year
I, was removed to the White Lion, in South
wark, and so carried to the assizes at Croy
don," On the 23d of July, Mr. Udal was brought to
Croydon with fetters on his legs, and indicted
upon the statute 23 Eliz,, cap. u., before Baron
Clarke and Mr. Sergeant Puckering, for wri
ting a wicked, scandalous, and seditious libel,
called " A Demonstration of Discipline," dedi
cated to the supposed governors of the Church
of England,* in which is this passage : " Who
can, without blushing, deny you [the bishops]
to be the cause of,aU ungodliness! forasmuch
as your government gives liberty for a man to be
anything but a sound Christian ; it is more free
in these days 'to be a papist or a wicked man
than vvhat we should be ; I could live twenty
years as such in England, and it may be in a
bishop's house, and not be molestejd : so true is
it that you care for nothing but the mainte
nance of your dignities, be it to damnation of
your souls, and infinite mUlions more." These
are the words of the indictment. To which
Mr. Udal pleaded not guilty, and put himself
upon the trial of his country. In opening the
cause, Mr. Daulton, the queen's counsel, made a
long invective against the new disciphne, which

» Life of Whitgift, p. 343.

he affirmed was not to be found in the Word
of God. To whom Udal replied. This being a
controversy among learned divines, he thought
Mr. Daultim might have suspended his judg
ment, since he had formerly showed some li
king to the cause. Upon which the judge said.
Sirrah ! sirrah ! answer to the matter. Mr.
Daulton, go on to the proof of the points in the
indictment, which were, these three :
1. That Udal was the aiithor of the book,
2. That he had a malicious intent in making it.
3. That the matters in the indictment were
felony by the statute 23 Eliz,, cap, ii.
The first point was to prove Udal to he the
author of the book ; and here it is observable,
that the witnesses were not brought into court,
but only their examinations, which the registrar
swore to. And, first, Stephen Chatfield's arti
cles were produced, which contained a report
of certain papers he had seen in Udal's study.
Upon seeing them, he asked whose writings
they were. Udal answered, A friend's. Chat-
field then desired him to rid his hands of them,,
for he doubted they concerned the state. He
added, that Udal told him another time, that if
they put him to silence, he would give the bish
ops such a blow as they had never had. Chat-
field was called to witness these things, but ap
peared not. Daulton said he went out of the
way on purpose. The judge said, Mr. Udal,.
you are glad of that. Mr. Udal answered. My
lord, I wish heartily he were here ; for as I am
sure he could never say anything against me to
prove this point, so I am able to prove it to be
true that he is very sorry that he ever made-
any complaint against me, confessing he did it
in anger whenMartin came first out, and by their
suggestions, whom he had proved since to be very
bad men. Mr. Uda added, that the book was
published before this conversation with Chatfield.
The examination of Nicholas Tomkins her
fore the commissioners was next produced.
This Tomkins was now beyond sea, but the
paper said that Udal had told him he was th&
author. But Tomkins himself sent word that
he would not for a £1000 affirm any more than
that he had heard Udal say, that he would not
doubt but set his name to the book if he had
indifferent judges. And when Udal offered to-
produce his witnesses, the judge said, that be
cause the witnesses were against the queen's
majesty, they could not be heard.
'The confession of Henr-y Sharp, of North
ampton, was then read, who, upon oath before
the lord-chancellor, had declared that he heard
Mr. Penry say that Mr. Udal was the author of
the Demonstration.
This was the whole evidence ofthe fact upon
which he was convicted, not a single livingwit-
ness being produced in court ; so that the pris
oner had no opportunity to ask any questions,
or refute the evidence. And what methods
were used to extort these confessions may
easUy be imagined from the confessors flying
tlieir country, and then testifying their sorrow
for what they had said.
To prove the sedition, and bring it within the
statute, the counsel insisted upon his threaten
ing the bishops, who being the queen's officers,
it was constructed a threatening of the queen
herself The prisoner desired hberty to explain
the passage, and his counsel insisted that an

192

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

offence against the bishops was not sedition
against the queen ; hut the judge gave it for
law, that " they who spake against the queen s
government in causes ecclesiastical, or her laws,
proceedings and ecclesiastical officers, defamed
the queen herself" Upon this the jury were
directed to find him guilty of the fact, and the
judges took upon them the point of law, and
condemned him as a felon. Mr. Fuller confess
es* that the proof against him was not preg
nant, for it was generally believed he wrote not
the book, but only the preface. They might as
well have condemned him without the form of
a trial, for the statute was undoubtedly strained
beyond the intent of it, to reach his life. He
behaved modestly and discreetly at the bar;
and having said as much for himself as must
have satisfied any equitable persons, he submit
ted to the judgment of the court.
Mr. Udal was convicted in the summer assi
zes, 1590, but did not receive sentence tUl the
Lent assizes ; in the mean time, he was offered
his pardon if he would sign the foUowing sub
mission :t
" I, John Udal, have been heretofore, by due
course of law, convicted of felony, for penning
or setting forth a certain book called ' The Dem
onstration of Disciphne,' wherein false, slan
derous, and seditious matters are contained
against her majesty's prerogative royal, her
crown and dignity, and against the laws and
government ecclesiastical and temporal by law
established under her highness, and tending to
the erecting a new form of government contrary
to her said laws ; all which points I do now'per-
ceive, by the grace of God, to be very danger
ous to the peace of this realm and church,- se
ditious in the commonwealth, and infinitely of
fensive to the queen's most exceUent majesty ;
so as thereby I, now seeing the grievousness of
my offence, do most humbly on my knees, be
fore and in this presence, submit myself to the
riiercy of her highness, being most sorry that I
have so deeply and worthily incurred her majes
ty's indignation against me : promising, if it
shall please God to move her royal heart to have
compassion on me, a most sorrowful, convicted
person, that I will forever hereafter forsake all
such undutiful and dangerous courses, and de
mean myself dutifully and peaceably ; for I do
acknowledge her laws to be both lawful and
godly, and to be obeyed by every subject. Feb
ruary, 1590-1."
No arguments or threatenings of the judges
could prevail with Udal to sign this submission ;
but the day before sentence was to be passed
he offered the following, drawn up by himself:
" Concerning the book whereof I was by due
course of law convicted, by referring myself to
the trial of the law, and for that by the verdict
of twelve men I am found to be the author of
it, for which cause an humble submission is
worthily required and offered of me : although
I cannot disavow the cause and substance of
the doctrine debated in it, which I must needs
acknowledge to be holy, and (so far as 1 con
ceive it) agreeable to the Word of God, yet I
confess the manner of writing it is such in some
part as may worthily be blamed, and might prd-
voke her majesty's just indignation therein.

B. ix., p. 223. t Strype's Ann., vol. ult., p. 26.

¦Whereof the trial of the law imputing to ine all
such defaults as are in that book, and laying the
punishment of the same in the most grievous
manner upon me ; as my most humble suit to
her most excellent majesty is, that her mercy
and gracious pardon may free me from the guilt
and offence which the said trial of the law hath
cast upon me, and farther of her great clemen
cy to restore me to the comfort of my life and
liberty, so do, I promise, in all humble submis
sion to God and her majesty, to carry myself in
the whole course of my life in such humble and
dutiful obedience as shall befit a minister of
the Gospel and dutiful subject, fervently and
continually praying for a good preservation of
her highness's precious life and happy govern
ment, to the honour of God, and comfort of
her loyal and dutiful subjects. February 19
1590-1." Mr. Udal had often, and with great earnest
ness, petitioned his judges for their mediation
with the queen : in his letter of November Uth,
he says, " I pray you call to mind my tedious
state of imprisonment, whereby myself, my wife,
and children are reduced to beggary ; pray call
to mind by what course this misery is brought
upon me, and if you find, by due consideration,
that I am worthy to receive the punishment from
the sentence of upright justice, I pray you to
hasten the execution of the same, for it were
better for me to die than to live in this case;
but if it appear to your consciences (as 1 hope
it will) that no malice against her majesty can
possibly be in me, then do I humbly and heartily
desire you to be a means that I may be releas
ed ; then I shall not only forget that hard opin
ion conceived of your courses against me, but
pray heartily to God to bury the same, with the
rest of your sins, in the grave of his Son Jesus
Christ." Mr. Udal wrote again, November 18
and 25, in most humble and dutiful language,
but the court would do nothing tiU he had sign
ed their submission.
At the close of the Lent assizes, being called
to the bar with the rest of the felons, and asked
what he had to say why judgment should not
be given against him according to the verdict,
he gave in a paper consisting of nine reasons,
of which these are the principal :
1. "Because the jury were directed only to
find the fact whether I was author of the book;
and were expressly freed by your lordship from
inquiring into the intent, without which there is
no felony.
2. " The jury were not left to their own con
sciences, but were wrought upon partly by
promises, assuring them it should be no farther
danger to me, but tend to my good ; and partly
by fear, as appears, in that it haS been a grief
to some of them ever since.
3. " The statute, in the true meaning of it, is
thought not to reach my case, there being no
thing in the book spoken of her majesty's per
son but in duty and honour ; I beseech you,
therefore, to consider whether the drawing of
it from her royal person to the bishops, as being
part of her body politic, be not a violent depra
ving and wresting of the statute.
4. " But if the statute be taken as it is urged,
the felony must consist in the malicious intent;
wherein I appeal first to God, and then to all
men who have known the course of my life.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

193

and to your lordships' own consciences, wheth
er you can find me guUty of any act in all my
life that savoured of any malice or malicious
intent against her majesty ; of which, if your
consciences must clear me before God, I hope
you wiU not proceed to judgment.
- 5. "By the laws of God, and I trust also by the
laws ofthe land, the witnesses ought to be pro
duced face to face against me ; but I have none
such, nor any other things, but papers and re
ports of depositions taken by ecclesiastical com
missioners and others. This kind of evidence
is not allowed in case of lands, and therefore
much less ought it to be allowed in case of life.
6. " None ofthe depositions prove me direct
ly to be the author of the book in question ; and
the author of the chief testimony is so grieved,
that he is ashamed to come where he is known.
7. " Supposing me to be the author of the
book, let it be considered that the said book for
substance contains nothing but what is taught
.and believed by the best Reformed churches in
Europe; so that in condemning me you condemn
all such nations and churches as hold the same
doctrine. If the punishment be for the manner
of writing, this may be thought by some worthy
of an admonition, or fine, or some short impris
onment ;* but death for an error of such a kind,
as terms and words not altogether dutiful of
certain bishops, cannot but be extreme cruelty
against one that has endeavoured to show him
self a dutiful subject and faithful minister of
the Gospel.
" If aU this prevail not, yet my Redeemer
liveth, to whom I commend myself, and say as
sometime Jeremiah said in a case not much un
like, ' Behold, I am in your hands to do with me
whatsoever seemeth good unto you ; but know
you this, that if you put me to death, you shall
bring innocent blood upon your own heads, and
upon the land.' As the .blood of Abel, so the
blood of Udal wUl cry to God with a loud voice,
and the righteous Judge of the land will require
it at the hands of all that shall be guilty of it."
But nothing would avail unless he would
sign the submission the court had drawn up for
him ; which his conscience not suffering him to
do, sentence of death was passed upon him Feb
ruary 20th, and execution openly awarded ; but
next morning the judges,, by direction from
court, gave private orders to respite it tiU her
majesty's pleasure was farther known. The
Dean of St. Paul's and Dr. Andrews were sent
to persuade him to sign the submission, which
he peremptorily refused. But because the queen
had been misinformed of his belief, he sent her
majesty a short confession of his faith in these
words :
" I believe, and have often preached, that the
Church of England is a part of the true visible
Church, the 'Word and sacraments being truly
dispensed ; for which reason I have communi
cated with it several years at Kingston, and a
year at Neweastle-on-Tyne, and do still desire
to be a- preacher in the same church ; therefore
I utterly renounce the schism and separation of
the Brownists : I do allow the articles of reli
gion as far as they contain the doctrine of faith
and sacraments according to law : I believe the
queen's majesty hath, and ought to have, su-
,preine authority over all persons, in all causes

* Strype's Ann., vol. iv., p. 23.
Vol. I.— B b

ecclesiastical and civU, And if the prince com
mands anything contrary to the Word of God,
it is not lawful for subjects to rebel or resist,
but with patience and humility to bear the pun
ishment laid upon them: I believe the Cliurch,
rightly reformed, ought to be governed ecclesi
astically by ministers, assisted by elders, as in
the foreign Reformed churches : I believe the
censures of the Church ought merely to con
cern the soul, and may not impeach any sub
ject, much less any prince, in liberty of body,
goods, dominion, or any earthly privilege ; nor
do I believe that a Christian prince ought oth
erwise to be subject to the Church censures
than our gracious queen professes herself to be
to the preaching ofthe 'Word, and the adminis
tration ofthe sacraments,"*
With this declaration of his faith he sent an
humble request, that il her majesty would not
graciously be pleased to pardon him, she would
change his sentence into banishment, that the
land might not be charged with his blood.t
King James of Scotland wrote to the queen, re
questing most earnestly that, for the sake of his
intercession, Udal might be relieved of his pres
ent strait, promising to do the like for her maj
esty in any matter she should recommend to
him. The Turkey merchants also offered to
send him as chaplain to one of their factories
abroad if he might have his life and liberty;
which Udal consented to, as appears by, his let
ter to the lord-treasurer, in which he says,
"Lamentable is my case, having been three
years in durance, which makes me humbly de
sire your lordship's favour, that I may be re
leased from my imprisonment, the Turkey mer
chants having my consent to go into Syria or
Guinea, there to remain two years with their
factors, if my Uberty may be obtained." The
writer of Archbishop Whitgift's life says the
archbishop yielded to this petition ; that the
lord-keeper promised to farther it ; and that the
Earl of Essex had, a draught of a pardon ready
prepared, with this condition annexed, that he
should never return without the queen's license ;
but her majesty never sig;ied it, and the Tur
key ships going away without him, poor unhap
py Udal died a few months after in the Mar
shalsea prison, quite heart-broken with sorrow
and grief, about the end of the year 1592, Mr.
FuUert says he was a learned man, and of a
blameless life, powerful in prayer, and no less
profitable than painful in preaching. He was
decently interred in the churchyard of St.
George, Southwark, not far from the grave of
Bishop Bonner, being honoured with the attend
ance of great numbers of the London ministers,
who visited him in prison, and now wept over
the remains ofa man who, after a long and se
vere trial of his faith and patience, died for the
testimony of a good conscience, and stands
upon record as a monument of the oppression
and cruelty of the government under which he
suffered. Though the moderate Puritans publicly dis
owned the libels above mentioned, and con
demned the spirit with which they were writ
ten, they were nevertheless bronght into troub
le for their associations. Among others, the
Rev. Mr. Cartwright, the father of the Pu-
* LifeofWhitgift, p. 376.
t FuUer, b. ix., p. 203. X FuUer, b. ix., p. 222.

194

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

ritans, and master of the new hospital at War-
-wick, was suspended by his diocesan, and sum
moned before the high commissioners, who
committed him to the Fleet, with his brethren,
Mr. Egerton, Fen, Wright, Farmer, Lord,
Snape, King, Rushbrooke, Wiggms, Littleton,
Field, Royde, Payne, Proudlove, and Jewel. At
- their first appearance, the commissioners asked
them where they held their associations or as
semblies, and how often ; who were present,
and what matters were treated of; who cor
rected or set forth the book of Disciphne, and
-who had subscribed or submitted to it ; wheth
er in a Christian monarchy the king is supreme
governor of the Church, or whether he is un
der the government of pastors, doctors, and
such like ; whether it be lawful for a foreign
prince to ordain ceremonies, and make orders
for the Church ; whether the ecclesiastical gov
ernment established in England be lawful, and
allowed by the Word of God ; whether the sac
raments ministered according to the Book of
Common Prayer, are godly and rightly minis
tered, &o.
Mr. Cartwright's answer to these interroga
tories -was said by the civilians to be sufficient ;
upon which they exhibited thirty-one articles
against him, September I, 1590, and required
him to answer them upon oath.*
The first twenty-four articles charge him
¦with renouncing his episcopal orders, by being
reordained beyond sea, with interrupting the
peace, and breaking the orders of the Church
since he came home, and with knowing the
authors or printers of Martin Mar-Prelate.
Art. 25. Charges him with penning, or pro
curing to be penned, the book of Discipline,
and with recommending the practice of it.
Art. 26. Charges him with being present at
sundry pretended synods, classes, or conferen
ces of ministers in divers countries.
Art. 27. That at such synods they subscribed
the book of Discipline, and promised to govern
themselves by it as far as they could.
Art. 28. Charges him with setting up partic
ular conferences in several shires, which were
to receive the determinations of the General
Assembly, and put them in practice.
Art. 29, 80, and 31. Mention some rules and
orders of their synods ; as, that the members
should bring testimonials from their several
classes ; that they should subscribe the book of
Disciplifie ; that no books should be printed but
by consent ; that they should be subject to the
censures of the brethren both for doctrine and
life; and that if any should be sent abroad upon
public service at the meeting of Parliament,
their charges should be borne, &c.
Mr. Cartwright offered to clear himself of
some of these articles upon oath, and to give
his reasons for not answering the rest ; but if
this would not satisfy, he was determined to
submit to the punishment tbe commissioners
should award* [which was imprisonment in the
Fleet], praying the lord-treasurer to make some
provision for the poor people of Warwick, who
had no minister. The rest of Cartwright's
brethren refusing the oath for the same rea
sons, viz., because they would not accuse them
selves, nor bring their friends into trouble, were

LifeofWhitgift, p. 373.

t Ibid,, p, 338.

committed to divers prisons. But the archbislv.
op, by advice of the treasurer, was not present
at the commitment of his old adversary.
On the 13th of May, 1.591, they were brought
before the Star Chamber,* which was a court
made up of certain noblemen, bishops, judges
and counseUors of the queen's nomination, to'
the number of twenty or thirty, with her maj
esty at their head, who is the sole judge when
present, the other members being only to give
their opinion to their sovereign by vvay of ad
vice, which he [or she] disallows at their pleas
ure ; but in the absence of the sovereign, the
determination is by a majorUy, the lord-chan
cellor or keeper having a casting vote. The
determinations of this court, says Mr. Rush-
worth, were not by the verdict of a jury, nor ac
cording to any statute-law of the land, but ac
cording to the king's [or queen's] royal wUl and
pleasure, and yet they were made as binding to
the subject as an act of Parliament. In tha
reign of King Henry VII., the practice of that
court was thought to intrench upon the com
mon law, though it seldom did any business;
but in the latter end of this, and during the
two next reigns, the court sat constantly, and
was so unmerciful in its censures and punish
ments, that the whole nation cried aloud against
it as a mark of the vilest slavery. Lord Clar
endon says,t " There were very few persons of
quality in those times that had not suffered or
been perplexed by the weight and fear of its
censure and judgments ; for having extended
their jurisdiction from riots, perjuries, and the
most notorious misdemeanors, to an asserting
of all proclamations and orders of state, to the
vindicating illegal commissioners and grants of
monopolies, no man could hope to be any longer
free from the inquisition of that court, than he
resolved to submit to those and the like ex
traordinary courses."
When Mr. Cartwright and his brethren ap
peared before the court, Mr. Attorney-general
inveighed bitterly against them for refusing the
oath ; and when Mr. Fuller, counsel for the pris
oners, stood up to answer, he was commanded
silence, and told that far less crimes than theirs
had been punished with the galleys or perpetual
banishment, which latter he thought proper for
theim, provided it was in some remote place
from whence they might not return.j: From
the Star Chamber they were remitted back to
the High Commission, where Bancroft had a long
argument with Cartwright about the oath ; from
thence they were returned again to the Star
Chamber, and a bUl was exhibited against them
with twenty articles ; in answer to which they
maintain that their associations were very use
ful, and not forbidden by any law of the realm ;
that they exercised no jurisdiction, nor moved
any sedition, nor transacted any affairs in them,
but with a due regard to their duty to their
prince, and to the peace of the Church ; that
they had agreed upon some regulations to ren
der their ministry more edifying, but all was
voluntary, and in breach of no law ; and as for
the oath, they refused it, not in contempt of the
court, but as contrary to the laws of God and
nature.

* LU'e of Whitgift, p. 361.
t Hist, of Gr. RebelUon, vol. i., 8vo, p. 68, &c.
t LifeofWhitgift, p. 360.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

195

But this answer not being satisfactory, they
¦were remanded to prison, where they continued
two years without any farther process, or being
admitted to bail ; in the mean time. King James
of Scotland interceded for them, in a letter to
the queen, dated June 12, 1591, in which he re
quests her majesty to show favour to Mr. Cart-
'wright and his brethren, because of their great
learning and faithful travels in the Gospel.*
Cartwright himself petitioned for his liberty,t
as being afflicted with excessive pains of the
gout and sciatica, which were much increased
by lying in a cold prison ; he wrote a most hum
ble and pious letter to the Lady Russel, and
another to the lord-treasurer, beseeching them
to procure his enlargement with the queen,
though it were upon bond, expressing a very
great conc6rn that her majesty should be so
highly offended with him, since he had printed
no books for thirteen years past that could give
the least uneasiness ; since he had declared his
dislike of Martin Mar-Prelate ; and that he never
had a finger in any of the books under the name,
nor in any other satirical pamphlets ; and far
ther, that in the course of his ministry for five
years past at Warwick, he had avoided all con
troversy. Dr. Goad, Dr. Whitaker, and two
others of the university, wrote an exceUent let-
tert to the treasurer in favour of the prisoners,
beseeching his lordship that they might not be
more hardly dealt with than papists ; but this
not prevaUing, after six months they petitioned
the lords of the council [December 4, 1591] to
be enlarged upon baU, and wrote to the treasu
rer to second it, assuring' his lordship of their
loyalty to the queen, and peaceable behaviour
in the Church. " We doubt not," say they,
"but your lordship is sensible that a year's im
prisonment and more, which we have suffered,
must strike deeper into our healths, considering
our education, than a number of years to men
ofa different occupation. Your lordship knows
that many papists who deny the queeft's suprem
acy have been enlarged, whereas -we have all
sworn to it, and, if the government require, are
ready to take the oath again." This was signed
by Tho. Caktweight, Edward Lord,
Hump. Fen, Edmund Snape,
Andrew King, Wm. Pkoudlove,
Dan. Weight, Melancthon Jewel.
John Payne,
They also applied to the archbishop, who re
fused to consent to their enlargement, unless
they would under their hands declare the Church
of England to be a true church, and the whole
order of public prayers, &c., consonant to the
Word of God, and renounce for the future all
their assemblies, classes, and synods, which
they declined. 'These applications proving in
effectual, they resolved at last to address the
queen herself, for which purpose they drew up
a declaration, containing a full answer to the
several charges brought against them.ij
It was not tUl some time after this that Mr.
Cartwright was released, II upon promise of his

* Life of Aylmer, p. 321. t Fuller, b. ix., p. 203.
X LU'e of 'Whitgift, p. 370.
ij See the Appendix, No. 5.
II It should be observed here, that Mr. Cartwright
was indebted for his hberty to the services of Arch
bishop Whitgift, who had been his old acquaintance

quiet and peaceable behaviour, and restored to
his hospital in Warwick, where he continued
without farther disturbance the rest of his days ;
but many of his brethren continued under sus
pension whUe their families were starving, as the
Rev. Mr. Fenner, of Cranbrook, suspended sev
en years ; Mr. Leverwood, of Manchelsea, seven
years ; Mr. Percival Wyburne, of Rochester, five
years; Mr. Rockeray, prebendary of Rochester, ,
four years ; Mr, Barber, of Bow Church, London,
two years six months ; Mr, Field, of Aldermary,
London ; Mr, Smith, lecturer of St, Clement's,
whose printed sermons were a family book all
over England for many years ;* Mr. Travers,
of the Temple ; Mr. Colset, of Easton-on-the-
Hill ; Mr, Settle, of Buxstead, Suffolk ; Mr, Gel-
librand. Dyke, Flemming ; Mr, Kendal ; Mr.
Hubbock, of Oxford ; with many others whose
names are before me. Mr. Hubbock was an
exceUent divine, and was called before the -
commission for saying that a great nobleman
(meaning the archbishop) had kneeled down to
iler majesty for staying and hindering her intent
to reform religion. But his grace not being will
ing to insist upon this, commanded him to sub--
scribe, and in case of refusal, to enter into bonds;
not to preach any more, nor to come within-
ten miles of Oxford ; which Mr. Hubbock de
clined, saying " he had rather go to prison than
consent to be silent from preaching, unless he-,
was convinced that he had taught false doctrine,,
or committed any fault worthy of bonds. "t Sir-
Francis Knollys and the treasurer interceded for-
him, but to no purpose ; upon which Sir Francis-
wrote back to the treasurer in these words.:
" You know how greatly, yea, and tyrannously,
the archbishop hath urged subscription to his
own articles without law ; and that he has claim
ed, in the right of all the bishops, a superiority
over the inferior clergy from God's own ordi
nance, in prejudice to her majesty's supreme
government, though at present he says he does-
not claim it : therefore, in my opinion, he ought
openly to retract it,"
These high proceedings ofthe commissioners
brought their powers under examination : most
were of opinion that they exceeded the law, but
some thought the very court itself was illegal,
imagining the queen could not delegate her su
premacy to others, Mr, Cawdery, late minister
of Luffingham, in Suffolk, had been suspended ,
by the Bishop of London for refusing the oatbj
ex officio ; but not acquiescing in his lordship's
sentence, the bishop summoned him before the,
high commissioners, who deprived him for non
conformity and lack of learning, and gave away
his living to another, though Mr, Cavvdery was
one of the most learned clergymen and best
preachers in the country, and offered to give
proof of his learning before his judges. When
this would not be accepted, he pleaded with
tears his wife and eight poor children that had
no maintenance ; but the hearts of the com
missioners not being mollified, Mr. Cawdery was

at Trinity College, and had a respect for his abilities,
and it was also said, " feared the success m so tough
a confiict." — Fuller's Church History, b. ix., p. 204.
" Putting aU the circumstances together," remarks
Mr. Hanbury, " and weighing them deliberately, no
fair inference can be deduced that Cartwright was
indebted for any voluntary favour from Whitgift " 
Life of Cartwright, p. 200.— C.
* MS., p, 584. t Life of Whitgift, p. 341, 343.

196

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

advised to appeal to the Court of Exchequer,
and proceed against the chaplain that had p()s^
session of his living ; on this occasion the juris
diction of the court was argued before all the
judges in Hilary term, 1591.* Dr, Aubrey, the
civilian, confessed that their proceedings were
not warrantable by the letter of the statute 1st
Eliz,, but were built upon the old canon law still
in force ; though it has been shown that their pro-
cgedino-,' by way of inquisition, was warranted
by no law at aU ; but the judges confirmed the
proceedings of the court, and left Mr, Cawdery,
with his large family, to starve as a layman.
The suit cost Mr. Cawdery's friends a round
sum of money, besides two-and-t-wenty journeys
¦which he made to London. But it was a brave
stand for the rights ofthe subject, and stagger
ed the archbishop so much, that he decUned
tbe business of the commission afterward, and
sent most of his prisoners to the Star Chamber.
While these causes were depending, sundry
books were written for and against the oath ex
officio; among others, Mr Morrice, attorney of
the Court of 'Wards, and member of Parliament,
published a learned treatise, to prove that no
prelates or ecclesiastical judges have authority
to compel any subject of the land to an oath,
except in causes testamentary or matrimonial;
and he gives these reasons for it - Because it is
against the Word of God : it was never aUowed
by any general councU for a thousand years after
Christ : it was forbidden by the pagan emperors
against the Christians : it is against the pope's
decretals, except in cases of heresy, and where
there is danger to the accuser, and not other
wise : it is against the laws of the realm ; and.
Because it is against the queen's prerogative. t
Morrice's book was answered by Dr. Cosins, a
civilian, in his ¦' Apology for the Ecclesiastical
Proceedings ;" to which Morrice had prepared
a reply, but the archbishop hearing of it, .^ient
for him, -and forbade the publication. The at
torney complained of this usage to the treasurer
in these wor Is : " Cosins may write at his pleas
ure of ecclesiastical courts without check or con
trolment, though never so erroneously ; but 1,
poor man, such is my ill-hap, may not maintain
the right cause of justice without some blot or
blemish." But this was his grace's shortest
way of ending controversies.
Though Mr. Cartwright and his brethren
above mentioned had the resolution to lie in jaU
for two years rather than take the oath ex officio,
others out of weakness, or some other principle,
yielded to it, and discovered their classes, with
the names of those that were present at them :t
among these were Mr. Stone, rector of Wark-
ton, in Northamptonshire ; Mr. Henry Alvey,
fellow of St. John's, Cambridge ; Mr. Thomas
Edmunds, Mr. WiUiapi Perkins, Mr. LUtleton,
Johnson, Barber, Cleaveley, and Nutter. These
divines confessed, upon examination, that they
had several meetings with their brethren in
London, at the houses of Mr. Travers, Eger
ton, Gardner, and Barber ; that there had been
assemblies of ministers in Cambridge, North
amptonshire, and Warwickshire ; that at these
meetings there were usually between twelve
and twenty ministers present ; that they had a
moderator ; that they began and ended with
* Heyl., Hist. Presb., p. 318.
-1- Life of 'Whitgift, p. 340. % Ibid., p. 371.

prayer ;'^ and that their usual debates were, how
far they might comply with tbe establishment
raiher than forego their ministry ; here they re
vised their Book of Discipline, and consulted of
peaceable methods in sutxu-dination to the laws
for promoting a reformation in the Church, and
how far they might exercise their own platform
in the mean time : but the worst part of their
confession was their discovering the names of
the brethren that were present, which brought
them into trouble The reasons they gave for
taking the oath were. Because it was adminis
tered by a lawful magistrate : because the ma
gistrate had a right to search out the truth in
matters relating to tbe public safety: because
it was impossible to keep things any longer se
cret, many letters of the brethren having been
intercepted : because there was nothing crimi
nal in their assemblies, and the magistrate might
suspect worse things of them than were true;
and though their confessions might bring some
into trouble, they might deliver others who were
suspected. How far these reasons will justify
the confessors, I leave with the reader; hut it
is certain they purchased their own liberties at
the expense of their brethren's ; for they had
the favour to be dismissed, and lived without
disturbance afterward.
To render the Puritans odious to the public,
aU enthusiasts, without distinction, were ranked
among them ; even Racket and his two proph
ets, Arthington and Coppinger.* Racket was
a blasphemous, ignorant wretch, who could not
so much as read ; he pretended to be King Je
sus, and to set up his empire in the room ofthe
queen's,,who, he said, was no loiigerto be Queen
of England. He defaced her majesty's arms,
and stabbed her picture through with his dag
ger, in the house where he lodged. Being ap
prehended and put upon the rapk, he confessed
everything they would have him, and upon his
trial pleaded guilty, declaring he was moved
thereunto 'by the Spirit; he was hanged July
18, and died raving hke a madman. Coppinger
starved himself in prison, but .\ithingtbn lived
to recover his senses, and was pardoned. Dr.
Nichols says, that by the solicitation of these
men the Puritans stirred up the people to rebell
ion, their design being communicated to Cart
wright, Egerton, and Wiggington ;+ whereas
there was not a single Puritan concerned with
them. Fuller,! the historian, speaks candidly
of the matter : " This business of Racket," says
he, " happened unseasonably for the Presbyteri
ans; true ft is, they as cordially detested his
blasphemies as any of the episcopal party; and
such of them as loved Racket the Nonconform
ist abhorred Racket the heretic, after he had
inounted to so high a pitch of impiety," Howev
er, Mr. Cartwright wrote an apology for himself
and his brethren against the aspersions of Dr
Sutcliff, in which he declares he had never seen
Racket nor Arthington, nor ever had any con
ference with them by letter or message,^ Had

* Strype's Ann,, vol. ult., p. 71. ,
t Pierce's Vindic, p. 140. X B- i^-. P- 2™;
^ No legal steps were taken against CartwngM
for his justification, which affords a practical admisj
sion of the innocence of the Puritans, " True it is,
says the candid Fuller, " they as cordiaUy detested
his blasphemies as any of the episcopal party. —
Church History, ix., 200.— C.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

197

fliere been any ground for this vile charge, we
should no doubt have found it among their arti
cles of impeachment.
At the opening of the new Parliament, Feb
ruary 19, the queen signified her pleasure to the
house, that they might redress such popular
grievances as were complained of in their sev
eral counties, but should leave aU matters of
state to herself and the councU ; and all mat
ters relating fo the Church, to herself and the
bishops. What an insignificant thing is a repre
sentative body of the nation, that must not med
dle vvith matters of Church or State ! But her
majesty was resolved to let them see she would
be obeyed, for when Mr, Wentworth and Bromley
moved the house to address the queen to name
her successor, she sent for them, together with
Mr. Welsh and Stevens, and committed them
to prison, where Wentworth remained many
years.* When it was moved in the house to
address the queen for the release of their mem
bers, it was answered by those privy council
lors that were of the house, " that her majesty
had committed them for causes best known to
herself; that the house must not call the queen
to account for what she did of her royal author
ity ; that the causes of their restraint might be
high and dangerous ; that her majesty did not
like such questions, nor did it become the house
to deal in such matters."
After this it was a bold adventure of Mr. At
torney Morrice.t and for which he paid very
dear, to move the house to inquire into the pro
ceedings ofthe bishops in their spiritual courts,!:
and how far they could justify their inquisition ;
their subscriptions ; their binding the queen's
subjects to their good behaviour contrary to the
laws of God and ofthe realm ; their compelling
men to take oaths to accuse themselves, and,
upon their refusal, to degrade, deprive, and im
prison them at pleasure, and not to release them
tiU they had complied. At the same time he
offered two bills to the house : one against the
oath ex officio, and the other against their illegal
imprisonments, which last he prayed might be
read presently. Sir Francis Knollys seconded
the attorney, and said, " that in his opinion
these abuses ought to be refiirmed ; and that if
the prelates had acted against law, they were in
a praemunire.^ He added, that after the refor
mation of King Henry VIII., no bishop practised
superiority over his brethren ; that in King Ed
ward VI. 's time a statute was made that bish
ops should keep their courts in the king's name ;
and that though this statute was repealed, by
Queen Mary, and not since revived, yet it was
doubtful what authority bishops had to keep
courts in their own name, because it was mani
festly against the prerogative that any subject
should hold a court without express warrant
from the crown. If it was said they kept their;
courts by prescription, or by the statute ofKing
Henry VIIL, which gives bishops the same rule

* Heyl,, Hist. Presb., p. 319.
t This step of Mr. Attorney Morrice is described
in more proper and happy language by Dr. Warner,
who calls it "a noble attempt in favour, of religious
liberty," His .situation was in the gift ofthe ciown,
which exhibits his conduct in a remarkably honoi-ra-
hje light, Morrice was the legal adviser of Cawdery,
and was author of a treatise against, the oath ex offi
cio. — C,
X Life of Whitgift, p. 386, 387. I) Ibid., p. 388.

under the king as they had under tho pope, he
answered, that there was a clause in the act
which restrains tliem from offending against the
king's prerogative and the laws and customs of
the realm ; and, according to the laws and cus
toms of the realm, no subject can hold a court
but by special warrant from the crown." Mr.
Beal spoke upon the same side, and added,
"that the bishops had incurred a praimunire,
because the statute of 13 Eliz. requires subscrip
tion to articles of faith only ; that this limitation
was made by the Lords after the bill had passed
the Commons ; and that no councils nor canons
gave authority to the bishops to frame articles
and require subscription at their pleasure." For
which speech the queen forbade him the court,
and commanded him to absent himself from
¦Parliament. These debates awakened the civUians in the
house, and particularly Mr. Daulton, who op
posed the reading of the bUl, because the queen
had often forbid them to meddle with the ref
ormation of the Church ; which Sir Robert
CecU, one of her majesty's secretaries, con
firmed. As soon as the queen was acquainted with
the proceedings of the house, she sent for the
speaker. Coke,* and commanded him to tell
the house " that it was wholly in her power to
caU, to determine, to assent or dissent, to any
thing done in Parliament ; that the calling of
this was only that such as neglected the ser
vice of the Church might be compelled to it
with some sharp laws ; and that the safety of
her majesty's person and the realm might be
provided for ; that it was not meant that they
should meddle with matters of state or causes
ecclesiastical ; that she wondered they should
attempt a thing so contrary to her command
ment ; that she was highly offended at it ; and
that it was her royal pleasure that no biU,
touching any matters of state and causes ec
clesiastical, should there be exhibited. "t At the
same time, Mr. Attorney Morrice was seized on
in the house by a sergeant-at-arms, discharged
from his office in the court of the duchy of Lan
caster, disabled from any practice in his profes
sion as a barrister-at-law, and kept for some
years prisoner in Tutbury Castle.
If there had been a just spirit of English lib
erty in the House of Commons, they would not
have submitted so tamely to the insults of an
arbitrary court, which arrested their members
for liberty of speech, and committed them to
prison ; which forbade their redressing the
grievances of Church or State, and sent for
their bills out of the house and canceUed them.
These were such acts of sovereign power as
none of her majesty's predecessors had dared
to assume, and which cost one of her successors
his crown and life.
But this Parliament, instead of asserting
their own and the people's liberties, stands
upon record for one of the severest acts of op
pression and cruelty that ever was passed by
the representatives of a Protestant nation and
* Heyl., Hist, Presb., p. 320.
t This, says Dr. Warner, "was the message of a
queen to the House, of Commorls, whose reign affords
such subjects of panegyric to those who would be
thought patriots and patrons of liberty in the present
age," — Ecclesiastical History, vol. iii., p. 464. — Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

a free people. It is entitled " An act for the
punishment of persons obstinately refusing to
come to church, and persuading others to im
pugn the queen's authority in ecclesiastical
causes." It is therein enacted "that if any
person above the age of sixteen shaU obstinate
ly refuse to repair to some church, chapel, or
•usual place of common prayer, to hear Divine
service for the space of one month, without
lawful cause; or shall at any time, forty days
after the end of this session, by printing, wri
ting, or express words, go about to persuade
any of her majesty's subjects to deny, with
stand, or impugn her majesty's power or au
thority in causes ecclesiastical; or shaU dis
suade them from coming to church to hear Di
vine service, or receive the communion accord
ing as the law directs ; or shaU be present at
any unlawful assembly, conventicle, or meeting,
under colour or pretence of any exercise of re
ligion ; that every person so offending, and law
fully convicted, shall be committed to prison
•without bail, till they shall conform and yield
themselves to come to church, and make the
foUowing declaration of their conformity :
" ' I, A B, do humbly confess and acknowl
edge that I have grievously offended God in
contemning her majesty's godly and lawful
government and authority, by absenting myself
from church and from hearing Divine service,
contrary to the godly laws and statutes of the
realm, and in frequenting disorderly and un
lawful conventicles, under pretence and colour
of exercise of religion ; and I am heartily sorry
for the same, and do acknowledge and testify
in my conscience that no other person has, or
ought to have, any power or authority over her
majesty. And I do promise and protest, with
out any dissimulation or colour of dispensation,
that from henceforth I wiU obey her majesty's
statutes and laws in repairing to church and
hearing Divine service ; and to my utmost en
deavour will maintain and defend the same.'
" But in case the offenders against this stat
ute, being lawfully convicted, shall not submit
and sign the declaration within three months,
then they shall abjure the realm, and go into
perpetual banishment.* And if they do not
depart within the time limited by the quarter
sessions or justices of peace, or if they return
at any time afterward without the queen's" li
cense, they shall suffer death without benefit of
clergy." So that, as Lord-chanceUor King ob
served at the trial of Dr. Sacheverel, the case
of the Nonconformists by this act was worse
than that of felons at common law, for these
-were aUowed the benefit of clergy, but the
others were not. This statute was levelled
against the laity as well as the clergy, and the
severe execution of it with that of the 23d of
Eliz., in this and the foUowing reigns,t brought

? It is remarkable that there is a proviso in this
statute that no popish recusant shall be compelled
or boimd to abjure by virtue of this act. Such was
her majesty's tenderness for the papists \yhUe she
was crushing Protestant dissenters. — Neal's Review.
—Ed.
t "These laws are still put in execution, and
about three years ago, in Cornwall, a poor fellow, a
Dissenter, was Ubelled in the spiritual court for not
-attending Divine worship at his parish church on
Sunday, He had not taken the oaths required by
the Toleration Act ; but it being a sufficient defence

infinite mischiefs upon the kingdom ; many
families being forced into banishment ; some
put to death, as in cases of treason ; and others
as the authors of seditious pamphlets,*
The moderate Puritans made a shift to evade
the force of this law by coming to church whea
common prayer was almost over, and by re
ceiving the sacrament in some churches where
it was administered with some latitude ; but
the weight of it fell upon the separatists, who
renounced all communion with the Church in
the Word and sacraments as well as in the
common prayer and ceremonies ; these were
caUed Brownists or Barrowists, from one Bar
row, a gentleman of the Temple, who was now
at their head. We have given an account of
their distinguishing principles in the year 1680,
since which time their numbers were prodi
giously increased, though the bishops pursued
them, and shut them up in prison without bail
or troubling themselves to bring them to a trial.
Sir Walter Raleigh declared in the Parliament
house that they were not less than twenty thou
sand, divided into several congregations in Nor
folk, in Essex, and in the parts about London :
there were several considerable men now at
their head, as the Reverend Mr. Smith, Mr. Ja
cob, the learned Mr. Ainsworth, the rabbi of
his age, and others.
The congregation about London, being pretty
numerous, formed themselves into a cliurch,
Mr. Francis Johnson being chosen pastor bythe
suffrage of the brotherhood, Mr. Greenhood doc
tor [or teacher], Mr. Bowman and Lee deacons,
Mr. Studley and Kinaston elders, aU in one day,
at the house of Mr. Fox in Nicholas Lane, in
the year 1592 ;t seven persons were baptized at
the same time without godfathers or godmoth
ers, Mr. Johnson only washing their faces with
water, and pronouncing the form, I baptize thee
in the name, &c. The Lord's Supper was also
administered in this manner : five white loaves
being set upon the table, the pastor blessed
them by prayer ; after which, having broken the
bread, he delivered it to some, and the deacons
to the rest, some standing and others sitting
about the table, using the words ofthe apostle,
1 Cor., xi., 24, "Take, eat, this is the body of
the Lord Jesus, which was broken for you : this
do in remembrance of him." In like manner
he gave the cup, using the like words of the
apostle, "This cup is the New Testament ia

to take them at any time during the prosecution, he
applied to the magistrates of the county, at their
quarter sessions, who illegally refused to administer
them ; the consequence was, that he was excommu
nicated. Upon a representation of the conmiittee in
London for taking care of the civU concerns of the
Dissenters, the chairman of the sessions acknowl
edged the error of the justices, and the man took the
oaths at the ensuing sessions, but it was then too
late." — High Church Politics, p. 59.— En.
* Dr. 'Warner remarks on this statute, " that thus
in some measure were renewed the days of Henry
VIII., when it was a crime against the state to de
part ever so little from the reUgion of the sovereign;
but in some part of this act she exceeded her father's
tyranny. For, absolute as he was, he contented
himself with punishing such as opposed the ostab-
lished religion by some overt act. But by this new
statute, the subjects were obliged to make an open
profession by a constant attendance on the establish
ed service." — Eccles. History, vol. ii, p. 465.— Edi
t Strype's Annals, vol. iv., p. 174.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

199

,his blood ; this 3o ye, as oft as ye drink it, in
remembrance of him." In tbe close they sung
a hymn, and made a collection for the poor.
When any person came first into the church,
he made this protestation or promise : that " he
"would walk with them so long as they did walk
in the way of the Lord, and as far as might be
warranted by the Word of God."
The congregation being obliged to meet in
different places to conceal themselves from the
bishop's officers, was at length discovered on a
Xord's Day at Islington, in the very same place
where the Protestant congregation met in Queen
Mary's reign ; about fifty-six were taken pris
oners, and sent two by two to the jaUs about
London, where several of their friends had been
confined for a considerable time.
At their examination, they confessed that for
some years they had met in the fields in the
summer-time at five o'clock in the morning of
the Lord's Day, and in the winter at private
houses ;* that they continued all day in prayer
and expounding the Scriptures ; that they dined
together, and after dinner made a coUection for
their diet, and sent the remainder of the money
to their brethren in prison ; that they did not
use the Lord's Prayer, apprehending it not to
be intended by o"ur blessed Saviour to be used
as a form after the sending down of the Spirit
at Pentecost. Their adversaries charged them
with several extravagances about baptism, mar
riage, lay-preaching, &0-, from which they vin
dicated themselves in a very solid and judicious
reply, showing how far they disowned, and
with what limitations they acknowledged, the
charge, t
But the bishops observing no measures with
this people, they ventured to lay their case be
fore the lords ofthe council in an humble peti
tion,!: But the privy councU dropped the peti-

* Strype's Annals, vol, in,, p. 579.
t MS., p. 850.
X In this petition they say, that " upon a careful
examination of the Holy Scriptures, we find the
-English hierarchy to be dissonant from Christ's in
stitution, and to be derived from antichrist, being the
same the pope left in this land, to which we dare not
subject ourselves. We farther find that God has
commanded all that believe the Gospel to walk in
that holy faith and order which he has appointed in
his Church ; wherefore, in the reverend fear of his
name, we have joined ourselves together, and sub
jected our souls and bodies to those laws and ordi
nances ; and have chosen to ourselves such a minis
try of pastor, teacher, elders, and deacons as Christ
, has- given to his Church on earth to the world's end,
hoping for the promised assistance of his grace in
our attendance upon him ; notwithstanding any pro-
liibition of men, or what by men can be done unto
us. We are ready to prove our church order to be
warranted by the 'word of God, allowable by her maj
esty's laws, and noways prejudicial to her sovereign
power ; and to disprove the public hierarchy, wor
ship, and government, by such evidence of Scripture
as our adversaries shall not be able to withstand ;
protesting, if we fail herein, not only wjlUngly to
sustain such deserved punishment as shall be inflict
ed upon us, but to become conformable for the fu
ture ; if we overthrow not our adversaries, we wUl
not say if our adversaries overcome us.
" But the prelates of this land have for a long
time dealt most injuriously, unlawfully, and outrage
ously with us, by the great power and high authori
ty they have gotten in their hands, and usurped above
aU the public courts, judges, laws, and charters of
-this lanii, persecuting, imprisoning, and detammg at

tion, being afraid to move in an affair that lay
more immediately before the High Commission.
Mr. Smith, one of their ministers, after he
had been in prison twelve months, was caUed
before the commissioners, and being asked
whether he would go to church, answered, that
he should dissemble and play the hypocrite if
he should do it to avoid trouble, for he thought
it utterly unlawful ; to which one of the com
missioners answered, " Come to church and

their pleasure our poor bodies, without any trial, re
lease, or bail ; and hitherto without any cause either
for error or crime directly objected. Some of us
they have kept in close prison four or five years with
miserable usage, as Henry Burrowe and John Green
wood, now in the Fleet ; others they have cast into
Newgate, and laden with as many irons as they could
bear; others into dangerous and loathsome jaUs,
among the most facinorous and vile persons, where
it is lamentable to relate how many of these inno
cents have perished within these five years: aged
widows, aged men, and young maidens, &c., where,
so many as the infection hath spared, lie in woful
distress, lUte to follow their fellows, if sp'eedy redress
be not had ; others of us have been grievously beaten
with cudgels in Bridewell, and cast into a place
called Little Ease, for refusing to come to their
chapel service ; in which prison several have ended
their lives ; but upon rione of our companions thus
committed by them, and dying in their prison, is any
search or inquest suffered to pass, as by law in hke
case is provided.
" Their manner of pursuing and apprehending us
is with no less violence and outrage ; their pursui
vants, with their assistants, break into our houses at
aU times of the night, where they break open, ran
sack, and rifle at their pleasure, under pretence of
searching for seditious, unlawful books. The hus
bands in the dead of the night they have plucked out
of their beds from their wives, and haled them to
prison. Some time since their pursuivants, late in
the night, entered in the queen's name into an honest
citizen's house upon Ludgate Hill, where, after they
had at their pleasure searched and ransacked all pla
ces, chests, &c., of the house, they apprehended
two of our ministers, Mr. Francis Johnson and John
Greenwood, without any warrant at all, both whom,
between one and two of the clock after midnight,
they with biUs and staves led to the counter of Wood-
street, taking assurance of Mr. Boys, the master of
the house, to be prisoner in his house till next day;
at which time the archbishop, with certain doctors
his associates, committed them to close prison, two
to the CUnk, and the third to the Fleet, where they
now remain in distress. Since this they have cast
into prison Thomas Settle, Daniel Studley, and
Nicholas Lane, taken upon a Lord's Day in our as
sembly, and shut them up in the Gate-house ; others
of our friends they are in continual pursuit of; so
that there is no safety for them in any one place.
" We therefore humbly pray, in the name of God
and our sovereign the queen, that we may have the
benefit of the laws, and of the public charter of the
land, namely, that we may be received to bail till we
be by order of law convicted of some crime deserv
ing bonds. We plight unto your honours our faith
unto God, and our allegiance to her majesty, that we
wiU not commit anything unworthy the Gospel of
Christ, or to the disturbance of the common peace
and good order of the land, and that we wiU be forth
coming at such reasonable warning as your lordships
shall command. Oh ! let us not perish before trial
and judgment; especially imploring and crying out to
you for the same. However, we here take the Lord
of heaven and earth, and his angels, together with
your own consciences, and all persons in all ages, to
whom this our supphcation may come, to witness
that we have here truly advertised your honours of
our case and usage, and have in aU humihty offered
our cause to Christian trial."

200
obey the queen's laws, and be a dissembler, be
a hypocrite, or a devU, if thou wilt."* Upon
his refusal he was remanded to the Clink, and
his brethren to the Fleet, where, by order of
Mr. Justice Young, one of the commissioners,
they were shut up in close rooms, not being al
lowed the liberty of the prison ; here they died
like rotten sheep, some of the disease of the
prison, some for want, and others of infectious
distempers. " These bloody men [the ecclesi
astical commissioners]," says Mr. Barrowe, in
his supplication, " wUl allow us neither meat,
drink, fire, lodging, nor suffer any whose hearts
the Lord would stir up for our relief to have an
access to us, by which means seventeen or eigh
teen have perished in the noisome jaUs within
these six years ;t some of us had not one penny
about us when we were sent to prison, nor any
thing to procure a maintenance for ourselves and
families but our handy labour and trades, by
which means not only we ourselves, but our fam
ilies and children, are undone and starved. Their
unbridled slander, their lawless privy searches,
their violent breaking open houses, their taking
away whatever they think meet, and their bar
barous usage of women, chUdren, &c.,'we are
forced to omit, lest we be tedious. That which
we crave for us all is the liberty to die openly,
or live openly in the land of our nativity ; if we
deserve death, let us not be closely murdered,
yea, starved to death with hunger and cold, and
stifled in loathsome dungeons." Among those
who perished in prison was one Mr. Roger Rip-
pon, who, dying in Newgate, his feUow-prison-
ers put this inscription upon his coffin :
" This is the corpse of Roger Rippon, a ser
vant of Christ, and her majesty's faithful sub
ject ; who is the last of sixteen or seventeen
which that great enemy of God, the Archbishop
of Canterbury, with his high commissioners,
have murdered in Newgate within these flve
years, manifestly for the testimony of Jesus
Christ ; his soul is now with the Lord, and his
blood cried for speedy vengeance against that
great enemy ofthe saints, and against Mr. Rich
ard Young [a justice of peace in London], who
in this, and many the like points, hath abused
his power for the upholding of the Romish an
tichrist, prelacy, and priesthood. He died A.D.
1592."t Many copies of this inscription were dispersed
among friends, for which some were apprehend
ed and confined.
The privy councU taking no notice of the
above-mentioned supplications, the prisoners in
the several jails about London joined in the
petition given below to the Lord-treasurer Bur
leigh, to which they subscribed their names.^

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

* Strype's Ann,, vol. ult., p. 134.
t Ibid., vol. ult., p. 133. X Ibid., vol. ult., p. 91.
i) " The humble petition of many poor Christians,
imprisoned by the bishops in sundry prisons in and
about London, to the lord-treasurer.
"We humbly beseech your honour either to grant
us a speedy trial together, or some free phristian
conference, or else, in the mean while, that we may
be bailed according to law, or else put into Bride
well, or some other convenient place where we may
be together for our mutual help and comfort ; or, if
your honour will not yourself alone grant this our re
quest, that then it may please you to be a mean for
our speedy rehef, unto the rest of her majesty's most
honourable privy councU.

Among the names subscritifed to this petition
is Mr. Henry Barrowe, an ingenious and learn-

" The Almighty God, that hath preserved your
lordship unto these honourable years in so high ser
vice to our sovereign prince, and to the unspeakable
comfort of this whole land, give your honourable
heart so tender compassion and careful considera
tion in equity, of the poor afflicted servants of Christ,,
and that (before the Lord plead against this land for
Abel's innocent blood that is shed in the several
prisons) your honour may open your mouth for the
dumb in the cause of the chUdren of [devoted to]
destruction, [that] you may open your mouth and
judge righteously, and judge the cause ofthe afflict
ed ; as the people of Israel, when they went to war,
first made peace with God, and removed all occasion
whereby his wrath might be incensed, lest he should
fight against them in battle. For if this suppression
of the truth and oppression of Christ in hie members,
contrary to all law and justice, be, without restraint,
prosecuted by the enemy in the land, then not only
the persecuted shaU daily cry from under the altar
for redress, but God's wrath be so kindled for the
sheddmg the innocent blood of men, even the blood
of his own servants (of whom he has said, ' Touch
not mine anointed'), that, if Noah, Daniel, and Job
should pray for this people, yet should they not de
liver them.
" Pleaseth it, then, your lordship to understand,
that we, her majesty's loyal, dutiful, and true-heart
ed subjects, to the number of threescore persons and,
upward, have, contrary to all law and equity, been im
prisoned, separated from our trades, wives, children,
and families; yea, shut up close prisoners from all
comfort, many of us for the space of two years and a
half, upon the bishop's sole, commandment, in great
penury and noisomeness ofthe prisons; many ending
their lives, never caUed to trial ; some haled forth to
the sessions ; some cast in irons and dungeons ; some
in hunger and famine ; all of us debarred from any
lawful audience before our honourable governors and-
magistrates, and from all benefit and help of the
laws ; daily defamed and falsely accused by publish
ed pamphlets, by private suggestions, open preach
ing, slanders, and accusations of heresy, sedition,
schism, and what not. And, above all, which most
utterly touchethour salvation, they keep us from aU
spiritual comfort and edifying by doctrine, prayer, or
mutual conference, &c.
"And seeing for our conscience only we are de
prived of all comfort, we most humbly beseech your
good lordship that some more mitigate and peacea
ble course might be taken therein, that some free
and Christian conference, pubUcly or privately, be- ¦
fore your honour, or before whom it would please
you, where our adversaries may not be our judges
[might be had] ; that our case, with the reason and
proof on both sides, might be recorded by indifferent
notaries and faithful witnesses ; and if anything be
found in us worthy of death or bonds, let us be made
an example to all posterity ; if not, we entreat for
some compassion to be shown in equity according to
law for our relief ; [and] that; in the mean' time, we
may be bailed to do her majesty service, walk in our
callings, to pro-vide things needful for ourselves, our
poor wives, disconsolate children, and families, lying
upon us, or else that we might be prisoners together
in Bridewell, or any other convenient place at your
honour's appointment, where we might provide such
relief by our diligence and labours as might preserve
life, to the comfort both of our souls and bodies."
Signed by your supplicants in the following pris
ons : In the Gate-house. WUIiam Dodshowe,

John Gaulter,
John Nicolas,
John Barnes,
John Crawford,
Thomas Conadyne,
Thomas Reeve,

Father Debnam,
Edmund Thompson,
Thomas Freeman.
In the Fleet.
Henry Barrowe,

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

201

ed man, but of too warm a spirit, as appears by
his book, entitled " A Brief Discovery of False
Churches," printed 1690, and reprinted 1707.
This gentleman having been several years in
prison, sent another supplication to the attorney-
general and privy council for a conference with
the bishops, or that their ministers might be con
ferred with in their hearing, without taunts or
railings, for searching out the truth in love. " If
it he objected," says Barrowe, " that none of
our side are worthy to be thus disputed with,
we think we should prove the contrary, for there
are three or four of them in the city of London,
and more elsewhere, who have been zealous
preachers in the parish assemblies, and are not ig-
noranl ofthe Latin, Greek, and Hebrew tongues,
nor otherwise unlearned, and generally confess
ed to be of honest conversation. If this motion
takes effect, the controversy will soon end with
most of us, for by this means we poor wretches
shaU perceive whether, as simple souls, we are
lead aside; or whether, as the dear children of
God, we are first trusted with the view of, and
standing up for, the cause of holiness and righte
ousness. But let us not perish secretly in prison,
or openly by execution, for want of that help
that lies in your power to afford ; when we pro
test, in the sight of God, we do not separate
from the establishment out of pride or obstinacy,
but from the constraints of conscience."
But aU these petitions "were rejected by the
bishops and privy council, for the following rea
sons, if they deserve that .name : " Because a
disputation had been denied to papists : to call
the ministry of the Church of England into
question, is to caU all other churches into ques-

John Greenwood,
Daniel Studley,
Robert Badkyne,
Walter Lane.
In Newgate.
William Deptford,
Widow Borrough,
Roger Wate.rer.
In Bridewell.
WiUiam Broomal,
James Forrester,
Antony Claxton,
Nicholas Lee,
Jorih Francis,
William Forrester,
John Clarke,
John Fisher,
John Bucer,
Roger Rippon,
Robert Andrews,
Richard Skarlet,
Luke Hayes,
Richard Maltusse,
Richard Umberfield,
WUIiam Fowler,
WiUiam Burt,
WUham Hutton,
In the Clink.
George ColUer,
John Sparrow,
Edmund Nicholson,
Christopher Browne,
Thomas Mitchel,
Andrew Smith,
WiUiam Blackborrow,
Thomas Lemare,
Christopher Raper,
Quintin Smith,
Vol. L— C o

In the White Lion.
Thomas Legat,
Edmund Marsh,
Antony Johnes,
 Cook,
 Auger.
Wood-street Compter.
George SneUs,
Christopher Bowman,
Robert Jackson,
Rowlet Skipwith.
Poultry Compter.
George Kingston,
Thomas Eyneworth,,
Richard Hayward,
John Lancaster.
In aU, fifty-nine.
Prisoners deceased :
Out of the Poultry Compter.
John Chandler.
Out of Wood-street Compter.
George Dinghtie.
Out ofthe Clink.
Henry Thompson,
Jerome Studley.
Out of Newgate.
Richard Jackson,
Widow Mainard,
Widow Row,
Nicholas Crane,
Thomas Stephens.
Out of Bridewell.
John Pardy. In aU, ten.

tion, against whom their exceptions extend :•
the Church of England has submitted to dispu
tation three times in King Edward's, Queen
Mary's, and Queen Ehzabeth's time: those im-n's
errors have been condemneil by the writings of
learned men : it is not reasonable that a religion
established by Parliament should be examined
by an inferior authority : it is not reasonable to
condemn those foreign churches that have ac
knowledged ours for a true church : their prin
cipal errors have been confuted by St. Austin:
this wiU strengthen the hands of the papists :
it has been the manner of heretics to require
disputations with clamour and importunity; the
cause has been already decided by written books,
which they may consult : they will not stand to
the judgment of the civil magistrate : if the
Church should satisfy every sect that riseth,
there would be no end of disputations." Thus
these pious and conscientious persons, after a
long and illegal imprisonment, were abandoned
to the severity of an unrighteous law ; some of
them being publicly executed as felons, and oth
ers proscribed and sent into banishment.
Among the former were Mr. Barrowe, gent.,,
of Gray's Inn, Mr. Greenwood and Penry, min
isters ; the first two had been in prison some
years, and several times before the commission
ers ; their examinations, written by themselves^
are now before me. Barrowe was apprehended
at the Clink prison in Southwark, where he went
to visit his brother Greenwood ; he was carried
immediately to Lambeth, where the archbishop-
would have examined him upon the oath ex offi
cio, but he refused to take it, or to swear at all
upon the Bible ; but, says he, by God's grace I
wiU answer nothing but the truth. So the arch
bishop took a paper of interrogatories into his.
hand, and asked him, 1. "Whether the Lord's
Prayer might be used in the Church!" He an
swered, that in his opinion it was rather a sum
mary than a form, and not finding it used by the
apostles, he thought it should not be constantly
used by us, 2. Whether forms of prayer may
be used in the Church! He answered, that
none such ought to be' imposed. 3. Whether
the common prayer be idolatrous or supersti
tious ! He answered, that in his opinion it was
so. 4 Whether the sacraments of the Churcb-
are true sacraments and seals of the favour of ,
God ! He answered, he thought, as they were-
pubhcly administered, they were not. 5. 'Wheth
er the laws of the Church are good ! He an
swered, that many of them were unlawful and
antichristian. 6. Whether the Church of Eng
land is a true church! He answered, that, as
it was now fonned, it was not ; yet there are
many excellent good Christians of it. 7. Wheth
er the queen be supreme governor ofthe Church,
and may make laws for it ! He answered, that
the queen was supreme governor of the Church,.
but might not make laws other than Christ had
left in his Word. 8 Whether a private person
may reform if the princte neglects it ! He an
swered, that no private persons might reform
the state, but they are to abstain from any un
lawful thing commanded by the prince. 9.
Whether every particular church ought to have-
a presbytery! He answered in the affirmative.
After this examination he was remanded to a

' Strype's Annals, vol. ult., p. 172.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

close prison, and denied a copy of his answers,
though he earnestly desired it.
His next examination was before the arch
bishop, the lord-chancellor, lord-treasurer. Lord
Buckhurst, and the Bishop of London, at White-
haU, where he found twelve of his brethren in
the same circumstances with himself, but was
not admitted to speak to them. Being called
into another room, and kneeling down at the
end of the table, the lord-treasurer spoke to
hun thus : Treasurer. Why are you in prison !
Barrowe. Upon the statute against recusants.
Treasurer. "Why wUl you not go to church!
Barrowe. Because I think the Church of Eng
land as established bylaw not a church of Christ,
nor their manner of worship lawful. After a
long debate on this head the treasurer said. You
complain of injustice, where have you wrong!
Barrowe. In being kept in prison without due
trial ; and in the misery we suffer by a close im
prisonment contrary to law. The archbishop
said he had matter to caU him before him for a
heretic. Barrowe replied, That you shall never
do ; I may err, but heretic, by the grace of God,
I will never be. It being observed that he did
-not pay such reverence to the Archbishop and
Bishop of London as to the temporal lords, the
ohancellor asked him if he did not know those
two men, pointing to the bishops. To which
he answered, that he had cause to know them,
but did not own them for lord bishops. Being
then asked by what name he would caU the arch
bishop, he replied that he was a monster, a
persecutor, a compound of he knew not what,
neither ecclesiastical nor civil, like the second
beast spoken of in the Revelations : upon which
the archbishop rose out of his place, and with a
severe countenance said, My lords, will you suf
fer him ! So he was plucked off his knees, and
carried away.
Mr. Greenwood the minister was examined
after the same manner before the Archbishop of
Canterbury, the Bishops of London and "Win
chester, the lords-chief-justices, the lord-chief-
baron, and the master of the roUs : he had in
terrogatories put to him as Barrowe had, but re
fused to swear, and made much the same an
swer with the other. At length, on March 21,
1592, they, together with Saxio Bellot, gent.,
Daniel Studley, girdler, and Robert BowUe, fish
monger, were indicted at the sessions-house in
the Old Bailey, upon the statute of 23 Eliz., for
writing and publishing sundry seditious books
and pamphlets, tending to the slander of the
queen and government, when they had only
written against the Church ; but this was the
archbishop's artful contrivance to throw off the
odium of their death from himself to the civil
magistrate ; for, as the reverend and learned
Mr. Hugh Broughton observes, " though Mr.
Barrowe and Greenwood were condemned for
disturbance of the state, yet this would have
been pardoned, and their lives spared, if they
would have promised to come to church."*
Upon their trial they behaved with constancy
and resolution, showing no token of recognition,
says the attorney, nor prayer for mercy : they
protested their inviolable loyalty to the queen,
and obedience to her government ; that they
never wrote, nor so much as intended anything,
against her highness, but only against the bish-

* Broughton's Works, p. 731.

ops and the hierarchy of the Church ; which
was apparent enough. However, the jury
brought them aU in guiUy.* Bellot desired a
conference, and with tears confessing his sor
row for what he had done, was pardoned,
BowUe and Studley being looked upon only as
accessories, though they continued firm, decla
ring their unshaken loyalty to the queen, and re
fusing to ask for mercy, were reprieved and sent
back to prison ; but Barrowe and Greenwood
were to be made examples. Sentence of death
being passed upon them March 33, sundry di
vines were appointed to persuade them to re
cant ; who not succeeding, they were brought
in a cart to Tyburn on the la^t of March, and
exposed under the gallows for some time to the
people, to see if the terrors of death would af
fright them ; but remaining constant, they were
brought back to Newgate, and on the 6th of
AprU, 1593, carried a second time to Tyburn
and executed. At the place of execution they
gave such testimonies of their unfeigned piety
towards God and loyalty to the queen, praying
so earnestly for her long and prosperous reign,
that when Dr. Reynolds, who attended them,
reported their behaviour to her majesty, she re
pented that she had yielded to their death.
They had been in close prison ever since the
year 1590, exposed to all the severities of cold,
hunger, and nakedness, which Mr. Barrowe rep
resented in a supplication to the queen, already
mentioned, concluding with an earnest desireof
deliverance from the present miseries, though it
were by death ; but the archbishop intercept
ed the paper, and endeavoured to prevent the
knowledge of their condition from coming to the
queen's ear : upon this, Mr. Barrowe exposed
his grace's behaviour towards miserable men,
in a letter to one Mr. Fisher, wherein he char
ges him with " abusing the queen's clemency
by false informations and suggestions, and with
artful disingenuity, in committing so many in
nocent men to BrideweU, the Compter, Newgate,
the White Lion, and the Fleet, and then post
ing them to the civU magistrate to take off the
clamour of the people from himself He says
that he had destined himself and his brother
Greenwood to death, and others to be kept in
close prison ; their poor wives and children to
be cast out of the city, and their goods to be
confiscated. Is not this a Christian bishop!"
says he. " Are these the virtues of him who
takes upon him the care and government of all
the churches of the land, to tear and devour
God's poor sheep, and to rend off the flesh and
break their bones, and chop them in pieces as
flesh to the caldron !t WUl he thus instnict
and convince gainsayers ! Sureljr he will per
suade hut few that fear God to his religion by
his dealing and evil. Does he consult his own
credit, or the honour of his prince, by this tyr
annous havoc ! For our parts, our lives are not
dear to us, so that we may finish our testimony
with joy : we are always ready, through God's
grace, to be offered up upon the testimony of
the faith that we have made."
Thus fell these two unhappy gentlemen a sac
rifice to the resentments of an angry prelate.
About six weeks after this, the Rev. Mr. Joha
Penry, or Ap-Henry, a Welsh divine, was exe-
* Heyl, Hist. Presb., p. 323.
t LifeofWhitgift, p. 416.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

203

•cuted for the same crime, in a cruel and inhu
man manner. Re was a pious and learned man,
¦well disposed to religion, says Mr. Strype, but
mistaken in his principles and hot in his tem
per ; a zealous platformer, and a declared ene
my of the archbishop. He was born in the
county of Brecknock, and educated first at Cam
bridge, and afterward in St. Alban's Hall, Ox
ford, where he became M.A., 1586, and entered
into holy orders, being well acquainted with arts
and languages. He preached in both universi
ties with applause, and afterward travelling into
Wales, was the first, as he said, that preached
the Gospel publicly to the Welsh, and sowed the
good seed among his countrymen. In the year
1518 he published a " View of such Public Wants
and Disorders as are in her Majesty's Country
¦of Wales, with an humble Petition to the High
Court of ParUament for their Redress :" where
in is showed not only the necessity of reforming
the state of religion among that people, but also
the only way in regard of substance to bring
that reformation to pass. He also published
" An Exhortation to the Governors and People
of her Majesty's Country of Wales, to labour
earnestly to have the preaching of the Gospel
planted among them." Printed in 1588.
When Martin Mar-Prelate and the other sa
tirical pamphlets against the bishops were pub
lished, a special warrant was issued from the
privy councU, 1590, under several of their hands,
¦whereof the archbishop's was one, to seize and
apprehend Mr. Penry as an enemy of the state,
and that aU the queen's good subjects should
take him so to be. To avoid being taken, he reti
red into Scotland, where he continued till the year
1593. Here he made many observations of things
relating to religion, for his own private use, and
at length prepared the heads of a petition,* or

an address to the queen, to show her majesty
the true state of rehgion, and how ignorant she
was of many abuses in the Church of England,
especially in the management of ecclesiastical
matters ; and likewise to intercede for so mucin
favour that he might, by her authority, have lib
erty to go into Wales, his native country, to
preach the Gospel.* With this petition he came

* The heads of the petition, taken upon him, were
as follow : " The last days of your reign are turned
rather against Jesus Christ and his Gospel than to
the maintenance of the same.
" I have great cause and complaint, madam ; nay,
the Lord and his Church have cause to complain
of your government, because we your subjects, this
day, are not permitted to serve our God under your
government according to his Word, but are sold
to be bond-slaves, not only to our affections, to do
what we will, so that we keep ourselves within the
compass of estabUshed civU laws, but also to be ser
vants to the man of sin [the pope] and his ordinances.
" It is not the force that we seem to fear that will
come upon us (for the Lord may destroy both you for
denying, and us for slack seeking, of his will) by
-Strangers : I come unto you with it : if you wUl hear
it, our cause may be eased ; if not, that posterity may
know that you have been dealt with, and that this
-age may know that there is no expectation [hope] to
be looked for at your hands.
¦ " Among the rest of the princes under the Gospel,
that- have been drawn to oppose it, you must think
yourself to be one ; for until you see this, madam,
you see not yourself, and they are but sycophants and
flatterers whoever tell you otherwise : your standing
is and has been by the Gospel. It is little beholden
to you for anything -that appears. The practice of
your government shows that if you could have ruled
without the Gospel, it would have been doubtful
whether the Gospel should be established or not :
for now that you are estabUshed in your throne by
the Gospel, you suffer it to reach no farther than the
end of your sceptre limiteth unto it.
" If we had had Queen Mary's days, I think that
-we should have had as flourishing a church this
¦day as ever any, for it is weU known that there was

then in London, under the burden, and elsewhere in
exile, more flourishing churches than any now toler
ated by your authority.
" Now, whereas we should have your help both
to join ourselves with the true Church and reject
the false, and all the ordinances thereof, we are in
your kingdom permitted to do nothing, but account
ed seditious if we affirm either the one or the other
of the former points ; and, therefore, madam, you are
not so much an adversary to us poor men as unto
Christ Jesus and the, wealth of his kingdom.
" If we cannot have your favour but by omitting
our duty to God, we are unworthy of it, and, by God's
grace, we mean not to purchase it so dear.
" But, madam, thus much we must needs say,
that in all likelihood, if the days of your sister Queen
Mary and her persecution had continued unto this
day, that ihe Church of God in England had been
far more flourishing than at this day it is ; for then,
madam, the Church of God within this land, and
elsewhere, being strangers, enjoyed the ordinances
of God's holy Word as far as then they saw.
" But since your majesty came unto your crown, we
have had whole Christ Jesus, God and man ; but we
must serve him only in heart.
"And if those days had continued to this time,
and those lights risen therein, which, by the mercy
of God, have since shined in England, it is not to be
doubted but the Church of England, even in England,
had far surpassed all the Reformed churches m the
world. "Then, madam, any of our brethren durst not
have been seen within the tents of antichrist ; now
they are ready to defend them to be the Lord's, and
that he has no other tabernacle upon earth but them.
Our brethren then durst not temporize in the cause
of God, because the Lord himself ruled in his Church,
by his own laws, in a good measure ; but nOw, be
hold ! they may do what they will, for any sword
that the Church has to draw 'against them, if they
contain themselves within your laws.
"Tills peace, under these conditions, we cannot
enjoy, and therefore, for anything I can see. Queen
Mary's days wUl be set up again, or we must needs
temporize. The whole truth we must not speak;
the whole truth we must not profess. Your state
must have a stroke above the truth of God.
" Now, madam, your majesty may consider what
good the Church of God hath taken at your hands,
even outward peace with the absence of Jesus
Christ in his ordinance ; otherwise as great troubles
are lUcely to come as ever were in the days of your
sister. " As for the council and clergy, if we bring any such
suit unto them, we have no other answer but that
which Pharaoh gives to the Lord's messengers
touching the state of the Church under his govern
ment. " For when any are called for this cause before
your council, or the judges of the land, they must
take this for granted, once for all, that the upright
ness of their cause will profit them nothing if the
law of the land be against them; for your council
and judges have so well profited in religion, that they
will not stick to say that they come not to consult
whether the matter be with or against the 'Word or
not, but their purpose is to take the penalty of the
transgressions against your laws.
"If your councU were wise, they would not kindle
your wrath against us ; but, madam, if you give ear
to their words, no marvail though you have not bet
ter counseUors." * Life of Whitgift, p. 409.

204
from Scotland, resolving to finish and deliver it
with his own hand, as he should find opportu
nity ; but upon his arrival he was seized with
his papers at Stepney parish, by the information
of the vicar, in the month of May, and arraign
ed, condemned, and executed, hastily, the very
same month.
It appears by this petition, as weU as by his
letter sent to the congregation of Separatists
in London, that Mr. Penry was a Brownist.
His Book of Observations was also seized, out
of which were drawn articles of accusation
against him. He -was indicted upon the statute
of the 23d of Eliz., cap. ii., for seditious words
and rumours uttered against the queen's most
exceUent majesty, tending to the stirring up of
rebellion among her subjects, and was convict
ed of felony, May 21, in the King's Bench, be
fore the Lord-chief-justice Popham. He re
ceived sentence of death May 25, and was exe
cuted on the 29th of the same month. It was
designed to indict him for the books published
in his name, but by the advice of councU, Mr.
Penry drew up a paper entitled "Mr. Penry's
Declaration, May 16, 1593, that he is not in
danger of the law for the books published in his
name." Here he observes that the statute was
not intended against such as wrote only against
the hierarchy of the Church, for then it must
condemn most of the most learned Protestants
both at home and abroad ; but relates to such
as defame her majesty's royal person, whereas
he had always written most dutifully of her
person and government, having never encour
aged sedition or insurrection against her maj
esty, but the contrafy ; nor had he ever been
at any assembly or conventicle where any, un
der or above the number of twelve, were as
sembled with force of arms, or otherwise, to
alter anything established by law ; nor was it
his opinion that private persons should of their
own authority attempt any such thing, for he
had always written and spoken to the contrary.
But, however, if all this had been true, he
ought to have been accused within one month
of the crime, upon the oath of two witnesses,
and have been indicted within one year, other-
'wise the statute itself clears him in express
'words. The court, apprehending this declaration
might occasion an argument at law, set aside
his printed books, and convicted him upon the
petition and private observations above men
tioned, which was still harder, as he represent
ed it himself in the foUowing letter to the lord-
treasurer, with a protestation enclosed, imme
diately after his condemnation. "Vouchsafe,
J beseech your lordship (right honourable), to
read" the enclosed writing. My days, I see, are
drawing to an end, and I thank Cjod an unde
served end, except the Lord stir up your honour
to acquaint her majesty with my guiltless state.
" The cause is most lamentable that the pri
vate observations of any student, being in a
foreign land and wishing weU to his prince and
country, should bring his life with blood to a
violent end, especiaUy seeing they are most
private, and so imperfect as they have no cohe
rence at all in them, and in most place carry no
true English.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

LffeofWhitgift, p. 412.

" Though my innocence may stand me in no
stead before an earthly tribunal, yet I know that
I shaU have the reward thereof before the judg
ment-seat of the Great King ; and the merciful
Lord, who relieves the widow and fatherless,
wUl reward my desolate orphans and friendless
widow that I leave behind me, and even hear
their cry, for he is merciful.
" Being like to trouble your lordship with no
more letters, I do with thankfulness acknowl
edge your honour's favour in receiving the wri
tings I have presumed to send to you from time
to time ; and in this my last, I protest I have
written nothing but the truth from time to time.
" Thus preparing myself, not so much for an
unjust verdict, and an undeserved doom in this
life, as unto that blessed crown of glory which,
of the great mercy of my God, is ready for me
in heaven, I humbly betake your lordship unto
the hands of the just Lord. May 22, 1 593. Your
lordship's most humble in the Lord,
"John Penrt."
In the protestation enclosed in this letter he
declared that he wrote his observations in Scot
land ; that they were the sum of certain objec
tions made by people in those parts against her
majesty and her government, which he intend
ed to examine, but had not so much as looked
into them for fourteen or fifteen months past ;
that even in these writings, so imperfect, unfin
ished, and enclosed within his private study, he
had shown his dutifulness to the queen, nor had
he ever a secret wandering thought ofthe least
disloyalty to her majesty : " I thank the Lord,"
says he, " I remember not that that day has-
passed over my head, since under her govern
ment I eame to the knowledge of the truth,
wherein I have not commended her estate unto
God. WeU, I may be inflicted and condemned,
and end my days as a felon or a traitor against
my natural sovereign, but heaven and earth
shall not be able to convict me thereof When
soever an end of my days comes (as I look not
to Jive this week to an end), I shaU die Queen
Elizabeth's most faithful subject, even in the
consciences of mine enemies, if they wiU be he-
holders thereof*
"Inevertook myself for a rebuker, much less
for a reformer of states and kingdoms ; far was
that from me ; yet in the discharge of my con
science, all the world must bear with me if I
prefer my testimony to the truth of Jesus Christ
before the favour of any creature. An enemy
to good order and policy either in this Church
or commonwealth was I never. I never did
anything in this cause (Lord ! thou art witness)
for contention, vainglory, or to draw disciple*
after me. Great things in this life I never
sought for ; sufficiency I have had, with great
outward trouble, but most content I was with my
lot ; and content I am and shaU be with my un
timely death, though I leave behind me a friend
less widow and four infants, the eldest of which
is not above four years old. I do from my heart
forgive aU that seek my life ; and if my death
can procure any quietness to the Church of God
or the State, I shall rejoice. May my prince
have many such subjects, but may none of theta
meet with such a reward I My earnest request
is that her majesty may be acquainted with

* Life of 'Whitgift, in Rec, p. 176.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

205

these things before my death, or at least after
my departure.
"Subscribed with the heart and hand that
never devised or wrote anything to the discredit
or defamation of my sovereign Queen Elizabeth :
I take it on my death, as I hope to have a life
after this. By me, John Penky,"
It was never known before this time that a
minister and a scholar was condemned to death
for private papers found in his study ; nor do I
remember more than once since that time, in
¦whose case it was given for law, that scribere
est agcre, that to write has been construed an
overt act ; but Penry must die, right or wrong ;
the archbishop was the first man who signed
the warrant for his execution, and after him
Puckering and Popham, The warrant was sent
immediately to the sheriff, who the very same
day erected a gaUows at St. Thomas Water
ings ; and whUe the prisoner was at dinner, sent
his officers to bid him make ready, for he must
die that afternoon ; accordingly, he was carried
in a cart to the place of execution ; when he
oame thither the sheriff would not suffer him to
speak to the people, nor make any profession of
his faith towards God, or his loyalty to the
queen, but ordered him to be turned off in a
hurry about five of the clock in the evening.
May 29, 1593, in the thirty-fourth year of his
age. The court being struck with this behaviour
ofthe Brownists, began to be ashamed of hang
ing men for sedition against the state, who died
-with such strong professions of loyalty to the
ijueen and government, and therefore could suf
fer only for the cause of religion. This raised
an odium against the bishops and the high com
missioners, who, aU men knew, were at the
bottom of these proceedings. It is said the
queen herself was displeased with them when
she heard of the devotion and loyalty of the
sufferers. It was therefore resolved to proceed
for the future on the late statute of the 31st
Eliz,, to retain the queen's subjects in their
-obedience, and instead of putting the Brown
ists to death, to send them into banishment.
Upon this statute, Mr. Johnson, pastor of the
Brownist Church, vvas convicted, and aU the
jails were cleared for the present ; though the
commissioners took care within the compass
of another year to fiU them again.
The papists were distressed by this statute,
and that of 23d Eliz,, as much as the Brown
ists, though they met with much more favour
from the ecclesiastical courts ; the queen either
loved or feared them, and would often say she
would never ransack their consciences if they
would be quiet ; but they were always libelling
her majesty, and in continual plots against her
government. WhUe the Queen of Scots was
alive, they supported her pretensions to the
crown, and after her death they maintained in
print the title of the Infanta of Spain : they
were concerned with the Spaniards in the inva
sion of 1588, which obliged the queen to con
fine some of their chiefs in Wisbeach Castle,
and other places of safety, but she was tender
of their lives. In the first eleven years of her
reign, not one Roman Catholic was prosecuted
capitally for religion ; in the next ten years,
when the pope had excommunicated the queen
and the whole kingdom, and there had been

dangerous rebellions in the north, there were
only twelve priests e.xecuted, and most of them
for matters against the state. In the ten fol
lowing years, when swarms of priests and Jes
uits came over from foreign seminaries to in
vite the Catholics to join with the Spaniards,
the laws were girt closer upon them, fifty priests
being executed, and fifty-five banished ; but as
soon as the danger was over, the laws were re
laxed, and by reason of the ignorance and lazi
ness of the beneficed clergy, the missionaries
gained over such numbers of proselytes in the
latter end of this reign, as endangered the
whole government and Reformation in the be
ginning ofthe next.
The last and finishing hand was put to the
Presbyterian discipline in Scotland this year
[1554], That kingdom had been governed by
different factions during the minority of King
James, which prevented a full settlement of re
ligion.' The General Assembly in the year
1566 had approved of the Geneva discipline ;
but the Parliament did not cdnfirm the votes of
the assembly, nor formally deprive the bishops
of their power, though all church affairs from
that time were managed by presbyteries and
general assemblies. In the year 1574 they vo
ted the bishops to be only pastors of one par
ish ; and to show their power, they deposed the
Bishop of Dunkeld, and delated the Bishop of
Glasgow. In the year 1577 they ordained that
all bishops be called by their own names, and
the next year voted the very name of a bishop
a grievance. In the year 1580, the General
-Assembly, with one voice, declared diocesan
episcopacy to be unscriptural and unlawful.
The same year, King James with his family,
and the whole nation, subscribed a confession
of faith, with a solemn league and covenant an
nexed, obliging themselves to maintain and de
fend the Protestant doctrine and the Presbyte
rian government. After this, in the year 1584,
the bishops were restored by Parliament to
some parts of their ancient dignity,* and it
was made treason for any man to procure the
innovation or diminution of the power and au
thority of any of the three estates ; but when
this act was proclaimed, the ministers protested
against it, as not having been agreed to- by the
Kirk. In the year 1537, things took another
turn, and his majesty being at the fuU age of
twenty-one, consented to an act to take away
bishops' lands, and annex them to the crown.
In the year 1593, it was ordained by the Gener
al Assembly that aU that bore office in the Kirk,
or should hereafter do so, should subscribe to
the Book of Discipline. In the year 1592, aU
acts of Parliament whatsoever, made by the
king's highness or any of his predecessors, in
favour of popery or episcopacy, were annulled ;
and in particular, the act of May 22, 1.584, " for
granting commissions to bishops, or other eo
clesiastical judges, to receive presentations to
benefices, and give collation thereupon;" and
it was ordained that for the future " aU present
ations tp benefices shall be directed to the par
ticular presbyteries, with full power to give col
lation thereupon ; and to order all matters and
causes ecclesiastical within their boundsaccord-
ing to the discipline ofthe Kirk.t

* Heyl., Hist. Presb., p. 231. f Id. ibid., p. 394.

206

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

"Farther, the act ratifies and confirms all
former acts of Parliament in favour of kirk dis
cipline, and declares that it shall be lawful for
the Kirk and ministers to hold general assem
blies once a year, or oftener if necessity require,
the king's commissioner being present if his
majesty pleases. It ratifies and approves of
provincial and synodal assemblies twice a year
¦within every province ; and of presbyteries and
particular sessions appointed bythe Kirk, with
the whole discipline and jurisdiction of the
same. Provincial assemblies have power to
redress aU things omitted or done amiss in the
particular assemblies, to depose the office-bear
er ofthe province, and generally they have the
power of the particular elderships whereof they
are collected.
" The power of presbyteries is declared to
consist in keeping the kirks within their bounds
in good order ; to inquire after and endeavour
to reform vicious persons. It belongs , to the
elderships to see that the Word of God be duly
preached, and the sacraments rightly adminis
tered, and discipline entertained ; they are to
cause the ordinances made by the Provincial,
National, and General Assemblies, to be put in
execution ; to make or abolish constitutions
¦which concern decent order in their kirks, pro
vided they alter no rules made by the superior
assemblies ; and communicate their constitu
tions to the Provincial Assembly; they have
power to excommunicate the obstinate after
due process. Concerning particular kirks, if
they are lawfully ruled by sufficient ministers
and session, they have power and jurisdiction
in their own congregation in matters ecclesias
tical." This act, for the greater solemnity, was con
firmed again in the year 1593, and agaip this
present year 1594, so that from this time to the
year 1612 presbytery was undoubtedly the le
gal establishment of the Kirk of Scotland, as it
had been, in fact, ever since the Reformation.
To return to England. Several champions
appeared about this time for the cause of epis
copacy ; as. Dr. Bilson, Bancroft, Bridges, Cos
ins, Soam, and Dr. Adrian Sararia, a Spaniard,
but beneficed in the Church of England : this
last was answered by Beza ; Bridges was an
swered by Fenner, Cosins by Morrice, and Bil
son by Bradshaw, though the press was shut
against the Puritans.
But the most celebrated performance, and of
greatest note, was Mr. Hooker's Ecclesiastical
Polity, in eight books ; the first four of which
were published this year ; the fifth in the year
1597, and last three not till many years after
his death ; for which reason some have suspect
ed them to be interpolated, though they were
deposited in the hands of Archbishop Abbot,
from whose copy they were printed, about the
beginning of the civU wars.* This is esteemed
the most learned defence ofthe Church of Eng
land, wherein all that would be acquainted with
its constitution, says a learned prelate, may see
upon what foundation it is built.f Mr. Hooker

* Life of Whitgift, p, 421.
t The Ecclesiastical Polity is deeply interesting to
the Protestant N onconforoust, because it exhibits the
utmost that can be advanced in support of the church
system to which he is opposed. "AU," says Dr.
Price, "that human genius, or the most patient and

begun his work while master of the Temple, but
meeting with some trouble, and many interrup
tions in that place, the archbishop, at his re
quest, removed him to Boscum, in the diocess
of Salisbury, and gave him a minor prebend in
that church ; here he finished his first four
books ; from thence he was removed to the par
sonage of Bishopsborn, in Kent, about three
miles from Canterbury, where he finished his
work and his life in the year 1660, and in the
forty-seventh year of his age.*
The chief principles upon which this learned
author proceeds are,
" That though the Holy Scriptures are a per
fect standard of doctrine, they are not a rule of
discipline or government : nor is the practice of
the apostles an invariable rule or law to the
Church in succeeding ages, because they acted
according to the circumstances Of the Church
in its infant and persecuted state : neither are
the Scriptures a rule of human actions, so far
as that whatsoever we do in matters of religion
without their express direction or warrant is
sin, but many things are left indifferent : the
Church is a society like others, invested wilh
powers to make what laws she apprehends rea
sonable, decent, or necessary for her well-beine
and government, provided they do not interfere
with or contradict the laws and commandments
of Holy Scripture : where the Scripture is si
lent, human authority may interpose ; we must
then have recourse to the reason of things and
the rights of society : it follows from hence that
the Church is at liberty to appoint ceremonies,
and establish order within th'e limits above
mentioned ; and her authority ought to deter
mine what is fit and convenient : aU who are horn
within the confines of an established church,
and are baptized into it, are bound to submit to
its ecclesiastical laws ; they may not disgrace.

scrutinizing inquiry into the nature of man and tho
constitution of human society can effect, is here ac-
compUshed on behalf of the hierarchy. If, therefore,
such a work faUs to sustain its positions; if many of
its principles are unsound, and its course of argu
mentation is precisely similar to that which popery
employs ; if large sections of the work are as conclu
sive against the Protestant faith as against that forai
of it to which Hooker was opposed, a strong pre
sumption must be awakened that there was a radical
unsoundness in the cause he advocated, which no
genius could remedy or diligence correct. That
such defects do attach to this celebrated performance
has been extensively acknowledged, and will be in
creasingly felt, as the true spirit of Protestantism-
prevaUs among its professed disciples." " The better
parts of the Ecclesiastical Polity," remarks Mr. Hal
lam, " bear a resemblance to the phUosophical wri
tings of antiquity, in theh defects as well as their
exceUences. Hooker is often too vague in the use
of general terms ; too inconsiderate in the admission
of principles ; too apt to acquiesce in the scholastic
pseudo-phUosophy ; and, indeed, in all received ten
ets. He is comprehensive rather than sagacious,
and more fitted to sift the truth from the stores of
accumulated learning than to seize it by an original
impulse of his own mind. Nor would it be difficult
to point out several other subjects, such as religious
toleration, as to which he did not emancipate him
self from the trammels of prejudice."— Cmwd'lrfioM'
History, vol. i., p. 295. — C.
* Hooker's production grew out of his dispute with
Travers, and his object was to recover the jumor
members of the Temple from the mfluence of Tra-r-
ers's ministry. — See Walton's Life of Hooker,i,Wi.
— C.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS,

207

revile, or reject them at pleasure : the Church
is their mother, and has more than a maternal
power over them : the positive laws of the
Church not being of a moral nature, are muta
ble, and may be changed or reversed by the
same powers that made them ; but while they
are in force they are to be submitted to, under
such penalties as the Church in her wisdom
shall direct."
The fourth and fifth propositions are the main
pillars of Mr. Hooker's fabric, and the founda
tion of all human establishments, viz., " that the
Church, like other societies, is invested with
power to make laws for its well-being ; and that
where the Scripture is silent, human authority
may interpose." AU men allow th4t human
societies may form themselves after any model,
and make what laws they please for their well-
being ; and that the Christian Church has some
things in common with all societies as such, as
the appointing time and place, and the order of
public worship, &c. ; but it must be remembered
that the Christian Church is not a mere volun
tary society, but a community formed and con
stituted by Christ, the sole king and lawgiver of
it, who has made sufficient provision for its
-weU-being to the end ofthe world. It does not
appear in the New Testament that the Church
is empowered to mend or alter the constitution
of Christ, by creating new offices, or making
new laws, though the Christian world has ven
tured upon it. Christ gave his church, proph
ets, evangeUsts, pastors, and teachers for the
perfecting the saints, and edifying his body ; but
the successors of the apostles in the government
of the Church, apprehending these not sufficient,
have added patriarchs, cardinals, deans, arch
deacons, canons, and other officials. The Church
is represented in Scripture as a spiritual body,
her ordinances, privileges, and censures being
purely such ; but later ages have wrought the
civil powers into her constitution, and kept men
within her pale by all the terrors of this world,
as fides, imprisonments, banishments, fire, and
sword. It is the pecuUar exceUence ofthe Gos
pel worship to be plain and simple, free from
the yoke of Jewish ceremonies ; but the anti
christian powers, thinking this a defect, have
loaded it with numberless ceremonies of their
own invention ; and though there are laws in
Scripture sufficient for the direction of the
Church, as constituted by Christ and his apos
tles, they have thought fit to add so many vol
umes of ecclesiastical laws, canons, and injunc
tions, as have confounded, if not subverted, the
laws of Christ.
Whereas, if men considered the Church as a
spiritual body, constituted by Christ its sole
lawgiver for spiritual purposes, they would then
see that it had no concern with their civil rights,
properties, and estates, nor any power to force
men to be of its communion, by the pains and
penalties of this world. The laws of the New
Testament would appear sufficient for the well-
being of such a society ; and in cases where
there are no particular rules or injunctions, that
it is the will of Christ and his apostles there
should be hberty and mutual forbearance ; there
¦would then be no occasion for Christian courts,
as they are caUed, nor for the interposition of
huipan authority, any father than to keep the
peace. Upon the whole, as far as any church

is governed by the laws and precepts of the
New Testament, so far is it a Church of Christ ;
but when it sets up its own by-laws as terms
of communion, or works the policy of the civil
magistrate into its constitution, it is so far a
creature of the state,
Mr. Hooker's last two propositions are incon
sistent with the first principles ofthe Reforma
tion, viz., that aU men that are born within the
confines of an established church, and are bap
tized into it, are bound to, submit to its ecclesi
astical laws under such penalties as the Church
in her wisdom shall direct. Must I, then, be of
the religion of the country where' I am born !
that is, at Rome a papist, in Saxony a Lutheran,
in Scotland a Presbyterian, and in England a
diocesan prelatist, and this under such penalties
as the Church in her wisdom shall think fit !
Must I believe as the Church believes, and sub
mit to her laws right or wrong! Have I no
right, as a man and a Christian, to judge and
act for myself, as long as I continue a loyal and
faithful subject to my prince ! Surely religious
principles and Chureh communion should be the
effect of examination and a deliberate choice,
or they lose their name, and degenerate into
hypocrisy or atheism.
From general principles Mr. Hooker proceeds
to vindicate the particular rites and ceremonies
of the Church, and to clear them from the ex
ceptions of the Puritans ; which may easily be
done when he has proved that the Church has
a discretionary power to appoint what cere
monies and establish what order she thinks fit ;,
he may then vindicate not only the ceremonies
of the Church of England, but all those of
Rome, for no doubt that church alleges all
their ceremonies conducive to her well-being,
and not inconsistent with the laws of Christ,*
This year died Dr. John Aylmer, bishop of
London, whose character has been sufficiently
drawn in this history ; he was born in Norfolk,
educated in Cambridge, and in Queen, Mary's
reign an exUe for religion ; he was such a little
man, that FuUert says, when the searchers were
clearing the ship in which he made his escape,
the merchant put him into a great wine-butt that
had a partition in the middle, so that Mr, Ayl
mer sat enclosed in the hinder pari while the
searchers drank of the wine which they saw
drawn out of the head on the other part ; he
was of an active, busy spirit, quick in his lan
guage, and, after his advancement, of a stout and

* To Mr. Neal's remarks on the principles of the
Ecclesiastical Polity, it may be added, that how just
and conclusive soever those principles are in them
selves, they do not, they cannot apply to thevuidica-
tion of our religious establishment, till it be proved
that its ceremonies and laws were fixed by the
Church, In whatever sense the word church is
used, this is not the fact. Whether you understand
by it " a congregation of faithful men," or " all eccle
siastical persons," or " an order of men who are set
apart by Christianity, and dedicated to this very pur
pose of public instruction," in neither sense were the
fotms and opinions of our established religion settled
by the Church. They originated with royal pleas
ure ; they have changed as the wUl of our princes
hath changed ; they have been settled by acts of
Parliaments, formed illegally, corrupted by pensions,
and overawed by prerogative, and they constitute
part of the statute law of the land. — See my Letters
to the Rev. Dr. Sturges, 1782, p. 15-28.'^Ed.
t Fuller's Worthies, b, ii., p. 548.

208

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

imperious behaviour : in his younger days he
was inclined to Puritanism, but when he was
made a bishop he became a resolute champion
of the hierarchy, and a bitter persecutor of his
former friends. In his latter days he was very
covetous, and a little too lax in his morals ; he
usually played at bowls im Sundays in the after
noons, and used such language at his game as
justly exposed his character to reproach ; but
with all these blemishes, the writer of his life,
Mr. Strype, will have him a learned, pious,
and humble bishop He died at Fulham, June
3, 1594, in the seventy-fourth year of his age,*
Aylmer was succeeded by Dr. Fletcher, bish
op of Worcester, who, in his primary visitation,
gave out twenty-seven articles of inquiry to the
church-wardens concerning their preachers ;
as, whether they prayed for the queen as su
preme head over all persons and causes within
her dominions, ecclesiastical and temporal ;
¦whether they were learned, or frequented con
venticles, or taught innovations, or commended
the new discipline, or spoke in derogation of
any part of the common prayer, or did not ad
minister the sacrament in their own persons at
certain times of the year, &;c. By these, and
such lUce inquiries, the prisons, which had been
lately cleared, were filled again ; for by an ac
count sent to the queen from the ecclesiastical
commissioners towards the close of this year,
it appears that in the Marshalsea, Newgate, the
Gate-house, BrideweU, the Fleet, the Compters,
the White Lion, and the King's Bench, there
were eighty-nine prisoners for religion ; some
of them were popish recusants, and the rest
Protestant Nonconformists, of whom twenty-
four had been committed by the ecclesiastical
commission, and the rest' by the council and
the bishops' courts. But his lordship's pro
ceedings were quickly interrupted by his falhng
under her majesty's displeasure, a few months
after his translation, for marrying a second
wife, which the queen looked upon as indecent
in an elderly clergyman ; for this she banished
him the court, and commanded the archbishop
to suspend him from his bishopric ; but after six
months, her majesty being a Utile pacified, or
dered his euspension to be taken off, though
she would never admit him into her presence,
which had such an influence upon his great
* This prelate had been preceptor to Lady Jane
Grey. During his residence in Switzerland he as
sisted John Fox m translating his Martyrology into
Latin. It was usual with him, when he observed
his audience to be inattentive, to take a Hebrew Bi
ble out of his pocket and read them a few verses,
and then resume his discourse. It is related, as an
instance of his courage, that he had a tooth drawn
to encourage the queen to submit to the like opera
tion. But it is more to the honour of his judgment
and patriotism that, notwithstanding his rigour and
cruelty in ecclesiastical matters, he had and avowed
just sentiments concerning the constitution of the
EngUsh government and the power of ParUaraents,
of whom he said, that " if they used their privilegss,
the kmg can do nothing without them ; if he do, it is
his fault in usurping it, and theh folly m permitting
it. Wherefore, in my judgment, those that in King
Henry's days would not grant him that proclamation
should have the force of a statute, were good fathers
of the country, and worthy of commendation in de
fending their liberty." — Strype, as quoted in British
Biography, vol. ui., p. 240, 241, and Granger's Biogr.
History, vol. i, p. 208, 209.

spirit as was thought to hasten his death, which
happened the next year, as he was sitting in his
chair smoking a pipe of tobacco. The year fol
lowing he was succeeded by Dr. Bancroft, the
great adversary of the Puritans.
These violent proceedings ofthe bishops drove
great numbers of the Brownists into Holland,
where their leaders, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Smith,
Mr. Ainsworth, Mr. Robinson, Mr. Jacob, and
others, were gone beforehand, and, with the
leave of the States, were erecting churches after
their own model at Amsterdam, Arnheim, Mid
dleburgh, Leyden, and other places. The church
at Amsterdam had like to have been torn in pie
ces at first by intestine divisions, but it after
ward flourished under a succession of pastors
for above a hundred years. Mr. Robinson, pas
tor of the church at Leyden, first struck out the
Congregational or Independent form of church
government, and at length part of this church,
transplanting themselves into America, laid the
foundation ofthe noble colony of New-England,
as will be seen hereafter.
Hitherto the controversy between the Church
and Puritans had been chiefly about habits, and
ceremonies, and church discipline, but now it
began to open upon points of doctrine ; for this
year Dr. Bound published his treatise of the
Sabbath, wherein he maintains the morality of
a seventh part of time for the worship of God;
that Christians are bound to rest on the Lord's
Day as much as the Jews on the Mosaical Sab
bath, the commandment of rest being moral and
perpetual ; that, therefore, it was not lawful to
follow our studies or worldly business on that
day, nor to use such recreations and pleasures
as were lawful on other days, as shooting, fen
cing, bowling, &c. This book had a wonderful
spread among the people, and wrought a mighty
reformation, so that the Lord's Day, which used
to be profaned by interludes. May-games, mor-
rice-dances, and other sports and recreations,
began to be kept more precisely, especially in
corporations. All the Puritans fell in with this
doctrine, and distinguished themselves by spend
ing that part of sacred time in public, family,
and private acts of devotion.* But the govern
ing clergy exclaimed against it as a restraint of
Christian liberty, as putting an unequal lustre
on the Sunday, and tending to ecUpse the au
thority of the Church in appointing other festi
vals. Mr. Rogers, author of a commentary on
the Thirty-nine Articles, writes in his preface
" that it was the comfort of his soul, and would
be to his dying day, that he had been the man
and the means that the Sabbatarian errors were
brought to the light and knowledge of the state."
But I should have thought this clergyman might
have had as much comfort upon a dying bed if
he had spent his zeal in recommending the reli
gious observation of that sacred day. Dr. Bound
might carry his doctrine too high if he advan
ced it to a level with the Jewish rigours ; but
it was certainly unworthy the character of di
vines to encourage men in shooting, fencing,
and other diversions on the Lord's Day, which
they are forward enough to give way to wUh-
out the countenance and example of their spir
itual guides. Archbishop Whitgift called in all
the copies of Dr. Bound's book by his letters
and officers at synods and visitations, and for-
* Fuller, b. ix., p. 227.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

209

bade it to be reprinted ; and the Lord-chief-jus
tice Popham did the same, both of them decla
ring that the Sabbath doctrine agreed neither
with the doctrine of our Church nor with the
laws and orders of this kingdom ;* that it dis
turbed the peace of the commonwealth and
Church, and tended to schism in the one and
sedition in the other ; but, notwithstanding all
this caution, the book was read privately more
than ever. " The mote liberty people were of
fered," says Mr. Fuller, " the less they used ;
refusing to take the freedom authority tendered
them, as being jealous of a design to blow up
their civU liberties." The archbishop's head
was no sooner laid but Dr. Bound prepared his
book for the. press a second time, and published
it, with large additions, in 1606 ; and such was
its reputation, that scarce any comment or cate
chism was published by the stricter divines for
many years in which the morality of the Sab
bath was not strongly recommended and urged ;
but this controversy wiU return again in the
next reign.
AU the Protestant divines in the Church,
whether Puritans or others, seemed of one mind
hitherto about the doctrines of faith ; but now
there arose a party, which were first ibr soften
ing, and then for overthrowing, the received opin
ions about predestination, perseverance, free-
¦will, effectual grace, and the extent of our Sa
viour's redemption. The articles of the Church
of England were thought by all men hitherto to
favour the explication of Calvin ; but these di
vines would make them stand neuter, and leave
a latitude for the subscriber to take either side
of the question. All the Puritans, to a man,
maintained the articles of the Church to be Cal-
vinistical, and inconsistent with any other in
terpretation, and so did far the greatest number
of the conforming clergy ; but as the new expli
cations of Arminius grew into repute, the Cal-
vinists were reckoned oldfashioned divines,t
and at length branded with the character of
Doctrinal Puritans. '
The debate began in the University of Cam
bridge, where one Mr. Barret, fellow of Gon-
viUe and Cains College, in his sermon ad clerum,
declared himself against Calvin's doctrine about
predestination and falling from grace, reflecting
with some sharpness upon that great divine,
and advising his hearers not to read him. For
this he was summoned before the vice-chancel
lor and heads of colleges, and obUged to retract
in St. Mary's Church, according to a form pre
scribed by his superiors, which he read after a
manner that showed he did it only to save his
place in the University. This was so offensive
to the scholars, that forty or flfty graduates of
the several coUeges signed a petition, dated May
36, 1595, desiring some farther course might be
taken with him, that the great names which he
had reproached, as P. Martyr, Calvin, Beza,
Zanchius, &c., might receive some reparation. t
Both parties appealed to the arehbishop, who
blamed the University for their too-hasty pro
ceedings, and seemed to take part with Barret ;
but the heads of colleges, in a second letter, vin
dicated their proceedings, desiring his grace not

* LifeofWhitgift, p. 531.
t While they, in return, looked on the others as
httle better than novelists.— 'Womer. — Ed.
X LifeofWhitgift, p. 437.
Vol. I.— D d

to encourage such ahold, corrupt, and unlearned
young fellow, and insisted on the rights and
prerogatives of the University. At length Mr.
Barret was sent for to Lambeth, and having
been examined before the archbishop and some
other divines, they agreed that he had main
tained some errors, and enjoined him in an
humble manner to confess his ignorance and
mistake, and not to teach the like doctrines for
the future ; but he chose rather to quit the Uni
versity.* This Barret was a conceited youth,
who did not treat his superiors with decency :
in one of his letters he caUs the grave and learn
ed Mr, Perkins, homuncio quidam, a little con
temptible fellow : but at last he turned papist.
The fire was no sooner kindled than it was ob
served that Barret and his friends were coun
tenanced by the high Conformists and Roman
Catholics, and that his adversaries took part
with the Puritans, which was like to produce a
new division in the Church.t
To put an end to these disputes, the heads of
the University sent Dr. Whitaker and Dr. Tyn
dal to Lambeth, to consult with the archbishop,
and some other learned divines, upon these
points ; who at length, November 20, concluded
upon the following nine propositions, commonly
called the Lambeth Articles, which the scholars
in the University were strictly enjoined to con
form their judgments unto, and not to vary from.
The articles were as follows :
" That God from eternity has predestinated
some persons to life and reprobated others to
death : the moving or efficient cause of predes
tination to life is not foreseen faith, or good
works, or any other commendable quality in the
persons predestinated, but the good-will and
pleasure of God : the number of the predestinate
is fixed, and cannot be lessened or increased :
they who are not predestinated to salvation
shall be necessarUy condemned for their sins :
a true, lively, and justifying faith, and the sanc
tifying influence of the Spirit, is not extinguish
ed, nor does it faU, or go off either finaUy or
totally : a justified person has a full assurance
and certainty of the remission of his sins, and
his everlasting salvation by Christ : saving grace
is not communicated to aU men ; neither have
all men such a measure of Divine assistance,
that they may be saved if they wiU : no person
can come to Christ unless it be given him, and
unless the Father draw him ; and all men are
not drawn by the Father that they may come
to Christ : it is not in every one's will and power
to be saved."
These high propositions were drawn up and
consented to by Archbishop Whitgift, Dr. Fletch
er, bishop of London, Dr. Vaughan, elect of Ban
gor, and some others ; they were sent to Dr.
Hutton, archbishop of York, and Dr. Young, of
Roohester, who subscribed them, only wishing
that the word necessarily, in the fourth article,
and those 'vvords in the seventh article, if they
will, might be omitted. The archbishop, in his
letter which he sent to the University with the
articles, says they are to look upon them not as
new laws and decrees, but only as an explica
tion of certain points which they apprehend to
be true, and corresponding to the doctrine pro
fessed in the Church of England, and already

* Heyl., Hist. Pres., p. 343.
t Hickman's Quinq. Hist, against Heylin, p. 210.

210

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

estabhshed by the laws of the land. But, foras- 1
much as they had not the queen's sanction, he
desires they may not become a public act, but
used privately and with discretion.* He adds,
that her majesty was fuUy persuaded of the truth
of them ; which is strange, when she commanded
Sir Robert Cecil to signify to the archbishop
by letter " that she misliked much that any al
lowance had been given by his grace and his
brethren for any such points to be disputed, be
ing a matter tender and dangerous to weak, ig
norant minds ; and thereupon commanded him
to suspend the urging them publicly, or suffer
ing them to be debated in the pulpit."
The queen's design was to stifle the contro
versy in its birth ; for if she was dissatisfied
-with the archbishop's private determinations, she
¦was downright angry with Dr. Bare, a French
man, and one ofthe divinity professors at Cam
bridge, for continuing the debate. She said
that, being an alien, and humanely harboured
and enfranchised, both himself and family, he
ought to have carried himself more quietly and
peaceably. His case was this : in his sermon
before the University, preached January 12, he
asserted "that God created all men according
to his own likeness in Adam, and consequently
to eternal life, from which he rejects no man
but on the account of his sins : that Christ died
for all mankind, and was a propitiation for the
sins of the whole world, original and actual ;
the remedy provided by him being as extensive
as the ruins of the fall : that the promises of
eternal life made to us in Christ are to be gen
erally and universally taken and understood, be
ing made as much to Judas as to Peter." For
these propositions he was summoned before the
vice-chancellor and heads of colleges, who ex
amined him by several interrogatories, and com
manded him peremptorily to abstain from those
controversies in his lectures and sermons for
the future.
They acquainted Secretary Cecil by letter with
their proceedings, in which they call aU doc
trines popish, and say that for fourteen or fif
teen years he has taught in his lectures, and
preached in his sermons, divers pojnts of doc
trine contrary to those which have been taught
and read over since her majesty's reign, and
agreeable to the errors of popery, by which
means they fear the whole body of that religion
wUl break in upon them ; they therefore pray
his lordship's assistance for the suppressing
them. Cambridge, March 8th, 1595, t
On the other hand, Baro wrote to the archbish
op to keep him in his place, promising obedience
to his grace's commands, and to keep the peace
of the University by dropping the controversy in
silence.J He also wrote to Secretary Cecil to
put a stop to the proceedings of the vice-chan-
ceUor, which he, together with the archbishop,
accomplished ; but the University not being sat
isfied with him, he was obliged next year to
quit his professorship and retire to London,
where he died two or three years after, having
been Lady Margaret's professor at Cambridge

about twenty-five years.* He left a large fam
Uy behind him, and was buried in St. Olave's,
Hart-street, his pall being supported by six doc
tors of divinity, by order from the Bishop of
London. The chancellor, in his letter to the
University, was very angry because they sifted
Baro with interrogatories, "as if," says he, "he
was a thief; this seems done of stomach among
you."t How sad, then, was the case of the
Puritans !
The divines of Oxfprd, and, indeed, aU the first
Reformers, were in the same sentiments with
those of Cambridge about the disputed points -
Calvin's Institutions being read publicly in the
schools by appointment of the convocation,
though perhaps they might not go the full length
of the Lambeth Articles, nor express themselves
with the exactness of those who lived afterward
when those doctrines were publicly opposed by
Arminius and his followers.
The article of our Saviour's local descent into
hell began to be questioned at this time. It had
been the received doctrine of the Church of
England, that the soul of Christ, being separa
ted from his body, descended locally into hell,
that he might there triumph over Satan, as be
fore he had over death and sin.}: But the learn
ed Mr. Hugh Broughton, the rabbi of his age,
whom King James would have courted into
Scotland, convinced the world that the word
hades, used by the Greek fathers for the place
into which Christ went after his crucifixion, did
not mean hell, or the place of the damned, but
only the state of the dead, or the invisible world.
It was farther debated whether Christ under
went in his soul the wrath of God and the pains
of heU, and finished all his sufferings upon the
cross before he died.^ This was Calvin's sen
timent, and with him agreed all the Puritan di
vines, who preached it in their sermons, and in
serted it in their catechisms. On the other
hand. Bishop BUson, in his sermons at Paul's
Cross, maintained that no text of Scripture as
serted the death of Christ's soul, or the pains
of the damned, to be requisite in the person of
Christ before he could be our ransomer, and the
Saviour of the world. || But stiU he maintained
the local descent of fjhrist into hell, or the ter
ritory of the damned ; and that, by the course
of the creed, the article must refer, not to Christ
living upon the cross, but to Christ dead ; and
that he went thither, not to suffer, but to wrest
the keys of hell and death out of the hands of
the devU.IT "When these sermons were printed.

* Life of Whitgift, p. 462, 463.
+ Signed by Roger Goad, pro can., R. Some, Tho.
Legge, John Jegon, Tho. Nevyle, Tho. Preston,
Hump Tyndal, James Montague, Edm. Barrel, Lawr.
Chadderton. X Strype's Annals, vol. ult., p. 230.

* " Hence," remarks an able writer, " it appears
what little latitude was then allowed to the freedom
of thinking and debate, on subjects the most innocent,
and with regard to doctrines, the truth of which is
now generally maintained by the clergy, and especi
ally by those of them who stand the highest in dig
nity, reputation, and learning. We must be sensible,
how narrow was the spirit, and how confined the
true theological knowledge of the times, when the
dogmas of Calvinism were maintained with such per
tinacity by the governors of the Church, and to call
them in question was looked upon as a crime,"—
History of Knowledge in the New Annual Register for
1789, p, 9, f, LUe of Whitgift, p. 473.
X Heyl, Hist. Presb., p. 349.
(j Life of Whitgift, p. 482.
II Heyl., Hist. Presb., p. 350.
IT This controversy gave a celebrity, beyond hia
own time, to the name of Bishop BUson : he was an
emment divine, and the author of some doctrhial and

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

211

they were presently answered by Mr. Henry Ja
cob, a learned Brownist. Bilson, by the queen's-
command, defended his sermons in a treatise
entitled " A Survey of Christ's Sufferings,"
-which did not appear in the world till 1604. The
controversy was warmly debated in both uni
versities ; but when the learned combatants had
spent their artUlery, it dropped in silence, with
out any determination from authority, though it
was one of the articles usually objected to the
Puritans, for which they were suspended their
ministry. [And the rational sentiment, that the
word hades signifies only the state of the dead,
or the invisible world, sUently and universaUy
took place.]
Among other reproaches cast upon their cler
gy, was one, that they deluded the people by
claiming a power to exorcise the devil. " Some
of their ministers," says Mr. Strype, "pretend
ed to cast out devils, that so the amazed multi
tude, having a great veneration for these exer
cisers of devUs, by the power of their prayers
and fastings, might the more readily and awful
ly submit to their opinions and ways ; a prac
tice borrowed from the then papists to make
their priests revered, and to confirm the laity in
their superstitions." One would think here was
a plot of some cunning, designing men, to con
jure the people into the belief of discipline ; but
all vanishes in the peculiar principles of a weak
and (as Mr. Strype confesses) honest man, whose
name was Barrel, a bachelor of arts and minis
ter of Nottingham. This divine was of opinion,
that by the power of prayer the devil might be
cast out of persons possessed ;* and having tried
the experiment upon one Darling of Burton, a
boy of about fourteen years old, with supposed
success, and upon some others, he was impor
tuned by one of the ministers, and several in
habitants of the town of Nottingham, to visit
one WUIiam Somers, a boy that had such con
clusive agonies as were thought to be preter
natural, inasmuch that when Mr. Barrel had
seen them, he concluded, with the rest of the
spectators, that he was possessed, and advised
his friends to desire the help of godly and learn
ed ministers to endeavour his recovery, but ex
cused himself from being concerned, lest, if the
devil should be dispossessed, the common peo
ple should attribute to him some special gift of
casting out devils ; but upon a second request
from the mayor of Nottingham, he agreed with
Mr. Aldridge and two other ministers, with about
one hundred and fifty neighbouring Christians,
to set apart a day for fasting and prayer, to en
treat the Lord to cast out Satan, and deliver the
young man from his torments ; and after some
time, the Lord, they say, was entreated, and they
blessed God for the same : this was November,
1597. A few days after, the mayor and some
of the aldermen began to suspect that Somers
was a cheat ; and to make him confess, they
took him from his parents, and committed him
to the custody of two men, who with threaten
ings prevailed with him to acknowledge that he

practical works, as well as some Latin poems and
orations never published. In the reign of James I.
he was one of the two final correctors of the English
translation of the Bible, for which office his easy ajjd
harmonious style particularly quaUfied him. — History
of Knowledge in the New Annual Register for 1789, p.
17.— Ed, * Life of Whitgift, p. 492, 494, 495.

had dissembled and counterfeited all he did.
Upon this he was carried before the commis
sion, where at first he owned himself a counter
feit, and then presently denied it again ; but
being thoroughly frightened, he fell into fits be
fore the commissioners, which put an end to
his examination for the present. After some
time, being stiU in custody, he returned to his
confessing, and charged Mr. Darrel with train
ing him up in the art for four years. Upon this,
Mr. Darrel was summoned before the commis
sioners, and brought witnesses with him to prove
that Somers had declared, in a very solemn
manner, that he had not dissembled ; upon which
he was dismissed, and the commission dissolv
ed ; but, the affair making a great noise in the
country, Mr. Darrel was sent for to Lambeth,,
and after a long hearing before the archbishop,
and others ofthe High Commission, he was depo
sed from his ministry, and committed close pris
oner to the Gate-house, for being accessory to a
vUe imposture, where he continued many years.
While Mr. Darrel was in the prison, he wrote
an apology to show that people in these latter
days may be possessed with devils, and that
by prayer and fasting the unclean spirit may be
cast out. In the end of which he makes thia
protestation : " If -what I am accused of be true
(viz., that I have been accessory to a vile im
posture, with a design to impose on mankind),
let me be registered to my perpetual infamy,.
not only for a notorious deceiver, but such a
hypocrite as never trod on the earth before ;
yea, Lord ! for to thee I convert my speech, who
knowest all things, if I have confederated more
or less with Somers, Darling, or any of the rest ;
if ever I set eye on them before they were pos
sessed, then let me not only be made a laugh
ing-stock and a by-word to all men, but rase my
name also out of the Book of Life, and let me
have my portion with hypocrites."
It has been observed that the bishops had
now wisely transferred the prosecution of the
Puritans from themselves to the temporal courts,,
so that, instead of being summoned before the
High Commission, they were indicted at the as^
sizes, and tried at common law ; this being
thought more advisable, to take off the odium
from the Church. Judge Anderson discovered
his zeal against them this summer in an extra
ordinary manner, for in his charge to the jury
at Lincoln, he told them that the country was;
infested with Brownists, withdiscipUnarians and
erectors of presbyteries, which he spoke with so
much wrath, with so many oathS, and such re
viling language, as offended the gentlemen upon
the bench. He called the preachers knaves,
saying that they would start up into the pulpit
and speak against everybody.* He was for
extending the statute of recusancy to such who
went at any time to hear sermons from their
own parish churches, though they usually at
tended in their places, and heard divine serviee
dutifully. When Lord Clinton, and the deputy
lieutenants and justices of those parts, obtain-
ed the bishop's allowance for a day of fasting
and prayer at Lowth, upon an extraordinary oc
casion, his lordship urged the jury to find a bUl
against them, upon the statute of conventicles
Mr. AUen, minister of that parish, being in-
dicted by means of a revengeful justice of peace
* Strype's Ann., vol, ult., p. 264.

212

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

for not reading aU the prayers at once (he using
sometimes to omit part of them for the sermon),
was obliged to hold up his hand at the bar, when
Judge Anderson standing up, spoke to him with
a fierce countenance, and having insinuated
some grievous faults against the man (though
he named none), called him oftentimes knave,
rebeUious knave, with more such opprobrious
language, though it was known all over the
country that Mr. AUen was a good preacher ;
that he had subscribed ; was esteemed by the
bishop ; was conformable in his affections ; and
behaved upon this occasion with aU humility
and submission. But his lordship had said in
his charge that he would hunt aU the Puritans
out of his circuit. One thing was remarkable
in Mr. AUen's arraignment, that when, upon
some point wherein judgment in divinity was
required, Mr. Allen referred himself to the bish
op (his ordinary then sitting upon the bench),
the judge took him up with marvellous indigna
tion, and said he was both his ordinary and
bishop in that place.*
Thus the Puritan clergy were put upon a lev
el with rogues and felons, and made to hold up
their hands al the bar among the vilest crimi
nals ; there was hardly an assize in any county
in England, but one or more ministers, through
the resentments of some of their parishioners,
appeared in this condition, to the disgrace of
their order, and the loss of their reputation and
usefulness, besides being exposed to the insults
of the rude multitude. " But I would, to God,"
says my author, " that they which judge in re
ligious causes, though in the name of civU af
fairs, would either get some more knowledge in
religion and God's Word than my Lord Ander
son hath, or call in the assistance of those that
have."t Archbishop Whitgift was busy this summer
about elections for the ensuing Parliament,
which was to meet Oct. 24, 1597. Mr. Strype
says, his grace took what care he could to pre
vent such as were disaffected to the constitution
of the Church, that is, all Puritans, from com
ing into the House ; but some thought it a little
out of character for an archbishop to appear so
pubUcly in the choice of the people's represent
atives, t The Rouse being thus modelled, did
not meddle with the foundations of discipline,
or form of public worship ; but several bUls were
brought in to regulate abuses in spiritual courts,
as against licenses to marry without bans,
against excessive fees, frivolous citations ex offi
cio, and excommunications for little matters, as
twopence or threepence. These and aU ot^er
bUls of this nature were, according to custaai,
quashed by a message from the queen, forbid
ding them to touch her prerogative, and assu
ring them that she would take the aforesaid
grievances into her princely consideration. Ac
cordingly, her majesty referred these matters to
the convocation ; it being her steady maxim,
not to proceed in matters of the Church by stat
utes, which the Parliament alone could repeal,
but rather by canons, which she could confirm

* Strype's Ann,, vol. ult., p. 267.
t These are not the words of Mr. Strype himself,
as they may appear by the manner of quotation, but
are part of a letter " from a person unknown of the
clergy to a person of quaUty" on Judg'^ .Anderson's
proceedings.— Ed. X Life of Whiii^ift, p. 508.

or dispense with at pleasure. The convocation
drew up some regulations upon these and other
heads, relating to ecclesiastical courts, which
the queen confirmed by her letters patent, Jan
uary 18, in the fortieth year of her reign. They
were printed the same year by her authority,
and may be seen in Bishop Sparrow's coUection
of articles, injunctions, &c.
But still the ecclesiastical courts were an in
sufferable grievance : the oppressions which
people underwent from the bottomless deep of
the canon law put them upon removing their
causes into Westminster Rail, by getting prohi
bitions to stay proceedings in the bishops' courts,
or in the High Commission. This awakened the
archbishop, who, in order to support the civil
ians, drew up certain queries to be considered
by the lords and judges of the land touching
prohibitions ; of which this was the principal,
" that, seeing ecclesiastical authority is as truly
vested in the crown as temporal, whether the
queen's temporal authority should any more re
strain her ecclesiastical, than her ecclesiastical
should her temporal ! And seeing so many and
so great personages, with some others, are trust
ed to do her majesty service in her ecclesiasti
cal commission, whether it be convenient that
an offender, ready to be censured, should obtain,
and publicly throw into court, a prohibition, to
the delay of justice, and to the disgrace and dis
paragement of those who serve freely, without
all fee therein." The archbishop caused a hst
to be made of divers cases, wherein the Chris
tian court, as he called it, had been interrupted
by the temporal jurisdiction ; and of many causes
that had been taken out of the hands of the bish
ops' courts, the High Commission, and the court
of delegates ; the former authorized by immedi
ate commission from the queen, and the latter
by a special commission upon an appeal to her
court of chancery.* But, notwithstanding all
these efforts of 'Whitgift and his successor Ban
croft, the number of prohibitions increased every
year ; the nobility, gentry, and judges being too
wise to subject their estates and liberties to a.
number of artful civUians, versed in a codex or
body of laws of most uncertain authority, and
strangers to the common and statute law, with
out the check of a prohibition, when it was no
torious that the canon law had been always,
since the Reformation, controlled by the laws
and statutes of the realm. Thus the civUians
sunk in their business under the two next arch
bishops, tiU Laud governed the Church, who, ter
rifying the judges from granting prohibitions,
the spiritual courts, Star Chamber, council-ta
ble, and high commissioners rode triumphant,
fining, imprisoning, and banishing men at their
pleasure, tUl they became as terrible as the Span
ish Inquisition, and brought upon the nation aU
the confusions and desolations of a civU war.
From this time to the queen's death there
was a kind of cessation of arms between the
Church and Puritans ; the combatants were out
of breath, or wUling to wait for better times.
Some apprehended that the Puritans were van
quished, and their numbers lessened by the se
vere execution of the penal laws ; whereas it
wiU appear, by a survey in the beginning of the
next reign, that the nonconforming clergy were
about fifteen hundred. But the true reason was
* Lffe of Whitgift, p. 537.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

213

this : the queen ¦was advanced in years, and
could not live long in a course of nature, and
the next heir to the crown being a jPreshyterian,
the bishops were' cautious of acting against a
party for whom his majesty had declared, not
knowing what revenge he might take when he
¦was fixed on the throne ; and the Puritans were
quiet, in hopes of great matters to be done for
them upon the expected change.
Notwithstanding all former repulses from
court, the queen's last Parliament, which sat in
the year 1 601, renewed their attacks upon the ec
clesiastical courts, a bUl being brought in to ex
amine into bishops' leases, and to disable them
from taking fines, another against pluralities
and nonresidents, and another against com
missaries and archdeacons' courts. Multitudes
of complaints came to the House against the
proceedings ofthe ordinaries ex mero o^cto, with
out due presentments preceding, and against
the frequent keeping their courts, so that the
church-wardens were sometimes cited to two
or three spiritual courts at once ;* complaint
was made of their charging the country with
quarterly biUs ; of the great number of appari
tors and petty summoners, who seized upon
people for trifling offences ; of the admission of
curates by officials and commissaries, without
the bishop's knowledge, and without testimo
nials of their conversation ; of scandalous com
mutations of penance, and divers abuses of the
like kind ; but the queen would not suffer the
House to debate them, referring them to the
archbishop, who wrote to his brethren the bish
ops to endeavour, as much as possible, to reform
the above-mentioned grievances, which, says
he,t have produced multitudes of complaints in
Parliament ; and had they not been prevented
by great circumspection, and promise of care
ful reformation, there might perhaps have ensu
ed the taking away of the whole, or most of
those courts. " So prudently diligent was the
archbishop," says Mr: Strype, " to keep up the ju
risdiction ofthe bishops' courts, and the wealthy
estate ofthe clergy, by preserving nonresidences
to them."
There was another bill brought into the House
to punish voluntary absence from church ; the
forfeiture was to be twelvepence each Sunday,
to be levied by distress, by a warrant from a
justice of peace ; but the biU was opposed be
cause there was a severe law already against
recusants of £20 per month, and because, if
this bill should pass, a justice of peace's house
-would, like a quarter sessions, be crowded with
a multitude of informers ; it was likewise
against Magna Charta, which entitles every
man to be tried by his peers, whereas by this
act two witnesses before a justice of peace
-were sufficient.t The biU, however, was en
grossed, and being put to the question, the noes
carried it by a single voice, upon which the
yeas said the speaker was with them, which
made the number even. The question was then
put whether the speaker had a voice, which be
ing carried in the negative, the bUl miscar
ried. The convocation did nothing but give the
queen four subsidies, to be collected in four

years, and receive an exhortation from the arch
bishop to observe the canons passed in the last
convocation. They met October the 18th, and
were dissolved, with the Parliament, December
the 19th following.
This year [1602] died the reverend and learn
ed Mr. WiUiam Perkins, born at Marston, in
Warwickshire, in the first year Of Queen Eliza
beth, and educated in Christ's CoUege, Cam
bridge, of which he was fellow : he was one of
the most famous practical writers and preach
ers of his age ; and being a strict Calvinist, he
published several treatises in favour of those
doctrines, which involved him in a controversy
with Arminius, then professor of divinity at
Leyden, that continued to his death. He was
a Puritan Nonconformist, and a favourer of the
discipline, for which he was once or twice
brought before the High Commission, but his-
peaceable behaviour, and great fame in the
learned world, procured him a dispensation from
the persecutions of his brethren. Mr. Perkins
was a little man, and wrote with his left hand,
being lame of his right. His works, which
were printed in three volumes folio, show him
to have been a most pious, holy, and industri
ous divine, considering he lived only forty-four
years.* To sum up the state of reUgion throughout
this long reign. It is evident that the Parlia
ment, the people, and great numbers of the in
ferior clergy were for carrying the Reforma
tion farther than the present establishment.
The first bishops came into it with this view;
they declared against the Popish habits and
ceremonies, and promised to use aU their in
terest with the queen for their removal ; but
how soon they forgot themselves, when they
were warm in their chairs, the foregoing histo
ry has discovered, t Most of the first Reform
ers were of Erastian principles, looking upon
the Church as a mere creature of the state ;
they gave up everything to the crown, and
yielded to the supreme magistrate the absolute
direction of the consciences, or, at least, the re
ligious profession, of all his subjects. They ac
knowledged only two orders of Divine institu
tion, viz., bishops or priests, and deacons. They
admitted the ordination of foreign churches by
mere presbyters till towards the middle of this-
reign, when their validity began to be disputed
and denied. Whitgift was the first who de
fended the hierarchy from the practice of the
third, fourth, and fifth centuries, when the Ro
man Empire became Christian ; but Bancroft
divided off the bishops from the priesthood, and
advanced them into a superior order by Divine

* Life of Whitgift, p. 546, 547.
t Ibid., p. 547, 549.
X CoUyer's Eccles. Hist, p. 667.

* Many of his works were translated into Dutch,
Spanish, French, and Italian, and are still in esti
mation in Germany. Mr. Orton, who by his mother's
side descended in a direct fine froni Mr. Perkins's
elder brother, speaks of him as an excellent writer,
clear and judicious, and recommends his works to
aU ministers, especially young ones, as affording large
materials for composition. — Orion's Letters to a Young
Clergyman, p. 39, 40. — Ed.
t Bishop Warburton informs us, from Selden, de
Synedrus, that Erastus's famous book, De Excom-
municatione, was purchased by Whitgift of Erastus's
widow, in Germany, and put by him to the press in
London, under fictitious names of the place and
printer. — Supplemental Volume to Warburton's Works^
p. 473— Ed.

314

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

right, with the sole power of ordination and the
keys of discipline ; so that from this time there
were reckoned three orders of clergy in the
English hierarchy, viz., bishops, priests, and
deacons. Thus the Church advanced in her
claims, and removed by degrees to a greater
distance from the foreign Protestants.
The controversy with the Puritans had only
a small beginning, viz., the imposing of the po
pish habits and a few indifferent ceremonies ;
but it opened by degrees into a reformation of
discipline, which aU confessed was wanting ;
and at last the doctrinal articles were debated.
The queen and the later bishops would not part
-with a pin out of the hierarchy, nor leave a lat
itude in the most trifling ceremonies, but insist
ed upon an exact uniformity both in doctrine
and ceremonies, that aU might unite in the pub
lic standard. The Puritans, in their writings
and conferences, attempted to show the defects
of the establishment from Scripture, and fi-om
the earliest ages of the Church ; and what they
suffered for it has been in part related, the sus
pensions and deprivations of this long reign
amounting to several thousands ; but when it
appeared that nothing would be abated, and that
penal laws were taultiplied and rigorously exe
cuted, they endeavoured to erect a sort of vol
untary discipline within the Church, for the ease
and satisfaction of their own consciences, being
unwUling to separate ; till at length the violence
of persecution drove some of them into the ex
tremes of Brownism, which divided the Puri
tans, and gave rise to a new controversy con
cerning the necessity of a separation from the
Established Church, of which we shall hear mpre
hereafter ; but under all their hardships, their
loyalty to the queen was untainted, and their
behaviour peaceable ; they addressed the queen,
and Parliament, and bishops for relief at sundry
times, and remonstrated against the arbitrary
proceedings of the spiritual court, making use
of no other weapons but prayers and tears, at
tended with Scripture and argument.'
The chief principles of the Puritans have
been already related : they were no enemies to
¦the name or function of a bishop, provided he
was no more than npoearijg, or a stated presi
dent of the college of presbyters in his diocess,
and managed the affairs of it with their concur
rence and assistance. They did not object
against prescribed forms of prayer, provided a
latitude was indulged the minister to alter or
vary some expressions, and to make use of a
prayer of his own conception before and after
sermon : nor had they an aversion to any de
cent and distinct habits for the clergy that were
not derived from popery ; but, upon the whole,
they were the most resolute Protestants in the
nation, zealous Calvinists, warm and affection
ate preachers, and determined enemies to po
pery, and to everything that had a tendency to
wards it.
It is not pretended that the Puritans were
¦without their failings ; no, they were men of
hke passions and infirmities with their adversa
ries ; and while they endeavoured to avoid one
extreme, they might fall into another; their
zeal for their platform of discipline would, I fear,
have betrayed them into the imposition of it
upon others, if it had been established by law.
Their notions of the civU and reUgious rights

of mankind were narrow and confused, and de
rived too much from the theocracy ofthe Jews,
which was now at an end. Their behaviour
was severe and rigid, far removed from the
fashionable freedoms and vices of the age : and
possibly they might be too censorious, in not
making those distinctions between youth and
age, grandeur and mere decency, as the nature
and circumstances of things would admit ; but
with aU their faults, they were the most pious
and devout people in the land ; men of prayer,
both in secret and public, as well as in tiieir
families ; their manner of devotion was fervent
and solemn, depending on the assistance of the
Divine Spirit, not only to teach them how to
pray, but what to pray for as they ought. They
had a profound reverence for the holy name of
God, and were great enemies not only to pro
fane swearing, but to " foolish talking and jest
ing, which are not convenient ;" they were
strict observers of the Christian Sabbath or
Lord's Day, spending the whole of it in acts of
public and private devotion and charity. It was
the distinguishing mark of a Puritan in these
times, to see him going to church twice a day
with his Bible under his arm : and whUe others
were at plays and interludes, at revels, or walk
ing in the fields, or at the diversions of bowling,
fencing, &c,, on the evening of the Sabbath,
these, with their families, were employed in
reading the Scriptures, singing psalms, catechi
zing their children, repeating sermons, and pray
er : nor was this only the work of the Lord's
Day, but they had their hours of family devo
tion on the week days, esteeming it their duty
to take care of the souls as weh as the bodies
of their servants. They were circumspect as
to all the excesses of eating, drinking, apparel,
and lawful diversions, being frugal in house
keeping, industrious in their particular callings,
honest and exact in their dealings, and solicit
ous to give to every one his own. These were
the people who were branded with the name
of Precisians, Puritans, Schismatics, enemies
to God and their country, and throughoift the
course of this reign underwent cruel mockings,
bonds, and imprisonment.
Sir Francis Walsingham has given a summa
ry account of the queen's policy towards them,
in a letter to Monsieur Cretoy, which I shall
transcribe in his own words.*
" I find," says Sir Francis, " that the queen's

* Mr. Neal, in his Review, observes that Sir Fran
cis wrote this letter as secretary of state and as the
queen's servant, endeavouring to vindicate her beha
viour towards Nonconformists to a foreign court ; he
must be allowed, therefore, to put the most favoura
ble construction on his royal mistress's conduct, and
acquit her in the best manner he is able. It also de
serves to be remarked, that Sir Francis, dying April,
1590, did not see the severities of the last thirteen
years of Queen Ehzabeth's reign, which were by
much the sharpest and most cruel. — Neal's Review,
4to edition, p. 875.— Ed.
Mr. Hallam says that this letter " is a very able
apology for the queen's government, and if the read
er should detect, as he doubtless may, sophistry in
reasoning and misstatement in fact, he wUI ascribe
both one and the other to the narrow spirit of the
age with respect to civU and religious freedom, or to
the circumstances of the writer — an advocate whose
sovereign was his client!" — Const. Hist., i., 309.
— C.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

215

proceedings, both against papists and Puritans,
are grounded upon these two principles;*
"The one, that consciences are not to be
forced, but to be won, and reduced by force of
truth, with the aid of time and use of aU good
means of instruction and persuasion.
" The other, that causes of conscience, when
they exceed their bounds, and grow to be mat
ter of faction, lose their nature : and that sov
ereign princes ought distinctly to punish their
practices and contempt, though coloured with
the pretence of conscience and religion.
" According to these principles, her majesty
behaved towards the papists with great mild
ness, not liking to make - window into their
hearts, except the abundance of them overflow
ed into overt acts of disobedience, in impugn
ing her supremacy. When the pope excom
municated her, she only defended herself against
his bulls ; but when she was threatened with
an invasion, and the papists were altered from
being papists in conscience to being papists in
faction, she was then obliged to provide severer
laws for the security of her people.
" For the other party, which have beentiffen-
sive to the state, though in another degree,
end which call themselves Reformers, and we
commonly caU Puritans, this hath been by the
proceeding towards them : a great while, when
they inveighed against such abuses in the
Church as pluralities, non-residents, and the
like, their zeal was not condemned, only their
violence was sometimes censured. When they
refused the use of some ceremonies and rites
as superstitious, theywere tolerated with much
connivance and gentleness ; yea, when they
called in question the superiority of bishops,
and pretended to a democracy in the Church,
their propositions were considered, and by con
trary writings debated and discussed ; yet all
this while it was perceived that their course
was dangerous and very popular; as because
papistry was odious, therefore it was ever in
their mouths, that they sought to purge the
Church from the relies of papistry, a thing ac
ceptable to the people, who love ever to run
from one extreme to another.
" Because multitudes of rogues and poverty
was an eyesore, and a dislike to every man,
therefore they put into people's heads that, if
discipline were planted, there would be no vag
abonds, no beggars, a thing very plausible ;
and in like manner they promised the people
many of the impossible -wonders of their disci
pline ; besides, they opened to the people a way
to government by their consistories and pres
byteries, a thing though in consequence no less
prejudicial to the liberties of private men than
10 the sovereignty of princes, yet in first show
very popular ; nevertheless, this, except it were
in some few that entered into extreme contempt,
was borne with, because they pretended in du
tiful manner to make propositions, and to leave
it to the providence of God and the authority of
the magistrate.
" But now, of late years, 'when there issued
from them [some] that affirmed the consent of
the magistrate was not to be attended ; when,
under pretence of a confession to avoid slander
•and imputations, they combined themselves by

Burnet's Hist. Ref, vol. iu., p. 419.

classes and subscriptions ; when they descend
ed into that vile and base means of defacing of
the Church by ridiculous pasquils ; when they
began to make many subjects in doubt to take
oaths, which is one ofthe fundamental parts of
justice in this land and in all places ; when
they began both to vaunt of their strength, and
number of their partisans and followers, and to
use comminations, that their cause would pre
vail through uproar and violence, then it ap
peared to be no more zeal, no more conscience,
but mere faction and division ; and, therefore,
though the state were compelled to hold some
what a harder hand to restrain them than be
fore, yet was it with as great moderation as the
peace of the State or Church could permit.
Thus her majesty has always observed the two
rules before mentioned, in dealing tenderly with
consciences, and yet in discovering faction from
conscience, and softness from singularity."
The false colourings of this letter are easily
discerned : it admits that the consciences of
men ought not to be forced but when they grow
into faction ; that is, to an inconsistency with
the peace and safety of the civU government ;
and was there anything like this in the petitions,
addresses, and submissive behaviour of the Pu
ritans ! but they did not attend the consent of
the magistrate. Let the reader judge by the
foregoing history whether they did not attend
and apply for it several years ; and if, after all,
the consent of the magistrate must be waited
for before we follow the dictates of our con
sciences, it is easy to see there would have
been no reformation in the Protestant world.
But the queen's worst maxim was, that while
she protended not to force the consciences of
her subjects, she obliged them, under the se
verest penalties, to come to church, and make
an outward profession of that way of worship
which they inwardly disaUowed. This was to
establish hypocrisy by a law, and to force men
to deal falsely with God and their own con
sciences in matters of the most solemn impor
tance. Practical religion was during all this reign at
a very low ebb, the greatest part of the clergy
being barely capable of reading prayers and a
homily. In the remoter countries and viUages,
the people were either papists, or no better
than heathens. " If any among the clergy or
laity were remarkably pious, strict observers of
the Sabbath, and declared enemies of profane
ness and popery," says Mr. Osburn, " they were
either real Puritans, or branded with that in
vidious name ; and great numbers of the inferi
or clergy and people, in cities and corporations,
were of this number;" the conforming clergy
lost ground ; and the order of bishops, by spend
ing their zeal more about the external forms of
worship than in painful preaching and encour
aging practical religion, grew into contempt ;
popery gained ground in the country by the
dUigence of the missionaries, and the ignorance
and laziness of the established clergy, while
Puritanism prevaUed in cities and corporations :
so that, as Archbishop Parker observed, the
queen was the only friend of the Church, and
supported it by a vigorous execution of the pe
nal laws, and by resolving to admit of no mo
tion for Reformation but what should arise
from herself.

216

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

Thus things continued to the queen's death ;
her majesty -was grown old and infirm, and un
der a visible decay of natural spirits, some say
for the loss of the Earl of Essex, whom she had
lately beheaded, but others, from a just indigna
tion to see herself neglected by those who were
too ready to worship the rising sun. This threw
her into a melancholy state, attended with a
drowsiness and heaviness in all her limbs,
¦which was followed with a loss of appetite, and
all the marks of an approaching dissolution ;
upon this she retired to Richmond ; and having
caused her inauguration ring, which was grown
into the flesh and become painful, to be filed off,
she languished till the 24th of March, and then
died, in the seventieth year of her age, and
forty-fifth of her reign.
Queen Elizabeth was a great and successful
princess at home, and the support of the Prot
estant interest abroad whUe it was in its in
fancy ; for without her assistance neither the
Huguenots in France nor the Dutch Reformers
could have stood their ground ; she assisted
the Protestants of Scotland against their popish
queen, and the princes of Germany against the
emperor, whUe at. the same time she demanded
an absolute submission from her own subjects,
and would not tolerate that religion at home
¦which she countenanced and supported abroad.
As to her own religion, she affected a middle
¦way between popery and Puritanism, though
her majesty was more inclined to the former ;
disliking the secular pretensions of the court of
Rome over foreign states, though she was in
love with the pomp and splendour of their wor
ship ; on the other hand, she approved of the
doctrines of the foreign Reformed churches, but
thought they had stripped religion too much of
its ornaments, and made it look with an un
friendly aspect upon the sovereign power of
princes. She understood not the rights of con
science in matters of religion, and is, therefore,
justly chargeable with persecuting principles.
More sanguinary laws ¦were made in her reign
than in any of her predecessors' ; her hands
were stained with the blood of papists and Pu
ritans ; the former were executed for denying
her supremacy, and the latter for sedition or
nonconformity. Her greatest admirers blame
her for plundering the Church of its revenues,
and for keeping several sees vacant many years
together for the sake of their profits ; as the
bishoprics of Ely, Oxford, and others, which
last was without a bishop for twenty-two years.
The queen was devout at prayers, yet seldom
or never heard sermons except in Lent, and
would often say that two or three preachers in
a county were sufficient. She had high notions
ofthe sovereign authority of princes, and of her
own absolute supremacy in church affairs ; and
being of opinion that methods of severity were
lawful to bring her subjects to an outward uni
formity, she countenanced aU the engines of
persecution, such as spiritual courts. High Com
mission, and Star Chamber, and stretched her
prerogative to support them beyond the laws
and against the sense of the nation.* However,
notwithstanding aU these blemishes. Queen
Elizabeth stands upon record as a wise and
poUtic princess, for deUvering the kingdom from
* FuUer-s Worthies, b. u., p. 213.

the difficulties in which it was involved at her
accession ; for preserving the Protestant Ref
ormation against the potent attempts of the
pope, the emperor, and the King of Spain
abroad, and the Queen of Scots and her popish
subjects at home, and for advancing the re
nown of the English nation beyond any of her
predecessors. Her majesty held the balance of
power in Europe, and was in high esteem with
all foreign princes the greatest part of her reign ;
and though her Protestant subjects were divi
ded about church affairs, tHey all discovered a
high veneration for her royal person and gov
ernment ; on which accounts she was the glory
of the age in which she lived, and wiU be the-
admiration of posterity.
Considering the compjexion of that series of
events through which Mr. Neal's History con
ducts the reader, he must be aUowed to have
drawn the character of Queen Elizabeth with
great fairness and candour. A later ecclesias
tical historian, a learned -writer of our estab
lishment, has described the leading features of
her reign and principles in stronger and bolder
terms of reprobation. With Mr. Neal, he has.
aUowed her the merit of " being a wise and pol
itic princess, for delivering the kingdom from
the difficulties in which it was involved at her
accession, for preserving the Protestant Refor
mation against the potent enemies which at
tempted to destroy it, and for advancing the
renown ofthe English nation beyond any of her
predecessors ;" yet he taxes her with many
flagrant instances of weakness and misrule in
which her ministers had no share, and which
they had neither power nor interest enough to
prevent. Having enumerated these, to them,
he observes, must be added, " the severity with
which she treated her Protestant subjects by
her High Commission Court, against law, against
liberty, and against the rights of human nature.
If these are not," says he, " flagrant instances
of weakness and misrule to which her ministers
never encouraged, but ofttimes dissuaded her
as far as they durst, and which were not owing
to sudden starts of passion, but to her own ty
rannical disposition, then aU arbitrary power
may be defended as just and lawful. 'The pas
sion of Elizabeth was to preserve her crown
and prerogative ; and every measure which she
herself directed, or approved when projected by
her ministers, was subservient to these two
purposes." 'To this account "we are to place
aU the measures which she directed, and she
alone, against the disturbers of tbe uniformity
which was established. To her alone it was
owing at flrst, and not to her bishops, that no
concession or indulgence was granted to tender
consciences. She understood her prerogative,
which was as dear to her as her crown and life ;
but she understood nothing of the rights of con
science in matters of religion, and, like the ab
surd king her father, she would have no opinion
in religion acknowledged, at least, but her own.
She restored the Reformation, it is true, and, I
believe, restored it upon principle ; she was
likewise at the head of the Protestant religion
abroad, in assisting those who professed it in
France and the Netherlands, as well as Scotland,
and it was her interest to do so ; but where her
interest caUed upon her to neglect the Reformed
reUgion, she did it without scruple. She differ-

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

217

ed from her sister in this, that she would not
part with her supremacy upon any terms ; and,
as she had much greater abilities for govern
ing, so she applied herself more to promote
the strength and glory of her dominion than
Mary did; but she had as much of the bigot
and tyrant in her as her sister, though the ob
ject of that bigotry was prerogative, and not
religion."* If facts have any meaning and force, those
which we have now reviewed abundantly con
firm this representation of the spirit and princi
ples of Queen Elizabeth. Yet a celebrated mod
ern writert has resolved her conduct to her Pu
ritan subjects into " her good taste, which gave
her a sense of order and decorum, and her sound
judgment, which taught her to abhor innova
tions." What ! Can the severest acts of op
pression and cruelty, can a series of arbitrary
and unfeeling outrages committed against the
property, Uves, and rights of men, take shelter
under the sanction of good taste and a sound
judgment! "Nature and religion reclaim."
" If," says an accurate and judicious writer, " it
be once laid down as a maxim that a sound
judgment wiU teach a monarch to abhor inno
vations, and if his power be but little subject to
control, one does not know to what lengths it
might proceed, so as to be extended not only in
matters of church government, but likewise, per
haps, against those who would introduce ' en
larged,' or, rather, hbertine ' sentiments,' about
rehgion. Such persons, I doubt, would soon
give up the wisdom and equity of this maxim
concerning innovations, if they were in danger
of having the concluding section of the 35th
of Elizabeth, cap. i., put in execution against
them."t Another writer has thrown the blame of the
separation from the Church of England, and of
the evUs of which it was productive, on the Pu
ritans. " It was more owing to the weakness
and want of judgment in the Puritans, who could
think such things were sinful about which the
Scriptures were wholly silent, and who desired
a great majority to give way to the humour of a
few, than to the superstition and want of tem
per in the queen and the arehbishop, who could
press such indifferent rites with that severity,
before the minds of men had time to be recon
ciled to them."^ To this representation it may
be rephed, Was it anything unreasonable that
the few should desire the majority not to oppress
and bind their consciences in matters about
which, it was allowed, the Scriptures were si
lent, and, of course, where Christ had left them
free! Or could it be deemed weakness and
want of judgment, that they requested only to
be permitted to stand fast in this liberty ! Need
a Protestant divine be reminded that to add to
the rehgion of Christ is sinful ; and to enforce
these additions, and by severe penalties, is to
exercise a forbidden jurisdiction in his Church!
Can it be deemed weakness and want of judg
ment to see this criminaUty, and to resist this
yoke ! But if to scruple the use of the habits
indicated weakness and want of judgment, yet

* Warner's Ecclesiastical History of England,
vol. ii., p. 474, 475. t Mr. Hume.
X Letters on Mr. Hume's History of Great Britain,
printed at Edmburgh, 1756, p. 226.
^ Warner's Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii., p. 431.
Vol. I.— E e

a conscientious adherence to the dictatesof their
own minds, the integrity which would not allow
them to adopt habits or ceremonies that they
thought or suspected to be sinful, should not be
reproached, but applauded. An apostle would
on such an occasion have said, that " Whatev^
er is not of faith is sin ;" and " Happy is he that
condemneth not himself in that thing which he
aUoweth." Why should the rejection, or even
a hesitation about the use of habits, which had
no Divine authority, but a popish original, and
by the mystical signification aflixed to them led
to superstition, be resolved into weakness and
want of judgment ! It argued rather a true
discernment, a just estimate of things, and a
comprehensive view of the tendency and prog
ress of superstition, when once admitted.
The weakness, I should conceive, lay on the
other side, where these things were held in such.
high account, and deemed of such essential im
portance, as to be the ground of the severest
laws to enforce the use of them. The cruelty
of the imposition aside, the very imposition itself
was folly. For a mighty prince, a convocation
of the clergy, a bench of bishops, and the Legis
lature ofthe nation, to give aU their attention to
support the reputation of the wearing of a hood
and a surpUce ; to employ all the earnestness
of their minds, the weight of their character,.
and the dignity of their rank, about such httle
things, this is a ridiculous transaction ; it be
trays the thoughts and passions ofa child. But
when to this impotence of judgment oppression
and tyranny are added, our indignation is raised 1
It is an argument of the rationality and good
sense of the general principles by which the
Puritans professed to be governed, that " these
very principles," as a late writer observes,
" were the same which rightly influenced the
conduct of the Reformers in other instances ;
for example, in their removing the altars out of
the churches and setting up tables in the place
of them.* Namely, that the retaining altars
would serve only to nourish in the people's
minds the superstitious opinion of a propitiatory
mass, and would administer an occasion of of
fence and division." A like argument in rela
tion to the ancient habits was argued by Bishop
Hooper so early as the year 1550 ;t and it was
thought of weight in 1562 by one half of the
House of Convocation.^:
The conduct of the Puritans, it appears from
hence, was wisely adapted to the times in which,
they lived : in which the habits had a tendency
and influence that rendered the contest about
them far from being such a frivolous affair as
many are now disposed to consider it. For
then a mystical signification was affixed to them
by the Church of Rome, and there was a pre
vailing notion of their necessity and efficacy in
the administration of the clergy. It is also ev
ident that they gave the queen and her cour
tiers a handle to establish and exercise a despot
ic power: theywere the instruments by -which
the Court of High Commission endeavoured to
rivet on the people the chains of tyranny. The
opposition of the Puritans, therefore, may be
vindicated on the largest principles. It was a
bold and vigorous stand against arbitrary pow-

* See our author, p. 56, of this volume.
t See the same, p. 103.
X Letters on Mr. Hume's History, p. 212, 213.

218

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

-er, which justly calls for resistance in its first
outset and its most trivial demands, if men
¦would not give it room to place its foot and
erect its banner. It is a pertinent and very sen
sible remark of a great author, " that our ances
tors, the old Puritans, had the same merit in
opposing the imposition of the surplice 'that
¦Hampden had in opposing the levying of ship-
money. In neither case was the thing itself
objected to so much as the authority that en
joined it, and the danger of the precedent. And
it appears to us that the man who is as tena
cious of his religious as he is of his civil liber
ty, wiU oppose them both with equal firmness."*
The reign of Queen Elizabeth affords many
instances of the connexion between civil and
reUgious liberty, and furnishes striking docu
ments of her disposition and endeavours to vio
late both. In this view the behaviour of the
Puritans was eventually attended with the most
important effects. Mr. Hume, who treats their
principles as frivolous and their conduct as ri
diculous, has bestowed on them, at the same
time, the highest eulogium his pen could well
dictate. " So absolute," says he, " was the au
thority of the crown, that the precious spark of
liberty had been kindled, and was preserved, by
the Puritans alone ; and it was to this sect that
the English owe the whole freedom of their Con-
. stitiition."t WhUe it is not asserted that all the Puritans
acted upon such enlarged views of things ; while
it is granted that the " notions" of numbers,
probably of the majority, of them concerning
" the civU and religious rights of mankind, were
dark and confused ;" yet it should be allowed
that some of them, for instance. Fox the mar
tyrologist, acted upon liberal principles ; and all
of them felt the oppression of the day, so as,
by their own experience of its iniquity and evils,
to be instigated to oppose them ; though they
did not apply the principles, which were thus
generated in the mind, to their full extent.
The charge brought against the Puritans for
satirical pamphlets, libels, and abusive language,
was in some instances well founded, but it by
no means, justly, lay against the whole party,
" The moderate Puritans publicly disowned the
libels for which they were accused, yet they
were brought before the Star Chamber. The
determinations of this court were not according
to any statute law of the land, but according to
the queen's will and pleasure ; yet they were
* Dr. Priestley's View of the Principles and Con
duct ofthe Protestant Dissenters, page 66.
t Hume's History of England, vol. v., p. 189, 8vo,
fid. 1763.

as binding upon the subject as an act of Parha
ment, which the whole nation exclaimed against
as a mark ofthe vilest slavery."*
Such oppression, such violent outrages against
the security, the conscience, and the lives of
men, were sufficient to irritate their minds, and
to provoke them to reviling and abusive lan
guage. Much allowance should be made for
men who were galled and inflamed by severe
sufferings. But, independently of this consid
eration, we should judge of the strain and spirit
of their writings, not by the more polite man
ners and liberal spirit of the present age, but by
the times in which they lived ; when, on all
subjects, a coarse and rough, and even abusive
style, was common from authors of learning and
rank. Bishop Aylmer, in a sermon at court,
speaking of the fair sex, said, " Women are of
two sorts : some of them are wiser, better learn
ed, discreeter, and more constant, than a num
ber of men ; but another and a worse sort of
them, and the most part, are fond, foolish, wan
ton flibbergibs, tattlers, triflers, wavering, wit
less, without counsel, feeble, careless, rash,
proud, dainty, nice, talebearers, eavesdroppers,
rumour-raisers, evil-tongued, worse-minded, and
in every wise doltified with the dregs ofthe dev-
U's dunghiU."t If a bishop, when preaching
before the queen, could clothe his sentiment in
such words, on a subject where this age would
study peculiar politeness of style, can we won
der that reviling language should proceed, in the
warmth of controversy, from those who were
suffering under the rod of oppression!
The other side, who had not the same provo
cations, did not come behind the most abusive
of the Puritan writers in this kind of oratory.
In a tract ascribed to Archbishop Parker, the
Nonconformists are described and condemned
as " schismatics, bellie-gods, deceivers, flatter
ers, fools, such as have been unlearnedlie brought
up in profane occupations ; puffed up in arro-
gancie of themselves, chargeable to vanities of
assertions : of whom it is feared that they make
posthaste to be Anabaptists and hbertines, gone
out from us, but belike never of us ; differing
not much from Donatists, shrinking and refusing
ministers of London ; disturbers, factious, wilful
entanglers, and encumberers ofthe consciences
of their herers, girdirs, nippers, scoffers, biters,
snappers at superiors, having the spirit of irony,
like to Audiani, smeUing of Donatistrie, or of
Papistrie, Rogatianes, CircumceUians, and Pe-
lagians."t * Warner's Ecclesiastical History, vol ii., p. 463.
-f British Biography, vol. iii, p. 239.
X Pierce's Vindication ofthe Dissenters, p. 62.

PRE FAC E
TO VOL. II. OF THE OKIGINAL EDITION,

The favourable acceptance of the first volume of this work has encouraged
me to publish a second, which carries the history forward to the beginning of
the civil war, when the two Houses of Parliament wrested the spiritual sword
out of the hands of the king and bishops, and assumed the supremacy to them
selves. There had been a cessation of controversy for some time before the death
of Queen Elizabeth, the Puritans being in hopes, upon the accession of a king
that had been educated in their own principles, to obtain an easy redress of
their grievances ; and certainly no prince ever had so much in his power to
compromise the differences of the Church as King James I. at the conference
of Hampton Court ; but, being an indolent and vainglorious monarch, he be
came a willing captive to the bishops, who flattered his vanity, and put that
maxim into his head, " No bishop, no king." The creatures of the court, in
lieu of the vast sums of money they received out of the exchequer, gave him
the flattering title of an absolute sovereign, and, to supply his extravagances,
broke through the Constitution, and laid the foundation of all the calamities of
his son's reign ; while himself, sunk into luxury and ease, became the contempt
of all the powers of Europe. If King James had any principles of religion be
sides what he called kingcraft or dissimulation, he changed them with the
climate, for from a rigid Calvinist he became a favourer of Arminianism in the
latter part of his reign ; from a Protestant- of the purest kirk upon earth, a doc
trinal papist ; and from a disgusted Puritan, the most implacable enemy of that
people, putting all the springs of the prerogative in motion to drive them out
of both kingdoms.
But, instead of accomplishing his designs, the number of Puritans increased
prodigiously in his reign, which was owing to one or other of these causes.
First. To the standing firm by the Constitution and laws of their country,
which brought over to them all those gentlemen in the House of Commons,
and in the several counties of England, vvho found it necessary, for the pres-
.ervation of their properties, to oppose the court, and to insist upon bemg gov
erned according to law ; these were called State Puritans.
Secondly. To their steady adherence to the doctrines of Calvin and the Syn
od of Dort, in the points of predestination and grace, against the modern in
terpretations of Arminius and his followers. The court divines fell in with the
latter, and were thought not only to deviate from the principles of the first
Reformers, but to attempt a coalition with the Church of Rome ; while most of
the country clergy, being stiff in their old opinions (though otherwise well
enough affected to the discipline and ceremonies of the Church), were, in a
manner, shut out from all preferment, and branded with the name of Doctrinal
Puritans. Thirdly. To their pious and severe manner of life, which was at this time
very extraordinary. If a man kept the Sabbath and frequented sermons ; if he
inaintained family religion, and would neither swear, nor be drunk, nor comply
with the fashionable vices of the times, he was called a Puritan ; this, by de
grees, procured them the compassion of the sober part of the nation, who be
gan to think it very hard that a number of sober, industrious, and conscientious
people should be harassed out of the land for scrupling to comply with a few

220 PREFACE.
indifferent ceremonies, which had no relation to the favour of God or the prac
tice of virtue.
Fourthly. It has been thought by some that their increase was owing to the
mild and gentle government of Archbishop Abbot. 'While Bancroft lived, the Pu
ritans were used with the utmost rigour; but Abbot, having a greater concern
for the doctrines of the Church than for its ceremonies, relaxed the penal laws,
and connived at their proselyting the people to Calvinism. Arminianism was
at this time both a Church and State faction ; the divines of this persuasion,
apprehending their sentiments not very consistent with the received sense of
the Thirty-nine Articles, and being afraid of the censures of a parliament or a
convocation, -took shelter under the prerogative, and went into all the slavish
measures of the court to gain the royal favour, and to secure to their friends
the chief preferments in the Church. They persuaded his majesty to stifle the
predestinarian controversy, both in the pulpit and press, and would no doubt,
in a few years, have got the balance of numbers on their side, if, by grasping
at too much, they had not precipitated both Church and State into confusion.
It was no advantage to those divines that they were linked with the Roman
Catholics, for these being sensible they could not be protected by law, cried
up the prerogative, and joined the forces with the court divines, to support the
dispensing power ; they declared for the unlimited authority of the sovereign
on the one hand, and the absolute obedience ofthe subject on the other; so
that, though there is no real connexion between Arminianism and popery, (he
two parties were unhappily combined at this time to destroy the Puritans, and
to subvert the Constitution and laws of their country.
But if Abbot was too remiss, his successor. Laud, was as much too furious,
for in the first year of his government he introduced as many changes as a
wise and prudent statesman would have attempted in seven;* he prevailedwith
his majesty to set up the English service at Edinburgh, and laid the founda
tion of the Scotch Liturgy ; he obtained the revival of the Book of Sports ; he
turned the communion-tables into altars ; he sent out injunctions which broke
up the French and Dutch churches ; and procured the repeal of the Irish Arti
cles, and those of England to be received in their place. Such was his rigor
ous persecution of the Puritans, that he would neither suffer them to live peace
ably in the land, nor remove quietly out of it! His grace was also the chief
mover in all those unbounded acts of power which were subversive of the rights
and liberties of the people ; and while he had the reins in his hands, drove so
near the precipices of popery and tyranny, that the hearts of the most resolved
Protestants turned against him, and almost all England became Puritan.
I am sensible that no part of modern history has been examined vvith so much
critical exactness as that part of the reign of King Charles I. which relates to
the rise and progress of the civil war ; here the writers on both sides have
blown Uf) their passions into a flame, and, instead of history, have given us lit
tle else but panegyric or satire. I have endeavoured to avoid extretnes, and
have represented things as they appeared to me, with modesty, and without
any personal reflections. The character I have given of the religious princi
ples of the Long Parliament vvas designedly taken out of the Earl of Claren
don's History of the Grand Rebellion, that it might be without exception: and
I am of opinion that the want of due acquaintance with the principles of the
two houses with regard to Church discipline has misled our best historians,
who have represented some of them as zealous prelatists, and others as cun
ning Presbyterians, Independents, sectaries, &c., whereas, in truth, they had
these matters very little at heart. The king was hampered with notions ofthe
Divine right of diocesan episcopacy, but the two houses (excepting the bish
ops) were, almost to a man, of the principles of Erastus, who maintained that
Christ and his apostles had prescribed no particular form of discipline for his
Church in after ages, but had left the keys in the hands of the civil magistrate,
who had the sole power of punishing transgressors, and of appointing such par-
* Heylin's Life of Laud, p. 506.

PREFACE. 221
ticular forms of Church government from time to time as were most subservi
ent to the peace and welfare of the commonwealth. Indeed, these were the
sentiments of our Church^reformers from Archbishop Cranmer down to Ban
croft. And though the Puritans, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, wrote with
great eagerness for the Divine right of their Book of Discipline, their posterity
in the next reigns were more cool upon that head, declaring their satisfaction,
if the present episcopacy might be reduced to a more primitive standard. This
was the substance of the ministers' petition in the year 1641, signed with sev
en hundred hands. And even those who were for root and branch were will
ing to submit to a parliamentary reformation, till the Scots revived the notion
of Divine right in the assembly of divines. However, it is certain the two
houses had no attachment to Presbytery or Independency, but would have
compromised matters with the king upon the episcopal scheme as long as his
majesty was in the field; but when victory had declared on their side, they
complied in some measure with their Northern friends, who had assisted them
in the war, but would never part with the power of the keys out of their own
hands. If the reader will keep this in mind, he will easily account for the sev
eral revolutions of Church government in these unsettled times.
It is not to be e.xpected that the most disinterested writer of these affairs
should escape the censures of different parties ; I thought I had already suf-
ficently expressed my intentions in publishing the History of the Puritans ; but
because it has been insinuated in a late pamphlet that it looked like a plot
against the ecclesiastical constitution,* I think it proper to assure the world,
once for all, that what I have written is with no ill spirit or design against the
peace of the Church or nation ; that I have no private or party views ; no pa
tron ; no associates; nor other prospects of reward than the pleasure of set
ting the English Reformation in a true light, and of beating down some of the
fences and enclosures of conscience. Nor can there be any inconvenience in
remembering the mistakes of our ancestors, when all the parties concerned are
gone off the stage, and their families reconciled by intermarriages; but it may
be of some use and benefit to mankind, by enabling them to avoid those rocks
on which their forefathers have split. When I am convinced of any mistakes
or unfair representations, I shall not be ashamed to retract them before the
world ; but facts are stubborn things, and will not bend to the humours and
inclinations of artful and angry men : if these have been disguised or misre-
ported, let them be set right in a decent manner, without the mean surmises
of plots and confederacies ; and whoever does it shall have mine as well as
the thanks of the public.
I have no controversy with the present Church of England, which has aban
doned, in a great measure, the persecuting principles of former times ; for
though I am not unacquainted with the nature and defects of religious estab
lishments, yet neither my principles nor inclinations will allow me to give them
the least disturbance, any farther than they impose upon conscience, or intrench
upon the rights of civil society. If the Presbyterians or Independents have
been guilty of such practices in their turns, I shall freely bear my testimony
against them, and think I may do it vvith a good grace, since I have always de
clared against restraints upon conscience among all parties of Christians ;t but
if men will vindicate the justice and equity of oaths ex officio, and of exorbi
tant fines, imprisonment, and banishment for things in their own nature indif
ferent ; if they, will call a relation of the illegal severities of council-tables,
star chambers, and high commissions a satire against the present establish
ment, they must use their liberty, as I shall mine, in appearing against eccle
siastical oppression, from what quarter soever it comes.
I have freely censured the mistakes of the Puritans in Queen Elizabeth's
reign ; nor will I be their advocate any longer than they have Scripture, rea
son, and some degree of good manners on their side. If it shall at any time
appear that the body of them lived in contempt of all' lawful authority, or bid
-* Expostulatory Letter, p. 29, 30. t Ibid., p. 12.

222 PREFACE.
defiance to the laws of their country, except in such cases wherein their con
sciences told them it vvas their duty to obey God rather than man ; if they
were guilty of rebellion, sedition, or of abandoning the queen and the Protest
ant religion when it vvas in danger, let them bear their own reproach ; but as
yet I must be of opinion that they vvere the best friends of the Constitution
and liberties of their country ; that they vvere neither unquiet nor restless, un
less against tyranny in the state and oppression upon the conscience ; that
they made use of no other weapons, during a course of fourscore years, but
prayers to God and petitions to the Legislature for redress of their grievan
ces, it being an article of their belief that absolute submission was due to the
supreme magistrate in all things lawful, as will sufficiently appear by their prot
estations in the beginning of the reign of King James I. I have admitted
that the Puritans might be too stiff and rigid in their behaviour ; that they
were unacquainted with the rights of conscience; and that their language to
their superiors, the bishops, was not always decent and mannerly : oppression
maketh wise men mad. But surely the depriving, imprisoning, and putting
men to death for these things will not be vindicated in our times.
In the preface to the first volume of this history, I mentioned with pleasure
the growing sentiments of religious liberty in the Church of England, but com
plained of the burden of subscriptions upon the clergy, and of the corporation
and test acts as prejudicial to the cause of religion and virtue among the laity ;
for which reasons the Protestant Dissenters throughout England intended to
petition for a repeal or amendment of these acts the ensuing session of Par
liament, if they had met vvith any encouragement from their superiors, or had
the least prospect of success. The sacramental test is, no doubt, a distinguish
ing mark of reproach vvhich they have not deserved; and, I humbly conceive,
no very great security to the Church of England, unless it can be supposed that
one single act of occasional conformity can take off the edge of all their ima
gined aversion to the hierarchy, who worship all the rest of the year among
Nonconformists. Nor can the repeal of these acts be of any considerable ad
vantage to the body of Dissenters, because not one in five hundred can expect
to reap any private benefit by it to himself or family; their zeal, therefore, in
this cause must arise principally from a regard to the liberties of their coun
try, and a desire of rescuing one of the most sacred rights of Christianity from
the profanation to which it is exposed.
But it seems this will not be believed till the Dissenters propose some other
pledge and security by which the end and intent of the sacramental test may
be equally attained ; for (says a late writer*) the Legislature never intended
them any share of trust or power in the government; and he hopes never will,
till they see better reasons for it than hath hitherto appeared. Must the Dis
senters, then, furnish the Church with a law to exclude themselves from serving
their king and country 1 Let the disagreeable work be undertaken by men
that are better skilled in such unequal severities. I will not examine into the
intent of the Legislature in this place ; but if Protestant Nonconformists are
to have no share of trust or power in the government, why are they chosen
into such offices, and subject to fines and penalties for declining theml Is it
for not serving! — this, it seems, is vvhat the Legislature never intended. Is it,
then, for not qualifying 1 — surely this is a penalty upon conscience. I would ask
the warmest advocate for the sacramental test whether the appointing Protest
ant Dissenters for sheriffs of counties, and obliging them to qualify against
their consciences under the penalties of a premunire, without the liberty of
serving by a deputy or of commuting by a fine, is consistent with so full a
toleration and exemption from penal laws as this writerf says they enjoys
It is true, a good government may take no advantage of this power, but in a
bad one men must qualify, or their liberties and estates lie at the king's mercy;
it seems, therefore, but reasonable (whatever the intent of the Legislature may
be), that Protestant Dissenters should be admitted to serve their country with
* History of the Test, p. 16, 23, 25. t History of the Test, p. 25.

PREFACE. 223
a good conscience in offices of trust as well as of burden, or be exempted from-
all pains and penalties for not doing it.*
It is now pretty generally agreed, that receiving the holy sacrament merely
as a qualification for a place of civil profit or trust is contrary to the ends of
its institution, and a snare to the consciences of men;t for though the law is
open, and " they vvho obtain offices in the state know beforehand the conditions
of keeping them," yet when the bread of a numerous family depends upon a
qualification which a man cannot be satisfied to comply with, it is certainly a
snare; and though I agree with our author, that "if the minds of such per
sons are wicked, the law does not make them so," ji-et 1 am afraid it hardens
them, and makes them a great deal worse. How many thousand come to the
sacrameni of the Lord's Supper with reluctance ! and, perhaps, eat and drink
judgment to themselves, the guilt of which must be chargeable either upon
the imposers or receivers, or upon both. Methinks, therefore, charity to the
souls of men, as well as a concern for the purity of our holy religion, should
engage all serious Christians to endeavour the removal of this grievance ; and
since we are told that the appearing of the Dissenters at this time is unseason
able, and will be ineffectual, I would humbly move our right reverend fathers
the bishops not to think it below their high stations and dignities to consider
pf some expedient to roll away this reproach from the Church and nation, and
agree upon some security for the former (if needful) of a civil nature, that may
leave room (as King William expresses it in his speech to his first Parliament}
for the admission of all Protestants that are able and willing to serve their
country. The honour of Christ and the cause of public virtue seem to require
it ; and forasmuch as the influence of these acts affects great numbers of the
laity in a very tender part, I should think it no dishonour for the several cor
porations in England, as well as for the officers of the army, navy, customs,.
and excise, who are more peculiarly concerned, to join their interests in peti
tioning the Legislature for such relief. And I flatter myself that the wise and
temperate behaviour of the Protestant Dissenters in their late general assembly
in London, with the dutiful regard that they have always shown to the peace
and welfare of his majesty's person, family, and government, will not fail to
recommend them to the royal protection and favour ; and that his most excellent
majesty, in imitation of his glorious predecessor. King William III., will, in a
proper time, recommend it to his Parliament to strengthen his administration,
by taking off those restraints which at present disable his Protestant Dissenting
subjects from showing their zeal in the service of their king and country.
Daniel Neal.
London, March 6, 1732-3.
* It should be mentioned to the honour of Bishop Warburton, who was an advocate for a test, though
not a sacramental test, that to this proposal, that " Dissenters should be exempted from all pains and pen
alties for not serving their country in offices of trust," he gave his hearty assent by adding in the margin,
most certainly I — Ed.
t History of the Test, p. 22.

ADVERTISEMENT
TO VOL. IL OF DR. TOULMIN'S EDITION.

The editor, in revising the first volume of Mr. Neal's " History of the Puri
tans," was greatly assisted by the author's " Review of the principal facts ob
jected to in that volume." In the volume which is now presented to the pub
lic, such aid fails him, as it will also in the succeeding one.s, since Dr. Grey's
" Examination" did not make its appearance till the declining state of Mr.
Neal's health prevented his farther vindication of his work.
The justice due to Mr. Neal's memory arid to truth required the editor to
attempt vvhat could have been done by the author himself with much greater
advantage than at this distance of time from the first statement of the facts,
by one who cannot come at all the authorities on vvhich Mr. Neal spake. He
has endeavoured, however, to acquit himself with care and impartiality in the
examination of Dr. Grey's animadversions, and is not aware that he has passed
over any material strictures, extended through a volume of four hundred pages.
Though Dr. Grey's* "Examination" may be now little known or sought af
ter, it received, at its first publication, the thanks of many divines of the first
eminence, particularly of Dr. Gibson, then Bishop of London, and of Dr. Sher
lock, then Bishop of Salisbury. The latter prelate, writing to the doctor, said,
'" It is happy that Mr. Neal's account appeared when there vvas one so well
versed in the history, and so able to correct the errors and prejudices. The
service you have done must be considered as a very important one by all the
friends ofthe constitution of the Church of England."!
From the notes in the following pages, the reader will be able to form a
judgment whether the encomium bestowed on Dr. Grey's work proceeded from
a careful investigation of his remarks, and a comparison of them with Mr.
Neal's History and vouchers, or from bias to a cause. In the editor's appre
hensions, the value of Mr. Neal's history and its authorities is, so far as he has
proceeded, heightened by the comparison.
In his advertisement to the first volume, he made a great mistake in ascri
bing the quarto edition of " The History of the Puritans" to the author himself,
who died about twelve years before its appearance. It vvas given to the public
by his worthy son, Mr. Nathaniel Neal, of the Million Bank, and is generally
esteemed very correct.
There has been pointed out to the editor a slight error of Mr. Neal, vol. i.,
p. 183, who says that Bishop Jewel was educated in Christ's College, Oxford,
whereas, according to Fuller and Wood, he was of Corpus Christi.
The editor has been asked,J on what authority, in the biographical account
of Mr. Tomkins, subjoined to p. 17 of the "Memoirs of Mr. Neal," he charged
Mr. Asty,§ on making an exchange vvith Mr. Tomkins, one Lord's day, with
"alarming the people with the danger of pernicious errors and damnable her
esies creeping in among the Dissenters, and particularly referring to errors
concerning the doctrine of Christ's divinity."
On examining the matter, he finds that he has used the very words, as well
as written on the authority, of Mr. Tomkins, who spoke on the information he
* Dr. Zachary Grey was of a Yorkshire family, originally from France ; he was rector of Houghton
Conquest, in Bedfordshire, and vicar of St. Peter's and St. Giles's parishes in Cambridge, where he usually
passed all his winter, and the rest of his time at AmpthiU, the neighbouring market-town to his living. He
died November 25, 1766, at AmpthiU, in the seventy-ninth year of his age, and was buried al Houghton
Conquest. He was of a most amiable, sweet, and communicative disposition, most friendly to his acquaint
ance, and never better pleased than when performing acts of friendship and benevolence. His publica
tions were numerous. — Anecdotes of Bowyer, p. 354. t See Anecdotes of Bowyer, p. 356, note.
X By the Rev. Thomas Towle, a dissenting minister of eminence among the Independents, in an inter-
-view, at which the editor was very politely received, and which took place at Mr. Towle's desire, in con
sequence of a letter written to him by a friend on the subject of the above charge.
ij Mr. Asty was grandson of Mr. Robert Asty, who was ejected from Stratford, in Suffolk. He had
good natural parts, and by spiritual gifts, and considerable attainments in literature, was richly furnished
for his ministerial province. He was perceived to have drunk very much into the sentiments and spirit of
Dr. Owen, who was his favourite author. The amiable traits of his character were a sweetness of temper,
an aifectionate sympathy in the afflictions and prosperity of others, a famUiarity and condescension of de
portment, and a disposition to cast a mantle over the failings of others, and to ask pardon for his own, He
died Jan. 20, (1729-30, aged 57. — Dr. Guyse's funeral sermon for him.

226 ADVERTISEMENT.
had received concerning the tenour and strain of Mr. Asty's sermon ; and adds
that Mr. Asty himself afterward acknowledged to him, " that the information
in o-eneral was true, viz., that he spake of damnable heresies, and applied those
texts, 2 Pet., ii., 1 ; Jude, verse 4, or, at least, one, to the new doctrines about
the deity of Christ, that were now, as he apprehended, secretly spreading."
Mr. Tomkins was also told that Mr. Asty was very warm upon these points;
but he subjoins, "I must do Mr. Asty this justice, to acquaint others that he
had no particular view to me, or suspicion of me, when he brought down this
sermon, among others, to Newington. As he had an apprehension of the dan
ger of those errors, and of the spreading of them at that time, he thought it
might be seasonable to preach such a sermon anywhere." When another gen
tleman, however, put the matter more closely to him, he could not deny that
he had some intimation of a suspicion of Mr. Tomkins. But from the assurance
Mr. Asty gave Mr. Tomkins, candour will be ready to conclude that he did not
greatly credit the intimation.
Mr. Towle, who was a successor to Mr. Asty in the pastoral office, could
scarcely suppose that he could be guilty of a conduct so remote from the
amiable and pacific character he always bore, and from the delineation of it in
the funeral sermon for him by Dr. Guyse, who, I find, says of him, "1 have
with pleasure observed a remarkable tenderness in his spirit, as judging the
state of those that differed from him, even in points vvhich he took to be of
very great importance."
It will be right to add Mr. Tomkins's declaration with respect to Mr, Asty's
views : " I never had a thought that he preached his sermon out of any partic
ular personal prejudice against me, but really believed that he did it from a
zeal for vvhat he apprehended to be truth necessary to salvation. Though I
am persuaded, in my own mind, that this zeal of his in this matter is a mistar
ken zeal, I do nevertheless respect him as a Christian and a minister."
In the memoirs of Mr. Neal, we mentioned his letter to the Rev. Dr. Francis
Hare, dean of Worcester. The editor has lately met with this piece ; it does
the author credit, for it is written vvith ability and temper. He is inclined to
give a passage from it, as a specimen of the force of argument it shows, and
as going to the foundation of our ecclesiastical establishment.
The dean contended for submission to the authority of the rightful govern
ors of the Church, whom he defined to be " an ecclesiastical consistory of
presbyters, with their bishop at their head." Mr. Neal, to show that this defini
tion does not apply to the Church of England, replies: "Now, taking all this
for granted, what an argument have you put into the mouths of the Dissenters
to justify their separation from the present establishment !"
"For is there anything like this to be found there 1 Is the Church of Eng
land governed by a bishop and his presbyters 1 Is not the king the fountain
of all ecclesiastical authority! And has he not power to make ordinances
¦which shall bind the clergy without their consent, under the penalty of a pre
munire 1 Does not his majesty nominate the bishops, summon convocations,
and prorogue them at pleasure 1 When the convocations of Canterbury and
York are assembled, can they debate upon any subject without the king's li
cense, or make any canons that can bind the people without an act of Parlia
ment 1 The bishops, in their several courts, can determine nothing in a judicial
manner about the faith, there lying an appeal from them to the king, who de
cides it by his commissioners in the Court of Delegates.
" Now, though this may be a wise and prudent institution, yet it can lay no
claim to antiquity, because the civil magistrate was not Christian for three
hundred years after our Saviour ; and, consequently, the Dissenters, vvho are
for reducing religion to the standard of the Bible, can be under no obligation
to conform to it. We have a divine precept to oblige us to do whatsoever
Christ and his apostles have commanded us, but I find no passage of Scripture
that obliges us to be of the religion of the state we happen to be born in. If
there be any such obligation on the English Dissenters, it must arise only from
the laws of their country, which can have no influence upon them at pre'sent,
those laws having been long since suspended by the Act of Indulgence."

PART II.

CHAPTER I.
FKOM THE DEMISE OF QUEEN ELIZABETH TO THE
DEATH OF AKOHBISHOP BANCEOFT.
The royal house of the Stuarts has not been
more calamitous to the English Church and na
tion in the male descendants, than successful
and glorious in the female. The four kings of
this line, whUe in power, were declared ene
mies of our civil constitution ; they governed
without law, levied taxes by the prerogative,
and endeavoured to put an end tothe very being
of Parliaments. With regard to religion, the
first two were neither sound Protestants nor
good Catholics, but were for reconciling the two
religions, and meeting the papists half way ; but
the last two went over entirely to the Church of
Rome, and died professedly in her communion.
The female branches of this famUy being mar
ried among foreign Protestants, were of a dif
ferent stamp, being more inclined to Puritanism
than popery ; one of them [Mary, eldest daugh
ter of King Charles I.] was mother ofthe great
King William HI., the glorious deliverer of these
kingdoms from popery and slavery ; and another
[Elizabeth, daughter of King James I.] was
grandmother of his late majesty King George I.,
in whom the Protestant succession took plaoe,
and whose numerous descendants in the person
and offspring of his present majesty, are the de-
fenoe and glory ofthe whole Protestant interest
in Europe.
King James was thirty-six years of age when
he came to the English throne, having reigned
in Scotland from his infancy. In the year 1589
he married the Princess Anne, sister to the King
of Denmark, by whom he had three chUdren liv
ing at this time : Henry, prince of Wales, who
died before he was nineteen years of age [1612] ;
Elizabeth, married to the elector palatine, 1613 ;
and Charles, who succeeded his father in his
kingdoms. His majesty's behaviour in Scotland
raised the expectations and hopes of all parties ;
the Puritans relied upon his majesty's educa
tion, upon his subscribing the solemn league
and covenant, and upon various solemn repeat
ed declarations ; in particular, one made in the
General Assembly at Edinburgh, 1590: when
standing with his bonnet off, and his hands lifted
up to heaven, " he praised God that he was born
in the time of the light of the Gospel, and in
such a place as to be king of such a churoh, the
sincerest [purest] kirk in the world. The Church
of Geneva," says he, "keep Pasche and Yule
[Easter and Christmas], what have they for
them 1 They have no institution. As for our
neighbour Kirk of England, their serviee is an
eVil-said mass in English; they want nothing
of the mass but the liftings. I charge you, my
good ministers, doctors, elders, nobles, gentle

men, and barons, to stand to your purity, and to-
exhort the people to do the same ; and I, for
sooth, as long as I brook mjf life, shaU maintain
the same."* In his speech to the Parliament,
1598, he tells them " that he minded not to bring
in papistical or Angltcane bishops."t Nay, upon
his leaving Scotland to take possession of the
crown of England, he gave public thanks to God
in the kirk of Edinburgh, " that he had left both
kirk and kingdom in that state which he in
tended not to alter any ways, his subjects living
in peace."t But all this was kingcraft, or else
his majesty changed his principles with the cli
mate. The Scots ministers did not approach
him with the distant submission and revereriee
ofthe English bishops, and therefore within nine
months after he ascended the throne of England
he renounced presbytery, and established it for
a maxim. No bishop, no king. So soon did this
pious monarch renounce his principles (if he-
had any), and break through the most solemn
vows and obligations I When the Long Parlia
ment addressed King Charles I. to set up pres
bytery in the room of episcopacy, his majesty-
objected his coronation oath, in which he had
sworn to maintain the clergy in their rights and
privUeges ; but King James had no such scru
ples of conscience ; for without so much as ask
ing the consent of Parliament, General Assem
bly, or people, he entered upon the most effect
ual measures, to subvert the kirk discipline
which he had sworn to maintain with hands
lifted up to Heaven, at his coronation, and had
afterward soleninly subscribed, with his queen
and family, in the years 1581 and 1590. iJ

* Calderwood's Hist, of the Church of Scotland,
p. 256.
t Ibid., p. 418. James, when settled on the Eng
lish throne, talked a diiferent language. Dr. Grey
quotes different passages to this purport, with a view
to invalidate Mr. Neal's authority. The fact is not
that Calderwood falsified, and Mr. N. through preju
dice adopted, his representations, but that James was
a dissembler, and, when, he wrote what Dr. Grey
produces from his work, had thrown off the mask he
wore in Scotland. — See Harris's Life of James I, p.
25-29.— Ed. X Ibid., p. 473.
Ij Bishop Warburton censures Mr. Neal for not
giving here the provocation which the king had re
ceived from what he styles " the vUlanous and ty
rannical usage of the Kirk of Scotland to him." On
this censure it may be observed, that had Mr. Neal
gone into the detaU of the treatment the king had
met with from the Scots clergy, besides the long di
gression into which it would have led him, it would
not have eventually saved the reputation of the king ;
for Mr. Neal must have related the causes of that
behaviour. It arose from their jealousy, and their
fears of his disposition to crush tliera and their reli
gion ; founded on facts delivered to them by the Eng
hsh ministry, and from his favoumng and employing
known papists. The violation of his solemn reitera
ted declarations, when he became King of England.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

The papists put the king in remembrance
that he was born of Roman Catholic parents,
and had been baptized according to the rites and
ceremonies of the Church of Rome ; that his
mother, of whom he usually spoke with rever
ence, was a martyr for that church ; and that he
himself, upon sundry occasions, had expressed
no dislike to her doctrnies, though he disallowed
of the usurpations of the court of Rome over
foreign princes ; that he had caUed the Church
of Rome his mother-church ; and, therefore, they
presumed to welcome his majesty into England
with a petition for an open toleration.*
But the bishops of the Church of England
made the earliest application for his majesty's
protection and favour. As soon as the queen
was dead, Archbishop Whitgift sent Dr. Nevil,
dean of Canterbury, express into Scotland, in
the name of all the bishops and clergy of Eng
land, to give his majesty assurance of their un
feigned duty and loyalty ; to knotv ivhat com
mands he had for them with respect to the
ecclesiastical courts, and to recommend the
-Church of England to his countenance and fa-
vour.t The king replied that he would uphold
the government ofthe Church as the queen left
it ; which comforted the timorous archbishop,
who had sometimes spoke with great uneasi
ness ofthe Scotch mist.
Upon his majesty's arrival all parties address
ed him, and among others the Dutch and French
churches, and the English Puritans ; to the for
mer his majesty gave this answer : " 1 need not
use many words to declare my good-will to you,
who have taken sanctuary here for the sake of
religion ; I am sensible you have enriched this
kingdom with several arts and manufactures ;
and 1 swear to you, that if any one shall give
jou disturbance in your churches, upon your
application to me, I will revenge your cause ;
and though you are none of my proper subjects,
I win maintain and cherish you as much as any
prince in the world." But the latter, whatever
they had reason to expect, met with very differ
ent usage.
Notwithstanding all the precautions that were
taken to secure the elections of members for
the next Parliament, the archbishop wished he
might not live to see it, for fear of some altera
tion in the Churoh ; for the Puritans were pre
paring petitions, and printing pamphlets in their
¦own vindication, though by the archbishop's
vigilance, says Mr. Strype, J not a petition or a
showed how just were those suspicions, and proved
him to have been a dissembler. To these remarks
it may be added. What provocation constrained him
to give the public thanks and promise, with which
he left Scotland ? — See Dr. Harris's Life of James I.,
p. 25-31, and Burnet's History of his Own Times, vol.
i., p. 5, Edinburgh edition in 12mo, — Ed.
¦* That the expectations of the papists were not
disappointed, though Dr. Grey controverts Mr. Neal's
representation, there is ample proof given by Dr.
Harris in his Life of James L, p. 219, 226. "It is
certain," says Dr. Warner, " that he had on several
occasions given great room to suspect that he was
far from being an enemy to the Roman Catholics.
Amid all their hopes," he adds, " each side had their
fears ; while James himself had, properly speaking,
no other religion than what flowed from a principle
which he caUed kingcraft." — Warner's Ecclesiastical
History, vol. ii., p. 476, 477. — Ed.
i Life of Whitgift, p. 559.
X Strype's Ann., vol. ult., p. 187.

pamphlet escaped without a speedy and effeotu-
al answer.
While the king was in his progress to Lon
don [.VprU, 160.3] the Puritans presented their
millenary petUion, so caUed, because it was said
to be subscribed by a thousand hands, though
there were not more than eight hundred out of
twenty-five counties.* It is entitled " The
humble Petition ofthe Ministers of the Church
of England, desiring Reformation of certain
Ceremonies and Abuses of the Churoh." The
preamble sets forth, " that neither as factious
men affecting a popular parity in the Church,
nor as schismatics aiming at the dissolution of
the state ecclesiastical, but as the faithful min
isters of Christ, and loyal subjects to his maj
esty, they humbly desire the redress of some
abuses." And though divers of them had for-
merly subscribed to the service-book, some upon
protestation, some upon an exposition given,
and some with condition, yet now they, to the
number of more than a thousand ministers,
groaned under the burden of human rites and
ceremonies, and with one consent threw them
selves down at his royal feet for rehef in the
following particulars :
1. In the Church service; " That the cross
in baptism, the interrogatories to infants, bap
tism by women, and confirmation, may be ta
ken away ; that the cap and surplice may not
be urged ; that examination may go before the
communion ; that the ring in marriage may be
dispensed with ; that the service may be abridg
ed ; church songs and music moderated to bet
ter edification ; that the Lord's Day may not be
profaned, nor the observation of other holydays
strictly enjoined; that ministers may not be
charged to teach their people to bow at the name
of Jesus ; and that none but canonical Scrip
tures be read in the Church."
2. Concerning ministers. "That none may
be admitted but able men ; that they be obliged
to preach on the Lord's Day ; that such as are
not capable of preaching may be removed or
obliged to maintain preachers ; that nonresi-
dency be not permitted ; that King Edward's
statute for the lawfulness of the marriage of
the clergy be revived ; and that ministers be
not obliged to subscribe, but according to law, to
the articles of religion, and the king's suprema
cy only."
3. For Church livings. " That bishops leave
their commendams ; that impropriations annex
ed to bishoprics and colleges be given to preach
ing incumbents only ; and that lay-impropria-
tions be charged with a sixth or seventh part
for the maintenance of a preacher."
4. For Church discipline. " That excommu
nication and censures be not in the name of lay-
chanceUors, &c. ; that men be not excommuni
cated for twelvepenny matters, nor without
consent of their pastors ; that registrars' places,
and others having jurisdiction, do not put them
out to farm ; that sundry popish canons be re
vised ; that the oath ex officio be more sparingly
used ; and licenses for marriages without bans
be more sparingly granted."
"These things," say they, "we are able to
show not to be agreeable to the Word of God,
if it shall please your majesty to hear us, or by

* Clark's Life of Hildersham, p. 116, annexed to
tho General Martyrology.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

229

writing to be informed, or by conference among
the learned to be resolved."
The king met with sundry other petitions of
the hke nature from most of the counties he
passed through ; but the heads of the two uni
versities having taken offence at the millenary
petition, for demising away the impropriations
annexed to bishoprics and colleges, which, says
F.uller, would cut off more than the nipples of
the breasts of both universities in point of main
tenance,* expressed their resentment different
ways : those of Cambridge passed a grace, June
9th, 1603, " That whosoever in the University
should openly oppose by word or writing, or any
other way, the doctrine or discipline of the
Church of England established by law, or any
part thereof, should be suspended ipso facto
from any degree already taken, and be disabled
from taking any degree for the future." About
the same time the University of Oxford pub
hshed an answer to the ministers' petition, en
titled " An Answer of the Vice-chancellor, Doe-
tors, Proctors, and other Heads of Houses in the
University of Oxford, to the Petition of the Min
isters of the Church of England, desiring Ref
ormation ; dedicated to the King, with a Pref
ace to the Archbishop, the ChanceUors of both
Universities, and the two Secretaries of State."t
The answer shows the high spirit of the Univer
sity : it reproaches the ministers in very severe
language for subscribing and then complaining ;
it reflects upon them as factious men, for affect
ing a parity in the Church, and then faUs se
verely on the Scots Reformation, which his
majesty had so publicly commended before he
left that knigdom. It throws an odium upon
the petitioners, as being for a limited monarchy,
and for subjecting the titles of kings to the ap
probation of the people. It then goes on to
vindipate aU the grievances complained of, and
concludes with beseeching his majesty not to
suffer the peace of the state to be disturbed by
allowing these men to disturb its polity. "Look
upon the Reformed churches abroad," say they :
" wheresoever the desure of the petitioners takes
place, how ill it suits with the state of mon
archy ; does it become the supereminent au
thority and regal person of a king to subject
his sovereign power to the overswaying and all-
commanding power of a presbytery ; that his
meek and humble clergy should have power to
bind their king in chains, and their prince in
links of iron 1 that is, to censure him, and, if
they see cause, to proceed against him as a ty
rant. That the supreme magistrate should only
he a maintainer of their proceedings, but not a
commander in them ; these are but petty abridg
ments of the prerogative royal, while the king
submits his sceptre to the sceptre of Christ, and
hcks the dust of the Church's feet." They then
commend the present Church government as
the great support of the crown, and calculated
to promote unlimited subjection, and aver, " that
there are at this day more learned men in this
land, in this one kingdom, than are to be found
among all the ministers of religion in France,
Flanders, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Geneva,
Scotland, or (to speak in a word) all Europe be-
i."t Such a vainglorious piece of self-ap-

* Fuller's Church History, b. x., p. 23.
t Life of Whitgift, p. 567.
j Strype's Ann., voL iv., p. 137.

plause is hardly to be met with. They must
have a mean opinion ofthe king's acquaintance
with the learned world, to use him in this man
ner, at a time when, though there were some
very considerable divines among ourselves,
there were as many learned men in the foreign
universities as had been known since the Ref
ormation ; witness the Bezas, Scaligers, Ca-
saubons, &c., whose works have transmitted
their great names down to posterity.
And that the divines of Cambridge might not
come behind their brethren of Oxford, the heads
of that university wrote a letter of thanks to the
Oxonians for their answer to the petition, in
which " they applaud and commend their weigh
ty arguments, and threaten to battle the Puri
tans with numbers ; for if Saul has his thou
sands (say they), David has his ten thousands.
They acquaint them with their decree of June
9, and bid the' poor pitiful Puritans Ihomunciones
miserrimi] answer their almost a thousand books
in defence of the hierarchy before they pre
tend to dispute before so learned and wise a
king."* A mean and pitiful triumph over hon
est and virtuous men, who aimed at nothing
more than to bring the discipline of the Church
a little nearer the standard of Scripture !
But that his majesty might part with his old
friends with some decency, and seem to answer
the request of the petitioners, he agreed to have
a conference with the two parties at Hampton
Court,! for which purpose he published a proc
lamation from Wilton, October 24th, 1603,
touching a meeting for the hearing and for the
determining things pretended to be amiss in
the Church. In which he declares "that he
was already persuaded that the constitution of
the Church of England was agreeable to God's
Word, and near to the condition of the primi
tive' Church ; yet because he had received in
formation that some things in it were scanda
lous, and gave offence, he had appointed a meet
ing, to be had before himself and councU, of di
vers bishops and other learned men, at which,
consultation he hoped to be better informed of
the state of the Church, and whether there
\yere any such enormities in it ; in the mean
time, he commanded all his subjects not to pub
lish anything against the state ecclesiastical, or
to gather subscriptions, .or make supplications,.
being resolved to make it appear by their chas
tisement how far such a manner of proceeding
was displeasing to him, for he was determined
to preserve the ecclesiastical state in such form
as he found it established by the law, only ta
reform such abuses as he should find apparently-
proved, "t
The archbishop and his brethren had been in
defatigable in possessing the king with the ex
cellence of the English hierarchy, as coming
near the practice of the primitive Church, and
best suited to a monarchical government ; they
represented the Puritans as turbulent and fao-
tious, inconsiderable in number, and aiming at

* Dr. Warner, with reason and judgment, supposes
that what determined James, more than anything
else, to appoint the Hampton Court Conference, of
which he would be the moderator, was, that he
might give his new subjects a taste of his talents for
disputation, of which he was extremely fond and
conceited.— £ccZ£s. Hist., vol. i., p. 478.— Ei).
t Life of Whitgift, b. iv., c. xxxi., p. 568.
X Ibid., p. 570.

230
confusion both in Church and State ; and yet,
after aU, the old archbishop v\-as doubtful of the
event, for in one of his letters to Cecil, after
ward Earl of Shrewsbury, he writes, " Though
our humorous and contentious brethren have
made many petUions and motions correspond
ent to their natures, yet to my comfort they
have not much prevaUed. Your lordship, I am
sure, does imagine that I have not all this while
b<'en idle, nor greatly quiet in mind, for who
can promise himself rest among so many vi
pers 1"*
The place of conference was the drawing-
room within the privy-chamber at Hampton
Court ; the disputants on both sides were nom
inated by the king. For the Church there were
nine binhops, and about as many dignitaries,
viz.. Dr. Whitgift, archbishop of Canterbury ; Dr.
Bancroft, bishop of London ; Dr. Mathew, bishop
of Durham ; Bilson, bishop of Winchester ; Bab-
ington, bishop of Worcester ; Rudd, bishop of
iSt. David's; Watson, bishop of Chichester; Rob
inson, bishop of Carlisle ; and Dove,, bishop of
Peterborough. Dr. Andrews, dean ofthe chapel ;
Overal, dean of St. Paul's ; Barlow, dean of
Chester; Bridges, dean of Salisbury; Field, dean
of Gloucester ; and King, archdeacon of Notting
ham ; besides the deans of Worcester and Wind
sor. For the Puritans were only four ministers :
Dr. John Raynolds, Dr. Thomas Sparks, pro
fessors of divinity in Oxford ; Mr. Chadderton
and Mr. Knewstubs, of Cambridge. The di
vines of the Church appeared in the habits of
their respective distinctions ; but those for the
Puritans in fur gowns, like the Turkey mer
chants, or the professors in foreign universities.
When the king conferred with the bishops, he
behaved with softness, and a great regard to
their character ; but when the Puritan ministers
stood before him, instead of being moderator, he
took upon him the place of respondent, and bore
them down with his majestic frowns and threat
enings, in the midst of a numerous crowd of
courtiers, all the lords of the privy-council be
ing prenset ; while the bishops stood by, and
were little more than spectators of the triumph.
The account of this conference was pubhshed
at large only by Dr. Barlow, who, being a party,
says Fuller,! set a sharp edge on his own, and
a blunt one on his adversaries' weapons. Dr.
Sparks and Raynolds complained that they were
wronged by that relation,! and Dr. Jackson de
clared that Barlow himself repented, upon his
<leathbed, ofthe injury he had done the Puritan
ministers in his relation of the Hampton Court
Conference.^ Mr. .Strype has lately published a
* Life of Whitgift, Append., b. iv., no. 43.
X Ch. Hist, b. X., p. 21. X Pierce, p. 153, 154.
4 " The Puritans," Dr Harris observes, " needed
not to have complained so much as they have done
of Barlow. If he has not represented their arguments
in as just a light, nor related what was done by the
ministers as advantageously as truth required, he has
abundantly made it up to them by showing that the
bishops, their adversaries, were gross flatterers, and
had no regard to their sacred characters ; and that
their mortal foe James had but a low understanding,
and was undeserving of the rank he assumed in the
republic of learning. This he has done efiectually,
and, therefore, whatever was his intention, the Puri
tans should have applauded his performance, and ap
pealed to it for proof of the insufficiency of him who

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

letter of the Bishop of Durham to Hutton, arch
bishop of York, which agrees pretty much with
Barlow ;* but Mr. Patrick GaUoway, a Scotsman
has set things in a different light ; from all
these, and from the king's own letter to Mr.
Blake, a Scotsman, we must form the best judg
ment of it that we can.
The conference continued three days, viz.
January the 14th, 16th, and 18th; the first was
with the bishops and deans alone, January 14th
the Puritan ministers not being present, when
the king made a speech in commendation of the
hierarchy of the Church of England,and congrat
ulated himself that " he was now come into the
promised land ; that he sat among grave and
reverend men, and was not a king, as formerly,
without state, nor in a plaee where beardless
boys would brave him to his face. He assured
them he had not called this assembly for any in
novation, for he acknowledged the government
eoclesiastical, as now it is, to have been appro
ved by manifold blessings from God himself;
but because he had received some complaints
of disorders, he was wUling to remove them if
scandalous, and to take notice of them if but
trifling ; that the reason of his consulting them
by themselves was to receive satisfaotion from
them, (1.) About some things in the Common
Prayer Book; (2.) Concerning excommunica
tion in the ecclesiastical courts ; (3.) About pro
viding some well-qualified ministers for Ireland;
that if anything should be found meet to be re
dressed, it might be done without their being
confronted by their opponents."t
In the Common Prayer Book his majesty had
some scruples about the confirmation of chil
dren, as it imported a confirmation of baptism.
But the archbishop on his knees replied, that the
Church did not hold baptism imperfect without
confirmation. Bancroft said it was of apostoli
cal institution, Heb., iv., 2, where it is called
"the doctrine ofthe laying on of hands." But
to satisfy the king, it was agreed that the words
examination of children should be added to con
firmation. His majesty excepted to the absolution ofthe
Church, as too nearly resembling the pope's par
don. But the archbishop is said to clear it up
to the king's satisfaction ; only to the rubric of
the general absolution these words were to be
added, for explanation's sake, remission of sins.
He farther objected to private baptism, and
baptism by women. It had been customary till
this time for bishops to license midwives to
their office, and to aUow their right to baptize in
cases of necessity, under the following oath :
"I, Eleanor  , admUted to the office and
occupation of a midwife, wiU faithfully and dili
gently exercise the said office, according to such
cunning and knowledge as God has given mo,
and that I wiU be ready to help and aid as well
poor as rich women, being in labour and travail
with chUd, and will always be ready to execute
my said office. Also, I will not permit or suffer
that any woman, being in labour or travail, shall
name any other to be the fa.ther of the child
than only he who is the right and true father
thereof; and that I wiU not suffer any other

set himself up as a decider of their controversies."—
Harris's Life of James L, p. 87. — Ed.
* Life of Whitgilt, Append., b. iv., no. 45.
t Fuller, b. z., p. 8,

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

231

body's child to be set, brought, or laid before
any woman delivered of child, in the place of
her natural child, so far forth as I can know or
understand. Also, I wUl not use any kind of
sorcery or incantation in the time of travaU of
any woman ; and I will not destroy the child
born of any woman, nor cut nor^puU off the head
thereof, or otherwise dismember or hurt the
same, or suffer it to be so hurt, &c. Also, that
in the ministration of the sacrament of baptism,
in the time of necessity, I will use the accus
tomed words ofthe same sacrament ; that is to
say, these words following, or to the like effect,
' I christen thee in the name of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost,' and none other pro
fane words. And that, in baptizing any infant
born, and pouring water on the head of the said
infant, I wiU use pure and clean water, and not
any rose or damask water, or water made of
any confection or mixture. And that I wiU cer
tify the curate of the parish church of every
such baptizing."*
Notwithstanding this oath, Whitgift assured
the king that baptism by women and lay per
sons was not allowed by the Church. Others
said it was a reasonable practice, the minister
not being of the essence of the sacrament. But
the king not being satisfied, it was referred to
consideration whether the word curate, or law
ful minister, might not be inserted into the ru
bric for private baptism.
Concerning excommunication for lesser
crimes in ecclesiastical courts, it was agreed
that the name should be changed, but the same
censure retained, or an equivalent thereunto
appointed. These were all the alterations that
were agreed upon between the king and bishops
in the first day's conference.
Mr. Patrick GaUoway, who was present at
the conference, gives this account of it to the
presbytery of Edinburgh : " That on January 12
the king commanded the bishops, as they would
answer it to God in conscience, and to himself
upon their obedience, to advise among them
selves of the corruptions of the Church in doc
trine, ceremonies, and discipline, who, after
consultation, reported that all was well; but
-when his majesty, with great fervency, brought
instances to the contrary, the bishops on their
Jtnees craved with great earnestness that no
thing might be altered, lest popish recusants,
punished by penal statutes for disobedience,
and the Puritans, punished by deprivation from
their callings and livings for nonconformity,
should say they had just cause to insult upon
them, as men who had travaUed to bind them
to that which by their own mouths now was
confessed to be erroneous."! Mr. Strype calls
this an aspersion, but I am apt to think him
mistaken, because Mr. Galloway adds these
words : " When sundry persons gave out copies
of these actions, I myself took occasion, as I
was an ear and eye witness, to set them down,
• and presented them to his majesty, who with
his own hand mended some things, and eked
-out others that I had omitted." It is very cer
tain that Bishop Barlow has cut off and con
cealed all the speeches that his majesty made
-against the corruptions of the Church and the
practices of the prelates, for five hours together.

* Strype's Ann., vol. i,, p. 537.
t Calderwood's Hist. Church of Scotland, p. 474.

according to the testimony of Dr. Andrews,
dean of the chapel, who saidHhat his majesty
did that day wonderfully play the Puritan.
The second day's conference was on Monday,
January 16th, when the four ministers were
called in, with Mr. Galloway, minister of Perth
in Scotland, on the one part, and two bishops
and six or eight deans on the other, the rest
being secluded. The king being seated in his
chair, with his nobles and privy counsellors
around him, let them know he was now ready
to hear their objections against the establish
ment. Whereupon Dr. Raynolds, in the name
of his brethren, humbly requested,
1. That the doctrine of the Church might be
preserved pure, according to God's Word.
2. That good pastors might be planted in all
churches to preach the same.
3. That the Book of Common Prayer might
be fitted to more increase of piety.
4. That church government might be sin
cerely ministered according to God's Word.
1. With regard to the doctrine ofthe Church,
he requested that to those words in the six
teenth article, "We may depart from grace,"
may be added, neither totally nor finally, to make
them consistent with the doctrine of predesti
nation in the seventeenth article ; and that (if
his majesty pleased) the nine articles of Lam
beth might be inserted. That in the twenty-
third article these words, "in the congregation,"
might be omitted, as implying a liberty for men
to preach out ofthe congregation without a law
ful call. That in the twenty-fifth article the
ground for confirmation might be examiiied;
one passage confessing it to be a depraved imi
tation of the apostles, and another grounding it
on their example ; besides, that it was too much
work for a bishop —
Here Bancroft, no longer able to contain him
self, falling upon his knees, begged the king
with great earnestness to stop the doctor's
mouth, according to an ancient canon that
schismatics are not to be heard against their
bishops. It is not reasonable, says he, that
men who have subscribed to these articles
should be allowed to plead against their own
act, contrary to the statute 1st Eliz. The king,
perceiving the bishop in a heat, said. My lord,
you ought not to interrupt the doctor, but either
let him proceed or answer what he has object
ed. Upon which he replied, "that as to Dr.
Raynolds's first objection, the doctrine of pre
destination was a desperate doctrine, and had
made many people libertines, who were apt to
say, ' If I shall be saved, I shall be saved :' he
therefore desired it might be left at large. That
his second objection was trifling, because, by
the practice of the- Church, none but licensed
ministers might preach or administer the sacra
ment. And as to the doctor's third objection,
he said that the bishops had their chaplains
and curates to examine such as were to be con
firmed ; and that in ancient time, none confirm
ed but bishops." To which Raynolds replied,
in the -words of St. Jerome, " that it was rather
a compliment to the order than from any reason
or necessity of the thing." And whereas the
bishop had called him a schismatic, he desired
his majesty that that imputation might not lie
upon him ; which occasioned a great deal of
mirth and raiUery between the king and his no-

232
hies about the unhappy Puritans. In conclusion,
the king said h8k,was against increasing the
number of articles or stuffing them with theo
logical niceties, because, were they never so
explicit, there will be no preventing contrary
opinions. As to confirmation, he thought it
not decent to refer the solemnity to a parish
priest, and closed his remarks with this maxim.
No bishop, no king.
After a long interruption the doctor went on,
and desired a new catechism ; to which the king
consented, provided there might- be no curious
questions in it, and that our agreement with the
Roman Catholics in some points might not be
esteemed heterodoxy. He farther desired a new
translation of the Bible, to which his majesty
agreed, provided it were without marginal notes,
saying, that of all the translations, the Geneva
was the worst, because of the marginal notes,
which aUowed disobedience to kings. The doc
tor complained of the printing and dispersing
popish pamphlets, which reflected on Bancroft's
character : the king said, " What was done of
this kind was by warrant from the court, to
nourish the schism between the seculars and
Jesuits, which was of great service. Doctor,
you are a better coUegeman than statesman."
To which Raynolds replied, that he did not in
tend such books as were printed in England,
but such as were imported from beyond sea ;
and this several of the privy council owned to
be a grievance. The doctor having prayed that
some effectual remedy might be provided against
the profanation of the Lord's Day, declared he
had no more to add on the first head.
2. With regard to preaching, the doctor com
plained of pluralities in the Church, and pray
ed that all parishes might be furnished with
preaching ministers. Upon which Bancroft fell
upon his knees, and petitioned his majesty that
all parishes might have a praying ministry ; for
preaching is grown so much in fashion, says
he, that the service of the Church is neglected.
Besides, pulpit harangues are very dangerous ;
he therefore humhly moved that the number of
homilies might be increased, and that the clergy
might be obliged to read them instead of ser
mons, in which many vented their spleen against
their superiors. The king asked the plaintiffs
their opinion of the bishop's motion; who replied,
that a preaching minister was certainly best
and most useful, though they allowed, where
preaching could not be had, godly prayers, hom-
ihes, and exhortations might do much good.
The lord-chanceUor [Egerton] said, there were
more livings that wanted learned men than
learned men living; let all, therefore, have single
coats before others have doublets. Upon which
Bancroft replied merrily. But a doublet is good
in cold weather. The king put an end to the
debate by saying he would consult the bishops
upon this head.
3. But the doctor's chief objections were to
the service-book and church government. Here
he complained ofthe late subscriptions, by which
many were deprived of their ministry who were
wUling to subscribe to the doctrinal articles of
the Church, to the king's supremacy, and to the
statutes of the realm. He excepted to the read
ing the Apocrypha ; to the interrogatories in bap
tism, and to the sign of the cross ; to the sur
plice, and other superstitious habits ; to the ring

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

in marriage ; to the churching of women by the
name of purification. He urged that most of
these things were relics of popery ; that thoy
had been abused to idolatry, and therefore ought
like the brazen serpent, to be abolishi-d. Mr.
Knewstubs said these rights and ceremonies
were at best but indifferent, and therefore doubt
ed whether the power ofthe Church could hind
the conscience without impeaching Christian
liberty. Here his majesty interrupted them, and said
that he apprehended the surplice to be a very
comely garment ; that the cross was as old as
Constantine, and must we charge him with po
pery 1 besides, it was no more a significant
sign than imposition of hands, which the peti
tioners allowed in ordination ; and as for their
other exceptions, they were capable of being
understood in a sober sense ; " but as to the
power of the Church in things indifferent," says
his majesty, " I wiU not argue that point with
you, but answer as kings in Parliament, Le Rmj
s'avisera. This is like Mr. John Black, a beard
less boy, who told me, the last conference in
Scotland, that he would hold conformity with
me in doctrine, but that every man as to cere
monies was to be left to his own liberty, but I
wUl have none of that ; I will have one doc
trine, one discipline, one religion in substance
and ceremony : never speak more to that point,
how far you are bound to obey."
4. Dr. Raynolds was going on to complain of
exoommunication by lay-chancellors ; but the
king having said that he should consult the
bishops on that head, the doctor desired that the
clergy might have assemblies once in three
weeks ; that in rural deaneries they might have
the liberty of prophesyings, as in Archbishop
Grindal's time ; that those cases which could
not be resolved there might be referred to the
archdeacon's visitation, and from thence to the
diocesan synod, where the bishop with his pres
byters should determine such points as wore
too difficult for the other meetings. Here the
king broke out into a flame, and instead of hear
ing the doctor's reasons, or commanding his
bishops to answer them, told the ministers that
he found they were aiming at a Scots presby
tery, " which," says he, " agrees with monar
chy as well as God and the devil ; then Jack and
Tom, WUl and Dick, shall meet, and at their
pleasure censure both me and my council.
Therefore, pray stay one seven years before you
demand that of me, and if then you find me
pursy and fat, and my windpipe stuffed, I will
perhaps hearken to you ; for let that government
be up, and I am sure I shall be kept in breath ;
but till you find I grow lazy, pray let that alone.
I remember how they used the poor lady, my
mother, in Scotland, and me in my minority."
Then turning to the bishops, he put his hand to
his hat and said, " My lords, I may thank you
that these Puritans plead for my supremacy, for
if once you are out and they in place, I know
what would become of my supremacy, for. No
bishop, no king. WeU, doctor, have you any
thing else to offer ?" Dr. Raynolds; "No more,
if it please your majesty." Then rising from
his chair, the king said, "If this be all your party
have to say, I wiU make them conform, or I
will harry them out of this land, or else worse ;"
and he was as good as his word.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

233

Thus ended the second day's conference, af
ter four hours' discourse, with a perfect triumph
on the side of the Church ; the Puritan mhiis-
ters were insulted, ridiculed, and laughed to
seorn, without either wit or good manners.
One of the council said he now saw that a Pu
ritan was a Protestant frighted out of his wits.
Another, that the ministers looked more like
Turks than Christians, as appeared by their
habits. Sir Edward Peyton confessed that Dr.
Raynolds and his brethren had not freedom of
speech ; but finding it to no purpose to reply,
they held their peace. On the other hand, the
bishops and courtiers flattered the king's wis
dom and learning beyond measure, calling him
the Solomon of the age. Bancroft feU upon his
knees, and said, " I protest my heart melteth
for joy, that Almighty God, of his singular mer
cy, has given us such a king as, since Christ's
time, has not been." Chancellor Egerton said
" he had never seen the king and priest so fully
United in one person."* His majesty was no
less satisfied with his own conduct ; for in his
letter to Mr. Blake, a Scotsman, he told him
that he had soundly peppered off the Puritans,
that they had fled before him, and that their pe
titions had turned him more earnestly against
them. " It were no reason," says his majesty,
"that those who refuse the airy sign of the
cross after baptism, should have their purses
stuffed with any more solid and substantial
crosses. They fled me so from argument to
argument, without ever answering me directly
{ut est eorum maris), that I was forced to tell
them, that if any of them, when boys, had dis
puted thus in the college, the moderator would
have fetched them up, and applied the rod to
their buttocks — I have a book of theirs that
may convert infidels^ but never shall convert
me, except by turning me more earnestly against
them." This was the language ofthe Solomon
of the age. I leave the reader to judge how
much superior the wise monarch was in the
knowledge of antiquity, or the art of syUogism,
to Dr. Raynolds, who was the oracle of his time
for acquaintance with ecclesiastical history,
councils, and fathers, and had lived in a coUege
all his days.
The third day's conference was on Wednes
day, January 18th, when the bishops and deans
were first caUed into the privy chamber with
the civilians, to satisfy the king about the high
commission and the oath ex officio, which they
might easily do as being principal branches of
his prerogative. When the king said he appro
ved of the wisdom of the law in making the
oath ex officio, the old archbishop was so trans
ported as to cry out, " Undoubtedly your maj
esty speaks by the special assistance of God's
Spirit." A committee of bishops and privy
counsellors was then appointed to consider of
lessening the charges in the high commisson,
and for planting schools, and proper ministers
in the kingdom of Ireland, and on the borders
of England and Scotland. After which. Dr.
Raynolds and his brethren were called in, not
to dispute, but only to hear the few alterations
or explanations in the Common Prayer Book

* A modern prelate has said, "Sancho Pancha
never made a better speech, nor more to the purpose,
during his govemment." — Bishop Warburton's Notes
on Neal. — Ed.
Vol. I.— G g •

already mentioned ; which not answering their
expectations, Mr. Chadderton fell on his knees,
and humbly prayed that the surplice and cross
might not be urged on some godly ministers in
Lancashire ; and Mr. Knewstubs desired the
same favour for some Suffolk ministers ; which
the bishops were going to oppose, but the king
replied, with a stern countenance, " We have
taken pains here to conclude in a resolution for
uniformity, and you will undo aU by preferring
the credit of a few private men to the peace of
the Churoh ; this is the Scots way, but I will
have none of this arguing ; therefore let them
conform, and that quickly, too, or they shall hear
of it; the bishops wUl give them some time,.
but if they are of an obstinate and turbulent
spirit, I will have them enforced to conform
ity."* Thus ended this mock conference,! for it de
serves no better name, all things being previ
ously concluded between the king and the bish
ops, before the Puritans were brought upon the
stage, to be made a spectacle to their enemies,
and borne down, not with calm reason and ar
gument, but with the royal authority, I approve
or I dissent ; the king making himself both
judge and party.! No wonder, therefore, if
Dr. Raynolds fell below himself, and lost some
part of his esteem with the li'uritans, being
overawed by the place and company, and the
arbitrary dictates of his sovereign opponent.

* " In this manner ended this conference ; which,"
observes Dr. Warner, " convinced the Puritans they
were mistaken in depending on the king's protection ; ,
which convinced the king that they were not to be
won by a few insignificant concessions ; and which,
if it did not convince the privy council and the bish
ops that they had got a Solomon for their king, yet
they spoke of him as though it did." — Eccles. Hist.,
vol. ui., p. 482.
" This conference," says another writer, " was but
a blind to introduce episcopacy in Scotland ; all the
Scotch noblepien then at court being designed to be-
present, and others, both noblemen and ministers,
being called up from Scotland by the king's letter to
assist at it." — Dr. Welwood, as quoted by Crosby.
Hist, of Engl. Baptists, vol. i., p. 85. — Ed.
! " The Hampton Court Conference," says Robert
Robinson, of Cambridge, " was a ridiculous farce, a
compound of kingcraft and priestcraft. The actors
m it forgot nothing but their masks. The Puritans-
would not be gulled by it, but continued to dissent,
and they were right." — Lectures on the Principles of
Nonconformity, Worizs, ii., 221.
" In the accounts that we read of this meeting,"
remarks Mr. Hallam, "we are alternately struck.
with wonder at the indecent and partial behaviour
of the king, and at the abject baseness of the bishops,.
mixed, according to the customs of servUe natures,
with insolence towards their opponents. It was
easy for a monarch and eighteen churchmen to claim
the victory, be the merits of the dispute what they
might, over abashed and intimidated adversaries." — -
Const. Hist., i, 404.— C.
X The conclusion of his address to the Puritan.
ministers, at this conference, as it was a curious spe-;
cimen of the king's logic, so it was a proof of the in
solent and tyrannical spirit with which he aimed to
bear down all opposition. " If," said he, " this be all
your party hath to say, I wUl make them conform
themselves, or else 1 wiU harrie them out of the land,,-
or else do worse, only hang them, that's all." It is
very evident, from this, that he trusted more, as it
has been observed by a modern writer, to the power
of hanging than of convincing his adversaries. — Secret
History of the Court and Reign of Charles II,, vol. i.,..
Introduction, p. 23, the note. — Ed.

£34

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

The Puritans refused to be concluded by this
conference, for the foUowing reasons : because,
1. "The ministers appointed to speak for
them were not of their nomination or choosing,
nor of one judgment in the points of controver
sy ; for being desired by their brethren to argue
against the corruptions ofthe Church as simply
evU, they replied, they were not so persuaded.
Being farther desired to acquaint the king that
some of their brethren thought them sinful, they
refused that also. Lastly, being desired to give
their reasons in writing why they thought the
ceremonies only indifferent, or to answer the
reasons they had to offer to prove them sinful,
they would do neither one nor other.
2. " Because the points in controversy were
not thoroughly debated, but nakedly propounded,
and some not at aU touched. Neither was there
any one argument to the purpose pursued and
followed. 3. " Because the prelates took the liberty of
interrupting at their pleasure those of the other
side, insomuch that they were checked for it by
the king himself"
They objected also to the account ofthe con
ference by Dean Barlow, as published without
the knowledge, advice, or consent of the other
side, and therefore deserving no credit ; they
said that Dr. Moreton had caUed some part of
it in question, and rectified some speeches fa
thered on the king ; besides, that the prelates
only were present at the first day's conference,
when the principal matters were determined.
"Therefore the Puritan ministers offer (if
his majesty wUl give them leave) in one week's
space to deliver his majesty in writing a full
answer to any argument or assertion propound
ed in that conference by any prelate ; and in
the mean time they do aver them to be most
vain and frivolous."
If the bishops had been men of moderation,
or if the king had discovered any part of that
wisdom he was flattered with, aU parties might
have been made easy at this time ; for the bish
ops, in such a crisis, would have complied with
anything his majesty had insisted on ; but the
king's cowardice, his love of flattery, his high
and arbitrary principles, and his mortal hatred
of the Puritans, lost one of the fairest opportu
nities that have ever offered to heal the divis
ions ofthe Church.
On the 5th of March the king published a
proclamation, in which he says, " That though
the doctrine and discipline of the established
Church were unexceptionable, and agreeable to
primitive antiquity, nevertheless he had given
-way to a conference, to hear the exceptions of
the Nonconformists, which he had found very
slender ; but that some few explanations of pas
sages had been yielded to for their satisfaction ;
therefore he now requires and enjoins aU his
subjects to conform to it, as the only public
form established in this realm; and admonishes
them not to expect any farther alterations, for
that his resolutions were absolutely settled."
The Common Prayer Book was accordingly
printed with the amendments, and the procla
mation prefixed.
It was a high strain of the prerogative to al
ter a form of worship established by law, mere
ly by a royal proclamation, without consent of
Parliament or convocation ; for by the same

power that his majesty altered one article in
the liturgy, he might set aside the whole, every
sentence being equally established by act of
Parliament ; but this wise monarch made no
scruple of dispensing with the laws. However,
the force of aU proclamations determining with
the king's life, and there being no subsequent
act of Parliament to establish these amend
ments, it was urged very justly in the next
reign, that this was not the liturgy ofthe Chureh
of England established by law, and, consequent
ly, not binding upon the clergy.
A fortnight before this conference was held,
the learned and reverend Mr. Thomas Cart
wright, one of the chief of the Puritans, and a
great sufferer for nonconformity, died. He was
born in Hertfordshire, 1535, and entered into St.
John's College, Cambridge, 1550, where he be
came a hard student, never sleeping above five
hours in a night. During the reign of Queen
Mary he left the University, and became a law
yer's clerk ; but upon the accession of Queen
Elizabeth he resumed his theological studies,
and was chosen fellow of Trinity College in the
year 1563. The year following he bore a part
in the Philosophy Act before the queen. In the
year 1567 he commenced bachelor of divinity,
and three years after was chosen Lady Marga
ret's professor. He was so popular a preacher,
that when his turn came at St. Mary's, the sex
ton was obliged to take down the windows.
But Mr. Cartwright venturing in some of his
lectures to show the defects ofthe discipline of
the Church as it then stood, he was questioned
for it before the vice-chancellor, denied his doc
tor's degree, and expelled the University, as has
been related. He then travelled to Geneva,
and afterward became preacher to the English
merchants at Antwerp. King James invited
him to be professor in his University of St. An
drew's, which he declined. After his return
from Antwerp he was often in trouble by sus
pensions, deprivations, and long imprisonment;
at length the great Earl of Leicester, who knew
his worth, made him governor of his hospital in
Warwick, where he ended his days, December
27, 1603. He was certainly one of the most
learned and acute disputants of his age, but
very ill used by the governing clergy. He wrote
several books, besides his controversy with
Archbishop Whitgift, as, his Latin comment on
Ecelesiastes, dedicated to King James, in which
he thankfully acknowledges his being appointed
professor to a Scots university; his celebrated
confutation of the Rhemist translation of the
New Testament, to whieh work he was solicit
ed not only by Sir Francis Walsingham, but by
letter under the hands of the principal divines
of Cambridge, as, Roger Goad, Wm. Whitaker,
Thomas Crooke, John Ireton, Wm. Fulke, John
Field. Nicholas Crane, Gibs Seinthe, Richard
Gardiner, Wm. Clarke, &c. Such an opinion
had these great men of his learning and abili
ties* He was a person of uncommon industry

* Dugdale calls him the standard-bearer of the Pu
ritans, and says he was the first in the Church of
England who began to pray extempore before ser
mons. Fuller says "he was most pious and strict
in his conversation, a pure Latinist, an accurate Gre
cian, an exact Hebrean, and, in short, an excellent
scholar." And yet Churton, in his Life of Nowell, p.
225, casts a slur upon his piety, learning, and good

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

235

and piety, fervent in prayer, a frequent preach
er, and of a meek and humble spirit. In his
old age he was so troubled with the stone and
gout by frequent lying in prisons, that he was
¦ obliged always to study on his knees. His last
.sei-mon was on Ecoles., xii., 7: "Then shaU
.the dust return to the earth, and the spirit shall
return to God who gave it." The Tuesday fol
lowing he was two hours on his knees in pri
vate prayer, and a few hours after quietly re
signed his spirit to God, in the sixty-eighth year
of his age, and was buried in his own hospital.
The famous Mr. Dod preached his funeral ser
mon.* Six weeks after died his great antagonist.
Dr. John Whitgift, archbishop of Canterbury,
who was born at Great Grimsby, in Lincoln
shire, in the year 1530, and educated in Pem
broke Hall, and was fellow of Peter House,
Cambridge. He complied with the changes in
Queen Mary's reign, though he disapproved of
her religion. He commenced doctor of divinity
1569, and was afterward Margaret and queen's
professor,! and master of Trinity College. Hav
ing, been a celebrated champion for the hierar
chy, the queen advanced him first to the Bish
opric of Worcester, and then to the Archbishop
ric of Canterbury. He was a severe governor
ofthe Church, pressing conformity with the ut
most rigour,t in which her majesty always gave
him her countenance and support. He regard
ed neither the entreaties of piJor ministers nor
the intercessions of courtiers, being steady to
sense. He charges Cartwright with saying, in a cor
respondence, "that prayer was, as it were, a bunch
of keys, whereby we go to all the treasures and store
houses of the Lord ; his butteries, his pantries, his
cellars, his wardrobe."
All this, perhaps, did enter into a familiar letter.
Well, what if it did? it was just in the taste of the
.times; but Churton makes everything bad out of
these few words. He exclaims, "Does fanaticism
extinguish all taste and judgment? or is it only in
minds originally weak that the infection can fit it
self ? Which ever way the reader may solve the prob
lem, he will naturally ask. Was this the man that
was to improve what had been done by Cranmer and
Ridley, by Parker and Nowell, and their coadjutors?
to give us a form of worship more pure and edifying,
more dignified and devout?" But, says Brookes, " this
eloquent calumniator does not stop here : he felt the
poetic flame arise, and therefore immediately asks,
" ' Is this the region, this the soil, the clime.
That we must change for heaven ? this moui-nful gloom
For that celestial light V
We do confess that so much bombast, scurrility, and
barefaced misrepresentation were scarcely ever found
within so small a compass. The reader wiU, at the
same time, easUy perceive that the whole is design
ed to extol the Church of England, if not above per
fection, at least beyond the possibility of amendment,
and to blacken the character and disgrace the mem
ory of that man, who was justly esteemed one of
the most celebrated divines of the age in which he
lived." — Brookes, Lives of Puritans, vol. i., p. 161. — C.
* Clarke's Lives annexed to his General Martyr
ology, p. 16.
t For his sake the salary of Lady Margaret's pro
fessorship was raised from twenty marks to £20.
And it is observed to his honour, that this prelate
was the great restorer of order and disciphne in the
University of Cambridge, when deeply wounded and
almost sunk. — Granger's History of England, 8vo,
vol i., p. 206. — Ed.
X "Even sometimes it may be," says Dr. Warner,
"beyond all other law but that of her majesty's
Jileasure." — Ed.

the laws, and even outgoing them in the cause
of uniformity. Mr. Fuller says he would give
fair words and good language, but would abate
nothing. Sir G. Paul, the author of his Ufe,
says that choler was his chief infirmity,* which
has sufficiently appeared by the account already
given of the many persecutions, oppressions,
and unjustifiable hardships the Puritans suffer
ed under his administration ; notwithstanding
which they increased prodigiously, insomuch,
that towards the end of his life, his grace grew
weary of the invidious employment, and being
afraid of King James's first ParUament,t died,
as it is said, with grief before it met, desiring
rather to give an account of his bishopric to
God than exercise it among men.J He had
been at court the first Sunday in Lent, and as
he was going to the council-chamber to dinner,
was seized with the dead palsy on the^ right
side, and with the loss of his speech ; upon which
he was carried first to the lord-treasurer's cham
ber, and afterward to Lambeth, where the king
visited him on Tuesday, but not being able to
converse, lifted up his eyes and hand and said,
Pro ecclesia Dei, which were his last words.
He would have written something, but could not
hold his pen. His disease increasing, he ex
pired the next day, being the 29th of February,
1603, aged seventy-three, and was buried at
Croydon on the 27th of March following, where
he has a fair monument, with his effigies, at
length upon it. He was an hospitable man, and
usually travelled with a great retinue ; in the
year 1589 he came into Canterbury with a train
of five hundred horse, of which one hundred
were his own servants. He founded an hos
pital and free school at Croydon, and though
he was a cruel persecutor of the Puritans, yet,
compared with his successor, Bancroft, he was
a valuable prelate. ij
Before the meeting of the Parliament the

* Life of Whitgift, p. 108.
t Fuller's Church History, book x., p. 25.
X Stype's words. Dr. Grey says, are, "Et nunc
Domine exaltata est mea anima, quod in eo tempore
succubui, quando mallem episcopatus mei reddere
rationem, quam inter homines exercere." — Ed.
Ij The character of Whitgift's administration ap
pears plain hi the page of histoi-y. It imbodied the
worst passions of an intolerant state priest, and stood
out in the history of Protestant persecution as wor
thy of special reprobation. It knew no mercy — it ex
ercised no compassion. It had but one object, and
that it pursued without compunction or remorse.
The most conscientious of the queen's subjects were
mingled with the vilest of their race. Whatever was
noble in character, elevated in sentiment, or pure and
ethereal in devotion, was confounded with the baser
elements of society, and proscribed and punished as
an offence to God and treason against the state.
The legal institutions of the kingdom were convert
ed into means of oppression, and the dark recesses of
its prisons resounded at once with the sighs and
prayers of men of whom the world was not worthy.
It is in vain to defend the administration of Whitgift
on the ground of the excesses of the Puritans. Those
excesses were provoked by his cruelty. They grew
-out of government, the unmitigated rigour of which
exasperated the spirits and soured the temper of
his opponents. Neither can the archbishop be justi
fied on the plea that he acted on the commands of
the queen. His servUity was, indeed, contemptible,
but his ecclesiastical measures had their origin in his
own breast. He was the queen's adviser, to whose
judgment she deferred, and of whose hearty concur
rence in every measure of severity and intolerance

236

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

king issued out two proclamations, one com
manding all Jesuits and priests in orders to de
part the kingdom [February 22, 1603], wherein
he was very careful to let the world know that
he did not banish them out of hatred to the
Catholic religion, but only for maintaining the
pope's temporal power over princes.* The other
was against the Puritans, in which there was
no indulgence for tender consciences : aU must
conform, or suffer the extremities ofthe law.f
The king opened the first session of Parlia
ment with a long speech, in which there are
many strokes in favour of tyranny and arbitrary
power : "his majesty acknowledges the Roman
Church to be his mother-church, though defiled
with some infirmities and corruptions. That
his mind was ever free from persecution for
matters of conscience, as he hopes those of that
religion have proved since his first coming. He
pities the laity among them, and would indulge
their clergy if they would but renounce the
pope's supremacy and his pretended power to
dispense with the murder of kings. He wishes
that he might be a means of uniting the two re
ligions, for if they would but abandon their late
corruptions, he would meet them in the mid
way, as having a great veneration for antiquity
in the points of ecclesiastical policy. But then,
as to the Puritans or Novelists, who do not dif
fer from us so much in points of religion as
in their confused form of policy and purity,
those," says he, " are discontented with the
present church government ; they are impatient
to suffer any superiority, which makes their
sect insufferable in any well-governed common
wealth. "t
The bishops and their adherents were pleased
she was fully assured. Several of her counsellors
were opposed to his severity, "but secure of the
queen's support, Whitgift relented not a jot of his
resolution, and went far greater lengths than Parker
had ever ventured, or perhaps had desired to proceed."
His administration involved an immense sacrifice of
hfe. It is easy to number the martyrs whom popery
led to the stake, but no other than an omniscient
being is competent to reveal the secrets of his dark
and loathsome prison-houses. Many of his victims
entered with a robust frame and a vigorous spirit, but
the one was wasted by disease and the other broken
down by oppression, till the last enemy released them
from the tyrant's grasp, and ushered them into the
presence of the King of kings. The Protestant
Church of England is deeply steeped in the blood of
the saints. The martyrdom it inflicted was less vio
lent, and less calculated to shock the pubhc mind,
but it was not a jot less cruel or wicked than that
which Bonner and Gardiner practised. — See Dr.
Price's History of Nonconformity, yol. i., p. 471. Con
sult .Ha/Zam's Constitutional History, vol. i., p. 271. — C.
* Rapin, vol. n., p. 163, folio edition.
+ " The Puritans about this time," says Mrs.
Macaulay, "suffered so severe a persecution, that
they were driven to offer a petition for relief lo the
king while he was taking the diversion of hunting.
James was something startled at this unexpected in
trusion, and very graciously durected them to depute
ten of their members to declare their grievances to
the council. These deputies no sooner made their
appearance before the council than they were sent
to jail, and Sir Francis Hastings, Su Edward Mon
tague, and Sir Valentine Knightly, under whose pro
tection Ihey had thus acted, were turned out of the
heuteiiancy of the county and the commission of the
peace." — Wmwood's Memorials, quoted by Mrs. Mac
aulay, Hist, of England, vol. i., p. 7, note, 8vo. — Ed.
X Rapm, vol. ii., p. 165, 166, folio ed.

with this speech, because the king seemed re
solved not to indulge the Puritans at any rate;
the Catholirs did not hke his majesty's distinc
tion between the laies and clerics ; but the Pu
ritans had most reason to complain, to see so
much charity expressed towards papists, and
so little for themselves * All Protestants in
general heard with concern the king's offer to
meet the papists half way. What does he
mean? say they ; is there no difference between
popery and Protestantism but the pope's author
ity over princes ? Are aU other doctrines to be
given up? Are the religions the same? And
is this the only point upon which we separated
from the Church of Rome? Thus, unhappily, did
this pretended Protestant prince set out with
laying the foundation of discontent among all
ranks of his people.
His majesty made frequent mention in his
speech of his hereditary right to the crown, and
of his lineal descent ; that he was accountable
to none but God ; and that the only difference
between a rightful king and a tyrant is, that the
one is ordained for preserving the prosperity of
his people, the other thinks his kingdom and
people are ordained to satisfy his unreasonable
appetites.! Farther, his majesty altered the
writs for electing members, and took upon him
to prescribe what sort of representatives should
be elected, not by way of exhortation, but of
command, and as indispensable conditions of
their being admi%ted into the House, and which.
were to be judged of and determined in the
Court of Chancery. t He threatened to fine and
disfranchise those corporations that did not
choose to his mind, and to fine and imprison
their representatives if they presumed to sit in
the House. When the House of Commons met,
he interrupted their examinations of elections,
and commanded the return of Sir Francis Good
win, whose election they had set aside, to be
brought before him and his judges. Most of
those who approached the king's person labour
ed to inspire him with the design of making
himself absolute, or, rather, to confirm him in
that resolution.^ The bishops were of this
number ; and from this time there has appeared
among the clergy a party of men who have car-^
ried the obedience of the subject and the author
ity of the crown as high as in the most arbitraiy
monarchies. But though the court and bishops were so
well agreed, the Parliament passed some acts
which gave them uneasiness ; as the revival of
the statute of Edward VI. which enacts that all
processes, citations, judgments, &c., in any ec
clesiastical courts, shaU be issued in the king's
name, and under the king's seal of arms. The

* Rapin, vol. u., p. 167, 168, folio ed.
t Ibid., vol. ii., p. 252. Coke, p. 51.
X " This," as Dr. Warner well observes, " wa9
directly striking at the privileges of the Commons."
— Ed.
(j We are told, in particular, that Cecil assured
James, on his coming to the crown, " that he should
find his EngUsh subjects hke asses, on whom he
might lay any burden, and should need neither bit
nor bridle but their asses' ears." " His reign, how
ever, affords sufficient proof." observes a late writer,
" that the king himself was the only ass, and that the
Enghsh Uons were not to be intimidated by his silly
braying." — Secret History of the Court and Rei^n of
Charles IL, vol. i., lntrod.uction, p. 30, note.— Ln.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

237

bishops were said to he asleep when they suffer
ed this clause to pass ; but the Laudean clergy
broke through it afterward, as they did through
everything else that stood in the way of their
sovereignty. It was farther enacted that all
leases or grants of Church lands to the king, or
his heirs, &c., for more than twenty-one years
for the future, should be made void, which
put an effectual stop to the alienation of the
Chun-h's revenues. The marriages of the cler
gy were also legitimated, by reviving the stat
ute ofKing Edward VI. for that purpose.*
The convocation which sat with the ParUa
ment was very active against the Puritans. The
see of Canterbury being vacant, Bancroft, bish-
of London, presided," and produced the king's
license to make canons.f May 2, 1603, he de
livered a book of canons, of his own preparing,
to the lower house for their approbation. About
the same time, Mr. Egerton, Fleetwood, Wot-
ton, Clark, and other Puritan divines, presented
a petition for reformation of the Book of Com
mon Prayer, but instead of receiving it, they
admonished them and their adherents to be
obedient, and conform before midsummer-day,
or else they should undergo the censures of the
Church. In the mean time the canons were
revising. May 23, there was a debate in the
upper house upon the cross in baptism, when
Bancroft and some others spoke vehemently for
it, but Dr. Rudd, bishop of St. David's, stood up
and made the following speech for charity and
moderation :
" For ray part, I acknowledge the antiquity
ofthe use of the cross, as mentioned in Tertul-
lian, and after him in St. Cyprian, St. Chrysos
tom, Austin, and others. I also confess the
original of the ceremony to have sprung by oc-
<!asion of the pagans, who reproached the an
cient Christians for believing in Christ crucified ;
and that in popery it has been superstitiously
abused ; and I affirm that it is in the Church of
England now admitted and entertained by us,
and restored to its ancient integrity, all super
stition abandoned.
" Likewise, I wish that, if the king's highness
shall persist in imposing it, all would submit to
it (as we do) rather than forego the ministry in
that behalf But I greatly fear, by the report
which I hear, that very many learned preachers,
whose consciences are not in our custody, nor
to be disposed of at our devotion, will not easily
be drawn thereunto ; of which number, if any
shall come in my walk, I desire to be furnished
beforehand, by those that be present, with suffi
cient reasons to satisfy them (if it be possible)
concerning some points which have been now
delivered. " First. Whereas sundry passages of Scrip
ture have been alleged for the cross ; as, ' God
fiirbid that I should rejoice save in the cross of
Christ,' and divers others of the like sense ; if
any of the adverse opinion faU into my company,
and say that these scriptures are figurative, im
plying the death and passion of our .Saviour
Christ, arid that to draw an argument from
them to justify the sign of the cross in the fore
head is an insufficient kind of reasoning, and a
faUacy, what answer shall I make unto them ?
" Secondly. Whereas I have observed, upon
* Heylin's Hist. Presb., p. 375.
t Strype's Annals, vol. iv., p. 396.

present relation, that the impungers of this cer
emony were heard at large in the conference at
Hampton Court, and having objected the exam
ple of Hezekiah, who broke in pieces the brazen
serpent, after it had been abused to idolatry,
and therefore the sign of the cross (which was
not brought into the Church by God's express
command, as the brazen serpent was, but was
from the beginning a mere invention of men)
ought now to be taken away by reason of the
superstitious abuse -which is sustained in po
pery ; they received answer. That KingHezekiah
might have preserved it, abandoning the abuse
of it, if it had pleased him, and, consequently,
it is in the king's majesty's power to abolish
this ceremony, having been abused, or to retain
it in manner aforesaid. Hereunto I say, that I
was one of the conference, yet I was not at that,
part of the conference where those that stood
for reformation had access to the king's majes
ty's presence, and Uberty to speak for them
selves ; for that I, and some other of my breth
ren the bishops, were secluded from that day's
assembly ; but I suppose it to be true, as it has
formerly been reported, and I for my own par
ticular admit the consequence put down above.
Now, because I wish all others abroad as well
satisfied herein as ourselves that be here pres
ent, if any of the contrary opinion shall come to
me and say that the aforesaid answer does not
satisfy them, because they think there is as
great reason now to move them to become peti
tioners to his majesty for abolishing the cross
in baptism as there was to move the godly
zealous in Hezekiah's time to be petitioners for
defacing the brazen serpent, because the church-
going papists now among us do superstitiously
abuse the one, as the Israelites did the other ;
what sound. answer shall I make to them for
their better satisfaction ?
" Thirdly. Whereas it has been this day al
leged that it is convenient and necessary to
preserve the memory of the cross of Christ by
this means ; if haply any ofthe other side shall
come to me and say that the memory of the
cross of Christ might be sufficiently and more
safely preserved by preaching the doctrine of
the Gospel, the sum whereof is ' Christ cruci
fied;' which was so lively preached to the Ga-
latians, as if his bodily image had been crucified
among them ; and yet we know not of any ma
terial or signal cross that was in use in the -
Church at that time ; I desire to know what
satisfaction or answer must be given to them ?
"Moreover, I protest, that all my speeches
now are uttered by way of proposition, not by
way of opposition, and that they all tend to work
pacification in the Church ; for I put great dif
ference between what is lawful and what is ex
pedient, and between them that are schismatical
and them that are scrupulous only upon some
ceremonies, being otherwise learned, studious,
grave, and honest men.
" Concerning these last, I suppose, if, upon
the urging them to absolute subscription, they
should be stiff, and choose rather to forego their
livings, and the exercise of their ministry, though
I do not justify their doings herein, yet surely
their service will be missed at such a time, as
need shall require us and them to give the right
hand of fellowship one tp another, and to go
arm in arm against the common adversary.

238

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

" Likewise consider who must be the execu
tioners of their deprivation ; even we ourselves,
the bishops, against whom there wUl be a great
clamour of them and their dependants, and many
others who are well affected towards them,
whereby our persons will be in hazard to be
brought into extreme dislike or hatred.
" Also remember, that when the Benjamites
-were all destroyed, saving six hundred, and the
men of Israel sware in their fury that none of
them would give his daughter to the Benjamites
to wife, though they suffered for their just de
serts, yet their brethren afterward lamented and
said. There is one tribe cut off from Israel this
day ; and they used all their wits, to the utter
most qf their policy, to restore that tribe again.
" In like sort, if these our brethren aforesaid
shall be deprived of their places for the matter
premised, I think we should find cause to bend
our wits to the utmost extent of our skill to
provide some cure of souls for them, that they
may exercise their talents.
"Furthermore, if these men, being divers
hundreds, should forsake their charges, who,
I pray you, should succeed them? Verily, I
know not where to find so many able preachers
in this realm unprovided for ; but suppose there
were, yet they might more conveniently be set
tled in the seats of unpreaching ministers. But
if they are put in the places of these men that
are dispossessed, thereupon it wiU follow, 1. That
the number of preaching ministers will not be
multiplied. 2. The Church cannot be so well
furnished on a sudden ; for though the new
supply may be of learned men from the univer
sities, yet will they not be such ready preachers
for a time, nor so experienced in pastoral gov
ernment, nor so well acquainted with the man
ners of the people, nor so discreet in their car
riage, as those who have already spent many
years in their ministerial charge.
" Besides, forasmuch as in the time of the
late Archbishop of Canterbury these things
were not so extremely urged, but that many
learned preachers enjoyed their liberty condi
tionally, that they did not by word or deed
openly disturb the state established, I would
know a reason why they should now be so gen
erally and exceedingly straitly called upon, es
pecially since there is a greater increase of pa
pists lately than heretofore.
"To conclude, I wish, that if by petition to
the king's majesty there cannot be obtained a
quiet remove of the premises, nor yet a tolera
tion for them that are of more staid and temper
ate carriage, yet at least there might be procu
red a mitigation ofthe penalty."*
The Bishops of London, Winchester, Ely, and
Lincoln, answered the Bishop of St: David's ;
but when his lordship would have replied, he
was forbid by the president, and submitted ; af
firming, that as nothing was more dear to him
than the peace ofthe Church, he was determin
ed to use the best means he could to draw oth-

* Dr. Grey also gives this speech of Bishop Rudd
at length, inserting m brackets some words and claus
es both from Mr Pierce and Mr. Thomas Baker's
MSiS., omitted by .Mr. Neal, in order to convict him-
selt of inaccuracy ; but from the nature of them, it
should seem that these omissions proceeded not
from negUgence, but design, as not essential to Bish
op Rudd's argument. — Ed.

ers to unity and conformity with himself, and
the re^ of his reverend brethren. And thus
the debate ended.
The Book of Canons found an easy passage
through both houses of convocation, and was
afterward ratified by the king's letters patent
under his great seal ; but not being confirmed
by act of Parliament, it has several times been
adjudged in the courts of Westminster HaU that
they bind only the clergy, the laity not being
represented in convocation. The book contains
one hundred and forty-one articles, collected
out of the injunctions, and other episcopal and
synodical acts of the reigns of King Edward
VI. and Queen Elizabeth, and are the same that
are now in force. By these we discern the
spirit of the Church at this time, and how free
ly she dispensed her anathemas against those
who attempted a farther reformation. The can
ons that relate to the Puritans deserve a par
ticular mention, because (however iUegally) they
suffered severely under them.
"Canon 3 says, that whosoever shaH affirm
that the Church of England by law established
is not a true and apostolical church, let him be
excommunicated ipso facto, and not restored
but only by the archbishop, after his repentance
and public revocation of his wicked error.
" Canon 4. Whosoever shall affirm the form
of God's worship in the Church of England es
tablished by law, and contained in the Book of
Common Prayer and administration of sacra
ments, is a corrupt, superstitious, and unlawful
worship, or contains anything repugnant to
Scripture, let him be excommunicated ipso facto, '
and not restored, &o.
" Canon 5. Whosoever shaU affirm, that any
of the thirty -nine articles of the Church, agreed
upon ih the year 1562, for avoiding diversity of
opinions, and for establishing consent touching
true religion, are in any part superstitious or
erroneous, or such as he may not with a good
conscience subscribe to, let him be excommu
nicated ipso facto, and not restored, &c.
" Canon 6. Whosoever shall affirm, that the
rites and ceremonies of the Church of England
by law established are wicked, antichristian,
superstitious, or such as, being commanded by
lawful authority, good men may not with a good
conscience approve, use, or, as occasion re
quires, subscribe, let him be excommunicated
ipso facto, and not restored, &c.
" Canon 7. Whosoever shall aflirra the gov
ernment ofthe Church of England, by archbish
ops, bishops, deans, and archdeacons, and the
rest that bear office in the same, is antichristian,.
or repugnant to the Word of God, let him be
excommunicated ipso facto, and not restored,
&c. " Canon 8. Whosoever shall affirm, that the
form and manner of making and consecrating
bishops, priests, or deacons, contain anything
repugnant to the Word of God ; or that persons
so made and consecrated are not lawfully made,
or need any other calling or ordination to their
divine offices, let him be excommunicated ipso
facto, and not restored, &c.
" Canon 9. Whosoever shall separate from
the communion ofthe Church of England, as it
is approved by the apostles' rules, and combine
together in a now brotherhood, accounting
those who conform to the doctrines, rites, and

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

239

ceremonies of the Church unmeet for their
communion, let him be excommunicated ipso
facto, and not restored, &c.
" Canon 10. Whosoever shall affirm that such
ministers as refuse to subscribe to the form and
number of God's worship in the Church of
England, and their adherents, may truly take to
themselves the name of another church not es
tabhshed by law, and shall publish that their
pretended church has groaned under the burden
of certain grievances imposed on them by the
Church of England, let him be excommunicated
ipso facto, and not restored, &o.
" Canon 11. Whosoever shaU affirm that
there are within this realm other meetings, as
semblies, or congregations, of the king's born
subjects, than such as are established by law,
which may rightly challenge to themselves the
name of true and lawful churches, let him be
excommunicated ipso facto, and not restored, &c.
" Canon 12. Whosoever shall affirm that it
is lawful for any sort of ministers or lay persons
to make rules, orders, and constitutions, in caus
es ecclesiastical, without the king's authority,
and shall submit- to be ruled and governed by
them, let him be excommunicated ipso facto, and
not restored, &c.
" Canon 98. We decree and appoint, that af
ter any judge ecclesiastical hath proceeded ju
dicially against obstinate and factious persons,
for not observing the rites and ceremonies of
the Church, or lor contempt of public prayer,
no judge ad quern shall admit or allow of an ap
peal, unless he having first seen the original
appeal, the party appellant do first personally
promise and vow that he will faithfully keep
and observe all the rites and ceremonies of the
Church of England, as also the prescript form
of common prayer ; and do likewise subscribe
the three articles formerly by us specified and
declared." They who are acquainted with the terrible
consequences of an excommunication in the
spiritual courts, must be sensible of the new
hardships put upon the Puritans by these can
ons : suspensions and deprivations from their
livings were not now thought sufficient punish
ments for the sin of nonconformity ; but the
Puritans, both clergy and laity, must be turned
out ofthe congregation ofthe faithful ; they must
be rendered incapable of suing for their lawful
debts ; they must be imprisoned for life by pro
cess out of the civil courts, or until they make
satisfaction to the Church ; and when they die,
they must be denied Christian burial ; and, so
far as lies in the power of the court, be excluded
the kingdom of heaven. 0 uncharitableness I
Papists excommunicate Protestants, because, by
renouncing the Catholic faith, they apprehended
them guilty of heresy ; but for Protestants of
the same faith to excommunicate their fellow-
Christians and subjects, and deprive them of
their liberties, properties, and estates, for a iew
ceremonies, or because they have not the same
veneration for the eoclesiastical constitution
with themselves, is hardly to be paraUeled. -
To take notice of a few more of the canons ;
canon 14 forbids the minister to add to, or leave
out, any part of the prayers. Canon 18 enjoins
bowing at the name of Jesus. Canons 17, 24,
25, 58, 74, enjoin the wearing the habits in col
leges, cathedrals, &c., as copes, surplices, hoods.

Canon 27 forbids giving the sacrament to schis
matics, or to any other but such as kneel, and
aUow ofthe rites, ceremonies, and orders of the
Church. Canon 28 says that none shall be ad
mitted to the sacrament but in their own parish.
Canon 29, That no parent shaU be urged to be
present, nor be admitted to answer as a godfa
ther for his own child in baptism. Canon 30
declares the sign of the cross to be no part of
the substance of the sacrament of baptism, but
that the ordinance is perfect without it. Canon
33 prohibits ordination without a presentation,
and says, that if any bishop ordain without a
title, he shall maintain the person till he be pro
vided with a living. Canons 36 and 37 say that
no person sliaU be ordained, or suffered to preach,
or catechise in any place as a lecturer, or oth-
erw-ise, unless he first subscribe the three arti
cles foUowing; 1. That the king's majesty is
the supreme head and governor of this realm, as
well in all spiritual and ecclesiastical as tem
poral causes. 2. That the Book of Common
Prayer, &c., contains nothing contrary to the
Word of God, and that he wiU use it, and none
other. 3. That he aUoweth the thirty-nine ar
ticles of 1562 to be all and every one of them
agreeable to the Word of God. To these he
shall subscribe in the following form of words :
I, N N, do wUlingly, and ex animo, subscribe
to these three articles above mentioned, and tp-
all things that are contained in them.
Canon 38 says, that if any minister, after
subscription, shall disuse the ceremonies, he
shaU be suspended ; then, after a month, be ex
communicated ; and after another month, be de
posed from his ministry. Canon 55 contains
the form of bidding prayer before sermon ; "Ye
shall pray for Christ's holy Catholic Church,"
&c., the original of which I have accounted for.
Canon 82 appoints, "that convenient and de
cent tables shall be provided in all churches for
the celebration of the holy communion, and the
same tables shall be covered in times of Divine
service with a carpet of silk, or other convenient
stuff; and with a fair hnen cloth at the time of
the administration, as becometh that table, and
so stand, saving when the said holy communion
is to be administered ; at which time the same
shall be placed in so good sort within the church
or chancel, as thereby the minister may be more
conveniently heard of the communicants in his
prayer and administration ; and the communi
cants also more conveniently, and in more num
bers, may communicate with the said minister ;
and a convenient seat shall be made for the
minister to read service in."
The other canons relate to the particular du
ties of ministers, lecturers, church-wardens, par
ish-clerks ; to the jurisdiction and business of
ecclesiastical courts, with their proper officers,
as judges ecclesiastical, surrogates, proctors,
registrars, apparitors, &c. The book concludes
with denouncing the sentence of excommunica
tion, 1. Against such as shaU affirm that this
synod, thus assembled, is not the true Church
of England by representation. 2. Against such
as shall affirm that persons not particularly as
sembled in this synod, either clergy or laity, are
not subject to the decrees thereof, as not having
given their voices to them. 3. Against such as
shall affirm this sacred synod was a company
of such persons as did conspire against godly

240

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

and religious professors of the Gospel, and,
therefore, that they and their proceedings ought
to be despised and c-untemned, though ratified
and confirmed by the royal supremacy and au
thority. The king, in his ratification of these canons,
commands" them to be diligently observed and
executed, and for the better observation of the
same, that every parish minister shall read them
over once every year in his church, on a Sun
day or holyday, before Divine service ; and all
archbishops, bishops, and others having eccle
siastical jurisdiction, are commanded to see all
and every the same put in execution, and not
spare to execute the penalties in them severally
mentioned on those that wUfuUy break or neg
lect them. I shall leave the reader to make his
own comment on the proceedings of this synod,
only observing that, when they had finished
their decrees, they were prorogued to January,
1605-6, when. Dr. Overal being prolocutor, they
gave the king four subsidies, but did no more
church business tUl the time of their dissolution,
in the year 1610.
Dr. Bancroft, bishop of London, being trans
lated to the see of Canterbury* [December 1604],
was succeeded by Vaughan, bishop of Chester,
a corpulent man, and of httle activity; upon his
advancement the Dutch and French ministers
-Vvithin his diocess presented him with an ad
dress for his protection and favour, wherein
they set forth " that their churches were grant
ed them by charter from pious King Edward
VI., in the year 1550; and that, though they
¦were again dispersed bythe Marian persecution,
they were restored to their churches and privi
leges by Queen Elizabeth, in the year 1558,
from which time they have been in the uninter
rupted possession of them. It appears from
our records," say they, " how kind and friendly
the pious Grindal was to us ; and what pains
the prudent Bishop Sandys took in composing
our differences. We promise ourselves the like
favour from your lordship, &c., for whom we
shall always pi-ay," &c.-|- Monsieur de la Fon
taine delivered the address, with a short Latin
speech, to whom the bishop replied, "I thank

* The causes which led to Bancroft's elevation
are thus stated by Sir John Harrington : " His maj
esty had long since understanding of his writing
against the Genevesing and Scottising ministers ; and
though some imagined he had therein given the king
some distaste, yet finding him in the disputations at
Hampton Court both learned and stout, he did more
and more increase his Uking to him ; so that al
though in the common rumour Thoby Matthew was
hkeliest to have carried it, so learned a man and so
assiduous a preacher, qui in concionibus dominatur, as
his emulous and bitter enemy wrote of him, yet his
majesty, in his learning knowing, and in his wisdom
weighing, that this same strict charge, 'pasce oves
meos,' feed my sheep, requires as well a pastoral
courage of driving in the stray sheep and driving out
the infectious, as of feeding the sound, made special
choice of the Bishop of London, as a man more ex
ercised in the affairs of the state. 1 will add also
mine own conjecture out of some of his majesty's
own speeches, that in respect he was a single man,
he supposed him the fitter, according to Queen Eliz
abeth's principles of state, upon whose wise founda
tions his majesty doth daily erect more glorious
buildings."— jVu^« AntiqutB, vol. u., p. 25.— C.
t Address of the French and Dutch churches to
oQn '^^°P °f London, Strype's Annals, vol. iv., p.

you, most dear brethren, for your kind address ;
I am sensible of the merits of John Alasco,
Utenhovius, and Edmund Grindal, bishop of
London,* superintendents of your churches,
and of the rest of my predecessors in this bish
opric, who had reason to take your churches,
which are of the same faith with our own, un
der their patronage, which I am also ready to
do. I have known your churches twenty.five
years to have been beneficial to the kingdom,
and serviceable to the Church of England, in
which the devil, the author of disoord, has kin
dled the fire of dissension, into which I pray
you not to pour oil, but to endeavour by your
councils and prayers to extinguish. "t Thus
the foi-eign churches enjoyed full peace, while
his majesty's own subjects, of the same faith
and discipline with them, were harassed out of
the kingdom.
Bancroft was a divine of a rough temper, a
perfect creature of the prerogative, and a de
clared enemy of the religious and civU liberties
of his country. He was for advancing the pre
rogative above law, and for enlarging the juris
diction of the spiritual courts, by advising hia
majesty to take from the courts of Westminster
Hall to himself the whole right of granting pro
hibitions ; for this purpose he framed twenty-
five grievances of the clergy, which he called
arliculi cleri, and presented tliem to the king for
his approbation ; but the judges having decla
red them to be contrary to law, they were set
aside. His grace revived the persecutions of the
Puritans by enforcing the strict observance of
all the festivals ofthe Church; reviving the use
of copes, surplices, caps, hoods, &e., according
to the first service-book of King Edward, obli
ging the clergy to subscribe over again to the
three articles of Whitgift, which by the late
canon [No. 36] they were to declare they did
willingly, and from the heart. By these meth
ods of severity above three hundred Puritan
ministerst were silenced or deprived, some of
whom were excommunicated and cast into pris
on, others were forced to leave their native
country and liveUhood, and go into banishment
to preserve their consciences. I say, says Mr.
Collyer, to preserve their consciences, for il is
a hard thing to bring everybody's understand
ing to a common standard, and to make all
honest men of the same mind.^
To countenance and support the archbishop's

* Utenhovius and Edmund Grindal, as Dr. Grey
observes, are not mentioned in the bishop's answer,
though they are in Fontaine's speech. — Ed.
t Strype's Annals, vol. v., p. 395.
X This account is controverted by Dr Grey on the
authority of Heylin's Aer. Rediviv., p. 376, who says
" that, by the rolls brought in by IJishop Bancroft
before his death, it appears that there had been but
forty-five deprived on all occasions, which, in a realm
containing nine thousand parishes, could be no great
matter. But it was that, by the punishment of some
of the principals, he struck such a general terror into
all the rest, that inconformity grew out of fashion in
loss time than could be easily imagined. "—En. Cal
derwood says there were " three hundred," and he w
supported by the author of " A Short Dialogue," IWS,
who says " their names amounted, 1st November,
1605, to 270 and upward, yet there were eight bish
oprics whereof it could not yet be learned what had
been done in them." — P. 58. — C.
^ Eccles. Hist, p. 687.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

241

proceedings, the king summoned the twelve
judges into the Star Chamber, and demanded
their judgments upon three questions ; there
were present the Bishops of Canterbury and
London, and about twelve lords of the privy
oouncU. The lord-chanceUor opened the, assembly with
a sharp speech against the Puritans, as disturb-
-ers of the peace, declaring that the king intend-
-ed to suppress them by having the laws put in
-exeeution ;* and then demanded, in his majesty's
name, the opinion of the judges in three things :
Q. 1. •¦' W^hether the deprivation of Puritan
ministers by the high commissioners, for refu
sing to conform to the ceremonies- appointed by
the last canons, was lawful ?"
The judges replied, " that they had conferred
thereof before, and held it to be lawful, because
the king had the supreme ecclesiastical power,
•which he has delegated to the commissioners,
-whereby they have the power of deprivation, by
the canon law of the realm, and the statute 1st
Eliz., which appoints commissioners to be made
'by the queen, but does not confer any new pow-
-er, but explain and declare the ancient power ;
and therefore they held it clear that the king
without Parliament might make orders and con
stitutions for the government of the clergy, and
might deprive them if they obeyed not ; and So
the commissioners might deprive them, but that
the commissioners could not make any new con
stitutions without the king. And the divulging
-such ordinances by proclamation is a most gra
cious admonition. And forasmuch as they [the
Puritans] have refused to obey, they are lawfuUy
-deprived by the commissioners ex officio, without
-libel, et ore tenus convocati."
Q. 2. " Whether a prohibition be grantable
against the cornmissioners upon the statute of
2 Henry V. , if they do not deliver the copy of
the libel to the party ?"
The judges replied, "that that statute was
intended where the ecclesiastical judge proceeds
.ex officio, et ore tenus."
Q. 3. " Whether it be an offence punishable,
and what punishment they deserved, who framed
jietitionS, and collected a multitude of hands
thereto, to prefer to the king in a public cause,
as the Puritans had done, with an intimation to
the king, that if he denied their suit, many thou-
. sands of his subjects would be discontented?"
The j udges replied, "that it was an offence
:ifinable at discretion, and very near to treason
and felony in the punishment, for it tended to
the raising sedition, rebellion, and discontent
among the people." To which unaccountable
resolution all the lords agreed.!
By these determinations the whole body of the
clergy are excluded^the benefit ofthe common
and statute law ; for the king without Parlia
ment may make what constitutions he pleases :
Tiis majesty's high commissioners may proceed
upqil these constitutions ex officio; and the sub-
jedt may not open his complaints to the king, or
petuion for relief, without being finable at pleas-
ure,\and coming within danger of treason or
feloAy.+ Ifook's Reports, Mich, term, 2 Jac, part ii., .p.
37, pakg. 13.
t Thtreader is referred to Vaughan's Stuart ,Dy-
Jiasty, vm. i., p. 139.— 0.
X " This (as Dr. Warner weU observes) was making
Vol. I.-H h

Before tho breaking up- of the assembly, some
of the lorJs declared that the Puritans had raised
a false rumour ofthe king, as intending to grant
a toleration to papists ; which offence the judges
conceived to be heinously finable by the rules of
common law, either in tho King's Bench, or by
the king in council ; or now, since the statute
of 3 Henry VII., in the Star Chamber. And the
lords severally declared that the king was discon
tented with the said false rumour, and had made
but the day before a protestation to them that
he never intended it, and that he would spend
the last drop of blood in his body before he would
do it ; and prayed, that before any of his issue
should maintain any other religion than vvhat he
truly possessed and maintained, God would take
them out of the world. The reader will remem
ber this solemn protestation hereafter.
After these determinations the archbishop re
sumed fresh courage, and pursued the Puritans
without the least compassion. A more grievous
persecution of the orthodox faith, says ray au
thor, is not to be met wilh in any prince's reign.
Dr. John Burgess, rector of Sutton Colefield, in
one of his letters to King James, says the riura-
ber of Nonconformists in the counties he men
tions were six or seven hundred, agreeable to
the address of the Lmcolnshire ministers, here
after mentioned.*
The whole clergy of London being summoned
to Lambeth, in order to subscribe over again,
many absconded, and such numbers refused,
that the Church was in danger of being disfur
nished, which awakened the court, who bad
been told that the Nonconformists were an in
considerable body of men. Upon this surprising
appearance, the bishops were obliged to relax
the rigour of the canons for a while, and to ac
cept of a promise from some to use the cross
and surplice ; from others to use the surplice
only ; and from others a verbal promise that they
might be used, not obliging themselves to the
use of them at all ; the design of which was to
serve the Church by them at present, till the
universities could supply them with new men ;
for they had a strict eye upon those seminaries
of learning, and would admit no young scholar
into orders without an absolute and full sub
scription to all the articles and canons.
Bancroft, in a letter to his brethren the bish
ops, dated December 18, 1604, gives the follow
ing directions : " As to such ministers as are
not already placed in the Church, the thirty-sixth

the king absolute in all ecclesiastical affairs, without
any hmitation or redress ; and it was intended, proba
bly, as a step to make him so in the state." — Ed.
* The number of nonsubscribers in
Staffordshire ... 14
Hertfordshire ... 17
Surrey ... .21
Wiltshire .... 31
Sussex  47
Cheshire .... 12
Somersetshure - . . 17
Lancashire . . 21
London  30
Wai-wickshhe : . 44
Northamptonshire . 57
Essex ... .57
In the twenty-four counties above mentioned . 746
From whence it is reasonable to conclude, that in the
fifty-two counties of England and Wales, there were
more than double the number.

Oxfordshire, were .

9

Dorsetshire . . .

. 17

Nottinghamshire

. 20

Norfolk ....

. 28

Buckinghamshire .

. 33

Leicestershire

. 57

Bedfordshire

. 16

Derbyshire . . .

. 20

Kent . .

. 23

Lincolnshire . .

. 33

Devon and ComwaU

51

Suffolk . .

71

242

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

and thirty-seventh canons are to be ebserved ;
and none are to be admitted to execute any ec
clesiastical function without subscription. Such
as are already placed in the Church are of two
sorts ; 1. Some promise conformity, but are
unwUling to subscribe again. Of these, foras
much as the near affinity between conformity
and subscription gives apparent hopes that, be
ing men of sincerity, they will in a short time
frame themselves to a more constant course,
and subscribe to that again, which by their prac
tice they testify not to be repugnant to the Word
of God, your lordship may (an act remaining
upon record of such their offer and promise) re
spite their subscription for some short time. 2.
Others, in their obstinacy, will yield neither to
subscription nor promise of conformity ; these
are either stipendiary curates, or stipendiary lec
turers, or men beneficed ; the first two are to be
silenced, and the third deprived." He adds,
"that the king's proclamation of July 16, 1604,
admonishes them to conform to the Church, and
obey the same, or else to dispose of themselves
and their famUies some other way, as being men
unfit, for their obstinacy and contempt, to oc
cupy such places ; and besides, they are within
the compass of several laws."
The Puritans who separated from the Church,
or inclined that way, were treated with yet
greater rigour. Mr. Maunsel, minister of Yar
mouth, and Mr. Lad, a merchant of that town,
were imprisoned by the High Commission, for a
supposed conventicle, because that on the Lord's
Day, after sermon, they joined with Mr. Jack-
ler, their late minister, in repeating the heads
of the sermon preached on that day in the
church. Mr. Lad was obliged to answer upon
oath certain articles without being able to ob
tain a sight of them beforehand, and, after he
had answered before the chancellor, was cited
up to Lambeth to answer them again before the
high commissioners upon a new oath, which
he refusing without a sight of his former an
swer, was thrown into prison, where he contin
ued a long time without being admitted to bad.
Mr. Maunsel, the minister, was charged farther
with signing a complaint to the lower house of
Parliament, and for refusing the oath ex officio,
for which he also was shut up in prison without
bail. At length, being brought to the bar upon a
¦writ of habeas corpus, and having prevailed with
Nic. Fuller, Esq., a bencher of Gray's Inn, and a
learned man in his profession, to be their coun
sel, he moved that the prisoners might be dis
charged, because the high commissioners were
not empowered by law to imprison, or to ad
minister the oath ex officio, or to fine any of his
majesty's subjects. This was reckoned an un
pardonable crime, and, instead of serving his
clients, brought the indignation of the commis
sioners ilpon himself Bancroft told the king
that he was the champion of the Nonconform
ists, and ought, therefore, to be made an exam
ple to terrify others from appearing for them ;
accordingly, he was shut up in close prison, from
whence neither the intercession of his friends
nor his own humble petitions could obtain his
release to the day of his death.*
This high abuse of Church power obliged
many learned ministers and their followers to
leave the kingdom and retire to Amsterdam,

Rotterdam, the Hague, Leyden, Utrecht, and
other places ofthe Low Countries, where Eng
lish churches were erected after the Presbyteri
an model, and maintained by the Slates accord
ing to treaty with Queen Elizabeth, as the
French and Dutch churches were in England.
Besides, the English being yet in possession of
the cautionary towns, many went over as chap
lains to regiments, which, together wilh the
merchants that resided in the trading cities
made a considerable body. The reverend and
learned Dr. William Ames, one of the most
acute controversial writers of his age, settled
with the English church at the Hague ; the
learned Mr. Robert Parker, a Wiltshire divine,
and author of the Ecclesiastical PoUcy, being
disturbed by the High Commission, retired to
Amsterdam, and afterward became chaplain to
the English regiment at Doesburgh, where he
died. The learned Mr. Forbes, a Scots divine,
settled with the English church at Rotterdam,
as Mr. Pots, Mr. Paget, and others did at Am
sterdam and other places.
But the greatest number of those who led
their native country for religion were Brown
ists,* or rigid Separatists, of whom Mr. John
son, Ainsworth, Smith, and Robmson were tha
leaders. Mr. Johnson erected a church at Am
sterdam after the model of the Brownists, hav
ing the learned Mr. Ainsworth for doctor or
teacher. These two published to the world a
confession of faith of the people called Brown
ists, in the year 1602, not much different in doc
trine from " The Harmony of Confessions," but
being men of warm spirits, they fell to pieces
about points of discipline ;t Johnson excommu-

Pierce's Vindication, p. 174.

* These conscientious exiles, driven from their
own country by persecution, instead of meeting with
a hospitable reception or even a quiet refuge in Hol
land, were there " loaded with reproaches, despised,
and afflicted by all, and almost consumed with deep
poverty." The learned Ainsvvorth, we are told, hved
upon ninepence a week and some boiled roots, and
was reduced to the necessity of hiring himself as a
porter to a bookseller, who first of all discovered his
skill in the Hebrew language, and made it known to
his countrymen. The Dutch themselves, just emer
ged from civil and reUgious oppression, looked with a
jealous eye on these suffering refugees. And thoagli
the civil power, commonly in every state more friend
ly than the ecclesiastic to toleration, does not appear
to have oppressed them ; the clergy would not aftbid
them an opportunity to refute the unfavourable re
ports generally circulated against them on Uie au
thority of letters from England, nor receive their con
fession of faith, nor give them an audience on some
points on which they desired to lay their sentiments
before ihem ; but with a man at their head of no less
eminence than James Arminius, jiidged that they
ought to petition the magistrate fpr leave to hold
their assombUes for the worship of God, and inform
ed against them in such a way as might have render
ed them the objects of suspicion. " They seemed evi
dently," it has been remarked, " to have considered
them in the same Ught in which serious and consci
entious dissenters from the religious profession of tha
majority will ever be viewed, as a set of discontent
ed, factious, and conceited men, with whom it would
be safest for them to have no connexion."— Ains-
worth's two Treatises on The Communion of SatjiU,
and An Arrow against Idolatry, printed at Edinburgh,
1789, pref, p. 15-17.— Ed.
t A late writer, who appears to have accurately
investigated the history of^the Brownists, represents
Mr. Neal as incorrect in his account of the debates
which arose among them. The principal leaders of

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

2^3

nicated his own father and brother for trifling
matters, after having rejected the mediation of
the presbytery of Amsterdam. This divided the
congregation, insomuch that Mr. Ainsworth and
half the congregation excommunicated Johnson,
who, after some time, returned the same com
pliment to Ainsworth. ' At length the contest
grew so hot that Amsterdam could not hold
them ; Johnson and his followers removed to
Embden, where soon after dying, his congrega
tion dissolved. Nor did Mr. Ainsworth and his
followers live long in peace, upon which he left
them and retired to Ireland, where he continued
some time ; but when the spirits of his people
-were quieted he returned to Amsterdam, and
continued with them to the day of his death.
This Mr. Ainsworth was author of an excellent
little treatise entitled " An .Arrow against Idol
atry," and of a most learned commentary on the
five books of Moses, by which he appears to have
been a great master of the Oriental languages
and of Jewish antiquities. His death was sud
den, and not without suspicion of violence, for it
is reported that, having found a diamond of very
great value in the streets of Amsterdara, he ad
vertised it in print, and when the owner, who
-was a Jew, came to demand it, he offered him any
this party were the two brothers Francis and George
Johnson, Mr. Ainsworth, and Mr. John Smith, who
had been a clergyman in England. Three principal
subjects of controversy occasioned dissensions in the
Brownist churches. The first ground of dissension
was the marriage of Francis Johnson with a widow
of a taste for living and dress, particularly unsuita
ble to times of persecution : his father and his broth
er opposed this connexion. This occasioned such a
difference that the latter proceeded from admonitions
and reproofs to bitter revUings and reproaches, and
Francis Johnson, his colleague -Ainsworth, and the
church at lehgth passed a sentence of excommunica
tion against the father and brother. Mr. Neal, it
seems, confounds this unhappy controversy .with an
other that succeeded to it, but distinct from it, be
tween Francis Johnson and Ainsworth. It turned
upon a question of discipline ; the former placing the
government of the Church in the eldership alone, the
latter in the Church, of which- the elders are a part.
This dispute was carried to an unchristian height, but,
according tb JMr. John Cotton, of New-England, who
was the contemporary of Johnson and Ainsworth,
and had lived amid the partisans of each side, they
did not, as Mr. Neal represents the matter, mutuaUy
excommunicate each other, but Ainsvvorth and his
company withdrew, and worshipped by themselves
after Johnson and those with him had denied the
communion. In the interim of these debates, a
schism had taken place in the church, headed- by
Mr. John Smith, who advanced and maintained opin
ions simUar to those afterward espoused by Armini
us ; and besides his sentiments concerning baptism,
to which Mr. Neal refers in the next paragraph, sev
eral singular opinions were ascribed to hiin ; as, that
no translation of the Bible could be properly the
Word of God, but the original only was so; that
singing set words or verses to God was without any
proper authority; that fUght in time of persecution
was unlawful ; that the new creature needed not the
support of Scriptures and ordinances, but is above
them ; that perfection is attainable in this life, &c.
There arose against him a whole host of opponents ;
Johnson, Robinson, Clifton, Ainsworth, and Jessop.
His character as well as liis sentiments were attack-
ed with a virulence of spirit and an abusive language
that discredit the charges and expose the spirit of the
writers. — See some account of Mr. Ainsworth, pre
fixed to a new edition of his two treatises, p. 27-42 ;
and Crosby's History of English Baptists,' vol. i., p. 3.,
&c., and p. 265, &c.— Ed;

acknowledgment he would desire; but Ains
worth, though poor, would accept of nothing but
a conference with some of his rabbles upon tha
prophecies of the Old Testament relating to the
Messias, which the other promised, but not hav
ing interest enough to obtain it, and Ainsworth
being resolute, it is thought he was poisoned.*
His congregation remained without a pastor for
some years after his death, and then chose Mr.
Canne, author of the marginal references to the
Bible, and sundry other treatises.
Mr. Smith was a learned man, and of good
abilities, hut of an unsettled head, as appears
by the preface to one of his books, in which Jie
desires that his last writings may always be ta
ken for his present judgment. He was for rei
ning upon the Brownists' scheme, and at last
declared for the principles of the Baptists ; upon
this he left Amsterdam, and settled with his
disciples at Ley ; where, being at a loss for a
proper administrator of the ordinance of bap
tism, he plunged himself, and then performed
the ceremony upon others, which gained him
the name of a Se-Baptist.t He afterward em-

* Others say that he obtained this conference, and
so confounded the Jews that from pique and mal
ice they in this manner put an end to his life. He
died in 1622 or 1623, leaving an exemplary character
for humUity, sobriety, discretion, and unblamable vir
tue. — See an account prefixed to his two treatises, p.
60, 62.— Ed.
t This is said on the authority of his opponents
only, who, from the acrimony with which they wrote
against him, it may be reasonably concluded, might
be ready to take up a report against him upon slen
der evidence. His defences of himself and his opin
ions have not been, for many years, to be met with ;
but the large quotations from them in the writings
of his opponents afforded not the least intimation,
either in the way of concession or justification, of
his having done such a thing ; the contrary may be
rather concluded from them. The first ground of
his separation from the Established Church was a
dislike of its ceremonies and prescribed forms of
prayer ; he afterward doubted concerning the vaUdi-
ty of baptism administered in a national church;
this paved the way for his rejecting the baptism of
infants altogether, and adopting immersion as the
true and only meaning of the word baptism. His
judgment on doctrinal points underwent similar
changes. Hence, Mr. Neal has caUed him a man
" of an unsettled head." This language seems to in
sinuate a reflection on Mr. Smith : whereas it is an
honour to any man ; it shows candour, ingenuousness,
an openness to conviction, and sincerity, for one to
change his sentiments on farther inquiry, and to avqvv
it. A lover of truth, especially who has imbibed in
early life the principles of the corrupt establishments
of Christianity, will continually find it his duty to
recede from his first sentiments. Bishop Tfllotson
justly commended his friend Dr. Whichcot ; because,
whUe it is customary with learned men at a certain
age to make their understandings, the doctor was so
wise as to be willing to learn to the last; i e., he
was of an unsettled head. — Crosby's History of the
English Baptists, vol. i., p. 65, &c. Account of Mr,
Ainsworth prefixed to his two treatises, p. 41. — Ed.
It seems that the accusers of Mr. Smith have for
gotten the progressive nature oi the changes he under
went. " For a man," he himself remarks, " if a "Turk,
to become a Jew, if a Jew, to become a papist, if a
papist, to become a Protestant, are all commendable
changes, though they all befaU one and the same
person in one year, nay, if it were in one month ; so
that not to change religion is evil simply ; and, there
fore, that we should faU from the profession oi' Puri
tanism to Brownism, and from Rrpwnism to true
Christian baptism, is not simply evil, or repiovabla

244

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

braced the tenets of Arminius, and published
certain conclusions upon those points in the
year 1611, which Mr. Robinson answered; but
Smith died soon after, and his con^egation
dissolved. Mr. John Robinson was a Norfolk divine,
beneficed about Yarmouth, where being often
molested by the bishop's officers, and his friends
almost ruined in the ecclesiastical courts, he re
moved to Leyden, and erected a congregation
upon the model of the Brownists.* He set out
upon the most rigid principles, but by conver
sing with Dr. Ames, and other learned men, he
became more moderate ; and though he always
maintained the lawfulness and necessity of sep
arating from those Reformed churches among
which he lived, yet he did not deny them to be
true churches, and admitted their members to
occasional communion, allowing his own to
join -with the Dutch churches in prayer and
hearing the Word, but not in the sacraments
and discipline, which gained him the character
of a semi-separatist ; his words are these :t
" We profess, before God and men, that we
agree so entirely with the Reformed Dutch
churches in matters of religion, that we are
¦wiUing to subscribe to all and every one of their
articles, as they are set down in ' The Harmo
ny of Confession.' We acknowledge these Re
formed churches for true and genuine : we hold
communion with them as far as we can ; those
among us that understand the Dutch language
frequent their sermons ; and we administer the
Lord's Supper to such of their members as are
known to us, and desire it occasionally." This
Mr. Robinson was the father of the Independ
ents. Mr. Henry Jacob was born in Kent, and edu
cated in St. Mary's Hall, where he took the de
grees in arts, entered into holy orders, and be
came precentor of Christ Church College, and
afterward beneficed in his own country at Cher-
iton.t He was a person thoroughly versed in
theological authors, but withal a most zealous
Puritan. He wrote two treatises against Fr.
Johnson, the Brownist, in defence of the Church
of England's being a true church, printed at
Middleburgh. 1599, and afterward published
" Reasons taken out of God's Word, and the
best Human Testimonies, proving a Necessity of
reformingour Churches of England, &c., 1604."^
But going to Leyden, and conversing with Mr.
Robinson, he embraced his sentiments of dis
cipline and government, and transplanted it into
England in the year 1610, as wiU be seen in its
proper place.
in itself, except it be proved that we have fallen from
true religion."— TAe Character of the Beast, Epistle to
the Ri-ader, p. 1. * Boyle's Dissuasive, p. 177.
t " Profitemur coram Deo et hominibus adeo nobis
convenire cum ecclesiis reformatis Belgicis in re re-
hgionis ut omnibus et singulis earundem ecclesiarum
fidei articulis, prout habentur m Harmonia Confes-
sionum Fidei, parati sumus subscribere. Ecclcsias
reformatas pro -veris et genuinis habemus, cum us-
dem in sacris Dei communionem profitemur, et quan
tum in nobis est, colimus. Conciones publicas ab
lUarum pastoribus habitas, ex nostris qui norunt Un-
guani Belgicam frequentant : sacram coenam earum
membris, si qua forte nosiris coetibus intersint nobis
cogmta, participiamus."
X Life of Whitgift, p. 566.
^ Ath. Ox., vol. i., p. 394.

This difference among the Puritans engaged
them in a warm controversy among themselves
about the lawfulness and necessity of separating
from the Church of England, while the conform
ing clergy stood by as spectators of the combat.
Most of the Puritans were for keeping within
the pale ofthe Church,' apprehending it to be a
true church in its doctrines and sacraments,
though defective in disciphne, and corrupt in
ceremonies ; but being a true church, they
thought it not lawful to separate, though they
could hardly continue in it with a good con
science. They submitted to suspensions and
deprivations ; and when they were driven out
of one diocess, took sanctuary in another, being
afraid of incurring the guUt of schism by forming
themselves into separate communions. Where
as the Brownists maintained that the Church
of England, in its present constitution, was no
true Church of Christ, but a limb of antichrist,
or at best a mere creature of the state; that
their ministers were not rightly called and or
dained, nor the sacraments duly administered;
or, supposing it to he a true church, yet as it
was owned by their adversaries [the conform
ing Puritans] to be a very corrupt one, it must
be as lawful to separate from it as for the
Church of England to separate from Rome.
The conforming Puritans evaded this conse
quence by denying the Church of Rome to be
a true churoh ; nay, they affirmed it to be the
very antichrist ; but the argument remained in
full force against the bishops, and that part of
the clergy who acknowledged the Church of
Rome to be a true church.
It is certainly as lawful to separate from the
corruptions of one church as of another ; and it
is necessary to do so, when those corruptions
are imposed as terms of communion. Let us
hear Archbishop Laud, in his conference with
the Jesuit Fisher. " Another church," says his
grace, " may separate from Rome, if RomewiU
separate from Christ ; and so far as it separates
from him and the faith, so far may another
churoh separate from it. I grant the Church
of Rome to he a true church in essence, though
corrupt in manners and doctrine. And cor
ruption of manners, attended with errors in the
doctrines of faith, is a just cause for one par
ticular church to separate from another." His
grace then adds, with regard to the Church of
Rome : " The cause of the separation is yours,
for you thrust us from you, because we called
for truth and redress of abuses ; for a schism
must needs be theirs whose the cause of it is;
the wo runs full out of the mouth of Christ,
even against him that gives the offence, not
against him that takes it. It was ill done of
those, whoever they were, who first made the
separation [from Rome] ; I mean not actual,
but casual, for, as I said before, the schism is
theirs whose the cause of it is ; and he makes
the separation who gives the first just cause of
it, not he that makes an actual separation upon
a just cause preceding." Let the reader care
fully consider these concessions, and then judge
how far they wiU justify the separation of the
Brownists, or the Protestant Nonconformists at
this day.
This year [1605] was famous for the discov
ery of the Gunpowder Plot, which was a contri
vance of the papists to blow up the king and

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

246

the whole royal family, with the chief of the
Protestant nobUity and gentry, NoveiWber 5th,
the first day of their assembling in Parliament.
For this purpose a ceUar was hired under the
House of Lords, and stored with thirty-six bar
rels of gunpowder, covered over with coals and
fagots ; but the plot was discovered the night
before, by means of a letter sent to Lord Mont-
eagle, advising hira to absent himself from the
house, because they were to receive a terrible
blow, and not to know who hurt them. Mont-
eagle carrying the letter to court, the king or
dered the apartments about the Parliament
House to be searched ; the powder was found
under the House of Lords, and Guy Faux with
a dark lantern in the cellar, waiting to set fire
to the train when the king should come to the
house the next morning. Faux being appre
hended, confessed the plot, and impeached, sev
eral of his accomplices, eight of whom were
tried and executed, and among them Garnet,
provincial of the English Jesuits, whom the
pope afterward canonized.
The discovery of this murderous conspiracy
was ascribed to the royal penetration ;* but Mr.
Osborne,t and others, with great probability, say
that the first notice of it came from Henry IV.,
king of France, who heard of it from the Jes
uits, and that the letter to Monteagle was an
artifice of Cecil's, who was acquainted before
hand with the proceedings of tlie conspirators,
and suffered them to go to their fuU length. Even
HeyUn says that the king and his council mined
with them, and undermined them, and by so do
ing blew up their whole invention. t But it is
agreed on all hands, that if the plot had taken
place, it was to have been fathered upon the
Puritans ; and, as if the king was in the secret,
his majesty, in his speech to the Parliament
November 9th, takes particular care to bring
them into reproach ; for, after having cleared
the Roman Catholic reUgion from encouraging
such murderous practices, he adds, the cruelty
of the Puritans was worthy of fire, that would
not allow salvation to any papists. So that, if
these unhappy people had been blown up, his
majesty thinks they would have had their de
serts. Strange I that a Puritan should be so
much worse than a papist, or deserve to be burn
ed for uncharitableness, when his majesty knew
that the papists were so much more criminal in
this respect than they, not only denying salva
tion to the Puritans, but to all who are without
the pale of their own church. But what was
aU this to- the plot? except it was to turn off
the indignation of the people from the papists,
whom the king both feared and loved, to the
Puritans, who, in a course of forty years' suf
ferings, had never moved the least sedition
against the state, but who would not be the ad
vocates or dupes of an unbounded prerogative !
The discovery of this plot occasioned the
drawing up the oath of allegiance, or of sub
mission and obedience to the king as a temporal
sovereign, independent of.any other power upon
earth ; which quickly passed both houses, and
was appointed to be taken by all the king's sub
jects ; this oath is distinct from the oath of su
premacy, which obliges the subject to acknowl
edge his majesty to be supreme head of the

* Rapin, vol. U., p. 171. f Osborne, p. 448.
X History of Presbytery, p. 378.

Church as weU as the State, and might there
fore be taken by aU suqh Roman Catholics as-
did not believe the pope had power to depose
kings, and give away their dominions. Ac
cordingly, Blackwell, their superior, and moat
of the English Catholics, submitted to the oath,
though the pope absolutely forbade them on pain
of damnation ; which occasioned a new debate,
concerning the extent of the pope's power in
temporals, between the learned of both religions.
Cardinal Bellarmine, under the feigned name
of Tortus, wrote against the oath, which gave
occasion to King James's Apology to all Chris
tian Princes ; wherein, after clearing himself
from the charge of persecuting the papists, he
reproaches his holiness with ingratitude, con
sidering the free liberty of religion that he had
granted the papists, tho honours he had confer
red on them, the free access they had to his per
son at all times, the general jail delivery of all
Jesuits and papists convict, and the strict orders
he had given his judges not to put the laws in
execution against them for the future.* All
which was true, whUe the unhappy Puritans
were imprisoned and fined, or forced into ban
ishment. The Parliament, on occasion of this
plot, appointed an annual thanksgiving on the
5th of November, and passed another law, obh
ging all persons to come to church under the
penalty of twelve pence every Sunday they were
absent, unless they gave such reasons as should
be satisfactory to a justice ofthe peace. This,
like a two-edged sword, cut down all Separatists,
whether Protestants or papists.
To return to the Puritans ; the more moderate
of whom, being wUling to steer a middle course,
between a total separation and absolute con
formity, were attacked by some of the bishops
with this argument :
" All those who wilfully refuse to obey the
king in all things indifferent, and to conform
themselves to the orders of the Church author
ized by him, not contrary to the Word of God,
are schismatics, enemies to the king's suprem
acy and the state, and not to be tolerated in
church or commonwealth.
" But you do so —
" Therefore, you are not to be tblerated in
church or commonwealth."
The Puritans denied the charge, and returned
this argument upon their accusers :
" All those who freely and wiUingly perform
to the king and state aU obedience, not only in
things necessary, but indifferent, commanded by
law, and that have been always ready to conform
themselves to every order of the Church author
ized by him, not contrary to the Word of God,
are free from aU schism, friends to the king's
supremacy, and to the state, and unworthy in
this manner to be molested in church or com
monwealth. " But there are none of us that are deprived
or suspended from our ministry, but have been
ever ready to do all this ; therefore we are free
from schism, friends to the king's supremacy,
and most unworthy of such molestation as we
sustain." This being the point of difference, the Puri
tans offered a public disputation upon the law
fulness of imposing ceremonies in general ; and
in particular upon the surplice, the cross in bap-
* King James's Apol, p. 253.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

246
tism, and kneeling at the communion ; but were
refused. Upon which, the Lincolnshire minis
ters drew up an apology for those ministers who
are troubled for refusing of subscription and
conformity, and presented it to the king, Decem
ber 1, 1604, the abridgment of which is now
before me, and begins with a declaration of their
readiness to subscribe the first of the three arti
cles required by the thirty-sixth canon, concern
ing the king's supremacy ; but to the other two,
say they, we cannot subscribe, because we are
persuaded that both the Book of Common Prayer,
and the other book [of Articles] to be subscribed
by this canon (which yet, in some respects, we
reverently esteem), contain in them sundry things
-which are not agreeable, but contrary to, the
Word of God.
They object to the Book of Common Prayer,
in general. That it appoints that order for read
ing the Holy Scriptures which in many respects
is contrary to the W^ord of God. As,
1. " The greatest part of the canonical Scrip
ture is left out in the public reading ; whereas
'all Scripture is given by inspiration, and is
profitable,' &c., and sundry chapters that are, in
their opinion, more edifying than some others
that are read, are omitted.
2. " It does too much honour to the Apoohry-
phal writings, commanding many of them to be
read for first lessons, and under the name of
Holy Scriptures, and in as great a proportion ;
for of the canonical chapters of the Old Testa
ment (being in aU seven hundred and seventy-
nine) are read only five hundred and ninety-two,
and ofthe Apocryphal books (being one hundred
and seventy-two chapters) are read one hundred
and four. This they apprehend to be contrary
to the Word of God, forasmuch as the Apocry
phal books contain sundry and manifest errors,
divers of which are here produced.
3, 4, 5, 6, 7. " The Book of Common Prayer
appoints such a translation of the Holy Scrip
tures to be read in the churches as in some
places is absurd, and in others takes from, per
verts, obscures, and falsifies the Word of God ;
examples of which are produced with the au
thorities of the most considerable reformers."
Their next general objection against sub
scribing the Book of Common Prayer is, be
cause it enjoins the use of such ceremonies as
they apprehend contrary to the Word of God.
¦To make good this assertion, they say,* "It
is contrary to the Word of God to use (much
more to command the use of) such ceremonies
in the worship of God as man hath devised, if
they be notoriously known to be abused to idol
atry and superstition by the papists, and are of
no necessary use in the Church. Here they
cite such passages of Scriptrue as command
the Jews to abolish all instruments of idolatry,
and even to cast away such things as had a
good original, when once they are known to
have been abused to idolatry ; as images, groves,
and the brazen serpent, 2 Kings, xviii., 11.
They produce, farther, the testimonies of sun
dry fathers, as Eusebius, St. Austin, &e., and
of the most considerable moderns, as Calvin,
Bucer, Musculus, Peter Martyr, Beza, Zanchy ;
Bishop Jewel, PUkington, Bilson ; Dr. Hum
phreys, Fulk, Andrews, Sutcliffe, and others,
against conformity wUh idolaters."
* Abridgment, p. 17.

With regard to the three ceremonies in ques
tion, they allege they have all been abused by
the papists to superstition and idolatry.
1. "The surplice* has been thus abused, for
it is one of those vestments without which no
thing can be consecrated ; all priests that are
present at mass must wear it, and, therefore,
the use of it in the Church has been condemn
ed, not only by foreign divines, but by Bishop
Hooper, Farrar, Jewel, Pilkington, Rogers, and
others among ourselves."
2. "The cross has been also abused to su
perstition and idolatry, to drive away devils, to
expel diseases, to break the force of witchcraft,
&c. It is one of the images to which the pa
pists give religious adoration. The water in
baptism has no spiritual virtue in it without the
cross, nor is any one rightly baptized (according
to the papists) without it."
3. " Kneeling at the sacrament has been no
less abused ; it arose from the notion of the
transubstantiation of the elements, and is still
used by the papists in the worship of their
broaden God ; who admit they would be guilty
of idolatry in kneeling before the elements if
they did not believe thera to be the real body
and blood of Christ. This ceremoyy was not
introduced into the Church till antichrist was
at its fuU height ; and there is no action in the
whole service that looks so much like idolatry
as this."
Their second argumentt for the unlawfulness
of the ceremonies is taken from their mystical
signification, which gives them the nature ofa
sacrament. Now, no sacrament ought to be of
man's devising ; the ceremonies, therefore, be
ing affirmed in the Book of Common Prayer to
be significant, are unlawful.
Their third argument^ is taken from the un
lawfulness of imposing them as parts of God's
worship, which they prove from hence, " That
God is the only appointer of his own worship,
and condemns all human inventions, so far
forth as they are made parts of it. Now all the
ceremonies in question are thus imposed, for
Divine service is supposed not to be rightly per
formed without the surplice, nor baptism right
ly administered without the cross, nor the Lord's
Supper but to such as kneel ; and, therefore, they
are unlawful."
Their fourth is taken from hence. That no
rites or ecclesiastical orders should be ordained
or used but such as are needftil and profitable,
and for edification ; and, especially, that none
shall be ordained or used that cause offence
and hinder edification^ (Rom., xvi., 21 ; 1 Cor.,
x., 23, 32). " Now the ceremonies in question
are neither needful nor profitable, nor do they
tend to edification ; but, on the contrary, have
given great offence, as appears from hence,
that very many of the learned and best experi
enced ministers in the land have chosen rather
to suffer any trouble than yield to the use of
thera ; and _we doubt not to affirm that the
greatest number of rSsident, able, and godly
ministers in the land at this day do in their
consciences dislike them, and judge them need
less and unfit, as appears by the list of non-
subscribers already mentioned [p. 44], besides
many more who, though unwillinginsome

* Abridgment, p. 28.
X Ibid., p. 37.

t Ibid., p. 31.
^ Ibid., p. 45.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

247

¦other reSpects to join in the petition, did pro
fess their hearty desire to have them removed.*
And if the rest of the shires be esteemed ac
cording to this proportion, it will easUy appear
that the greatest number ofthe resident, preach
ing, and fruitful ministers of the land do dis
like them. This may yet farther appear, by
their seldom using them for many years past,
and their great unwillingness to yield to the use
of them now. If they thought them needful or
profitable, .why do they neglect them in their
public ministry, being commanded by lawful
authority ? Besides, those very bishops that
have been most hot in urging the ceremonies
.have declared that the Church might well be
-without them, and have wished them taken
-away ;t as Archbishop Whitgift, in his defence
•of the answer to Cartwright's Admonition, p.
-259 ; Dr. Chadderton, bishop of Lincoln, in his
speech before all the ministers, convened be
fore him at Huntingdon, November 30th, 1604 ;
and others in ecclesiastical dignities have spo-
,ken vehemently against them as things that do
not edify, nor have any tendency to promote
•decency or order.
" With regard to the surpliee, they produce
the testimonials of the learned Bucer, Peter
.Martyr, Beza, Cranmer, Ridley, Hooper, and
others, for the expediency of it, even though
they submitted to wear it. Bucer says he could
ibe content to suffer some grievous loss or pain
in his body, upon condition the surplice might
:be abolished,
" The like authorities are brought against the
-cross, and against kneeling at the communion,
the former being a mere invention of man, nei
ther taught by Christ nor his apostles, and the
latter being apparently different from the first
institution, they receiving it in a table posture ;
and it is gross hypocrisy (say they) for us to
.pretend more holiness, reverence, and devotion,
in receiving the sacrament, than the apostles,
¦who received it from the immediate hand and
.person of Christ himself. They (to be sure)
had the corporeal presence of Christ, and yet did
not kneel -, why, then, should it be enjoined in
the Church, when the corporeal presence of
•Christ is withdrawn ? This has been thought
-an argument of great force by our chief divines,
as Calvin, BuUinger, Beza, Chemnitius, Bishop
PUkington, Willet, and others, who declare
¦strongly for the posture of sitting, or at most
-Standing, at the communion.
" Besides, kneeling at the sacrament is of very
..late antiquity, and was not introduced into the
•Church till antichrist -vvas in his full height ; the
..primitive Christians (according to TertulUan)
thought it unlawful to kneel at prayer on the
Lord's Day ; and the first CouncU of Nice, Ann.
Dom. 327, made a solemn decree that none
might pray kneeling, but only standing, on the
Lord's Day, because on that day is celebrated
the joyful remembrance of our Lord's resurrec
tion. To kneel is a gesture of sorrow and humil
iation ; Whereas, he that prays standing shows
himself thankful for the obtaining some mercy
or favour. So that either the primitive Church
¦used a gesture of greater reverence and humility
at the sacrament, vvhich is a feast, and a joyful
remembrance of the death of Christ, than they
* Abridgment, p. 52.

did at prayer, or else they received it in another
posture. Besides, it is said* that the ancient
councUs commanded that 'no man should kneel
down at the communion, fearing it should be
an occasion of idolatry.' Mr. Fox,t speaking of
the usage of the primitive Church, says they had
the communion, not at an altar, but at a plain
table of boards, when the whole congregation
together did communicate, with reverence and
thanksgiving ; not lifting over the priest's head,
nor worshipping, nor kneeUng, nor knocking their
breasts, but either sitting at supper, or standing
after' supper. Eusebius.t speaking of a man
that had been admitted to the communion, says
he stood at the table and put forth his hand to
receive the holy food. And Bishop Jewel says,
that in St. BasU's days [ann. 380] the commu
nion-table was of boards, and so placed that men
might stand round it, and that every man was
bound by an apostolical tradition to stand upright
at the communion.
" Besides, the gesture of kneeling is contrary
to the very nature of the Lord's Supper, which
is ordained to be a banquet and sign of that
sweet familiarity that is between the faithful
and him, and of that spiritual nourishment we
are to receive by feeding on his body and blood
by faith ; and in what nation is it thought de
cent to kneel at banquets ? Where do men eat
and drink upon their knees ? Farther, the dis
position of mind at the Lord's Table is not so
much humility as assurance of faith, and cheer
ful thankfulness for the benefits of Christ's
death. For these reasons, and because kneel
ing at the sacrament had an idolatrous original,
and has a tendency to lead men into that sin,
they think it unlawful, and to be laid aside."
¦rhe Abridgment concludes with a short ta
ble of sundry other exceptions against the three
books whereunto they are required to subscribe,
which they purpose to justify and confirm in
the same manner as they have done in respect
of those contained in this book ; a summary
whereof we shall meet with hereafter.
The Abridgment was answered by Bishop
Moreton and Dr. Surges, who, after having suf
fered himself to be deprived for nonconformity,
June 19, 1604, was persuaded by King James to
conform, and write in defence of his present
conduct against his former arguments. Bishop
Moreton endeavours to defend the innocency of
the three ceremonies from Scripture, antiquity,
the testimony of Protestant divines, and the
practice of the Nonconformists themselves in
other cases, and has said as much as can be
said in favour of them ; though it is hard to de
fend the imposing them upon those who esteem
them unlawful, or who apprehend things indif
ferent ought to be left in the state that Christ
left them. Dr. Downham, Sparkes, Covel, Hut
ton, Rogers, and Ball, wrote for the ceremonies ;
and were answered by Mr. Bradshaw, Mr. Paul
Baynes, Dr. ."imes, and others.
From the arguments of these divines, it ap
pears that the Puritans were removing to a
greater distance from the Church ; for whereas,
says Dr. Burges, Mr. Cartwright and his breth
ren wrote sharply against the ceremonies as in
convenient, now they are opposed as absolutely
unlawful, neither to be imposed nor used. The
* Abridgment, p. 59. f Acts and Mon., p. 19.
X Hist. Eccl, lib. vu., cap. vui.

248

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

cruel severities of Bancroft and the high com
missioners were the occasion of this ; for being
pushed upon one of these extremes, either to a
constant and full conformity, or to lay down
their ministry in the Church, many of them, at
one of their conferences, came to this conclu
sion, that if they coiUd not enjoy their livings
¦without subscribing over again the three arti
cles above mentioned, and declaring, at the
same time, they did it wUlingly and from -their
hearts, it was their duty to resign. These were
called brethren of the second separation, who
were content to join with the Church in her
doctrines and sacraments, though they appre
hended it unlawful to declare their hearty ap
probation of the ceremonies ; and if their con
duct was grounded on a conviction that it was
their duty as Christians to bear their testimony
against all unscriptural impositions in the wor
ship of God, it must deserve the commendation
of all impartial and consistent Protestants. No
men could go greater lengths for the sake of
peace than they were wiUing to do : for in their
defence of the ministers' reasons for refusal of
subscription to the Book of Common Prayer
against the cavils of F. Hutton, B.D., Dr. Co
vel, and Dr. Sparkes, published 1607, they be
gin thus : " We protest before the Almighty
God, that we acknowledge the churches of Eng
land, as they be established by public authority,
to be true visible churches of Christ ; that we
desire the continuance of our ministry in them
above all earthly things, as that without which
our whole life would be wearisome and bitter
to us ; that we dislike not a set form of prayer
to be used in our churches ; nor do we write
with an evU mind to deprave the Book of Com
mon Prayer, Ordination, or Book of Homilies ;
hut to show our reasons why we cannot sub
scribe to all things contained in them."
These extreme proceedings of the bishops
strengthened the hands of the Brownists in
Holland, who with great advantage declared
against the lawfulness of holding communion
-with the Church of England at that time, not
only because it was a corrupt church, but a per
secuting one. On the other hand, the younger
divines in the Church, who preached for prefer
ment, painted the Separatists in the most odi
ous colours, as heretics, schismatics, fanatics,
precisians, enemies to God and the king, and
of unstable minds. The very same language
which the papists had used against the first
Reformers. To remove these reproaches, and to inform
the world of the real principles of the Puritans
of these times, the Reverend M. Bradshaw pub
lished a small treatise, entitled " English Puri
tanism, containing the main Opinions of the
rigidest Sort of those that went by that Name
in the Realm of England," which the learned
Dr. Ames translated into Latin for the benefit
of foreigners. The reader will learn by the fol
lowing abstract of it the true state of their
case, as well as the near affinity between the
principles of the ancient and modern Noncon
formists.* ? Several things, considered as remarkable by Dr,
Grey, are omitted by Mr. Neal. But this doth not
impeach Mr. Neal's fairness, as he avowedly lays
only an abstract before his readers ; and the passa
ges to wliich Dr. Grey alludes do not convey senti-

CHAPTER I. ,
Concerning Religion in General.
1. "The Puritans hold and maintain the ab.
solute perfection of the Holy Scriptures, both
as to faith and worship ; and that whatsoever
is enjoined as a part of Divine service that can
not be warranted by the said Scriptures, is un
lawful. 2. " That aU inventions of men, especially
such as have been abused to idolatry, are to be
excluded out ofthe exercises of religion.
3. " That aU outward means instituted to ex
press and set forth the inward worship of God
are parts of Divine worship, and ought, there
fore, evidently to be prescribed by the Word of
God. 4. "To institute and ordain any mystical
rites or ceremonies of religion, and to mingle
the same with the Divine rites and ceremonie*
of God's ordinance, is gross superstition."
CHAPTER 11.
Concerning (he Churcji.
1. "They hold an maintain that every con,-
gregation or assembly of men, ordinarily join
ing together in the true worship of God, is a
true visible Church of Christ.
2. " That all such churches are in aU ecclesi
astical matters equal, and by the Word of God,
ought to have the same officers, administrations-,,
orders, and forms of worship.
3. " That Christ has not subjected any churck
or congregation to any other superior ecclesias
tical jurisdiction than to that whieh is within
itself, so that if a whole church or congregation
should err in any matters of faith or worship,
no other churches or spiritual officers have
power to censure or punish them, but are only
to counsel and advise them.
4. " That every church ought to have her
own spiritual officers and ministers resident
with her ; and those such as are enjoined by
Christ in the New Testament, and no other.
5. " That every church ought to have liberty
to choose their own spiritual officers.
6. "That if particular churches err in thiS'
choice, none but the civil magistrate has power
to control them, and oblige them to make a bet
ter choice.
7. " That ecclesiastical officers or ministers
in one church ought not to bear any ecclesiasti
cal office in another ; and they are not to for
sake their calling without just cause, and such/
as may be approved by the congregation : but
if the congregation will not hearken to reason,
they are then to appeal to the civil magistrate,.
who is bound to procure them justice.
8. " That a church having chosen its spirit
ual governors, ought to live in all canonical
obedience to them, agreeably to the Word of
God ; and if any of them be suspended, or un-
justy deprived, by other ecclesiastical officers,
they are humbly to pray the magistrate to re
store them ; and if they cannot obtain it, Ihcy
are to own them to be their spiritual guide&to
the death, though they are rigorously deprived
of their ministry and service.
9. " That the laws and orders of the churches
warranted by the Word of God are not repug-

ments repugnant to the principles exhibited in the-
above abstract. — Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

249

nant to civil goveimment, whether monarchical,
aristocratical, or democratical ; and we renounce
all jurisdiction that is repugnant or derogatory
to any of these, especially to the monarchy of
this kingdom." CHAPTER III.
Concerning the Ministers of the Word.
1. "They hold that the pastors of particular
congregations are the highest spiritual officers
in the church, over whom there is no superior
pastor by Divine appointment but Jesus Christ.
2. " That there are not by Divine institution,
in the Word, any ordinary, national, provincial,
or diocesan pastors to whom the pastors of par
ticular churches are to be subject.
3. " That no pastor ought to exercise or ac
cept of any civU jurisdiction or authority, but
ought to be wholly employed in spiritual offices
and duties to that congregation over which he
is set.
4. " That the supreme office of the pastor is
to preach the Word publicly to the congrega
tion ; and that the people of God ought not to
acknowledge any for their pastors that are not
able, by preaohing, to interpret and apply the
Word of God to them ; and, consequently, all
ignorant and mere reading priests are to be re
jected. 5. " That in public worship the pastor only is
to be the mouth of the congregation to God in
prayer ; and that the people are only to testify
their assent by the word Amen.
6. " That the Church has no power to impose
upon her pastors or officers any other ceremo
nies or injunctions than what Christ has ap
pointed. 7. "That in every church there should also
be a doctor to instruct and catechise the igno
rant in the main principles of religion."
CHAPTER IV.
Concerning ihe Elders.
I. "They hold that by God's ordinance the
congregation should choose other officers as as
sistants to the ministers in the government of
the Church, who are jointly with the ministers
to be overseers of the manners and conversa
tion of all the congregation.
2. " That these are to be chosen out of the
gravest and most discreet members, who are
also of some note in the world, and able, if pos
sible, to maintain themselves."
CHAPTER V.
Of Church Censures.
1. " They hold that the spiritual keys of the
Church are committed to the aforesaid spiritual
officers and governors, and to none others.
2. " That by virtue of these keys they are not
to examine and make inquisition into the hearts
of men, nor molest them upon private suspi
cions or uncertain fame, but to proceed only
upon open and notorious crimes. If the offend
er be convinced, they ought not to scorn, de
ride, taunt, and revUe him with contumelious
language, nor procure proctors to make person
al invectives against him, nor make him give
attendance from term to term, and from one
court-day to another, of the manner of our ec
clesiastical courts ; but to use him brotherly,
and, if possible, to move him to repentance ;
Vol. I.-I i

and if he repent, they are not to proceed to cen
sure, but to accept his hearty sorrow and con
trition as a sufficient satisfaction to the church,
without imposing any fines, or taking fees, or
enjoining any outward mark of shame, as the
white sheet, &.c.
" But if the offender be obstinate, and show
no signs of repentance, and if his crime be fully
proved upon him, and be Of such a high nature
as to deserve a censure according to the Word
of God, then the ecclesiastical officers, with the
free consent of the whole congregation (and not
otherwise), are first to suspend him from tho
sacrament, praying for him, at the same time,
that God would give hira repentance to the ac
knowledgment of his fault ; and if this does not
humble him, they are then to denounce him to
be as yet no member of the kingdom of heaven,
and of that congregation, and so are to leave
him to God and the king. And this is all the
ecclesiastical jurisdiction that any spiritual offi
cers are to use against any man for the greatest
crime that can be committed.
" If the party offending be a civil superior,
they are to behave towards him with all that
reverence and civil subjection that his honour or
high office in the state may require. They are
not to presume to convene him before thera,
but ar^ themselves to go to him in all civil and
humble manner, to stand bareheaded, to bow, to
give him aU his civU titles ; and if it be a su
preme governor or king, to kneel, and in most
hurable manner to acquaint him with his faults ;
and if such or any other offenders wUl volunta
rily withdraw from the communion, they havg
no farther concern with them.
"They hold the oath ex officio on the imposer's
part to be most damnable and tyrannous, against
the very law of nature, devised by antichrist,
through the inspiration of the devU, to tempt
weak Christians to perjure themselves, or be
drawn in to reveal to the enemies of Christiani
ty those secret religious acts which, though
done for the advancement of the Gospel, may
bring on themselves and their dearest friends.
heavy sentences of condemnation from court."
CHAPTER VI.
Concerning the Civil Magistrate..
1. "They hold that the civil magistrate oughts
to have supreme civU* power over all the church
es within his dominions ; but that, as he is a
Christian, he ought to be a member of some on©
of them ; which is not in the least derogatory,
to his civil Supremacy.
2. " That all ecclesiastical qfficers are pun
ishable by the civil magistrate for the abuse of
their ecclesiastical offices ; and much more if
they intrude upon the rights and prerogatives
of the civU authority.
3. " They hold the pope to be antichrist, be
cause he usurps the supremacy over kings and
princes ; and therefore all that defend the popish
faith, and that are for tolerating that religion^
are secret enemies ofthe king's supremacy.
4. " That all archbishops, bishops, deans, of
ficials, &c., hold their offices and functions at
the king's pleasure, merely jure humano ; and
whosoever holdeth that the king may not re-

* Dr. Oey says that the word civil is added by Mr.
Neal, and that he has omitted, after " dominions^"
the clause " in aU cases whatsoever." — Ed.

290

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

move them, and dispose of thera at his pleasure,
is an enemy to his supreraacy."
Let the reader now judge whether there was
sufficient ground for the calurany and reproach
that were cast upon the Puritans of those tiraes ;
hut their adversaries having often charged them
•with denying the supremacy, and wilh claiming
a sort of jurisdiction over the king himself, they
published another pamphlet this summer, enti
tled " -A Protestation of the King's Supremacy,
made in the Name ofthe afflicted Ministers, and
opposed to the shameful Calumniations ofthe
Prelates." To which was annexed an humble
petition for liberty of conscience. In their prot
estation, they declare,
1. " We hold and maintain the king's suprem
acy in all causes, and over all persons, civil and
ecclesiastical, as it was granted to Queen Eliz
abeth, and explained in the Book of Injunctions ;
nor have any of us been unwilUng to subscribe
and swear to it. We believe it to be the king's
natural right without a statute law, and that the
churches within his dominions would sin dam
nably if they did not yield it to him. Nay, we
believe that the king cannot alienate it from his
crown, or transfer it to any spiritual potentates
or rulers ; and that it is not tied to his faith or
Christianity, but to his very crown : so that if
iie were an infidel, the supremacy is his due.
2. " We hold that no church officers have
power to deprive the king of any branch of his
royal prerogative, much less of his supremacy,
¦wliioh is inseparable from him.
3. "That no ecclesiastical officers have pow
er over the bodies, lives, goods, or liberties of
any person within the king's dominions.
4. " That the king may make laws for the
good ordering of the churches within his domin
ions ; and that the churches ought not to be dis
obedient, unless they apprehend them eontrary
to the Word of God ; and even in such case
they are not to resist, but peaceably to forbear
obedience, and submit to the punishment, if
mercy cannot be obtained.
6. " That the king only hath power within his
dominions to convene synods or general assem
blies of ministers, and by his authority royal to
ratify and give life to their canons and consti
tutions, without whose ratification no man can
force any subject to yield obedience to the same.
6. " That the king ought not to be subject to
the censures of any churches, church officers, or
synods, whatsoever ; but only to that church,
and those officers of his own court and house
hold with whom he shall voluntarily join in
communion, where there can be no fear of un
just usage.
7. " If a king, after he has held communion
¦with a Christian church, should turn apostate,
or live in a course of open defiance to the laws
of God and religion, the church governors are
to give over their spiritual charge and tuition of
hira, which, by calling from God and the king,
they did undertake; and more than this they
may not do, for the king still retains his supreme
authority over the churches as entirely, and in
as ample a manner, as if he were the most Chris
tian prince in the world.
8 " We refuse no obedience to the king, nor
to any of the canons required by the "prelates,
i)ut such as we are wUhng to take upon our

consciences, and to swear, jf required, that we
believe contrary to the Word of God. We deny
no ecclesiastical jurisdiction to the king but that
which Christ has appropriated to himself, who
is the sole doctor and legislator of his Church,
9. " We are so far from claiming any suprem
acy to ourselves, that we exclude from ourselves
all secular pomp and power, holding it a sin to
punish men in their bodies, goods, liberliea, or
lives, for any merely spiritual offence.
10. " We confine all ecclesiastical jurisdic
tion within one congregation, and that jurisdic
tion is not alone in the rainisters, but also in the
elders of the church ; and their jurisdiction is
raerely spiritual.
" Therefore aU that we crave of his majesty
and the state is, that, with his and their permis
sion, it may be lawful for us to worship God ac
cording to his revealed will ; and that we may
not be forced to the observance of any human
rites and ceremonies. We are ready to make
an open confession of our faith and form of wor
ship, and desire that we may not be obliged to
worship God in corners, but that our religious
and civU behaviour may be open to the obser
vation and censure of the civil government, to
whom we profess all due subjection. So long
as it shaU please the king and Parliament to
maintain the hierarchy or prelacy in this king
dom, we are content that they enjoy their state
and dignity ; and we wiU live as brethren among
those ministers that acknowledge spiritual hom
age to their spiritual lordships, paying to them
all temporal duties of tithes, &c., and joining
with them in the service and worship of God,
so far as we may without our own particular
communicating in those human traditions which
we judge unlawful. Only we pray that the prel
ates and their ecclesiastical officers may not be
our judges, but that we may both of us stand at
the bar of the civil magistrate ; and that if we
shall be openly vilified and slandered, it may be
lawful for us, without fear of punishment, to jus
tify ourselves to the world ; and then we shall
think our lives, and all that we have, too little
to spend in the service of our king and country."
Though the principles of submission are here
laid down with great latitude, and thougn the
practice of the Puritans was agreeable to them,
yet their enem'ies did not fail to eharge thera
with disloyalty, with sedition, and with disturb
ing the peace of the state. Upon which the
ministers of Devon and Cornwall published an
other small treatise, entitled " A Removal of
certain Imputations laid upon the Ministers,"
&c., in which they say, p. 21, "Let them [lh«
bishops] sift well our courses since his majesty's
happy entrance in among us, and let them name
wherein we have done aught that may justly be
said Ul to become the ministers of Jesus Christ.
Have we drawn any sword ? have we raised any
tumult? have we used any threats? hath the
state been put into any fear or hazard through
us ? Manifold disgraces have been cast upon us,
and we have endured them ; the liberty of our
ministry hath been taken from us, and (ll'0"|.''
with bleeding he"&rts) we have sustained it. vie
have been cast out of our houses, and deprived of
our ordinary maintenance, yet have we blown no
trumpet of sedition. These things have goM
very near us, and yet did we never so much as
entertain a thought of violence. The truth »,

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

251

•we have petitioned the king and state ; and who
liath reason to deny us that liberty ? we have
oraved of the prelates to deal with uS aecording
to law ; and is not this the common benefit of
every subject? we have besought them to con
vince our consciences by Scripture. Alas ! what
would they have us to do ? will they have us
eontent ourselves with this only, that they are
bishops, and therefore, for their greatness, ought
to be yielded to ? the weight of episcopal power
may oppress us, but cannot convince us."*
It appears from hence, that the Puritans were
the king's' faithful subjects ; that they complied
to the utmost limit of their consciences ; and that
when they could not obey, they were content to
suffer. Here are no principles inconsistent with
the public safety ; no marks of heresy, impiety,
or sedition ; no charges of ignoranoe or neglect
of duty ; how unreasonable, then, must it be to
silence and deprive such men ? to shut them up
in prison, or send them with their families a beg
ging, while their pulpit-doors were to be shut up,
and there was a famine in many parts of the
country, not of bread, but of the Word of the
Lord ;+ yet these honest men were not only per
secuted at home, but restrained from retiring
into his majesty's dominions abroad ; for when
the ecclesiastical courts had driven them from
their habitations and livelihoods, and were still
hunting them by their informers from one , end
of the land to the other, several families crossed
the ocean to Virginia, and invited their friends
to follow ; but Bancroft, being informed that
great numbers were preparing to embark, ob
tained a proclamation prohibiting them to trans
port themselves to Virginia without a special li
cense from the king; a severity hardly to be
paralleled I nor was it ever imitated in this coun
try except by Archbishop Laud.
The isles of Guernsey and Jersey having en
joyed the diseipline of th^ French churches
without disturbance aU the reign of Queen Eliz
abeth, upon the accession of the present king
addressed his majesty for a confirmation of it,i
which he was pleased to grant by a letter under
the privy seal, in these words :
" Whereas we have been given to understand
that our dear sister. Queen Elizabeth, did permit
and aUow, to the isles of Jersey and Guernsey,
» Episcoporum auctoritas opprimere nos potest, do-
cere non potest. — Ed.
t Rapin, vol. ii., p. 176, 185, foUo edition.
X Dr. Grey quotes here CoUyer's Ecclesiastical
History, vol. ii,, p, 705, in contradiction to Mr. Neal,
and to cliarge the Puritans as " addressing King James
with a false suggestion, that the discipline had been
allowed by Queen Elizabeth." Dr. Grey's stricture
would have been superseded, if he had atteneled to
Mr. Neal's state of the business ; who says only, that
" the discipline of the French churches had been en
joyed without disturbance all the reign of Queen
Elizabeth," without asserting whether this indulgence
were owing to connivance or to an express grant.
HeVUn, however, says that the " Genevian discipline
had been settled by Queen Elizabeth." — Hist, of
Preii., p. 395. And Collyer himself owns, that though
the queen allowed only one church to adopt the mod
el of Geneva, and enjoined the use of the English lit
urgy in all others, yet it was soon laid aside by all
the churcHfes, and the Geneva plan adopted by the
cecree of synods, held under the countenance of the
governors of Giiernsey and the neighbouring isles.
These auihorities'fuUy justify Mr. Neal's representa
tion. — Ed.

parcels of the duchy of Normandy, the use of
the government of the Reformed churches of
the said duchy, whereof they have stood pos
sessed till our coming to the crown ; for this
cause, as well as for the edification of the
Church, we do wiU and ordain that our. said
isles shaU quietly enjoy their said liberty in the
use of ecclesiastical discipline there now estab
lished, forfiidding any one to give them any
trouble or impeachment so long as they contain
themselves in our obedience.
"Given at Hampton Court, August 8th, in
the first year of our reign, 1603."
But Bancroft, and some of his brethren the
bishops, having possessed the king with the ne
cessity of a general uniformity throughout all
his dominions, these islands were to be inclu
ded ; accordingly. Sir John Peyton, a zealous
churchman, was appointed governor, with se
cret instructions to root out the Geneva disci
pline, and plant the English liturgy and ceremo
nies.* This gentleman, taking advantage of
the synod's appointing a minister to a vacant
living, according to custom, protested against
it as injurious to the king's prerogative, and
complained to court that the Jersey ministers
had usurped the patronage of the benefices of
the island ; that they had admitted men to liv
ings without the form of presentation, which
was a loss to the crown in its first-fruits ; that
by the connivance or allowance of former gov
ernors, they exercised a kind of arbitrary juris
diction, ^and therefore prayed that his majesty
would settle the English discipline among them.t
The Jersey ministers alleged in their own de
fence, that the presentation to livings was a
branch of their discipline, and that the payments
of first-fruits and tenths had never been de
manded since they were disengaged from the
see of Constance. They pleaded his majesty's
royal confirmation of their discipline, which
was read publicly in a synod of both islands in
the year 1605. But this pious king had very
little regard to promises, oaths, or charters,
when they stood in the way of his arbitrary de
signs ; he ordered, therefiife, his ecclesiastical
officers to pursue his instructions in the most
effectual manner. Accordingly, they took the
presentations to vacant livings into their own
hands without consulting the presbytery ; they
annulled the oath, whereby all ecclesiastical and
civil officers were obliged to swear to the main
tenance of their discipline ; and whereas aU
who received the holy sacrament were requi
red to subscribe to the aUowance of the general
form of church government in that island, the
king's attorney-general and his friends now re
fused it. Their elders, likewise, were cited into
the temporal courts, and stripped of their privi
leges ; nor had they much better quarter in the
consistory, for the governor and jurats made
the decrees of that court ineffectual by reversing
them in the Town Hall.
Complaint being made to the court of these
innovations, the king sent them word that; to
avoid all disputes for the future, he was de
termined to revive the office and authority of a
dean, and to establish the Enghsh Common
Prayer Book among them, which he did accord-
* Heyi;, Hist. Presb., p. 396, and CoUyer's Eccles.
Hist., p. 705.
t Heyhn's Hist. Presb., p. 396.

252

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

ingly,* and ordered the Bishop of Winchester,
in whose diocess they were, to draw up some
canons for the dean's direction in the exercise
of his government ; which being done, and con
firmed by the king, their former privileges were
extinguished. Whereupon many left the islands
and retired into France and Holland ; however,
others made a shift to support their discipline
after a manner, in the island of Guernsey,
where the episcopal regulations could not take
place. Mr. Robert Parker, a Puritan minister al
ready mentioned, published this year a very
learned treatise " Of the Cross in Baptism, "t
But the bishops, instead of answering it, per
suaded the king to issue a proclamation, with
an offer ofa reward for apprehending him, which
obliged him to abscond. A treacherous servant
ofthe family having informed the officers where
he had retired, they came and searched the
house, but, by the special providence of God,
he was preserved, the only room they neglected
to search being that in which he was concealed,
from whence he heard them quarrelling and
swearing at one another, one saying they had
not searched that room, and another confidently
asserting the contrary, and refusing to suffer it
to be searched over again. Had he been taken,
he had been cast into prison, where, without
doubt, says my author, he must have died.
When he got into Holland he would have been
chosen minister of the English church at Am
sterdara, but the magistrates being afraid of
disobliging King James, he went to Doesburgh,
and became minister of that garrison, where he
departed this life, 1630.
f This year died the famous Dr. John Ray
nolds, king's professor in Oxford. He was at
first a zealous papist, whUe his brother WUIiam
was a Protestant, but, by conference and dispu
tation, the brothers converted each other, Will
iam dying an inveterate papist, and John an
eminent Protestant.!: He was born in Devon
shire, 1549, and educated in Corpus Christi Col
lege, Oxford, of which he was afterward presi
dent. He was a prodigy for reading, his mem
ory being a living library. Dr. Hall used to
say that his memory and reading were near a
miracle. He had turned over all writers, pro
fane and ecclesiastical, as councils, fathers,
histories, &c. He was a critic in the lan-
guages,ij of a sharp wit and indefatigable indus
try ; his piety and sanctity of life were so emi
nent and conspicuous, that the learned Cracan-
thorp used to say, that to name Raynolds was
to commend virtue itself He was also pos
sessed of great modesty and humility. In short,
says the Oxford historian, nothing can be spo
ken against him but that he was the pillar of
Puritanism, and the grand favourer of noncon
formity. At length, after a severe and morti
fied life, he died in his college. May 21, 1607,
aged sixty-eight, and was buried with great fu
neral solemnity in St. Mary's Church.H

Soon after died the famous Mr. ThomasBrighW
man, author of a commentary upon the Songof
Solomon, and the Revelations : he was born at
Nottingham, and bred in Queen's College, Cam
bridge, where he became a champion for non
conformity to the ceremonies. He was after
ward presented by Sir John Osbourne to the rec
tory of Haunes in Bedfordshire, where he spent
the remainder of his days in hard study, and
constant application to his charge, as far as hi»
conscience would admit,* His life, saye Mr
Fuller, was angelical, his learning uncommon -
he was a close student, of little stature, and,
such a master of himself, that he was never
known to be moved with anger. His daily dis-
course was against episcopal government, which
he prophesied would shortly be overthrown,!
and the government of the foreign Protestant
churches be erected in its place. He died sud
denly upon the road, as he was riding with Sir
John Osbourne in his coach, by a sudden ob
struction of the liver or gall, August 24, 1607
aged fifty-one.
The king having given the reins ofthe Church.
into the hands of the prelates and their depend
ants, these, in return, became zealous champions
for the prerogative, both in the pulpit and from
the press. Two books were published this
year, which maintained the most extravagant
maxims of arbitrary power : one written by
Cowel, LL.D., and vicar- general to the arch
bishop, wherein he affirms, 1. That the king is
not bound by the laws, or by his coronation
oath. 2. That he is not obliged to call pariia-
ments to make laws, but may do it without
thera. 3. That it is a great favour to admit
the consent of the subject in giving subsidies.
The other, by Dr. Blackwood, a clergyman,
who maintained that the English were all slaves
from the Norman Conquest. The Parliament
would have brought the authors to justice, but
the king protected thera by proroguing the hous
es in displeasure ;t and, to supply his necessi-

* Collyer, vol. ii, p. 706. Heylin's Hist. Presb.,
P- 398,399. t Pierce, p. 171.
X Fuller's Abel Redivivus, p. 477.
ij Wood's Ath., vol. i., p. 290.
II In 1604 James appointed Dr. Raynolds, on ac
count of his uncommon skUl in Greek and Hebrew,
to be one of the translators of the Bible, but he did
not live to see us completion. During his long Ul-

ness his learned associates in Oxford met at his lodg
ings once a week, to compare their notes. He was.
thus employed translating the Word of Life till he
himself was translated to life everlasting.— ful/n-'i
Abel Redivivus, p. 487, 488.— C. '
* Church Hist., b. x., p. 50.
t " How," asks Bishop Warburton, " would tha
historian have us understand this? As true prophe
cy to be fulfilled, or a false prophet confuted ?" The
reply is, Mr Neal is to be understood as his author
Mr. Fuller, from whom. he quotes. Neither meant
to ascribe to Mr. Brightman a prophetic inspiration,
but only to relate his sentiments and apprehensions;
to which, however the bishop may sneer, the event*
of the next reign bore a correspondence. Tbe clause,
"and the government of the foreign Protestant
churches," &c., as Dr. Grey observes, is not in Ful
ler ; who, however, says that Mr. Brightman gave
offence by " resembling the Church of England to
lukewarm Laodicea, praising and preferring the pu
rity of foreign Protestant churches." He always
carried about him a Greek Testament, which he
read through every fortnight. Cartwright used to
call hun " the bright star in the Church of God."
— C.
X Rapin says, as Dr. Grey observes, " the kin; in
terposed, and frustrated the Pariiament's design, by
publishing a proclamation, to forbid the reading of
these books, and to order copies to be dehvered iff
the magistrates. But such proclamations are usual
ly ill obeyed, especially when it is not the king's in^
terest to see them strictly executed." So that hi

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

253

ties, began to raise money by monopolies/ of di
vers manufactures, to the unspeakable prejudice
¦of the trade of the kingdom.
This year died the famous Jacobus Arminius,
divinity-professor in the University of Leyden,
who gave birth to the famous sect stUl called by
his name. He was born at Oudewater, 1560.
His parents dying in his infancy, he was edu-
.cated at the public expense by the magistrates
of Amsterdam, and was afterward chosen one
of the ministers of that city in the year 1.588.
Being desired by one of the professors of Frane-
quer to confute a treatise of Beza's upon the
Supralapsarian scheme of predestination, he fell
'himself into the contrary sentiment. In the year
1600 he was called to succeed Junius in the di
vinity chair of Leyden, and was the first who
was solemnly created doctor of divinity in that
university. Here his notions concerning pre
destination and grace, and the extent of Christ's
redemption, met with a powerful opposition
¦from Gomarus and others. But though his dis
ciples increased prodigiously in a few years, yet
the troubles he met with from his adversaries,
and the attacks made upon his character and
reputation, broke his spirits, so that he sunk
into a melancholy disorder, attended with a
complication of distempers, which hastened his
end, after he had been professor six years, and
had lived forty-nine. He is represented as a
divine of considerable learning, piety, and mod
esty, far from going the lengths of his success
ors, Vorstius, Episcopius, and Curcellaeus ; yet
-his doctrines occasioned such confusion in that
country as could not be terminated without a
national synod, and produced great distractions
in the Church of England, as wiU be seen here
after. In the Parliament which met this summer,
the spirit of English liberty began to revive;
one of the members made the following bold
speech in the House of Commons, containing a
particular representation of the grievances of
the nation, and of the attempts made for the
redress of them. " It begins with a complaint
against the bishops in their ecclesiastical courts,
for depriving, disgracing, silencing, and impris
oning such of God's messengers (being learned
and godly preachers) as he has furnished with
most heavenly graces to call us lo repentance,
for no other cause but for not conforming them
selves farther, and otherwise than by the sub
scription limited in the statute ofthe 13th Eliz
abeth they are bound to do, thereby making the
laws of the Church and commonwealth to jar;
which to reform," says he, "we made a law
for subscription, agreeing to the intent of the
aforesaid statute, which would have established
the peace both of Churoh and State ; and if it
had received the royal assent, would have been
an occasion that many subjects might be well
taught the means of their -salvation, who now
want sufficient knowledge of the Word of God
to ground their faith upon.
" And whereas, by the laws of God and the
land, ecclesiastical persons should use only the
spiritual sword, by exhortation, admonition, and
excommunication, which are the keys of the
Church, to exohide impenitent sinners, and leave
the temporal sword to the civil magistrate.

.these measures the king screened the persons ofthe
authors.-^Eu.

which was always so used in England till the
second year of the reign of King Henry IV., at
which time the popish prelates got the temporal
sword into their hands, which statute was since
by several acts of Parliament made void, yet,
by virtue of that temporal authority once for a
short space by them used, some ecclesiastical
persons do use both swords, and with those two
swords the oath ex officio, which began first in
England by the statute of the second of King
Henry IV., being contrary to the laws of Eng
land, and, as I verily think, contrary to the laws
of God.
"Wherefore, to reform these abuses, we made
two good laws, one to abridge the force of the
ecclesiastical commission in many points, the
other to abrogate and take away the power of
ecclesiastical persons to administer the oath ex
officio, being a very hateful thing, and unlawful.
" And forasmuch as among the canons lately
made by the clergy of England in convocation,
it was thought that some of their canons did ex
tend to charge the bodies, lands, and goods of
the subjects of this realm farther than was law
ful and meet, we therefore made a good law to
make void such canons, unless the same canons
were confirmed by Parliament.
" And as we had the care of the Church, so
likewise of the commonwealth ; and, therefore,
after searching the records of the 'Tower, and
after hearing the opinions of lawyers, we found
it clear that impositions laid upon merchandise
or other goods ofthe subject, by the king, with
out consent of Parliament, were not lawful ; and,
therefore, we passed a bill declaring that no im
position laid upon goods is lawful without con
sent of Parliament.
" But God has not permitted these and sun
dry other good laws to take effect or pass into
statutes, though we earnestly desired them ; if
they had, both the king and his subjects would
have been more happy than ever ; what would
we not then have given to supply the king's
wants ? But as things now stand, and without
reformation of the aforementioned grievances,
we cannot give much, because we have no cer
tainty of that which shall remain to us after our
gift." To put a stop to such dangerous speeches, the
king summoned both houses toWhitehaU, and
told them " that he did not intend to govern by
the absolute power of a king, though he knew
the power of kings was like the Divine power ;
for," says his majesty, " as God can create and
destroy, make and unmake, at his pleasure, so
kings can give life and death, judge all, and be
judged by none ; they can exalt and abase, and,
like men at chess, make a pawn take a bishop
or a knight." After this he tells the houses,
that as it was blasphemy to dispute what God
might do, so it was sedition in subjects to dis
pute what a king might do in the height of his
power. He commanded them, therefore, not to
meddle with the main points of governraent,
which would be to lessen his craft, who had
been thirty years at his trade in Scotland, and
served an apprenticeship of seven years in Eng
land. The Pariiament, not terrified with this high
language, went on steadily in asserting their
rights; May 24th, 1610, twenty of the Lower
House presented a remonstrance, in which they

264

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

declare, "that whereas they had first received a
message, and since, by his majesty's speech,
had been commanded to refrain from debating
upon things relating to the chief points of gov
ernment, they do hold it their undoubted right
to examine into the grievances of the subject,
and to inquire into their own rights and proper
ties, as well as his majesty's prerogative ;* and
they most humbly and instantly beseech his
gracious majesty that, without offence to the
same, they may, according to the undoubted
right and liberty of Parliament, proceed in their
intended course against the late new imposi
tions." In another petition, they beseech his maj
esty to put the laws in execution against pa
pists ; and with regard to the Puritans, they say,
"Whereas divers learned and painful pastors
that have long travailed in the work of the min
istry with good fruit and blessing of their la
bour, who -«'ere ever ready to perform the le
gal subscription appointed by the 1 3th of Eliza
beth, which only concerneth the profession of
the true Christian faith and doctrine ofthe sac
raments, yet for not conforming in some points
of ceremonies, and for refusing the subscription
directed by the late canons, have been removed
from their eoclesiastical livings,- being their
freehold, and debarred from all means of main
tenance, to the great grief of your majesty's
subjects, seeing the whole people that want in
struction lie open to the seducement of popish
and ill-affected persons ; we, therefore, most
humbly beseech your majesty that such depri
ved and silenced ministers may, by license or
permission of the reverend fathers in their sev
eral diocesses, instruct and preach unto their
people in such parishes and places where they
may be employed, so as they apply themselves
in their ministry to wholesome doctrine and ex
hortation, and hve quietly and peaceably in their
caUings, and shaU not, by writing or preaohing,
impugn things established by public authority.
They also pray that dispensations for pluralities
of benefices with cure of souls may be prohibit
ed, and that toleration of nonresidency may be
restrained. And forasmuch as excommunica
tion is exercised upon an incredible number of
the common people, by the subordinate officers
of the jurisdiction eoclesiastical, for small caus
es, by the sole information of a base apparitor,
so that the poor are driven to excessive expen
ses for matters of small moment, while the rich
escape that censure by commutation of pen
ance ; they therefore most humbly pray for a
reformation in the premises."
In another petition, they represent to his
majesty the great grievance of the commission
ecclesiastical, and in all humility beseech his
majesty to ratify the law they had prepared for
reducing it within reasonable and convenient
limits ; they say, "that the statute 1 Eliz., cap.
i., by which the commission is authorized, has
been found dangerous and inconvenient on many
accounts :
" First. Beeause it enables the making such
commission to one subject born, as well a.° more.
" Secondly. Because, under colour of some
words in the statute, whereby the commissioners
are authorized to act according to the tenour and
effect of your highness's letters patent, and by let-

* Warner's Eccles. History, voL ii., p. 495, 496.

ters patent grounded thereon, they do fine ani
imprison, and exercise other aulhorUies not be
longing to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, restored
to the crown by this statute ; for by the same rule
your highness may by your letters patent author
ize them to fine without stint, and imprison wiih-
out limitation of time ; as, also, according to wju
and discretion, without regard lo any laws spir
itual and temporal ; they may impose utter con
fiscation of goods, forfeiture of lands, yea, and
the taking away of limb and Ufe itself, and this
for any matter appertaining to spiritual jurisdic
tion, which could never be the intent ofthe law.
"Thirdly. Because the king, by Ihe same stat
ute, may set up an ecclesiastical commission ia
every diocess, county, and parish of England,
and thereby all jurisdiction may be taken from
bishops and transferred to laymen.
" Fourthly. Because every petty offence ap
pertaining to spiritual jurisdiction is, by colour
of the said words and letters patent, made sub
ject to excommunication, whereby the smallest
offenders may be obliged to travel from the most
remote parts of the kingdom to London, to their
utter ruin.
" Fifthly. Because it is very hard, if not impos
sible, to know what matters or offences are in
cluded within their commission, as appertaining
to spiritual and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, it be
ing unknown what ancient canons or laws spir
itual are in force.
" As for the commission ecclesiastical itself,
grounded on the statute above mentioned, it ia
a very great grievance, because,
" 1. The same men have both spiritual and
temporal jurisdiction, and may force the party
by oath to accuse himself, and also inquire there
of by a jury ; and, lastly, may inflict for the same
offence, and at the same time, by one and the
same sentence, both a spiritual and temporal
punishment. "2. Whereas, upon sentences of deprivation
or other spiritual censures, given by force of or
dinary jurisdiction, an appeal lies for the party
grieved : this is here excluded by express words
of the commission. Also, here is to be a trial
by a jury, but no remedy by traverse or attaint.
Nor can a man have any writ of error, though
judgment be given against hun, amounting to
the taking away all his goods, and imprisoning
him for life, yea, to the adjudging him in the
case of praimunire, whereby his lands are for
feited, and he put out of the protection of the
law. " 3. Whereas penal laws, and offences against
.them, cannot be determined in other courts, or
by other persons, than those intrusted by Par
liament, yet the execution of many such statutes
made since the 1st Elizabeth are committed to
the ecclesiastical commissioners, who may in
flict the punishments contained in the statutes,
being prsemunire, and of other high nature, and
so enforce a man upon his oath to accuse him
self, or else inflict other temporal punishment*
at pleasure ; and after this, the parly shall be
subject in the courts mentioned in the acte li>
punishments by the same acts appointed and m-
flicted. " 5. The commission gives authority to oblige
men, not only to give recognisance for their ap
pearance from time to tirae, but also for per
formance of whatsoever shall be by the com-

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS,

255

missioners ordered, and to pay such fees as the
commissioners shaU think fit.
" The execution ofthe commission. is no less
grievous to the subject; for, (1.) Laymen are
punished for speaking of the simony and other
misdemeanors of spiritual men, though the
thing spoken be true, and tends to the inducing
some condign punishment. (2.) These commis
sioners usually allot to woraen discontented and
unwilling to live with their husbands such por
tions and maintenance as they think fit, to the
great encouragement of wives to be disobedient
to their husbands. And (3.) Pursuivants and
other ministers employed in apprehending sus
pected offenders, or in searching for supposed
scandalous books, break open men's houses,
closets, and desks, rifling all corners and private
places, as in cases of high treason.
" A. farther grievance is the stay of writs of
prohibition, habeas corpus, and de homine replegi-
ando, which are a considerable relief to the op
pressed subjects of the kingdom. His majesty,
in order to support the inferior courts against
the principal courts of common law, had ordered
things so, that writs had been more sparingly
granted, and with greater caution. They there
fore pray his majesty to require his judges in
Westminster Hall to grant such writs in cases
wherein they lie.
" But one of the greatest and most threaten
ing grievances was the king's granting letters
patent for monopolies, as licenses for wine, ale
houses, selling sea-coal, &c., which they pray his
majesty to forbear for the future, that the dis
ease may be cured, and others of like nature
prevented." The king, instead of concurring with his Par
liament, was so disgusted with their reraon.
strance, that he dissolved them [December 3,
1610] \yithout passing anyone act this session
after they had continued about six years ; and
was so out of humour with the spirit of English
liberty that was growing in the houses, that he
resolved, if possible, to govern without parlia
ments for the future. 'Phis was done by the
advice of Bancroft, and other servUe court flat
terers, and was the beginning of that mischief,
says WUson,t which, when it came to a full
ripeness, made such a bloody tincture in both
kingdoms as never wUl be got out of the bishops'
lawn sleeves.
From the tirae that King James came to the
English throne, and long before, if we raay be
lieve Dr. Heylin, his raajesty had projected the
restoring episcopacy in the Kirk of Scotland,
and reducing the two kingdoras to one uniforpi
government and discipline: for this purpose
Archbishop Bancroft maintained a secret cor
respondence with him, and corrupted one Nor
ton, an English bookseller at Edinburgh [in the
year 1689], to betray the Scots affairs lo him, as
he confessed, with tears, at his examination.
The many curious articles he employed him to
search into are set down in Calderwood's His
tory, p. 246. In the month of January, 1591, his
letters to Mr. Patrick Adarason were intercepted,
wherein he advises hira "to give the Queen of
England more honourable titles, and to praise
the Chureh of England above all others. He mar-
velled why he came not to England, and assu-

* Fuller's Church Hist., b. x., p. 56.
t Hist, of King James, p. 46.

red him he would be weU accepted by my JiOrd
of Canterbury's grace, and well rewarded if h&
came."* This Adamson was afterward excom
municated, but, repenting of what he had done
against the Kirk, desired absolution ; part of his
confession runs thus : " I grant I was more
busy with some bishops in England, in preju
dice of the discipline of our kirk, partly when I
was there, and partly by intelligence since, than
became a good Christian, much less a faithful
pastor ; neither is there anything that more
ashameth me than my often deceiving and
abusing the Kirk heretofore by confessions, sub
scriptions, and protestations."
Upon his majesty's arrival in England, he took.
all occasions to discover his aversion to the
Scots Presbyterians, taxing them with sauci-
ness, ill-manners, and an implacable enmity to
kingly power; he nominated bishops to the
thirteen Soots bishoprics which himself had for
merly abolished ; but their revenues being an
nexed to the crown, their dignities were little-
more than titular. In the Parliament held at
Perth, in the year 1606, his majesty obtained,
an act to restore the bishops to their temporali
ties, and to repeal the Act of Annexation ; by
which they were restored to their votes in Par
liament, and had the title of lords of Parlia
ment, contrary to the sense both of clergy and
laity, as appears by the foUowing protest of the
General Assembly ;
" In the name of Christ, and in the name ofthe
Kirk in general, whereof the realm hath reaped
comfort this forty-six years ; also in the name
of our presbyteries, from which we received
our commission, and in our own names, as pas
tors and office-bearers within the same for th&
discharging of our necessary duty, and for the
disburdening of our consciences, we except and
protest agamst the erection, confirmation, or
ratification of the said bishoprics and bishops
by this present Parliament, and humbly pray
that this our protestation may be admitted and.
registered among the records."
In the Convention at Linlithgow, December
12, consisting of noblemen, statesmen, and
some court ministers, it was agreed that the-
bishops should be perpetual moderators of the
Kirk assemblies, under certain cautions, and
with a declaration that they had no purpose to
subvert the discipline of the Kirk, or to exercise
any tyrannous or unlawful jurisdiction over
their brethren ; but the "body of the ministers
being uneasy at this, another convention was
held at Linlithgow, 1608, and a committee ap
pointed to compromise the difference ; the com
mittee consisted of two earis and two lords, as
his majesty's commissioners ; five new bishops,
two university men, three ministers on one part,
and ten for the other ; they met at Falkland,
May 4, 1609, and debated, (1.) Whether the
moderators of kirk assemblies should be con
stant or circular ; and (2.) Whether the caveats-
should be observed. But coming to no agree
ment, they adjourned to Striveling, where the
bishops with great difficulty carried their point.
And to increase their power, his majesty was
pleased next year [in the month of Februaiy,
1610], contrary to law, to put the high commis
sion into their hands.
Still they wanted the sanction of a general

* Pierce, p. 166.

256

HISTORY OF THE PURITAN.^,

assembly, and a spiritual character: to obtain
the former, an assembly was held at Glasgow,
June 8, 1610, means having been used by the
courtiers to model it to their mind. In that
costly assembly, says my author,* the bishops
were declared moderators in every diocesan
assembly, and they or their deputies moderators
in their weekly exercises ; ordination and dep
rivation of ministers, visitation of kirks, ex
communication and absolution, with presenta
tion to benefices, were pinned lo the lawn
sleeves ; and it was farther voted, (1.) That
every minister at his entry shaU swear obedi
ence to his ordinary. (2.) That no minister
shall preach or speak the acts of this assembly,
(3.) "That the question ofthe parity or imparity
of pastors shaU not be mentioned in the pulpit
under pain of deprivation. This was a vast ad
vance upon the constitution ofthe Kirk.
To obtain a spiritual character superior to
the order of presbyters, it was necessary that
the bishops elect should be consecrated by some
¦of the same order ; for this purpose the king
sent for three of them into England, viz., Mr.
Spotswood, archbishop of Glasgow, Mr. Lamb,
bishop of Brechen, and Mr. Hamilton, bishop
of Galloway, and issued a commission under
the great seal to the Bishops of London, Ely,
Bath and Wells, and Rochester, requiring them
-to proceed to the consecration ofthe above-men
tioned bishops according to the English ordinal :
Andrews, bishop of Ely, was of opinion that be
fore the consecration they ought to be made
priests, because they had not been ordained by
a bishop. This the Scots divines were unwill
ing to admit, through fear pf the consequences
among their own countrymen ; for what must
they conclude concerning the ministers of Scot
land, if their ordination as presbyters was not
valid? Bancroft, therefore, yielded, that wh^re
bishops could not be had, ordination by pi-esby-
ters must be valid, otherwise the character of
the ministers in most of the Reformed church
es might be questioned. Abbot, bishop of Lon-
'don,t and others, were of opinion that there
¦was no necessity of passing through the inferi-
-or orders of deacon and priest, but that the
episcopal character might be conveyed at once,
as appears from the example of St. Ambrose,
Neetarius, Eucherius, and others, who from
mere laymen were advanced at once into the
episcopal chair.t But whether this supposition
does not rather wealcen the arguments for bish
ops being a distinct order from presbyters, I
Jeave with the reader. However, the Scotch
divines were consecrated in the chapel at Lon
don House [October 21, 1610], and upon their
return into Scotland conveyed their new char
acter in the same manner to their brethren.^
Thus the king, by a usurped supremacy over
the Kirk of Scotland, and other violent and in
direct means, subverted their ecclesiastical con
stitution ; and contrary to the genius of the
people, and the protestation of the General As
sembly, the bishops were made lords of councU,
lords of Parliament, and lord-commissioners in
causes ecclesiastical ; but with aU their high

* Course of Scots Conformity, p 53.
-t Collyer, as Dr. Grey observes, mentions that as
Bancroft's opmion, which Mr. Neal ascribes to Bishop
Abbot.--ED. X CoUyer's Eccles. Hist., vol. i., p. 702.
t Calderwood, p. 644.

titles they sat uneasy in their chairs, being ecn-
erally hated both by the ministers and pcii|i|(^
,-\bout ten days after this conserratioii Dr
Richard Bancroft, archbishop of Canlerburv
departed this life ; he was born at Farnwonh iii
Lancashire, 1544, and educated in Jesus Col
lege, Cambridge. He was first chaplain In Cox,
bishop of Ely, who gave him the rci-tory of
Tevershara, near Cambridge. In the year i.'^jSj
he proceeded D.D., and being ambitious of pre.
ferment, got into the service of Sir Christopher
Hatton, by whose recommendation he was made
prebendaiy of Westminster, Here he signal.
ized himself by preaching against the Puritans,
a sure way to preferment in those limes. He
also wrote against their discipline, and was Me
first in the Church of England who openly vicia-
tained the Divine right of Ihe order of biihopi.
While he sat in the High Commission, lie dis.
tinguished himself by an uncommon zeal against
the Nonconformists, for wlych he was prefer
red, first to the bishopric of London, and, upon
Whitgift's decease, to the see of Canterbury ;
how he behaved in that high station has been
sufficiently related. This prelate left behind him
no extraordinary character for piety, learnini',
hospitality, or any other episcopal quality. He
was ofa rough, inflexible tempei', yet a tool of
the prerogative, and an enemy to the laws and
constitution of his country. Some have repre
sented him as inclined to popery because he
maintained several secular priests in his own
house, but this was done, say his advocates, to
keep up the controversy between them and the
Jesuits. Lord Clarendon says* "that he un
derstood the Church excellently well ; that he
had almost rescued it out of the hands of the
Calvinian party, and very much subdued- the
unruly spirit of the Nonconformists ; and that
he countenanced men of learning." His lord
ship might have added that he was covetous,!
passionate, ill-natured, and a cruel persecutor
of good men ; that he laid aside the hospitality
becoming a bishop, and lived without state or
equipage, which gave occasion to the following
satire upon his death, which happened Novem
ber 2, 1610, aged sixty-six :
Here lies his grace in cold clay clad,
Who died for want of what he had.

CHAPTER II.
FROM THE DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP B.INCROFT TO
THE DEATH OF KING JAMES 1.
Bancroft was succeeded by Dr. George Ab
bot, bishop of London, a divine ofa quite dif
ferent spirit from his predecessor. A sound

* Vol. i., p. 88, ed. 1707.
t Fuller, and after him Dr. Grey and Dr. 'Warner,
vindicate the character of Archbishop Bancroft from
the charges of cruelty and covetousness, "which,
when they are examined into," says Dr. Warner,
" appear not to deserve those opDrobrious names in
the strictest acceptation " On the other h.-ind, the
author of the Confessional caUs him the fiery Ban.
croft, and Dr. Warner sums up his account of him in
a manner not very honourable to his name. "In
short," says he, " there have been archbishops who
have been much worse than Bancroft, who by their
good-humour and generosity have been more es
teemed when living, and more lamented at their
death."— £cc;«. Hist., vol. ii., p. 497.— Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS;

257

Protestant, a thorough Calvinist, an avowed
enemy to popery, and even suspected of Puri
tanism, because he relaxed the penal laws,
whereby he unravelled all that his predecessor
had been doing for many years ; " who, if he
had lived a little longer," says Lord Clarendon,*
"would have subdued the unruly spirit of the
Nonconformists, and extinguished that fire in
England which had been kindled at Geneva;
but Abbot," says his lordship, " considered the
Christian religion no otherwise than as it ab
horred and revUed popery, and valued those
men most who did that most furiously. He in
quired but little after the strict observation of
the discipline of the Church, or conformity lo
the articles or canons established, and did not
think so ill of the [Presbyterian] discipline
as he ought to have done ; but if men prudent
ly forbore a public reviling at the hierarchy
and ecclesiastical government, they were secure
from any inquisition from him, and were equal
ly preferred. His house was a sanctuary to the
most eminent of the factious party, and he li
censed their pernicious writings." This is the
heavy charge brought by the noble historian
against one of the most religious and venerable
prelates of his age, and a steady friend of the
constitution in Church and State. If Abbot's
moderate measures had been constantly pur
sued, the Uberties of England had been secured,
popery discountenanced, and the Church pre
vented from running into those excesses wliich
first proved its reproach, and afterward its
ruin. 'The translation of the Bible now in use was
finished this year [1611] ; it was undertaken at
the request ofthe Puritan divines in the Hamp
ton Court Conference ; and being the last, it
may not be unacceptable to set before the read
er, in one view, the various translations of the
Bible into the English language.
The New Testament was first translated by
Dr. Wickliffe out of the Vulgar Latin, about the
year 1380, and is entitled "The New Testa
ment, with the Lessons taken out of the Old
Law, read in Churches according to the Use of
Sarum." The next translation was by WUIiam Tyndal,
printed at Antwerp, 1526, in octavo, without a
name, and without either calendar, references
in the margin, or table at the end ; it was cor
rected by the author, and printed in the years
I'534 and 1536, having passed through five edi
tions in Holland.
In the mean time, Tyndal was translating
several books of the Old 'Testament, as the Pen
tateuch and the book of Jonah, printed 1531 ;
the books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, the four
books of Kings, the two books of Chronicles,
and Nehemiah. About the same time, George
Joy, some time fellow of Peter CoUege, Cam
bridge, translated the Psalter, the prophecy of
Jeremiah, and the song of Moses, and printed
them beyond sea.
In the year 1535 the whole Bible was printed
the first time in folio, adorned with wooden
cuts and Scripture references; it was done by
several hands, and dedicated to King Henry
yill. by Miles Coverdale. In the last page it
is said to be printed in the year of our Lord
1535, and finished the fourth day of October.

Vol. I.— K K

* Book i., p. 88.

This Bible was reprinted in quarto, 1550, and
again, with a new title, 1553.
Two years after the Bible was reprinted in
English, with this title, " The Holy Byble, which
is all the Holy Scripture, in which are contayn-
ed the Olde and Newe 'Testament, truelye and
purelye translated into English by [a fictitious
name] Thomas Matthew, 1537." It has a calen
dar with an almanac, and an exhortation to the
study of the Scripture, signed J. R. John Ro
gers, a table of contents and marriages, margi
nal notes, a prologue, and in the Apocalypse
some wooden cuts. At the beginning of the
prophets are printed on the top of the page, R.
G., Richard Grafton, and at the bottom, E. W.,
Edward Whitchurch, who were the printers.
This translation, to the end of the book of
Chronicles, and the book of Jonah, with all the
New Testament, was Tyndal's; the rest was
Miles Coverdale's and John Rogers's.
In the year 1539, the above-mentioned trans
lation, having been revised' and corrected by
Archbishop Cranmer, was reprinted by Grafton
and Whitchurch, " cum privilegio ad imprimen-
dum solum." It has this title : "The Bible in
Englyshe, that is to say, the Content of the
Holy Scriptures, both of the Olde and Newe
Testament, truely translated after the veritie
of the Hebrue and Greke Texts, by the diligent
study of divers excellent learned Men, expert
in the foresayde Tongues." In this edition
Tyndal's prologue and marginal notes are omit
ted. It W3.3 reprinted the following year in a
large folio, proper for churches, begun at Paris
and finished at London. In the year 1541 it
was printed again by Grafton, with a preface by
Crapmer, having been revised by Tonstal and
Hoath, bishops of Durham and Rochester. But
alter this time, the popish party prevailing at
court, there were no more editions of the Bible
in this reign.
Soon after King Edward's accession [1548-9],
the Bible of 1541 had been reprinted, with Cran
mer's prologue ; and the liturgy of the Church
of England, being first composed and establish
ed, the translation of the Psalter, commonly
called the old translation, in use at this day,
was taken from this edition. Next year, Cov
erdale's Testament of 1535 was reprinted, with
Erasmus's paraphrase, but there was no new
translation. In the reign of Queen Mary [1555], the exiles
at Geneva undertook a new translation, com
monly called the Geneva Bible ; the names of
the translators were Coverdale, Goodman, Gil-
by, Whittingham, Sampson, Cole, Knox, Bod-
leigh, and PuUain, who published the New Tes
tament first in small twelves, 1557, by Conrad
Badius. This is the first that was printed
with numerical verses. The whole Bible was
published afterward with marginal notes, 1559,
dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. The translators
say "they had been employed in this work
night and day, with fear and trembling; and
they protest, from their consciences, that, in
every point and word, they had faithfully ren
dered the text to the best of their knowledge."
But the marginal notes having given offence, it
was not suffered. to be published in England*
* Here Mr. Neal, as Dr. Grey observes, appears to
be mistaken ; as Lewis says " that the Geneva Bible
was printed at London, m foUo and quarto, in 1572."

258

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

till the death of Archbishop Parker, when it was
printed [1576] by Christopher Barker, in quarto,
"cum privilegio," and met with such accept
ance that it passed through twenty or thirty
editions in this reign.
Cranmer's edition of the Bible had been re
printed in the years 1562 and 1566, for the use
ofthe churches. But complaint being made of
the incorrectness of it. Archbishop Parker pro
jected a new translation, and assigned the sev
eral books of the Old and New Testament to
about fourteen dignitaries of the -Church, most
of whom being bishops, it was from them called
the Bishops' Bible, and was printed in an elegant
and pompous folio, in the year 1568, with maps
and cuts. In the year 1572 it was reprinted
-with some alterations and additions, and several
times afterward without any amendments.
In the year 1582 the Roman Catholic exiles
translated the New Testament for the use of
their people, and published it in quarto, with this
title : " The New Testament of Jesus Christ,
translated faithfully into English out of the au
thentic Latin, according to the best corrected
copies of the same, dUigently conferred with the
Greek and other Editions in divers Languages ;
with arguments of Books and Chapters, Annota
tions, and other necessary Helps for the better
understanding ofthe Text, and especiaUy for the
Discovery of the Corruptions of divers late Trans
lations, and for clearing the Controversies in Re
ligion of these Days. In the English College of
Rheims. Printed by John Fogny." The Old
Testament of this translation was firsl published
at Doway in two quarto volumes, the first in the
year 1609, the other 1610, by Lawrence Kellam,
at the sign of the Holy Lamb, with a preface
and tables ; the authors are said to be Cardinal
AUen, some time principal of St. Mary Hail,
Oxford ; Richard Bristow, fellow of Exeter Col
lege ; and Gregory Martyn, of St. John's Col
lege. The annotations were made by Thomas
Worthington, B.A., of Oxford ; aU of them ex
iles for their religion, and settled in popish sem
inaries beyond sea. The mistakes of this trans
lation, and the false glosses put upon the text,
were exposed by the learned Dr. Fulke and Mr.
Cartwright. At the request ofthe Puritans in the Hampton
Court Conference, King James appointed a new
translation to be executed by the most learned
men of both universities, under the foUowing
regulations : (1.) That they keep as close as pos
sible to the Bishops' Bible. (2.) That the names
of the holy writers be retained according to vul
gar use. (3.) That the old ecclesiastical words
be kept, as church not to be translated congrega
tion, &c. (4.) That when a word has divers
significations, that be kept which has been most
commonly used by the fathers.* (5.) That the
division of chapters be not altered.! (6.) No
marginal notes but for the explication of a He
brew or Greek word. (7.) Marginal references

— Lewis's History of the Translation of the Bible, in
8vo, p. 264, second edition, 1739. — Ed.
* Dr. Grey states more fuUy and accurately these
rules from Lewis and Fuller, "used by the most em
inent fathers, being agreeable to the propriety of the
place, and the analogic of faith." — Ed.
t " The division of the chapt ers to be altered either
not at all, or as little as may be, if necessity so re-
quu-e."— Leuis, p. 317. Fuller's Church Hist., b. x.,
p. 46.— Ed.

may be set down. The other regulations relate
to the translators' comparing notes, and agree
ing among themselves ; they were to consult
I ho modern translations of the French, Dutch,
German,* &c., but to vary as little as possible
from the Bishops' Bible.
The king's commission bears date 1604, bwt
the work was not begun tUl 1606, and finished
1611. Fifty-four of the chief divines of both
universities were originally nominated ; some
of whom dying soon after, the work was under
taken by forty-seven, who were divided into six
companies ; the first translated from Genesis to
the First Book of Chronicles ; the second to the
prophecy of Isaiah ; the third translated the four
greater prophets, with the Lamentations and
twelve smaUer prophets ; the fourth had the
Apocrypha ; the fifth had the four Gospels, the
.-\.cts, and the Revelations ; and the sixth the
canonical epistles. The whole being finished
and revised by learned men from both univer
sities, the publishing it was committed to the
care of Bishop Bilson and Dr. Miles Smith,
which last wrote the preface that is now prefix
ed. It was printed in the year 161 1, with a ded
ication to King James, and is the same that is
still read in all the churches.
Upon the death of Arminius, the curators of
the University of Leyden chose Conradus Vors
tius his successor. This divine had published
a very exceptionable treatisef concerning the
nature and properties of God, in which he main
tained that God had a body ; and denied his-
proper immensity and omniscience, as they are
commonly understood. He maintained the Di
vine Being to be limited and restrained, and as
cribed quantity and magnitude to him. 'rhe cler
gy of Amsterdam remonstrated to the States.
against his settlement at Leyden, the country
being already too much divided about the Ar-
minian tenets. To strengthen their hands, they
appUed to the English ambassador to represent
the ease to King James ; and prevaUed with tho
curators to defer his induction into the profes
sorship tUl his majesty had read over his book ;t
which having done, he declared Vorstius to be
an arch heretic, a pest, a monster of blasphe
mies ; and to show his detestation of his book,
ordered it to be burned publicly in St. Paul's
churchyard, and at both universities ; in the
conclusion of his letter to the States on this oc
casion, he says, " As God has honoured us with
the title of defender of the faith, so (if you in
cline to retain Vorstius any longer) we shall be
obliged not only to separate and cut ourselves
* The translations pointed out by name, as Dr.
Grey remarks, were those of Tyndal, Matthew, Cov
erdale, Whitchurch, and Geneva. — Ed.
t It may be wished that Mr. Neal had rather said
"a treatise against which great exceptions were ta
ken." His mode of expression intimates that those
exceptions were justly grounded; this Vorstius him
self denied, and solemnly declared his belief of the
immensity and omniscience of the Divine Being, and
ascribed the imputations cast on him to wresting his
words to a meaning contrary to the scope and the
.connexion of the discourse. His abilities, learning,
and virtues were highly esteemed by those who dif
fered from him. — Prcestantium ac Eruditorum Viro-

rum385

EpistolcB, Amsterdam, 1660, p. 350, &c., and p.
and the Abridgment of Brandt's History, vol. ii.,
p. 727, 728.— Ed.
X Brandt's History, vol. u., p. 97 ; or the Abridg
ment, vol. i., p. 318.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

25»

off from such false and heretical churches, but
likewise to call upon all the rest of the Reformed
churches to enter upon the same common con
sultation, how we may best extinguish and send
back to hell these cursed [Arminian] heresies
that have newly broken forth. And as for our
selves, we shall be necessitated to forbid aU the
youth of our subjects to frequent a university
that is so infected as that of Leyden."* His
majesty also sent over sundry other memorials,
in which he styles Vorstius a wicked atheist,
Arminius an enemy to God. And Berlins hav
ing written that the saints might fall from grace,
he said the author was worthy of the fire.
At length [1612] the king published his royal
declaration, in several languages,! containing
an account of aU that he had done in the affair
of Vorstius, with his reasons ; which were, his
zeal for the glory of God, his love for his friends
and allies [the States], and fear of the same
contagion in his own kingdom ; but their high
mightinesses did not like the King of England's
intermeddling so far in their affairs. However,
Vorstius was dismissed to Gouda, where he
lived privately tiU the Synod of Dort, when he
was banished the Seven Provinces ; he thep re
tired to Tonninghen, in the dukedom of Holstein,
¦where he died a professed Socinian, September
19, 1622.t
His majesty had a farther opportunity of dis
covering his zeal against heresy this year, upon
two of his own subjects. One was Bartholomew
Legate, an Arian -.^ he was a comely person, of
a black complexion, and about forty years of
age, of a fluent tongue, excellently well versed
in the Scriptures, and of an unblamable con
versation. King James himself, and some of
his bishops, in vain conferred with hira, in hope
of convincing hiin of his errors. 1! Having lain

* Nothing (it is well observed by Gerard Brandt)
can be less edifying than to see a Protestant prince,
who, not contented to persecute the heterodox m his
own king:dom, exhorts the potentates of the same re
ligion to imitate his conduct." — Brandt Abridged, vol.
i., p. 319.— Ed.
¦f It was printed in French, Latm, Dutch, and Eng
lish ; on which Dr. Harris well remarks, that " con
sequently his monstrous zeal, his unprincely revilings,
and his weak and pitiful reasonings, were known
throughout Europe." Yet it was not held in any
high reputation ; for Mr. Norton, who had the print
ing of it in Latin, swore "he would not print it, un
less he might have raoriey to print it." — Harris's Life
of James I., p. 120.
( His sickness was a short one, but" long enough
to afford him an opportunity to teach his physician
and other friends how a Christian oughtto die. He
was wholly intent upon prayer, and scarcely repeated
anything but passages out of the Scriptures. At his
request. Acts, ii., and 1 Cor., xv., as mentioning the
resurrection, were read to him ; and this doctrine was
much the subject of his last discourses. He expired
recommending his soul to God and Jesus Christ his
Saviour. And it is said that the piety, holiness, faith,
and resignation which he showed, and the fervency
of his prayers, cannot be well expressed. — Brandt
Abridged, vol. ii., p. 722, 723.— Ed.
Ij Fuller, b. x., p. 63.
II " One time," says Fuller, " the king had a de
sign to surprise him into a confession of Christ's
deity (as his majesty afterward declared), by asking
him whether or no he did not daily pray to Jesus Christ ?
which, had he acknowledged, the king would have
infallibly inferred, that Legate tacitly consented to
Christ's divinity as searcher of hearts. But herein his
majesty failed of his expectation, Legate returning,

a considerable time in Newgate, he was at
length convened before Bishop King, in his con
sistory at St. Paul's, who, with some other di
vines and lawyers there assembled, declared him
a contumacious and obdurate heretic, 'and certi
fied the same into Chancery by a significavit,
delivering him over to the secular power ; where
upon the king signed a writ* de hereiico com
burendo to the sheriffs of London, who brought
him to Smithfield, March 18, and in the midst
of a vast concourse of people burned him to
death. A pardon was offered him at the stake
if he would recant, but he refused it.
Next month Edward Wiglitman, of Burton-
upon-Trent, was convicted of heresy by Dr.
Neile, bishop of Coventry and Litchfield, and
was burned at Litchfield, AprU llth.t Pie was
charged in the warrant with the heresies of Ari-
us, Cerinthus,Manicha3us, and the Anabaptists. t

' that he had prayed to Christ in the days of his igno
rance, but not for these last sevenyears.' Hereupon the
king, in choler, spumed at him with his foot, saying,
' Away, base fellow ; it shall never be said that one stay-
eth in my presence that hath never prayed to our Saviour
for seven years together.' " — Fuller's Ch. History, b. x.,
p. 62.— C.
* The reader wUl perhaps be curious to see the
form of the king's writ for burning Legate, the latter
part of which is as follows :
" Whereas the holy mother-church hath not far
ther to do and to prosecute on this part ; the same
reverend father hath left the aforesaid Bartholomew
Legate, as a blasphemous heretic, to our secular pow
er, to be punished with condign punishment, as by
the letters patent of the same reverend father in
Christ, the Bishop of London, in this behalf above
made, hath been certified to us in our Chancery. We,
therefore, as a zealot of justice, and a defender of the
Catholic faith, and willing to maintain and defend
the Holy Church, and the rights and liberties of the
same, and the Catholic faith ; and such heresies and
errors everywhere what in us lieth, to root out and
extirpate, and to punish with condign punishment,
such heretics so convicted, and deeming that such a
heretic, in form aforesaid convicted and condemned,
according to the laws and customs of this our king
dom of England in this part accustomed, ought to be
burned with fire ; we do command you, that the said
Bartholomew Legate, being in your custody, you do
commit publicly to the fire, before the people, in a
public and open place in West Smithfield, for the
cause aforesaid ; and that you cause 'the said Bar
tholomew Legate to be really bumed in the same
fire, in detestation of the said crime, for the manifest
example of other Christians, lest they slide into the-
same fault ; and this that in nowise you omit, under-
the peril that shall follow thereon. "VVitness," &c. — -
— A Narration of the Burning of Bartholomew Legate,
&c., in Truth brought to Light, 1692, as quoted by Mr.
Lindsey ill his Conversations on Christian Idolatry, p.
119, 120.— Ed. t Fuller, b. x., p. 64.
X Some of the opimons imputed to Wightman sa
voured of vanity and superstition, or, rather, enthusi
asm ; such as his being the prophet foretold Deut.,
xviu., and by Isaiah; the Elijah to come, of whom
Malachi speaks. " But," as Mr. Lindsey justly re
marks, " we may well hesitate here whether such
were the man's real sentiments, or only those which
his adversaries would fix upon him." These proceed
ings show, as Brandt observes, it was liigh time to
repeal the act de heretico comburendo. The sentiments
of Limborch on them deserve to be mentioned here :
" These things," says he in a letter to Mr. Locke,
" are a scandal to the Reformation. A court of in
quisition into men's faith is alike contrary to Chris
tian charity, whether it be erected on the banks of
the Tiber, or the Lake of Geneva, or by the side of
the River Thames : for it is the same iniquitous cru
elty, though exercised in another place, and on differ-

280

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

There was another condemned to the fire for
the same heresies ; but the constancy of the
above-mentioned sufferers moving pity in the
spectators, it was thought better lo suffer him
to linger out a miserable life in Newgate, than to
awaken too far the compassions of the people.*
Nothing was minded at court but luxury and
diversions. The affairs of the Church were
left to the bishops and the affairs of state to
subordinate magistrates, or the chief ministers,
-whUe the king himself sunk into a most indo
lent and voluptuous life, suffering himself to be
governed by a favourite, in the choice of whom
he had no regard to virtue or merit, but to
youth, beauty, gracefulness of person, and fine
clothes, &c. This exposed him to the con
tempt of foreign powers, who from this time
paid him very little regard. At the same time,
he was lavish and profuse in his expenses and
grants to his hungry courtiers, whereby he ex
hausted his exchequer, and was obliged to have
recourse to arbitrary and illegal methods of
raising money by the prerogative. By these
means he lost the hearts of his people, which
aU his kingcraft could never recover, and laid
the foundation of those calamities that in the
next reign threw Church and State into such
convulsions as threatened their final ruin.
But while the king and his ministers were
wounding the Protestant religion and the liber
ties of England, it pleased Almighty God to lay
the foundation of their recovery by the marriage
of the king's daughter, Elizabeth, to Frederic
v., elector palatine of the Rhine, from whom
the present royal famUy is descended. The
match was promoted by Archbishop Abbot, and
universally appi'oved by all the Puritans in Eng
land, as the grand security of the Protestant
siiccession in case of failure of heirs from the
king's son. Mr. Echard says they foretold, by a
distant foresight, the succession of this family
to the crown ; and it must be owned that they
were always the delight of the Puritans, who
prayed heartily for them, and upon all occasions
exerted themselves for the support ofthe famUy
in their lowest circumstances.
The solemnity of these nuptials was retarded
some months by the untimely death of Henry,
prince of Wales, the king's eldest son, who died
November 6, 1612, and was buried the 7th of
December following, being eighteen years and
eight months old. Some have suspected that
the king his father caused him to be poisoned,
though there is no sufficient proof of it;t the
ent subjects." A fine observation of Brandt on this
occasion shall close this note. "It is a very glorious
thing for the United Provinces," says he, " that the
blood of no heretic has been shed in that country
ever since the Reformation ; which ought to be as
cribed to the moderation and great knowledge of the
States- General, and the states of each of those prov
inces." — Brandt Abridged, vol. i., p. 319. Lindsey's
Historical View of Unitarian Doctrine, &c., p. 294.
—Ed.
* Dr. Southey ascribes the preservation of the Span
ish Arian to the benevolence of James, but Fuller
more_ correctly attributes it to his pohcy. " Such
burning of heretics had much startled common people
— being unable to distinguish between constancy and
obstinacy, were ready to entertain good thoughts even
of the opinions of those heretics who sealed them so
manfully with their blood," ice-Fuller's Ch. Hist.,
b. X., p. 64.— C.
t These suspicions arose from the popular odium

body being opened, his liver appeared \\hite, and
his spleen and diaphragm black, his gall "ithout
choler, and his lungs spotted with much corrup
tion, and his head ftill of blood in some places,
and in others fiiU of water It is certain the
king was jealous of his son's popularity, and
asked one day if he would bury him alive ; and
upon his death commanded that no person
should appear at court in mourning for him*
This prince was one of the most accomplished
persons of his age, sober, chaste, temperate,
religious, full of honour and probity, and never
heard to swear an oath ; neither the example
of the king his father, nor of the whole court,
was capable of corrupting him in these respects.
He had a great soul, fuU of noble and elevated
sentiments, and -vvas as much displeased wilh
trifles as his father was fond of them. He had
frequently said that, if ever he mounted the
throne, his fii'st care should be to try to recon
cile the Puritans to the Church of England.
As this could not be done without each parly's
making some concessions, and as such a pro
ceeding was directly contrary to the temper of
the court and clergy, he was suspected to coun-
tenaoce Puritanism. To say all in one word.
Prince Henry was mild and affable, though ofa
warlike genius, the darling of the Puritans, and
of all good men ; and, though he lived about
eighteen years, no historian has taxed hira with
any vice.
To furnish the exchequer with money, several
new projects were set on foot, as, (1.) His maj
esty created a new order of knights-baronets ;
the number not to exceed two hundred, and the
expense ofthe patent £1095. (2.) His majesty
sold letters patent for monopolies. (3.) He
obliged such as were worth £40 a year lo com
pound for not being knights. (4.) He set to sale
the highest honours and dignities ofthe nation:
the price for a baron was £10,000, for a vis
count £15,000, and £20,000 for an earl. (5.)
Those who had defective titles were obliged to
compound to set them right. And (0.) The
Star Chamber raised their fines to an ex-
the king had incurred from the behaviour of the
court at the time the prince lay dead, and from the
disappointment which the great expectations of the
people from this prince suffered. "There were insin
uations to this effect from respectable persons ; and
Colonel Titus assured Bishop Burnet that he had
heard King Charles 1. declare that the prince his
brother was poisoned by means of Viscount Roches
ter. This evidence amounted to a kind of proof, yet,
as to these suggestions were opposed the opinions of
the physicians, and the appearances of the body
when it was opened, and the presumptive evidence
did not come home to the king, it is to be wished
that Mr. Neal had used more guarded language, for
the words "no certain proof" seem to imply that
there was probable proof of it. Bishop Warburton
is therefore very angry, and says it " is abomina
ble;" it is, indeed, a heavy charge to impute to a
parent his being accessory to the poisoning of a son.
— See Dr. Birch's Life of Henry, Pritin. of Wales, p.
404—409. Dr. Grey, as well as the bishop, also cen
sures our author, and refers to main authorities to
disprove, as he calls them, " Mr. Neal's unfair insin
uations." These insinuations did not originate, it should
be observed, with Mr. NphI, but were sanctioned by
the prevailing opinion of the times, and were counte
nanced by the conduct of James, who showed him
self quite unaffected with the death of his virtuous
and amiable son. — En.
* Rapm, vol. u., p. 181, foUo edit.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

261

cessive degree.* But these projects not an
swering the king's necessities, he was obliged,
at last, to caU a Parliament. When the houses
met they proceeded immediately to consider of
and redress grievances, upon which the king
dissolved them, before they had enacted one
statute, and committed some of the principal
members of the House of Commons to prison,
without admitting them to bail, resolving again
to raise money without the aid of Parliament.
This year the articles of the Church of Ire
land were ratified and confirmed ; the reforma
tion of that kingdom had made a very slow prog
ress in the late reign, by reason of the wars
between the English and the natives, and the
small proportion of the former to the latter.
The natives had a strong prejudice against the
English, as coming into the country by con
quest, and being bigoted papists, their preju
dices were inflamed by King Henry VIII. throw
ing off the pope's supremacy, which threatened
the loss of their religion, as well as their civil
liberties. In the reign of Philip and Mary they
•were more quiet, when a law was passed against
bringing in the Scots and marrying with thera,
which continued in force during the whole reign
of Queen Elizabeth, and was a great hinderance
to the progress of the Protestant religion in that
country ; however, a university was erected at
Dublin in the year 1593, and furnished with
learned professors from Cambridge of the Cal-
vinislical persuasion. James Usher, who after-
-ward was the renowned Archbishop of Armagh,
-was the first student who entered into the col
lege. The discipline of the Irish Church was
according to the model of the English ; bishops
were nominated to the popish diocesses, but
their revenues being alienated, or in the hands
of papists, or very much diminished by the
wars, they were obliged to throw the revenues
of several bishoprics together to make a toler
able subsistence for one. The case was the
same with the inferior clergy, 40s. a year being
a common aUowance for a vicar in the province
of Connaught, and sometimes only sixteen.
Thus, says Mr. Collyer, the authority of the
bishops went off, and the people foUowed their
own fancies in the choice of religion.
At the Hampton Court Conference the king
proposed sending preachers into Ireland, com
plaining that he was but half monarch of that
kingdom, the bodies of the people being only
subject to his authority, while their consciences
were at the command of the pope ; yet it does
not appear that any attempts were made to con
vert them till after the year 1607,.when the act
of the third and fourth of PhUip and Mary be
ing repealed, the citizens of London undertook
for the province of Ulster. These adventurers
buUt Londonderry, fiirtified Coleraine, and pur
chased a great tract of land in the adjacent
parts. They sent over considerable numbers
of planters, but were at a loss for ministers ;
for the beneficed clergy of the Church of Eng
land, being at ease in the enjoyment of their
preferments, would not engage in such a haz
ardous undertaking ; it fell, therefore, to the lot
of the Scots and English Puritans ; the Scots,
hy reason of their vicinity to the northern parts
of Ireland, transported numerous colonies ; they
improved the country, and brought preaching'

* Rapin, vol. u., p. 185.

into the churches where thoy settled ; but be
ing of the Presbyterian persuasion, they formed
their churches after their own model. The
London adventurers prevailed with several of
the English Puritans to remove, who, being
persecuted at home, were wUling to go any
where within the king's dominions for the lib
erty of their consciences, and more would have
gone, could they have been secure of a tolera
tion after they were settled. But their chief
resource was from the Scots ; the first minister
of that persuasion that went over was Mr. Ed
ward Bryce, who settled in Broad Island, in the
county of Antrim, 1611 ; after him, Mr. Robert
Cunningham, in Hollywood, in the county of
Down. At the same time came over three
English ministers, all Puritans trained up under
Mr. Cartwright, viz., Mr. Ridges, of Antrim,
Mr. Henry Calvert, and Mr. Hubbard, of Car-
rickfergus. After these, Mr. Robert Blair came
from Scotland to Bangor, Mr. HamUton to Bel-
lywater, and Mr. Levingston to KUlinshy, in
the county of Down, with Mr. Welsh, Dunbar,
and others.* Mr. Blair was a zealous Presby
terian, and scrupled episcopal ordination, but
the bishop of the diocess compromised the dif
ference, by agreeing that the other Scots pres
byters of Mr. Blair's persuasion should join with
him, and that such passages in the established
form of ordination as Mr. Blair and his breth
ren dishked, should be omitted or exchanged for
others of their own approbation. Thus was
Mr. Blair ordained publicly in the Church of
Bangor ; the Bishop of Raphoe did the same ,.
for Mr. Levingston ; and aU the Scots who were
ordained in Ireland from this time to the year
1642 were ordained after the same manner;
all of them enjoyed the churches and tithes,
though they remained Presbyterian, and used
not the liturgy ; nay, the bishops consulted
thera about affairs of common concernment to
the Church, and some of them were members
of the convocation in 1634. They had their
monthly meetings at Antrim, for the promoting
of piety and the extirpation of popery. They
had also their quarterly communions, by which
means great numbers of the inhabitants were
civilized, and many became serious Christians.
Mr. Blair preached before the judges of assize
on the Lord's Day, at the desire of the Bishop
of Down, and his curate administered the sac
rament to them the same day; so that there
was a sort of comprehension between the two
parties, by the countenance and approbation of
the great Archbishop Usher, who encouraged
the ministers in this good work. And thus
things continued tiU the administration of Arch
bishop Laud, who, by dividing the Protestants,
weakened them, and made way for that enor
mous growth of popery which ended in the
massacre of almost aU the Protestants in the
kingdom. It appears, from hence, that the Reformation
of Ireland was built upon a Puritan foundation,
though episcopacy was the legal establishment ;
but it was impossible to make any considerable
progress in the conversion of the natives, be
cause of their bigotry and prejudice against the
English nation, whose language they could not
be persuaded to learn.
"The Protestant religion being pretty weU es-
* Loyalty Presb., p. 161-163.

262

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

tablishcd, it was thought advisable to frame
some articles of their common faith according
to the custom of other churches : some moved
in convocation to adopt the articles ofthe Eng
lish Church, but this was overruled, as not so
honourable to themselves, who were as much
a national church as England, nor so consistent
with their independency ; it was therefore vo
ted to draw up a new confession of their own ;
the draught was referred to the conduct of Dr.
James Usher, provost of Dublin College, and
afterward lord-priraate ; it afterward passed
both houses of Convocation and Parliament
with great unanimity, and being sent over to
the English court, was approved in councU, and
ratified by the Lord-lieutenant Chichester this
year in the king's name.
These articles being rarely to be met with, I
have given them a place in the Appendix,* be
ing in a manner the same which the Puritans
requested at the Hampton Court Conference :
for, first. The nine articles of Lambeth are in
corporated into this confession. Secondly, The
morality of the Lord's Day is strongly asserted,
and the spending it wholly in religious exercises
is required [art. 56]. Thirdly, The observation
of Lent is declared not to be a religious fast,
but grounded raerely on political considerations,
for provision of things tending to the better
preservation of the commonwealth [art. 50].
Fourthly, AU clergymen are said to be lawfuUy
caUed and sent, who are chosen and caUed to
this work by men who have public authority
¦ given them in the Churoh to call and send min
isters into the Lord's vineyard (art. 71), which
is an acknowledgment of the validity of the or
dinations of those churches which have no bish
ops. Fifthly, The power of the keys is said to
be only declarative (art. 74). Sixthly, The pope
is declared to be antichrist, or that man of sin
whom the Lord shaU consume with the spirit of
his mouth, and abolish with the brightness of
his coming (art. 80). Seventhly, The conse
cration of archbishops, bishops, &c,, is not so
much as mentioned, as if done on purpose, says
Mr. CoUyer, to avoid maintaining the distinction
between that order and that of priests. Lastly,
No power is ascribed to the Church in making
canons, or censuring those who either carelessly
or wilfully infringe the same. Upon the whole,
these articles seem to be contrived to compro
mise the difference between the Church and the
Puritans ; and they had that effect tUl the year
1634, when, by the influence of Archbishop Laud
and the Earl of Strafford, these articles were
set aside, and those of the Church of England
received in their room.
To return to England. Among the Puritans
•who fled frora the persecution of Bishop Ban
croft was Mr. Henry Jacob, mentioned in the
year 1604. This divine, having conferred with
Mr. Robinson, pastor of an English church at
Leyden, embraced his peculiar sentiments of
church discipline, since known by the name of
Independency. In the year 1 6 1 9, Mr. Jacob pub
lished at Leyden a small treatise in octavo, en
titled "The Divine Beginning and Institution of
Christ's true Visible and Material Church ;" and
followed it next year with another from Middle
burgh, which he called "An Explication and
Confirmation of his former Treatise," Sometime
* Appendix, No. vi.

after he returned to England, and having impart
ed his design of setting up a separate congrega
tion, like those in Holland, to the most learned
Puritans of those times, as Mr. Throgmorton,
^\'ring, Mansel, Dod, &c,, it was not condemn
ed as unlawful, considering there was no pros
pect ofa national reformation , Mr, Jacob, there
fore, having summoned several of his friends
together, as Mr. Staismore, Mr. Browne, Mr.
Prior, Almey, Throughton, Allen, Gibbet, Farre,
Goodal, and others ; and having obtained their
consent to unite in church-fellowship, for obtain
ing the ordinances of Christ in the purest man
ner, they laid the foundation of the first Inde
pendent or Congregational Church in England,
after the following manner : having observed a
day of solemn fasting and prayer for a bless
ing upon their undertaking, towards the close of
the solemnity each of thera made open confes
sion of their faith in our Lord Jesus Christ ;
and then standing together, they joined hands,
and solemnly covenanted with each other, in the
presence of Almighty God, to walk together in
all God's ways and ordinances, according as he
had already revealed, or should farther make
them known to them, Mr. Jacob was then cho
sen pastor by the suffrage of the brotherhood,
and others were appointed to the office of dea
cons, with fasting and prayer, and imposition
of hands.* The same year (1616) Mr. Jacob
published a protestation or confession in the
name of certain Christians, showing how far
they agreed with the Church of England, and
wherein they differed, with the reasons of their
dissent drawn from Scripture ; to which was
added a petition to the king for the toleration of
such Christians. And some time after he pub
lished "A CoUection of sound Reasons, showing
how necessary it is for all Christians to walk in
the Ways and Ordinances of God in Purity, and
in a right Church Way." Mr, Jacob continued
with his people about eight years ; but in the
year 1624, being desirous to enlarge his useful
ness, he went, with their consent, to Virginia,
where he soon after died. Thus, according to
the testimony of the Oxford historian, and some
others, Mr. Henry Jacob was the first Independ
ent minister in England, and this the first Con
gregational Church. Upon the departure of Mr,
Jacob his church chose Mr. Lathorp their pas
tor, whose history will be resumed in its proper
place. The king was so full of his prerogative, that
he apprehended he could convince his subjects
of its unlimited extent ; for this purpose he
turned preacher in the Star Chamber, and took
his text. Psalm Ixii., 1 : " Give the king thy
judgments, O God, and thy righteousness to the
king's son."* After dividing and subdividing,
and giving the literal and mystical sense of his
text, he applied it to the judges and courts of
judicature, teUing thera " that the king silting
in the throne of God, aU judgments centre in
hira, and therefore for inferior courts to deter
mine difficult questions without consulting him,
was to encroach upon his prerogative, and to
limit his power, whieh it was not lawful for the
tongue of a lawyer nor any subject to dispute.
As it is atheism and blasphemy lo dispute what

* Wilson's History of Dissenting Churches, vol.
i., p. 39.— C.
t Rapm, vol. u., p. 192, 193, and note (9).

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

2G3

*Ccod can do," says he, " so it is presumption, and
a high contempt, to dispute what kings can do
or say ; it is to take away that mystical rever
ence that belongs to them who sit in the throne
of God."* Then addressing the auditory, he
advises them " not to meddle with the king's
prerogative or honour. Plead not," says he,
" upon Puritanical principles, which make aU
things popular, but keep within the ancient lim
its." In speaking of recusants, there are three
sorts : (1.) " Some that corae now and then to
church ; these [the Puritans] are formal to the
laws, but false to God. (2.) Others that have
their consciences misled ; some of these [the
papists that swear allegiance] live as peaceable
subjects. (3.) Others are practising recusants,
who oblige their servants and tenants to be of
their opinion. These are men of pride and pre
sumption. I am loath to hang a priest only for
his religion and saying mass ; but if they refuse
the oath of allegiance I leave them to the law."
He concludes with exhorting the judges to coun
tenance the clergy against papists and Puritans ;
adding, "God and the king will reward your
zeal." It is easy to observe from hence that his maj
esty's implacable aversion to the Puritans was
founded not merely or principally on their refu
sal of the ceremonies, but on the principles of
civU liberty and enmity to absolute monarchy ;
for all arguments against the extent of the pre
rogative are said to be founded on Puritan prin
ciples. A king with such maxims should have
been frugal of his revenues, that he might not
have stood in need of parUaments ; but our
monarch was extravagantly profuse, and, to
supply his wants, delivered back this year to
the Dutch their cautionary towns, which were
the keys. of their country, for less than a quar
ter part of the money that had been lent on
thera. This year [1617] died the learned and judi
cious Mr. Paul Baynes, born in London, and ed
ucated in Christ College, Cambridge, of which
he was a fellow. He succeeded Mr. Perkins in
the lecture at St. Andrew's Church, where he
behaved with that gravity and exemplary piety
¦which rendered him universally acceptable to all
who had any taste for serious religion, tiU Arch
bishop Bancroft, sending Dr. Harsnet to visit
the University, caUed upon Mr. Baynes to sub
scribe according to the oanons, which he refu
sing, the doctor silenced him, and put down his
lecture. Mr. Baynes appealed to the archbish
op, but his grace stood by his chaplains, and
threatened to lay the good old man by the heels
for appearing before him with a little black edg
ing upon his cuffs. After this, Mr. Baynes
preached only occasionally, as he could get op
portunity, and was reduced to such poverty and
want, that he said " he had not where to lay his
head;" but at length death put an end to his
sufferings, in the year 1617. He pubhshed " A
Commentary upon the Ephesians," " The Dio-
clesian's Trial" against Dr. Downham, and some
other practical treatises. Dr. Sibbes says "he
was a divine of uncommon learning, clear judg
ment, ready wit, and of much communion with
God and his own heart. What pity was it that

* Mr. Neal abridges Rapin, and gives the sense
.rather than the exact words. — Ed.

such a divine should be restrained, and in a man
ner starved I"*
The disputes in Holland between the Calvin
ists and Arminians, upon the five points rela
ting lo election, redemption, original sin, effect
ual grace, and perseverance, rose to such a
height as obliged the States-General to have re
course to a national synod, which was convened
at Dort, November 13, 1618. Each party had
loaded the other with reproaches, and, in the
warmth of disp'ute, charged their opinions with
the most invidious consequence^, insomuch that
all good neighbourhood was lost, the pulpits
were fiUed with unprofitable and angry disputes,
and as each party prevailed the other were turn
ed out of the churches. The magistrates were
no less divided than the ministers, one city and
town being ready to take up arms against an
other, -At length it grew into a state faction,
which endangered the dissolution of govern
ment. Maurice, prince of Orange, though a Re-
tnonstrant, put himself at the head of the Cal
vinists [or Contra-Remonstrants], because they
were for a stadtholder, and the magistrates who
were against a stadtholder sided with the [Re
monstrants, or] Arminians, among whom the
advocate of Holland, Oldenbarnevelt, and the
pensionaries of Leyden and Rotterdam, Hoger-
berts and Grotius, were the chief Several at
tempts were made for an accommodation, or
toleration of the two parties ; but this not suc
ceeding, the three heads of the Remonstrants
[Arminians] were taken into custody, and the
magistrates of several towns and cities chan
ged, by authority of the prince, which made way
for the choosing such a synod as his highness
desired. The classes of the several towns met
first in a provincial synod, and these sent depu
ties to the national one, with proper instruc
tions. The Remonstrants were averse to the
calling a synod, because their numbers were as
yet unequal to the Calvinists, and their leaders

* See Clarke's Lives, annexed to his General Mar
tyrology, p. 24, who tells us that Mr. Baynes, being
summoned on a time before the privy council, on
pretence of keeping conventicles, and called on to
speak for himself, made such an excellent speech,
that, in the midst of it, a nobleman stood up and said,
" He speaks more like an angel than a man, and I
dare not stay here to have a hand in any sentence
against him." Upon which speech he was dismissed,
arid never heard any more from them. The follow
ing anecdote is related of Mr. Baynes, showing the
warmth of his natural temper, with his readiness to
receive reproof, .and to make a proper use of it. A
reUgious gentleman placed his son under his care
and tuition, and Mr. Baynes, entertaining some
friends at supper, sent the boy into the town for
something which they wanted. The boy stayed
longer than was proper. Mr. Baynes reproved him
with some sharpness, severely censuring his con
duct. The boy remained silent ; but the next day,
when his tutor was calm, he thus addressed him :
" My father placed me under your care not only for
the benefit of human learning, but that by your pious
counsel and example I might be brought up in the
fear of God ; but you, sir, giving way to your passion
the last night, gave me a very evU example, such as
I have never seen in my father's house." " Sayest
thou so ?" answered Mr. Baynes : " go to my tailor,
arid let him buy thee a suit of clothes, and make them
for thee, which I will pay for, to make thee amends."
And it is added, that Mr. Baynes watched more nar-
rovvly over Ms own spirit ever after. — Brookes's Lives,
&c., vol. ii., p. 264.— C.

264

HI8T0RV OF THE PURITANS.

being in. custody, it was easy lo foretel their
approaching fate. They complained of injus
tice in their summons to the provincial assem
blies, but Trigland says that where the Remon
strants [Arrainians] were weakest they were
equally regarded with the other party ; but in
truth their deputies were angry and dissatis
fied, and in many places absented frora their
classes, and so yielded up their power into the
hands of their adversaries, who conderaned their
principles and deposed several cff their rainisters.
The National Synod of Dort consisted of thir
ty-eight Dutch and Walloon divines, five pro
fessors of the unfversities, and twenty-one lay-
elders, raaking together sixty-one persons, of
which not above three or four were Remon
strants. Besides these, there were twenty-eight
foreign divines, from Great Britain, from the
Palatinate, frora Hessia, Switzerland,.Geneva,
Bremen, Erabden, Nassau, and Wetteravia ; the
French king notadraitting his Protestant divines
to appear. Next to the States' deputies sat the
English divines ; the second place was reserved
for the French divines ; the rest sat in the or
der recited. Upon the right and left hand of
the chair, next to the lay-deputies, sat the Neth-
erland professors of divmity, then the rainisters
and elders, according to the rank of their prov
inces ; the WaUoon churches sitting last. Af
ter the divines, as well domestic as foreign, had
produced their credentials, the Rev. Mr. John
Bogerraan, of Leewarden, was chosen president,
the Rev. Mr. Jacob Roland and Herman Fauke-
lius, of Amsterdam and Middleburgh, assessors ;
Heinsius was scribe, and the Rev. Mr. Dammon
and Festius Homraius, secretaries ; a general
fast was then appointed, after which they pro
ceeded to business.
The names of the English divines were. Dr.
Carlton, bishop of Llandaff; Dr. Hall, dean of
Worcester, afterward bishop of Norwich ; Dr.
Davenant, afterward bishop of Salisbury ; and
Dr. Samuel Ward, master of Sidney College,
Cambridge ;* but Dr. HaU not being able to
bear the climate,t Dr. Goad, prebendary of Can
terbury, was appointed in his room. Mr. Balcan-
qual, a Scotsman, but no friend to the Kirk, was'
also commissioned by King James to represent
that church. He was taken into consultation,
and joined in suffrage with the English divines,
so as lo make one college ; for the divines of
each nation gave only one vote in the synod, as
their united sense ; and though Balcanqual did
not wear the habits of the English divines, nor
sit with them in the synod, ha,ving a place by
himself as representative of the Scots Kirk, yet,
says the Bishop of Llandaff, his apparel was
decent, and in aU respects he gave much satis
faction. His majesty's instructions to them
were, (1,) To agree among themselves about
the state of any question, and how far it raay be
* Fuller's Worthies, p. 159.
j Before Bishop Hall left the synod he delivered a
Latin sermon before the Assembly, who, by their
president and assistants, took a solemn leave of him ;
and the deputies of the States dismissed him with
honourable rewards, and sent him a rich gold medal,
beanng the portraiture of the synod. Dr. HaU was
moderate upon the five points controverted in that
synod, as appears by the treatise which he soon after
wrote, and which is among his published works, un
der the title of " Via Media."— Hall's Life m Middle-
ton s Biography, vol. iii., p. 355. — C.

maintained agreeably to the Scriptures and the
doctrine of the Church of England. (2.) To ad
vise the Dutch ministers not to insist in their
sermons upon scholastic points, but to abide by
their former confession of faith, and those of
their neighbour Reformed churches, (3) That
they should consult the king's honour, tho peace
of the distracted churches, and behave in aU
things with gravity and moderation.
When all the members of the synod were as
sembled, they took the following oath, in the
twenty-third session, each person standing up
in his place, and laying his hand upon his heart :
" I promise, before God, whora I believe and
worship, as here present, and as the searcher of
the reins and heart, that during the whole course
ofthe transactions of this synod, in which there
wiU be made an inquiry into, and judgment and
decision of, not only the well-known five points,
and all the difficulties resulting from thence, but
likewise of all other sorts of doctrine, I will not
make use of any kind of human writings, but
only of the Word of God, as a sure and infallible
rule of faith. Neither wiU 1 have any other thing
in view throughout this whole discussion but
the honour of God, the peace ofthe Church, and,
above all, the preservation of the purity of doc
trine. So help me my Saviour Jesus Christ,
whom I ardently beseech to assist me in this
my design, by his Holy Spirit."*
This was all the oath that was taken, says
Bishop HaU, as I hope to be saved. It was
therefore an unjust insinuation of Mr. John
Goodwin,who, inhis "Redemption Redeemed,"
p. 395, charged them with taking a previous
oath to condemn the opposite party on what
terms soever. " It grieves my soul," says the
bishop, " to see any learned divine raising such
imaginary conjectures;- but since I have seen
it, I bless my God that I yet live to vindicate
thera [1651] by this my knowing and clear at
testation, which I am ready to second with the
solemnest oath, if required."
The synod continued to the 29th of May, in
which tirae there were one hundred and eighty
sessions. In the hundred and forty-fifth ses
sion, and 30th of April, the Belgic confession of
faith was debated and put to the question, which
the EngUsh divines agreed to, except the articles
relating to the parity of ministers and ecclesi
astical discipline. They said they had carefully
examined the said confession, and did not find
anything therein, with respect to faith and doc
trine, but what was, in the main, conformable
to the Word of God.t They added, that they
had likewise considered the Remonstrants' [Ar
minians] exceptions against the said confession,
and declared that they were of such a nature as
to be capable of being made against all the con
fessions of other Reformed churches. They did
not pretend to pass any judgment upon the ar
ticles relating to their church government, but
only maintained that their own church govern
ment was founded upon apostolic institution,
Mr. John Hales, of Eton, chaplain to the Eng
lish ambassador Carlton, sat among the hearers
for some weeks, and having taken minutes of the
proceedings, transmitted them twice or thrice a
* Brandt, vol. iii., p. 02; or the Abridgment of
Brandt, Svo, vol. u., p. 417.
t Brandt, vol. iii., p. 288 ; or Abridgment, vol. ii.,
p. 508, 509.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

265

week to his excellency at the Hague. After his
departure. Dr. Balcanqual, the Scots commis
sioner, and Dr. Ames, carried on the correspond
ence. Mr. Hales observes that the Remon
strants behaved on several occasions very im
prudently,* not only in the manner of their de
bates, but in declining the authority ofthe synod,
though summoned by the civU magistrate in the
most unexceptionable manner. The five points
of difference between the Calvinists and Armin
ians, after a long hearing, were decided in fa
vour of the former. After which the Remon
strant ministers were dismissed the assembly,
and banished the country within a limited time,
except they submitted to the new confession ;
on which occasion some very hard speeches
were mutually exchanged, and appeals made to
the final tribunal of God.
When the opinion of the British divines was
read, upon the extent of Christ's redemption,
it was observed that they omitted the received
distinction between the sufficiency and efficacy
of it ; nor did they touch upon the received lim
itation of those passages which, speaking of
Christ's dying for the whole world, are usually
interpreted of the world of the elect. Dr. Dave
nant and some of his brethren inclining to the
doctrine of universal redemption. t In all oth
er points there was a perfect harmony ; and
even in this Balcanqual says King James and
the Archbishop of Canterbury desired them to
comply, though Heylin says their instructions
¦were not to oppose the doctrine of universal re
demption. But Dr. Davenant and Ward were
for a middle way between the two extremes :
they maintained the certainty of the salvation
ofthe elect, and that offers of pardon were sent
not only to all who should believe and repent,
hut to aU who heard the Gospel ; and that grace
sufficient to convince and persuade the impeni
tent (so as to lay the blame of their condemna
tion upon themselves) went along with these
offers ; that the redemption of Christ and his
merits were appUcable to these, and, conse
quently, there was a possibility of their salva
tion. However, they complied with the synod,
and declared their confession, in the main,
agreeable to the Word of God ; but this gave
rise to a report, some years after, that they had
deserted the doctrine of the Church of England ;
upon which Bishop Hall expressed his concern
to Doctor Davenant in these words : " I shall
live and die in suffrage of that Synod of Dort ;
and / do confidently avow that those other opin
ions [of Arminius'] cannot stand wilh the doctrine
of the Church of England." To which Bishop
Davenant replied in these words : " I know that
no man can embrace Arminianism in the doc
trines of predestination and grace,, but he must
desert the articles agreed upon by the Church
of England ; nor in the point of perseverance,
but he must vary from the received opinions
of our best-approved doctors in the English
Church." Yet Heylin has the assurance to
say, " that though the Arminian controversy
brought some trouble for the present to the
churches of Holland, it was of greater advan
tage to the Church of England, whose doctrine
in those points had been so overborne by the
Calvinists, that it was almost reckoned for a
* Hales's Remains, p. 507, il2, 526, 586, 587.
t Brandt, p. 526.
t7_- T T -

Vol. I.— L l

heresy to be sound and orthodox [i. e., an Armin
ian] according to the Book of Articles established
by law in the Church of England." He adds,
" that King James did not appear for Calvinism
out of judgment, but for reasons of state, and
from a personal friendship to Prince Maurice,
who had put himself at their head. He there
fore sent such divines as had zeal enough to
condemn the Remonstrants, though it was well
known that he had disapproved the articles of
Lambeth, and the doctrine of predestination ;
nor was it a secret what advice he had given
Prince Maurice before he put himself at the
head of the Calvinists."*
When the synod was risen, people spake of
it in a very different manner ;-f the .States of
Holland were highly satisfied : they gave high
rewards to the chief divines,t and ordered the
original records of their proceedings to be pre
served among their archives. The English di
vines expressed full satisfaction in the proceed
ings ofthe synod. Mr. Baxter says the Chris
tian world, since the days ofthe apostles, never
had an assembly of more excellent divines.
The learned Jacobus CapeUus, professor of Ley
den, declared that the equity of the fathers of
this synod was such, that no instance can be
given, since the apostolic age, of any other syn
od in which the heretics were heard with more
patience, or which proceeded with a better tem
per or more sanctity. P. du Moulin, Paulus
Servita, and the author of the life of Waleus,
speaks the same language. But others poured
contempt upon the synod, and burlesqued their
proceedings in the following lines :
Dordtechti synodus, nodus ; chorus integer, seger ;
Conventus, ventus, sessio, stramen. Amen.
Lewis du Moulin, with aU the favourers of the
Arminian doctrines, as Heylin, Womack, Brandt,
&c., charge them with partiality and unjustifia
ble severity. Upon the whole, in my judgment,
they proceeded with as much discretion and
candour as most assemblies, ancient or modern,
have done, who have pretended to establish ar
ticles for other men's faith with penal sanctions.
I shall take leave of this venerable body with
this farther remark, that King James sending
over divines to join this assembly was on open
acknowledgment of the validity of ordination
by mere presbyters ; here being a bishop of the
Church of England sitting as a private meinber
in a synod of divines of which a mere presby
ter was the president.
In the summer of the year 1617, King James
made a progress into Scotland, to advance the
episcopal cause in that country ; the Chapel of
Edinburgh was adorned after the manner of
WhitehaU, pictures being carried from hence,
together with the statues of the twelve apostles,
which were set up in the church. His majesty
treated his Scots subjects with a haughty dis
tance ; telling them, both in the Parliament and
General Assembly, " that it was a power innate,*
a princely special prerogative which Christian
kings have, to order and dispose external things

* Hist. Presb., p. 381.
t Brandt, p. 307, 308 ; or Abridgment, vol. u., p.
531. X Each divine of the United Provinces received
four florins a day. The synod cost ten tons of gold,
!. e., a mUlion of florins. — Brandt Abridged, vol. u., p.
531.— Ed.

266

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

in the outward polity of the Church, or as we
"nilh our bishops shall think fit ; and, sirs, for
your approving or disproving, deceive not your
selves : I wih not have my reason opposed."
Two acts relating to the Church were passed
this session ; one concerning the choice of arch
bishops and bishops, and another for the resti
tution of chapters ; but the ininisters protesting
against both, several of them were suspended
and deprived, and others banished, as, the ."\tel-
vins, Mr. Forbes, &c., and as the famous Mr,
Calderwood, author ofthe Altare Daraascenum,
had been before ; which book, when one of the
English prelates promised to answer, the king
replied, " What will you answer, man ! There
is nothing here than Scripture, reason, and fa
thers,"* Next year a convention or assembly was
summoned to meet at Perth, August 25, 1618,
It consisted of some noblemen, statesmen, bar
ons, and burgesses, chosen on purpose to bear
down the ministers ; and with what violence
things were carried, God and aU indifferent
spectators, says ray author, are witnesses. In
this assembly the court and bishops made a
shift to carry the following five articles :
1, That the Holy Sacrament shaU be received
kneeling. 2, That ministers shall be obliged to admin
ister the sacrament in private houses to the sick,
if they desire it,
3, That ministers may baptize chUdren pri
vately at home, in cases of necessity, only cer-
tifymg it to the congregation the next Lord's
Day. 4. That ministers shaU bring such chUdren
of their parish as can say their catechism, and
repeat the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the
Ten Commandments, to the bishops, to confirm
and give them their blessing.
5. That the festivals of Christmas, Easter,
Whitsuntide, and the Ascension of our Saviour,
shall, for the future, be commemorated in the
Kirk of Scotland. t
The king ordered these articles to be publish
ed at the market-crosses of the several bor
oughs, and the ministers to read them in their
pulpits, which the greatest number of the latter
refused, there being no penalty except the king's
displeasure ; but the vole of the asserably at
Perth not being sufficient to establish these ar
ticles into a law, it was resolved to use all the
interest of the court to carry thera through the
Parliament. This was not atterapted tUl the
year 1621, when the Parliament meeting on the
1st of June, the ministers had prepared a sup
plication against the five articles, giving reasons
¦why they should not be received or confirmed,
and came to Edinburgh in great numbers to
* This Bishop Warburton understands as said
ironicaUy. — Ed.
J t " .^ prince," observes a judicious historian,
"must be strangely infatuated and strongly preju
diced to employ his power and infiuence in establish
ing such matters as these ! Let rites and ceremo
nies be deemed ever so decent, who will say they
are fit to be imposed by methods of severity and con
straint ? Yet, by these ways, these matters were
introduced among the Scots, to the disgrace of hu
manity and the eternal blemish of a prince who
boasted of his learning, and was forever displaying
his abUities."— Z)r. Harris's Life of James, p. 236, 237.
— En

support it. Upon this, the king's commissioner,
by advice of the bishops and council, issued a
proclamation, commanding aU ministers to de
part out of Edinburgh within twenty hours, ex
cept the settled niinislers of ihe city, and such
as should have a license from the bishop. The
ministers obeyed, leaving behind them a prot
estation against the articles, and an admo
nition to the merabers of Parliaraent not lo rat
ify them, as they would answer it in the day
of judgment. They alleged that the assembly
of Perth was illegal, and that the articles were
against the privUeges of the Kirk and the estab
lished laws of the kingdom. This bred a great
deal of ill blood, and raised a new persecution
throughout the kingdom, many of the Presby
terian ministers being fined, imprisoned, and
banished by the High Commission, al a time
when, by their interest w-ith the people, it was
in their power to have turned their taskmasters
out ofthe kingdom,*
Thus far King James proceeded towards the
restitution of episcopacy in Scotland, but one
thing was still wanting to complete the work,
which w-as a public liturgy or Book of Common
Prayer, Several consultations were held upon
this head, but the king, being assured it would
occasion an insurrection over the whole king
dom, wisely dropped it. leaving that unhappy
w-ork to be finished by his son, whose imposing it
upon the Kirk, without consent of Parliament or
General Assembly, set fire to the discontents of
the people, which had been gathering for many
years. To return to England. This year the learned
Mr. Selden was summoned before the High
Commission for publishing his History of Tithes,
in which he proves them not to be of Divine,
but human appointment ; and, after many threat
enings, was obliged to sign the following recan
tation :
" My good lords,
" I most humbly acknowledge my error in
publishing the History of Tithes, and especially
in that 1 have at all (by showing any interpre
tation of Holy Scriptures, by meddling with
councils, fathers, or canons, or by what else so
ever occurs in it) offered any occasion of argu
ment against any right of maintenance, jure di
vino, ofthe rainisters ofthe Gospel : beseeching
your lordships to receive this ingenuous and
humble acknowledgment, together with the un
feigned protestation of my grief, for that I have
so incurred his majesty and your lordships' dis
pleasure conceived against me in behalf of the
Church of England.
" January 28, 1618. John Selden,"
Notwithstanding this submission, Mr, FuUer
says it is certain that a fiercer storm never feU
upon all parsonage barnsf since the Reforma-
* Bishop Warburton is not wilUng lo allow them
the praise of acting with this caution and temper,
" for," he remarks, " soon after they used their inter
est to this purpose, and 1 believe they began to use it '
as soon as they got it," The bishop did not con
sider that it is not in human nature, any more than
it is consistent with wisdom and moderation, to pro
ceed, though injured and provoked, to extremities at
first. That the Scotch Presbyterian ministers should
have great interest with the people, was the neces
sary consequence of their being sufferers for the prin
ciples of the Kirk and the nation, — Ed.
t Bishop Warburton, because he himself appro-

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

267

tion what was raised by this treatise ; nor did
Mr. Selden quickly forget their stopping his
mouth aier this manner*
This year died the Rev. Mr. WUIiam Brad
shaw, born at Bosworth, in Leicestershire, 1571,
and educated in Emanuel CoUege, Cambridge.
He was afterward removed, and admitted fellow
of Sidney College, where he got an easy admis
sion into the ministry, being dispensed with in
some things that he scrupled. He preached first
as a lecturer at Abingdon, and then at Steeple-
Morton. At length, by the recommendation of
Dr. Chadderton, he was settled at Chatham, in
Kent, in the year 1601 : but before he had been
there a twelvemonth he was sent for by the
archbishop to Shorne, a town situate between
Rochester and Gravesend, and commanded to
subscribe, which he refusing, was immediately
suspended. TheinhabitanlsofChatham,in then-
petition for his restoration, say that his doctrine
-was most wholesome, true, and learned, void of
faction and contention, and his life so garnished
with unblemished virtues and graces, as malice
itself could not reprove him. But all interces
sions were to no purpose ; he therefore remo
ved into another diocess, where he obtained a
license, and at length was chosen lecturer of
Christ Church, in London. Here he published
a treatise against the ceremonies, for which he
was obliged to leave the city, and retired to his
friend Mr. Redriche's. at Newhall, in Leicester
shire. The bishop's chanceUor foUowed him
thither with an inhibition to preach, but by the
mediation of a couple of good angels, says my
author, the restraint was taken off.t In this
sUent and melancholy retirement he spent the
vigour and strength of his days. .At length, as
he was attending Mrs. Redriche on a visit to
Chelsea, he was seized with a violent fever,
which in a few days put an end to> his hfe, in
the forty-eighth year of his age. He was fuU
of heavenly expressions in his last sickness, and
-died with great satisfaction in his nonconform
ity. Dr. HaU, bishop of Norwich, gives him this
character ; " That he was of a strong brain, and
of a free spirit, not suffering hnnself, for smaU
differences of judgment, to be alienated from his
friends, to whom, not-withstanding his seeming
austerity, he was very pleasing in conversation,
being fuU of witty and harmless urbanity ; he
-was very strong and eager in arguing, hearty in
friendship, regardless ofthe world, a despiser of
compliments, a lover of reaUty, fnU of digest
ed and excellent notions, a painful labourer in
God's vineyard, and now, no doubt, gloriously
rewarded." Such was this light, which, by the
Ted of the principle of Mr. Selden's book, as placing
the claim of tithes " on the sure foundation of law in
stead of the feeble prop of an imaginary Divine
right," carps at this expression of Mr, Neal, though
the words of FuUer, and asks, ""Where was the
storm, except in the author's fanciful standish?" The
answer is, the storm was in the offence Mr. Selden's
doctrine gave the clergy, and the indignation of the
court which it drew on him- The clergy published
angry animadveisions on it, and the king threaten
ed to throw him into prison if he repUed in his own
defence.— BririsA Biography, vol. iv., p. 377.— Ed.
* Mr. Selden's writuigs continued to influence the
public mind, and to expose to merited contempt the
unfounded pretensions and exactions of the clergy.—
t Gatakers Life of Bradshaw, in Clarke's lives,
annexed to his General Martyrology. — C.

severity of the times, was put under a bush
el!* In order to put a stop to the growth of Puri
tanism, and silence the objections of papists
against the-striclness of the Reformed religion,
his majesty this year published " A Declaration
to encourage Recreations and Sports on the
Lord's Day,"' contrary to his -proclamation in
the first year of his reign, and to the articles of
the Church of Ireland, ratified under the great
seal, 1615; in which the morality of the Lord's
Day is affirmed. "But," says Heylin, "the Puri
tans, by raising the Sabbath, took occasion to
depress the festivals, and introduced, by little
and little, a general neglect of the weekly fasts,
the holy time of Lent, and the Embering days,
reducing aU acts of humUlation to solenm and
occasional fasts,"* Sad indeed! "But this
was not aU the mischief," says the doctor, "for
several preachers and justices of the peace took
occasion from hence to forbid all lawful sports
on the Lord's Day, by means whereof the priests
and Jesuits persuaded the people in the north-
em counties that the Reformed religion was in
compatible with that Christian liberty which
God and nature had indulged to the sons of
men ; so that, to preserve the people from po
pery, his majesty was brought under a necessi
ty to publish the Book of Sports."
It was drawn up by Bishop Moreton, and da
ted from Greenwich, May 24, 1613, and it was
to this effect : " That for his good people's rec
reation, his majesty's pleasure was that after the
end of Divine service they should not be dis
turbed, letted, or discouraged from any lawful
recreations, such as dancing, either of men or
women, archery for men, vaulting, or any such
harmless recreations ; nor having May-games,
Whitson-ales, or morrice-dances, or setting up
of Maypoles, or other sports therewith used, so
as the same may be had in due and convenient
time, without impediment or let of Divine ser
vice ; and that women should have leave to
carry rushes to the church for the decorating
of it, according to their old customs ; withal
prohibiting all unlawful games to be used on
Sundays only, as bear-baiting, bull-baiting, in
terludes, and at aU times (in the meaner sort of
people prohibited) bowling." Two or three re
straints were annexed to the declaration, whieh
deserve the reader's notice : (1.) No recusant
[t. e., papist] was to have the benefit of this dec
laration. (2.) Nor such as were not present at
the whole of Divine service. (3.) Nor such as
did not keep to their own parish churches, that
is, Puritans.
This declaration was ordered to be read ia
aU the parish churches in Lancashire, which
abounded with papists ; and Wilson adds, that
it was to be read in aU the churches of Eng
land ; but that .Archbishop Abbot, being at Croy
don, flatly forbid its being read there. It was
certainly an imprudent project, as weU as a
grief to aU sober Protestants ; and had the king
insisted upon its being read throughout aU the
churches at this time, I am apt to think it would
have produced the same convulsions as it did
about fifteen years afterward.

* Mr. Bradshaw's writings were numerous, and aU
are exceUent, especiaUy his treatise on Justification,
which was highly ^iraised by Dr. Prideaux. — C.
t Heyhn's Hist, of Presb., p. 389, 390.

268

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

It is hard to account for the distinction be
tween lawful and unlawful sports on the Lord's
Day : if any sports are lawful, why not all ?
what reason can be given why morrice-dances,
revels. May-games, \\'hitson-ales, wakes, &;c.,
should be more lawful than interludes, bull-bait
ing, or bowls 1 It cannot arise from their mor
al nature, for the former have as great a ten
dency to promote vice as the latter. But the
exceptions to the benefit of this declaration are
more extraordinary : could his majesty think
that the Puritans, who were present at part of
Divine service, though not at the whole ; or
that those who went to other parish churches
for their better edification, would lay hold of the
liberty of his declaration, when he knew they
believed the morality of the fourth command
ment, and that no ordinance of man could make
void the law of God ^ farther, his majesty de
bars recusants [i. e., papists] from this liberty,
which their religion had always indulged them ;
hut these are now to be restrained. The pa
pist is to turn Puritan, with regard to the Sab
bath, being forbid the use of lawful recreations
on the Lord's Day ; and Protestants are to
dance and revel, and go to their May-games on
that sacred day, to preserve them from popery I
This subject wUl return again in the next reign.
This year and the next proved fatal to the
Protestant interest in Germany, by the loss of
the Palatinate into the hands of the papists, and
the ruin of the elector Frederic V., king of Bo
hemia, who had married the king's only daugh
ter. "This being a remarkable period, relating
to the ancestors of his present majesty King
George II., it will be no useless digression to
place it in its proper light. Tho kingdom of
Bohemia was elective, and because their king
did not always reside with thera, a certain num
ber of persons were chosen by the States, called
defenders, to see the laws put in execution.
There were two religions established by law :*
one was caUed sub-una, the other sub-utraque ;
the professors of the former were Roman Cath
olics, and communicated under one kind ; of
the latter, Hussites, and since the Reformation
Protestants, who communicated under both
kinds. The Emperor Sigismund, in order to
secure his election to this kingdom, granted the
Hussites an edict in the year 1435, whereby it
was decreed that there should be no magistrate
or freeman of the city of Prague but what was
of their religion. This was religiously observed
tiU the year 1570, when, by order of the Em
peror Maximilian, a Catholic was made a citi
zen of Prague, after which time, the edict was
frequently broken, tiU at length the Jesuits

* These are the words of Rapin ; but Bishop War
burton says, " This is a mistake. There were not
two religions, but one only, administering a single
rite differently." This remark would be accurate,
if the difference between the two parties had lain
only in this point ; but this could not be the case be
tween the Catholics and Hussites; the difference
between whom extended to many essential heads,
though they were, with respect to this matter, de
nominated fi-om one single point. But the bishop
asserts that " the fancy of two established religions
in one state is an absurdity." But absurdities may
exist, and this very absurdity exists, and did exist at
the time his lordship wrote, in Great Britain : in one
part of which episcopacy is the aslablished religion,
and m the other, Scotland, Presbyterianism.— Ed,

erected a stately college, and put the papists on
a level with the Protestants,* Matthias, the
present emperor, having adopted his cousin
Ferdinand of Austria, had a mind lo 'get liini
the crown of Bohemia ; for which purpose he
summoned an assembly of the States, without
sending, as usual, to the Protestants of Silesia,
Moravia, and the Upper and Lower Alsatia;
these, therefore, not attending (according to the
emperor's wish), made the Catholics a majority,
who declared Ferdinand presumptive successor
to Matthias ; after which he was crowned at
Prague, and resided at Gratz. The defenders
taking notice of this breach of their constitution,
and perceiving the design of the imperial court
to extirpate the Protestant religion, summoned
an assembly of all the States, and among others,
those of SUesia, Moravia, and Alsatia, who
drew up a petition to the emperor, to demand
the execution ofthe laws, and a reasonable sat
isfaction for the injuries they had received ; af
ter which they adjourned themselves to the
Monday after Rogation week, 1618. The em
peror, instead of granting their requests, order
ed his lieutenant to hinder the reassembling of
the States, as being caUed without his license ;
but the States assembled according to the ad
journment, and being informed of the force that
was designed against them, went in a body to
the Chancery, and having seized the emperor's
chief-justice, the secretary, and another of his
council, they threw them out of the castle- win
dow, and then drove the Jesuits out of the city.
In order to justify their proceedings, they pub
lished to the world an apology, and having
signed a confederacy to stand by one another
against all opposers, they chose twenty-four
protectors, empowering them to raise forces,
and levy such taxes as they should find neces
sary. In this situation of affairs, the emperor, who
was also King of Bohemia, died, and on the
18th of August, 1619, Ferdinand was chosen
his successor in the Empire ; but the Bohemi
ans not only disowned him for their king, but
declared the throne vacant, and on Septeraber
SthchoseFrederio, elector palatine. King James's
son-in-law, for their sovereign. Deputies were
immediately sent to acquaint him with the
choice, and pray hira to repair immediately to
Prague. Frederic despatched an express to
England to desire the advice of his father-in-
law ; but the- affair not admitting of so long de
lay, he accepted the kingdom, and was crown
ed at Prague, November 4th.
All the Protestant electors rejoiced at this
providence, and gave him the title of King of
Bohemia, as did most of the Protestant powers
of Europe, except the King of England. It was
acceptable news to the English Puritans to hear
of a Protestant prince in Bohemia ; and they
earnestly desired his majesty to support him, as
appears by Archbishop Abbot's letter, who was
known to speak the sense of that whole party.
This prelate being asked his opinion as a privy
counsellor, while he was confined to his bed
with the gout, wrote the folUowing letter to the
secretary of state: "That it was his opinion
that the elector should accept the crown ; that
England should support him openly ; and that,
as soon as news of his coronation should ar-

* Rapin, vol. ii., p. 197, foho edit.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

269

rive, the bells should be rung, guns fired, and
bonfires made, to let aU Europe see that the
king was determined 'to countenance him,"*
The archbishop adds, •' It is a great honour to
our king to have such a son made a king ; me
thinks I foresee in this the work qf God, that
.by degrees the kings of the earth shall leave
the whore to desolation. Our striking in wiU
comfort the Bohemians, and bring in the Dutch
and the Dane, and Hungary wiU run the same
fortune. As for money and means, let us trust
God and the ParUament, as the old and honour
able way of raising money. This from my bed,"
says the brave old prelate, " September 12,
1619, and when I can stand I wiU do better
service." But the king disliked the archbishop's letter,
as built upon Puritan principles ; he had an ill
opinion of elective kingdoms, and of the people's
power to dispose of crowns ; besides, he was
afraid of disobliging the Roman Catholic pow
ers, and, in particular, the King of Spain, a near
relation of the new emperor's, with whom he
was in treaty for a wife for his son ; so that
the elector's envoy, after long waiting, was
sent back with an admonition to his son-in-law
to refuse the crown ; but this being too late, he
took it into his head to persuade him to resign
it, and stood stiU, offering his mediation, and
sending ambassadors, while the emperor raised
-a powerful army, not only to reduce the king
dom of Bohemia, but to dispossess the elector
of his hereditary dominions. Several princes
of Europe gave King James notice of the design,
and exhorted him to support the Protestant re
ligion in the empire, but his majesty was deaf
to aU advice, and for the sake of a Spanish wife
for his son, suffered his own daughter, with a
numerous family of children, to be sent a begging,
and the balance of Protestant power to be lost
in the empire ; for the next summer the emperor
and his allies, having conquered the Palatinate,
entered Bohemia, and about the middle of No
vember fought the decisive battle of Prague,
wherein Frederic's .army was entirely routed ;
his hereditary dominions, which had been the
sanctuary of the Protestants in Queen Mary's
reign, were given to the Duke of Bavaria, a
papist, the noble library of Heidelberg was
carried off to the Vatican at Rome, and the
elector himself, with his wife and children, for-
¦ced to fly into Holland in a starving condition.
Had the King of England had any remains of
honour, courage, or esteem for the Protestant
religion, he might have preserved it in the Pa
latinate, and established it in Boheraia, by which
tlie balance of power would have been on that
side ; but this cowardly prince would not draw
his sword for the best cause in the world ;
however, this noble family was the care of Di
vine Providence during a long exile of twenty-
eight years, after which they were restored to
their dominions by the treaty of Munster, 1648,
and declared presumptive heirs ofthe crown of
Great Britain in the last year of King William
III., of which they took possession upon the
death of Queen Anne, 1714, to the inexpressible
joy ofthe Protestant Dissenters, and of all who
loved the Reformed religion and the liberties of
thoir country.

* Cabala, b. i., p. 12; or p. 18 of the edition in
1663.

Among the Brownists in Holland, we have
mentioned the Rev. Mr. John Robinson, of
Leyden, the father of the Independents, whose
numerous congregations being on the decline,
by their aged members dying off and their chil
dren marrying into Dutch families, they con
sulted how to preserve their church and reli
gion ; and at length, after several solemn ad
dresses to Heaven for direction, the younger
part of the congregation resolved to remove
into some part of America, under the protection
ofthe King of England, where they might enjoy
the liberty of their consciences, and be capable
of encouraging their friends and countrymen
to follow them. Accordingly, they sent over
agents into England, who, having obtained a
patent from the crown, agreed with several
merchants to become adventurers in the un
dertaking. Several of Mr. Robinson's congre
gation sold their estates and made a common
bank, with -which they purchased a small ship
of sixty tons, and hired another of one hundred
and eighty. The agents sailed into Holland
with their own ship, to take in a"s many of the
congregation as were wiUing to embark, while
the other vessel was freighting with all the ne
cessaries for the new plantation. All things
being ready, Mr. Robinson observed a day of
fasting and prayer with his con'gregation, and
took his leave ofthe adventurers with the follow
ing truly generous and Christian exhortation :
" Brethren,
" We are now quickly to part from one an
other, and -whether I may ever live to see your
faces on earth any more the God of heaven
only knows ; but whether the Lord has ap
pointed that or no, I charge you, before God
and his blessed angels, that you foUow me no
farther than you have seen me foUow the Lord
Jesus Christ.
" If God reveal anything to you, by any other
instrument of his, be as ready to receive it as
ever you were to receive any truth by my min
istry ; for I am verUy persuaded the Lord has
more truth yet to break forth out of his holy
Word. For my part, I cannot sufficiently be
wail the condition of the Reformed churches,
who are come to a period in religion,* and will
go at present no farther than the instruments
of their reformation. The Lutherans cannot be
drawn to go beyond what Luther saw ; what
ever part of his wiU our God has revealed to
Calvin, they wiU rather die than embrace it ;
and the Calvinists, you see, stick fast where
they were left by that great man of God, who
yet saw not aU things.
" This is a misery much to be lamented, for
* The remarks of Acontius are pertinent here :
" The cause," says he, " that the relics of error and
superstition are perpetuated is, that as often as there
is any reformation of religion, either in doctrine or
worship, men think that everything is not to be im
mediately reformed at first, but the most distinguish
ing errors only are to be done away ; and that, when
some time has intervened, the reformation will be
completed with less difficulty. But the event hath in
many places shown that it is more difficult to remove the
relics of false worship and opinions, than it was at first
to subvert fundamental errors. Hence it is better to
correct everything at once." " Sed ex eo etiam fieri
potest, ut maneant errorum atque superstitionum re-
liquise," &c. — Acontii Statagematum SatancE, libri octo.
ed., 1652, p, 330.— Ed.

270

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

though they were burning and shining lights in '
their times, yet they penetrated not into the
whole counsel of God, but were they now living,
would be as wiUing to embrace farther light as
that which they first received. I beseech you
remember, it is an article of your church-cove
nant, that you be ready to receive whatever
truth shall be made known to you frora the
written Word of God. Remember that, and
every other article of your sacred covenant.
But I must here withal exhort you to take heed
what you receive as truth — examine it, consid
er it, and corapare it with other Scriptures of
truth, before you receive it ; for it is not possi
ble the Christian world should come so lately
out of such thick antichristian darkness, and
that perfection of knowledge should break forth
at once.
" I must also advise you to abandon, avoid,
and shake off the name of Brownists ; it is a
mere nickname, and a brand for the making re
ligion and the professors of it odious to the
Christian world."
On July 1 (1620), the adventurers went from
Leyden to Delfthaven, whither Mr. Robinson
and the ancients of his congregation accompa
nied them ; they continued together all night,
and next morning, after mutual embraces, Mr.
Robinson kneeled down on the seashore, and
with a fervent prayer committed them to the
protection and blessing of Heaven. The adven
turers were about one hundred and twenty,
who, having joined their other ship, sailed for
New-England, August 5 ; but one of their ves
sels proving leaky, they left it, and embarked in
one vessel, which arrived at Cape Cod Novem
ber 9, 1620. Sad was the condition of these
poor men, who had the winter before thera, and
no accommodations at land for their entertain
ment ; most of them were in a weak and sickly
condition with the voyage, hut there was no rem
edy ; they therefore manned their long-boat,
and having coasted the shore, at length found a
tolerable harbour, where they landed their ef
fects, and on the 25th of December began to
build a storehouse, and some small cottages to
preserve them from the weather. Their com
pany was divided into nineteen famUies, each
family having an aUotment of land for lodging
and gardens, in proportion to the number of
persons of which it consisted ; and, to prevent
disputes, the situation of each family was deci
ded by lot. They agreed, likewise, upon some
laws for their civU and miUtary government, and
having chosen a governor, they called the place
of their settlement by the name of New Plym
outh. Inexpressible were the hardships these new
planters underwent the first winter ; a sad mor-
taUty raged among them, occasioned by the fa
tigues of their late voyage, by the severity of the
weather, and their want of necessaries. The
country was full of woods and thickets ; their
poor cottages could not keep them warm ; they
had no physician, or wholesome food, so that
within two or three months half their company
was dead, and of them who remained alive,
which were about fifty, not above six or seven
at a time were capable of helping the rest ; but
as the spring came on they recovered, and hav
ing received some fresh supplies from their

friends in England, they maintained Ihoir sta
tion, and laid the foundation of one of the no
blest settlements in America, which from that
time has proved an asylum for the Protestant
Nonconformists under aU their oppressions.*
To return, to England: though the king had
so lately expressed a zeal for the doctrines of
Calvin at the Synod of Dort, it now appeared
that he had shaken thera off, by his advaiieing
the most zealous Arminians, as Buckeriilge,
NeUe, Harsnet, and Laud, to some of the best
bishoprics in the kingdom. These divines, ap
prehending their principles hardly consistent
with the Thirty-nine Articles, fell in with the
prerogative, and covered themselves under the
wing of his majesty's pretensions to unlimited
power, which gave rise lo a new distinction at
court between Church and State Puritans. AU
were Puritans with King James who stood by
the laws ofthe land in opposition to his arbitra
ry governraent, though otherwise never so good
churchmen ; these were Puritans in the Slate,
as those who scrupled the ceremonies, and es
poused the doctrines of Calvin, were in the
Church. The Church Puritans were compara
tively few, but being joined by those who stood
by the Constitution, they became the majority
of the nation. To balance these, the king pro
tected and countenanced the Arminians and
papists, who joined heartily with the preroga
tive, and became a state faction against the old
English Constitution. The parties, being thus
formed, grew up. into hatred of each other. All
who opposed the king's arbitrary measures were
called at court by the name of Puritans ; and
* This colony is honourably distinguished from
all others in ancient or modern times. It was plant
ed under the influence of Christian principles, and
was designed to be a refuge whither the persecuted
in England might repair with safety. The parties
who originated it were men of exalted piety ; and the
motives which swayed their conduct were of the
highest and purest order of which human nature ad
mits. Other colonies had been founded at the im
pulse of national glory, or of commercial enterprise;
but this sprang from a sacred regard to ihe interests
of religion, whose healthful tone and vigorous nature
it proclaimed to the communities of Europe. The
character of the colonists gave a religious complexion
to their affairs, while their fortitude and piety revived
the hopes of their brethren at home, and gave promise
of a better state of things than had yet been realized.
The world which the enterprising genius of Colum
bus had revealed to the European nations was a thea
tre on which new maxims of govemment and new
forms of reUgion were to be subjected to the test of
experiment Many ofthe settlements effected on its
shores were conducted by men of piety, who were
more solicitous for the preservation of Christian
truth than for the accumulation of worldly gain.
The experiment was therefore -made under the hap
piest auspices, and the rising communities of the New
World were speedily in a condition to speak the lan
guage of freedom tothe enfeebled and decrepit forms
of despotism in Europe. Their early history was
distinguished by some inconsistencies flowing from
the errors they had imbibed in infancy. The pecu-
Uarity of their situation, and the perplexing and haz
ardous nature of the circumstances amid which they
were required to act, unhappily led them to forget on
some occasions the tolerant and generous pnnciples
which the noble Robinson had inculcated. But his
spirit revived among them, and ultimately effected the
extinction of those laws and usages which were alike
inconsistent with the spirit of Christianity and the
professions of their fathers,— C. See Price.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

271

those that stood by the crown in opposition to
the Parliament went hy the names of papists
and Arminians. These were the seeds of those
factions which occasioned aU the disturbances
in the following reign.
The Palatinate being lost, and the king's son-
in-law and daughter forced lo take sanctuary in
HoUand, the whole world murmured at his maj
esty's indolence, both as a father and a Protest
ant : these murmurs obliged him, at length, to
have recourse tu a Parliament, from whom he
hoped to squeeze a little money to spend upon
his pleasures; at the opening of the session,
January 20, 1620-1, his majesty told them,
"that they were no other than his councU, to
give him advice as to what he should ask. It
is the king," says he, " that makes laws, and ye
are to advise hira to make such as will be best
for the comraonwealth." With regard to his
tolerating popery, on the account of his son's
match, he professes " he wiU do nothing but
what shall be for the good of religion." With
regard to the Palatinate, he says, " If he cannot
get it restored by fair means, his crown, his
blood, and his son's blood, sliall be spent for its
recovery." He therefore coraraands thera not
to hunt after grievances, but to be quick and
speedy in giving him money. Though the Par
liament did not credit the king's speech, yet the
occasion was so reasonable, that the Commons
immediately voted him two entire subsidies, and
the clergy three ; but finding his majesty awed
by the Spaniard, and raaking no preparation for
war, they began to inquire into grievances, upon
which the king adjourned the houses (a power
not claimed by any of his predecessors) ; but
upon the day of adjournment the Commons drew
up a declaration, wherein they say, " that being
touched wilh a true sense and feUow-feeling of
the sufferings of the king's children and of the
true professors of the same Christian religion
professed by the Church of England in foreign
parts, as members ofthe same body, they unan
imously declare that they wiU be ready, to the
utmost of their power, both with their lives and
fortunes, to assist his majesty, so as that he
may be able to do that with his sword which,
by a peaceable course, shaU not be effected,"
Upon their reassembling in the month of No
vember, finding the king still amused by the
Spanish match, while the Protestant interest in
the Palatinate was expiring, the Commons drew
up a large remonstrance, in which they repre
sent the danger of the Protestant religion from
the growth of popery ; from the open resort of
papists to the ambassador's chapels ; frora the
frequent and numerous conventicles both in city
and country ; from the interposing of foreign
ambassadors in their favour ; from the com
pounding of their forfeitures for such smaU sums
of money as amount to little less than a tolera
tion ; from the education of gentlemen's chUdren
in popish seminaries, and the licentious printing
and publishing popish books ; wherefore they
pray his raajesty to take his sword in hand for
the recovery of the Palatinate, to put the laws
in execution against papists, to break off the
Spanish match, and to marry his son to a Prot
estant princess. The king, hearing of this re
monstrance, sent the speaker a letter from New
market to acquaint the house, " that he absolute
ly forbid their meddling with anything concern

ing his government, or with his son's match ;"
and to keep them in awe, his majesty declared,.
" that he thinks himself at liberty to punish any
man's misdemeanors in Parliament, as well du
ring their sitting as after, which he means not
to spare hereafter upon occasion of any man's in
solent behaviour in the house."* In answer to
this letter, the Commons drew up a petition to
present with their remonstrance, in which they
insist upon the laws of their country, and the
freedom of debates in Earliament. The king
returned them a long answer, which concludes
with denying them what they call their " ancient
and undoubted r^ght and inheritance." The
Commons, in debate upon his majesty's answer,
drew up a protestation in maintenance of their
claim, and caused it to be entered in their jour
nal-book. Upon this, the king being come to^
London, declared in council the protestation to
be null, and with great indignation tore it out of
the book with his own hand. A few days after
he dissolved the Parliament, and issued a proc
lamation forbidding his subjects to talk of state
affairs.! He also committed the leading mem
bers to prison, as Sir Edward Coke, Sir Robert
Philips, Mr. Selden, Mr. Pym, and Mr. Mallery ;
others were sent into Ireland, and the Earls of
Oxford and Southampton were confined in the
Tower.t The king having parted with his Parliament,
was at liberty to gratify the Spaniards by indul
ging the papists ; for this purpose the lord-keep.,
er 'VViUiams, by his majesty's command, wrote
to all the judges, " that in their several circuits
they discharge aU prisoners for church recusan
cy ; or for refusing the oath of supremacy ; or
for dispersing popish books ; or hearing or say
ing mass ; or for any other point of recusancy
that concerned religion only."^ Accordingly, the
Jesuits and popish recusants of all sorts were
enlarged, to the number, says Mr. Prynne, of four
thousand ;1| all prosecutions were stayed, and
the penal laws suspended. Upon this great
numbers of Jesuits and other missionaries flock
ed into England ; mass was celebrated openly
in the countries ; and in London their private
assemblies were so crowded, that at a meeting.
in Blackfriars [November 5, 1622, N. S.], the
floor sunk under them, and killed the preacher
and ninety-three of the hearers.
While the papists were countenanced, the
court and the new bishops bore hard upon the
Puritans, filling the pulpits with men of arbitra
ry principles, and punishing those who dared
to preach for the rights of the subject. The
Rev. Mr. Knight, of Broadsgate Hall, in a ser
mon before the University of Oxford, on 2

* Rapin, vol. ii., p. 208, 211, folio edition.
t Wilson, p. 190, 191 ; Rapin, vol. U., p. 212, and
note 4, folio edition.
X According to Tyndal, as observes Dr. Grey, the
Earl of Southampton was committed to the Dean of
Westminster. — Ed. 6 Fuller, b. x., p. 101.
II Dr. Grey quotes here the authority of Fuller
against Prynne's account, who says that, according
to John Gee's perfect list, all the Jesuits in England
did not amount to more than two hundred and twen
ty-five. But Prynne's account, which Mr. Neal
adopts, is, on the other hand, confirmed by "Tyndal,
who informs us, on the testimony of Wilson, that
Gondamar used to boast that four thousand recusants
had been released through his intercession.— iJapire's
History, vol. U., p. 215, note 7. — Ed.

272

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

Kings, xix , 9, advanced this proposition, that
" subordinate magistrates might lawfully make
use of force, and defend themselves, the com
monwealth, and the true religion, in the field,
against the chief magistrate, within the cases
and conditions following: 1, When the chief
magistrate turns tyrant, 2 When he forces his
subjects upon blasphemy or idolatry, 3, When
any intolerable burdens or pressures are laid
upon thera, 4. When resistance is the only ex
pedient to secure their»lives, their fortunes, and
the liberty of their consciences." The court
being informed of this sermon, sent for the
preacher, and asked him what authority he had
for this assertion ; he answered, Paraeus on Ro
mans, xiii,, but that his principal authority was
King James himself, who was sending assist
ance to the Rochellers against their natural
prince. Upon this bold answer, Mr. Knight was
confined in the Gate-house, Pareeus's comment
aries were burned at Oxford and London, his
assertions were condemned as false and sedi
tious, and the University of Oxford, in fuU con
vocation, passed a decree that it was not law
ful for subjects to appear offensively in arms
against their king on the score of religion, or on
any other account, according to the Scripture.
How this was reconcilable with the king's as
sisting the French Huguenots. 1 must leave
with the reader. But to bind the nation down
forever in principles of slavery, all graduates of
the University- of 0.xford were enjoined to sub
scribe the above-mentioned decree, and to swear
that they would always continue of the same
opinion. Was there ever such an unreasonable
oath 1 for a man to swear he will always be of
the same mind ! Yet such was the severity of
the limes :
But to distress the Puritans more effectually,
the king sent the following directions to the
archbishop, to be communicated to all the cler
gy of his province, dated from Windsor, August
10, 1622 :
1. "That no preacher, under a bishop or
dean, shall make a set discourse, or fall into
any commonplace of divinity in his sermons,
not comprehended in the Thirty-nine Articles.*
2. " That no parson, vicar, eurate, or lectu
rer shall preach any sermon hereafter on Sun
days or holydays in the afternoon, but expound
the Catechism, Creed, or Ten Commandments,t
and that those be most encouraged who cate
chise chUdren only.
3. "That no preacher, under a bishop or dean,
presume to preach in any popular auditory on
the deep points of predestination, election, rep
robation ; or ofthe universality, efficacy, resisti-
billty, or irresistibUity of God's grace.
4. " That no preacher, of any degree soever,
shall henceforth presume in any auditory to
declare, limit, or set bounds to the prerogative,
power, or jurisdiction of sovereign princes, or
meddle with matters of state.
5. " That no preacher shall use railing speech
es against papists or Puritans, but endeavour to
free the doctrine and disciphne of the Church
in a grave manner from the aspersions of both
adversaries. * Or, as Dr. Grey would add, " some of the homi
lies of the Church of England."— Eo.
t Or, as the same writer would subjoin, " the Lord's
Prayer'' (funeral sermons alone excepted). — Ed.

6. "That the archbishop and bishops be
more wniy for the future in licensing preach
ers ; and that all lecturers tliroughout ilir king
dom be licensed in the eourt of faculties, by
recommendation from the bishop of the diocess,
with a fiat from the aiehbishop, and a confirma
tion under the great seal of England.
"Those that offended against any of these
injunctions were to be suspended ab offino et
beneficio for a year and a day, till his majesty
should prescribe some farther punishment, with
advice of convocation."
Here is nothing that could affect papists or
.Arminians, but almost every article points at
the Puritans. The king had assisted in main
taining these doctrines in Holland, hut wUI not
have them propagated in England. The Thirty-
nine Articles were established by law, and yet
none under a bishop or dean may preach on the
seventeenth, concerning predestination. The
ministers of God's Word may not limit the pre
rogative, but they may preach concerning its
unlimited extent ; and, though the second in
junction admits of their expounding the cate
chism, FuUer says, " The bishops' officials were
so active, that in many places they tied up
preachers in the afternoon to the very letter of
the catechism, allowing them no liberty to ex
pound or enlarge upon any of the answers."*
The Puritans had suffered hitheito only for the
neglect of ceremonies, but now their very doc
trine is an offence. From this time all Calvin
ists were in a manner excluded from court pre
ferments. The way to riso in the Church was
to preach up the absolute power of the king, to
disclaim against the rigours of Calvinism, and to
speak favourably of popery. Those who scru
pled this were neglected, and distinguished by
the name of Doctrinal Puritans ; but it was the
glory of this people that they stood together,
like a wall, against the arbitrary proceedings of
the king, both in Church and State.
Arehbishop Abbot was at the head of the
Doctrinal Puritans, and often advised the king
to return to the old parliamentary way of rais
ing money. This cost him his interest at court,.
and an accident happened this year which quite
broke his spirits, and made him retire from the
world. Lord Zouch invited his grace to a
buck-hunting in Bramshill Park, in Hampshire,
and whUe the keeper was running among the
deer to bring thera to a fairer mark, the arch
bishop, sitting on horseback, let fly a barbed ar
row, whieh shot hira under the arrapit and kill
ed hira on the spot. His grace was so dis
tressed in mind with the accident, that he re
tired to one of his own almshouses at Guilford ;
and though upon examination of the case it
was judged casual homicide, he kept that day
as a fast as long as he lived, and allowed the
keeper's widow £20 a year for her mainte
nance. The king, also, being moved with corn-
passion, sent for him to Lambeth, and gave hira
a royal pardon and dispensation to prevent all
exceptions to his episcopal character ; but he
prudently wtthdrew from tho council-board,
where his advice had been little regarded be
fore, as coming from a person of unfashionable
principles. The Puritans lost an eminent practical writer
and preacher about this time, Nicholas Byfield,
* Book X., p. Ul.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

273

born in Warwickshire, and educated in Exeter
College, Oxford. After four years, he left the
university, and went for Ireland ; but preaching
at Chester, the iphabitants gave him a unani
mous invitation to St. Peter's Churoh in that
city, where he resided seven years. From
thence he removed to Isleworth in Middlesex,
and remained there tiU his death. He was a
divine of a profound judgment, a strong memo
ry, quick invention, and unwearied industry,
which brought the stone upon him, which sent
him to his grave, in the forty-fifth year of his age.
His body being opened, a stone was taken out
of his bladder that weighed thirty-three ounces,
and was in measure about the edge fifteen inch
es and a half; about the length and breadth thir
teen inches, and solid like a flint ; an almost in-
-credible relation I But Dr. WUIiam Gouge, who
drew up this account, was an eyewitness of it,
•with many others. Mr. Byfield was a Calvinist,
a nonconformist to the ceremonies, and a strict
observer ofthe Sabbath. He published several
¦books in his lifetime ;* and his commentaries
upon the Colossians and St. Peter, pubhshed af
ter his death, show him to be a divine of great
piety, capacity, and learning.!
The archbishop being in disgrace, the councU
iwere unanimous, and met with no interruption
in their proceedings. The Puritans retired to
the new plantations in America, and popery
came in like an armed man. This was occa
sioned partly by the new promotions at court,
but chiefly by the Spanish match, which was
begun about the year 1617, and drawn out to a
Jength of seven years, till- the Palatinate was
lost, and the Protestant religion in a manner
¦extirpated out of the kingdom of Bohemia and
other parts of Germany ; and then the match
itself was broke off.
To trace this affair frora its beginning, because
it was the source of the ensuing calamities of
this and the foUowing reign. Prince Charles
being arrived at the state of manhood, the king
had thoughts of marrying him, but could find no
Protestant princess of an equal rank. He de
spised the princes of Germany, and would hear
¦of nothing beneath a king's daughter. This
put him upon seeking a wife for hira out of the
house of Austria, sworn enemies to the Protest-
.ant religion ; for which purpose he entered into
a treaty with Spain for the infanta. Under col
our of this match, Gondamar, the Spanish am-
•bassador, made the king do whatever he pleased.
If he inclined to assist his son-in-law in recov
ering the Palatinate, he was told he must keep
fair with the house of Austria, or the match was
at an end. If he denied any favours to the pa
pists at home, the court of Rome, and all the
Roman Catholic powers, were disobliged, and
¦then it could never take place. To obviate
these and other objections, his majesty prom
ised, upon the word of a kin^, that no Roman
Catholic should be proceededagainst capitally;
and though he could not at present repeal the
pecuniary laws, that he would mitigate them to
the satisfaotion of the Catholic king ; and the

* Bishop Wilkins passes a high encomium on his
Sermons, classing them with the very best of the
-<lay. His works which stiU exist, though very rare,
-amount to fifteen. — C.
t Wood's Athen. Oxon., vol. i.,p. 402; Fuller's
Worthies, 1684,. p. 833.
Vol. L— M m

lengths his majesty went in favour of papists on
this occasion will appear by the foUowing arti
cles, which were inserted both into the Spanish
and French treaty which afterward took place.
The articles of the intended Spanish match re
lating to religion were these :
Art. 6. "The infanta herself, her men and
maid servants, their children and descendants,
and aU their families, of what sort soever, serv
ing her highness, may freely and publicly pro
fess themselves Catholics.*
Art. 5, 7, and 8. " Provide a church, a chapel,
and an oratory for her highness, with aU popish
ornaments, utensUs, and decorations.
Art. 10,11, and 12. " AUow her twenty-four
priests and assistants, and over them a bishop,
with fuU authority and spiritual jurisdiction.
Art. 14 " Admits the infanta and her servants
to procure from Rome dispensations, indulgen
ces, jubUees, &ca., and all graces, as shall seem
meet to them.
Art. 17. " Provides that the laws made
against Roman Catholics in England, or in any
of the king's dominions, shall not extend to the
children of this marriage ; nor shall they lose -
their succession to the crown, although they be
Roman Catholics.
Art. 18 and 21. "Authorize the infanta. to
choose nurses for her children, and to bring
them up in her religion till they are ten years
of age." But the term was afterward enlarged
to twelve, and in the match with France, to
thirteen. King James swore to the observation of these
articles, in the presence of the two Spanish am
bassadors, and twenty-four privy counseUors
who set their hands to the treaty. Besides
which, his majesty and the Prince of Wales
swore to the four following private ones : " (1.)
That no laws against papists should hereafter
be put in execution. (2.) That no new laws
shall be made against them ; but that there shall
be a perpetual toleration of the Roman Catholic
religion in private houses, throughout all his
majesty's dominions, which his counsel shall
swear to. (3.) That he wiU never persuade the
infanta to change her religion. (4.) That he
will use all his authority and influence to have
these conditions ratified by Parliament, that so
all penal laws against papists may not only be
suspended, but legally disannulled."
The words of the Prince of Wales's oath
were these : " I, Charles, prince of Wales, en
gage myself — that all things contained in the
foregoing articles, which concern as well the
suspension as abrogation of all laws made
against Roman Catholics, shall within three
years infallibly take effect, and sooner if possi
ble ; which we will have to lie upon' our con
science and royal honour : and I will intercede
with my father that the ten years of education
of the chUdren that shall be born bf this mar
riage, which the Pope of Rome desires may be
lengthened to twelve, shall be prolonged to the
said term. And I swear, that if the entire pow
er of disposing this matter be devolved upon
me, I will grant and approve of the said term.f
Furthermore, as oft as the infanta shall desire
that I should give ear to divines and others.

* Rushworth, vol. i., p. 86 ; Rapin, vol. ii., 217, 218,
folio edit.
t Rushworth, vol. i., p. 89.

274

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

whom her highness shaU be pleased to employ
in matters of the Roman Catholic religion, I
•B'ill hearken to them wiUingly, without all diffi
culties, and laying aside aU excuses."
Under these advantages, the papists appeared
openly, and behaved with an offensive inso
lence ; but the hearts of aU true Protestants
trembled for themselves and their posterity.
And Archbishop Abbot, though under a cloud,
ventured to write to the king upon the subject,
beseeching him to consider " whether, by the
toleration which his majesty proposes, he is not
setting up that most damnable and heretical
doctrine of the Church of Rome, the whore of
Babylon I How hateful must this be to God,
and grievous to your good subjects," says he,
" that your raajesty, who hath learnedly written
against these wicked heresies, should now show
yourself a patron of those doctrines, which your
pen has told the world, and your conscience
teUs yourself, are superstitious, idolatrous, and
detestable. Besides, this toleration, which you
endeavour to set up by proclamation, cannot be
done without a Parliament, unless your majes
ty wiU let your subjects see that you will take
a liberty to throw down the laws at your pleas
ure. And, above, all, I beseech your raajesty to
consider, lest by this toleration your majesty
do not draw upon the kingdom in general, and
on yourself in particular, God's heavy wrath
and indignation."*
But this wise king, instead of hearkening to
the remonstrances of his Protestant subjects,
put the peace of his kingdora, and the whole
Protestant religion, into the hands ofthe Span
iard, by sending his son with the Duke of Buck
ingham lo Madrid, to fetch home the infanta ;
a piece of confidence that the " Solomon of the
age" should not have been guUty of When
the prince was gone, it is said that Arohy, the
king's fool, clapped his cap upon the king's
head. The king asking him the reason, he an
swered, because he had sent the prince into
Spain. But, says his majesty, 'What if he
should come back safe 1 'Why, then, says Ar-
chy, I wiU take my cap off from your head, and
put it on the King of Spain's.f The Spaniards
gave out that the design ofthe prince's journey
was to reconcile himself to the Church of Rome.
It is certain the pope wrote to the Bishop of
Conchen to lay hold of this opportunity to con
vert him,t and directed a most persuasive let
ter to the prince himself to the same purpose,
dated April 20, 1623, which the prince answer
ed June 20, in a very obliging manner, giving
the pope the title of the Most Holy Father, and
encouraging him to expect that, when he came
to the crown, there should be but one religion in
his dominions, seeing, says he, that both Cath
olics and Protestants believe in one Jesus
Christ. He was strongly solicited to change
his religion by some of the first quality, and by
the most learned priests and Jesuits, who ca
ressed his highness with speeches, dedicated
books to him, invited him to their processions,
and gave him a view of their most magnificent
churches and relics ; by which artifices, though
he was not converted, he was confirmed in his
resolution of attempting a coalition of the two
* Fuller, b. x., p. 106.
-f Rapin, vol. u., p. 226, the note, folio edit.
X WUson, p. 230 ; Rapin, vol. ji., p. 221, foUo edit.

churches ;* for the attempting of which he af
terward lost both his crown and life.t' It was
happy, after all, that the prince got safe out of
the Spanish territories, which, as Spanheim ob
serves, that politic court would not have per
mitted, had they not considered that the Queen
of Bohemia, next heir to the crown, was a great
er eneny to popery than her brother.J But, af
ter all, w hen this memorable treaty of marriage
had been upon the carpet seven years, and
wanted nothing but celebration, the portion be
ing settled, the pope's dispensation obtained, th»
marriage articles sworn to on both sides, and
the very day of celebration by proxy appointed,
it was broke off by the influence of the Duke
of Buckingham upon the prince, who ordered
the Earl of Bristol not to deliver the proxy lill
the time limited by the dispensation was expi
red; the King of Spain, suspecting the design,
in order to throw aU the blame upon the King

* "This," says Bishop Warburton, "is an utter
calumny; a coalition of the two churches was never
in the king's thoughts ; happy for him if he had nev
er had worse ; what he aimed at was arbitrary pow
er." It is strange how his lordship could give his
pen a license to pass this unjust censure on IVlr. Neal,
when the conduct of Charles 1. furnished so many
proofs of his wishes and endeavours to coalesce with
the Church of Rome. His letter to the pope from
Madrid, the articles of the marriage-treaty, to which
he solemnly signed and swore, and the private arti
cles to which he also swore, are witnesses to the-
truth of Mr. Neal's assertion. If he had not aimed
at this, why did he disown the foreign Protestants ?
Why did he restrain the press with respect lo books
written against popery, and license publications in
favour of it? Why was popery not only tolerated,
but countenanced and favoured ? See the facts to
this purpose fully stated in Towgood's " Essay to
wards a true Idea of the Character of Charles I.,'*'
chap. ix. So far did he carry his views and endeav
ours on this business. Whitelocke informs us a
scheme was in agitation to set up a new popish hie
rarchy by the bishops in all the counties in England,
by the authority of the pope. — Memorials, p. 72_
And the Jesuit Franciscus a Clara, the queen's chap
lain, certainly thought things were in a train for such
a coalition ; for in one of his publications, he assert
ed, "that if any synod were held non intennirtif.- Pu-
ritanis, setting Puritans aside, our articles and their-
religion would soon be agreed." — May's History of
the Parliament, p. 74. Dr. Grey also aims to contro
vert this passage of Mr. Neal, and with this view re
fers us to Rushworth, Frankland, Hacket, and Bur
net ; but the quotations he adduces from these wri
ters are not to the point, and prove only, as Mr. Neal
allows, that Charles was not converted to popery. —
See Dr. Grey's Examination of Neal, vol. ii., p. 71.
—Ed.
t Rapin, vol. ii., p. 226, vide-note, folio edit.
X Dr. Grey • censures Mr Neal for not quoting
Spanheim fairly ; and this writer, as Tyndal and
Welwood, from whom he borrows the passage, rep
resent his words, does not, it is true, say that the-
Queen of Bohemia was a greater enemy to popery
than her brother, but only resolves the conduct of
the court of Spain into the consideration of her and
her children being next heirs to the crown of Eng
land. Mr. Neal, therefore, is to be understood as
suggesting the reason why the consideration of her
and her chUdren had so much weight with the court
of Spain. Few who reflect on the firm attachment
of that lady to the Protestant cause wUI suspect Mr.
Neal of mistaking the cause of the Spanish policy.
It would have been, however, more accurate in him
to have quoted at large the words of Spanheim, and
then to have subjoined his own suggestion as ex
planatory of them. — Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

275

of England, signed a promise with his own hand,
and delivered it to the ambassador, wherein he
obliged hiraself to cause the Palatinate to be re
stored to the elector palatine, in case the marriage
took effect ; but his highness was immovable,
and obliged the king to recall his ambassador.
From this time the prince and duke seemed
to turn Puritans, the latter having taken Dr.
John Preston, one of their chief ministers, into
his service, to consult him about alienating the
dean and chapter lands to the purpose of preach
ing. They also advised the king to convene a
Parliament, which his majesty did, and made
such a speech to thera as one would think im
possible to come from the same lips with the
former. " I assure you," says he, speaking of
the Spanish match, " on the faith of a Christian
king, that it is res integra presented unto you,
and that I stand not bound nor either way en
gaged, but remain free to foUow what shaU be
best advised." His majesty adds, " I can truly
say, and will avouch it before the seat of God
and angels, that never did king govern with a
purer, sincerer, and more uncorrupt heart than
I have done, far from ill-wUl and meaning of
the least error and iraperfection in my reign.
It has been talked of my remissness in mainte
nance of rehgion, and suspicion of a tolera
tion [of popery] ;* but, as God shall judge me,
I never thought nor meant, nor ever in word
expressed, anything that savoured of it. I nev
er, in all my treaties, agreed to anything to
the overthrow and disannulling of those laws,
but had in aU a chief regard to the preservation
of that truth which I have ever professed." The
reader will remember how this agrees wilh the
marriage articles above mentioned, to which the
king had sworn.
But the Parliament, taking things as the king
had represented them, advised his majesty to
break off the match, and to declare war for the
recovery of the Palatinate ; and, at the same
time, petitioned his majesty that all Jesuits
and seminary priests might be commanded to
depart the realm ; that the laws might be put
in execution against popish recusants ; that all
such might be removed from court, and ten
miles from London. t To which the king made
this remarkable answer, which must strike the
reader with surprise and wonder : " What reli
gion I am of my books declare ; I wish it may
be written in marble, and remain to posterity as
a mark upon me, when I shaU swerve from ray
reUgion ; for he that dissembles with God is
not to be trusted with men. I protest before
God that ray heart hath bled when I have heard
of the increase of popery. God is my judge, it
hath been such a grief to rae, that it hath been
as thorns in my eyes and pricks in my sides.
It hath been my desire to hinder the growth of
popery ; and I could not be an honest man if I had
done otherwise. I wiU order the laws to be put
in execution against popish recusants as they
were before these treaties, for the laws are still
in being, and were never dispensed with by me ;
God is my judge, they were never so intended
by me."
What solemn appeals to Heaven are these
against the clearest and most undeniable facts !

* Rapin, vol. n., p. 227, 228, folio edit.
t Rapin, vol. ii., p. 229, 230, folio edit. ; Rush-
worth, p. 141-143.

It requires a good degree of charity to believe this
prince had either religion or conscience remain
ing. For though he assured his Parliament
that his heart bled within him when he heard
of the increase of popery, yet this very Parlia
ment presented him with a list of fifty-seven
popish lords and knights who were in public
offices, none of whora were displaced, while the
Puritan rainisters were driven out of the king
dom, and hardly a gentleman of that character
advanced to the dignity of a justice of peace.
The Parliament being prorogued, the king,
instead of going heartily into the war, of mar
rying his son to a Protestant princess, entered
into a treaty with Louis XIII., king of France,
for his sister, Henrietta Maria.* Upon this oc
casion the Archbishop of Ambrun was sent into
England, who told the king the best way to ac-
coraplish the match for his son was to grant
a full toleration to Catholics. The king re
plied, that he intended to grant it, and was wUl
ing to have an assembly of divines to compro
mise the difference between Protestants and
papists, and promised to send a letter to the
pope to bring him into the project. In this let
ter, says Monsieur Deageant in his memoirs,
the king styles the pope Christ's vicar, and
head of the Church universal, and assures him
he would declare himself a Catholic as soon as
he could provide against the inconveniences
of such a declaration ; but whether this was so
or not, it is certain he immediately relaxed the
penal laws against papists, and permitted Am
brun to administer confirmation to ten thousand
Catholics at the door of the French ambassa
dor's house, in the presence of a great con
course of people. In the mean time the treaty
of marriage went forward, and was at last sign
ed, November 10, 1624, in the thirty-three pub
lic articles, and three secret ones, wherein the
very same or greater advantages were stipula
ted for the Catholics than in those of Madrid ;t
but, before the dispensation from the pope could
be obtained, his majesty fell sick at Theo
bald's of a tertian ague, which put an end to
his life, not without suspicion of poison,t March
27, 1625, in the fifty-ninth year of his age.^
To review the course of this reign. It is ev
ident that both popery and Puritanism increased
prodigiously, while the friends of the hierarchy
sunk into contempt ; this was owing partly to
the spiritual promotions, and partly to the arbi
trary maxims of state that the king had advan
ced. In promoting of bishops the king discov
ered a greater regard to such as would yield a
servile compliance to his absolute commands
than to such as would fill their sees with repu
tation, and be an example to the people of reli
gion and virtue, of which number were Bishop
NeUe, Buckeridge, Harsnet, || Laud, &c. The
* Rapin, vol. ii., p. 231, 232, folio edit.
t Ibid., vol. n., p. 233, 234.
i Those who wish to havp an enlarged and accu
rate knowledge of the reign of James should con
sult Jesse's Memoirs of the House of Stuart, a very
amusing work. — C.
Ij Rapin, vol. u. p. 235 ; Welwood's Memoirs, 9th
edit., p. 35 ; and Dr. Harris's Life of James I., p.
237-242. II This prelate. Bishop Warburton says, " was a
man of the greatest learning and parts of his lime."
This he might be, and yet advanced not on account
of his learning, but because his courtly dispositions

276

HISTORY OF THE PURITA.N'S.

fashionable doctrines at court were such as the
king had condemned at the Synod of Dort, and
which, in the opinion of the old Enghsh clergy,
were subversive of the Reformation. The new
bishops admitted the Church of Rome to be a
true church, and the pope the first bishop of
Christendom. They declared for the lawfulness
of images in churches ; for the real presence ;
and that the doctrine of transubstantiation was
a school 11 icety . They pleaded for confession to
a priest, for sacerdotal absolution, and the proper
merit of good works. They gave up the moral
ity ofthe Sabbath, and the five distinguishing
points of Calvinism, for which their predeces
sors had contended. They claimed an uninter
rupted succession of the episcopal character
from the apostles through the Church of Rome,
which obliged them to maintain the validity of
her ordinations, when they denied the validity
of those of the foreign Protestants. Farther,
they began to imitate the Church of Rome in
her gaudy ceremonies, in the rich furniture of
their chapels, and the pomp of their worship.
They complimented the Roman Catholic priests
with their dignitary tUles, and spent aU their
zeal in studying how to compromise matters
wilh Rome, while they turned their backs upon
tbe old Protestant doctrines ofthe Reformation,
and were remarkably negligent in preaching or
in.structing the people in Christian knowledge.
Things were come to such a pass, that Gonda
mar, the Spanish ambassador, wrote to Spain
that there never were more hopes of England's
conversion, for "there are more prayers," says
he, "offered to the Mother than to the Son [of
God]."* The priests and Jesuits challenged
the established clergy to public disputations ;
the Duke of Buckingham's mother being a pa
pist, a conference was held in her presence be
tween Fisher, a Jesuit, on the one part, and Drs.
White, Williaras, and Laud, on the other.
Each of thera disputed with the Jesuit a day
before a great concourse of people, but not to
the countess's conversion, which was not at all
strange, upon their principles. Among other
popish books that were published, one was en
titled " A New Gag for the Old Gospel ;" which
Dr. Montague, rector of Stamford-Rivers, an-

recommended him to the royal taste. Fuller speaks
of him " as a zealous asserter of ceremonies, using to
complain of conformable Puritans." So that the just
ness- of his claims to be considered as a man of eru
dition being admitted, neither the candour nor veraci
ty of the historian for classing him as he does is im
peached by it. Learning and soundness of mind are
by no means inseparable. — Eo.
* This is not a just or accurate representation of
the words. As Rapin relates it, Gondamar, perceiv
ing most addresses for preferment were made first to
the mother of the Marquis of Buckingham, and by
her conveyed to her son, who could deny her nothing,
among his other witty pranks, wrote merrUy in his
despatches to Spain, " that never was there more
hope of England's conversion to Rome than now ; for
there are more prayers offered here to the mother than
to the son." The words " of God," as Bishop War
burton and Dr. Grey observe, should be erased. It
was a mere joke of the Spanish ambassador, speak
ing of court corruption under the terms of religion.
Mr. Neal, by not referring to his authority, appears to
quote it by recollection, and, indeed, to have mistaken
the matter. Bishop Warburton is, however, very se-
-yere in his reflections on him, calhng his statement of
it " a vUe perversion of facts." The reader wiU de-
tide on his lordship's candour here. — Ed.

swered in such a manner as gave great offence
to the old clergy, yielding up all the points
above mentioned, and not only declaring for Ar
minianism, but making dangerous advances to
wards popery itself The book occasioning a
great noise, Mr. Ward and Yates, two ministers
at Ipswich, made a collection ofthe popish and
Arminian tenets it contained, in order to lay
them before the next Parliament ; but the au
thor, with the king's leave, took shelter under
the royal wing, and prepared for the press his
"Apello Cesarem," or a just appeal from two
unjust informers ; which White, bishop of Car-'
lisle, hcensed in these words, that " there was
nothing contained in the same but what was
agreeable to the public faith, doctrine, and dis
cipline established in the Church of England."
But before the book was published the king
died. These advances of the court divines towards
popery made most ofthe people fall in with the
Puritans, who, being constant preachers, and
of exemplary lives, wrought them up by their
awakening sermons to an abhorrence of every
thing that looked that way.* Many of the no
bUity and gentry favoured them. Lady Bowes,
afterward Lady Darcy, gave £1000 per annum
to maintain preachers in the north, where there
were none, and all her preachers were silenced
Nonconformists. Almost aH the famous prac
tical writers of this reign, except Bishop An
drews, were Puritans, and sufferers for non
conformity, as Dr. WUlet, Mr. Jer. Dyke, Dr.
Preston, Sibbs, Byfield, Bolton, Hildersham,
Dod, BaU, Whately, and others, whose works
have done great service to religion. The char
acter of these divines was the reverse of what
the learned Seldenf gives ofthe clergyt of these
times in his "History of Tithes," where he
taxes them with ignorance and laziness ; and
adds, " that they had nothing to support their
credit but beard, title, and habit ; and that their
learning reached no farther than theposlils and
the polyanthia." Upon the whole, if we may
believe Mr. Coke, the Puritan party had gather
ed so much strength, and was in such reputation
with the people, that they were raore in number
than all the other parties in the kingdom put
together. * Rothwell, p. 69, annexed to his General Martyr
ology. t In Preface, p. 1, second edition, 1618.
X Bishop 'VVarburton severely censures Mr. Neal
for applying the words of Selden as if spoken of the
episcopal clergy. " Here," says he, " is another of
the historian's arts ; Selden speaks of the Puritan
clergy." Not to urge, in reply, that Selden can be
understood as speaking of those clergy only to whom
his doctrine of tithes would be offensive, who could
not be the Puritan clergy, it is fortunate for our au
thor that his interpretation of Selden's words is sanc
tioned by Heylin, who represents Selden's work as
the execution of " a plot set on foot to subvert the
Church, in the undoing of the clergy. The au ihor,"
he adds, "was highly magnified, the book held un
answerable, and all the clergy looked on but as pig
mies to that great Goliath." And then, to show that
the reproach cast on the clergy was not well found
ed, he appeals to the answers given to Selden by
Nettles, FeUow of Queen's College, Cambridge, Dr.
Montague, and Archdeacon TUlesly. " By which,"
says Heylin, " he found that some of the ignorant
and lazy clergy were of as retired studies as himself;
and could not only match, but overmatch him, too, in
his philology." If Mr. Neal misrepresented Selden,
so did Heybn.— Heylin's Hist, of Presb., p. 391.— Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

277

With regard to King James himself, it is.
hard to draw his just character, for no prince
was ever so much flattered who so little de
served it. He was of a middle stature, not
very corpulent, but stuffed out with clothes,
which hung so loose, and being quilted, were
so thick as to resist a dagger. His counte
nance was homely, and his tongue too big for
his mouth, so that he could not speak with de
cency. WhUe he was in Scotland he appeared
sober and chaste, and acquired a good degree
of learning,* but, upon his accession to the
English crown, he threw off the mask, and by
degrees gave himself up to luxury and ease,
and all kinds of licentiousness. His language
was obscene, and his actions very often lewd
and indecent. He was a profane swearer, and
would often be drunk, and when he came to
himself would weep like a child, and say he
hoped God would not impute his infirmities to
him. He valued himself upon what he called
kingcraft, which was nothmg else but deep
hypocrisy and dissimulation in every character
of life, resulting from the excessive timorous-
ness of his nature. If we consider him as a
king, he never did a great or generous action
throughout the course of his reign,t but prosti
tuted the honour of the English nation beyond
any of his predecessors. He stood still while
the Protestant religion was suppressed in
France, in Bohemia, in the Palatinate, and
other parts of Germany. He surrendered up
the cautionary townsj to the Dutch for less

* " His learning," observes Dr. Warner, " was not
that of a prince, but a pedant, and made him more fit
to take the chair in pubUc schools than to sit on the
throne of kings." He was one of those princes
" who," as Bishop Shipley expresses it, " was so un
wise as to write books." The only thing that does
him honour as an author is, that Mr. Pope pro
nounced his version of the Psalms the very best in
the English language. — Warner's Eccles. Hist., vol.
ii., p. 508.— Ed.
t To this Dr. Grey opposes his bounty to the
Church of Ripon, in "Vorkshire, in which he founded
a dean and chapter of seven prebendaries, and set
tled i247 per annum of crown-lands for their main
tenance. The doctor also quotes from Fuller, Vi^il-
son, and Laud, warm encomiums of his liberaUty.
But it ought to be considered whether a liberahty
which did not, as Dr. Warner says, " flow from rea
son or judgment, but from whim, or mere benignity
of humours," deserved such praises. Besides, Mr.
Neal evidently refers to " such great and generous
actions" as advance the interest and prosperity of a
kingdom, and add to the national honour; This
cannot be said of favours bestowed on parasites and
jovial companions, or on a provision made that a few
clerical gentlemen may loU in stalls, — Ed.
X These were the BriU and Flushing, with some
other places of less note ; and Dr, Grey, to screen the
reputation of James from Mr. Neal's implied reflec
tion, observes that the Dutch had pawned these
towns to Queen Elizabeth for sums of money which
she lent them when they were distressed by the
Spaniards. The sum borrowed on this security was
eight mUlions of florins, and they were discharged
for ten mUUons seven hundred and twenty-eight
thousand florins, though eighteen years' interest
was due. In equity and by stipulation, the Dutch
had a right, on repaying the money, to reclaim the
towns they had mortgaged. This Dr. Grey must be
understood as insinuating by setting up the fact of
the mortgage in defence of James's character. Yet,
in aU just estimation, his character must ever suffer
by his surrender of these towns. He restored them

than a fourth part of the value, and suffered
them to dispossess us of our factories in the
East Indies. At home, he committed the di
rection of all affairs in Church and State to two
or three favourites, and cared not what they
did if they gave him no trouble. He broke
through all the laws of the land, and was as
absolute a tyrant as his want of courage would
admit.* He revived the projects of monop
olies, loans, benevolences, &c., to supply his
exchequer, which was exhausted by his pro-
fuseness towards his favourites, and laid the
foundation of all the calamities of his son's
reign. Upon the whole, though he was flatter
ed by hungry courtiers as the Solomon and
phcenix of his age, he was, in the opinion of
Bishop Burnet, " the scorn of the age, a mere
pedant, without true judgment, courage, or
steadiness, his reign being a continued course
of mean practices."
It is hard to make any judgment of his reli
gion ; for one while he was a Puritan, and then
a zealous churchman ; at first a Calvinist and
Presbyterian, afterward a Remonstrant or Ar
minian ; and at last a half, if not an entire, doc
trinal papist. Sir Ralph Winwood, in his Me
moirs, says that, as long ago as the year 1596,
he sent Mr. Ogilby, a Scots baron, to Spain, to
assure his Catholic majesty he was then ready
to turn papist, and to propose an alliance with
that king and the pope against the Queen of
England, but for reasons of state the affair was
hushed, t Rapin says he was neither a sound
Protestant nor a good Catholic, but had formed
a plan of uniting both churches, which must
effectuaUy have ruined the Protestant interest,
for which, indeed, he never expressed any real
concern. But I am rather of opinion that all
his religion was his boasted kingcraft. He was
certainly the meanest prince that ever sat on
the British throne.t England never sunk in its

without an equivalent, and without *'ue advice or
consent of Parliament, to raise mon'^y to lavish on
his favourites. And by this step he lost the depend-
ance those provinces before had on the English
crown. — See this matter fully stated in Rapin's His
tory, vol. u., p. 122, and 191, 192 ; and by Dr. Harris
in his Life of James I, p. 162-167. — Ed.
* In this book, entitled " The True Law of Free,
Monarchy," he asserted that " the Parliament is no
thing else but the head court of the king and his
vassals ; that the laws are but craved by his subjects ;
and that, in short, he is above the law." This is a
proof that his speculative notions of regal power
were, as Mr. Granger expresses it, -* as absolute as
those of an Eastern monarch." — Secret History of
Charles IL, vol. i., Introduc, p. 20., the note.— Ed.
t A copy of this infamous letter to Pope Gregory
XV., under date September 30, 1662, is to be found
in a rare volume by the title of " Cabala, or My.ste-
ries of State, in Letters of the Great Ministers of
King James and Charles ; wherein much of the Pub-
lique Manage of Affaires is related. Faithfully col
lected by a Noble hand," London, 1634. — C.
} To Mr. Neal's character of James Dr. Grey par
ticularly opposes that drawn of him by the pen of
Spotswood, who was preferred by him to the arch
bishopric of St. Andrew's. " In this, Dr Harris,"
says Grey, "did not quite so right. For court bish
ops, by some fate or other, from the time of Constan
tine down, at least, to the death of James, and a lit
tle after, have had the characters of flatterers, pane
gyrists, and others of like import, and, therefore, are
always to have great abatements made in the ac
counts of their benefactors ; it being well known

278

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

reputation, nor was so much exposed to the
scorn and ridicule of its neighbours, as in his
reign. How wUling his majesty was to unite
with the papists, the foregoing history has dis
covered ; and yet, in the presence of many
lords, and in a very remarkable manner, he
made a solemn protestation " that he would
spend the last drop of blood in his body before
he would do it ; and prayed that before any of
his issue should maintain any other religion
than his own [the Protestant], that God would
take them out ofthe world." How far this im
precation took place on himself, or any of his
posterity, I leave, with Mr. Archdeacon Echard,
to the determination of an Oraniscient Being.*

CHAPTER III. •
FROM THE DEATH OF KING JAMES I. TO THE DISSO
LUTION OF THE THIRD PARLIAMENT OF KING
CHARLES I. IN THE YEAR 1628.
Before we enter upon this reign, it will be
proper to take a short view of the court, and of
the most active ministers under the king for
the first fifteen years.
King Charles I. came to the crown at the
age of twenty-five years, being born at Dura-
ferling, in Scotland, in the year 1600, and bap
tized by a Presbyterian minister of that country.
In his youth he was of a weakly constitution
and staoimering speech ; his legs were some
what crooked, and he was suspected (says Mr.
Echard) to be of a perverse nature. 'When his
father [King James] came to the English crown,,
he look him from his Scots tutors and placed
him under those who gave hira an early aver
sion to that kirk into which he had been bap-
tized,t and to those doctrines of Christianity
that such they endeavour to hand down to posterity
under the notion of saints, as they always blacken
and deface their adversaries." — Life of James I., p.
246, 247.— Ed.
* The reader wUl be pleased to hear the senti
ments of a learned foreigner on the reign and char
acter of King James. The same bias wUl not be im-
5uted to him as to Mr. Neal. " In the year 1625 died
ames I., the bitterest enemy of the doctrine and
^liscipline of the Puritans, to which he had been in
his youth most warmly attached ; the most inflex
ible and ardent friend of the Arminians, in whose
ruin and condemnation in Holland he had been sin
gularly instrumental ; and the most zealous defender
of episcopal govemment, against which he had more
than once expressed himseff in the strongest terms.
He left the Constitution of England, both ecclesias
tical and civil, in a very unsettled and fluctuating
state, languishing under intestjne disorders of vari
ous kinds." — Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, trans
lated by Maclaine, second edition, vol. iv., p. 517,
518.— Ed.
t The expression here, whether it be Mr. Neal's
own or that of any writer of the times, is inaccurate,
improper, and proceeds upon a wrong notion of the
design of baptism. This rite, resting solely on the
authority of Christ, refers not to the peculiar senti
ments of the Church, or the particular party of Chris
tians among whom a person may happen to have it
administered to him. It expresseth a profession of
Christianity only, and refers exclusively to the au
thority of its Author, acting in the name of God the
Father, and having his ministry sealed by the gifts
of the Holy Spirit The notion of being baptized
into Ihe Kirk of Scotland, or into the Church of Eng-

which they held in the greatest veneration.
¦As the court of King James leaned towards po
pery* and arbitrary power, so did the prince,
especially after his journey into Spain, where
he imbibed not only the pernicious maxims of
that court, but their reserved and distant beha-
viour.t He assured the pope by letter, in order
to obtain a dispensation to marry the infanta,

land, is entirely repugnant to the reasoning of Paul
in 1 Cor., i., wlio, as Dr Clarke expresses, " we find
was very careful, was very solicitous, not to give any
occasion to have it thought that there was any such
thing as the doctrine *f Paul, much less any such
thing as the doctrine of the Church of Corinth or
Rome, or of any other than Christ only, in whose
name only we were baptized." — Clarke's Sermons, vol.
iv,, p, 95, 8vo.— Ed, (Toulmin).
* Dr Grey controverts this assertion of Mr. Neal,
and calls it " groundless ;" with a view to confute it,
he quotes Rymer, Clarendon, and Bishop Fleetwood.
The first and last authorities go to prove only the
king's firm adherence to Protestantism and the
Church of England, so far as concerned his own
personal profession of religion ; the former alleges
that the attempt of the court of Spain to convert him
to popery was inefficient ; the latter is only a pulpit
eulogium to the memory of Charles on the 30th of
January. The quotation from Lord Clarendon ap
parently proves more than these authorities, for it
asserts " that no man was more averse from the Ro
mish Church than he [i. e.. King Charles] was,"
But, to be consistent with himself, his lordship must
be understood with a limitation, as speaking of his
remoteness from a conformity to popery in his own
belief and practice, not of his disposition towards
that religion as professed by others. Dr. Harris has
produced many proofs that the king was not a pa
pist himself But he has also evinced, by many
authorities, that professed papists were favoured,
caressed, and preferred at court. The articles of
the marriage-treaty, to which he signed and sol
emnly swore, sanctioned the profession of that re
ligion in his kingdom. The clergy, who enjoyed the
smiles of the court, preached in favour of the prac
tices and tenets of popery. And popish recusants
were not only tolerated, but protected by this prince.
—See Harris's Life of Charles I, p. 198 to 204, and
from p. 204 to 208. 'The facts of this nature are also
amply stated in " An Essay towards attaining a true
Idea of the Character and Reign of King Charles
1.," chap. ix. On these grounds Mr. Neal is fully
vindicated, for he speaks, it should be observed, not
of the king's being a papist, but of his " leaning to
wards popery." But it might be sufficient to quote
against Dr. Grey even Lord Clarendon only, who
tells us •' that the papists were upon the matter ab
solved from the severest parts of the law, and dis
pensed with for the gentlest. They were looked
upon as good subjects at court, and as good neigh
bours in the country, all the restraints and reproach
es of former times being forgotten." His lordship
expatiates largely on the favours they received and
on the boldness they assumed. — History of Ihe Rebel
lion, vol. i., p. 148, 8vo, edit, of 1707.— Ed.
t In confutation or this assertion. Dr. Grey quotes
Rushworth, who says, that at the court of Spain
"Prince Charles gained a universal love, and earned
it, from first to last, with the greatest affabUity."
The doctor did not observe that his authority was
not to the point, for Mr. Neal speaks of Charles's
deportment after he had been in Spain, and of his
general temper : Rushworth's delineation is confined
to his conduct at court, where he was treated with
all imaginable respect, and when the object of his
visit would of course animate a youth to good-hu
mour, politeness, and gallantry. Mr. Neal is fully
supported by many authorities, which the reader
may see collected by Dr. Harris, p. 68-72, and " An
Essay towards attaining a true Idea," &c., chap, l
—Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

279

" that he would not marry any mortal whose
-religion he hated ; he might therefore depend
upon it that he would always abstain from such
.actions as might testify a hatred to the Roman
Catholic religion, and would endeavour that all
sinister opinions might be taken away ; that as
we 'all profess one individual Trinity, we may
unanimously grow up into one faith." His
majesty began his reign upon most arbitrary
principles, and though he had good natural abil
ities, was always under the direction of some
J"avourite, to whose judgment and conduct he
was absolutely resigned. Nor was he ever
-master of so much judgraent in politics as to
-discern his own and the nation's true interest,
-or to take the advice of those who did. With
regard to the Church, he was a punctual ob-
:server of its ceremonies, and had the highest
•dislike and prejudice to that part of his sub
jects who were against the ecclesiastical con
stitution, " looking upon them as a very dan
gerous and seditious people, who would, under
pretence of conscience, which kept them from
.submitting to the spiritual jurisdiction, take
the first opportunity they could find or make,"
says. Lord Clarendon,* " to withdraw them
selves from his temporal jurisdiction ; and,
therefore, his majesty caused this people [the
Puritans] to be watched and provided against
with the utmost vigilance."
Upon his raajesty's accession, and before the
-solemnity of his father's funeral, he married
Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry IV., and
-sister of Louis XIII., then king of France. The
marriage was solemnized by proxy ; first at
Paris, with all the ceremonies of the Romish
'Church, and afterward at Canterbury, according
to the rites of the Church of England ; and the
-articles being in a manner the same with those
already mentioned in the Spanish match. Her
majesty arrived at Dover, June 13, 1625, and
-(brought with her a long train of priests and
menial servants of the Romish religion ; for
whose devotion a chapel was fitted up in the
king's house at St. James's. "The queen was
an agreeable and beautiful lady, and by degrees,"
;says Lord Clarendon, " obtained a plenitude of
power over the king. His majesty had her in
perfect adoration,t and would do nothing with
out her, but was inexorable as to everything
'that he promised her." Bishop Burnet says,
-" The queen was a lady of great vivacity, and
loved intrigues of all sorts, but was not secret
in thera as she ought ; she had no manner of
judgment, being bad at contrivance, but worse
at execution. By the liveliness of her dis
course, she made great impressions upon the
iing ; so that to the queen's little practice, and
the king's own temper, the sequel of all his mis
fortunes was owing." Bishop Kennel adds,
-" that the king's match with this lady was a
^greater judgment to the nation than the plague,
which then raged in the land ; for, considering
"the malignity of the popish religion, the impe-
riousness of the French government, the influ
ence of a stately queen over an affectionate
husband, and the share she must needs have in

* Clarendon, vol. i., p. 81.
t " Whoever sees her charming portrait at Wind
sor," says Mr. Granger, " wiU cease to admire at her
£reat influence over the king," — The Biographical
History of England, vol. ii., p. 96, 8vo.— Ed.

the education of hei' children [till thirteen years
of age], it was then easy to foresee it might
prove very fatal to our English prince and peo
ple, and lay in a vengeance to future genera
tions." The queen was a very great bigot lo
her religion ;* her conscience was directed by
her confessor, assisted by the pope's nuncio,
and a secret cabal of priests and Jesuits.
These controlled the queen, and she the king ;
so that in effect the nation was governed by
popish counsels, till the Long Parliament.
The prime minister under the king was G.
VUliers, duke of Buckingham, a graceful young
gentleman, but very unfit for his high station.
He had full possession of the king's heart, in
somuch that his majesty broke measures with
aU his parliaments for his sake. " Most men,"
says Lord Clarendon,t " imputed aU the calami
ties of the nation to his arbitrary councils ; so
that few were displeased at the news of his
murder by Felton, in the year 1628, when he
was not above thirty-four years of age."
Upon the duke's death. Dr. WUIiam Laud,
then Bishop of London, became the chief minis
ter both in Church and State.t He was born at
Reading, and educated in St. John's CoUege,
Oxford, upon the charitable donation of Mr.
White, founder of Merchant Tailors' School.
Here he continued tiU he was fifty years of age,
and behaved in such a manner that nobody
knew what to think of him. " I would I knew,"
says the pious Bishop Hall in one of his let
ters, " where to find you : to-day you are with
the Romanists, to-morrow with us ; our adver
saries think you ours, and we theirs ; your con
science finds you with both and neither : how
long wiU you halt in this indifferencyV Dr.
Abbot says, " He spent his time in picking quar
rels with the lectures of public readers, and
giving advice to the then Bishop of Durham,
that he might fill the ears ofthe king [James I.]
with prejudices against honest men, whora he
called Puritans. "5 Heylin confesses it was
thought dangerous to keep him company. By
the interest of Bishop Williams, he was first
advancedjl to a Welsh bishopric, and from

* As the demand to have the solemnity of the cor
onation performed by the bishops of her own reUgion
was refused, and such was her bigotry it would not
permit her to join in our church ceremonies, she
appeared, therefore, as a spectator only on that occa
sion. — Granger, as before, vol. ii., p. 96, note. — En.
t Clarendon, vol. i., p. 837.
X " As to his preferments in the state," says Dr.
Grey, " 1 should be glad to know what they were."
Though the doctor, who was ignorant of them, is
now out of the reach of a reply, for the information of
the reader they shall be mentioned. In 1635 he was
put into the great committee of trade ; and on the
death of the Earl of Portland, was made one of the
commissioners of the treasury and revenue ; " which,"
says Lord Clarendon, " he had reason to be sorry
for, because it enga,ged him in civil business and
matters of state." — History of the Rebellion, vol. i., p.
98, Svo, 1707. British Biography, vol. iv., p. 269. —
Ed. ^ Rushworth, vol. i., p. 444.
II To refute this account of the cause of Laud's
preferment. Dr. Grey quotes Mr. Wharton. The
circumstance in itself is of no importance to the
credit or design of Mr. Neal's history. And the pas
sage even admits the fact that Laud owed his prefer
ments to Bishop Williams's solicitations, on the au
thority of Laud's Diary and Bishop Hacket, WUl-
iams's biographer ; but the drift of Mr. Wharton is
to exculpate Laud frcrnithe charge of , ingratitude to

280

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

thence by degrees to the highest preferments
in Church and State, He was a little man, of a
quick and rough temper, impatient of contradic
tion even at the council-table, of arbitrary prin
ciples both in Church and .state, always inclined
to methods of severity, especially against the
Puritans ; vastly fond of external pomp and cer
emony in Divine worship ; and though he was
not an absolute papist, tie was ambitious of
being the sovereign patriarch of three king
doms.* Lord-chief-justice Finch was a man of little
knowledge in his profession, except it was for
making the laws of the land give place to or
ders of councU. Mr. Attorney-general Noyt
-was a man of affected pride and morosity, who
valued himself (says Lord Clarendont) upon
making that to be law which aU other men be
lieved not to be so. Indeed, aU the judges
were of this stamp, who, instead of upholding
the law as the defence and security of the sub
jects' privUeges, set it aside upon every little
occasion, distinguishing between a rule of law
and a rule of government : so that those whom
they could not convict by statute law were
sure to suffer by the rule of government, or a
kind of political justice. The judges held their
places during the king's pleasure ; and when
the prerogative was to be stretched in any par
ticular instances. Laud would send for tlieir
opinions beforehand, to give the greater sanc
tion lo the proceedings of the councU and Star
Chamber, by whom they were often put in mind,
that if they did not do his majesty's business to
satisfaction, they would be removed. Upon
the whole, they were mercenary men, and (ac
cording to Lord Clarendon) scandalous to their
profession. The courts of Westminster Hall had little to
do between the crown and the subject ; all bu
siness of this kind being transferred lo the
council-table, the Star Chamber, and the Court
of High Commission,
The council-table was the Legislature of the
kingdom, their proclamations and orders being
made a rule of government, and the measure of
the subject's obedience. Though there was
not one single law enacted in twelve years,
there were no less than two hundred and fifty
proclamations ; every one of which had the
force of a law, and bound the subject under the
severest penalties. The Lord-keeper Finch,
upon a demurrer put into a bill that had rio
other equity than an order of councU, declared
upon the bench, that while he was keeper, no
man should be so saucy as to dispute those
orders, but that the wisdom of that board should
always be ground good enough for him to make
a decree in Chancery. Judge Berkeley, upon a
like occasion, declared that there was a rule of
law and a rule of government, that many
things that might not be done by the rule of

Bishop Williams on this ground ; that the latter, in
the service he rendered the former, was not actuated
by kindness, but by selfish and interested views.
This does not confute, in any degree, Mr. Neal,
who says nothing about the motives by which Bishop
Williams was governed. — C.
* Clarendon, vol. i., p. 99.
t Bishop Warburton censures Mr. Neal for not
informing his reader that Noy was a great lawyer.
X Clarendon, vol. i., p. 71, 73, 74.

law, might be done by the rule of govern
ment :* his lordship added, that no act of Pdr-
liament could bind the king not lo command
away his subjects' goods and money.
"The Star Chamber," says Lord Clarendon, f
" was in a manner the same court wilh the couri-
cil-lable, being but the same persons in several
rooms : they were both grown into courts of
law, to determine right ; and courts of rev
enue, to bring money into the treasury : the
councU-table by proclamations enjoining to the
people what w-as not enjoined by law, and pro
hibiting that which was not prohibited ; and the
Star Chamber censuring the breach and disobe
dience to those proclamations, by very great
fines and imprisonment; so that any disrespect
to any acts of state, or to the persons of states
men, was in no time more penal, and those
foundations of right by which men valued their
security, vvere never in more danger of being-,
destroyed. "The High Commission also had very much.
overflowed the banks that should have contained
it, not only in meddling with things not withini
their cognizance, but in extending their sen
tences and judgments beyond that degree that
was justifiable, and grew lo have so great a.
contempt of the common law, and the profes
sors of it, that prohibitions from the supreme-
courts of law, which have and must have the
superintendency over aU the inferior courts,
were not only neglected, but the judges were-
reprehended for granting them, which, without
perjury, they could not deny. J Besides, from
an ecclesiastical court for reforraation of man
ners, it was grown to a court of revenue, and
imposed great fines upon those who were cul
pable before them ; sometimes above the de
gree of the offence, had the jurisdiction of fining-
been unquestionable, which it was not ; which
course of fining was much raore frequent, and
the fines heavier, after the king had granted aU
that revenue for the reparation of St. Paul's,.
which made the grievance greater ;" and gave-
occasion to an unlucky observation, that the
church was built with the sins of the people.
These commissioners, not content with the bu
siness that was brought before them, sent their
commissaries over the whole kingdora to su
perintend the proceedings of the bishops' courts
in their several diocesses, which of themselves
made sufficient havoc among the Puritans, and
were under a general odium for the severe ex
ercise of their power : but if the bishop or his
officers were negligent in their citations, or
showed any degree of favour to Ihe Puritan
ministers, notice was immediately sent to Lam
beth, and the accused persons were cited be
fore the High Commission, to their utter ruin.
They also detained men in prison many months,
without bringing them to a trial, or so much as
acquainting them with the cause of their com
mitment. Sir Edward Deering says, that
"their proceedings were in some sense worsfr
than the Romish Inquisition, because they do
not punish men of their own religion establish
ed by law ; but with us," says he, " how many
scores of poor distressed ministers, within a.
few years, have been suspended, degraded, and
excommunicated, though not guilty of a breach

* Clarendon, vol. i.,
t Ibid., p. 68, 69.

p. 74.

X Ibid., p. 283.

ed hv G=irnher Tr^-'rn a?i > 'n.

!>n ;r'i rr-C)",;

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

28-1

of any established law !" AU which was so
much the worse, because they knew that the
court had no jurisdiction of fining at aU ; for
the House of Coramons, in the third and sev
enth of King James I,, resolved that the Court
of High Commission's fining and imprisoning
men for ecclesiastical offences was an intoler
able grievance, oppression, and vexation, not
warranted by the statute 1 Eliz., chap. i. And
Sir Edward Coke, with the rest of the judges,
at a conference with the prelates, in the pres
ence of King James, gave it as their unanimous
opinion, that the High Commission could fine
in no case, and imprison only in cases of heresy
and incontinence of a minister, and that only
after conviction, but not by way of process be
fore it, so that the jurisdiction of the court to
fine was not only questionable, but null and
void. Notwithstanding which, they hunted after
their prey with full cry, " and brought in the
greatest and most splendid transgressors ; per
sons of honour and great quality," Says the no
ble historian, "were every day cited into the
High Commission, upon the fame of their in-
continency or scandal of Ufe, and very heavy
fines were levied upon them, and applied to the
repairing of St. Paul's Cathedral."
Upon the accession of King Charles to the
throne, the Duke of Buckinghara threw off the
mask, and shook hands with his old friend Dr.
Preston, whom he never loved any farther than
as a tool to promote his interest among the peo
ple. Laud was his confessor and privy-coun
sellor for the Church, whose first care was to
have none but Arminian and anti-Puritanical
chaplains about the king : for this purpose, he
drew up a small treatise and put it into the
duke's hand, proving the Arminian doctrines to
be orthodox, and showing, in ten particulars,
that the anti-Arminian tenets were no better
than doctrinal Puritanism. Agreeably to the
scheme, he presented the duke [AprU 9] with a
list of divines for his majesty's chaplains, dis
tinguishing their characters by the two capital
letters 0. for orthodox [that is, Arminian], and
P. for Puritans [that is, Calvinists]. At the
same time, he received orders to consult Bish
op Andrews how to manage, with respect to the
five distinguishing points of Calvinism, in the
ensuing convocation ; but the wise bishop ad
vised his brother by all means to be quiet, and
keep the controversy out of the house : " for,"
says he, " the truth in this point is not so gen
erally entertained among the clergy ; nor is
Archbishop Abbot, nor many of the prelates, so
inclinable to it as to venture the deciding it in
convocation." It was, therefore, wisely drop
ped, the majority of the Lower House being
zealous Calvinists ; and forty-five of them (ac
cording to Dr. Leo, who was one of the num
ber) had made a covenant among themselves to
oppose everything that tended towards Pelagi
an ism or semi-Pelagian ism : but the controversy
was warmly debated without doors, till the king
put a stop to it by his royal declaration.
Popery advanced hand in hand with Armini
anism, and began the disputes between the king
and his first Pariiament, which met June 16,
1623. His majesty, towards the close of his
speech, having asked their assistance for the
recovery of the Palatinate, assured them that,
though he had been suspected as to his religion.
Vol. I.— N n

he would let the world see that none should be
more desirous to maintain the religion he pro
fessed than himself The houses thanked the
king for his most gracious speech, but, before
they entered upon other business, joined in a
petition against popish recusants, which his
majesty promised to examine, and give a satis
factory answer to the particulars.
The petition sets forth the causes ofthe in
crease of popery, with the remedies : the caus
es are.
The want of the due execution of the laws
against them. The interposing of foreign pow
ers by their ambassadors and agents in their
favour. The great concourse of papists to the-
city, and their frequent conferences and con
venticles there. Their open resort to the chap
els of foreign ambassadors. The education of
their children in foreign seminaries. The want
of sufficient instruction in the Protestant reli
gion in several places of the country. The li
centious printing of popish books. The em
ployment of men ill affected to the Protestant.
religion in places of government.*
They therefore pray that the youth of the
kingdom may be carefully educated under Prot
estant schoolmasters ; which his majesty, in his
answer to their petition, promised : That the
ancient discipline ofthe universities may be re
stored ; which his majesty approved : That the
preaching of the Word of God may be enlarged ;
and that to this purpose the bishops be advised
to make use of the labours of such able minis
ters as have been formerly silenced, advising
and beseeching them to behave themselves
peaceably ; and that pluralities, nonresidences,
and commendams may be moderated. Answer-
" This his majesty approved, so far as the min
isters would conform to church government.
But he apprehends that pluralities, &c., are
now so moderated that there is no room for
complaint ; and recommends it to the Parlia
ment to take care that every parish allow a.
competent maintenance for an able minister."
That provision might be made against trans
porting children to popish seminaries, and for
recalling those that were there. Answ. " To-
this his raajesty agreed." That no popish re
cusant be admitted to come to court but upon,
special occasion, according to statute 3 Jac.
Answ. " This also his raajesty promised."
That the laws against papists be put in execu
tion, and that a day be fixed for the departurs-
of all Jesuits and seminary-priests out of the
kingdora, and that no natural-born subject, nor
strange bishops, nor any other by authority from
the see of Rome, confer any ecclesiastical or
ders, or exercise any ecclesiastical function,,
upon your majesty's subjects. Answ. " It shall
be so published by proclamation." That your
majesty's learned councU may have orders to
consider of aU former grants of recusant lands,
that such may be avoided as are avoidable by
law. Answ. " It shaU be done according as is-
desired." That your majesty give order ta
your judges and all officers of justice to see
the laws against popish recusants duly execu
ted. Answ. " His majesty leaves the laws to
their course." That your majesty wUl remove
from places of authority and government all
popish recusants. Answ. " His majesty will

* Rushworth, p. 183-186.

282

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

¦give order accordingly." That order be taken
for disarming aU popish recusants convict ac
cording to law, and that popish recusants be
commanded to retire to their houses, and be
confined within five miles of home. Answ,
"The laws shall be put in execution." That
none of your raajesty's natural-born subjects go
to hear mass at the houses or chapels of foreign
ambassadors. .-\.nsw. "The king wUI give or
der accordingly." That the statute of 1 Eliz.,
for the payment of twelvepence every Sunday
by such as absent from Divine service in the
church without a lawful excuse, be put in exe
cution. Answ. "The king promises the pen
alties shall not be dispensed with." That your
majesty wiU extend your princely care to Ire
land, that the like course may be taken there
for establishing the true religion. Answ. " His
majesty will do all that a rehgious king can do
in that affair."'
It is surprising that the king should make
these promises to his Parliament within six
months after he had signed his marriage- arti
cles, in which he had agreed lo set all Roman
Catholics at liberty, and to suffer no search or
molestation of them for their religion, and had,
in consequence of it, pardoned twenty Romish
priests, and (in imitation of his royal father) giv
en orders to his lord-keeper lo direct the judg
es and justices of peace all over England " lo
forbear aU manner of proceedings against his
Roman Catholic subjects, by information, in-
<lictment, or otherwise ; it being his royal pleas
ure that there should be a cessation of all and
singular pains and penalties whereunto they
were liable by any laws, statutes, or ordinances
of this realm. "+ But, as a judicious writer ob
serves,! it seems to have been a maxim in this
and the last reign that no faith is to be kept
with parliaments. The papists were apprized
of the reasons of state that obliged the king to
comply outwardly with what he did not really
intend ; and, therefore, though his majesty di
rected a letter to his archbishop [December 15,
1625] to proceed against popish recusants, and
a proclamation was published to recall the Eng
lish youths from popish seminaries, little regard
"was paid to them. The king himself released
eleven Romish priests out of prison, by special
warrant, the next day ; the titular Bishop of
Chalcedon, by letters dated June 1, 1625, ap
pointed a popish viear-general and archdeacons
aU over England,^ whose names were published

* Rushworth, p. 173.
+ The remark of Dr. Warner here is too pertinent
.and forcible, especially considering from whose pen
it comes, to be omitted. " These gracious answers of
his majesty," says he, " to the several articles of the
petition presented to him by both houses of Parlia
ment, wanted nothing but the performance of the
promises which he made, to gain him the love of all
his Protestant subjects. But if we may judge bythe
continual complaints of the Parhament throughout
this reign, about these very points on which the king
had given this satisfaction, we shall find reason to
think that his promises were observed no betier than
James his father observed his." — Warner's Eccles.
Hist., vol. u., p. 513.— Ed. X Rapin.
ij FuUer teUs us that this titular Bishop of Chal
cedon, whose name was Smith, appeared in his pon-
tificabUus in Lancashire, with his mitre and crozier.
This was an evident proof that the Catholics pre
sumed on the indulgence and connivance, if not the
protection, of the court. To show which, the fact

in the year 1643 ;* and when the next Parlia
ment petitioned for the removal of papists from
offices of trust, il appeared, by a list annexed
to their petition, that there were no less than
fifty-nine ofthe nobility and gentry of ihat reli
gion then in the commission t
But the king not only connived at the Roman
Cathohcs at home, but, unhappily, contributed to
the ruin ofthe Protestant religion abroad. Car
dinal Richelieu having formed a design to extir
pate the Huguenots of France, by securing aU
their places of strength, laid siege to Rochelle,
a seaport town with a good harbour and a num
ber of ships sufficient for its defence. Richelieu,
taking advantage of the king's late match with
France, sent to borrow seven or eight ships,
lo be employed as the King of France shoultl
direct, who appointed them lo block up the
harbour of Rochelle; but when the honest sail
ors were told where they were going, they
declared they would rather be thrown over
board, or hanged upon the top of the masts,
than fight against their Protestant brethren.
Notwithstanding Admiral Pennington and the
French officers used all their rhetoric to per
suade them, they remained inflexible. The ad
miral, therefore, acquainted the king, who sent
him a warrant to the following effect : " That
he should consign his own ship immediately
into the hands of the French admiral, with all
her equipage, artiUery, &c,,and require the oth
er seven to put themselves into the service of
our dear brother the French king ; and in case
of backwardness or refusal, we comraand you
to use all forcible raeans, even to their sink
ing." In pursuance of this warrant, the ships
were delivered into the hands of the French,
but all the English sailors and officers desert
ed except two. The French, having got the
ships and artillery, quickly manned them with
sailors of their own religion, and, joining the
rest of the French fleet, they blocked up the
harbour, destroyed the little fleet of the Ro
chellers, and cut off their communication by
sea with their Protestant friends, by which
means they were reduced to all the hardships
of a most dreadful famine ; and after a long
blockade, both by sea and land, were forced to
surrender the chief bulwark of the Protestant
interest in France into the hands of the papists.
To return to the Pariiament. It has been
remembered that Mr. Richard Montague, a
clergyman, and one of the king's chaplains, pub
lished a book in the year 1623, entitled " A new
Gag for an old Goose," in answer to a popish

is brought forward by Mr. Neal, whose candour in
this matter Dr. Grey impeaches, because he does not
inform his reader that the king issued his proclama
tion for apprehending this Romish agent. But il
seems to have escaped Dr. Grey's attention that a
proclamation not issued till the 11th of December,
1628, and not then till drawn from him by a pptuion
of both houses against recusants, can have little
weight against the imputation on the king which
this fact is aUeged to support. — Rushworth's Collec
tions, vol. i., p. 5J1. — Ed.
* Rushworth, p. 158, 159, and Fuller's Church
Hist., b. xi., p. 132, 133.
i See Rushworth's CoUection, vol. i., p. 393, &c.
The names of some of these persons, perhaps, were re
turned only on the ground of suspicion, because their
wives and children were of the Romish communion,
or did not come to church. " Mr, Neal," therefore,
according to Dr. Grey, " nustook Rushworth." — Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

283

Shook, entitled " A Gag for the new Gospel."*
The book containing sundry propositions tend
ing to the public disturbance, was complained
of in the House of Coramons, who, after having
¦examined the author at their bar, referred hira
to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who disraiss-
¦ei him with an express prohibition to write no
more about such matters. But Montague, be
ing encouraged frora court, went on and pub
lished " An Appeal to Caesar," designing it for
King Jaraes ; but he being dead before it was
leady, it was dedicated to King Charles, and
recommended at first by several court-bishops,
who, upon better consideration, artfully with
drew their names from before it, and left Dr.
Francis White to appear by himself, as he com
plained publicly. The appeal was calculated to
promote Arminianism, to attempt a reconciUa-
tion with Rome, and to advance the king's pre
rogative above law. The House appointed a
committee to examine into its errors ; after
which they voted it to be contrary to the Arti
cles ofthe Church of England, and bound the
author in a recognisance of £2000 for his ap
pearance. Bishop Laud, apprehending this to be an in
vasion ofthe prerogative, and a dangerous pre
cedent, joined with two other bishops in a let
ter to the Duke bf Buckingham, to engage his
majesty to take the cause into his own hands :
the letter says,+ " that the Church of England,
when it was reformed, would not be too busy
with school-points of divinity ; now the points
for which Mr. Montague is brought into trouble
are of this kind : some are the resolved doc
trines of the Church of England, which he is
bound to maintain ; and others are fit only for
schools, wherein men may abound in their own
sense. To make men subscribe school-opin
ions is hard, and was one great fault of the
CouncU of Trent. Besides, disputes about doc
trines in religion ought to be determined in a
national synod or convocation, wilh the king's
Jincense, and not in Parliaraent ; if we submit
to any other judge, we shall depart from the
ordinance of Christ, we shaU derogate from the
honour ofthe late king, who saw and approved
of all the opinions in that book ; as well as
from his present majesty's royal prerogative,
who has power and right to take this matter
under his own care, and refer it in a right
course to ehurch consideration. Some of the
opinions which are opposite to Mr. Montague's
WiU prove fatal to the government, if publicly
taught and maintained : when they had been
concluded upon at Lambeth, Queen Elizabeth
caused them to be suppressed, and so they con
tinued, tiU of late some of thera received coun
tenance from the Synod of Dort ; a synod
whose conclusions have no authority in this
country, and it is to be hoped never wiU."
Signed, Jo. Roffensis, Jo. Oxon, and Gulielraus
Menevensis, August 2, 1625.
This letter had its effect, and procured Mon
tague his quietus at present. The king decla
red he would bring the cause before the coun
cil, it being a branch of his supremacy to de-
terraine matters of religion. He expressed his
displeasure against the Coramons for calling

* Rushworth, vol. i., p. 177.
t Cabala, p. 105; Rushworth, vol. i., p. 180, 181,
or 110, 111, of the edition in 1663.

his chaplain to their bar, and for alarming the
nation wilh the danger of popery. B ut these af
fairs, with the king's assisting at the siege of
Rochelle, made such a noise at Oxford, where
the Parliament was reassembled because of the
plague at London, that the king was obliged to
dissolve thera [August 12] before they had
granted the supplies necessary for carrying on
the war. Nor did his majesty pass any act
relating to religion, except one, which was soon
after suspended by his royal declaration ; it
was to prevent unlawful pastimes on the Lord's
Day. The preamble sets forth that the holy
keeping of the Lord's Day is a principal part of
the true service of God : " Therefore it is en
acted that there shall be no assemblies of peo
ple out of their own parishes for any sports or
pastimes whatsoever; nor any bear-baiting,
bull-baiting, interludes, comraon plays, or any
other unlawful exercises or pastimes, within
their own parishes, on forfeiture of three shill
ings and sixpence for every such offence to the
poor." However, this law was never put in
execution. Men were reproached and censu
red for too strict an observation of the Lord's
Day, but none that I have met with for the
profanation of it.
His majesty having dismissed his Parliament
before they had given him the necessary sup
plies for the war with Spain, resolved lo try his
credit in borrowing money, by way of loan, of
such persons as were best able to lend ; for
this purpose gentlemen were taxed at a certain
sum, and had promissory letters under the privy
seal to be repayed in eighteen months.* With
this money the king fitted out a fleet against
Spain, which, after it had waited about two
months for the Plate fleet, returned without do
ing any action worth remembrance.
The ceremony of the king's coronation, t
which was not performed till the beginning of
February, was another expense which his maj
esty thought fit to provide for by issuing out a
proclamation that all such as had £40 a year
or more, and were not yet knights, should come
and receive the order of knighthood, or com
pound for it.| This was a new grievance loud
ly complained of in the foUowing ParUaments.
"The coronation was performed by Archbishop
Abbot, assisted by Bishop Laud as Dean of
Westrainster,^ who, besides the old regalia
which were in his custody, that is, the crown,

* Rushworth, vol. i., p. 196, 197.
t Senhouse, bishop of Carlisle, who had been his
chaplain when Princ* of Wales, was selected to
preach his coronation sermon. The bishop took for
his text Rev., u., 10, " Be thou faithful unto death, and
I will give thee a crown of life," a passage which
was considered by the superstitious as far more suit
able for his funeral sermon than as adapted to the
briUiant occasion on which it was delivered. Charles,
contrary to the custom of his ancestors, had select
ed a robe of white, instead of purple, as his corona
tion dress. There were various portents of ill augu
ry which identified themselves with the inaugura
tion of the Ul-fated monarch. — Court of the Stuarts
by Jesse, vol. U., p. 59, 60. — C.
X Rapin, vol. u., p. 235, 236, folio ed.
Ij Dr. Grey properly corrects Mr. Neal here : Laud
officiated in the place of the Dean of Westminster,
the Bishop of Lincoln, with whom the king was so
displeased, that he would not permit him to perform
any part of the coronation service. — Fuller's Church
Hist., b. X., p. 121.-^Ed.

284

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

the sceptre, the spurs, &e., of King Edward the
Confessor, brought forth an old crucifix, and
placed il upon the altar. .\s soon as the arch
bishop had put the crown upon the king's head,
and performed the other usual ceremonies,* his
majesty being seated on the throne, ready to
receive the homage of the lords. Bishop Laud
came up to him, and read the following extra
ordinary passage, which is not to be found in
former coronations : " Stand, and hold fast
frora henceforth the place to which you have
been heir by the succession of your forefathers,
being now delivered to you by the authority of
Almighty God, and by the hands of us, and aU
the bishops and servants of God. And as you
see the clergy to come nearer to the altar than
others, so remember that in all places conveni
ent you give them greater honour, that the Me
diator of God and man may establish you in
the kingly throne, to be a mediator between the
clergy and the laity, and that you may reign
forever with Jesus Christ, the King of kings,
and Lord of lords, "t This and sundry other
alterations were objected to the archbishop al
his trial, which we shall raention hereafter.
The king's treasury being exhausted, and the
war continuing with Spain, his majesty was
obliged to caU a new Parliament ; but to avoid
the choice of such members as had exclaimed
against the Duke of Buckingham, and insisted
upon redress of grievances, the court pricked
thera down for sheriffs, which disqualified thera
from being rechosen members of Parliament ;
of this number were Sir Edward Coke, Sir Rob
ert Philips, and Sir Thomas Wentworth, after
ward Lord Strafford. The houses met Febru
ary 6, 1626, and fell immediately upon grievan
ces. A committee for religion was appointed,
of which Mr. Pym was chairman, who examin
ed Mr. Montague's writings, viz., his " Gag,"
his " Appeal," and his treatise of the " Invoca
tion of the Saints ;" out of which they collected
several opinions contrary lo the Boole of Homi
lies and the Thirty-nine Articles, which they
reported lo the House ; as,
1. " That he maintained the Church of Rome
is, and ever was, a true church, contrary to
the sixteenth homily ofthe Church of England.
2, " That the said Church had ever remain
ed firm upon the same foundation of sacraments
,and doctrine instituted by God.
3. " That speaking of the doctrines of faith,
hope, and charity, he affirmed that none of
these are controverted between the papists and
Protestants ; but that the controverted points
are of a lesser and inferiof nature, of which a
man may be ignorant without any danger of his
soul, 4, " That he maintained the use of images,
for instruction of the ignorant, and exciting de
votion. 5. " That in his treatise of the ' Invocation
of Saints,' he affirmed that some saints have a
peculiar patronage, custody, protection, and
power (as angels have) over certain persons
and countries.

* The ceremonial of the coronation is given at
length by Fuller, b. xi., p. 121, &c.— Ed,
t " The manuscript coronation-book, which the
king held in his hand, and which is still in being,"
says Dr, Grey, " proves that thp words were not
spoken by Laud, but by the archbishop."— Ed.

6. " That in his ' Appeal ' he maintained
that men justified may fall away from grace,
and may recover again, but not certainly nor
necessarily. 7. " That the said R. Montague has endeav
oured to raise factions among the king's sub
jects, by casting the odious and scandalous
name of Puritans upon those who conform to
the doctrine and ceremonies of the Church.
That he scoffed at preaching, at lectures, and
all shows of religion ; and that the design of
his book was apparently to reconcile the Cliurch
of England wilh the See of Rome."*
In what manner the Coraraons designed to
prosecute this impeachraent is uncertain, for
Montague was not brought to his defence, the
king having intimated again to the House that
their proceeding against him without his leave
was displeasing to hira ; that as to their hold
ing him to baU, he thought his servants miglit
have the same protection as an ordinary bur
gess, and, therefore, he would take the cause
into his own hands ; and soon after dissolved
the Parliament. t
Though the Arminian controversy was thus
wrested out of the hands of the Parliament, it
was warmly debated without doors ; Montague
was attacked in print by Dr. Carleton, bishop
of Chichester ; Dr. Sutcliffe, dean of Exeter ;
Dr, Featly, Dr, Goad, Mr. Ward, Burton, Yates,
Wotton, Prynne, and Fran. Rouse, Esq., &c.
Conferences were appointed lo debate the point
of the possibility of the elects' falling from
grace, t One was at York House, February
11, 1625-6, before the Duke of Buckingham,
Earl of Warwick, and other lords ; Dr. Bucke
ridge, bishop of Rochester, and Dr. White, dean
of Carlisle, being on one side, and Dr. Moreton,
bishop of Coventry, and Dr. Preston, on the
other. The success of the dispute is variously
related ; but the Earl of Pembroke said that
none went from thence Arrainians, save those
who carae thither with the same opinions.
Soon after, February 17, there was a second
conference in the sarae place. Dr. White and
Mr. Montague on one side, and Dr. Moreton and
Preston on the other ¦,lj Dr. Preston carried it
clear at first, by dividing his adversaries, who
quickly perceiving their error, united their for
ces, says my author, in a joint opposition to
him ; but, upon the whole, these conferences
served rather to increase the differences than
abate them. The king, therefore, issued out a
proclamation, containing very express cora
raands not to preach or dispute upon the con
troverted points of Arminianisra. It was dated
January 24, 1626, and sets forth " that the king
wUl admit of no innovation in the doctrine, dis-

* Rushworth, vol. i., p. 213-215,
t Dr. Grey adds here, " yet the king thought fit
to call his book in." "The doctor says this on the
authority of Rushworth, whose farther account of
the proceeding should 'be laid before the reader.
"Ere this proclamation was published," says he,
" the books were for the most part vented and out
of danger of seizure, and the suppressing of all wri
ting and preaching in answer thereunto was (it sePin.»
by some) the thing mainly intended; for the ,-,overal
answers were aU suppressed, and divers of the print
ers questioned by the High Commission."— /JmA-
worih, vol. ii., p. 647. — Ed.
X Prynne's Cant. Doom., p. 158, 159 ; Fuller, b.
ix., p. 124. i) FuUer, b. xi,, p. 125u.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

285

cipline, or government of the Church, and,
therefore, charges all his subjects, and especi
aUy the clergy, not to publish, or maintain In
preaching or writing, any new inventions or
opinions contrary to the said doctrine and dis
cipline established by law, assuring them that
his raajesty wiU proceed against aU offenders
against this order with aU that severity their
conterapt shall deserve, that by the exemplary
punishment of a few, others may be warned
against falling under the just indignation of
their sovereign."*
One would have thought this proclamation to
be in favour of Calvinism, but the execution of
it being in the hands of Laud and the bishops
of his party, the edge was turned against the
Puritans, and it became, says Rushworth, t the
stopping of their mouths, and gave an uncon
trolled liberty to the tongues and pens of the
Arrainian party. Others were of opinion that
Laud and Neile procured this injunction, in or
der to have an opportunity to oppress the Cal
vinists who should venture to break it, whUe
the disobedience of the contrary party should
be winked at. The Puritans thought they might
StiU write in defence of the Thirty-nine Arti
cles ; but the press being in the hands of their
adversaries, some of their books were suppress
ed, some were castrated, and others that got
abroad were called in,t and the authors and
publishers questioned in the Star Chamber and
High Commission for engaging in a controversy
prohibited by the government. By these meth
ods effectual care was taken that the Puritan
and Calvinian -writers should do their adversa
ries no harm ; Bishop Laud, with two or three
of his chaplains, undertaking to judge of truth
and eiTor, civility and good manners, for all the
wise and great men of the nation ; in doing of
which they were so shamefully partial, that
learning and industry were discouraged, men
of gravity and great experience not being able
to persuade themselves to submit their labours
to be mangled and torn in pieces by a few
younger divines, who were both judges and
parties in the affair. At length, the booksellers
being almost ruined, preferred a petition to the
next Parliament^ [1628], complaining that the
writings of their best authors were stifled in the
press, whUe the books of their adversaries [pa
pists and Arminians] were published and spread
over the whole kingdom. Thus Cheney's " Col-
Jectiones TheologiciE," an Arminian and popish
performance, was licensed, when the learned
Dr. Twisse's answer to Arminius, though writ
ten in liUtin, was stopped in the press, || Mr.
Montague's book, entitled " God's Love to Man
kind," was licensed and published, when Dr.
Twisse's reply to the same book vv'as suppress
ed. Many affidavits of this kind were made
against Laud at his trial by the most famous
Calvinistical writers, as will be seen hereafter.
The case was just the same with regard to
books against popery; the queen and the Ro
man Catholics must not be insulted, and, there
fore, all offensive passages, such as caUing the
pope -antichrist, the Chureh of Rome no true

* Rushworth, vol. i., p. 416, Bib. Regia.
t Rushworth, p. 417. Rapin, vol. ii., p. 258, foho
«d. X Prynne, p. 158, 159.
^ Rushworth, vol. i., p. 667.
II Prynne, p. 166, 167, &c.

church, and everything tending to expose ima
ges in churches, crucifixes, penance, auricular
confession, and popish absolution, must be ex
punged. Sir Edward Deering compares the li
censers of the press to the managers of the in
dex expurgalorius among the papists, " who clip
the tongues of such witnesses whose evidences
they do not like; in like manner," says he,
" our licensers suppress the truth, while popish
pamphlets fly abroad cum privilegio ; nay, they
are so bold as to deface the most learned la
bours of our ancient and best divines. But
herein the Roman index is better than ours, that
they approve of their own estabUshed doctrines ;
but our innovators alter our settled doctrines,
and superinduce points repugnant and contrary.
This I do affirm, and can take upon myself to
prove," Terrible were the triumphs of arbitrary pow
er over the liberty and property of the subject,
in the intervals between this and the succeed
ing Parliament; gentlemen of birth and char
acter, who refused to lend what money the
council was pleased to assess them, were taken
out of their houses and imprisoned at a great
distance from their habitations ;* among these
were Sir Thomas Wentworth, Sir Walter Earle,
Sir John Strangeways, Sir Thomas Grantham,
Sir Harbottle Grimstone, John Hampden, Esq.,
and others ; some were confined in the Fleet, the
Marshalsea; the Gate-house, and other prisons
about London, as Sir John EUiot, Mr. Selden,
&c. Upon the -«'hole, there were imprisoned by
order of council nineteen knights, thirteen es
quires, and four gentlemen in the county jaUs ;
three knights, one esquire, and four wealthy
citizens in the Fleet, besides great numbers in
other places. Those of the lower sort who re
fused to lend were pressed for the army, or
had soldiers quartered on them, who, by their
insolent behaviour, disturbed the peace of fam
ilies, and coramitted frequent felonies, burgla
ries, rapines, murders, and other barbarous
cruelties,' insorauch that the highways were
dangerous to travel, and the markets unfre
quented. The king would have borrowed
£100,000 of the city of London, but they ex
cused themselves. However, his majesty got
a round sum of money from the papists, by is
suing a commission to the Archbishop of York
to compound with thera for all their forfeitures
that had been due for recusancy since the tenth
ofKing Jaraes I., or that should be due hereaf
ter. By this fatal policy (says the noble histo
rian) men weU affected to the hierarchy, though
eneraies to arbitrary power, were obliged to side
with the Puritans to save the nation, and ena
ble them to oppose the designs ofthe court.
To convince the people tliat it was their duty
to submit to the loan, the clergy were employed
to preach up the doctrines of passive obedience
and nonresistance, and to prove that the abso
lute submission of subjects to the royal will and
pleasure was the doctrine of Holy Scripture ;t
among those w-as Dr. Sibthorp, a man of mean
parts, hut of sordid ambition, who, in his ser
mon at the Lent assizes at Northampton, from
Romans, xiii., 7, told the people, " that if prin
ces commanded anything which subjects might

* Rushworth, vol. i., p. 426, 432, 435, 495.
t Ibid., p. 426, 440.

280

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

not perform, because it is against the laws of
God or of Nature, or impossible, yet subjects
are bound to undergo the punishment, wUhoul
resisting, or railing, or revUing ; and so to yield
a passive obedience where they cannot yield an
active one." Dr. Manwaring went farther, in
two sermons preached before the king at Oat
lands, and published under the title of " Reli
gion and AUegiance." He says, " The king is
not bound to observe the laws of the realm
concerning the subjects' rights and liberties, but
that his royal will and pleasure, in imposing
taxes without consent of Parliament, doth
oblige the subjects' conscience on pain of dam
nation ; and that those who refuse obedience
transgress the laws of God, insult the king's
supreme authority, and are guilty of impiety,
disloyalty, and rebeUion. That the authority
of both houses of Parliament is not necessary
for the raising aids and subsidies, as not suita
ble to the exigencies of the state." These
were the doctrines of the court ; " which,"
says the noble historian, " were very unfit for
the place and very scandalous for the persons,
who presumed often to determine things out of
the verge of their own profession, and in ordine
ad spirilualia, gave unto Caesar that which did
not belong to him."
Sibthorp dedicated his sermon to the king,
and carried it to Archbishop Abbot to be li
censed, which the honest old prelate refused,
for which he was suspended frora all archiepis
copal functions, and ordered to retire to Can
terbury or Ford, a moorish, unhealthy place,
five miles beyond Canterbury. The sermon
was then carried to the Bishop of London, who
licensed and recoramended it as a sermon
learnedly and discreetly preached, agreeable to
the ancient doctrine of the primitive Church,
both for faith and good manners, and to the es
tablished doctrine ofthe Church of England.
Archbishop Abbot had been out of favour
for some time, because he would not give up
the laws and liberties of his country,, nor treat
the great Duke of Buckinghara with that servile
submission that he expected.* Heylin says
the king was displeased with him for being too
favourable to the Puritans and loo remiss in his
government ; and that, for this reason, he seiz
ed his jurisdiction, and put it into hands more
disposed to act with severity. Fuller sayst
that a commission was granted to five bishops,
whereof Laud was one, to suspend him for cas
ual homicide that he had committed seven years
before, and of which he had been cleared by
commissioners appointed to examine into the
fact in the reign of King James ; besides, his
grace had a royal dispensation to shelter him
from the canons, and had ever since exercised
his jurisdiction without interruption, even to
the consecrating of Laud himself to a bishopric.
But the commission mentions no cause of his
suspension, and only takes notice that the arch
bishop cannot at present, in his own person, at
tend the services which are otherwise proper
for his cognizance and jurisdiction. But why
could he not attend theml Because his maj
esty had commanded him to retire, for refu
sing to license Sibthorp's sermon. The blame
of this severity feU upon Laud, as if, not having
* Rushworth, vol. i., p. 61, 435. Collyer, p. 742.
t Church History, b. xi., p. 127.

patience to wait for the reverend old prelate's
death, he was desirous to step into the archi
episcopal chair while he was yet alive ; for no
sooner was Abbot suspended, than his jurisdic
tion was put into the hands of five bishops by
commission, of whora Laud was the chief.
There was another prelate that gave the
court some uneasiness, viz.. Dr. WiUiams, bish
op of Lincoln, late lord-keeper of the great seal,
who, being in disgrace, retired lo his diocess,
and became very popular among his clergy.*
He declared against the loan, and fell in with
the Puritans and country party, insomuch that
Sir John Lamb and Dr. Sibthorp informed the
council that they were grieved to see the Bish
op of Lincoln give place to unconformable min
isters, when he turned his back upon those who
were conformable ; that the Puritans ruled all
with hira ; and that divers of Ihem in Leices
tershire being convened before the commissa
ries, his lordship would not admit proceedings
to be had against them. That they [the com-
raissaries for the High Coraraission] had infdrm-
ed the bishop, then at Bugden, of several ofthe
factious Puritans in his diocess who would not
come up to the table to receive the communion
kneeling ; of their keeping unlawful fasts and
meetings ; that one fast held from eight in the
morning tiU nine at night ; and that collections
for money were made without authority, upon
pretence for the Palatinate ; that, therefore,
they had desired leave from the bishop to pro
ceed against them ex officio; but the bishop re
plied that he would not meddle against the Pu
ritans ; that, for his part, he expected not anoth
er bishopric ; they might complain of them if
they would to the council-table, for he was un
der a cloud already. He had the Duke of Buck
ingham for his enemy, and, therefore, would
not draw the Puritans upon hira, for he was
sure they would carry all things at last. Be
sides, he said, the king, in the first year of his
reign, had given answer to a petition of the
Lower House, at Oxford, in favour of the Puri
tans. It appeared by the inforraation of others, that
Larab and Sibthorp pressed the bishop again to
proceed against the Puritans of Leicestershire ;
that the bishop then asked thera. What sort of
people they vvere, and of what condition 1 To
which Sir John Larab replied, in the presence
of Dr, Sibthorp, " that they seeraed to the world
to be such as would not swear, whore, nor be
drunk, but yet they would lie, cozen, and de
ceive ; that they would frequently hear two
serraons a day, and repeat the same again, too,
and afterward pray, and that sometimes they
would fast all day long." Then the bishop
asked whether the places where those Puritans
were did lend money freely upon the coUection
for the loan. To which Sir John Lamb and Dr.
.Sibthorp replied that they did. Then said the
bishop. No man of discretion can say that that
place is a place of Puritans : for my part (said
the bishop), I am not satisfied to give way t»
proceedings against them: at which Sibthorp
was much discontented, and said he was troub
led to see that the Church was no betier re
garded. This inforraation being transmitted to
the council, was sealed up for the present, but
was afterward, with some other matters, pro-
* Rushworth, vol. i., p. 424, 425.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

287

duced against his lordship in the Star Chamber,
as wUl be seen hereafter.
Though the king was at war with Spain, and
with the house of Austria, and (if I may be al
lowed to say it) wilh his own subjects ; though
he had no money in his exchequer, and was at
the greatest loss how to raise any ; yet he suf
fered himself to be prevailed with to enter into
a new war with France, under the colour of
maintaining the Protestant religion in that
country, without so much as thinking of ways
and means to support it. But when one con
siders the character of this king and his minis
try, it is hard to believe that this could be the
real motive of the war, for his majesty and the
whole court had a mortal aversion to the French
Huguenots.* Buckingham had no religion at
aU ; Weston and Conway were Catholics ; Laud
and Neile tliought there was no salvation for
Protestants out of the Church of England ; how,
then, can it be supposed that they should make
war in defence of a religion for which they had
the utmost contempt 1 Lord Clarendon says
the war was owing to Buckingham's disap
pointment in his amours at the French court ;t
but it is more likely he advised it to keep up
the misunderstandings between the king and
his parliaments, by continuing the necessity of
raising money by extraordinary methods, upon
which his credit and reputation depended. 'War
being declared, the queen's doraestics were sent
hOIJie, and a fleet was fitted out, which made a
fruitless descent upon the Isle of Rhee, under
tlte conduct of the Duke of Buckinghara, with
the loss of five thousand men. This raised a
world of complaints and murmurs against the
duke, and obliged the weak and unhappy king
to try the experiment of another Parliament,
which was appointed to meet March 17, 1627-8.
As soon as this resolution was taken in coun
cil, orders were despatched to all parts of the
kingdom to release the gentlemen imprisoned
for the loan, to the number of seventy-eight,
most of whom were chosen members for the
ensuing Parliament. In the mean time, his
majesty went on with raising money by excise ;
and instead of palliating and softening the mis
takes of his governraent, put on an air of high
sovereignty, and told his Parliaraent, that if they
did not provide for the necessities of the state,
he should use those other means that God had
put into his hands, to save that which the follies
of other men would hazard. " Take not this,"
says his majesty, " as a- threatening, for I scorn
to threaten my inferiors,! but as an admonition
from him, who by nature and duty has most
care for your preservation and prosperity."^
* Rapin, vol. ii., p. 260, folio ed.
t Ibid., vol. i., p. 38, 39.
X " Any but eqnals."— Rushworth. Dr. Grey, who
gives this correction, quotes other passages from the
king's speech with a view to soften Mr. Neal's
representation of it ; but with httle propriety ; for
though he expresses "a hope of being laid under
such obligations as would tie him by way of thank
fulness to meet them often," the whole wears the
same air of sovereignty as the passage above. It is
more in the tone of an angry monarch to his offend
ing subjects, than of a constitutional king of Eng
land to his parliament. — Ed.
^ Rushworth, vol. i., p. 480. The leaders of the
popular party were unmoved by this siUy tirade.
They were aware of the crisis which had arrived.

But the Parliament not being awed by this-
language, began with grievances ; and though
they voted five subsidies, they refused to carry
the biU through the House till they had obtain
ed the royal assent to their petition of right,
which asserted, among ' others, the foUowing
claims contained in Magna Charta :
1. That no freeman shall be detained in pris
on by the king and privy councU without the
cause of commitment be expressed for whicli
by law he ought to be detained.
2. That a habeas corpus ought not to be de
nied where the law allows it.
3. That no lax, loan, or benevolence shaU
be imposed without act of Parliaraent.
4. That no man shaU be forejudged of life or
limb, or be exiled or destroyed, but by the judg
ment of his peers, according to the laws of the-
land, or by act of Parliament.
The king gave the royal assent to this bill in
the most ample manner, which I mention that
the reader may remember what regard his maj
esty paid to it in the twelve succeeding years-
of his reign.
In the mean time, the House of Lords* went.
upon Manwaring's sermons, already mentioned,
and passed the foUowing sentence upon the au
thor : " That he be imprisoned during pleasure,
and be fined one thousand pounds ; that he-
raake his subraission at the bar of the House,.
and be suspended from his ministry for three
years ; that he be disabled forever from preach
ing at court, be incapable of any ecclesiastical
or secular preferment, and that his sermons be
burned in London and both universities."t Pur-

and were admirably qualified to meet it. I beg the-
reader to examine the character of the leaders of the
party ; their intellectual endowments were of the-
highest order, and their moral standing gave weight
and influence to their opinions. Look at Sir Edward.
Coke, yet regarded as the oracle of English law ;.
John Selden, the most learned man of his time ; Sir
John Eliot, one of the purest of patriots; and John.
Hampden, the glory of the land. Lingard says, tho
leaders of the country party conducted their pro
ceedings with the most consummate address. They
advanced step by step, first resolving to grant a sup
ply, then flxiiig it at the tempting amount of five-
subsidies. But no art, no entreaty could prevail on,
them to pass their resolution in the shape of a bUl.
It was held out as a lure to the king, it was gradual
ly brought nearer and nearer to his grasp, but they
StiU refused to surrender their hold ; they requiree^.
as a previous condition, that he should give his as
sent to those liberties which they claimed as the::
birthright of Englishmen. — C.
* A declaration against Manwaring was presented;
to the Lords by Pym, supported, in one of those-
lucid and masterly expositions of constitutional law
which rendered him so formidable an opponent to-
the court. " The circumstances of aggravation an
nexed to this case," said Pym, " are these. The-
first, from the place where those sermons were
preached ; the court, the king's own family, where
such doctrine was before so well believed that no
man needed to be coiiverted, &c. The second? was
from the consideration of his holy functions : he is
a preacher of God's Holy Word, and yet he had en
deavoured to make that, which was the only rule of.
justice and goodness, to be the warrant for violence
and oppression. He is a messenger of peace, but he
had endeavoured to sow strife and dissension, not
only among private persons, but even between the
king and his people, to the disturbance and danger.-
of the whole state." — 0.
-TRushworth, vol. i., p. 601, 612, 613.

288

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

suant to this sentence, Manwaring appeared
upon his knees at the bar of the House, June 23
[1628], and made ample acknowledgment and
submission, craving pardon of God, the king,
the Parliament, and the whole commonwealth,
in words drawn up by a committee ; but the
Houses were no sooner risen than his fine was
remitted and himself preferred, first to the liv
ing of Stamford-Rivers, with a dispensation to
hold St. Giles's-in-the-fields, then to the dean
ery of Worcester, and after some time to the
bishopric of St. David's.*
Within a month after this [August 22] Mon
tague was promoted to the bishopric of Chi
chester, while he lay under the censure of Par
liament. At his consecration at Bow Church,
Mr. Jones, a stationer of London, stood up and
excepted against his qualification for a bishop
ric, because the Parliament had voted him in
capable of any preferment in the Church ; but
his exceptions were overruled, not being deliv
ered in by a proctor, though Jones averred that
he could not prevail with any one to appear for
him, though he offered them their fees ; so the
consecration proceeded.
Sibthorp, the other incendiary, was made
prebendary of Peterborough, and rector of Bur-
tbn-Latimer, in Wiltshire, though the O.xford
historiant confesseth he had nothing to recom
mend him but forwardness and servile fiattery.
While the money bUl was going through the
House of Lords, the Commons were busy in
drawing up a remonstrance of the grievances
of the nation, with a petition for redress ; but
as soon as the king had obtained his money he
came to the House. June 26th, and prorogued
the Parliament, first to the 20th of October, and
then to the 26th of January. The Commons
being disappointed of presenting their remon
strance, dispersed it through the nation, but
the king called it in, and after some time pub-
iished an answer drawn up by Bishop Laud, as
was proved against him at his trial.
The reraonstrance was dated June 11, and
besides the civU grievances of billeting soldiers,
&c., complains with regard to religion.
1. Of the great increase of popery by the
iaws not being put in execution ; by conferring
¦honours and places of command upon papists ;
by issuing out commissions to compound for
their recusancy, and by permitting mass to
be said openly at Denmark House and other
places. The answer denies any noted increase of
popery, or that there is any cause to fear it.
As for compositions, they are for the increase
of his raajesty's profit, and for returning that
into his purse which the connivance of inferior
officers might perhaps divert another way.
2. The remonstrance complains of the dis
countenancing orthodox and painful ministers,
though conformable and peaceable in their be-
baviour, insomuch that they are hardly perrait-

* In this manner did Charles express his con
tempt for Parliament, and purchase the services of
¦an unprincipled priesthood to his purposes of tyran
ny. And yet there are American citizens who see no
flaw in Charies, no blemish m Laud ! We under
stand their position, however, when we find them,
like that persecuting prelate, groping about amid
Ihe fooleries of popery. To escape from the testi
mony of history, they term it " a tissue of lies .'"— C.
+ Athena Oxon., vol. i., p. 180.

ted to lecture where there is no constant preach
ing. Thai their books are prohibited, when
those of their adversaries are licensed and pub
lished. That the Bishops .Neile and Laud are
justly suspected of Arminianism and popish er
rors ; and that this being the way to chureh
preferment, many scholars bend the course of
their studies to maintain them.
The answer denies the distressing or dis
countenancing good preachers, if they be, as
they are caUed, good ; but affirms that it was
necessary to prohibit their books, because some
whom the remonstrance calls orthodox had as
sumed an insufferable license in printing. That
great wrong was done to the two eminent prel
ates mentioned without any proof; for should
they or any others attempt innovations of reli
gion, says his majesty, we should quickly take
order with them, without staying for the re
monstrance ; and as for church preferments,
we w-iU always bestow them as the reward of
merit, but, as the preferments are ours, we
will be judge, and not be taught by a remon
strance. 3. The remonstrance complains ofthe growth
of Arminianism, as a cunning way to bring in
popery. The answer says, this is a great wrong to
ourself and government, for our people must
not be taught by a parliamentary remonstrance,
or any other way, that we are so ignorant of
truth, or so careless of the profession of it, that
any opinion or faction should thrust itself so
fast into our dominions without our knowledge.
This is a mere dream, and would raake our
loyal people believe we are asleep.
But the foUowing letter, written at this time
by a Jesuit in England to the rector of the
ooUege at Brussels, sufficiently supports- the
Parliament's charge, and shows how Arminian
ism and popery, which have no natural con
nexion, came to be united at this time against
the Protestant religion and the liberties of Eng
land. " Let not the damp of astonishment seize
upon your ardent and zealous soul," says the
Jesuit, "vin apprehending the unexpected caU
ing of a Parliament ; we [the papists] have not
opposed, but rather furthered it.
" You must know the councU is engaged to
assist the king by way of prerogative, in case
the Parliament fail, 'you shall see this Parlia
ment will resemble the pelican, which takes
pleasure to dig out with her beak her own bow
els. " The elections have been in such confusion
of apparent faction, as that which we were
wont to procure with much art and industry,
when the Spanish match was in treaty.
" We have now many strings to our bow, and
have strongly fortified our faction, and have
added two bulwarks more ; for when King
James lived, he was very violent against Ar
minianisra, and interrupted our strong designs
in Holland.
" Now we have planted that sovereign drug,
Arrainianisra, which we hope wiU purge the
Protestants frora their heresy, and it flourishes
and bears fruit in due season.
"The materials that build up our bulwark
are the projectors and beggars of all ranks and
qualities ; however, both these factions co-op-

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

289

erate to destroy the Parliaraent, and to intro
duce a new species and form of governraent,
which is oligarchy.
" These serve as mediums and instruments
to our end, which is the universal Catholic mon
archy ; our foundation must be mutation, and
mutation wiU cause a relaxation.
"We proceed now by counsel and mature
deliberation, how and w-hen to work upon the
duke's [Buckingham's] jealousy and revenge ;
and in this we give the honour to those that
merit it, which are the church Catholics.
" There is another matter of consequence
which we must take much into our considera
tion and tender care, which is, to stave off Pu
ritans, that they hang not in the duke's ears :
they are impudent, subtle people, and it is to
be j^ared lest they should negotiate a reconcili
ation between the duke and the Parliament at
Oxford and Westminster ; but now we assure
-ourselves that we have so handled the matter
that both the duke and Parliament are irrecon
cilable. " For the better prevention of the Puritans,
the Arminians have already locked up the duke's
-ears, and we have those of bur own religion
that stand continually at the duke's chamber,
to see who goes in and out. We cannot be too
circumspect and careful in this regard. I can
not choose but laugh' to see howsome of our
-own coat have accoutred themselves ; and it is
admirable how in speech and gesture they act
the Puritans. The Cambridge scholars, to their
woful experience, shaU see we can act the Puri
tan a little better than they have done the Jes
uits. They have abused our sacred patron in
jest, but we wiU raake them smart for it in ear
nest. " But to return to the main fabric, our found
ation is Arrainianisra ; the Arminians and pro
jectors affect mutation ; this we second and en
force by probable arguments. We show how.
the king may free hiraself of his ward, and raise
a vast revenue without being beholden to his
subjects, which is by way of excise. Then our
church Catholics show the means how to settle
the excise, which must be by a raercenary array
of foreigners and Germans ; their horse will eat
up the country where they come, though they
be well paid ; much more if they be not paid.
The army is to consist of twenty thousand foot,
¦and two thousand horse ; so that if the country
rise upon settling the excise, as probably they
will, the army will conquer them, and pay them
selves out of the confiscation. Our design is
to work the Protestants as well as the Catho
lics to welcome in a conqueror. We hope to
dissolve trade, to hinder the building of ship
ping, and to take away the merchant-ships, that
they may not easily light upon the West India
¦fleet," &c.
It appears from this letter that Puritanism
was the only bulwark of the Constitution, and
of the Protestant religion, against the inroads
of popery and arbitrary power.*

* Here Dr. Grey asks, " "Whence does this appear?
not frora those words in the same letter, which show
that the Puritans were the tools which the Jesuits
designed to make use of, in order to subvert the con
stitution in the Church and State?" The reply to
Ihe doctor is, that the truth of Mr. Neal's remark ap
pears from those paragraphs of the letter in which
Vol. I.— 0 0

"4. To go on with the Parliament's remon
strance, which complains farther ofthe misera
ble condition of Ireland, where the popish reli
gion is openly professed, and their ecclesiasti
cal discipline avowed, monasteries, nunneries,
and other religious houses re-edified, and filled
with men and women of several orders, even in
the city of Dublin itself
The answer says that the Protestant religion
is not in a worse condition than Queen Eliza
beth left it ; and adds, that it is a disparagement
to the king's government to report the building
of religious houses in Dublin, and other places,
when the king himself had no account of it.
But it seems the Parliament knew more of
the affairs of Ireland than Bishop Laud ; the
agents for that kingdom had represented the
Protestant religion in great danger, by the sus
pending all proceedings against the papists ever
since the king came to the crown ; by this
means they were become so bold, that when
Lord Falkland summoned their chiefs to meet
at Dublin, 1626, in order to a general contribu
tion for defence of the kingdom against a for
eign invasion, they declared roundly that they
would contribute nothing without a toleration,
and liberty to build religious houses ; upon
which the assembly was dismissed. This awa
kened the Protestant bishops, who met togeth
er and signed the following protestation, No
vember 26, 1626.
" The religion of papists is superstitious and
idolatrous, and their Church anti-apostolical ;
to give them, therefore a toleration is a griev
ous sin, because it makes ourselves accessory
to aU the abominations of popery,* and to the
perdition of those souls that perish thereby ; and
because granting a toleration in respect of any
money to be given, or contribution to be made

are expressed strong apprehensions that impediments
and obstructions to the views and schemes it unfolds
would arise from the Puritans. Nay, the justness
of the remark appears from the words which Dr.
Grey produces as refuting it. For, if the Jesuits acted
the Puritan, could it be with a sincere desire to ad
vance the influence of the Puritans, and promote
their wishes ? could it be with any other design than
to turn against them the confidence into which by
this means they insinuated themselves, and to under
mine the Reformation by increasing divisions and fo
menting prejudices against it? of this the collection
of papers called " Foxes and Firebrands" furnishes
evident proofs. Of this two curious letters, given by
Dr. Grey from the MS. of Sir Robert Cotton, fur
nish convuicing proofs. Yet the doctor again asks,
" Can Mr. Neal, after all, be so weak as to imagine
that the Jesuits would have put on the Puritan guise,
in order to have ruined the Constitution, had the Pu
ritans been the only bulwark of the Constitution?"
"Weak as it might be in Mr. Neal to imagine it, it is
a fact, that they did assume the character of the Pu
ritans in order to carry those purposes to which the
Puritans were inimical. Dr. Grey, probably, would
not have thought this so weak a policy as he repre
sents it, had he recollected what is said of the false
teachers in the primitive Church, who " transformed
themselves into the apostles of Christ." Had he rec
ollected that it is said of Satan, that "he transform
ed himself into an angel of light," and this to over
turn those interests of truth and virtue, of which the
former knew that the latter were the bulwark. — Ed.
* " From so silly a sophism, so gravely delivered,
I conclude," says Bishop -Warburton, " Usher was
not that great man he has been represented." —
Ed.

290

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

by them, is to set religion to sale, and with it
tlie souls that Christ has redeemed with his
blood ; we therefore beseech the God of truth
to make those who are in authority zealous for
God's glory, and resolute against all popery, su
perstition, and idolatry." Signed by Archbish
op Usher and eleven of his brethren.
But, notwithstanding this protestation, the
papists gained their point, and in the fourth
year of the king's reign had a toleration granted
them in consideration ofthe sum of £120,000,
to be paid in three years*
With regard to the building religious houses,
it is wonderful that neither the king nor his
prime minister should know anything of it,
when the Lord-deputy Falkland had this very
summer issued out a proclamation with this
preamble : " Forasmuch as we cannot but take
notice that the late interraission of the legal
proceeding against popish pretended or titular
archbishops, bishops, abbots, deans, vicars-gen
eral, and others of that sort, that derive their
authority and orders frora Rome, hath bred such
an extraordinary insolence and presumption in
them as that they have dared of late not only
to assemble themselves in public places, hut
also have erected houses and buildings called
public oratories, colleges, mass-houses, and con
vents of friars, monks, and nuns, in the eye and
open view of the state and elsewhere, and do
frequently exercise jurisdiction against his maj
esty's subjects, by authority derived from Rome,
and, by colour of teaching schools in their pre
tended monasteries, to train up youth in their
¦superstitious religion, contrary to the laws and
ecclesiastical government of this kingdom : we,
therefore, will and require them to forbear to
exercise their jurisdiction within this kingdom,
and to relinquish and break up their convents
and religious houses," &c. Could such a proc
lamation be printed and dispersed over the king
dom of Ireland without being known to the
English court ?
But farther, to show that Bishop Laud him
self was not long ignorant of the dangerous in
crease of popery in Ireland, the Bishop of Kil-
more and Ardagh, Dr. BedeU, sent him the fol
lowing account soon afterward ; it was dated
AprU 1, 1630. " The popish clergy are more
numerous than those of the Church of England ;
they have their officials and vicars-general for
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and are so hardy as
to excommunicate those who appear at the
courts ofthe Protestant bishops. Almost every
parish has a priest of the Romish communion ;
masses are sometimes said in churches, and,
excepting a few British planters, not amounting

* It is to be regretted that Mr. Neal did not refer
to his authority for this assertion. Dr. Grey quotes
against it Collyer, vol. ii., p. 739, who says, that the
protestation of the bishops " prevailed with the gov
ernment to waive the thoughts of a toleration, and
pitch upon some other expedients." The doctor might
have added, from Fuller, that the motion was crushed
by the bishops, and chiefly by Bishop Downham's ser
mon in Dublin, on Luke, i., il.-Church History, h.
xi., p. 128. Though we cannot ascertain the author
ity on which Mr. Neal speaks, the reader will observe
that he is not contradicted by Collyer and Fuller, for
they speak of the immediate effect of the opposition
of the bishops to the toleration of the Irish CathoUcs,
and he writes of a measure adopted in repugnance to
it, two years afterward. — Eo.

to the tenth part of the people, the rest are all
declared rei-usants. In each diocess there are
about seven or eight of the Reformed clergy
well qualified, but these not understanding the
language ofthe natives, cannot perform Divine
service, nor converse with their parishioners
with advantage,' and, consequently, are in no
capacity to put a stop to superstition."*
Let the reader now judge whether the an
swer to the reraonstrance be not very evasive.
Could this great statesman be ignorant of so-
many notorious facts ! was the growth of Ar
minianism and arbitrary power a dream? was
any wrong done to himself, or his brother of
Winchester, by saying they countenanced these
principles ? was not the increase of popery both
in England and Ireland notorious, by suspend
ing the penal laws, ever since the king came to
the crown, and granting the papists a toleration
for a sum of money 1 where, then, was the pol
icy of luUing the nation asleep, while the ene
my were increasing their numbers, and whet
ting their swords for a general massacre of the-
Protestants, which they accomplished in Ire
land about twelve! years afterward 1
The bishop observes in his diary, that this-
Parliament laboured his ruin, because they
charged hira with unsoundness of opinion; but
his lordship had such an influence over the
king as rendered all their atterapts fruitless ;
for the See of London becoraing vacant this
* " Here," says Dr. Grey, " we have a long train
of mistakes." 'There are, it is true, several. Dr. Be
dell is called Dr. Beadle, and bishop elect of Kil-
more, whereas he had the contiguous sees of Kil-
more and Ardagh, and was the actual bishop of both
when this letter was written, April 1, 1630, having
been consecrated 13th September, 1029. These mis
takes are imputed to' Mr. Neal, but Dr. Grey should
have possessed the candour to have informed his
readers that they belong to Mr. Collyer, from whom
the whole paragraph is taken. This he could not but
have observed, for he immediately refers himself to
Collyer, to blame Mr. Neal for not mentioning a re
mark of that author, viz., that Bishop Bedell's ac
count related to his own two diocesses only. This
the reader would of course understand to be the-
case, and, even with this limitation, it is a proof of
the increase of popery in Ireland, though it should
not be presumed to be a specimen of the state of
things in other diocesses. The bishop's letter was
written, as we have said, in AprU, 1630, and Mr. Neal
introduces it as sent about that time of which he
was writing, i. c., about June, 1628. This is charged
against him as an anachronism, but it is a small mis
take, and even a blunder. But in a matter of this
nature, where the existing state of things must have
been the result of causes that had been some time
Operating, and shows a settled complexion of men
and manners, it may admit a question whether the
space of a year and nine months can be deemed an
anachronism. The bishop's account certainly indi
cates what had been the growing state of things for
many months.
Mr. Neal, by quoting Collyer in the above para
graph, has missed the most striking clause in Bishop
Bedell's letter. He concudes by saying, " His maj
esty is now with the greatest part of this country, as
to their hearts and consciences, king, but at the
pope's discretion." Though it is not to the design
of these notes, the editor is tempted here to give a
trait in the character of this prelate's lady, who, it is
said, " was singular in many excellent qualities, par
ticularly in a very extraordinary reverence she paid
to her husband." — Bishop Bumet's Life of Bedell, p.
47, 230.— Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

291

summer. Laud was translated to it July 15 ;*
and the Duke of Buckingham being stabbed at
Portsmouth by Felton, August 23 following,
this ambitious prelate became prime minister
in aU affairs both of Churoh and State.
One of the bishop's first enterprises, after
his translation to London, was to stifle the pre
destinarian controversy, for which purpose he
procured the Thirty-nine Articles to be reprint
ed, with the following declaration at the head
of thera :t By the King.
" Being by God's ordinance, and our just ti
tle, defender ofthe faith, &c., within these do
minions, we hold it agreeable to our kingly of
fice, for the preservation of unity and peace, not
to suffer any unnecesjsary disputations which
may nourish faction in the Church or common
wealth ; we, therefore, with the advice of our
bishops, declare that the Articles ofthe Church
of England which the clergy generally have
subscribed do contain the true doctrine of the
Church of England, agreeable to God's Word,
which we do therefore ratify and confirm, re
quiring all our loving subjects to continue in
the uniform profession thereof, and prohibiting
the least difference frora the said articles. We
take comfort in this, that all clergymen within
our realm have always most wiUingly subscribed
the Articles, whieh is an argument that they all
agree in the true usual literal meaning of them ;
and that in those curious points in which the
present differences lie, men of aU sorts take the
Articles to he for them, which is an argument
again, that none of them intend any desertion
of the Articles established : wherefore we will
that all curious search into these things be laid
aside, and these disputes be shut up in God's
promises, as they be generally set forth to us
in Holy Scriptures, and the general meaning of
the Articles according to thera ; and that no
man hereafter preach or print to draw the arti
cle aside any way, but shall submit to it, in
the plain and full manner thereof, and shall not
put his own sense or comment to the meaning
of the article, but shall take it in the literal and
gramraatical sense ; that if any public reader
in the universities, or any other person, shall
affix any new sense to any article, or shaU pub
licly read, or hold disputation on either side ;
or if any divine in the universities shall preach
or print anything either way, they shall be lia
ble to censure in the ecclesiastical commission,
and we wUl see there shaU be due execution
upon them."t
* Bib. Reg., sect, ui.. No. 4; or Heylm's Life of
Laud, p. 188.
t Mr. Neal does not give the declaration at full
length, but has omitted some clauses, and even two
paragraphs ; but in my opinion, without affectihg the
sense and tenour of it; though Dr. Grey says, "he
has by this altered and curtailed the sense of it, and
then charged it with blunders, which are of his own
making." — Ed.
X This declaration, Dr. Harris observes, has been
produced and canvassed in the famous Bangorian
and Trinitarian controversies, which engaged the at
tention of the pubhc for a great number of years.
—Life of Charles I., p. 183-190. Dr. Blackburn has
at large discussed the validity of it, and is disposed
to consider James I. as the first publisher bf it. He
shows that it has been corrupted by the'insertion of
the word naiv ; as, " we wUl not endure any Varying,

Surely there never was sufeh a contused, un-
inteUigible deelaration printed before ; but the
Calvinist divines understood the king's inten
tion, and complained in a petition of " the re
straints they Were laid under by his raajesty's
forbidding them to preach the saving doctrines
of God's free grace in election and predestina
tion to eternal life, according to the seventeenth
article of the Church. That this had brought
them under a very uncomfortable dilemma,
either of falling under the Divine displeasure,
if they did not exeeute their commission, in de
claring the whole counsel of God, or of being
censured for opposition to his majesty's author
ity, in case they preached the received doctrines
oi the Church, and attacked the Pelagian and
Arminian heresies boldly published ft-om the
pulpit and the press, though censured by King
James as arrogant and atheistical; and those
who avow thera to be agreeable to the Church
of England are caUed gross liars. TherefOrBi
they hurably entreat that his majesty would be
pleased to take the forementioned evils and
grievances into his princely consideration, and,
as a wise physician, apply such speedy reme
dies as may both cure the present distemper,
and preserve the Church and State from those
plagues with which their neighbours had not
been a little distressed." But this address was
stopped in its progress, and never reached the
king's ears.
In pursuance of his majesty's declaration, all
books relating to the Arrainian controversy
were caUed in by proclamation and suppressed,
and among others, Montague's and Manwar
ing's, which was only a feint to cover a more
deadly blow to be reached at the Puritans ; for,
at the sarae time, Montague and Manwaring
received the royal pardon, and were preferred
to some of the best livings in the kingdom (as
has been observed), while the answer to their
books, by Dr. Featly, Dr. Goad, Mr. Burton,
'Ward, Yates, and Rouse, were not only sup
pressed, but the publishers questioned in the
Star Chamber.
The king put on the sarae thin disguise with
regard to papists ; a proclamation was issued
out against priests and Jesuits, and particularly
against the Bishop of Chalcedon ; orders were
also sent to the Lord-mayor of London to make
search after them, and commit them to prison,
but, at the same time, his raajesty appointed
commissioners to compound with them for their
recusancy ; so that, instead of being suppressed,
Ihey became a branch of the revenue, and Sir
Richard Weston, a notorious papist, was crea
ted Earl of Portland, and made lord-high-treas
urer of England.
When the Parliament met according to pro
rogation, January 20, they began again with
grievances of religion ; Oliver CromweU, Esq.,
being of the committee, reported to the House
the countenance that was given by Dr. Neile,
bishop of 'VV'inchester, to divines who preached
Arminian and popish doctrine ; he mentioned
the favours that had been bestowed upon Mon
tague and Manwaring, who had been censured
the last sessions of Parliament ; and added.

or departing, in the least degree, from the doctrine
and disciphne of the Chureh of England now estahi-
lished ;" a language, he justly observes, inconsistent
with the principles of ourpresent'constitution.— Core-
fessional, p. 131-t143, 3d edit.— Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

" If this be the way to church preferment, what
may we expect !" Upon debating the king's
late declaration, the House voted "that ihe
main end of that declaration was lo suppress
the Puritan party, and lo give liberty to the
contrary side." Several warm and angry
speeches were likewise made against the new
ceremonies that began now lo be introduced
into the Church, as iraages of saints and angels,
crucifixes, altars, lighted candles, &c.
Mr. Rouse stood up and said, " I desire it
may be considered what new paintings have
been laid upon the old face of the whore of
Babylon, to raake her show raore lovely. I de
sire it may be considered how the See of Rome
doth eat into our religion, and fret into the very
banks and walls of it, the laws and statutes of
this realra. I desire we raay consider the in
crease of Arrainianisra an error that raakes the
grace of God lackey after the will of man. I
desire we raay look into the belly and bow-els
of this Trojan horse, to see if there be not raen
in it ready to open the gates to Romish tyran
ny, for an Arminian is the spawn of a papist,
and, if the warmth of favour come upon him,
you shall see hira turn into one of those frogs
that rose out of the bottomless pit ; these men
having kindled a fire in our neighbour-country,
are now endeavouring to set this kingdom in a
flame."* Mr. Pym said, " that, by the articles set forth
1562, by the catechism set forth in King Ed
ward VI. 's days, by the writings of Martin Bu
cer and Peter Martyr, by the constant profes
sions sealed with the blood of many martyrs,
as Cranraer, Ridley, and others, by the Thirty-
six Articles of Queen Elizabeth, and by the ar
ticles agreed upon at Lambeth, as the doctrine
of the Church of England, which King James
sent to Dort and to Ireland, it appears evident
ly vvhat is the established religion of the realm.
Let us, therefore, show wherein these late opin
ions differ from those truths ; and what men
have been since preferred who have professed
the Contrary heresies ; what pardons they have
had for false doctrine ; what prohibiting of books
and writings against their doctrine, and perrait-
ting of such books as have been for them. Let
us inquire after the abetters, and after the par
dons granted to them that preach the contrary
truth before his majesty. It belongs to parlia
ments to establish true religion and to punish
false. We must know what parliaments have
done formerly in religion. Our parliaments
have confirmed general councils. In the time
of King Henry VIIL, the Earl of Essex was
condemned [by Parliaraent] for countenancing
books of heresy. The convocation is hut a pro
vincial synod of Canterbury, and cannot bind
the whole kingdom. As for York, it is distant,
and cannot bind us or the laws ; and as for the
High Commission, it is derived from Parlia-
ment."t Sir John Eliot said, " If there be any differ
ence in opinion concerning the interpretation
of the Thirty-nine Articles, it is said the bish
ops and clergy in convocation have power lo
dispute it, and to order which way they please.
A slight thing, that the power of religion should
be left to these men I I honour their profes-

* Rushworth, vol. i., p. 657-668.
t Ibid., vol. i., p. 659.

sion ; there are among our bi.¦^hops such as
are fit to be made examples for .ill ages, who
shine in virtue, and are firm for religion ; but
the contrary faction I hke not. I remeraber a
character I have seen in a diary of King Ed
ward VI., where he says of the bishops, that
' some for age, some for ignorance, some for
luxury, and some for popery, were Unfit for dis
cipline and government.' We see there are
some among our bishops that are not orthodox,
nor sound in religion as they should be ; wit
ness the two bishops complained of the last
meeting of this Parliament ; should we be in
their power, I fear our religion would be over
thrown. Some of these are masters of cere
monies, and labour to introduce new ceremo
nies into the Church. Let us go to the ground
of our religion, and lay down a rule on which
all others may rest, and then inquire after of
fenders."* Mr. Secretary Cook said, "that the fathers
of the Church were asleep ; but, a little to awa
ken their zeal, it is fit," says he, " that they
take notice of that hierarchy that is already es
tablished, in competition with their lordships,
for they [the papists] have a bishop consecrated
by the pope ; this bishop has his subaltern offi
cers of all kinds, as vicars-general, archdeacons,
rural deans, apparitors, &c. ; neither are these
nominal or titular officers only, but they all ex
ecute their jurisdictions, and make their ordi
nary visitations throughout the kingdom, keep
courts, and determine ecclesiastical causes;
and, which is an argument of more conse
quence, they keep ordinary intelligence by their
agents in Rome, and hold correspondence with
the nuncios and cardinals both at Brussels and
France. Neither are the seculars alone grown
to this height, but the regulars are more active
and dangerous. Even at this time they intend
to hold a concurrent assembly with this Parlia
ment." After some other speeches of this kind,
the House of Coramons entered into the follow
ing vow :
"We, the Commons, in Parliament assem
bled, do claira, protest, and avow for truth, the
sense of the Articles of Religion which were
established by Parliament in the thirteenth year
of our late Queen Elizabeth, which, by the pub
lic act of the Church of England, and by the
general and current exposition of the writers
of our Church, have been delivered unto us.
And we reject the sense of the Jesuits and Ar
minians, and all others that differ from us."t
Bishop Laud, in his answer to this protesta
tion, has several remarks. " Is there by this
act," says his lordship, " any interpretation of
the Articles or not? If none, to what end is
the act? If a sense or interpretation be de
clared, what authority have laymen to make it ?
for interpretation of an article belongs to them
only that have power to raake it." To which

* Rushworth, vol. i., p. 660, 661.
t "This protestation," Dr. Blackbume remarks,
" is equivalent at least to any other resolution of the
House. It is found among the most authentic records
of Parliament. And whatever force or operation it
had the moment it was published, the same it has
to this hour ; being never revoked or repealed in any
succeeding Parliament, nor containing any one par
ticular which is not in perfect agreement with every
part of our present Constitution, civil and rehgious.'*
— Confessional, V. 142.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

293

it might be answered, that the Commons made
no new interpretation of the Articles, but avow
ed for truth the current sense of expositors be
fore that time, in opposition to the modern inter
pretation of Jesuits and Arminians. But what
authority have laymen to make it? Answer.
The sarae that they had in the 13th of Elizabeth
to establish thera as the doctrine of the Church
of England ; unless we will say, with Mr. Coll
yer, that neither the sense of the Articles, nor
the Articles themselves, were established in that
Parliament, or in any other.* If so, they are
no part of the legal Constitution, and raen raay
subscribe the words without putting any sense
upon thera at all : an adrairable way to prevent
diversity of opinions in raatters of faith ! But
his lordship adds, " that it is against the king's
deelaration, which says, we raust take the gen
eral meaning of them, and not draw aside any
way, but take them in the literal and grammat
ical sense."t Has the king, then, a power, with
out convocation or Parliament, to interpret and
determine the sense ofthe Articles for the whole
body of the clergy ? By the general meaning
ofthe Articles, the declaration seems to under
stand no one determined sense at all. Strange I
that so learned and wise a body of clergy and
laity, in convocation and Parliament, should
establish a number of articles with this title,
" For the avoiding of diversity of opinions, and
for the establishing of consent touching true re
ligion," without any one determined sense !
The bishop goes on, and excepts against the
currentsense of expositors, "because they may,
and perhaps do, go against the literal sense."
WiU his lordship, then, abide by the literal and
grammatical sense ! No ; but " if an article bear
more senses than one, a man may choose what
sense his judgment directs him to, provided it
be a sense according to the analogy of faith,
till the Church determine a [particular] sense ;
Ijut it is the wisdom of the Church to require
consent to articles in general as much as may
be, and not require assent to particulars." His
lordship had better have spoken out, and said
that it would be the wisdom of the ChUrch to
require no subscriptions at aU. To what straits
are men given to comply with the laws, when
their sentiments differ from the literal and gram
matical sense of the Articles of the Church I
Mr. Collyer says they have no established sense ;
King Charles, in his declaration, that they are
to be understood in a general sense, but not to
be drawn aside to a particular determined sense ;
Bishop Laud thinks that if the words wiU bear
more senses than one, a man may choose what
sense his judgraent directs hira to, provided it
be a sense according to the analogy of faith,
and all this for avoiding diversity of opinions !
But I am afraid this reasoning is too wonderful
for the reader.
While the Parhament were expressing their
zeal against Arminianism and popery, a new
controversy arose, which provoked his majesty
' to dissolve thera, and to resolve to govern wUh-
out parliaments for the future ; for, though the
king had so lately signed the petition of right in
full Pariiament, he went on with levying money
by his royal prerogative. A biU was depending
in the House to grant his majesty the duties of

? Eccles. Hist., p. 747.
t Prynne, Cant. Doom, p. 164.

tonnage and poundage ; but before it was pass
ed, the custom-house officers seized the goods
of three eminent merchants, viz., Mr. Rolls, Mr.
Chambers, and Mr. Vassal, for non-payment. Mr.
Chambers was fined £2000, besides the loss of
his goods, and suffered six years imprisonment :
Mr. RoUs's warehouses were locked up, and him
self taken out of the House of Commons and im
prisoned. This occasioned sorae warm speeches
against the custom-house officers and farmers of
the revenues ; but the king took all the blame on
himself, and sent the House word, that what the
officers had done was by his special direction
and command, and that it was not so much
their act as his own. This was a new way of
covering the unwarrantable proceedings of cor
rupt ministers, and was said to be the advice of
the Bishops Laud and NeUe ; a contrivance that
laid the foundation of his majesty's ruin. It is
a maxira in law, that the king can do no wrong,
and that all maladrainistrations are chargeable
upon his rainisters ; yet now, in order to screen
his servants, his raajesty will raake himself an
swerable for their conduct. So that if the Par
liament will defend their rights and properties,
they raust charge the king personally, who in
his own opinion was above law, and accounta
ble for his actions to none but God. It was
raoved in the House that, notwithstanding the
king's answer, the officers ofthe custoras should
be proceeded against, by separating their inter
ests from the king's ; but when the speaker, Sir
John Finch, -was desired to put the question, he
refused, saying the king had coinraanded the
contrary.* Upon which the House immediately
adjourned to January 25, and were then adjourn
ed by the king's order to March 2, when meet
ing again, and requiring the speaker to put the
former question, he again refused, and said he
had the king's order to adjourn them to March
16 ; but they detained him in the chair, not with
out some tumult and confusion, tUl they made
the following protestation :
1. "Whosoever shall, by favour or counte
nance, seem to extend or introduce popery or
Arrainianisra, shall be reputed a capital enemy
of the kingdora.
2. " Whosoever shaU advise the levying the
subsidies of tonnage and poundage, not being
granted by ParUament, shall be reputed a capi
tal enemy.
3. " If any merchant shall voluntarily pay
those duties, he shaU be reputed a betrayer of
the liberties of England, and an enemy to the
same."t The next day warrants were directed to Den-
zil HoUis, Sir John Eliot,t William Coriton,

* Whitelocke's Memorial, p. 12. Rushworth, vol.
i., p. 669. t Rushworth, vol. i., p. 670.
X "The subsequent history of Sir John Eliot pos
sesses all the interest of a romance. It is not ex
ceeded, in the developments of high pruiciple and
heroic fortitude, by any tale in ancient or modern
times. He had evidently contemplated, from the
commencement of this reign, the probabUity of such
a termination of his patriotic life. He had read the
character of Charles from the first, apd knew that
there was neither generosity nor justice in his heart.
Laud he had uniformly opposed, as the despoiler of
religion and the enemy of his country ; and the
pseudo-patriotism of Wentworth, now a baron of the
realm and president of the North, had always been
regarded by him with more than suspicion. From

294

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

Benjamin Valentine, John Selden, Esqrs., and
four more ofthe principal members ofthe House,
to appear before the councU on the morrow :

such a monarch, aided by such counseUors, Eliot
had nothing to cipect. Yet he spumed with virtu
ous indignation the freedom which was proffered
him on condition of his tendering an acknowledg
ment of guilt. He was removed from one apartment
of the Tower to another, and the rigour of his im
prisonment was steadily increased. At length his
health rapidly decUned; but his brutal oppressors,
instead oi being moved to pity, were solicitous to
hasten the deadly malady which preyed on his frame.
His friends were prohibited from visiting him ; and
though he was sinking ui a consumption, and the
season was wintery, and his prison damp, he was
scarcely allowed the comfort of a fire.
This description of Ehot's treatment is fuUy borne
out by the following letter of the dying patriot to his
friend John Hampden, bearing the date Dec. 26, 1631.
" That I write not to you anything of intelUgence
will be excused, when I do let you know that I am
under a new restraint by warrant from the king, for a
supposed abuse of liberty in admitting a free resort
of'visitants, and under that colour, holding consulta
tions with my friends. My lodgings are removed,
and 1 am now where candle-light may be suffered,
but scarce fire. I hope you will think that this ex
change of places makes not a change of mind. The
same protection is still with me, and the same confi
dence ; and these things can have end by Him that
gives them being. N one but my servants, hardly my
, son, may have admittance to me. My friends 1 must
desire, for their own sakes, to forbear coming to the
Tower, You among them are chief, and have the
first place in this intelligence." — Forster's Eliot, p.
115. Towards the close of 1632, a motion was made
to the judges of the King's Bench, that as his physi
cians were of opinion he could never recover from
his consumption, unless he breathed purer air, " they
could for some certain time grant him his enlarge
ment for the purpose." Richardson, the chief-jus
tice, however, replied, "that although Sir John
were brought low in body, yet was he as high and
lofty in mind as ever, for he would neither submit to
the king nor to the justice of that court." He was,
therefore, referred to the monarch ; but, knowing that
it was hopeless to petition without a confession of
guilt, EUot resumed the occupation with which he
had long sought to relieve the dreariness of his pris
on. This was the composition of a philosophical
treatise, entitled "The Monarchy of Man," in
which the independence of his mind, and its control
over the passions and uifirmities of his nature, are
exhibited with an admirable combination of philo
sophical acuteness and strong practical sense. Hav
ing concluded this treatise, his health sank rapidly,
when the importunity of friends prevailed with him
to petition the king. Mr. Forster has given the fol
lowing account of his applications in a letter from
Pory to Sir Thomas Puckering; "He first," says
the letter-writer, " presented a petition to his majes
ty, by the hand of the Ueulenant his keeper, to this
effect : ' Sir, your judges have committed me to
prison here, in your Tower of London, where, by
reason of the quality of the air, 1 am fallen into a
dangerous disease. 1 humbly beseech your majesty
you wiU command your judges to set me at liberty,
that for recovery of my health 1 may take some fresh
air,' &c. "Whereunto his majesty's answer was, ' It
was not humble enough.' Then Sir John sent an
other petition, by his own son, to the effect follow
ing : ' Sir, I am heartUy sorry 1 have displeased your
majesty, and, having so said, do humbly beseech
you once a|ain to command your judges to set me
at liberty, that when I have recovered my health, I
may return back to my prison, there to undergo such
pumshment as God has allotted unto me,' &c. Upon
this the Ueutenant came and expostulated with hun,
saymg. It was proper to him, and common to none

four of them appeared accordingly, viz , Mr.
HoUis, Eliot, Coriton, and Valentine ; who, re
fusing to answer out of Parliament for what

else, to do that office of delivering petitions for his
prisoners. "And if Sir John, in a third petition, would hum
ble himself to his majesty, in acknowledging hia
fault, and craving pardon, he would willingly deUver
it, and made no doubt but he should obtain his hb
erty. Unto this Sir John's answer was, '1 thank
you, sir, for your friendly advice ; but my spirits are
grown feeble and faint, which when it shall pletuse
God to restore unto their former vigour, 1 will take
it farther into my consideration.' " — Life of John
Eliot, 119.
The following letter, addressed to Hampden, was
probably the last which Eliot wr--jte. It is too char
acteristic of the man, and of his friend, to be omit
ted. It reveals the secret of their character by
disclosing the religious impulse under which they
acted. " Besides the acknowledgment of your favour,
that have so much compassion on your friend, I have
little to return you from him that has nothing wor
thy of your acceptance, but the contestation that 1
have between an ill body and the air, that quarrel
and are friends, as the summer winds affect them.
1 have these three days been abroad, and as often
brought in new impressions of the cold ; yet, in body,
and strength, and appetite, I find myself bettered by
the motion. Cold at first was the occasion of my
sickness ; heat and tenderness, by close keeping in
my chamber, have since increased my weakness. Air
and exercise are thought most proper lo repair it,
which are the prescriptions of my doctors, though
no physic. 1 thank God, other medicines I now take
not but those catholicons, and do hope I shall not
need; as children learn to go, 1 shall get acquaint
ed with the air; practice and use will compass it;
and now and then a fall is an instruction for the fu
ture. These varieties He doth try us with, that will
have us perfect at all parts ; and, as he gives the
trial, he likewise gives the ability that will be neces
sary for the work; he will supply that doth com
mand the labour ; whose delivering from the lion and
the bear, has the Philistines also at the dispensation
of his wUl, and those that trust him, under his pro
tection and defence. O infinite mercy of our Mas
ter, dear friend, how it abounds to us that are unwor
thy of his service ! How broken, how imperfect,
how perverse and crooked are our ways in obedience
to him! How exactly straight is the line of his
providences to us, dra^n out through all the occur-
rants and particulars to the whole length and meas
ure of our time ; how fearful is his hand, that has
given his Son unto us, and with him hath promised
likewise to give us all things, relieving our wants,
sanctifying our necessities, preventing our dangers,
freeing us from all extremities, and died himself for
us ! "What can we render ? what retribution can we
make worthy so great a majesty, worthy such love
and favour ? We have nothing but ourselves, who
are unworthy above all ; and yet that, as all other
things, is his ; for us to offer up that, is but to give
him his own, and that in far worse condition than
we at first received it, which yet (for infinite is his
goodness for the merits of his Son) lie is contented
to accept. This, dear friend, must be the comfort
of his children ; this is the physic we must use in all
our sickness and extremities ; this is the strength
ening of the weak, the enriching of the poor, the lib
erty of the captive, the health of the diseased, the
life of those that die the death of that wicked life,
sin ; and this happiness have his saints. The con
templation of this happiness has led me almost be
yond the compass of a letter ; but the haste I use
unto my friends, and the affection that does move it,
wiU, I hope, excuse me. Friends should commu
nicate their joys ; this, as the greatest, therefore, I
could not but impart unto my friends, bemg therein

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

295

¦was said in the House, were committed close
prisoners to the Tower. The studies of the
rest vvere ordered to be sealed up, and a proc
lamation issued for apprehending them ; though
the Parliaraent not being dissolved, they were
actually raembers of the House. On the 10th
of March, the king came to the House of Lords,
ami without sending for the Commons, or pass
ing one single act, dissolved the Parliament,
with a very angry speech against the leading
merabers of the Lower House, whora he oaUed
vipers, that cast a mist of undutifulness over
most of their eyes ; " and as those vipers,"
says his majesty, " must look for their reward
of punishment, so you, my lords, must justly
expect from me that favour that a good king
oweth to his loving and faithful nobUity."*
The undutifulness of the Coraraons was only
their keeping the speaker in the chair after he
had signified that the king had adjourned thera,
which his majesty had no power of doing ; and
no king before King James I. pretended to ad
journ Parliaments ; and when he claimed that
power, it was complained of as a breach of
privilege. It is one thing to prorogue or dis
solve a Parliaraent, and another to adjourn it,
¦the latter being the act ofthe House itself, and
;the consequence of vesting such a power in the
crovi'n might be very fatal ; for if the king may
adjourn the House in the raidst of their debates,
or forbid the speaker to put a question when
required, it is easy to foresee the whole busi-
.ness of Parliament must be under his direc
tion. t The members above mentioned were
sentenced to be imprisoned during the king's
.pleasure ; and were accordingly kept under
¦close confinement many years, where Sir John
Eliot died a martyr to the liberties of his coun
try. t Mr. HoUis was fined a thousand marks,
moved by the present expectation of your letters,
which always have the grace of much intelligence,
.and are happiness to him that is truly yours, J. E."
— --Vaughan's Stuart Memorials, 417.
Eliot was released from his sufferings and impris
onment on the 27th of November, 1632. His son
.requested permission to carry his body into Com
waU, his native county ; but the king repUed, with
.his accustomed want of true nobihty of feeUng, •' Let
Sir John Eliot's body be buried in the church of
that parish where he died." Such was the end of
-one of the purest, most enUghtened, and devout of
English patriots. His character has risen in the es-
.timation of his countrymen in exact proportion as
his actions and the tenour of his life have become
, known. His fame has survived the slanders which
the malevolence of party writers has invented, and
is now regarded as the property of the nation, and
the honour of his age. His sufferings were not fruit
less, nor was the triumph of his enemies forgotten.
^'Faithful and brave hearts," says his biographer,
-" were left to remember this ; and the sufferings of
Eliot were not undergone in vain. They bore their
part in the heat and burden of the after struggle,
Jlis name was one of its watchwords, and it had
none more glorious." — Forster's Life of Eliot, 223,
and Price's Nonconformity, vol. ii., p. 44. Mr. Fors
ter has vindicated Eliot from the base charges pre
ferred against him by Echard, the archdeacon, and
retailed with such industrious malice by Mr. D'ls-
,raeU, — Life, p. 2-6.— C. * Rushworth, vol. i., 672.
t Rapin, vol. U., p. 279, folio edit.
X " An afi'ecting portrait of this gentleman is now
in the possession of Lord Eliot. He is drawn pale,
languishing, and emaciated ; but disdaining to make
the abject submission required of him by the tyrant,
,he expired under the excessive rigours of his con-

Sir John Eliot £2000, Valentine £500, and
Long two thousand marks.
Great were the raurraurings ofthe people upon
this occasion ; libels were dispersed against
the Prime Minister Laud ; one of which says,
" Laud, look to thyself; be assured thy life is
sought. As thou art the fountain of wicked
ness, repent of thy monstrous sins before thou
be taken out of this world ; and assure thyself,
neither God nor the world can endure such a
vile counseUor or whisperer to live."* But to
justify these proceedings to the world, his maj
esty published " A Declaration of the Causes of
dissolving the last Parliament."
The declaration vindicates the king's taking
the duties of tonnage and poundage frora the
examples of some of his predecessors, and as
agreeable to his kingly honour. It justifies the
silencing the predestinarian controversy, and
lays the blame of not executing the laws against
papists upon subordinate officers and ministers
in the country : " We profess," says his maj
esty, "that as it is our duty, so it shall be our
care, to command and direct weU ; but it is the
part of the others to perform the ministerial of
fice ; and when we have done our office, we
shall account ourself, and all charitable men
will account us, innocent, both to God and
men ; and those that are negligent, we wiU es
teem culpable, both to God and us." The dee
laration concludes with a profession that " the
king will maintain the true religion of the
Church of England, without conniving at po
pery or schism : that he will maintain the
rights and liberties of his subjects, provided
they do not misuse their liberty, by turning it
to licentiousness, wantonly and frowardly re
sisting our lawful and necessary authority ; for
we do expect our subjects should yield as much
submission to our royal prerogative, and as
ready obedience to our authority and command
ments, as has been performed to the greatest
of our predecessors. We wdl not have our
ministers terrified by harsh proceedings against
them ; for as we expect our ministers, should
obey us, they shaU assure themselves we wiU
protect them."t
This declaration not quieting the people, was
followed by a proclamation, which put an end
to aU prospects of recovering the Constitution
for the future. The proclamation declares his
majesty's royal pleasure " that spreaders of
false reports shall be severely punished ; that
such as cheerfully go on with their trades shall
have all good encouragement ; that he will not
overcharge his subjects with any new burdens,
but will satisfy himself with the duties received
by his royal father, which he neither can nor
will dispense with. And whereas, for several
ill ends, the calling of another Parhament is di
vulged, his majesty declares that the late abuse
having, for the present, driven his majesty un
willingly out of that course, he shall account it

finement, leaving the portrait as a legacy and me
mento to his posterity, and to mankind ; who, in the
contemplation of such enormities, have reason to
rejoice ' Wllen vengeance in the lucid air
Lifts her red arm exposed and bare.'"
— Belsham's Menioirs of the House of Brunswick Lu-
nenburgh, vol. i., p. 185, note. — Ed.
* Rushworth, vol. i., p. 672.
t Rushworth, vol. il, Appen.,,p..3-10.

296

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

presumption for any to prescribe any time to
his majesty for parliaments, the calling, con
tinuing, and dissolving of which is always in
the king's own power."* Here was an end of
the old English Constitution for twelve years.
England was now an absolute monarchy: the
king's proclamations and orders of council were
the laws of the land ; the rainisters of state
sported themselves in the raost wanton acts of
power ; and the religion, laws, and liberties of
this country lay prostrate and overwhelraed by
an inundation of popery and oppression.
This year died the Reverend Dr. John Pres
ton, descended of the family of the Prestons in
Lancashire. He was born at Heyford, in Nortli-
amptonshiie, in the parish of Bugbrook, 1587,
and was admitted of King's College, Carabridge,
1604, from whence he was afterward removed
to. Queen's College, and admitted fellow in the
year 1609. t He was an ambitious and aspiring
youth, lUl, having received some religious im
pressions from Mr. Cotton, in a serraon preach
ed by hira at St. Mary's Church, he became re
markably serious, and bent all his studies to
the service of Christ in the ministry. When
the king came to Cambridge, Mr, Preston was
appointed to dispute before him : the question
was. Whether brutes had reason, or could
make syllogisms ? Mr. Preston maintained the
affirmative; and instanced in a hound, who,
coming to a place where three ways meet,
smells one way and the other, but not finding
the scent, runs down the third with full cry,
concluding that the hare, not being gone either
of the first two ways, must necessarily be gone
the third. The argument had a wonderful ef
fect on the audience, and would have opened a
door for Mr. Preston's preferment, had not his
inclinations to Puritanism been a bar in the
way. He therefore resolved upon an academ
ical life, and took upon hira the care of pupils,
for which he was qualified beyond most in the
University. Many gentlemen's sons were com
mitted to his care, who trained them up in the
sentiments of the first Reformers, for he af
fected the very style and language of Calvin.
When it came to his turn to be catechist, he
went through a whole body of divinity with
such general acceptance, that the outward chap
el was usually crowded with strangers before

* Rushworth, vol. ii,, p. 3.
t Clarke's Lifeof Dr. Preston, annexed to his Gen
eral Martyrology, p. 75. Sir Fulke GreviUe, after
ward Lord Brook, was such an admirer of Dr Pres
ton, that he settled fifty pounds a year upon him.
Lord Brook was a zealous patriot and an open advo
cate for liberty. On account of the arbitrary meas
ures of Charles I., he determined to seek freedom in
New. England ; and he and Lord Say actually de
termined to transport themselves to Massachusetts ;
but, upon the meeting of the Long Parliament, and
the sudden change of pubhc affairs, they were hin
dered in the project. He was afterward commander
in the Parliamentary army, and having reduced War
wickshire, he advanced into Staffordshire, on the
festival of St, Chad, to whom the Cathedral of Litch
field is dedicated ; he ordered his men to storm the
adjoming close, to which Lord Chesterfield had re
tired with a body of the king's forces. But before
his orders could be put in execution, he received a
musket-shot in the eye, of which he instantly ex
pired, in the year 1613. It was the opinion of the
papists that St. Chad directed the bullet Archbish
op Laud made a particular memorial of this in hi
diary.— Prynne's Breinale of Laud, p. 27.— C.

the fellows oamr in, which cre.itod him envy
Complaint ua.^i made to the vice-cliancellor uf
this unusual way of catechising, and thai it wns
not safe lo suffer Dr, Preston lo be thus adored,
unless they had a mind to .set up Puritanism
and pull down the hierarcliy ; it was therefore
agreed in the convocation- house that no stran
ger, neither townsman nor scholar, should,
upon any pretence, come to those lectures,
which were only designed for the menibers of
the college.
There was little preaching in the University
at this time, except at St. Mary's, the lectures
at Trinity and St. Andrew's being prohibited ;
Mr. Preston, therefiire, at the request of the
townsmen and scholars of other colleges, at
tempted to set up an evening sermon at .St. Bo-
tolph's, belonging lo Queen's College ; but
when Dr. Neweomb, commissary to the Bishop-
of Ely, heard of il, he came to the church and
forbade it, comraanding that evening prayers-
only should be read ; there was a vast crowd,
and earnest entreaty that Mr, Preston raight
preach at least for that time ; but the corarais-
sary was inexorable, and, to prevent farther
importunities, went home with his family ; af
ter he was gone, Mr. Preston was prevailed
with to preach, and because much time had
been spent in debates, Ihey adventured for once
to omit the service, that the scholars might be
present at their college prayers. Next day the
commissary went to Newmarket, and complain
ed both to the bishop and king ; he represented
the danger of the hierarchy, and the progress
of nonconformity among the scholars, and as
sured them that Mr. Preston was in such high
esteem, that he would carry all before him if
he was not thoroughly dealt with. Being call
ed before his superiors, he gave a plain narra
tive of the fact ; and added, that he had no de
sign lo affront the bishop or his commissary.
The bishop said the king was informed that he
was an enemy to forms of prayer, which Mr.
Preston denying, he was ordered to declare his.
judgment upon that head, in a sermon at St.
Botolph's Church, and so was dismissed.
Some tirae after. King James being at New
market, Mr. Preston was appointed to preach
before hira, which he performed with great ap
plause, having a fluent speech, a commanding^
voice, and a strong meraory, to deliver what he
had prepared without the assistance of notes.
The king spoke familiarly to him ; and, though
his majesty expressed a dislike to sorae of his
Puritan notions, he commended his opposing
the Arrainians. And the Duke of Buckinghara,
not knowing what friends he might want among-
the populace, persuaded the king to admit him
one ofthe prince's chaplains in ordinary, and lo
wait two months in the year, which he did.
Soon after this he was chosen preacher of Lin
coln's Inn, and, upon the resignation of Dr.
Chadderton, master of Emanuel CoUege, in the
year 1622, at which time he took his degree of
Doctor of Divinity. The doctor was a fine
gentleman, a complete courtier, and in high es
teem with the Duke of Buckingham, who
thought by his means to ingratiate himself
with the Puritans,* whose power was growing
* " But Preston, who was as great a politician as
the duke," says Mr. Granger, " was not to be over
reached." — Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

29r

very formidable in Pariiament. The duke of
fered him the bishopric of Gloucester, but the
doctor refused, and chose rather the lecture
ship of Trinity Church, which he kept till his
death. By his interest in the duke and prince
he did considerable service for many silenced
rainisters ; he was in waiting when King James
died, and came up with the young king and
duke in a close coach to London. But some
time after, the duke, having changed measures,
and finding that he could neither gain over the
Puritans to his arbitrary designs nor separate
the doctor frora their interests, he resolved to
shake hands with his chaplain. The doctor,
foreseeing the storra, was content to retire qui
etly to his college, where, it is apprehended, he
would have felt some farther effects of the
duke's displeasure, if God, in his providence,
had not out him out work of a different nature.
which engaged all his thoughts to the time of
his death.
Dr. Preston lived a single life, being never
married ; nor had he any cure of souls. He had
a strong constitution, which he wore out in his
study and in the pulpit. His distemper was a
consumption in fhe lungs, for which, by the ad
vice of physicians, he changed the air several
times ; but the failure of his appetite, with oth
er symptoras of a general decay, prevailed with
him at length to leave off all medicine, and re
sign himself to the wiU of God. And being de
sirous of dying in his native country, and among
his old friends, he retired into Northampton
shire, where he departed this life in a most pi
ous and devout manner,* in the fifty-first year
of his age, and was buried in Fawsley Church,
old Mr. Dod, minister of the place, preaching
his funeral sermon to a numerous auditory,
July 20, 1628. Mr. FuUert says, " He was an
excellent preacher, a subtle disputant, a great
politician ; so that his foes must confess that
(if not having too little of the dove) he had
enough of the serpent. Some wUI not stick to
say he had parts sufficient to manage the broad-
seal, which was offered him, but the conditions
did not please. He might have been the duke's
right hand, but his grace finding that he could
not bring him nor his party off to his side, he
would use hira no longer," which shows hira to
be an honest raan. His practical works and
sermons were printed by his own order, after
his decease. CHAPTER IV.
FKOM THE DISSOLUTION OF THE THIRD PARLIA
MENT OF KINS CHARLES I. TO THE DEATH OF
ARCHBISHOP ABBOT.
The ancient and legal government of Eng-

* As he felt the symptoms of death coming upon
him, he said, " I shall not change my company, for 1
shaU still converse with God and saints." A few
hours previous to his departure, being told it was the
Lord's Day, he said, " A fit day to be sacrificed on !
I have accompanied saints on earth, now I shall ac
company angels in heaven. My dissolution is at
hand. Let me go to my home, and to Jesus Christ,
who hath bought me with his precious blood." He
soon added, " I feel death coming to my heart ; my
pain shall now be turned into joy." — Clarke's Lives,
p. 113. Echard styles Dr. Preston " the most cele
brated of the Puritans, an exquisite preacher, a no
ble disputant, and a deep poUtician." — C.
t Book xi., p. 131.
Vol. I.— P p

land, by king, lords, and commons, being now
suspended by the royal wiU and pleasure, his-
raajesty resolved tp supply the necessities ofthe
state by such other methods as his councU should
advise, who gave a loose to their actions, being
no longer afraid of a parliamentary inquiry, and
above the reach of ordinary justice. Instead
ofthe authority of king and Parliament, all pub>-
lic affairs were directed hy proclamations ofthe
king and council, which had the force of so
many laws, and were bound upon the subject
under the severest penalties. They levied the
duties of tonnage and poundage, and laid what
other imposts they thought proper upon mer.-
chandise, which they let out to farm to private
persons ; the number of monopolies was in
credible ; there was no branch of the subject's
property that the ministry could dispose of
but was bought and sold. They raised above
£1,000,000 a year by taxes on soap, salt, can
dles, wine, cards, pins, leather, coals, &c., evea
to the sole gathering of rags. Grants were giv
en out for weighing hay and straw within three
miles of London, for gauging red-herring-bar
rels and butter-casks, for marking iron and seal
ing lace,* with a great many others, which, be
ing purchased of the crown, must be paid for by
the subject. His majesty claimed a right, in ca
ses of necessity (of which necessity himself was.
the sole judge), to raise money by ship- writs, or-
royal mandates, directed to the sheriffs of the-
several counties to levy on the subject the sev,-
eral sums of money therein demanded, for the-
maintenance and support ofthe royal navy. The
like was demanded for the royal army, by the-
narae of coat and conduct money, when they
were to march, and when they were in quarters
the men were billeted upon private houses. Many
were put to death by martial law who ought to^
have been tried by the laws of the land, and oth
ers, by the same martial law, were exempted
frora the punishment which by law they deserv
ed. Large sums of money were raised by com
missions under the great seal, to compound for
depopulations, for nuisances in building be
tween high and low water mark, for pretended-
encroachments on the forests, &c., besides the-
exorbitant fines ofthe Star Chamber and High
Commission Court, and the extraordinary proj
ects of loans, benevolences, and free gifts. Sucti
was the calamity of the times, that no man,
could caU anything his own longer than the
king pleased, or might speak or write against
these proceedings without the utmost hazard'
of his liberty and estate.
The Church was governed by the like arbi
trary and Ulegal methods ; Dr. Laud, bishop oP
London, being prime minister, pursued his wild
scheme of uniting the two Churches of England
and Rome,t without the least regard to the

* Stevens's Historical Account of all Taxes, p.
183, 184, 2d edit.
t Dr. Grey is much displeased with Mr. Neal for
this representation of Laud's views ; but, without;
bringing any direct evidence to refute it, he appeals to
the answer of Fisher, and the testimonies of Sir Ed
ward Deering and Limborch, to show that the arch.r
bishop was not a papist. This may be admitted, and
the proofs of it are also adduced by Dr. Harris [Life
of Charles I., p. 207], yet it wUl not be so easy to ac
quit Laud of a partiality for the Church, though not
the court, of Rome, according to the distinction May
makes m his " Parliamentary History." It will not

298

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

rights of conscience, or the laws of the land,
and very seldom to the canons of the Church,
bearing down all who opposed him with unre
lenting seventy and rigour. To make way for
this union, the churches were not only to be
repaired, but ornamented with pictures, paint
ings, images, altar-pieces, &c., the forms of
public w-orship were to be decorated with a
number of pompous rites and ceremonies, in
imitation of the Church of Rome, and the Pu
ritans, who were the professed enemies of eve
rything that looked like popery, were lo be
suppressed or driven out of the land. To ac
complish the latter, his lordship presented the
king with certain considerations for settling the
Church, which were soon after published, with
some little variation, under the title of " In
structions to the two Archbishops, concerning
certain Orders to be observed and put in exe
cution by the several Bishops."
Here his majesty commands them to see that
his declaration for silencing the predestinarian
controversy be strictly observed ; and that spe
cial care be taken of the lectures and afternoon
sermons, in their several diocesses, concerning
which he is pleased to give the following in
structions :*
1. "That in all parishes the afternoon ser
mons be turned into catechising by question
and answer, where there is not some great
cause to break this ancient and profitable order.
2. " That every lecturer read Divine service
before lectures in surplice and hood.
3. " That where there are lectures in market
towns, they be read by grave and orthodox di
vines, and that they preach in gowns, and not
in cloaks, as too many do use.
4. " That no lecturer be admitted that is not
ready and wUling to take upon him a living wilh
cure of souls.
5, " That the bishops take order that the ser-
Jnons of the lecturers be observed.
6. " That none under noblemen, and men
qualified by law, keep a private chaplain.
7. " That care be taken that the prayers and
oateohisings be frequented, as weU as sermons,"
Of aU which his majesty requires an account
once a year.
By virtue of these instructions, the Bishop of
London summoned before him all ministers and
lecturers in and about the city, and in a solemn
speech insisted on their obedience. He also
sent letters to his archdeacons, requiring them
to send hira lists of the several lecturers within
their archdeaconries, as well in places exempt
as not exempt, with the places where they

be so easy to clear him of the charge of symbol
izing with the Church of Rome in its two leading
features superstition and intolerance. Under his
primacy the Church of England, it is plain, assumed
a very popish appearance. " Not only the pomps of
ceremonies were daily increased, and innovations of
great scandal brought into the Church, but, in point
of doctrine, many fair approaches made towards
Rome. Even Heyhn says, the doctrines are altered
in many things ; as, for example, the pope not anti
christ, pictures, free-will, &c, ; the Thirty-nine Arti
cles seemmg impatient, if not ambitious also, of some
Catholic sense."— May's Parliamentary History, p. 22,
23, and Heylin's Life of Laud, p. 152.— Ed.
* .4. liberal mind will reprobate these instructions
as evading argument, preventing discussion and in
quiry, breathing the spirit of intolerance and perse-
.cution, and indicating timidity.— Ed.

preached, and their quality or degree ; as also
the names of such gentlemen who, not being
qualified, kept chaplains in their own houses.
His lordship required them, farther, lo leave a
copy of the king's instructions concerning lec
turers with the parson of every parish, and to
see that they were duly observed.
These lecturers were chiefly Puritans, who,
not being satisfied wilh a full conformity so as
to take upon them a cure of souls, only preach
ed in the afternoon, being chosen and maintain
ed by the people. They were strict Calvinists,
warm and affectionate preachers, and distin
guished themselves by a religious observance
of the Lord's Day, by a bold opposition lo po
pery and the new ceremonies, and by an un
common severity of life. Their manner of
preaching gave the bishop a distaste lo ser
mons, who was already of opinion that they
did raore harm than good, insorauch that on a
fast-day for the plague, then in London, prayers
were ordered to be read in all churches, but not
a serraon lo be preached, lest the people should
wander frora their own parishes. The lectu
rers had very popular talents, and drew great
nuinbers of people after them. Bishop Laud
would often say " they were the most danger
ous enemies of the state, because by theil
prayers and serraons they awakened the peo
ple's disaffection, and, therefore, must be sup
pressed." Good old Archbishop Abbot was of another
spirit, but the reins were taken out of his hands.
He had a good opinion of the lecturers, as men
who had the Protestant religion at heart, and
would fortify their hearers against the return of
popery.* 'When Mr. Palmer, lecturer of St.
Alphage, in Canterbury, was commanded to
desist from preaching by the archdeacon, be
cause he drew great numbers of factious peo
ple after him and did not wear the surplice, the
archbishop authorized him to continue : the
like he did by Mr. Udnay, of Ashford, for which
he was complained of as not enforcing the
king's instructions, whereby the coraraission-
ers, as they say, were made a scorn to the fac
tious, and the archdeacon's jurisdiction inhibit
ed. But in the diocess of London Bishop Laud
proceeded with the utraost severity. Many
lecturers were put down, and such as preached
against Arrainianisra, or the new ceremonies,
were suspended and sUenced ; among whom
were the Reverend Mr. John Rogers, of Ded
ham, Mr. Daniel Rogers, of Wethersfield, Mr.
Hooker, of Chelmsford, Mr. White, of Knights-
bridge, Mr. Archer, Mr. William Martin, Mr.
Edwards, Mr. Jones, Mr. Dod, Mr. Hildershara,
Mr. Ward, Mr. Saunders, Mr. James Gardiner,
Mr, Foxley, and many others.
The Rev, Mr, Bernard, lecturer of St, Sepul
chre's, London, having used this expression in
his prayer before sermon, "Lord, open the eyes
of the queen's raajesty, that she raay see Jesus
Christ, whora she has pierced with her infidel
ity, superstition, and idolatry,"! was suramon-
ed before the High Commission, January 28,
and upon his humble submission was dismiss
ed ; but some time after, in his sermon at St.
Mary's, in Cambridge, speaking offensive words

* Prynne's Introd, p. 94, 361, 373.
t Rushworth, vol. a, p. 32, 140. Prynne, p. 365,
367

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

299

.^gainst Arminianism and the new ceremonies.
Bishop Laud sent for a copy of his sermon, anti
having cited him before the High Commission,
required him to make an open recantation of
what he had said, which his conscience not suf
fering hira to, he was suspended from his min
istry, excommunicated, fined £1000, condemn
ed in costs of suit, and coramitted to New
Prison, where he lay several months, being
cruelly used, and almost starved for want of
necessaries, of which he complained to the
bishop in sundry letters, but could get no relief
unless he would recant. Mr. Bernard offered
to confess his sorrow and penitence for any
'Oversights or unbecoming expressions in his
sermons, which could not be accepted, so that
in conclusion he was utterly ruined.
Mr. Charles Chauncey, minister of Ware, hav
ing said in a serraon " that the preaching of the
Gospel would be suppressed, and that there
was much atheisra, popery, Arminianism, and
Jieresy crept into the Church," was questioned
/or it in the High Commission, and not dismiss
ed tiU he had made an open recantation, which
we shaU meet with hereafter.
Mr. Peter Smart, one of the prebendaries of
Durham, and rainister of that city, was impris-
.oned by the High Commission of York this
.summer, for a sermon preached from these
words, " I hate ah those that love superstitious
vanities, but thy law do I love," in which he
took occasion to speak against images and pic
tures, and the late pompous innovations. He
was confined four months before the comrais-
sioners exhibited any articles against him, and
Jive more before any proctor was allowed hira.
From York he was carried up to Lambeth, and
frora thence back again to York, and at length
was deprived of his prebend, degraded, excora-
municated, fined £500, and committed close
prisoner, where he continued eleven years, tUl
he was set at liberty by the Long Parliament in
1640. He was a person of a grave and rever
end aspect,* but died soon after his release,
the severity of a long imprisonment having con
tributed to the impairing his constitution.!

* Fuller's Chureh History, b. U., p. 173.
t " Here the historian," remarks Bishop Warbur
ton, "was much at a loss for his confessor's good
qualities, while he is forced to take up with his grave
and reverend aspect." It might have screened this
passage from his lordship's sneer and sarcasm, that
these are the words of Fuller, whose history furnish
ed the whole paragraph, and whose description of
Mr. Smart goes into no other particulars. His lord
ship certainly did not wish Nr. Neal to have drawn
a character from his own invention ; not to urge that
the countenance is the index of the mind. It ap
pears, as Dr. Grey observes, that the proceedings
against Smart commenced in the High Commission
Court in Durham. — See Wood's Atherue Oxon., vol.
ii., p. 11. The doctor, and Nelson in his CoUec-
tions, vol. i., p. 518, 519, produce some paragraphs
.fiom Smart's sermon to show the strain and spirit of
it. There was printed a virulent tract at Durham,
17^6, entitled " An Illustration of Mr. Neal's Histo
ry of the Puritans, in the Article of Peter Smart,
A.M.." It is a detail of the ^ proceedings against
Smart, and of subsequent proceedings in Parliament
against iDr. Cosins upon the complaint of Smart,
-whom the, author aims to represent in a very unfa-
,vourable poipt of view; but without necessity, as
the very persecution of him shows that he must have
been very offensive to those who were admirers of
the superstitions and ceremonies against which he

The king's instructions and the violent meas
ures of the prime minister brought a great deal
of business into the spiritual courts ; one or
other of the Puritan ministers was every week
suspended or deprived, and their families driven
to distress ; nor was there any prospect of re
lief, the clouds gathering every day thicker over
their heads, and threatening a violent storm.
This put them upon projecting a farther settle
ment in New-England, where they raight be
delivered from the hands of their oppressors,
and enjoy the free liberty of their consciences ;
which gave birth to,a second grand colony in
North America, commonly known by the name
ofthe Massachusetts Bay. Several persons of
quality and substance about the city of London
engaging in the design, obtained a charter dated
March 4, 1628-9, wherein the gentlemen and
merchants therein named, and all who should
thereafter join thera, were constituted a body
corporate and politic, by the name of the Gov
ernor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in
New-England. They were empowered to elect
their own governor, deputy-governor, and ma
gistrates, and to make such laws as they should
think fit for the good of the plantation, not re
pugnant to the laws of England. Free liberty
of conscience was likewise granted to all who
should settle in those parts, to worship God in
their own way.* The new planters being all
Puritans, made their applicatic(fi to the Rever
end Mr. Higginson, a sUenced minister in Lei
cestershire, and to Mr. Skelton, another silen
ced minister of Lincolnshire, to be their chap
lains, desiring them to engage as many of their
friends as were wUUng to embark with them.
The Utile fleet that went upon this expedition
consisted of six sail of transports, from four to
twenty guns, with about three hundred and
fifty passengers, men, women, and children.
They carried with thera one hundred and fif
teen head of cattle, as horses, mares, cows, &c.,
forty-one goats, six pieces of cannon for a fort,
with rauskets, pikes, drums, colours, and a large
quantity of ammunition and provisions. The
fleet sailed May 11, 1629, and arrived the 24th
of June foUowing, at a place called by the na
tives Neumkeak, but by the new planters Sa
lem, which in the Hebrew language signifies
peace. Religion being the chief motive of their retreat
ing into these parls,f that was settled in the first
place. August the 6th being appointed for the
solemnity of forming themselves into a religious
society, the day was spent in fasting and prayer ;

inveighed. He was afterward not only set at liber
ty, but by the order ofthe Lords, in 1642, was resto
red to his prebend in Durham, and was presented to
the Vicarage of Aycliff in the same diocess — Nel
son's Collections, vol. ii., p. 406. The Puritans, by
whom he was esteemed a protomartyr, it is said,
raised £400 a year for him by subscription. — Gran
ger's History of England, vol. ii., p. 177. — Ed.
* This is a mistake : the charter did not once
mention liberty of conscience or toleration. — See
Gordon's History of the American War, vol. i., p. 19.
—Ed. t What a commentary upon this statement does
the history of Salem afford I It is probable that no
community on the globe, of the same population, can
exhibit a finer harvest resulting from the cultivation
of Gospel principles. The churches and the schools
of Salem are demonstrations that, as men sow, they
shall cilso reap ! — C.

30O

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

and thirtv persons who desired to be of the
communion, severallv, in the presence of the
whole congregation, declared their consent to
a confession of faith which Mr. Higginson had
drawn up, and signed the foUowmg covenant
with their hands : .. , .
" We covenant with our Lord, and one an
other We bind ourselves, in the presence of
God, to walk together in all his ways, according
as he is pleased to reveal himself to us in his
blessed "Word of truth, and do profess to walk
as follows, through the power and grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ.*
"We avouch the Lord to he our God, and
ourselves to be his people, in the truth and sim-
' pUcity of our spirits.
" We give ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ,
and to the Word of his grace, for the teaching,
ruling, and sanctifying us in matters of wor
ship and conversation, resolving to reject aU
canons and constUutions of men in worship.
" We promise to walk with our brethren with
all watchfulness and tenderness, avoiding jeal
ousies, suspicions, backbitings, censurings, pro-
vokings, secret risings of spirit against them ;
but in all offences to follow the rule of our Lord
Jesus Christ, and to bear and forbear, give and
forgive, as he hath taught us.
" In public and private we wiU willingly do
nothing to the offence of the Church, but will
be willing to taMfe advice for ourselves and ours,
as occasion shaU be presented.
" We wiU not in the congregation be forward,
either to show our own gifts and parts in speak
ing, or scrupling, or in discovering the weak
nesses or faUings of our brethren ; but attend
an ordinary call thereunto, knowing how much
the Lord may be dishonoured, and his Gospel,
and the profession of it, slighted by our distem
pers and weaknesses in public.
" We bind ourselves to study the advance
ment of the Gospel in aU truth and peace, both
in regard of those that are within or without,
no way slighting our sister churches, hut using
their counsel as need shaU be; not laying a
sturabling-block before any, no, not the Indians,
whose good we desire to proraote, and so to
converse as we may avoid the very appearance
of evU.
" We do hereby promise to carry ourselves in
all lawful obedience to those that are over us
in Church and commonwealth, 'knowing how
well-pleasing it wUl be to the Lord, that they
should have encouragement in their places by
our not grieving their spirits by our irregulari
ties. " We resolve to approve ourselves to the
Lord in our particular caUings, shunning idle
ness, as the bane of any state ; nor wiU we deal
hardly or oppressingly wilh any, wherein we
are the Lord's stewards.
" Promising, also, to the best of our ability,
to teach our children and servants the knowl
edge of God, and of his wiU, that they may
serve him also. And all this not by any strength
of our own, but by the Lord Jesus Christ, whose
Diood we desire may sprinkle this our covenant
made in his- narae."
Mr^ii^'' '^'®' *'"'y "''"SS Mr. Skelton their pastor,
their rfP"^"!* "'^''' 'eacher, and Mr. Houghton
l££lj:!jj!;2g_glder, who were separated to their
* Neal's History of New-England, p. 126.

several offices by the imposition of the hands
of some ofthe brethren appointed by the Chureh
10 that service.* The first winter proved a
fatal one to the colony, carrying off above one
hundred of their company, and among the rest
Mr. Houghton, their elder, and Mr. Higginson,
their teacher ; the latter of whom, not being
capable of undergoing the fatigues of a new set
tlement, feU into a hectic, and died in the forty-
third year of his age. Mr. Higginson had been
educated in Emanuel College, Carabridge, pro
ceeding M.A., being afterward parson of one of
the five churches in Leicester, where he con
tinued for some years, till he was depnVed for
nonconformity ; but such were his talents for
the pulpit, that after his suspension, the town
obtained liberty from Bishop WUliams to choose
him for their lecturer, anci maintained him by
their voluntary contributions, till Laud, being
at the head of the Church affairs, he was arti
cled against in the High Commission, and ex
pected every hour a sentence of perpetual im
prisonment ; this induced him to accept of an
invitation to remove to New-England, which
cost him his life. Mr. Skelton, the other min
ister, was a Lincolnshire divine, who, being si
lenced for nonconformity, accepted ofa like in
vitation, and died of the hardships ofthe coun
try, August 2, 1634. From this smaU beginning
is the Massachusetts province grown to the
figure it now raakes in the American world-.
Next summer the governor went over with a
fresh recruit of two hundred ministers, and
others, who were forced out of their native
country by the heat of the Laudean persecution.
Upon embarcation they left behind them a pa
per, which was soon after published, entitled,
" The Humble Request of his Majesty's Loyal
Subjects, the Governor and Company lately gone
for New-England, to the rest of their Brethren in
and ofthe Church of England, for the obtaining
of their Prayers, and removal of Suspicions and
Misconstructions of their Intentions," Where
in they entreated the reverend fathers and breth
ren of the Church of England to recommend
them to the mercies of God in their constant
prayers, as a new church now springing out of
their bowels : " for you are not ignorant," say
they, " that the Spirit of God stirred up the
Apostle Paul to make a continued mention of
the Church of Philippi, which was a colony ftom
Rome. Let the same Spirit, we beseech yo-i
put you in mind, that are the Lord's rem-
brancers, to pray for us without ceasing; ">'¦!
what goodness shall extend to us, in this or any
other Christian kindness, we, your brethren in
Christ, shall labour to repay in what duty we
are or shall be able to perform ; promising, so
far as God shall enable us, to give him no rest
on your behalf, wishing our heads and hearU
raay be fountains of tears for your everlasting
welfare, when we shall be in our poor cottages
in the wUderness, overshadowed with the spirit
of supplication, through the manifold necessities
and tribulations which may not altogether un
expectedly, nor, we hope, unprofitably befaUus.
When it appeared that the planters could
subsist in their new settlement, great numbers
of their friends, with their famUies, flocked after
them every summer. In the succeeding twelve
years of Archbishop Laud's administration.

Mather's Hist, of New-England, b. iu., p. 74,76.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

301

there went over about four thousand planters,*
who laid the foundation of several little towns
and villages up and down the country, carrying
¦over with them, in materials, money, and cat
tle, &c., not less than to the value of £192,000,
besides the merchandise intended for traffic
with the Indians. Upon the whole, it has been
computed that the four settlements of New-
England, viz,, Plymouth, the Massachusetts Bay,
Connecticut, and New-Haven, aU which were
aeoomplished before the beginning of the civil
wars, drained England of four or five hundred
thousand pounds in raoney (a very great sum in
those days) ; and if the persecution of the Puri
tans had continued twelve years longer, it is
thought that a fourth part of the riches of the
kingdom would have passed out of it through
this channel.
The chief leaders of the people into these
parts were the Puritan ministers, who, being
hunted frora one diocess to another, at last
chose this wUderness for their retreat, which
has proved (through the overruling providence
of God) a great accession to the strength and
<;ommerce of these kingdoms. I have before
me a list of seventy-seven divines, who became
pastors of sundry little churches and congrega
tions in that country before the year 1640, all
of whom were in orders in the Churoh of Eng-
Jand. The reader wiU meet with an account
of sorae of thera in the course of this history ;
and I must say, though they were not all of the
first rank for deep and extensive learning, yet
they had a better share of it than raost of the
neighbouring clergy ; and, which is of more
consequence, they were men of strict sobriety
and virtue ; plain, serious, affectionate preach
ers, exactly conformable in sentiment to the
doctrinal articles ofthe Churoh of England, and
took a great deal of pains to promote Christian
knowledge, and a reformation of manners in
their several parishes.
To return to England. Though Mr. Dave
nant, the learned Bishop of Salisbury, had de-
-clared for the doctrine of universaLredemption
at the Synod of Dort, he was this year brought
into trouble for touching upon the point of pre
destination, t in his Lent sermon before the
king, on Romans, vi., 23, " The gift of God is
eternal Ufe, through Jesus Christ our Lord."
This was construed as a contempt ofthe king's
injunctions, for which his lordship was two
days after summoned before the privy councU,
where he presented himself upon his knees, and
so had continued, for any favour he received
from any of his own function then present ; but
the temporal lords bade him rise and stand to
his defence. The accusation was managed by
.Dr. Harsnet, archbishop of York ; Laud walk
ing by all the whUe in silence, without speak
ing a word. Harsnet put him in mind of his
obligations to King James ; of the piety of his
present majesty's instructions, and then aggra
vated his conterapt of thera with great vehe
mence and acrimony. Bishop Davenant re
plied, with mildness, that he was sorry that an
established doctrine ofthe Church should be so
..distasted ; that he had preached nothing but
what was expressly contained in the seven
teenth article, and was ready to justify the truth

* Mather's Hist. N. E., b. i., p. 17, 23.
t Fuller, b, xi., p. 138.

of it. It was replied that the doctrine was not
gainsaid, but the king had commanded these
questions should not be debated, and, therefore,
his majesty took it more offensively that any
should do it in his own hearing. 'The bishop
replied that he never understood that his maj
esty had forbidden the handling any doctrine
comprised in the Articles of the Church, but
only the raising new questions, or putting a
new sense upon them, which he never should
do ; that in the king's declaration aU the Thir
ty-nine Articles are confirmed, among which
the seventeenth, of predestination, is one ; that
all ministers are obliged lo subscribe to the
truth of this article, and to continue in the true
profession of that as well as the rest ; the bish
op desired it might be shown wherein he had
transgressed his majesty's coraraands, when he
had kept hiraself within the bounds of the arti
cle, and had moved no new or curious ques
tions. To which it was replied that it was the
king's pleasure that, for the peace ofthe Church,
these high questions might be forborne. The
bishop then said he was very sorry he under
stood not his raajesty's intention, and that for
the tirae to corae he would conform to his com
mands.* Upon this he was dismissed without
farther trouble, and was after some time admit
ted to kiss the king's hand, who did not fail to
remind him that the doctrine of predestination
was too big for the people's understanding, and,
therefore, he was resolved not to give leave for
discussing that controversy in the pulpit. Here
upon the bishop retired, and was never after
ward in favour at court.
Soon after, Mr. Madye, lecturer of Christ
Church, London, was cited before the High
Commission, and [March 10, 1630] was, by act
of court, prohibited to preach any more within
the diocess of London, because he had disobey
ed the king's declaration, by preaching on pre
destination. Dr. Cornelius Burges, Mr. White,
the famous Dr. Prideaux, Mr. Hobbes, of Trin
ity CoUege, and Mr. Cook, of Brazen-nose, with
others, suffered on the same account.
But Dr. Alexander Leighton, a Scots divine,
and father of the worthy and celebrated prelate
of that name, so highly commended by Bishop
Burnet in the " History of his Life and Times,"
met with severe usage in the Star Chamber,
for venturing to write against the hierarchy of
the Chureh. t This divine had published, du
ring the last session of Parliament, an " Appeal
to the Parliament ; or, Zion's Plea against
Prelacy,"!; wherein he speaks not only with

* Prynne, p. 173, 876.
+ Rushworth, vol. i., p. 55-57.
X Dr. Harris, who had read by far the greatest
part of this piece, says that "it was written with
spirit, and more sense and learning than the writers
of that stamp usually showed in tlieir productions ;"
and adds, " 1 cannot for my life see anything in it de
serving so heavy a censure." — Life of Charles I, p.
225. His calling the queen " a daughter of Heth,"
as Mr. Pierce observes, meant no more than that she
was a papist. Bishop Tillotson afterward used a
not much better expression concerning foreign popish
princes, without giving any umbrage, in styUng
them "the people of these abominations." Such
language had much countenance from the taste and
spirit of the age. Whitelocke, as well as Heylin,
represents Dr. Leighton as charged with exciting the
ParUament to kfll all the bishops, and smite Ihem
under the fifth rib ; and other writers have repeated

302

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

freedom, but with very great rudeness and in
decency against bishops ; calling Ihem " men
of blood," and saying " that we do not read of
a greater persecution and higher indignities
done towards God's people in any nation than
in this, since the death of Queen Elizabeth."
He caUs the prelacy of the Church " anti-Chris
tian." He ileclairas vehemently against the
canons and ceremonies; and adds, that "the
Church has her laws from the Scripture, and
that no king may make laws for the house
of God." He styles the queen a daughter of
Heth, and concludes with saying w-hat a pity il
is that so ingenious and tractable a king should
be so monstrously abused by the bishops, to
the undoing of himself and his subjects. Now,
though the warmth of these expressions can no
ways be justified, yet let the reader consider
whether they bear any proportion lo the sen
tence ofthe court. The cause was tried June
4, 1630. The defendant, in his answer, owned
the writing of the book, denying any ill inten
tion, his design being only to lay these things
before the next Parliaraent for their considera
tion. Nevertheless, the court adjudged unan
imously that for this offence " the doctor should
be committed to the prison ofthe Fleet for life,
and pay a fine of £10,000 ; that the High Com
mission should degrade him from his ministry ;
and that then he should he brought to the pil
lory at Westrainster, while the court was sit
ting, and be whipped ; after whipping, be set
upon the pillory a convenient lime, and have
one of his ears cut off, one side of his nose slit,
and be branded in the face with a double S. S.
for a sower of sedUion : that then he should
be carried back to prison, and after a few days
be piUoried a second time in Cheapside, and be
there likewise whipped, and have the other
side of his nose slit, and his otlier ear cut off,
and then he shut up in close prison for the re-
raainder of his life." Bishop Laud pulled off his
cap while this merciless sentence was pronouncing,
and gave God thanks for it !
Between passing the sentence and execution,
the doctor made his escape from prison, but
was retaken in Bedfordshire, and brought back
to the Fleet. On Friday, November 6, part of
the sentence was executed upon hun, says Bish
op Laud in his diary, after this manner : " He
was severely whipped before he was put in the
piUory. 2, Being set in the piUory, he had one
of his ears cut off. 3, One side of his nose slit.
4. Branded on the cheek wilh a redhot iron with
the letters S. S. On that day sevennight, his
sores upon his back, ear, nose, and face being

the accusation ; a circumstance not noticed by Mr.
NeaL It appears to be ungrounded, for Mr. Pierce
could not find it in the books, but only a call on the
Parhament utteriy to root out the hierarchy. Nor did
it form any one of the articles of information against
Dr. Leighton in the Star Chamber.— Pierce's Vindi
cation, p. 17? ; and Rushworth, vol. i., p. 55. It great
ly aggravated the injustice and cruelty of the sen
tence passed on him, that his book was printed for
the use of the ParUament only, and not in England,
but in Holland. The heads were previously sanc
tioned by the approbation of five hundred persons un
der their hands, whereof some were members of Par
liament. And when the Pariiament was dissolved
he returned, without bringing any copies of it into
the land, but made it his special care to suppress
them.— A iMer from General Ludlow to Dr. HoUin"-
worlh, printed at Amsterdam, 1692, p. 23 —Ed °

not yet cured, he was whipped agnin at tho pil
lory in Cheapside, and had the remainder of his
sentence executed upon him, by cutting off the
other ear, slitting the other side of the nnse, and
branding the other cheek,"* He was then car
ried hack to prison, where he continued in close
confinement for ten years, till he w.is relea,sed
by the Long Parliaraent + The doctor was be
tween forty and fifty years of age, uf a low stat
ure", a fair complexion, and well known for his
learning and other abilities : but his long and
close confinement had so irapaired his health,
that when he was released he could hardly
walk, see, or hear. The sufferings of this learn
ed man moved the pe<iple's compassion ; and, I
believe, the records of the Inqui.sition can hard
ly furnish an example of equal severity.
To make the distance between the Church and
the Puritans yet wider, and the terms of con
formity more difficult, IBishop Laud introduced
sundry pompous innovations in imitation of
popery, that had no foundation in the laws of
the realm or the canons of the Chureh, These
were enforced both upon clergy and laity, with
all the terrors of the High Commission, lo the
ruin of many farailies, and the raising very great
disturbances in all parts ofthe kingdom,
St, Katherine Creed Church, in the city of
London, having been lately repaired, was sus
pended from all Divine service till il was again
consecrated ; the formality of which being very
extraordinary, raay give us an idea of the super
stition of this prelate. On Sunday, January 16,
1630, Bishop Laud came thither about nine in
the morning, attended with several ofthe High
Coraraission, and sorae civilians,]: At his ap
proach lo the west door of the church, which
was shut and guarded by halberdiers, some, who
were appointed for that purpose, cried with a
loud voice, " Open, open, ye everlasting doors,
that the King of glory raay come in ;" and pres
ently, the doors being opened, the bishop, with ,
some doctors and principal men, entered. As
soon as they were come within the place, his
lordship fell down upon his knees, and with eyes
lifted up, and his arms spread abroad, said,
" This place is holy; the ground is holy : in the
name of the Father, .Son, and Holy Ghost, I
pronounce it holy." Then walking up the mid
dle aisle towards the chancel, he look up some
of the dust, and threw it into the air several
tiraes. When he approached near the rail of
the communion table, he bowed towards it five
or six times, and returning, went round the
church with his attendants in procession, saying
first the hundredth, and then the nineteenth
Psalm, as prescribed by the Roman pontificate.
He then read several collects, in one of whieh
he prays God to accept of that beautiful build
ing, and concludes thus : " We consecrate this
church, and separate it unto thee as holy ground,
not to be profaned any more to common use."
In another he prays " that all that should here
after be buried within the circuit of this holy
and sacred place may rest in their sepulchres
in peace, tiU Christ's coming to judgraent, and
may then rise to eternal life and happiness."^
After this, the bishop, silting under a cloth of

* Rushworth's Collections, vol. i., p. 57, 58.
i Pierce, p. 179-181.
X Rushworth, vol. i,, p. 77.
^ Prynne's Complete History, p. 114.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

303

state in the aisle of the chancel, near the com
munion-table, took a written book in his hand,
and pronounced curses upon those who should
thereafter profane that holy place by musters of
soldiers, or keeping profane law-courts, or car
rying burdens through it, and at the end of every
curse be bowed to the east, and said, "Let all
the people say. Amen." When the curses were
ended, which were about twenty, he pronounced
a like number of blessings upon all who had any
hand in framing and building of that sacred and
beautiful edifice, and on those who had given,
or should hereafter give, any chalices, plate, or
naments, or other utensils ; and at the end of
every blessing he bowed to the east, and said,
" Let aU the people say, Amen," After this
followed the sermon, and then the sacrament,
which the bishop consecrated, and administered
after the foUowing manner :
As he approached the altar, he made five or
six low bows, and coming up to the side of it,
-where the bread and wine were covered, he
bowed seven times ; then, after reading many
prayers, he carae near the bread, and gently
lifting up the eorner of the napkin, beheld it,
and immediately letting fall the napkin, retreat
ed hastily a step or two, and traade three low
obeisances. His lordship then advanced, and
having uncovered the bread, bowed three times
as before ; then laid his hand on the cup, which
was full of wine, with a cover upon it, which
having let go, he stepped back, and bowed three
times towards it ; then came near again, and
lifting up the cover of the cup, looked into it,
and seeing the wine, he let fall the cover again,
retired back, and bowed as before : after which
the elements were consecrated, and the bishop,
having first received, gave it to some principal
men in their surplices, hoods, and tippets ; to
wards the conclusion, many prayers being said,
the solemnity of the consecration ended.
He consecrated St. Giles's Church in the
same manner, which had been repaired, and
part of it new built in his predecessor's (Bishop
Mountain) time.* Divine service had been per
formed, and the sacrament administered in it
for three or four years since that time without
exception ; but as soon as I^aud was- advanced
to the bishopric of London, he interdicted the
church, and prohibited Divine service therein,
tUl it should be reconsecrated, which is more
than even the canon law requires. Sundry
other chapels and churches, which had been
buUt long since, were, by the bishop's direction,
likewise shut up till they were consecrated in
this manner— as Immanuel Chapel, in Cam
bridge, built 1584 Sidney College Chapel, built
1596, and several others.
This method of consecrating churches was
new to the people of England, and in the opin
ion of the first Reformers, superstitious and
absurd ; for though it is reasonable there should
be public buildings reserved and set apart for
public worship, and that at the first opening of
thera prayers should be offered for a Divine
blessing on the ordinances of Christ that may
at any time be administered in thera, yet have
we not the least ground to believe that bisph-
ops or other dignitaries of the Church can, by
their declaration or form of prayer, hallow the
building, or make the ground holy, or intro-
* Prynne, Cant. Doom, p. 117.

duce a Divine presence or glory into the plaee,
as was in the temple of old : where is their
commission ? or what example have we of this
kind in the New Testament ? The synagogues-
of the Jews were not consecrated in this man
ner ; nor was the temple of Solomon consecra
ted by a priest, but by a king. Our Saviour
tells his disciples, " that wheresoever two or
three of them should be gathered together in
his name, he would be in the midst of them ;"
and the woman of Samaria, " that the hour was
coming, when neither at that mountain, nor at
Jerusalem, they should worship the Father."
Besides, the changes made by tirae and various
accidents in towns and cities render it impos
sible to prevent the alienation or profanation of
holy ground ; for, to look no farther than the
city of London, would it not be very hard if all
the curses that Bishop Laud pronounced in
Creed Church should rest upon those who live
in houses built by act of Parliament, in places
where there were consecrated churches or
churchyards before the fire of London ? Arch
bishop Parker, therefore, in his "Antiquitates
Ecclesia; Britan.," p. 85, 86, condemns this prac
tice as superstitious ; nor was there any form for
it in the public offices of the Church. But this
being objected to Archbishop Laud at his trial,
as an evidence of his inclination to popery, we
shall there see his grace's defence, with the-
learned reply of the House of Coraraons, con
cerning the antiquity of consecrating churches..
A proclaraation had been published last year,
" commanding the archbishops and bishops to
take special care that the parish churches in
their several diocesses, being places consecra
ted lo the worship of God, be kept in decent
repair, and to make use ofthe power ofthe ec
clesiastical court to oblige the parishioners to
this part of their duty."* The judges were also
required not to interrupt this good work by
too easily granting prohibitions frora the spirit
ual courts. It seeras sundry churches since-
the Reformation were fallen to decay ; and
sorae that had been defaced by the pulling down
of images, and other popish relics, had not been
decently repaired, the expense being too heavy
for the poorer country parishes ; it was there
fore thought necessary to oblige them to their
duty ; and under colour of this proclamation,^
Laud introduced many of the trappings and dec
orations of popery, and punished those rainis
ters in the High Coraraission Court that venr-
tured to write or preach against them.
His lordship began with his own Cathedral'
of St. Paul's, for repairing and beautifying of
which a subscription and contribution were ap
pointed over the whole kingdom. Several hous
es and shops adjoining the Cathedral were, by
injunction of councU, ordered to be pulled dowa
and the owners to accept a reasonable satisfac
tion ; but if they would not comply, the sheriff
of London was required to see them demolished.
The Church of St. Gregory was pulled down,
and the inhabitants assigned to Christ Church,
where they were to assemble for the future.
The bishop's heart was in this work, and to-
support the expense, he gave way to raany op
pressions and unjustifiable raethods of raisingL
money, by compositions with recusants, com
mutation of penance, exorbitant fines in the-
* Rushworth, vol. i., p. 28.

3(M

HISTORY OF TIIE PURITANS

Star Chamber .ind High Commission, insomuch
Ihat It became a proverb that '^t Paul's was re
paired with the sins of the people. Before the
year 1640, above £1 1 3,000 wi-i e expended there
on, w-|lh which the body ofthe church was fin
ished, and the steeple scaffolded. There w-as
also a stately portico built at the west end, sup
ported wilh pillars ofthe Corinthian order, and
embellished with the statues of King James and
King Charles ; but the rebuUding the spire and
the inside decorations miscarried by the break
ing out of the civU war.*
What these decorations and ornaments of
paintings, carvings, altars, crucifixes, candle
sticks, iraages, vestraents, &c., would have
been, can only be guessed hy the fashion ofthe
tiraes, and by the scherae that was now formed
to recover and repair the broken relics of su
perstition and idolatry which the Reforraation
had left, or to set up others in imitation of
them ; for though the Reforraation of Queen
Elizabeth had destroyed a great many monu
ments of this kind, yet some were left entire,
and others very little defaced t In the Cathe
dral of Canterbury, over the door of the choir,
remained thirteen images, or statues of stone,
twelve of thera representing the twelve apos
tles, and the thirteenth, in the raiddle of thera,
our Saviour Christ. Over these were twelve
other iraages of popish saints. In the several
¦windows of the Cathedral were painted the pic
ture of St. Austin the raonk, the first bishop of
that see, and seven large pictures of the Virgin
JVIary, with angels lifting her up to heaven, with
this inscription : " Gaude Maria, sponsa Dei."
Under the Virgin Mary's feet were the sun,
moon, and stars, and in the bottom of the
w indow this inscription : " In laudem &. honor-
cm bealissirna; Yirginis," Besides these were
many pictures of God the Father, and of the
Holy Ghost, and of our Saviour lying in a man-
j;er, and a large image of Thomas Beckel, and
others, all which were taken away by the Long
Parliament. In the Cathedral of Durham there was an al
tar of marble stone set upon columns decorated
with cherubim, pictures, and iraages, which
cost above £2000, There were three statues
of stone in the church ; one standing in the
midst, representing Christ with a golden beard,
a blue cap, and sun-rays upon his head, as the
record of Parliament says, though Dr, Cosins,
in his vindication, says it was mistaken for the
top of Bishop Hatfield's tomb. There was also
an image of God the Father, and many oth-.r
-carved iraages, pictures, &c,, which the pres
ent dignitaries ofthe Cathedral held in profound
adrairation ; and, to keep up the pomp, they
bought copes of mass priests, with crucifixes
and iraages of the Trinity embroidered upon
them. They had consecrated knives to cut the
sacramental bread, and great numbers of light
ed candles upon the altars on Sundays and
saints' days. On Candlemas Day there were
no less than two hundred, whereof sixty were
upon and about the altar,| all which were reck-
? CoUyer's Eccles. Hist., p. 751.
-1 Pari. Chron., p. 101.
i The Puseyites of England, the glorifiers of
Laud, are faithfully treading in his steps, and there
are now to be seen, in many of the churches, can
dles at the altar.— C.

oncd among the beauties ofthe sanctuary. " But
tli(-se/o/ipcricj," says Bishop Kennet, "did not,
perhaps, gain over one papist, but lost both the
king and bishops the hearts and affections of
the Protestant part ofthe nation, and were (as
his lordship observes) contrary to tjueeii Elrz-
abeth's injunctions, 1.559, winch appoint that
all candlesticks, trenlals, rolls of wax, pfclurea,
paintings, ice, be removed out of (-luirehes"*
However, Bishop Laud was mightily enam
oured with them, and as soon as lie was trans
lated to Lambeth, repaired the painting in the
windows of that chapel, in one pane of which
had been the picture of Christ (-rucilied, with a
scull and dead men's bones under it, a basket
full of tools and nails, with the high-priest and
his officers on horseback, and the two thieves
on foot. In- the next were the two thieves on
crosses, .Vbraham offering up his son Isaac,
and the brazen serpent on a pole. In other
panes were the pictures of Christ rising out of
the grave and ascending up into heaven, with
his disciples kneeling about him — the descent
of the Holy Ghost upon tlio apostles in the
shape of cloven tongues— God, giving the law
upon Mount Sinai ; his coming down from
heaven at the _prayer of Elisha — Christ and
his twelve apostles sitting in judgment on the
world. In other parts of tho church were paint
ed the Virgin Mary, with the babe Christ suck
ing at her breast — the wise men of the East
coming to adore him — the history of the An
nunciation, with the picture of the Virgin Mary,
and of the Holy Ghost overshadowing her, to
gether with the birth of Christ. All which hav
ing been defaced at the Reformation, were now
restored, according to the Roman missal, and
beautified at the archbishop's cost. The like
reparations of paintings, pictures, and crucifix
es were made in the king's chapel at White
haU, Westminster Abbey, and both the univer
sities, as was objected to the archbishop at his
trial, where the reader will meet with his
grace's defence of their lawfulness and anti
quity. The Puritans apprehended these deco
rations of churches tended lo image-worship,
and were directly contrary to the homily of the
peril of idolatry ; their ministers, therefore,
preached and wrote against thera, and in some
places removed them, for which they were se
verely handled in the High Commission.
Bishop Laud had been chosen ChanceUor of
Oxford last year (April 12th, 1630), where the
Puritans soon gave him some disturbance. Mr.
Hill, of Hart Hall, Mr. Ford, of Magdalen Hall,
Mr. Giles Thorne, of Baliol College, and Mr.
Giles Hodges, of Exeter College, were charged
with preaching against Arminianism and the
new ceremonies, in their sermons at St. Mary's.
HUl made a public recantation, and was quick
ly released ; but the very texts of the others,
says Mr. Fuller,t gave offence : one preached
on Numbers, xiv., 4, " Let us make us .a cap
tain, and let us return into Egypt ;" and anoth
er on 1 Kings, xiii., 2, " And he cried against
the altar in the word of the Lord, and said, 0
altar, altar," &c. These divines being con
vened before the vice-chancellor, Dr, SmUh, as
offenders against the king's instructions, ap
pealed frora the vice-chancellor to the proctors.

* Cant. Doom, p. 59-61.
t Church Hist,, b. xi., p. 141.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

305

¦who received their appeal. Upon this the
-chanceUor complained to the king, and procured
the cause to be heard before his majesty at
'Woodstock, August 23, when the foUowing
sentence was passed upon them : " That Mr,
Ford, Thorne, and Hodges be expeUed the
University ; that both the proctors bo deprived
of their places for accepting the appeal ; and
that Dr, Prideaux, rector of Exeter College,
:and Dr. Wilkinson, principal of Magdalen Hall,
receive a sharp admonition for their misbeha
viour in this business."* Mr. Thorne and
Hodges, after a year's deprivation, desiring to be
restored, preached a recantation sermon, and
read a written submission in the convocation-
house on their bended knees, before the doc
tors and regents ;t but Mr. Ford, making no
.address to be restored, returned to his friends
in Devonshire ; and being like to be chosen
.lecturer or vicar of Plymouth, the inhabitants
were required not to choose him, upon pain of
his majesty's high displeasure ; and, in case he
-was chosen, the Bishop of Exeter was com
manded not to admit him.
Mr. Crowder, vicar of VeU, near Nonsuch,
-was about this tirae coramitted close prisoner
to Newgate for sixteen weeks, and then depri
ved by the High Commission, without any ar
ticles exhibited against hira, or any proof of a
•crime. It was pretended that matters against
him were so foul, that they were not fit to be
iiead in court ; but then they ought to have been
certified to him, that he raight have had an op-
.portunity to disprove or confess thera, which
could not be obtained. Mr. Crowder was a pi
ous man, and preached twice a day, which was
.an unpardonable crirae so near the court.
Sundry eminent divines reraoved to New-
England this year ; and, among others, the fa
mous Dr. Eliot, the apostle of the Indians, who,
-not being aUowed to teach school in his native
oountry, retired to America, and spent a long
and useful life in converting the natives, and,
with indefatigable pains, translated the Bible
into the Indian language, t
Two very considerable Puritan divines were
also removed into the other world by death,
viz., Mr. Arthur Hildersham, born at Stech-
worth, Cambridgeshire, October 6th, 1563, and
•educated in Christ's CoUege, Carabridge, of-an
ancient and honourable family ; his mother,
¦Anne Poole, being niece to the cardinal of that
narae. His father educated hira in the popish
religion, and because he would not go to' Rome
-at fourteen or fifteen years of age, disinherited
him : but the Earl of Huntingdon, his near kins
man, provided for him, sending him to Cam-
¦bridge, where he proceeded M.A., and entered'
into holy orders. In the year 1587 he was
placed by his honourable kinsraan above raen-
tioned at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, in Leicestershire,

* Rushworth, vol. i., part ii., p. 110.
+ Prynne, Cant. Doom, p. 175.
i For the interesting details connected with the
labours of this apostolic minister of Christ, I would
refer to his life in my friend Dr. Sparks's admirable
iSeries of American Biography, and to a memoir in the
" Lives of Eminent Missionaries, by John Came, Esq."
Eliot's Bible is now become exceedingly rare ; few
perfect copies are to be met with. A fine copy was
redid at the auction of the late Rev. Dr. Thaddeus
Mason Harris's library, for thirty-nine dollars, to Mr.
'Winthrop, of Boston. — C.
Vol. I.— Q q

and inducted into that living soon after.* But
here he was silenced for nonconformity, as in
the year 1590, in the year 1605, and again in
the year 1611, under which last suspension he
continued raany years. In the year 1613 he
was enjoined by the High Commission not to
preach, or exercise any part of the ministerial
function, tUl he should be restored. In the
year 1615 he was committed lo the Fleet by
the High Commission for refusing the oath ex
officio, where he continued three months, and
was then released upon bond. In November,
1616, the High Commission proceeded against
him, and pronounced hira refractory and diso
bedient to the orders, rites, and ceremenies of
the Church ; and because he refused to con
form, declared hira a schismatic, fined him
£2000, excommunicated him, and ordered him
to he attached and committed to prison, that
he might be degraded of his ministry ; but
Mr. Hildershara wisely absconded, and kept out
of the way. In the year 1625 he. was restored
to his living ; but when Laud had the ascend
ant, he was silenced again for not reading Di
vine service in the surplice and hood, and was
not restored till a few months before his death.
Though he was a Nonconformist in principle,
as appears by his last will and testaraent, yet
he was a person of great temper and modera
tion :t he loved and respected aU good men,
and opposed the separation of the Brownists,
and the semi-separation of Mr. Jacob. His lec
tures on the fifty-first Psalm, and his other print
ed works, as well as the encomiums of Dr. WU
let and Dr. Preston, show him to have been a
most excellent divine : what a pity was it that
his usefulness in the Church should be so long
interrupted! He died, March 4, 1631, in the
sixty-ninth year of his age, having been minis
ter of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, as the times would
suffer him, above forty-three years.
Mr. Robert Bolton was born at Blackburn,
in Lancashire, 1572, educated first in Lincoln
College, and afterward in Brazennose College,
Oxford, of which he was a fellow. Here he
became famous for his lectures in moral and
natural phUosophy, being an excellent Grecian,!
and well versed in school divinity, while he
continued a profane, wicked raan. During his
residence at college he contracted an acquaint
ance with one Anderton, a popish priest, who,
taking advantage of his mean circumstances,
would have persuaded him to reconcile himself
to the Church of Rome, and go over to one of
the popish seminaries in Flanders. Mr. Bol
ton accepted the motion, and appointed a place
of meeting to conclude the affair ; but Ander
ton disappointing him, he returned to the col
lege, and fell under strong convictions for his
former misspent life, so that he could neither
eat nor sleep, nor enjoy any peace of mind for
several months, till at length, by prayer and
humiliation, he received comfort. Upon this

* Clarke's Life of Hildersham, annexed to his
General Martyrology, p. 114.
t " H^ dissented not from the Church in any arti
cle of faith, but only about wearing the surplice, bap
tizing with the cross, and kneeling at the sacra
ment.'*— Grangfr's History of England, vol. i., p. 371,
8vo. — Ed. j
X The Greek langu'age was so famUiar to him, that
he could speak it with ahnost as much facUity as his
mother tongue. — Ed.

306

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

he resolved to enter upon the rainistry, in the
thirty-fifth vear of this age. About two years
after he was presented to the living of Brough
ton, in Northamptonshire, where he continued
till his death. He was a most awakening and
authoritative preacher, having the most strong,
masculine, and oratorical style of any of the
age in which he lived. He preached twice
every Lord's Day, besides catechising. Upon
every holyday, and every Friday, before the
sacrament, he expounded a chapter : his con
stant course was to pray six tiraes a day, twice
in secret, twice with his family, and twice
with his wife, besides many days of private hu-
mUiation that he observed for the Protestant
churches in Germany. He was of comely,
grave presence, which coramanded respect in
all corapanies ; zealous in the cause of religion,
and yet so prudent as to escape being called in
question aU the time he lived in Northampton
shire. -M length he was seized with a tertian
ague, which, after fifteen weeks, put a period to
his valuable and useful life, December 17, 1631,
in the sixtieth year of his age. He made a
raost devout and exemplary end, praying heart
ily for all his friends that came to see him ;
bidding thera raake sure of heaven, and bear in
mind what he had formerly told them in his
ministry, protesting that what he had preached
to them for twenty years was the truth of God,
as he should answer it at the tribunal of Christ.
He then retired within hiraself, and said. Hold
out faith and patience, your work will speedily
be at an end. The Oxford historian* calls him
a most religious and learned Puritan, a painful
and constant preacher, a person of great zeal
towards God, charitable and bountiful, but,
above aU, an excellent casuist for affiicled con
sciences ; his eloquent and exceUent writings
will recomraend his raerabry to the latest pos
terity. t
About the year 1627 there was a scheme
formed by several gentlemen and ministers lo
proraote preaching in the country by setting up
lectures in the several market towns of Eng
land, and to defray the expense a sum of money
was raised by voluntary contribution for the
purchasing such impropriations as were in the
hands of the laity, the profits of which were to
be parcelled out into salaries of £40 or £50
per annum for the subsistence of their lectu
rers ; the money was deposited in the hands of
the following ministers and gentlemen, in trust
for the aforesaid purposes, under the name and
character of feoffees, viz.. Dr. William Gouge,
Dr. Sibbs, Dr. Offspring, and Mr. Davenport, of
the clergy ; Ralph Eyre and Simon Brown,
Esqrs., of Lincoln's Inn, and C. Sherman, of
Gray's Inn, and John White, of the Middle
Temple, Esqrs., lawyers ; Mr. John Gearing,
Mr. Richard Davis, Mr. G. Harwood, and Mr.
Francis Bridges, citizens of London. There
were at this tirae three thousand eight hundred

* Athense Oxon., vol. i., p. 479 ; see also FuUer's
.ibel Redivivus, p. 586.
t When he lay at the point of death, one of his
friends, taking him by the hand, asked him if he
was not in great pain : " Truly," said he, " the great
est pain I feel is your cold hand," and instantly ex
pired. His book "On Happiness" was the most
celebrated of his works, and has gone through many
editions. — Granga-'s History of England, vol. i., p.
365, 8vo; and FiUler'a Abel Redivivus, p. 591.— Ed.

and forty-five parish churches appropriated to
cathedrals, or lo colleges, or impropriated as
lay fees to private persons, having formerly be
longed lo abbeys. The gentlemen above men
tioned dealt only in the latter, and had already
bought in thirteen impropriations, which cost
between £5000 and £6000. Most people thought
this a very laudable design, and wished the feof
fees good success ; but Bishop Laud looked on
Ihem with an evil eye, and represented them U»
the king as in a conspiracy against the Church,
because, instead of restoring the impropriations
they purchased to the several livings, lliey kept
them in their own hands for the eni-ouragement
of factious and seditious lecturers, who were to
depend upon their patrons as being liable lo he
turned out if they neglected their duty.* He
added, farther, that the feoffees preferred chief
ly Nonconforraist ministers, and placed them in
the most popular market towns, where they did a
great deal of mischief lo the hierarchy. For these
reasons an information was brought against
them in the exchequer by Mr. .Mtorney-general
Noy, as an illicit society formed into a body
corporate without a grant from the king, for
the purchasing rectories, tithes, prebendaries,
&c., which were registered in a book, and the
profits not employed according to law.
The defendants appeared, and in their an
swer declared that they apprehended impro
priations in the hands of laymen, and not em
ployed for the raaintenance of preachers, were
a damage to the Church ; that the purchas
ing of thera for the purposes of reUgion was a
pious work, and not contrary to law, it being
notorious that impropriations are frequently
bought and sold by private persons ; that the
donors of this money gave it for this and such
other good uses as the defendants should think
meet, and not for the endowment of perpetual
vicars ; that they had not converted any ofthe
raoney to their own use, nor erected theraselves-
into a body corporate ; and that to their knowl
edge they had never presented any to a church,.
or a place in their disposal, who was not con
formable to the doctrine and discipline of the
Church of England, and approved of by the or
dinary of the place. But, notwithstanding all
they could say, the court was of opinion that
their proceedings were contrary to law, and de
creed that their feoffment should be cancelled ;
that the impropriations they had purchased
should be confiscated lo the king, and the feof
fees themselves fined in the Star Charaber ;
however, the prosecution was dropped as too in
vidious, it appearing in court, by the receipts
and disbursements, that the feoffees were out of
pocket already £1000. The odium of this pros
ecution fell upon Laud, whose chanceUor told
him upon this occasion, that he was miserably
censured by the Separatists ; upon which ha
made this reflection in his diary, " Pray God
give me patience, and forgive them."
But his lordship had very little patience wilh
those who opposed his proceedings. We have
seen his zeal for pictures and paintings in
churches, which some of the Puritans ventu
ring to censure in their serraons and writings,
were exposed to the severest punishments:

? FuUer's Church History, b. xi,, p. 136. Appeal,
p. 13. Prynne, p. 379, 385. Rushworth, vol. i., part-
u., p, 150.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

307

among these was the Rev. Mr. John Hayden,
of Devonshire, who, being forced to abscond,
was apprehended in the diocess of Norwich by
Bishop Harsnet, who, after he had taken frora
him his horse and money, and all his papers,
caused him to be shut up in close prison for
thirteen weeks,* after which, when the justices
would have admitted hira to bail at the quarter-
sessions, his lordship sent hira up to the High
Coraraission, who deprived hira of his ministry
and orders, and set a fine upon him for preach
ing against decorations and iraages in churcftes.
In the year 1634, Mr. Hayden venturing to
preach occasionally without being restored, was
apprehended again, and sent to the Gate-house
by Archbishop Laud, and frora thence to Bride
weU, where he was whipped and kept to hard
labour ; here he was confined in a cold, dark
dungeon during a whole winter, being chained
to a post in the raiddle of the room, with irons
on his hands and feet, having no other food but
bread and water, and a pad of straw to lie on.
Before his release, he was obliged to take an
oath, and give bond, that he would preach no
more, but depart the kingdom in a month, and
not return. Bishop Harsnet did not live to see
the execution of this part of the sentence,i-
though for his zeal against the Puritans he was
promoted to the archbishopric of York, and
made a privy-councillor. Some time before his
decease he not only persecuted the Noncon
formists, but coraplained of the conformable Pu
ritans, as he called them, because they complied
out of policy and not in judgment. How hard is
the case when men shaU be punished for not con
forming, and be coraplained of if they conform !
Queen Elizabeth used to say she vC'ould never
trouble herself about the consciences of her
subjects if they did but outwardly comply with
the laws, whereas this prelate would ransack
the very heart.
Henry Sherfield, Esq., a bencher of Lincoln's
Inn, and recorder of the city of Sarum, was
tried in the Star Chamber, May 20, 1632,t for
taking down some painted glass out of one of
the windows of St. Edraund's Church, in Salis
bury, in which were seven pictures of God the
Father in form of a little old man in a blue and
red poat, with a pouch by his side : one repre
sents hira creating the sun and moon with a
pair of compasses, others as working on the
business of the six days' creation, and at last
he sits in an elbow-chair at rest.^ Many sim
ple people, at their going in and out of church,
did reverence to this window (as they say), be
cause the Lord their God was there. This gave
such offence to the recorder, who was also a
justice of peace, that he moved the parish at a
vestry for leave to take it down, and set up a
new window of white glass in the place, which
was accordingly granted, six justices of the
peace being present. Some tirae after, Mr.
Sherfield broke with his staff the pictures of
God the Father, in order to new glaze the win
dow, an account of which being transmitted to
London, an information was exhibited against
hira in the Star Charaber, February 8, 1632-3.
The inforraation sets forth, " that being evil af-
* Usurpation of Prelates, p. 161, 162.
t Fuller's Church History, b. xi., p. 144.
X Rushworth, part u., vol. i., p. 153-156.
^ Prynne's Cant. Doom, p. 102.

fected to the discipline of the Church, he, with
certain confederatjOS, without consent of the
bishops, had defaced and pulled down a fair and
costly window in the church, containing the
history of the creation, which had stood there
sorae hundred years, and was a great ornament
to it, which profane act might give encourage
ment to other schismatical persons to commit
the like outrages."
Mr. Sherfield, in his defence, says that the
Church of St. Edmund's was a lay fee, and ex
empted from the jurisdiction of the bishop of
the diocess, and the defendant, with the rest of,
the parishioners, had lawful power to take down
the glass ; and that it was agreed by a vestry
that the glass should be changed, and the win
dow made new, and that accordingly he took
down a quarry or two in a quiet and peaceable
manner ; but he avers that the true history oi
the creation was not contained in that window,
but a false and impious one : God the Father
was painted like an old man wilh a blue coat,
and a pair of compasses, to signify his compass
ing the heavens and earth. In the fourth day's
work there were fowls ofthe air flying up from
God their maker, which should have been the
fifth day. In the fifth day's work a naked man
is lying upon the earth asleep, with so much of
a naked woman as from the knees upward
growing out of his side, which should have
been the sixth day ; so that the history is false.
Farther, this defendant holds it to be impious
to raake an image or picture of God the Father,
which he undertakes to prove from Scripture,
from canons and councils, from the mandates
and decrees of sundry emperors, frora the opin
ions of ancient doctors of the Church, and of
our most judicious divines since the Reforma
tion. He adds, that his belief is agreeable to the
doctrine of the Church of England and to the
homilies, which say that pictures of God are
monuments of superstition, and ought to be de
stroyed ; and to Queen Ehzabeth's injunctions,
which command that all pictures and monu
ments of idolatry should be reraoved out of
churches, that no raemory of them might remain
in walls, glass windows, or elsewhere ; which in
junction is confirmed bythe canons ofthe 13lh of
Elizabeth. Mr. Sherfield concludes his defence
with denying that he was disaffected to the
discipline ofthe Church of England, or had en
couraged any to oppose the governraent of it
under the reverend bishops.
Though it is hard to raake a tolerable reply
to this defence, yet Bishop Laud stood up and
spake in excuse of the painter, saying, God the
Father was called in Scripture the Ancient of
Days ; adding, however, that for his own part
he did not so weU approve of pictures of things
invisible ; but be the paintings better or worse,
he insisted strongly that Mr. Sherfield had
taken them down in contempt of the episcopal
authority, for which he moved that he might
be fined £1000 and reraoved from his recorder-
ship of the city of Sarum ; that he be com
mitted close prisoner to the Fleet till he pay
his fine, and then be bound to his good beha
viour. To all which the court agreed, except
-to the fine, which was mitigated to £500.
The Revferend Mr. John workman, lecturer
of St. Stephen's Church, Gloucester, in one of
his sermons, asserted that pictures or images

308

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

were no ornaments to churches ; that it was
unlawful lo set up images of Christ or saints
in our houses, because it tended to idolatry, ac
cording to the horaily.* For this he was sus
pended by the High Coraraission, e.xcommuni-
cated, and obliged lo an open recantation in the
court at Lambeth, in the Cathedral of Glouces
ter, and in the Church of St. Michael's ; he
was also condemned in costs of suit, and im
prisoned. Mr. "Workman was a man of great
piety, wisdom, and raoderation, and had served
the Church of St. Stephen's fifteen years ; in
consideration whereof, and of his numerous
family, the city of Gloucester had given him an
annuity of £20 per annum, under their comraon
seal, a little before his troubles^ but for this act
of charity the mayor, town-clerk, and several
of the aldermen were cited before the High
Commission and put to £100 charges, and the
annuity was cancelled. After this Mr. Work
man set up a little school, of which Archbishop
Laud being informed, inhibited hira, as he would
answer the contrary at his peril. He then fell
upon the practice of physic, which the arch
bishop likewise absolutely forbid; so that, be
ing deprived of all raethods of subsistence, he
fell into a melancholy disorder and died.
Our bishop was no less watchful over the
press than the pulpit, commanding his chap
lains to expunge out of aU books that came to
be licensed such passages as disallowed of
paintings, carvings, drawings, gildings ; erect
ing, bowing, or praying before images and pic
tures, as appeared by the evidence of Dr. Feat
ly and others at his trial.
This great prelate would have stretched out
his arm not only against the Puritans in Eng
land, hut even to reach the factories beyond
sea, had it been in his power. The English
church at Hamburgh managed their affairs ac
cording to the Geneva discipline, by elders and
deacons. In HoUand they conformed to the
discipline of the Slates, and met them in their
synods and assemblies wilh the consent of
King Jaraes and of his present majesty, tUl Sec
retary Widebank, at the instance of this prel
ate, offered some proposals to the privy council
for their better regulation ;t the proposals con
sisted of ten articles : " 1. That all chaplains
of English regiments in the Low Countries
shaU be exactly conformable lo the Church of
England. 2. That the merchants residing there
shall admit of no minister to preach among
them but one qualified as before. 3. That if
any one, after his settlement among thera, prove
a Nonconformist, he shall be discharged in three
months. 4. That the Scots factories shall be
obliged to the same conformity. 5. That no
minister abroad shall speak, preach, or print
anything to the disadvantage of the English
discipline and ceremonies. 6. That no Con
formist minister shaU substitute a Nonconform
ist to preach for hun in the factories. 7. That
the king's agents shall see the service of the
Church of England exactly performed in the
factories. The last articles forbid the English
ministers in Holland to hold any classical as
semblies, and, especially, not to ordain rainis
ters, because by so doing they would raaintain

a standing nursery for Nonconformity and
schism." These proposals were despatched to
the factories, and the bishop wrote in particular
to Delft, that it was his majesty's express
command that their ministers should conform
themselves in all things to the doctrine and
discipline ofthe Church of England, and to all
the orders prescribed in the canons, rabric, and
liturgy, and that the names of such as were re
fractory should be sent over lo hira. But it
was not possible to succeed in the atterapt, be-
caiise most ofthe English congregations, being
supported by the States, must, by so doing,
have run the hazard of losing their mainte
nance and of being dissolved, as was represent
ed to the king by a petition in the name of all
the English ministers in the Low Countries.
However, though the bishop could not accom-
pUsh his designs abroad, we shall find him
hereafter retaliating his disappointment upon
the French and Dutch churches at home.
His lordship met with better success in Scot
land for the present, as being part of his raajes
ty's own dominions. He had possessed the
king with vast notions of glory in bringing the
Kirk of Scotland to an exact conformity with
England ; a work which his father had attempt
ed,' but left imperfect. The king readily feU in
with the bishop's motion, and determined to
run all hazards for accomplishing this important
design, having no less veneration for the cere
monies of the Church of England than the bishop
himself There had been bishops in Scotland
for some years, but they had little more than
'the name, being subject to an assembly that was
purely Presbyterian. To advance their juris
diction, the king had already renewed the High
Commission, and abohshed all general assem
blies of the Kirk, not one having been held in
his reign ; yet stiU, says the noble historian,
there was no form of religion, no liturgy, nor
the least appearance of any beauty of holiness.
To redress these grievances, as weU as to show
the Scots nation the pomp and grandeur of the
English hierarchy, his majesty resolves upon a
progress into his native country to be crowned,
and, accordingly, set out from London, May 13,
attended by several noblemen and persons of
quaUty, and, among others, by Bishop Laud.
June 18 [1633] his majesty was crowned at
Edinburgh, the ceremony being managed by the
direction of his favourite bishop, who thnist
away the Bishop of Glasgow from his place
because he appeared without the coat of his
order, which, being an embroidered one, he scru
pled to wear, being a moderate churchman.*
On the 20th of June the Pariiament met, and
voted the king a large sum of money. After
which his majesty proposed to them two acts
relating to religion; one was concerning his
royal prerogative, and the apparel of kirkmen ;
the other, a bill for the ratification of former

* Prynne, p. 107, 109.
t CoUyer's Eccles. Hist,, p. 752, 753. Prynne's
Cant. Doom, p. 389,

* Rushworth, part ii., vol. i., p. 182. " It was pro
posed that, during the ceremony, the king should
be supported on each side by the Archbishops of
St. Andrew's and Glasgow. The latter prelate being
inclined to the tenets of the Puritans, appeared in
the procession without his episcopal robes. The
high churchman. Laud, actually thrust him from
the king's side. ' Are you a churchman,' he said,
' and want the coat of your order ?' "—Jesse's Court
ofthe Stuarts, vol. ii., p. 381. See, also. Clarendon,
vol. i., p. 81.— C.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

309

acts touching religion. It being the custom in
Scotland for kings. Lords, and Commons to sit
in one house, when the question was put for
the first hill, his raajesty took a paper out of his
pocket and said, " Gentlemen, I have aU youij
names here, and I wiU know who will do me
service, and who will not, this day." Never
theless, it was carried in the negative ; thirteen
lords, and the majority of the Commons, voting
against it. The Lords said they agreed to the
apt as far as related to his majesty's preroga
tive, but dissented from that part of it whi,ch
referred to the apparel of kirkmen, fearing that
under that cover the surplice might be intro
duced. But his majesty said he would have no
distinction, and commanded them to say yes or
no to the whole bUl. The king marked every
man's vote, and upon casting thera up the clerk
declared it was carried in the affirmative ; which
some of the members denying, his majesty said
the clerk's declaration must stand, unless any
would go to the bar and accuse him of falsify
ing the record of Parliament, at the perU of his
life.* This manner of treating the whole repre
sentative body of the nation disgusted all ranks
and orders of his subjects. A writing was im
mediately dispersed abroad, setting forth how
grievous it was for a king to overawe and
threaten his ParUament in that manner ; and
that the same was a breach of privilege ; that
Parliaments were a mere pageantry if the clerk
might declare the votes as he pleased, and no
scrutiny allowed. Lord Balmerino, in whose
custody this libel was found, was condemned to
lose his head for it, but was afterward par
doned. After eight days the Parliament was dissolv
ed, but the king would not look upon the dis
senting lords, or admit thera to kiss his hand.
The act concerning the apparel of rainisters
says, that " Whereas it was agreed in the Par
liament of 1606, that what order soever his maj
esty's father, of blessed memory, should pre
scribe, for the apparel of kirkmen, and send in
writ to his clerk of register, should be a suffi
cient warrant for inserting the same in the
books of Pariiament, to have the strength of any
act thereof ; the present Pariiament agrees that
the same power shall remain with our sovereign
lord that now is, and his successors." The bill
touching religion ratifies and approves all acts
and statutes made before about the liberty and
freedom of the true Kirk of God, and the reli
gion at present professed within this kingdora,
and ordains the same to stand in full force as
if they were particularly mentioned.
The king left his native country July 16, hav
ing lost a great deal of ground in the affections
of his people,t by the contempt he poured upon
* Rushworth, p. 183.
t Dr. Grey confronts Mr. Neal here with a passage
from Lord Clarendon, to show that his account of
the king's reception in Scotland differs widely from
this of our author. " The great civiUty of that peo
ple," says his lordship, "being so notorious and
universal, that they would not appear unconformable
to his majesty's wish in any particular." But this
quotation has little or no force against Mr. Neal,
who is not representing the reception the kmg met
-with, but the impression left on the minds of the
people by the time of his departure. The king's en
try and coronation. Bishop Burnet says, was man-

the Scots clergy, and his high behaviour in fa
vour of the English ceremonies. His majesty
was attended throughout his whole progress by
Laud, bishop of London, which service his lord
ship was not obliged to, and no doubt would
have been excused from, if the design of intro
ducing the English liturgy into Scotland had not
been in view.* He preached before the liing in
the royal chapel at Edinburgh, which scarce any
Englishman had ever done before, and insisted
principally upon the benefit of the ceremonies
of the Church, which he himself observed to
the height. It went against him to own the
Scots presbyters for ministers of Christ ; taking
all occasions to affront their character, which
created a high disgust in that nation, and laid
the foundation of those resentments that they
expressed against him under his' sufferings.
When the king left Scotland, he erected a
new bishopric at Edinburgh ; and, about two
months after. Laud, being then newly advanced
to the province of Canterbury, framed articles
for the reformation of his majesty's royal chapel
in that city, which were sent into Scotland un
der his raajesty's own hand, with a declaration
that they were intended as a pattern for aU ca
thedrals, chapels, and parish churches in that
kingdora. t 'The articles appoint, " that prayers
be read twice a day in the choir, according to
the English liturgy, till some course be taken to
make one that may fit the custom and constitu
tion of that church. That all that receive the
sacrament in the chapel do it kneeling. That
the dean of the chapel always come to church
in his whites, and preach in them. That the
copes which are consecrated to our use be care
fully kept, and used at the celebration of the
sacrament ; and that all his majesty's officers
and ministers of state be obliged, at least once
a year, to receive the sacrament at the royal
chapel, kneeling, for an example to the rest of
the people." Thus were the liberties of the
Kirk of Scotland invaded by an English bishop,
under the wing of the supremacy, without con
sent of Parliament or General Assembly. The
Scots ministers in their pulpits preached against
the English hierarchy, and warned the people
against surrendering up the liberties of their
kirk into the hands of a neighbouring nation,
that was undermining their discipline ; so that

aged with such magnificence that all Was entertain
ment and show : yet he adds, " that the king left
Scotland much discontented." The proceedings on
the bill concerning the royal prerogative, &c., show
that every proposal from the court was not pleasing.
'Whitelocke (Memoirs, p. 18) tells us, that though
the king was crowned with all show of affection and
duty, and gratified many with new honours, yet, be
fore he left Scotland, some began to murmur, and
afterward to mutiny ; and he was in some danger
passing over Dumfrith. And such, in particular, was
the effect of the prosecution of Lord Balmerino on
the pubhc mind, that the ruin of the king's affairs in
Scotland was in a great measure owing to it. Dr.
Grey refers to the preambles to some acts passed in
the Scotch Parliament, as proving the high degree
of esteem the king was then in among them ; as if
an argument were to be drawn from forinnlaries
drawn up according to the routine of the occasion,
and composed, probably, by a court lawyer : as if-
such formularies were proof against matter of fact.
— Bumet's History of his Own Times, vol. i., 24-31.
12mo.— Ed. * Clarendon, vol i., p. 81, 82,
t Rushworth, part u., vol, ii,, p. 205j 206.

310

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

when the new liturgy came to be introduced
about four years after, aU the people as one man
rose up against il.
The king was no sooner returned frora Scot
land than Dr. Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury,
died, Hewas born at Guilford, in Surrey, 1562,
and educated in Baliol College, O-xford, where
he was a celebrated preacher. In the year
1597 he proceeded doctor in divinity, and was
elected master of University College : two years
after he was made Dean of Winchester, and
was one of those divines appointed by King
Jaraes to translate the New Testaraent into
English, In the year 1609 he was consecrated
Bishop of Litchfield and Coventry ; frora thence
he was translated to London, and upon the
death of Archbishop Bancroft, to Canterbury,
April 9, 1611, having never been rector, vicar,
or incurabent in any parish church in England.
Lord Clarendon* has lessened the character of
this excellent prelate, contrary to almost all
other historians, by saying that " he was a man
of very morose manners, and of a very sour as
pect, which in that time was caUed gravity ;
that he neither understood nor regarded the
constitution of the Church ; that he knew very
little of ancient divinity, hut adhered stiffly to
the doctrine of Calvin, and did not think so iU
of his discipline as he ought to have done ; but
if men prudently forbore a public reviling and
raUing at the hierarchy, let their private prac
tice be as it would, he would give them no dis
turbance ; that his house was a sanctuary to
disaffected persons, and that he licensed their
writings, by which means his successor [Laud]
had a very difficult task to reduce things to or
der." The Oxford historian,! who was no
friend to our archbishop's principles, confesses
that he was a pious, grave person, exemplary in
his life and conversation, a plausible preacher,
and that the many things he has written show
him to be a raan of parts, learning, and vigi
lance ; an able statesman, and of unwearied
study, though overwhelraed with business.
FuUerl says he was an excellent preacher, and
that his severity towards the clergy was only
to prevent their being punished by lay judges to
their greater shame. Mr. Coke and Dr. Wel
wood^ add, that he was a prelate of primi
tive sanctity, who followed the true interests
of his country, and of the Reformed churches at
home and abroad ; that he was a divine of good
learning, great hospitality, and wonderful mod
eration, showing upon all occasions an unwill
ingness to stretch the king's prerogative or the
Act of Uniformity beyond what was consistent
•with law or necessary for the peace of the
Church ; this brought him into aU his troubles,
and has provoked the writers for the preroga
tive to leave a blot upon his memory, which
on this account wiU be reverenced by all true
lovers of the Protestant religion and the liber
ties of their country ; and ii the court had fol
lowed his wise and prudent counsels, the mis
chiefs that befell the crown and Church some
years after his death would have been prevent
ed. We have mentioned his casual homicide
in the year 1621, which occasioned his keeping

* Clarendon, vol. i., p. 88, 89.
t Athenae Oxon., vol. i., p. 499.
t Church History, b. li., p. 123,
4 Welwood's Memoirs, p. 36, edit. 1718.

an annual fast as long as he lived, and main
taining the widow. Notwithstanding this mis
fortune, if he would have betrayed the Protest
ant religion and been the dupe of the preroga
tive, he might have continued in high favour
with his prince ; but for his steady opposition
to the arbitrary measures of Buckingham and
Laud, and for not licensing Sibthorp's serraon,
he was suspended frora his archiepiscopal juris
diction [1628],* whereupon he retired to Croy-
don, having no raore interest at court, or influ
ence in the government of the Church : here he
died in his archiepiscopal palace, August 4,
1633, aged seventy-one, and was buried in
Trinity Church, in Guilford, the place of his na
tivity, where he had erected and endowed a
hospital for men and women. There is a fine
monument over his grave, with his effigies in
full proportion, supported by six pillars of the
Doric order of black marble, standing on six
pedestals of piled books, with a large inscrip
tion thereon to his memory.t

CHAPTER V.
FROM THE DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP ABBOT TO THE
BEGINNING OF THE COMMOTIONS IN SCOTLAND,
IN THE YEAR 1637.
Dr, Laud was now at the pinnacle of prefer
ment, being translated to the see of Canterbury
two days after Archbishop Abbot's death. His
grace was likewise chancellor of the Universi
ties of Oxford and Dublin, privy-councillor for
England and Scotland, first comraissioner of the

* Rushworth, vol. i., p. 435.
t In addition to our author's character of Arch
bishop Abbot, it may be observed that Dr. Warner
has entered largely into the description of it, " not
only," he says, "in conformity to the rule he pre
scribed to himself in his work, but," he adds, " to
rescue the memory of this prelate from the injury
done to it by Lord Clarendon, with so notorious a
partiality as does no honour to his history." The
doctor sums up his view of Archbishop Abbot's char
acter by saying, " that he was a man of good parts
and learning as a divine ; that he was a prelate of a
very pious, exemplary conversation ; and an arch
bishop who understood the constitution of his coun
try in Church and State, to which he steadfastly ad
hered, without any regard to the favour or the
frowns of princes." The learned translator of Mo
sheim also censures Lord Clarendon's account of
this eminent prelate as most unjust and partial, and
in a long note ably and judiciously appreciates the
archbishop's merit and excellence. It was, he
shows, by the zeal and dexterity of Abbot that
things were put into such a situation in Scotland as
afterward produced the entire establishment of the
episcopal order in that nation. It was by the mild
and prudent counsels of .\bbot, when he was chap
lain to Ihe Lord-high-treasurer Dunbar, that there
was passed a famous act of the General Assembly of
Scotland, which gave the king the authority of call
ing all general assemblies, and investing the bishops,
or their deputies, with various powers of interference
and influence over the Scotch ministers. These
facts confute the charge of his disregarding the con
stitution of the Church. It deserves to be mention
ed, that this prelate had a considerable hand in the
translation of the New Testament now in use. — Mo
sheim's Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv., p. 513, and
note (f ), 1768. Warner's Eccles. History, vol. n., p
522-524. Granger's Biogr. History of England, vol.
i., p. 341, 8vo.— Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

311

•exchequer, and one of the committee for trade
and for the king's revenues : he was also offer
ed a cardinal's cap [August 17], which he de-
olined, as he says, because there was some
thing dwelt within him which would not suffer
it tiU Rome was otherwise than it was.* We
-are now to see how he raoved in this high
sphere. Lord Clarendon adraits " that the arch
bishop had all his life erainently opposed Cal
vin's doctrine, for which reason' he was called
a. papist; and it may be," says his lordship,
" the Puritans found the more severe and rig
orous usage for propagating the calumny. He
.also intended that the discipline of the Church
-should be felt as well as spoken of" The
truth of this observation has appeared in part
already, and wiU receive stronger evidence from
the seven ensuing years of his government.
The archbishop's antipathy to Calvinism, and
zeal for the external beauty of the Church, car-
.ried him to some very imprudent and unjustifia
ble extremes ; for if the Puritans were too strict
in keeping holy the Sabbath, his grace was too
'lax in his indulgence, by encouraging revels,
May-garaes, and sports on that sacred day.
Complaint having been made to the Lord-
chief-justice Richardson and Baron Denham,
in their western circuit, of great inconveniences
arising from revels, church-ales, and clerk-ales,
on the Lord's Day, the two judges raade an or
der at the assizes for suppressing thera, and ap
pointed the clerk to leave copies of the order
with every parish minister, who was to give a
note under his hand to publish it in his church
jearly, the first Sunday in February and the
two Sundays before Easter, t Upon the return
ofthe circuit, the judges required an account of
the execution of their order, and punished some
jiersons for the breach of it ; whereupon the
archbishop complained to the king of their in
vading the episcopal jurisdiction, and prevail
ed with his majesty to sumraon thera before
the council. When they appeared, Richardson
pleaded that the order was made at the request
of the justices of the peace, and with the unani
mous consent ofthe whole hench, and justified it
frora the following precedents : Septeraber 10,
.Eliz. 38th, the justices asserabled at Bridgewa-
ter ordered that no church-ale, clerk-ale, or bid-
ale be suffered ; signed by Popham, lord-chief-
justice, and ten others. The same order was
repeated 1599, and 41st of Eliz., and again at
Exeter, 1615, and 13th of Jac, and even in the
present king's reign, 1627, with an order for the
minister of every parish church to publish it
yearly. But notwithstanding all the chief-jus-

* Arthur Wilson, in his life of himself, speaks of
an interview he had with Dr. Weston, a Catholic,
at Bruges, the particulars of which are interesting.
"The little Archbishop of Canterbury," he says,
"Weston could not endure. I puUed a book out
•of my pocket, written by the provincial of the Eng-
¦ lish friars, which tended to reconcile the Church
of England and the Church of Rome. 'I know
the man,' said Weston : ' he is one of Canterbury's
¦ trencher flies, and eats perpetuaUy at his table ;
. a creature of his making.' ' Then,' said I, ' you
. should better approve of my Lord of Canterbury's
actions, seeiiig he tends so much to your way.'
' No,' replied he: ' he is too subtle to be yoked, too am-
¦bilious to have a superior. He will never submit to
-Rome. He means to frame a motley reUgion of Jiis
own, and be lord of it himself' " — Desid. Curiosa, lib.
-xii., p. 22.— C. t Prynne's Cant. Doom, p. 153.

tice could aUege, he reeeived a sharp reprimand,
and a peremptory injunction to revoke his or
der at the nent assizes, which he did in such a
manner as lost him his credit at court for the
future ; for he then declared to the justices
" that he thought he had done God, the king,
and his country good service by that good or
der that he and his brother Denham had made
for suppressing unruly wakes and revels, hut
that it had been misreported to his raajesty,
who had expressly charged hira to reverse it ;
accordingly," says he, " I do, as much as in me
lies, reverse it, declaring the same to be null
and void, and that aU persons may use their
recreations at such meetings as before." This
reprimand and injunction almost broke the
judge's heart, for when he came out of the
council-chamber he told the_ Earl of Dorset,
with tears in his eyes, that he had been miser
ably shaken by the archbishop, and was like to
be choked with his lawn-sleeves.
Laud having thus humbled the judge, and
recovered his episcopal authority from neglect,
took the affair into his own hand, and wrote to
the Bishop of Bath and Wells, October 4 [1683],
for fuller information. In his letter he takes
notice that there had been of late some noise in
Somersetshire about the wakes ;-that the judges
had prohibited them under pretence of some
disorders, by which argument, says he, any
thing that is abused may be quite taken away ;
but that his majesty was displeased with Rich
ardson's behaviour at the last two assizes, and
especially the last ; being of opinion that the
feasts ought to be kept for the recreation of the
people, of which he would not have them de
barred under any frivolous pretences, to the
gratifying of the humorists, who were very
numerous in those parts, and united in crying
down the feasts ; his grace, therefore, requires
the bishop to give him a speedy account how
these feasts had been ordered.
Pierce, bishop of Bath and WeUs, in answer
lo this letter, acquaints the archbishop "that
the late spppression of the revels was very un
acceptable, and that the restitution of them
would be very grateful to the gentry, clergy,
and comraon people ;* for proof of which he
had procured the hands of seventy-two of the
clergy, in whose parishes these feasts are kept,
and he believes that if he had sent for a hun
dred more he should have had the same answer
from them all ; but these seventy-two," says
his lordship, " are like the seventy-two inter
preters that agreed so soon in the translation
ofthe Old Testament in the Greek." He then
proceeds to explain the nature of these feasts :
" There are," says he, " in Somersetshire, not
only feasts of dedication [or revel days], but
also church-ales, clerk-ales, and bid-ales."
" The feasts of dedication are in memory of
the dedication of the several churches ; those
churches dedicated to the Holy Trinity have
their feasts on Trinity Sunday ; and so all the
feasts are kept upon the Sunday before or after
the saint's day to whom the churches are ded
icated, because the people have not leisure to
observe them on the week days ; this," says
his lordship, " is acceptable to the people, who
otherwise go into tippling-houses, or else to
conventicles.

* Cant. Doom, p. 142.

312

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

" Church-ales are when the people go from
afternoon prayers on Sundays, to their lawful
sports and pastimes in the churchyard, or in
the neighbourhood, in some public-house, where
they drink and make merry. By the benevo
lence of the people at these pastimes many
poor parishes have cast their bells, and beauti
fied their churches, and raised stocks for the
poor, and there had not been observed so much
disorder at them as is commonly at fairs or
markets. " Clerks-ales [or lesser church-ales] are so
called because they were for the betier mainte
nance of the parish clerk ; and there is great
reason for them," says his lordship, " for in
poor parishes, where the wages of the clerk are
but smaU, the people, thinking it unfit that the
clerk should duly attend at church and gain by
his office, send him in provision, and then
corae on Sundays and feast with him, by which
means he sells more ale, and tastes more of the
liberaUty ofthe people than their quarterly pay
ment would amount to in many years ; and
since these have been put down, many rainis
ters have complained to me," says his lordship,
" that they are afraid they shall have no parish
clerks. " A bid-ale is when a poor raan, decayed in
his substance, is set up again by the liberal be
nevolence and contribution of his friends at a
Sunday's feast."
The people were fond of these recreations,
and the bishop recommends thera as bringing
the people raore willingly to church ; as tend
ing lo civUize thera, and to compose differences
among them ; and as serving to increase love
and unity, forasrauch as they were in the na
ture of feasts of charity, the richer sort keep
ing in a raanner open house ; for which, and
some other reasons, his lordship thinks thera
fit to be retained.
But the justices of peace were of another
mind, and signed an humble petition to the
king, in which they declare that these revels
had not only introduced a great profanation of
the Lord's Day, but riotous tippling, contempt
of authority, quarrels, murders, &c., and were
very prejudicial to the peace, plenty, and good
government of the country, and, therefore, they
pray that they be suppressed. Here we ob
serve the laity petitioning for the religious ob
servation of the Lord's Day, and Ihe bishop,
with his clergy, pleading for the profanation
of it.
To encourage these disorderly assemblies
more effectuaUy, Archbishop Laud put the king
upon republishing his father's declaration of
the year 1618, concerning lawful sports to be
used on Sundays after Divine service, which
¦was done accordingly, October 18, wUh this
remarkable addition. After a recital of the
words of King James's declaration, his majesty
adds, " Out of a like pious care for the service
of God, and for suppressing of those humours
that oppose truth, and for the ease, comfort,
and recreation of his majesty's well-deserving
people, he doth ratify his blessed father's decla
ration, the rather, because of late, in some of
the counties of the kingdom, his majesty finds
that, under the pretence of taking away an
abuse, there hath been a general forbidding,
not only of ordinary meetings, but of the feasts

ofthe dedication of churclies, commonly called
wakes ; it is therefore his will and pleasure
that these feasts, with others, shall be observed,
and that all neighbourhood and freedom wilh
manlike and lawful excrcLses be used, and Ihe
justices of the peace arc eommanded not to
molest any in their recreations, having first
done their duty to God and continued in obedi
ence to his majesty's laws." .\nd he does far
ther wiU "that publication of this his command
be made by order from the bishops, through aU
the parish churches of their several diocesses
respectively "
¦The declaration revived the controversy of
the morality of the Sabbath, whieh had slept for
many years; Mr.Theophilus Bradbourne, a Suf
folk minister, had published, in the year 1628,
"A Defence of the most Ancient and Sacred
Ordinance of God, the Sabbath Day," and dedi
cated it lo the king. But Mr. Fuller* observes,
" that the poor man feU into the ambush of the
High Commission, whose well-tempered sever
ity so prevailed with him, that he became a
convert, and conformed quietly lo the Church
of England." Francis White, bishop of Ely,.
was commanded by the king to confute Brad-
bourne ; and after hira appeared Dr, Pockling-
ton, with his " Sunday no Sabbath ;" and after
him Heylin the archbishop's chaplain, and oth
ers. These divines, instead of softening some
rigours in Bradbourne's Sabbatarian strinctness,
ran into the contrary extreme, denying all raan
ner of Divine right or raoral obligation lo the
observance ofthe whole or any part ofthe Lord's
Day, raaking it depend entirely upon ecclesias
tical authority, and to oblige no farther than to
the few hours of public service ; and that in the
intervals, not only walking (which the Sabbata
rians adraitted), but mixed dancing, masks, in
terludes, revels, &c., wei-e lawful and expedient.
Instead of convincing the sober part of the
nation, it struck them with a kind of horror, to
see themselves invited, by the authority of the
king and Church, to that Which looked so like
a contradiction to the command of God. Il was-
certainly out of character for bishops and cler
gymen, who should be the supports of religion,
to draw raen off frora exercises of devotion in
their families and closets, by enticing them to
public recreations. People are forward enough
of themselves to indulge these liberties, and
need a check rather than a spur ; but the wis
dom of these times was different. The court
had their baUs, masquerades, and plays on the
Sunday evenings, while the youth of the coun
try were at their morrice-dances. May-games,
church and clerk ales, and aU such kinds of
revelling.t The revival of this declaration was charged
upon Archbishop Laud at his trial, but his grace
would not admit the charge, though he confess
ed his judgment was in favour of it. It was
to be published in all parish churches, either hy
the minister or any other person, at the discre
tion of the bishop, and therefore the putting
this hardship on the clergy was their act and
deed ; but Laud knew it would- distress the
Puritans, and purge the Church ofa set of men
for whom he had a perfect aversion. The rea
son given for obliging them to this service was.

* Book XL, p. 144.
t Dr. Warner adops these remarks.- Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

313

because the two- judges had enjoined the min
isters to read their order against revels in the
churches ; and, therefore, it was proper to haVe
it reversed by the same persons and in the same
place.* The severe pressing this declaration raade
sad havoc among the Puritans for seven years.
Many poor clergymen strained their consciences
in submission to their superiors. Some, after
publishing it, immediately read the fourth com
mandment to the people, " Remember the Sab
bath Day to keep it holy ;" adding, " 'This is
the law of God ; the otlier the injunction of
man." Some put it upon their curates, while
great nuinbers refused to comply upon any
terras whatsoever. FuUert says, " that the arch
bishop's moderation in his own diocess was re
markable, sUencing but three, in whora also
was a concurrence of other nonconformities ;
but that his adversaries imputed it not to his
charity, but policy, foxlike, preying farthest
frora his own den, and instigating other bishops
to do more than he would appear in himself"
Sir Nath. Brent, his grace's vicar-general, at
tested upon oath at the archbishop's trial, that
he gave him a special charge to convene all
ministers before him who would not read the
Book of Sports on the Lord's Day, and to sus
pend them for it ; and that he gave particular
order to suspend the three following Kentish
ministers by name, viz., Mr. Player, Mr. Hieron,
and Mr. Culmer.J Whereupon he did, against
his judgment, suspend them all ab officio et bene
ficio, though the king's deelaration, as has been
observed, does not oblige the minister to read
it, nor authorize the bishops to inflict any pun
ishment on the refusers. When the suspended
ministers repaired to Lambeth, and petitioned to
be restored, the archbishop told thera, if they
did not know how to obey, he did not know how
to grant their petition. So their suspension
continued tiU the beginning of the coraraotions
in Scotland, to the ruin of their poor faraUies,
Mr. Calmer having a wife and seven children
to provide for.^
Several clergymen of other diocesses were
also sUenced, and deprived on the same ac
count ; as, Mr. Thomas Wilson, of Otham, who
being sent for to Lambeth, and asked whether
he had read the Book of Sports in his church,
answered. No ; whereupon the archbishop re
plied immediately, " I suspend you forever from
your office and benefice tiU you read it;" and
so he continued four years, being cited into the

* Fuller's Church History, b. xi., p. 148.
t Ibid. I Prynne's Cant. Doom, p. 149.
ij Dr. Grey introduces here a long quotation from
Anthony Wood, and refers to a bad character of Mr.
Culmer drawn by Mr. Lewis in Dr. Calamy's con
tinuation of ejected ministers, to show what smaU
reason Mr Neal had to defend him. It should seem,
from those authorities, that he was a man of warm
and violent temper, and some heavy charges are
brought against him. But not to say that prejudice
appears to have drawn his picture, admitting the
truth of everything alleged against him, it is irrele
vant to the vindication of Archbishop Laud, whose
severity against Mr. Culmer had not for its object his
general deportment, or any immoraUty, but his not
reading the Boqk of Sports, i.e., a royal invitation to
men to give themselves up to dissipating, riotous,
and intemperate diversions on a day sacred to sobri
ety.— See, on Mr. Culmer's character. Palmer's Non-
conformist's Memorial, vol. U., p. 77. — Ed.
Vol. I.— R e

High Commission and articled against for ths-
same crime. Mr. Wrath and Mr. Erbery were-
brought up from Wales, Mr. William Jones from
Gloucestershire, with divers others, and cen
sured by the High Commission (of which the
archbishop was chief) for not reading the dec
laration, and not bowing his body at the blessed
name of Jesus, &c.* To these may be added,
Mr. Whitfield, of Ockley, Mr. Garth, of Woversh,
Mr. Ward, of Pepper-Harrow, Mr. Farrol, of
Purbright, and Mr. Pegges, of Wexford, to whom
the archbishop said that he suspended hira ex
nunc pi out ex tunc, in case he did not read the
king's declaration for sports on the Sunday
se'nnight following.
The reverend and learned Mr. Lawrence
SneUing, rector of Paul's- Cray, was not only
suspended by the High Coraraission at Lam
beth for four years, but deprived and excomrau-
nicated, for not reading the declaration, &c.t
He pleaded in his own defence the laws of God
and of the realra, and the authority of councUs
and fathers ; he added, that the king's declara
tion did not enjoin rainisters to read it, nor au
thorize the bishops or High Comraissioners la
suspend or punish ministers for not reading it ;
that it being merely a civil, not an ecclesiasti
cal declaration enjoined by any canons or au
thority of the Churoh, no ecclesiastical court
could take cognizance of it. All which Mr.
SneUing offered to the commissioners in wri
ting, but the archbishop would not admit it, say
ing, in open court, that " whosoever should
make such a defence, it should be burned be
fore his face, and he laid by the heels." Upoa
this he was personally and judicially admonish
ed to read the declaration within three weeks,
which he refusing, was suspended ab officio et
beneficio. About four months after he was ju
dicially admonished again, and refusing to com
ply, was excommunicated, and told that unless
he conformed before the second day of next
term he should be deprived, which was accord
ingly done, and he continued under the sen
tence many years, to his unspeakable damage.
" It were endless to go into more particulars ;.
how raany hundred godly ministers in this and
other diocesses," says Mr. Prynne, t " have been-
suspended from their rainistry, sequestered,.
driven frora their livings, excoramunicated,
prosecuted in the High Commission, and for
ced to leave the kingdom for not publishing-
this declaration, is experimentally known to all
men." Dr. Wren, bishop of Norwich, says that
great numbers in his diocess had declined it,.
and were suspended ; that some had since com
plied, but that StiU there were thirty who per-
eraptorily refused, and were ex.coramunicated.
* Prynne's Cant. Doom, p. 151.
t Dr. Grey, to impeach the fairness of Mr. Neal,
quotes here Rushworth to show that sentence was
passed on Mr. SneUing for omitting to " read the lit
any and wear the surplice, and for not bowing, or
making any corporeal obeisance at hearing or read
ing the name of Jesus." It is true, that on these
premises also the sentence of deprivation was pass
ed ; but it appears from Rushworth that he had been
pre-viously suspended ab officio et beneficio, and ex
communicated, solely on t'he ground of refusing to
read the Book of Sports ; and that this offence was
the primary cause of the deprivation. — Rushworth's-
Collections, vol. u., part n., p. 460, 461. — Ed.
X Cant. Doom, p. 153.

314

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

This the bishop thinks a small number, although,
if there were as many in other diocesses, the
whole would amount to near eight hundred.
To render the Common Prayer Book more
unexceptionable to the papists, and more dis
tant from Puritanism, the archbishop raade sun-
•dry alterations* m the later editions, without
the sanction of convocation or Pariiaraent. In
the collect for the royal family, the Princess
i;iizabeth and her children were left out,-! and
these words were expunged, " 0 God, who art
the Father of thine elect and of their seed," as
tending towards particular election or predesti
nation X In the prayer for the 5th of Novem
ber were these words: "Root out that anti
christian and Babylonish sect which say of Je
rusalem, Down with it even to the ground. Cut
off those workers of iniquity, whose religion is
rebeUion, whose faith is faction, whose prac
tice is murdering both soul and body ;" which
in the last edition are thus changed : " Root
out the antichristian and Babylonish sect of
Ihem, which say of Jerusalem, Down with it.
Cut off those workers of iniquity, who turn reli
gion into rebeUion," &c. The design of which
alteration was to relieve the papists, and to
turn the prayer against the Puritans, upon
whora the popish plot was to have been father-
•ed. In the epistle for Palra-Sunday, instead of
" in the name of Jesus," as it was heretofore,
il is now, according to the last translation, •' at
the name of Jesus every knee shall bow." But
it was certainly very high presumption for a
single clergyman, or any number of them, to
altar a service-book established by act of Par
liament, and impose those alterations upon the
ivhole body of the clergy.
The Puritans always excepted against bow
ing al the name of Jesus ; it appeared lo them
very superstitious, as if worship was to be paid
to a name, or to the name of Jesus, more than
to that of Christ or Immanuel. Nevertheless,
It was enjoined by the eighteenth canon, and in
compliance wilh that injunction our last trans
lators inserted it into their text by rendering h
ru bvofiart, " in the name of Jesus," as it was
before, both in the Bible and Common Prayer
Book, "at the 'name of Jesus," as it now
stands ; however, no penalty was annexed to
the neglect of this ceremony,, nor did any suf
fer for it, till Bishop Laud was at the head of
the Church, who pressed it equaUy with the
rest, and caused above twenty rainisters to be
iined, censtired, and put by their livings, for not
bowing at the narae of Jesus, or for preaching
against it.^
On the 3d of Noveraber was debated, be
fore his raajesty in council, the question of re
moving the comraunion-tahle at St. Gregory's
Church, near St. Paul's, from the middle ofthe
chancel to the upper end of it, and placing it
there in forra of an altar. This being enjoined
upon the church-wardens by the dean and chap-
? Dr. Grey says that the archbishop cleared him-
.«elf in this particular by informing us [Troubles and
Trial, p. 357] '.( that the alterations were made ei
ther by the king himself, or some other about him,
when he was not at court." — Ed.
t The Queen of Bohemia, a thorough Protestant,
and on whose chUdren the hopes of the nation had
rested, till the birth of Charles's son.— C.
X Cant. Doom, p. Ill, 112.
ij Usurpation of Prelates, p. 165.

ter of St. Paul's without the consent of the pa
rishioners, they opposed il, and appealed lo the
Court of Arches, alleging that the Book of Com
raon Prayer, and eighty-second canon, gave
liberty to place the communion-table where it
might stand with most convenience. His maj
esty being infiumed of the appeal, and acquaint
ed by the archbishop that it would be a leading
case all over England, was pleased lo order it
to be debated before hiraself in council, and, af
ter hearing the arguments on both sides, de
clared that the liberty given by the eighty-sec
ond eanon was not to be understood so, as if it
were to be left to the discretion of the parish,
ranch less to the fancies of a few huraorous
persons, but to the judgraent of the ordinary
[or bishop], to whose place it properly belonged
to determine these points ; he therefore con-
firraed the act of the ordinary, and gave com
mandment that if the parishioners went on with
their appeal, the dean of the Arches, who was
then attending at the hearing of the cause,
should confirm the order of the dean and chap
ter.* This was a sovereign raanner of putting
an End to a controversy, very agreeable to the
archbishop. "W^hen the sacraraent was adrainistered in
parish churches the coramunion-table was usu
ally placed in the raiddle of the chancel, and
the people received round it, or in their several
places thereabout ; but now all comraunion-
tables were ordered to be fixed under the east
wall of the chancel with the ends north and
south in form of an altar ; they were to be rais
ed two or three steps above the floor, and en
compassed with rails. Archbishop Laud order
ed his vicar-general to see this alteration made
in all the churches and chapels of his province ;
to accomplish which, it was necessary to take
down the galleries in sorae churches, and lo re
move ancient monuments. This was resented
by sorae considerable farailies, and complained
of as an injury to the dead, and such an expense
to the living as some country parishes could
not hear ; yet those who refused to pay the
rates imposed by ihe archbishop for this pur
pose were fined in the spiritual courts contrary
to law.t It is almost incredible what a fer-
raent the raaking this alteration at once raised
araong the coramon people all over England.
Many ministers and church-wardens were ex
communicated, fined, and obliged to do penance,
for neglecting the bishop's injunctions. Great
numbers refused to come up to the rails and
receive the sacraraent, for which sorae were
fined, and others excomraunicated, to the nura-
ber of some hundreds, say the committee of the
House of Coraraons at the archbishop's trial.
Books were written for and against this new
practice, with the same earnestness and con
tention for victory as if the life of religion had
been at stake. Dr. Williaras, bishop of Lin
coln, published two treatises against it, one en
titled "A Letter to the Vicar of Grantham:"
the other, "The Holy Table, Narae, and
Thing ;" filled with so much learning, and that
learning so closely and solidly applied, says
Lord Clarendon, as showed he had spent his
tirae in his retireraent with his books very
profitably. Dr. Heylin, who ansvvered the bish-

? Rushworth, vol. ii., part ii., p. 207.
t Pryrme's Cant. Doom, p. 100, 101.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

315

op, argued frora the words of Queen Elizabeth's
injunctions, 1559 ; frora the orders and adver-
tiseraents of 1562 and 1565 ; from the practice
of the king's chapels and cathedrals; and,
finally, frora the present king's declaration, rec-
oramending a conforraity of the parish church
es to their cathedrals. The bishop, and with
hira all the Puritans, insisted upon the practice
-of primitive antiquity, and upon the eighty-sec
ond canon of 1603, which says, " We appoint,
that the table fbr the celebration of the holy
¦coramunion shall be covered with a fair linen
cloth at the time of administration, and shall
then be placed in so good sort within the church
¦or chancel, as thereby the minister may more
conveniently be heard of the communicants in
his prayer, and the communicants may more
conveniently and in more numbers corarauni-
cate." They urged the rubric in the Common
Prayer Book ; that altars in churches were a
popish invention, of no greater antiquity in the
Christian Church than the sacrifice ofthe mass ;
and insisted strenuously on the discontinuance
of them since the Reformation. But the arch
bishop, being deterrained to carry his point,
prosecuted the affair with unjustifiable rigour
over all the kingdom, punishing those who op
posed him, without regard to the laws of the
land. This occasioned a sort of schism among
the bishops, and a great deal of uncharitable
ness among the inferior clergy ; for those bish
ops who had not been beholden to Laud fbr
their preferments, nor had any farther expect
ation, were very cool in the affair, while the
archbishop's creatures, in many places, took
upon them to make these alterations by their
own authority, without the injunctions or direc
tions of their diocesans, which laid the founda
tion of many lawsuits. Those who opposed
the alterations were caUed Doctrinal Puritans,
and the promoters of them Doctrinal Papists.
The court-clergy were of the latter sort, and
were vehemently suspected of an inclination to
popery, because of their superstitious bowing to
the altar, not only in time of Divine service, but
at their going in and out of church.* This was
a practice unknown to the laity of the Church
of England before this time, but Archbishop
Laud introduced it into the royal chapel at
Whitehall, and recommended it to all the cler
gy by his 'example ; for when he went in and
uut of chapel, a lane was always made for him
lo see the altar, and do reverence towards it.
AU his majesty's chaplains, and even the com
mon people, were enjoined the same practice
In the new body of statutes for the Cathedral of
Canterbury, drawn up by his grace, and confirm-
od under the great seal, the dean and prebenda
ries are obliged by oath to bow lo the altar at
coming in and going out of the church ; which
could arise from no principle but a belief of the
real presence of Christ in the sacrament or al
tar, or from a superstitious* imitation of the
jiagans worshipping towards the east.f
To make the adoration more significant, the
altars in cathedrals were adorned with the
most pompous furniture, and aU the vessels
underwent a solemn consecration. The Cathe
dral bf Canterbury was furnished according to
* This, too, is now adopted in many of the EngUsh
dhurches, and has its imitators in the United States.
— C. t CoUyer's Ecclesiastical History, p. 762.

Bishop Andrew's model, who took it from the
Roraan Missal, with two candlesticks and ta
pers, a basin for oblations, a cushion for the
service-book, a silver-gilt canister for the wa
fers, like a wicker-basket lined with cambric
lace, the tonne on a cradle ; a chalice with the
iraage of Christ and the lost sheep, and of the
wise men and star, engraven on the sides and
on the cover. The chalice was covered with a
linen napkin, called the aire, erabroidered with
coloured silk ; two patins, the tricanale being a
round ball with a screw cover, out of whieh is
sued three pipes for the water of mixture ; a
credentia or side-table, with a basin and ewer
on napkins, and a towel to wash before the con
secration ; three kneeling stools covered and
stuffed, the foot-pace, wilh three ascents, cov
ered with a Turkey carpet ; three chairs used
at ordinations, and the septum or raU with two
ascents. Upon sorae altars was a pot caUed
the incense-pot, and a knife to cut the sacra
mental bread.
The consecration of this furniture was after
this manner : the archbishop in his cope, at
tended by two chaplains in their surplices, hav
ing bowed several tiraes towards the altar, read
a portion of Scripture ; then the vessels to be
consecrated were delivered into the hands of
the archbishop, who, after he had placed thera
upon the altar, read a form of prayer desiring
God to bless and accept of these vessels, which
he severally touched and elevated, offering them
up to God, after which they were not to be
put to common use. We have seen already
the manner of his grace's consecrating the sac
ramental elements al Creed Church ; there was
a little more ceremony in cathedrals, where the
wafers and wine being first placed with great
solemnity on the credentia or side-table, were
to be removed from thence by one of the arch
bishop's chaplains, who, as soon as he turns
about his face to the altar with the elements in
his hands, bows three times, and again when
he comes to the foot of it, where he presents
them upon his knees, and lays them upon the
altar for consecration. How far the bringing
these inventioris of men into the worship of
God is chargeable with superstition, and with
a departing from the simplicity ofthe Christian
institution, I leave with the reader ; but surely
the imposing thera upon others under severe
penalties, without the sanction of convocation.
Parliament, or royal mandate, was not to be
justified. The lecturers, or afternoon preachers, giving
his grace some disturbance, notwithstanding
the attempts already made -to suppress them,
the king sent the following injunctions to the
bishops of his province :* 1. " That they ordain
no clergyman without a presentation to sorae
living. Or, 2. Without a certificate that he is
provided of sorae void church. Or, 3. Without
some place in a cathedral or collegiate church.
Or, 4. Unless he be a fellow of some college.
Or, 5. A master of arts of five years' standing,
living at his own charge. Or, 6. Without the
intention of the bishop to provide for him."t

* Rushworth, vol. u., part ii., p. 214.
t Dr. Grey truly observes, that none of these in
junctions were new, but only an enforcement of the
thirty-third canon of 1603. He refers the reader to
Bishop Gibson's Codex, p. 162, and might have re-

316

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

By virtue of these injunctions no chaplainship
to a nobleman's family, or any -invitation to a
lecture, could qualify a person for ordination
without a living.
In the annual account the archbishop gave
the king of the state of his province this year,
we may observe how much the suppressing of
these popular preachers lay upon his mind.
" The Bishop of Bath and Wells," says his
grace, "has taken a great deal of pains in
his late visitations to have aU the king's in
structions observed, and particularly he has
put down several lecturers in market towns,
who were beneficed in other diocesses, because
he found, when they had preached factious ser
mons, they retired without the reach of his
jurisdiction. " And whereas his majesty's instructions re
quire that lecturers should turn their afternoon
sermons into catechisings, sorae parsons or
vicars object against their being included, be
cause lecturers are only mentioned ; but the
bishops wiU take care to clear their doubts and
settle their practice.
" The Bishop of Peterborough* had suppress
ed a seditious lecture at Repon, and put down
several raonthly lectures kept with a fast, and
managed by a moderator. He had also sup
pressed a meeting called the running lecture,
because the lecturer went from village to vil
lage. " The Bishop of St. Asaph says that his dio
cess is, without exception, abating the increase
of Romish recusants in some places, by their
superstitious concourse to St. 'Winifred's WeU.
" The Bishop of Landaff certifies that he has
not one stubborn Nonconformist, or schismat
ical minister, within his diocess, and but two
lecturers. " All the bishops declare that they take spe
cial care of that branch of his majesty's instruc
tions relating to Calvinism, or preaching upon
the predestinarian points ; and the archbishop
prays his raajesty that no layraan whatsoever,
and least of all the corapanies of the city of
London, or corporations, should, under any pre
tence, have power lo put in or turn out any
lecturer or other rainister."
In this account the reader will observe very
little complaint of the growth of popery, which
we shall see presently was at a prodigious
height ; but all the archbishop's artiUery is
pointed against the Puritan clergy, who were
the most determined and resolved Protestants
in the nation.
Towards the close of this year carae on the

famous trial of A^'illiara Prynne, Esq., barrister
at law, and member of Lincoln's Inn, lor his
Hislriomastix,* a book written against plays,
masks, dancing, &c. The information sets
forth, that though the author knew that the
queen and lords of council were frequently pres
ent at those diversions, yet he had railed against
these and several others, as Maypoles, Christ
mas keeping, dressing houses with ivy, festi
vals, &c, ; that he had aspersed the queen, and
coraraended factious persons ; which things arc
of dangerous consequence to the realm and
state, t The cause was heard in the StarCham-
ber, February 7, 1633. The counsel for Mr.
Prynne were IVfr. Atkyns, afterward a judge
of the Common Pleas, Mr. Jenkins, Holbourne,
Heme, and Lightfoot. For the king was Mr.
Attorney-general Noy. The counsel for the
defendant pleaded that he had handled the ar
gument of stage-plays in a learned manner,
without designing to reflect on his superiors ;t
that the book had been licensed according to
law ; and that if any passages may be con
strued to reflect on his raajesty, or any branch

ferred to his own work, entitled " A System of Eng
lish Ecclesiastical Law," extracted frora the Codex,
p. 43, 44. But though these injunctions were not
formed for the occasion, the application of Ihem at
that time was particularly directed against the lec
turers, who were pointed at in the king's letter which
accompanied the injunctions, as persons " wander
ing up and down to the scandal of their calling,
and to get a maintenance faUing upon such courses
as were most unfit for them, both by humouring their
auditors and otherways altogether unsufferable." It
is easy to perceive what dictated this representation.
" By reason of these strict rules," says Rushworth,
" no lecture whatsoever was admitted to be a canon
ical title."— Ed.
* It should be of Litchfield and Coventry, says
Dr Grey, from Laud's Trials and Troubles, p. 527.
— Ed.

* This book is a thick quarto, containing one
thousand and six pages. It aoounded with learning,
and had some curious quotations, but it was a very
tedious and heavy performance ; so that it was not
calculated to invite many to read it. "This circum
stance exposes the weakness, as the severity of the
sentence against him does the wickedness, of those
who pursued the author with such barbarity. He
was a man of sour and austere principles, of great
reading, and most assiduous application to study. It
was supposed that, from the time of his arrival at
man's estate, he wrote a sheet for every day of his
life. " His custom," Mr. Wood informs us, " was,
when he studied, to put on a long quilted cap, which
came an inch over his eyes, serving as an unbrella to
defend them from too much light ; and seldom eat
ing a dinner, would every three hours or more be
maunching a roll of bread, and now and then refresh
his exhausted spirits with ale." To this Butler seems
to allude in his address to his muse :
Thou that with ale or viler liquors
Didst inspire Withers, Prynne, and Vicars ;
And teach them, though it -were in spite
Of nature and their stars, to write.
His works amounted to forty volumes, folio and
quarto. The most valuable, and a veiy useful per
formance, is his " Collection of Records," in four large-
volumes, — Harris's , Life of Charles I, p. 226, 227.
Wood's AthenxB Qxon., vol. ii., p. 315 ; and Granger's
Biog. Hist., vol. il, p. 230, 8vo. The prosecution of
Mr. Prynne originated with Archbishop Laud, who
on a Sunday morning went to Noy, the attorney -gen
eral, with the charges against him. Prynne had in
stigated the resentment of Laud and other prelate*
by his writings against Arminianism and the juris
diction of the bishops, and by some prohibitions he
had moved and got to the High Commission Court..
" Tantsene animis coslestibus irae." — Whitelocke's Me
moirs, p. 18. A fine copy of Hislriomastix is in the
library of Yale College. — C,
+ Rushworth, vol. ii., part ii., p. 221.
I A passage quoted by Dr. Grey from Lord Cot-
tington's speech, at the trial of Mr. Prynne, will af
ford a specimen of the spirit and style of the Hislrio
mastix : " Our English ladies," he writes, " shorn
and frizzled madams, have lost their modesty; that
the devil is only honoured in dancing ; that they that
frequent plays are damned ; and so are all th-it do
not concur with him, in his opinion, whores, panders,
foul, incarnate devils, Judases to their Lord and Mas
ter." But this way of speaking was in the taste of
the times; and the speech of Lord Dorset, given
above, shows thai a nobleman did not come behind
him in severe and foul language — Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

317

of his government, he humbly begs pardon.
But Mr. Attorney aggravated the charge in very
severe language, and pronounced it a malicious
and dangerous libel. After a full hearing, he
was sentenced to have his book burned by the
hands of the common hangman, to be put frora
the bar, and lo be forever incapable of his pro-
.fession, to be turned out of the society of Lin
coln's Inn, to be degraded at Oxford, to stand
in the pillory at Westrainster and Cheapside,
to lose both his ears, one in each place, to pay
a fine of £5000, and to suffer perpetual impris
onment. Remarkable was the speech of the
Earl of Dorset on this occasion: "Mr. Prynne,"
says he, " I declare you to be a schisra-maker
in the Church, a sedition-sower in the common
wealth, a wolf in sheep's clothing ; in a word,
cmnium malorum nequissimus. I shall fine him
£10,000, which is more than he is worth, yet
less than he deserves. I will not set him at
liberty, no raore than a plagued man or mad
¦dog, who, though he can't bite, will foam : he
is so far from being a social soul, that he is not a
rational soul. He is fit to live in dens with such
beasts of prey as wolves and tigers, like himself;
therefore I condemn him to perpetual imprison
ment ; and for corporeal punishment I would
have him branded in the forehead, slit in the
nose, and have his ears chopped off."* A
speech more fit for an American savage than
an English nobleman 1
A few months after, Dr. Bastwick, a physi
cian at Colchester, having published a book en
titled "ElenchusReligionisPapisticse," with an
appendix called " Flagellum Pontificis et Epis
ooporum Latialium," which gave offence to the
English bishops, because it denied the Divine
right of the order of bishops above presbyters,
was cited before the High Commission, who dis.
carded him from his profession [1634], excom
municated him, fined him £1000, and imprison^
ed him till he recanted, t
Mr. Burton, B.D., minister of Friday-street,
having published two exceptionable sermons
frora Prov., xxiv., 21, 22, entitled, "For God
and the King," against the late innovations, had
his house and study broken open by a sergeant-
at-arras, and hiraself committed close prisoner
to the Gate-house, where he was confined sev
eral years.
These terrible proceedings!: of the commis
sioners made many conscientious Nonconforra-
ists. retire with their famUies to Holland and

* Rushworth, vol. ii., part ii., p. 233, 240.
t Dr. Grey's remark here, as doing credit to him
self, deserves to be quoted: "The severity of the
sentence," says the doctor, " I am far from justify
ing." — Ed.
X " The punishment of these raen, who were of
three great professions," says Mr. Granger, " was ig
nominious and severe : though they were never ob
jects of esteem, they soon became objects of pity.
The indignity and severity of their punishment gave
general offence, and they were no longer regarded as
criminals, but confessors." While these persecutions
were carried on with unrelenting severity, Chowney,
a fierce papist, who wrote a book in defence of the
popish religion and of the Church of Rome, averring
It to be the true Church, was not only not punished,
or even questioned for his performance, but was per
mitted to dedicate it to the archbishop, and it was
favoured with his patronage. — Granger's Biogr. Hist.,
vol. u., p. 192; and Whitelocke's Memoirs, p. 211.
— Ed.

New-England, for fear of faUing into the hands
of men whose tender mercies were cruelty.*
Araong others who went over this year was
the reverend and learned Mr. John Cotton, B.D.,
fellow of Emanuel CoUege, Cambridge, and min
ister of Boston, in Lincolnshire, where he was
in such repute that Dr. Preston and others frora
Carabridge frequently visited him ; he was an
admired preacher, and of a most meek and gen
tle disposition ; he became a Nonconforraist
upon this principle, That no church had power
to impose indifferent ceremonies, not command
ed by Christ, on the consciences of men.t He
therefore omitted some of the ceremonies, and
adrainistered the sacraraent to such as de
sired it without kneeling, for which he was in
forraed against in the High Coraraission, and
Laud being now at the head of affairs, the Bish
op of Lincoln, his diocesan, could not protect
hira. Mr. Cotton applied to the Earl of Dorset
for his interest with the archbishop, but the
earl sent him word that " if he had been guilty
of drunkenness, uncleanness, or any such less
er fault, he could have got his pardon ; but the
sin of Puritanism and Nonconformity," says his
lordship, " is unpardonable, and, therefore, you
raust fly for your safety." Upon this he travel
led to London in disguise, and took passage for
New-England, where he arrived September 3,
1633, and spent the remainder of his days, to
the year 1652.
Mr. John Davenport, B.D., and vicar of Cole-
man-street, London, resigned his living and re
tired to HoUand this summer, 1633. t He had
faUen under the resentments of his diocesan.
Bishop Laud, for being concerned in the feoff
ments, which, together with some notices he
received of being prosecuted for nonconformity,
induced him to embark for Amsterdam, where
he continued about three years, and then re
turning to England, he shipped himself, with
some other famUies, for New-England, where
he began the settlement of New-Haven, in the
year 1637. He was a good scholar and an ad
mired preacher, but underwent great hardships
in the infant colony, with whora he continued
till about the year 1670, when he died.
The Rev, Mr. Thoraas Hooker, fellow of
Emanuel College, Cambridge, and lecturer of
Chelmsford, in Essex, after four years' exer
cise of his ministry, was obliged to lay it down
for nonconformity, though twenty-seven con
formable ministers in the neighbourhood sub
scribed a petition to the bishop [Laud], in which
they declare that Mr. Hooker was, for doctrine,
orthodox ; for life and conversation, honest ;
for disposition, peaceable ; and in no wise tur
bulent or factious.ij Notwithstanding which,
he was sUenced by the spiritual court, 1630, and
bound in a recognisance of £50 to appear be
fore the High Commission ; but by the advice
of his friends he forfeited his recognisance and
fled to HoUand ; here he continued about two

* Is it any matter of surprise that our pilgrim fa
thers in New-England had " prejudices against epis
copacy," after they witnessed these prelatical pranks
from the head of the Church ? Ought not their pos
terity to be alarmed when ministers of the Episco
pal Church, jn New-England at the present tune,
eulogize this tormentor-general ? — C.
t Mather's Hist. N. E., b. ui., p. 18, &c.
t Ibid., b. iii., p. 52. ^ Ibid., b. ui., p. 60.

318

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

years fellow-labourer wilh old Mr. Forbes, a
Scotsman, at Delft, from whence he was called
to assist Dr. Ames at Rotterdam, upon whose
death he returned lo England, and being pur
sued by the bishop's officers from place to place,
he embarked this summer for New-England,
and settled with his friends upon the banks of
the Connecticut River, where he died in the
year 1647. He was an awakening preacher,
and a considerable practical writer, as appears
by his books of Preparation for Christ, Contri
tion, HumUiation, &.c.
The reverend and learned Dr. William Ames,
educated at Cambridge, under the famous Mr.
Perkins, fled from the persecution of Archbish
op Bancroft, and becarae minister of the Eng
lish church at the Hague, from whence he was
invited by the states of Friesland to the divini
ty-chair in the University of Franeker, which
he filled with universal reputation for twelve
years. He was in the Synod of Dort, and in
formed King James's ambassador at the Hague,
frora time to time, of the debates of that ven
erable assembly. He wrote several treatises
in Latin against the Arminians, which, for
their conciseness and perspicuity, were not
equalled by any of his tirae. His other works
are Manuductio Logica, Medulla Theologiae,
Cases of Conscience, Analysis on the Book of
Psalms, Notes on the First and Second Epistles
of Peter, and upon the Catechistical Heads.
After twelve years Dr. .^raes resigned his pro
fessorship, and accepted of an invitation to the
English congregation at Rotterdara, the air of
Franeker being too sharp for hira, he being
troubled with such a difficulty of breathing that
he concluded every winter would be his last ;
besides, he had a desire to be employed in the
delightful work of preaching to his own coun
trymen, which he had disused for many years.
Upon his removal to Rotterdara he wrote his
" Fresh Suit against Cereraonies ;" but his
constitution was so shattered that the air of
Holland did him no service ; upon which he
deterrained to remove to New-England, but his
asthma returning at the beginning of the win
ter before he sailed, put an end to his life at
Rotterdam, where he was buried Noveraber 14,
N.S., 1633. Next spring his wife and children
erabarked for New-England, and carried with
thera his valuable library of books, which was
a rich treasure to the country at that time.
The doctor was a very learned divine, a strict
Calvinist in doctrine, and of the persuasion of
the Independents, with regard lo the subordi
nation and power of classes and synods.*
Archbishop Laud, being now chancellor of
the University of Dublin, and having a new
vice-chancellor [Wentworth] disposed to serve
the purposes of the prerogative, turned his
thoughts against the Calvinists of that king-

* He fiUed the divinity-chair with admirable abih-
ties. His fame was so great that many came from
remote nations to be educated under him. In " An
Historical and Critical Account of Hugh Peters,"
London, 1751, is a quotation from a piece of his in
these words : " Learned Amesius breathed his last
breath into my bosom, who left his professorship in
Friezland to five with me, because of my church's
independency at Rotterdam. He was my colleague,
and chosen brother to the church, where I was an
unworthy pastor."— GrancCT-'s History of England,
vol. u., p. 198, 199, 8vo.— Ed.

dom, resolving to bring the Church of Ireland
to adopt the articles of tho Church of England.
Archbishop Usher, and some of his brethren,
being inforraed of his design, raoved in convo
cation that their own articles, ratified by King
James in the year 1615, might be confirmed ;
but the motion was rejected, because it was
said they were already fortified with aU the au
thority the Church could give them, and that a
farther confirraation would imply a defect. It
was then raoved on the other side, that for
silencing the popish objections of a disagree
ment among Protestants, a canon should be
passed for approving the articles ofthe Church
of England, which was done only with one
dissenting voice ; one Calvinist, says Mr. Coll
yer, having looked deeper into the matter than
the rest.
The canon was in these words : " For the
manifestation of our agreement with the Church
of England, in the confession of the same
Christian faith and doctrine of the sacrament,
we do receive and approve the book of articles
of religion agreed upon hy the archbishops and
bishops, &c., in the year 1562, for the avoiding
diversity of opinions, and for establishing con
sent touching true religion ; and, therefore, if
any hereafter shall affirra that any of these ar
ticles are in any part superstitious or erroneous,
or such as he may not wilh a good conscience
subscribe unto, let hira he excommunicated."*
The Irish bishops thought they had lost no
thing by this canon, because they had saved
their own articles, but Laud took advantage of
it during the time of his chancellorship ; for
hereby the Church of Ireland denounced the
sentence of excommunication against all that
affirmed any of the Thirty-nine Articles to be
superstitious or erroneous, that is, against the
whole body of the Puritans ; and FuUerf adds,
that their own articles, which conderaned Ar
minianisra, and maintained the morality of the
Sabbath, were utterly excluded.
This summer the Reverend Mr. Thomas
Sheppard,t A.M., fled to New-England. He had
been lecturer at Earl's-Coln, in Essex, several
years, but when Laud became Bishop of London
his lecture was put down, anid hiraself silenced ;
he then retired into the family of a private gen
tleman, but the bishop's officers following him
thither, he travelled into Yorkshire, where
Neile, archbishop of that province, comraanded
him to subscribe or depart the country ; upon
this he went to Hedon, in Northumberland,
where his labours were prospered to the con
version of sorae souls, but the Bishop of Dur
ham, by the direction of Archbishop Laud, for
bade his preaching in any part of his diocess^
which obliged him to take shipping at Yar
mouth for New-England, where he continued
pastor of the church at Cambridge tiU his death,
which happened August 25, 1649, in the forty-
fourth year of his age Ij He was a hard stu
dent, exemplary Christian, and an eminent prac
tical writer, as appears by his " Sincere Con
vert," and other practical works that go und?r
his name.ll

* Bib. Reg,, (j xiu,, p. 13.
t Church History, b. xi., p. 149.
X The family papers give the name Shepard.—C.
^ Mather's Hist. New-England, b. iu., p. 85, &c.
II When the Antmomian and FamUistic errors

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

31-9

The Reverend Mr. John Norton -went over in
the same ship with Mr. Sheppard,* being driven
out of Hertfordshire by the severity of the
times. He settled at Ipswich, in New-Eng
land, and was afterward removed lo Boston,
where he died in the year 1665.t Mr. Fuller
says he was a divine of no less learning than
modesty, as appears sufficiently by his numer
ous writings.
His grace of Canterbury, having made some
powerful efforts to bring the churches of Scot
land and Ireland to a uniformity with England,
resolved, in his metropolitan visitation this sum
mer, to reduce the Dutch and French churches
(which were ten in number, having between
five and six thousand communicants) to the
sarae conformity ; for this purpose he tendered
them these three articles of inquiry.
1. "-Whether do you use the Dutch or French
liturgy ?
2. " Of how many descents are you since you
came into England 1
3. " Do such as are born here in England
conform to the English ceremonies I"
The rainisters and elders demurred upon
these questions, artd insisted upon their charter
of privUeges granted by King Edward VL, and
confirmed no less than five times in the reign
of King Jaraes, and twice by King Charles hira
self, by virtue of which they had been exempt
from all archiepiscopal and episcopal jurisdic-

broke out in Boston and its vicinity, Mr. Shepard,
by his exertions, was the happy means of stopping
this infectious malady. He was an exceUent preach
er, and took great pains in his preparations for the
fiulpit. He used to say, " God will curse that man's
abours who goes idly up and down all the week, and
then goes into his study on a Saturday afternoon.
God knows that we have not too much time to pray
in, and weep in, and get our hearts into a fit frame
for the duties of the Sabbath." His most celebrated
production is on the " Parable of the Ten Virgins,"
which contains a rich fund of experimental and prac
tical divinity. FuUer gives Mr. Shepard a place
among the learned writers who were fellows of
Emanuel College, Cambridge. His son and grand
son were, in succession, pastors of the church at
Charlestown. — C.
* Mather's Hist, of New-England, p. 34.
t Mr. Norton and Simon Bradstreet, Esq., were
sent to England as agents of the colony, on the res
toration of Charles II., with an address to his majes
ty solicithig the continuance of their privileges. I'his
address contains the foUowing passage : " To enjoy
our liberty, and to walk according to the faith and
order of the Gospel, was the cause of us transplanting
ourselves, with our wives, our little ones, and our
substance ; choosing the pure Scripture worsliip,
with a good conscience, in this remote wilderness,
rather than the pleasures of England, with submis
sion to the impositions of the hierarchy, to which
we could not yield without an evil conscience. We
are not seditious to the interests of Caesar, nor
schismatical in matters of religion. We distinguish
between churches and their impurities. We could
not live without the public worship of God, but ^ere
not aUowed to observe it without such a yoke of su
perstition and conformity as we could not consent to
without sin." — Massachusetts Papers, p. 345-371. 1
hope the reader will compare this serious statement,
at the foot of the throne, with tbe jiagrant misrepre
sentations ' and deliberate perversions of history to be
found on pages 337-8-9 of the " Double Witness of
the Church," by the Rev. W. I. Kipp, 1843, than
.which, a more specious yet audacious attack on the
large majority of professing Christians in this coun
try, has never appeared. — C.

tion till this time ; yet Laud, without any re
gard to their charier, sent them the two follow
ing injunctions hy his vicar-general :
1. "That aU that were born in England of
the Dutch and Walloon congregations should
repair to their parish churches.
2. " That those who were not natives, but
came from abroad, while they remained stran
gers, raight use their own discipline as for-
raerly." In this emergency the Dutch and Wallooa
churches petitioned for a toleration, and show
ed the inconveniences that would arise from
the archbishop's injunctions ; as, that if all their
children born in England were taken frora their
coraraunion, their churches must break up and
return home ; for as they came into England
for the liberty of their consciences, they would
not continue here after it was taken from them.*
They desired, therefore, it might be considered
what damages would arise to the kingdora by
driving away the foreigners with their manu
factures, and discouraging others from setlling-
in their room. The mayor and corporation of
Canterbury assured his grace that above twelve
hundred of their poor were maintained by the
foreigners, and others interceded with the king
in their favour; but his majesty answered, " We
raust beheve our Archbishop of Canterbury,"
who used their deputies very roughly, calling
them a nest of schisraatics, and telling them is
were better to have no foreign churches than
to indulge their nonconformity. In conclusion,
he assured them, by a letter dated August 19,
1635, that his majesty was resolved his injunc
tions should be observed, viz.. That aU their
children ofthe second descent, born in England,
should resort to their parish churches ;t " and,"
says his grace, " I do expect all obedience and
conforraity from you, and if you refuse, I shall
proceed against the natives according to the
laws and canons ecclesiastical." Accordinglyi-
some of their churches were interdicted, others-
shut up and the assemblies dissolved ; their
rainisters being suspended, raany of their peo
ple left the kingdom, especially in the diocess
of Norwich, where Bishop Wren drove away
three thousand manufacturers in wool, cloth;
&c., some of whom employed a hundred poor
people at work, to the unspeakable damage of
the kingdora.
As a farther raark of disregard to the foreign
Protestants, the king's ambassador in France
was forbidden to frequent their religious assem"-
blies. " It had been customary," says Lord
Clarendon, " for the ambassadors employed in
any parts where the reformed religion was ex
ercised, to frequent their churches, and to hold
correspondence with the most powerful persons
of that reUgion, particularly the English ambas
sadors at Paris constantly frequented the church
at Charenton ; but the contrary to this was now
practised, and sorae advertisements, if not in
structions, given to the ambassador, to forbear
any comraerce with the raen of that religion.

* It is said that RicheUeu made the following
speech on this exacted conformity : " If a, king of
England, who is a Protestant, will not permit two
disciplines in his kingdom, why should a king of
France, who is a papist, admit two religions !"—
Mrs. Macaulay' s History of England, vol. ii., p. 145,.
note, Svo. — Ed.
t Rushworth, vol. u., part ii., p. 273.

320

HISTORY OF THE PURITA.N'S.

Lord Soudamore, who was the last ambassador
before the beginning of the Long Parliament,
instead of going lo Charenton, furnished his
chapel after the new fashion, with candles upon
the altar, &e., and took care to publish, upon
aU occasions, that the Church of England look
ed not on the Huguenots as a part of their com
munion, which was likewise industriously dis
coursed at home. This made a great many for
eign Protestants leave the kingdom, and trans
port themselves into foreign parts." The Church
of England by this means lost the esteem of the
Reformed churches abroad, who could hardly
pity her, when a few years after she sunk down
into the deepest distress.
To give another instance of the archbishop's
disaffection to the foreign Protestants, the Queen
of Boheraia, the king's sister, solicited the king,
in the raost pressing raanner, to admit ofa pub
lic collection over England for the poor perse
cuted ministers ofthe Palatinate, who were ban
ished their country for their religion. Accord
ingly, the king granted thera a brief to go through
the kingdom ; but when it was brought to the
archbishop he excepted against the following
clause :* " Whose cases are the more to be de
plored, because this extremity has fallen upon
them for their sincerity and constancy in the
trufe religion, which we together with them pro
fessed, and which we are all bound in con
science to maintain to the utmost of our powers.
Whereas these religious and godly persons, be
ing involved among others their countrymen,
might have enjoyed their estates and fortunes,
if with other backsliders in the tiraes of trial
they would have submitted themselves to the
anti- Christian yoke, and have renounced or dis
sembled the profession of their religion." His
grace had two exceptions to this passage: 1.
The religion ofthe Palatine churches is affirm-
od to be the sarae with ours, which he denied,
because they were Calvinists, and because their
ministers had not episcopal ordination. 2. He
objected to the Church of Rorae's being called
an anti-Christian yoke, because it would then
follow that she was in no capacity to convey
sacerdotal power in ordinations, and, conse
quently, the benefit of the priesthood, and the
force of holy rainistrations, would be lost in the
English Church, forasrauch as she has no or
ders but what she derives frora the Church of
Rorae. Laud having acquainted the king with
his exceptions, they were expunged in another
<iraught. But the collection not succeeding in
this way. Dr. Sibbes, Gouge, and other divines
of the Puritan party, signed a private recora-
mendalory letter, desiring their friends to en
large their charity, as to men of the same faith
and profession with themselves, and promising
to see to the right distribution of the money ;
but as soon as Laud heard of it, he cited the
divines before the High Commission, and put a
stop to the collection.
This year [1634] put an end to the life ofthe
Hev. Mr. -Hugh Clarke, born at Burton-upon-
Trent, 4563, and educated partly at Cambridge
and partly at Oxford. He was first rainister
of Oundle, in Northanlptonshire, and then of
"\\^oolston, in Warwickshire, from whence he
was suspended, and afterward excoramunicated
for expounding upon the catechism. Al length

he was indicted for high treason, because ho
had prayed " that God would forgive the queen
[Elizabeth] her sins,"* but was acquitted. Ho
was an awakening preacher, ofa warm spirit,
and a robust constitution, which he wore out
with preaching twice every Lord's Day, and
frequently on the week days. His ministry
met with great success even to his death, which
happened November 6, 1634, in the seventy-
second year of his aget
About the same tirae died the reverend and
pious Mr, John Carter, a man that feared God
from his youth, and was always employed in
acts of devotion and charity. He was born in
Kent, 1554, and educated in Clare Hall, Cara
bridge. He was first minister of Bramford, in
Suffolk, for thirty-four years, and then rector
of Bedstead, in the sarae county ; and though
often in trouble for his nonconformity, he made
a shift, bythe assistance of friends, to maintain
his liberty without any sinful compliance t He
was mighty in prayer, frequent and fervent iu
preaching, and a resolute champion against
popery, .\i-minianism, and the new ceremonies.
He lived to a good old age, and died suddenly,
as he was lying down to sleep, in the eightieth
year of his age, greatly lamented by all who

* Cyp. Aug., Collyer, vol. u., p. 764, 765.

t Here Bishop Warburton censures Mr. Neal as
guilty of "an unfair representation." His lordship
adds, "that they were the sins of persecuting the
holy discipline which he prayed for the remission of;
and that reflecting on her administration was the
thing which gave offence." The bishop is certainly
right in this construction of Mr. Clarke's prayer ; but
there is no occasion, methinks, for the charge he
brings against Mr. Neal, who does not refer the ex
pression, or insinuate that it was lo be referred, to
the personal vices of the queen,' but rather the con
trary, for he speaks of it as the ground on which Mr.
Qlarke was indicted for high treason. He might as
well suppose that his reader would understand the
language as pointing to the oppressions of her gov
ernment, and the severities which the Puritans suf
fered under it. This would have been perfectly clear,
had Mr. Neal added from his author, that this prayer,
though in modest expressions, was offered up when
the persecution of the Nonconformists was becoming
hot.— Ed.
t Clarke's Lives annexed to his General Martyr
ology, p. 127. He was the father of Rev. Samuel
Clarke, of Bennet Fink, the author of the General
Martyrology, and the biographer of the Puritans.
Almost all we know of some of the best men of that
age we have received from his voluminous biogra
phies. He has great claims on our gratitude, — C,
X Mr. Carter's chief trials proceeded from Bishop
Wren, who was successively Bishop of Hereford,
Norwich, and Ely, a prelate of most intolerant prin
ciples, and too much inclined to the oppressions and
superstitions of popery. While he sat in the chair
of Norwich, he proceeded, according to Clarendon,
" so warmly and passionately against the dissenting
congregations, that many left the kingdom," to the
unspeakable injury of the manufactories of this coun
try. His portrait was published and prefixed to a
book entitled " Wren's Anatomy, discovering his no-
torjpus Pranks, &c., printed in the year when Wren
ceased to domineer," 1641. In this portrait the
bishop is represented sitting at a table, wilh two la
bels proceeding from his mouth, one of which is in
scribed " Canonical Prayers," the other, " No Af
ternoon Sermons." On one side stand several cler
gymen, over whose heads is written "Altar Crin
ging Priests." On the other side, two men in lay hab
its, above whom is this inscription, " Church-war
dens for Articles." — Prynne's Cant. Doom, p. 531.
Clarendon's Hist., vol. U., p. 74. Granger's Biog. Hist.,
vol. u., p. 157.— C.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

321

had a taste for practical religion and undissem
bled piety.* His funeral sermon was preached
before a vast concourse of people, from these
words, " My father, my father, the chariots of
Israel, and the horsemen thereof!"
Conformity to the new ceremonies and the
king's injunctions vvas now pressed with the
utmost rigour. The Rev, Mr. Crook, of Brazen-
nose College, and Mr. Hobbes, of "Trinity Col
lege, Oxford, were enjoined a public recantation
for reflecting upon the Arrainians.
. Mr. Samuel Ward, of Ipswich, having preach-
¦ed against the Book of Sports, and bowing at
the narae of Jesus, added, that the Church of
England was ready to ring changes in religion ;
and that the Gospel stood a tiptoe, ready to be
gone to America;! for which he was, suspended,
and enjoined a public recantation. Another
underwent the sarae censure for saying it was
suspicious that the night was approaching, be
cause the shadows were so much longer than
the body, and ceremonies more enforced than
the power of godliness.
The Rev. Mr. Chauncey, late minister of
Ware, but now of Marston Lawrence, in the
diocess of Peterborough, was imprisoned, con
demned in cost of suit, and obliged to read the
foUowing recantation for opposing the raUing
in the coraraunion-table :
" Whereas I, Charles Chauncey, clerk, late
Vicar of Ware, stand convicted for opposing
the setting up a rail round the communion-ta-
¦ble, and for saying it was an innovation, a snare
lo men's consciences, a breach of the second
commandraent, an addition to God's worship,
and that which drove me from the place, I do
now, before this honourable court, acknowledge
my great offence, and protest I am ready to de
clare upon oath, that I am now persuaded in
jny conscience, that kneeling at the communion
is a lawful and commendable gesture ; that the
¦raU is a decent and convenient ornament, and
that I was much to blame for opposing it ; and
-do promise frora henceforth, never by word or
deed to oppose that, or any other laudable rites
.and ceremonies used in the Church of Eng-
land."j: After this he was judicially adraonished and
-discharged ; but the recantation went so much
against his conscience, that he could enjoy no
peace till he had quitted the Chureh of England,
-and retired to New-England, where he made
an open acknowledgment of his sin.
The church-wardens of Beckington, in Som-
.«rsetshire, were excomraunicated by the Bishop
of Bath and Wells, for refusing to remove the
coraraunion-table from the raiddle of the chancel
to the east end, and not pulling down the seats
to raake room for it. They produced a certifi
cate that their coramunion-table had stood time
-out of mind in the midst of the chancel ; that
the ground on which it was placed was raised
a foot, and enclosed with a decent wainscot bor
der, and that none went within it but the min
ister, and such as he required. This not avaU-
ing, they appealed to the Arches, and at last to
the king ; but their appeal was rejected. After

* Ut supra, p. 132.
t Rushworth, vol. ii., part ii., p. 285. Prynne, p.
-285. X Prynne, p. 95, 97, 100. Rushworth, vol. ii., part
'ii., p. 301, 316.
Vol. I.— S s

they had remained excommunicated for a year,
they were cast into the comraon jail, where they
continued till the year 1637, and were then obli
ged to do public penance in the parish church of
Beckington, and two others, the shame of which
broke their hearts ; one of them declaring upon
his death-bed soon after, that the penance and
subraission, so much against his conscience,
had sunk his spirits, and was one principal cause
of his death.*
In the archbishop's metropolitical visitation
this summer, Mr. Lee, one of the prebendaries
of Litchfield, was suspended for churching re
fractory women in private, for being averse to
the good orders ofthe Church, and for ordering
the bellman to give notice in open market of a
sermon. -1 Mr. Randal, of Tuddington, near
Hampton Court, Middlesex, was suspended for
preaohing a sermon above an hour long on Sun
day in the afternoon, though it was a farewell
sermon to the exercise of catechising. His
grace's account of his province this year gives
a farther relation of the sufferings of the Puri
tans -.X he acquaints his raajesty that the French
and Dutch churches had not as yet thoroughly
complied with his injunctions. That in the dio
cess of London, Dr-. Houghton, rector of Alder-
manbury, Mr. Simpson, curate and lecturer of
St. Margaret, Fish-street, Mr. John Goodwin,
vicar of Coleman-street, and Mr. Viner of St.
Lawrence, Old Jewry, had been convened for
breach of canons, and had submitted ; to whom
his grace might have added. Dr. Sibbes, Dr.
Taylor, Dr. Gouge, Mr. White, of Dorsetshire,
and about twenty more ; some of whom fled
into HoUand, and others retired into New-Eng
land. The Bishop of Bath and Wells certified
that he had not one single lecture in any corpo
ration town, and that all afternoon sermons
were turned into catechisings in aU parishes.
In the diocess of Norwich were many Puritans,
but that Mr. Ward of Yarmouth was- in the
High Commission. From the diocess of Laln-
daff, Mr. Wroth and Mr. Erbury, two noted
schismatics, were brought before the High Com
mission. And that in the diocess of Glouces
ter were several popular and factious minis
ters. It must be confessed that the zeal of the Pu
ritans was not always well regulated, nor were
their ministers so much on their guard in the
pulpit or conversation as they ought, consider
ing the number of informers that entered all
their churches, that insinuated themselves into
all public conversation, and, like so many lo
custs, covered the land. These were so nu
merous and corrupt that the king was obliged
to bring thera under certain regulations ; for no
man was safe in public company, nor even in
conversing with his friends and neighbours.
Many broke up housekeeping, that they might
breathe in a freer air, which the couiTcil being
informed of, a proclamation was published [July
21, 1635], forbidding aU persons except soldiers,
raariners, raerchants and their factors, to depart
the kingdom without his majesty's license.
But, notwithstanding this prohibUion, num
bers went to New-England this suraraer, and
among others the Rev. Mr. Peter Bulkley, B.D.,

* Rushworth, vol. u., part ii., p. 300.
t Prynne, p. 381.
i Collyer's Eccles. Hist., vol. u., p. 763.

322

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

and feUow of St, John's College, Carabridge.
He was son of Dr. Edward Bulkley, of Bedford
shire, and succeeded him at Woodhill, or Odel,
in that county. Here he continued above twen-
ty years, the Bishop of Lincoln conniving at
his nonconformity : but when Dr. Laud was at
the helm of the Church, and the Bishop of Lin
coln in disgrace, Bulkley was silenced by the
vicar-general. Sir Nathaniel Brent, upon which
he sold a very plentiful estate, and transported
hiraself and his effects to New-England, where
he died in the year 1658-9, and the seventy-
seventh of his age. He was a thundering
preacher, and a judicious diirine, as appears by
his treatise " Of the Covenant," which passed
through several editions, and was one of the
first books published in that country.*
Mr. Richard Mather, educated in IJrazen-nose
College, Oxon, and minister of Toxteth, near
Liverpool, for about fifteen years, a diligent and
successful preacher, was suspended fbr non
conformity in the year 1633, but by the inter
cession of friends, after six months he was re
stored. Next summer, the Archbishop of York
sending his visiters into Lancashire, this good
raan was again suspended by Dr. Cosins, upon
an inforraation that he had not worn the sur
plice for fifteen years. After this no interces
sion could obtain the liberty of his rainistry ;
upon which he took shipping at Bristol, and ar
rived at Boston, in New-England, August 17,
1635. He settled at Dorchester, and continued
with his people, a plain and profitable preacher,
to the year 1669, when he died. This was the
grandfather ofthe faraous Dr. Cotton Mather.
In Scotland the fire was kindling apace which
in three years' tirae set both kingdoms in a
flame. The restoring episcopacy, by the vio
lent methods already mentioned, did not sir
easy upon the people ; the new Scots bishops
were pf Bishop Laud's principles ; they spoke
very favourably of popery in their sermons, and
cast sorae invidious reflections on the Reform
ers : they declared openly for the doctrines of
Arminius, for sports on the Sabbath, and for the
liturgy of the English Church, which was ima
gined to be little better than the raass.t This
lost thera their esteem with the people, who
had been trained up in the doctrines and disci
phne of Calvin, and in the strict observation of
the Lord's Day. But the king, to support them,
cherished them with e.xpressions of the great
est respect and confidence ; he made eleven of
them privy-councillors ; the Archbishop of St.
Andrew's was lord-chancellor, and the Bishop
of Ross was in nomination to be lord-high-treas
urer ; divers of thera were of the exchequer,
and had engrossed the best secular prefer
ments, which made them the envy of the no
bility and gentry of that nation. The bishops
were so sensible of this, that they advised the
king not to trust the intended alterations in re
hgion to parliaments or general assemblies, but
to introduce thera by his regal authority.
When the king was last in Scotland, it was
taken notice of as a great blemish in the Kirk,
that it had no liturgy or book of canons. To
supply this defect, the king gave orders to the

* Rapin, vol ii., p. 394, foho edit. Mr. Bulkley
made additions to Fox's Acts and Monuments of the
Martyrs.— See vol. iu., p. 861-863.— C.
t Bumet's Memours of D. HamUlon, p. 29, 30.

new bishops to prepare draughts of both, and re
mit thera to London, to be revised by the Bish
ops Laud, Juxon, and Wren. The book of canons
being first finished, was presented to the king,
and by hira delivered to Laud and Juxon to ex
amine, alter, and reform at pleasure, and to
bring it as near as possible to a conforraity with
the English canons. The bishops having exe
cuted their commission, and prepared it for
press, the king confirmed it under the great
seal hy letters patent, dated at Greenwich, May
23, 1635. The instrument sets forth, "that his
majesty, by his royal and supreme authority in
causes ecclesiastical, ratifies and conf^ms the
said canons, orders, and constitutions, and all
and everything in them contained, and strictly
coraraands all archbishops, bishops, and others
exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction, to see
thera punctually observed."
To give the reader a speciraen of these can
ons, which were subversive of the whole Scots
constitution both in Kirk and Stale :
1. " The first canon excommunicates all
those who affirm the power and prerogative of
the king not to be equal wilh the Jewish kings,
that is, absolute and unlimited.
2. " The second excommunicates those who
shall affirm the worship contained in the Book
of Comraon Prayer [which was not yet pub
lished], or the governraent of the Kirk by arch
bishops, bishops, &c., to be corrupt, supersti
tious, or unlawful.
3. " The third restrains ordinations to the
quatuor lempora, that is, the first weeks of March^
June, September, and December.
5, " The fifth obUges all presbyters to read,
or cause to be read. Divine service, according
to the forra of the Book of the Scottish Com
mon Prayer, and to conform to all the offices,
parts, and rubrics of it [though not yet pub
lished."] The book decrees farther, " that no assem
bly of the clergy shaU be called but by the king.
"That none shaU receive the sacrament but
upon their knees.
"That every ecclesiastical person dying with
out children shall give part of his estate to the
Church. " That the clergy shall have no private meet
ings for expounding Scripture,
" That no clergyman shaU conceive prayer,
but pray only by the printed form, lo be pre
scribed in the Book of Common Prayer.
" That no raan shall teach school without a
license frora the bishop ; nor any censures ot
the Church be pronounced but by the approba
tion of the bishop.
. " That no presbyter shall reveal anything in
confession, except his own life should by the
concealment be forfeited."
After sundry other canons of this nature, as
appointing fonts for baptism, church ornaments,
communion-tables, or altars, &c., the book de
crees, that no person shaU be admitted to holy
orders, or to preach, or administer the sacra
ments, without first subscribing the foremen
tioned canons.
This book was no sooner published than the
Scots presbyters declared peremptorily against
it ;* their objections were of twp sorts : they
disliked the matter of the canons, as inconsist-

* CoUyer's Eccles. Hist., p. 764.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

323

ent with their kirk government, and severer in
some* particulars than those of the Church of
England : they protested also against the man
ner of imposing thera, without consent of Par
liament or General Asserably. It was thought
intolerable vassalage, by a people who had as
serted the independent power of the Church to
convene asserablies ofthe clergy, and who had
maintained that their decrees were binding
without the confirraation of the crown, to have
the king and a few foreign bishops dictate can
ons to them, without so much as asking their
advice and consent. Such a high display of
the supreraacy could not fail of being highly re
sented by a church that had never yielded it to
the king in the latitude in which it had been
claimed and exercised in England. Besides,
it was very preposterous to publish the book of
canons before the Book of Common Prayer,
and to require subraission and subscription to
things that had no existence ; for who could
foretel what raight be inserted in the Cora
mon Prayer Bbokl or what kind of service
might he iraposed upon the Kirk 1 This looked
too ranch like pinning the faith of a whole na
tion on the lawn sleeves.'
To return to England. Towards the end of
this year il pleased God to remove out of this
world the Reverend Dr. Richard Sibbes, one of
the most celebrated preachers of his tirae. He
was born at Sudbury, 1579, and educated in St.
John's College, Cambridge, where he went
through all the degrees. Having entered into
the ministry, he was first chosen lecturer of
Trinity Church, in Cambridge, where his min
istry was very successful to the conversion and
reformation of his hearers. About the year
1618 he was appointed preacher to the honour
able society of Gray's Inn, London, in which
station he became sp faraous, that, besides the
lawyers of the house, many of the nobility and
gentry frequented his sermons. In the year
1625 he was chosen master of Katherine HaU,
in the University of Carabridge, the government
ofwhichhemadeashiftto continue to his death,
though he was turned out of his feUowship and
lecture in the university for nonconformity, and
often cited before the High Commission. He
was a divine of good learning, thoroughly ac
quainted with the Scriptures, a burning and
shining light, and of a most humble and chari
table disposition;- but aU these talents could
not screen him from the fury of the times.
His works* discover hira to have been of a
heavenly, evangelical spirit, the comforts of
which he enjoyed at his death, which happened
the latter end "of this summer, in the fifty-ninth
year of his age.-l ,
To aggrandize the Church yet farther, the
archbishop resolved to bring part of the busi
ness of Westrainster HaU into the ecclesiastical

* Of these, the most noted was his " Bruised
Reed," to which, Mr. Baxter teUs us, he in a great
measure owed his conversion. This circumstance
alone, observes Mr. Granger, would have rendered
his name memorable.— History of England, vol. U.,
p. 176, 8vo. Sylvester's Life of Baxter, part i., p. 4.
This interesting memoir was one of the favour
ite volumes of Coleridge, who always kept it by
him. No mmister should lose an opportunity to ob
tain this very scarce and valuable work. — C.
t Clarke's Lives, annexed to his General Martyr
ology, p. 143.

courts. The civilians had boldly and unwar
rantably opposed and protested against prohi
bitions and other proceedings at law, in re
straint of their spiritual courts, and had pro
cured some privileges and' orders from the king
in favour of the ecclesiastical courts, which had
greatly offended the gentlemen of the law.
But the archbishop now went a step farther, and
prevailed with the king to direct that half the
masters in chancery should always be civil
lawyers ; and to declare that no others, of what
condition soever, should serve him as masters
of request ; these were raore akin to the Church
than the common lawyers, their places being in
the bishop's disposal (as chancellors, corarais-
saries, &c.), and, therefore, it was supposed
their persons would be so too ; but this was
false policy, says the noble historian,* because
it disgusted a whole learned profession, who
were more capable of disserving the Church
in their estates, inheritances, and stewardships,
than the Church could hurt them in their prac
tice. Besides, it was wrong in itself; for I have
never yet spoken with one clergyman, says hia
lordship, who hath had experience of both liti
gations, that has not ingenuously confessed,
that he had rather, in respect of his trouble,
charge, and satisfaction to his understanding,
have three suits depending in Westminster Hall
than one in the Arches, or any ecclesiastical
court. As a farther step towards the sovereign pow
er of the Church, his grace prevaUed with the
king to allow the bishops to hold their ecclesi
astical courts in their own naraes, and by their
own seals, without the king's letters patent un
der the great seal ; the judges having given it
as their opinion that a patent under the great
seal was not necessary for examinations, sus
pensions, and other church censures. This was
undoubtedly contrary to law, for by the statute
1 Edw. VI., cap ii., it is declared "that aU ec
clesiastical jurisdiction is iraraediately from the
crown, and that aU persons exercising such ju
risdiction shall have in their seal the king's
arms, and shaU use no other seal of jurisdic
tion on pain of iraprisonment."t This statute
being repealed, 1 Maria;, cap. ii., was again re
vived by 1 Jac, cap. xxv,, as has been observ
ed,! Hereupon, in the Pariiaments of the 3d
and 7th of King Jaraes I., the bishops were
proceeded against, and two of them, in a man
ner, attainted in a preraunire by the House of
Coraraons, for raaking citations and processes
in their own names, and using their own seals,
contrary to this statute and to the common
law, and in derogation of the prerogative. So
that by this concession the king dispensed with
the laws, and yielded away the ancient and un
doubted right of his crown, and the bishops
were brought under a premunire for exercising
spiritual jurisdiction without any special com
mission, patent, or grant frora, by, or under
his majesty, whereas aU jurisdiction of this
kind ought to have been exercised in the king'$
name, and hy virtue of his authority only, sig
nified by letters patent under his majesty's seal.
The archbishop was no less intent upon en
larging his own jurisdiction, claiming a right to

* Clarendon, vol. u., p. 305, 306.
t Rushworth, vol. U., part ii., p. 450.
t Usurpation of Prelates^ p. 92, 115,

324

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS

visit the two universities yure melropohtico, which
being referred to the king and council, his maj
esty was pleased to give judgment against
hiraself .\s chancellor of Oxford, his grace
caused a new body of statutes to be drawn up
for that university, with a preface, in which are
some severe reflections on good King Edward
and his government ; il says that the discipline
ofthe university was discoraposed and troubled
by that king's injunctions and the flattering
novelty of the age. Il then commends the
reign of his sister, the bloody Queen Mary, and
says that the discipline of the Church revived
and flourished again in her days under Cardinal
Pole, when, by the much-desired felicity of
those times, an inbred candour supplied the de
fect of statutes.* Was this spoken like a Prot
estant prelate, whose predecessors in the sees
of London and Canterbury were burned at Ox
ford by Queen Mary, in a most barbarous man
ner 1 Or, rather, Ulce one who was aiming at
the return of those happy times I
The last and most extravagant stretch of
episcopal power that I shall raention was the
bishops fraraing new articles of visitation in
their own names, without the king's seal and
authority, and administering an oath of inquiry
to the church- wardens concerning thera.f This
was an outrage upon the laws, contrary to the
Act of Subraission, 25 Hen. VIIL, cap. xxv,,
and even to the twelfth canon of 1603, which
says, " that whosoever shall affirm it lawful for
any sort of rainisters or lay persons to assem
ble together and make rules, orders, and con
stitutions, in causes ecclesiastical, without the
king's authority, and shall submit themselves
to be ruled and governed by them, let him be
excomraunicated ;" which includes the fraraers
of the orders as well as those who act under
them. The administering an oath to church
wardens, without a royal coraraission, had no
foundation in law, for by the comraon law no
ecclesiastical judge can adrainister an oath (ex
cept in cases of raatrimony and testaments)
without letters patent, or a special commission
under ihe great seal. It was also declared con
trary lo the laws and statutes of the land, by
Sir Edward Coke and the rest of the judges,
3 Jaraes, in the case of Mr. Wharton, who, be
ing church-warden of Blackfriars, London, was
excomraunicated and imprisoned on a capias
excommunicatum, for refusing to take an oath to
present upon visitation articles ; but bringing
his habeas corpus, he was discharged by the
whole court, both from his imprisonment and
excoraraunication, for this reason, because the
oath and articles were against the laws and
statutes of this realra, and so might and ought
to be refused. Upon the whole, the making
the mitre thus independent of the crown, and

* An answer to Mr. Neal, it is urged by Dr. Grey,
may be supplied from Frankland's Annals of King
Charles 1., according to whom, what is applied above
to Queen Mary's time only, relates to all former
times as weU as hers, during which the uncertainty
of the statutes lasted, and put the university to an in
convenience ; and who asserts that the preface men
tioned by Mr Neal was written by Dr. Peter Turner,
of .Merton College, a doctor of civil law. T'he read
er, however, wdl probably apprehend that it express.
ed the sentiments of Archbishop Laud, and was vir
tually his.— Ed.
t L'surpation of Prelates, p. 229, 240.

not subject to a prohibition from the courts of
Westminster Hall, was setting up impenum in
imperio, and going a great way towards re-es
tablishing one of the heaviest grievances of the
papacy ; but the bishops presumed upon the fu-
licity of the times and the indulgence of the
crown, which at another time might have in
volved them in a premunire.
The articles of visitation differed in the sev
eral diocesses ; the church-wardens' oath was
generally the same, viz, :
" You shaU swear, that you, and every of
you, shaU duly consider and diligently inquire
of all and every of these articles given you in
charge; and that aU affection, favour, hope of
reward and gain, or fear of displeasure, or mal
ice set aside, you shall present all and every such
person that now is, or of late was, within your
parish, or hath committed any offence, or made
any default mentioned in any of these articles,
or which are vehemently suspected, or defamed
of any such offence or default, wherein you
shall deal uprightly and fully, neither present
ing nor daring to present any contrary to truth,
having in this action God before your eyes, with
an earnest zeal to maintain truth, and to sup
press vice. So help you God, and the holy con
tents of this book."
By virtue of this oath, some, out of conscience,
thought themselves obliged to present their rain
isters, their neighbours, and their near rela
tions, not for immorality or neglect of the wor
ship of God, hut for omitting some supersti
tious injunctions. Others acted from revenge,
having an opportunity put into their hands to
ruin their conscientious neighbours. Many
church-wardens refused to take the oath, and
were imprisoned, and forced to do penance.
But, to prevent this for the future, it was de
clared, " that if any man affirmed it was not
lawful to take the oath ofa church-warden, or
that it was not lawfully administered, or that
the oath did not bind, or that the church-ward
ens need not inquire, or, after inquiry, need not
answer, or raight leave out part of their an
swers,"* such persons should be presented and
punished. Several of the bishops published their pri-
raary articles of visitation about this tirae. as
the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of Win
chester, and 13ath and WeUs ; but the most
remarkable and curious were Dr. Wren's, bish
op of Norwich, entitled, " Articles to be in
quired of within the Diocess of Norwich, in the
first Visitation of Matthew, Lord-bishop of Nor-
wich."t The book contains one hundred and
thirty-nine articles, in which are eight hundred
ayd ninety-seven questions, some very insignifi
cant, others highly superstitious, and several
impossible to be answered. To give the reader
a specimen of thera : Have you the book of
constitutions or canons ecclesiastical, and a
parchment register book. Book of Comraon Pray
er, and a book of homilies' Is your commu
nion-table so placed within the chancel as the
canon directs 1 Doth your rainister read the
canons once every yearl Doth he pray for the
king wilh his whole title 1 Doth he pray for
the archbishops and bishops 1 Doth he observe
* Visit. Art., chap, vi., Ij 0.
t Rushworth, vol. ii., part u., p. 186, 187. Prynne,
p. 374. Rapm, vol. u., p. 289, 290, folio edit.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS

all the orders, rites, and ceremonies prescribed
in the Book of Common Prayer, and adminis
tering the sacrament! Doth he receive the
sacraraent kneeling himself, and administer to
none but such as kneel 1 Doth he admit to the
sacrament any notorious offenders or schtemat-
ics 1 Do the strangers of other parishes come
often, or frequently to your church ? Doth your
minister baptize with the sign of the cross 1 Is
your minister licensed, and hy whom 1 Doth
he wear the surplice whUe he is reading pray
ers and administering the sacrament 1 Doth he
catechise and instruct the youth in the Ten
Commandraents 1 Doth he solemnize marriage
without the bans 1 Doth he, in Rogation-days,
use the perambulation round the parish I Doth
he every six months denounce in the parish [or
publicly declare the names of] all such as per
severe in the sentence of excoramunieation, not
seeking to he absolved 1 Doth he admit any
excommunicate persons into the church with
out a certificate of absolution ? Is your minis
ter a favourer of recusants 1 Is he noted to be
an incontinent person ; a frequenter of taverns,
alehouses ; a comraon gamester, or a player at
dice? Hath your minister read the Book of
Sports in his church or chapel 1 Doth he read
the second service at the coramunion-table I
Doth he use conceived prayers before or after
sermon 1 With regard to churchyards, are they
consecrated 1 Are the graves dug east and
west, and the bodies buried with their heads to
the west? Do your parishioners, at going in
and out of the church, do reverence towards
the chancel 1 Do they kneel at confession,
stand up at the creed, and bow at the glorious
narae of Jesus 1 * &c., with divers articles of the
like nature, t
The weight of these inquiries feU chiefly upon
the Puritans, for within the corapass of two
years and four months no less than fifty able
and pious ministers were suspended, silenced,
and otherwise censured, to the ruin of their poor
families, for not obeying one or other of these
articles ; araong whora were the Rev. Mr. John
AUen, Mr. John Ward, Mr. WUIiam Powell, Mr.
John Carter, Mr. Ashe, Mr. WiUiam Bridges,
Mr. Jeremiah Burroughs, Mr. Greenhill, Mr. Ed
mund Calamy, Mr. Hudson, Peck, Rayraond,
Green, Molt,- Kent, Allen, Scott, Beard, Moth,
Manning, Warren, Kirrington, and others, in
the diocess of Norwich. In other diocesses
were Mr. Jonathan Burre, Mr. Williara Leigh,
Mr. Matthew Brownrigge, Mr. G. Huntley, Vic
ars, Proud, Workraan, Crowder, SneUing, &c.,
some of whom spent their days in silence, oth
ers departed their country into parts beyond
sea, and none were released without a promise
to conform to the bishops' injunctions editis et
edendis, i. e., already published, or hereafter to
be published.

* Cant. Doom, p. 96.
t One article, which Mr. Neal has omitted, requi
red " that the church-wardens in every parish of his
diocess should inquire whether any persons presumed
to talk of religion at their tables and in their famUies."
Not to say the gross ignorance which this restraint
would cause, it showed the extreme of jealousy and
intolerance, was subversive of the influence and en
dearments of domestic life, and converted each pri
vate house into a court of inquisition. — Pillars of
Priestcraft and Orthodoxy Shaken, 1768, vol. iu., p.
307, 308.— Ed.

325
Bishop Montague, who succeeded Wren in
the diocess of Norwich, 1638, imitated his suc
cessor in his visitation-articles; it being nonr
fashionable for every new bishop to frarae sep
arate articles of inquiry for the visitation of his
own diocess. Montague pointed his inquiries
against the Puritan lecturers, of which he ob
serves three sorts.*
" 1. Such as were superinducted into another
raan's cure ; concerning which he enjoins his
visiters to inquire. Whether the lecturer's ser
raons in the afternoons are popular or cate
chistical 1 Whether he be adraitted with con
sent of the incumbent and bishop 1 Whether
he read prayers in his surplice and hood 1 Of
what length his serraons are, and upon what
subjectl Whether he bids prayer, according to
the fifty-fifth canon 1
" 2. The second sort of lecturers are those of
combination, when the neighbouring rainisters
agreed to preach by turns at an adjoining raar-
ket town on raarket days ; inquire who the
combiners are, and whether they conform as
above 1
" 3, A third sort are running lecturers, when
neighbouring Christians agree upon such a day
to meet at a certain church in sorae country
town or village, and after sermon and dinner to
meet at the house of one of their disciples to
repeat, censure, and explain the sermon ; then
to discourse of some points proposed at a fore
going raeeting by the moderator of the assem
bly, derogatory to the doctrine or discipline of
the Church ; and, in conclusion, to appoint an
other place for their next raeeting. If you have
any such lecturers, present them."
Dr. Pierce, bishop of Bath and WeUs, sup
pressed all lecturers in market towns, and else
where throughout his diocess, aUeging that he
saw no such need of preaching now, as was in
the apostles' days. He suspended Mi.Deven-
ish, minister of Bridgewater, for preaching a
lecture in his own church on a market day,
which had continued ever since the days of
Queen Elizabeth ; and afterward, when he ab
solved him upon his promise to preach it no
more, he said to him, " Go thy way, sin no
more, lest a worse thing befall thee."t His
lordship put down all afternoon sermons on
Lord's Days,'and suspended Mr. Cornish for
preaching a funeral serraon in the evening. And
whereas sorae rainisters used to explain the
questions and answers in the catechism, and
make a short prayer before and after, the bishop
reproved them sharply for it, saying that was
as bad as preaching, and charged them to ask
no questions, nor receive any answers but such
as were in the Book of Common Prayer ; and
for not complying with this injunction, Mr.
Barret, rector of Berwick, and some others,
were enjoined public penance. The Bishop of
Peterborough, and all the new bishops, went in
the same track ; and some of them upon this
sad principle. That afternoofi sermons on Sun
days were an impediment to the revels in the
evening. The Church was now -in the height of its tri
umphs, and grasped not only at all spiritual ju
risdiction, but at the capital preferments of state.
This year Dr. Juxon, bishop of London, was
declared Lord-high-treasurer of England, which
* Prynne, p. 376. f Ibid., p. 377.

326
is the first office of profit and power in the
kingdom, and has precedence next to the arch
bishop. Juxon's name had hardly been known
at court above two years ;* till then he was no
more than a private chaplain to the king, and
head of a poor college at Oxford. Besides, no
churchman had held this post since the darkest
tiraes of popery, in the reign of King Henry
VII.; but Laud valued'himself upon this nomina
tion : " Now," says he, in his diary, " if the
Church wiU not hold up themselves, under God,
I can do no more."! When the staff of treas
urer was put into the hands of Juxon, Lord
Clarendon observes, " that the nobility were in-
llaraed, and began to look upon the Church as
a gulf ready to swallow all the great offices of
stale, there being other churchmen in view
who were ambitious enough to expect the rest.
The inferior clergy took advantage of this situ
ation of their affairs, and did not live towards
their neighbours of quality, or patrons, wilh that
civUily and good manners as they used to do,
which disposed others to withdraw their counte
nance and good neighbourhood from them, espe
cially after they were put into the coraraissions
cf peace in raost counties of England." One of
the raembers of the House of Commons said,
" That the clergy were so exalted that a gentle
man might not come near the tail of their mules ;
and that one of them had declared openly, that
he hoped to see the day when a clergyman should
be as good a man as any upstart Jack gentleman
in the kingdom." It is certain the favoui-able
aspect of the court had very much exalted their
behaviour, and their new notions had made
them conceive themselves an order of men
above the rank of the laity, forasmuch as they
had the keys of the kingdom of heaven at their
» Dr. Juxon, having been elected to the See of
Hereford before he was consecrated, was translated
on the 19th of September, 1633, to that of London.
His first preferment was, in 1627, to the Deanery of
Worcester : but his constant connexion with the
court was not formed till the 10th of July, 1632, when
he was, at the suit of Archbishop Laud, sworn clerk
of his majesty's closet, two years and eight months
before he was declared lord-high-treasurer. So that
Mr. Neal's expression, that his name had hardly
been known at court above two years, at which Dr.
Grey carps, does not greatly deviate_from the exact
fact. The doctor quotes, also, many testimonies to
the amiable temper and virtues of Bishop Juxon. But,
though they justly reflect honour on his memory, the
peisonal virtues of the bishop did not render the in
vesting a clergyman with the high office to which he
was exalted a measure more politic in itself, or less
obnoxious to the people. And the shorter was the
time during which he had been known at court, the
fewer opportunities he had enjoyed to display his-rir-
tues, and the more probable it was that he owed his
dignity, not to the excellence of his own character,
but to the influence and views of Laud. This cir
cumstance, together with the vast power connected
with the office, and the exaltation supposed to be
thus given to the clerical order, created jealousy and
gave offence. In this light Mr. Neal places the mat
ter, without unpeaching the ment of Bishop Juxon.
— Ed.
t Bishop Warburton's remarks here deserve atten
tion: "Had he been content," says his lordship,
" lo do nothing, the Church had stood. Suppose him
to have been an honest man and sincere, which I
think must be granted, it would follow that he knew
Tiothin^ ofthe constitution either of civil or religious aoci-
rly.and was as poor a churchman as he was a politician."
—Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

girdle, and upon their prieetly character depend
ed the efficacy of all Gospel institutions This
raade sorae of thera remarkably negligent of
their cures up and down the country ; others
lost the little learning Ihey had acquired al the
university, and many became very scandalous
in their Uves ; though Lord Clarendon* says that
there was not one churfchman in any degree of
favour or acceptance [at court] ofa scandalous
insufficiency in learning, or of a more scanda
lous condition of life ; but, on the contrary, most
of thera of confessed erainent parts in knowl
edge, and of virtuous and unblemished lives.
Great nuinbers of the most useful and labo
rious preachers in all parts of the country were
buried in silence, and forced to abscond from
the fury of the High Commission ; among whom
were the famous Mr. John Dod, Mr, Whalley,
Dr. Harris, Mr. Capel, and Mr. John Rogers, of
Dedham, one of the most awakening preachers
of his age, of whora Bishop Brownrigge used
to say, " that he did raore good wilh his wild
notes than we [the bishops] with our set mu
sic." Yet his great usefulness could not screen
him from those suspensions and deprivations
which were the portion of the Puritans in these
times.t His resolutions about subscribing I
wiU relate in his own words : " If I come into
trouble for nonconformity, I resolve, hy God's
assistance, to corae away with a clear con
science ; for, though the liberty of ray rainistry
be dear to rae, I dare not buy it at such a rate.
I am troubled at my former subscription, but I
saw men of good gifts, and of good hearts (as I
thought), go before me ; and I could not prove
that there was anything contrary to the Word
of God, though I disliked the ceremonies, and
knew them to he unprofitable burdens to Ihe
Church of God ; but if I am urged again I will
never yield ; it was my weakness before, as
I now conceive, which I beseech God lo par
don. Written in the year 1627." But after
this the good man was overtaken again, and
yielded, which almost broke his heart ; he adds,
" For this I sraarted, 1631. If 1 had read over
this [my former resolution], it may be I had not
done what I did." How severe are such trials
to a poor man with a numerous family of chil
dren I And how sore the distresses of a wound
ed conscience I
Others continued to leave their country, ac
cording to our blessed Saviour's advice. Matt.,
X., 23, " When they persecute you in this city,
flee ye into another." Among these were Mr.
Nathaniel Rogers, son of Mr. John Rogers, of
Dedham, educated in Emanuel College, Cam
bridge, and settled at Assington in Suffolk, where
he continued five years ; but seeing the storm
that had driven his neighbours from their an-

* Vol. i., p. 77.
+ Mr. Rogers was a thorough Puritan, but of an
humble and peaceable behaviour. He loved all who
loved Christ, and was greatly beloved by Ihem.
When Laud suppressed his lecture, he said, " Let
them take me, and hang me up by the neck if they
will, but remove those stumbling-blocks out of the
Church." Mr. GUes Firmin, one of the ejected Non
conformists, was converted, when a boy at school,
under his ministry. His works are valuable, and Ihe
chief that are extant are. The Doctrine of Faith, 16--7 ;
Exposition on First Epistle of Peter, 1659 ; A Trea
tise on Love ; and Sixty Memorials of a Godly Life.
— C

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

327

"chor, and being fearful of his own steadfastness
in the hour of temptation, he resigned his living
into the hands of his patron, and forsaking the
neighbourhood of his father, and all prospects
of worldly advantage, cast himself and his fam
ily upon the providence of God, and embarked
for New-England, where he arrived about the
middle of November, 1636, and settled with Mr.
.Norton, at Ipswich, with whora he continued
to his death, which happened in the year 1655.*
About the same tirae went over Mr. Lambert
Whiteing, M.A., a Lincolnshire divine, who con-
-tinued at Shirbeck, near Boston, unraolested,
tiU Bishop WUliams's disgrace, after which he
was silenced by the spiritual courts, and forced
into New-England, where he arrived with his
family this suraraer, and continued a useful
preacher to a little flock at Lynn till the year
1679, when he died, in the eighty-third year of
his age.
The Star Charaber and High Commission ex
ceeded aU the bounds, not only of law and equi
ty, but even of humanity itself t We have re-
,lated the sufferings of Mr. Prynne, Burton, and
Bastwick, in the year 1633. These gentleraen,
being shut up in prison, were supposed lo era-
ploy their tirae in writing against the bishops
and their spiritual courts ; Bastvi'ick was char-
,ged with a book, published 1636, entitled "Apolo-
geticus ad praesules Anglicanos ;" and with a
pamphlet called "TheNew Litany:" the others,
with two anonymous books, one entitled "A
Divine Tragedy, containing a Catalogue of God's
-Judgraents against Sabbath Breakers ;" the oth
er, "News frora Ipswich;" which last was a
satire upon the severe proceedings of Dr. Wren,
bishop of that diocess. For these they were
cited a second tirae into the Star Charaber,^ by
virtue of an inforraation laid against thera by
the attorney-general, for writing and publishing
seditious, schismatical, and libeUous books
against the hierarchy ofthe Church, and to the
scandal of the governraent. When the defend
ants had prepared their answers, they could not
get counsel to sign them ; upon which they pe
titioned the court to receive them from them
selves, which would not be adraitted ; however,
Prynne and Bastwick, having no other remedy,
left their answers at the office, signed with their
¦own hands, but were nevertheless proceeded
-against pro confesso'. Burton prevaUed with Mr.
Holt, a bencher of Gray's Inn, to sign his an
swer ; but the court ordered the two chief-jus
tices to expunge what they thought unfit to be
-brought into court, and they struck out the
whole answer, except sixUnes at the beginning,
and three or four at the end ; and because Mr.
Burton would not acknowledge it thus purged,
he was also taken pro confesso.
In Bastwick's answer the prelates are called
^' invaders ofthe king's prerogative, contemners
and despisers of the Holy Scriptures, advancers
of popery, superstition, idolatry, and profane
ness; they are charged with oppressing the
king's loyal subjects, and with great cruelty, tyr-
* He was an eminently holy man, an admirable
' preacher, and an incomparable master of the Latin
tongue: " I shall do an injury to his memory," says
Cotton Mather, " if 1 do hot declare that he was one
-of the greatest men, and one of the best ministers,
-that ever set his foot on the American shore." — His
tory of New-England, b. iii., p. 106-108.— C.
t Rushworth, vol. u., part u., p. 380, &c.

anny, and injustice." Mr. Prynne's answer re
flected upon the hierarchy, though in more mod
erate and cautious terms. All the defendants
offered to maintain their several answers at the
perU of their lives ; but the court finding thera not
filed upon record, would not receive thera. The
prisoners at the bar cried aloud for justice, and
that their answers might be read ; but it was
peremptorily denied, and the following sentence
passed upon them : that " Mr. Burton be de
prived of his Uving, and degraded frora his min
istry, as Prynne and Bastwick had been from
their professions of law and physic ; that each
of them be fined £5000 ; that tjiey stand in the
pillory at Westminster, and have their ears cut
off; and because Mr. Prynne had already lost
his ears by sentence of the court, 1633, it was
ordered that the remainder of his stumps should
be cut off, and that he should be stigmatized on
both cheeks with the letters S. L., and then aU
three were to suffer perpetual imprisonment in
the remotest prisons of the kingdom." This
sentence was executed upon thera June 30, 1637,
the hangman rather sawing the remainder of
Prynne's ears than cutting them off; after which
they were sent, under a strong guard, one to
the Castle of Launceston, in Cornwall, another
to the Castle of Lancaster, and a third to Car
narvon Castle, in Wales ;* but these prisoners
not being thought distant enough, they were af
terward reraoved to the islands of Scilly, Guern
sey, and Jersey, where they were kept without
the use of pen, ink, or paper, or the access of
friends, till they were released by the Long
Parliament. At passing this sentence, Archbishop Laud
made a laboured speech to clear himself from
the charge of innovations -with which the Puri
tans loaded him. He begins with retorting the
crime upon th,e Puritans, who were for set
ting aside the order of bishops, whereas in all
ages since the apostles' time the Church had
been governed by bishops, whose caUing and
order, in his grace's opinion, was by Divine
right, the office of lay-elders having never been
heard of before Calvin, He then vindicates
the particular innovations complained of, as,
1. Bowing towards the altar, or at coming into
the church. This, he says, was the practice in
Jewish times : Psaira xcv., 6, " 0 corae, let us
worship and bow down, let us kneel before the
Lord our maker ;" and yet the government is
so raoderate that no man is forced to it,' but
only religiously caUed upon. " For my own
part," says his grace, " I shall always think
myself bound to worship God with my body as
well as soul, in what consecrated place soever
I come to pray. You, my honoured lords of
the Garter, do reverence towards the altar as
the greatest place of God's residence upon
* The archbishop's revenge, not glutted bythe se
vere sentence obtained against Mr. Prynne, pursued
those who, at Chester and other places, as he was
carrying to prison, showed him civiuties. For, though
his keepers were not forbidden to let any visit
him; some were fined i:500, some £300, and others
£250. — Rushworth Abridged, vol. u., p. 295, &c., as
quoted in the Pillars of Priestcraft and Orthodoxy,
vol. iu., p. 272. And the servant of Mr. Prynne was
proceeded against in the High Commission, and sent
from prison to prison, only for refusing to accuse his
master. — Id., p. 273. Neither fidelity nor humanity
had merit with this prelate.— Ed.

329

HISTORY OF THE PURITA.NS.

earth ; greater than the pulpit, for there is only
the Word of God, but upon the altar is his
hody ; and a greater reverence is due to the
body than to the Word ofthe Lord ; and this is
no innovation, for you are bound to it by your
order, which is no new thing."
His grace proceeds to consider the altera
tions in the collects and prayers, which he says
the archbishops and bishops, to whom the or
dering of the fast-book was committed, had
power under the king to make, provided nothing
was inserted contrary to the doctrine or dis
cipline of the Chureh of England ; he then jus
tifies the several amendments, and concludes
most of his articles with showing that there is
no connexion between the charge and the pop
ular clamour raised against him, of an intent to
bring in popery. But the several innovations
here raentioned being objected lo the arch
bishop at his trial, we shall defer our remarks
to that place.
His grace concludes with a protestation that
he had no design to alter the religion estab
lished by law, but that his care lo reduce the
Church to order, to uphold the external decency
of it, and to settle it to the rules of the first Ref
ormation, had brought upon him and his breth
ren all that malicious storra that had lowered
so black over their heads. He then thanks the
court for their just and honourable censure of
these men, and for their defence of the Church ;
but because the business had some reference
to himself, he forbears to censure thera, leaving
thera to God's mercy and the king's justice.
Notwithstanding this plausible speech, which
the king ordered to be printed, the barbarous
sentence passed upon these gentlemen raoved
the compassion ofthe whole nation. The three
learned faculties of law, physio, and divinity
took it to heart, as thinking their educations and
professions might have secured them from such
infamous punishment,* proper enough for the
poorest and most mechanic malefactors, who
could raake no other satisfaction to the public
for their offences, but very iraproper for persons
of education, degrees, or quality. Nay, the re
port of this censure, and the sraarl execution
of it, flew into Scotland, and the discourse was
there that they must also expect a Star Cham
ber to strengthen the hands of their bishops, as
well as a High Commission : " No doubt," says
Archbishop Laud. " but there is a concurrence
between them and the Puritan parly in England,
to destroy rae in the king's opinion."!
Cruel as this sentence was. Dr. Williams,
bishop of Lincoln, and the Reverend Mr. Os-
baldeston, chief master of Westminster School,
met with no less hardship,!; The bishop had
been Laud's very good friend in persuading
King James to advance him to a bishopric ;() but
* Clarendon, vol. i,, p. 94.
t Rushworth, p. 385.
X Clarendon, vol. u., part u., p. 81,
ij The insight of King James into Laud's charac
ter is remarkable, and does credit to the penetration
of that monarch, 'When pressed by Buckingham
and Bishop Williams to consent to Laud's advance
ment, "Laud," he said, "is a restless spirit, to be
kept back from all places of authority, for he can
not see when matters are well, hut loves to toss and
change, and bring things to a reformation floating in
his own brain," PhiUips tells us, in his Life of Lord-
keeper W UUams, that the king ha-ving been wearied

upon the acccession of King Charles he turnci
upon his beiielaclor, and got him removed fnuu
all his preferments at court ; upon which Bish
op Williaras retired lo his diocess,* and spent
his time in reading and the good government
of his -diocess ; here he becarae popular, enter
taining the clergy at his table, and discoursing
freely about affairs of (Church and State. t He
spoke with some smartness against the new-
ceremonies, and said once, in conversation,
" that the Puritans were the king's best sub
jects, and he was sure would carry all at last ;
and that the king had told him that he would
treat the Puritans more mildly for the future."
Laud, being inforraed of this expression, caused
an information to be lodged against him in the
Star Charaber for revealing the king's secrets ;
but the charge not being weU supported, a new
biU was exhibited against him for tampering
with the king's witnesses, and, though there
was very little ground for the charge, his lord
ship was suspended in tlie High CoraraissioR
Court from all his offices and benefices ; he
was fined £10,000 to the king, £1000 to Sir
John Mounson, and to be imprisoned in the
Tower during tho king's pleasure. The bishop-
was accordingly sent from the bar to the Tow
er ;t all his rich goods and chattels, to an ira-
raense value, were plundered and sold to pay
the fine ; his library seized, and all his papers
and letters examined. Among his papers were
found two or three letters, written to hira by
Mr. Osbaldeston about five years before, in
which were some dark and obscure expres
sions, which the jealous archbishop interpreted
against himself and the Lord-treasurer Weston.
Upon the foot of these letters a new bill was
exhibited against the bishop for divulging scan
dalous libels against the king's privy council
lors. His lordship replied that he did not re
member his having received the letters, and
was sure he had never divulged them, because
into a compliance, exclaimed passionately, as he quit
ted the apartment, " Then take him to you, but, on my
soul, you will repent it." — Jesse's Court of the Stuarts,
vol. 11., p. 394.— C.
* The remarks of Bishop Warburton on the pro
ceedings against Dr. Williams are just, though severe,
and, by their impartiality and spirit, do honour to his
lordship. " This prosecution^" says he, " must needs
give every one a bad idea of Laud's heart and temper.
'/ou might resolve his high acts of power in the
state into reverence and gratitude to his master ;
his tyranny in the Church, to his zeal for and love of
what he called religion ; but the outrageous prose
cution of these two men can be resolved into nothing
but envy and revenge ; and actions like these they
were which occasioned all that bitter, but, indeed,.
just exclamation against the bishops in the speeches
of Lord Falkland and Lord Digby." — Ed.
t Rushworth, p. 417.
X Here he was kept in close imprisonment about
four years. During his confinement, in order to de
prive him of his bishopric, he was examined upon a
book of articles of twenty-four sheets. Among which
were such frivolous charges as these, viz., that he
had called a book, entitled "A Coal from the Altar,"
a pamphlet ; that he had said that all flesh in Eng
land had corrupted their ways ; that he had wicked
ly jested on St. Martin's hood. What must be
thought of the temper of those who could think of
depriving a bishop of his see on such grounds ! The
bishop was, however, so wary in his answers, that
they could take no advantage against him. — Fuller't
Church History, b. xi., p. 157.— Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

they were stiU among his private papers ; hut,
notwithstanding all he could say, he was con
demned in a fine of £8000, £5000 to the king
and £3000 to the archbishop, for the nonpay
ment of which he was kept close prisoner in
the Tower till the meeting of the Lvong Pariia
ment. The Rev. Mr. Osbaldeston was charged with
plotting wilh the Bishop of Lincoln to divulge
false news, and to breed a difference between the
Lord-treasurer Weston and the Archbishop of
Canterbury, as long ago as the year 1634.* The
information was grounded upon the two letters
already mentioned, in which he reports a mis
understanding between the great leviathan and
the little urchin. And though the counsel for
the defendant absolutely denied any reference
to the archbishop, and named the persons raeant
in the letter, yet " the court fined him £5000
to the king and £5000 to the archbishop, to be
deprived of all his spiritual dignities and promo
tions, to be imprisoned during the king's pleas
ure, and to stand in the pillory in the dean's yard
before his own school, and have his ears nailed to
it." Mr. Osbaldeston being among the crowd in
the court when this sentence was pronounced,
immediately went home to his study at West
minster School, and, having burned some pa
pers, absconded, leaving a note upon his desk
with these words : " If the archbishop inquire
after rae, teU him I ara gone beyond Canterbu
ry." The messengers were soon at his house,
and finding this note, sent immediately to the
seaports to apprehend him ; but he lay hid in a
private house in Drury Lane tUl the search was
over, and then concealed himself till the meet
ing of the Long Parliament ; however, all his
goods and chattels were seized and confisca
ted. This Mr. Osbaldeston was M.A. of Christ
Church College, Oxford, and Prebendary of
Westminster ; he was an admirable master,
and had eighty doctors in the two universities
that had been his scholars before the year
1640 ;t he was afterward restored by the Long
Parliaraent ; but when he apprehended they
went beyond the bounds of their duty and aUe-
giance, he laid down his school and favoured
the royal cause.
Mr. Lilburne, afterward a colonel in the ar
ray, for refusing to take an oath to answer all
interrogatories concerning his importing and
publishing seditious libels, was fined £500, and
to be whipped through the streets frora the
Fleet- to the pillory before Westrainster HaU
gate, April 8, 1638. While he was in the pUlo-
ry he uttered raany bold and passionate speeches
against the tyranny of the bishops ; whereupon
the Court of Star Chamber, then sitting, order
ed him to be gagged, which was done accord
ingly, and that, when he was carried back lo
prison, he should he laid alone, with irons on his
hands and legs, in the wards of the Fleet, where
the basest of the prisoners used to be put, and
that no person should be admitted to see him.
Here he continued, in a most forlorn and mis
erable condition, tiU the meeting of the Long
Parliament. In the midst of aU these dangers the Puritan
clergy spoke freely against their oppressors. t

* Rushworth, vol. u., part U., p. 803-817.
t Athenae Oxon., vol. i., p. 833.
X Wood's Athenae Oxon., vol. u.,.p. 235.
Vol. I.— Tt

323
Dr. Cornelius Burges, in a Latin sermon before
the clergy of London, preached against the se".
verities ofthe bishops, and, refusing to give his
diocesan a copy of his sermon, was put into the
High Commission. Mr. Wharton, of Essex,
preached with the same freedom at Chelmsford,
for which, it is said, he made his submission-.
Several pamphlets were dispersed against the
proceedings of the ecclesiastical courts, which
the Bishop of London declared he had reason
to believe were written or countenanced by tho
clergy of his own diocess. - Many private gen^
tlemen in Suffolk maintained lecturers at their
own expense, without consulting the bishop,
who complained that they were factious, and
did not govern themselves according to the
canons ; but, says his lordship [Wren], " What
shall I do with such scholars, some in orders.
and others not, which gentlemen of figure en
tertain in their houses under pretence of teach'-
ing their children 1 and with those beneficed di
vines who take shelter in the houses of the
rich laity, and do not live upon their cures 1"*
Here was the Puritans' last retreat ; those who
were not willing to go abroad found entertain
ment in gentlemen's farailies, and frora thence
annoyed the enemy with their pamphlets. Even
the populace, who were not capable of writing,
expressed their resentments against the arch
bishop by dispersing libels about the town, ia
which they threatened his destruction. His
grace has entered some of them in his diary.
" Wednesday, August 23. My lord-mayor
sent me a libel found by the watch at the south
gate of St. Paul's, that the devU had left that
house to me.
" Aug. 25. Another libel was brought me by
an officer of the High Commission, fastened to
the north gate of St. Paul's, that the govern
raent of the Church of England is a candle in a
snuff, going out in a stench.
" The same night the lord-mayor sent rae
another libel, hanged upon the standard in.
Cheapside, which was my speech in the Star
Chamber set in the pUlory.
" A few days after, another short libel was-
sent me in verse."
Yet none of these things abated his zeal or
relaxed his rigour against those who censured
his arbitrary proceedings.
It was impossible to debate things fairly ia
public, because the press was absolutely at his-
grace's disposal, according lo a new decree of
the Star, Charaber, raade this suraraer, which
ordains that "no book be printed unless it be
first licensed, with all its titles, epistles, and
prefaces, by the archbishop, or Bishop of Loid-
don for the time being, or by their appointment ;,
and within the limits of the university, by the
chancellor or vice-chancellor, on pain of the
printer's being disabled from his profession for
the future, and to suffer Such other punishment
as the High Commission shall think fit. That
before any books imported from abroad be sold,
a catalogue of them shall be dehvered to the
archbishop, or Bishop of London, to be perused'
by themselves or their chaplains. And if there-
be any schismatical or offensive books, they
shall be deUvered up to the bishop, or to the
High Commission, that the offenders may be
punished. It was farther ordained that no per-
* Rushworth, p. 467.

330

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

son shall print beyond sea any English book or
books whereof the greatest part is English,
whether formerly printed or not ; nor shall any
book be reprinted, though forraeriy licensed,
without a new license. And, finally, if any
person that is not an allowed printer shall set
up a printing-press, he shall be set in the pillo
ry, and be whipped through the streets of Lon
don." These terrible proceedings, instead of serving
the interests of the Church or State, awakened
the resentraents of aU ranks and professions of
men against those in power : the laity were as
uneasy as the clergy, many of whom sold their
effects, and removed with their families and
trades into HoUand or New-England. This
alarmed the king and council, who issued out a
proclaraation, AprU 30th, 1637, to the foUowing
purpose :* " The king being informed that great
numbers of his subjects were yearly transport
ed into New-England, with their families and
whole estates, that they might be out of the
reach of ecclesiastical authority, his majesty
therefore coraraands that his officers ofthe sev
eral ports should suffer none lo pass without
license frora the coramissioners of the planta
tions, and a testiraonial frora their minister of
their conformity to the orders and discipline of
the Church." And to bar the ministers, the
following order of councU was published :
" W^hereas it is observed that such ministers
who are not conformable to the discipline and
ceremonies ofthe Church do frequently trans
port themselves to the plantations, where they
take liberty to nourish their factious and schis
matical humours, to the hinderance ofthe good
oonformity and unity ofthe Church, we there
fore expressly coramand you, in his majesty's
name, to suffer no clergyman to transport hira
self without a testiraonial from the Archbishop
of Canterbury and Bishop of London. "t
This was a degree of severity .hardly to be
paraUeled in the Christian worid. When the
edict of Nantes was revoked, the French king
aUowed his Protestant subjects a convenient
time to dispose of their effects and depart the
kingdom ; but our Protestant archbishop will
neither let the Puritans live peaceably at home,
¦nor take sanctuary in foreign countries ; a conduct
hardly consistent with the laws of humanity,
much less with the character of a Christian
bishop ; but while his grace was running things
to these extremities, the people (as has been
observed) took a general disgust, and almost all
England became Puritan.
The bishops and courtiers being not insensi
ble of the number and weight of their enemies
aniong the raore resolved Protestants, deter-
rnined to balance their power by joining the pa
pists ; for which purpose the differences be
tween the two Churches were said to be tri
fling, and the peculiar doctrines of popery printed
and preached up as proper to be received by the
Church of England, Bishop Montague, speak
ing of the points of faith and morality, affirmed
that none of these are controverted between us,
but that "the points in dispute were ofa lesser
nature, of which a man might be ignorant
without any danger of salvation. "t Francis-
-cus de Clara, an erainent Franciscan friar, pub

lished a book, wherein he endeavoured to ac
commodate the articles of the Church of Eng
land to the sense of the Church of Rome, so
that both parlies might subscribe them. 'The
book was dedicated to the king, artd Ihe friar
admitted to an acquaintance with the arch
bishop.* Great stress was laid upon the uninterrupted
succession of the episcopal character through
the Church of Rome ; for " miserable were we,"
says Dr. Pocklington, " if he that now sits Arch
bishop of Canterbury could not derive his suc
cession from St. Austin, St. Austin from St.
Gregory, and St. Gregory frora St. Peter." Dr.
Heylin, in his raoderate answer to Mr. Burton,
has these words : " That my Lord of Canter
bury that now is, is lineally descended from St.
Peter in a most fair and constant tenour of suc
cession, you shall easily find if you consult the
learned labours of Mason, ' De Ministerio An-
glicano.' "
Bishop Montague published a treatise, "Of
the Invocation of Saints," in which he says
that " departed saints have not only a memory,
but a more peculiar charge of their friends ;
and that some saints have a peculiar patronage,
custody, protection, and power, as angels have
also, over certain persons and countries by spe
cial deputation ; and that it is not impiety so to
believe, "t Dr. Cosins says, in one of his ser
raons, that " when our Reformers tookoway the
mass, Ihey marred all religion ; but that the mass
was not taken away, inasmuch as the real pres
ence of Christ remained still, otherwise it were
not a reformed, hut a deformed religion." And
in order to persuade a papist to come to church,
he told hira that the body of Christ was substan
tially and really in the sacrament.X This divine
printed a coUection of private devotions, in im
itation of the Roman "Horary. The frontispiece
had three capital letters, J. H. S. ; upon these
there was a cross encircled with the snn, sup
ported by two angels, with two devout women
praying towards it. The hook contains the
Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer divided into
seven petitions, the precepts of charity, the sev
en sacraments, the three theological virtues,
the eight beatitudes, the seven deadly sins,
with forms of prayer for the first, third, sixth,
and ninth hours, and for the vespers and com
pline, formerly called the canonical hours; then

* Rushworth, vol. u., part il, p. 409.
T lb., part L, p. 214.

t lb., p. 410.

" Grey quotes a passage from the trial of Laud,
by which it appears that he denied having given any
encouragement to the pubhcation of this book, and
had absolutely prohibited its being printed in Eng
land ; that Clara was never with him tUl the book
was ready for the press, nor afterward above twice
or thrice at most, when he made great friends to ob
tain the archbishop's sanction to his printing another
book, to prove that bishops are by Divine right ; and
his request was again refused. For the archbishop
replied, "that he did not like the way which the
Church of Rome went in the case of episcopacy,
would never consent to the printing of any such
book here from the pen of a Romanist, and that the
bishops of England were able to defend their own
cause without calling in the aid of the Church of
Rome, and would in due time." — Ed.
t Rushworth, vol. i., p. 214.
X CoUyer's Eccles. Hist., p. 742. This divine, ot
course, is in high esteem with the Oxford Tractari-
ans. It is tolerably clear that our Puritan fathers
took precisely the same views of truth as those now
entertained by the opposers of Puseyism in 1843. — C.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

331

followed the litany, with prayers for the sacra
ment, in time of sickness, and at the approach
of death. This book was licensed by the Bishop
of LondoU and publicly sold when the books of
the most resolved Protestants were suppressed.
Mr. Adams, in a serraon at St. Mary's, in
Cambridge, asserted the expedience of auricu
lar confession, saying it was as necessary to
-salvation as meat is to the body.* Others
preached up the doctrine of penance, and of au
thoritative priestly absolution from sin. Some
maintained the proper merit of good works, in
opposition to the received doctrine of justifica
tion by faith alone. Others, that in the sacra
ment ofthe Lord's Supper there was a full and
proper sacrifice for sin. Sorae declared for
images, crucifixes, and pictures in churches, for
purgatory, and for preserving, reverencing, and
even praying to, the relics of saints. The au
thor of the English Pope, printed 1643, says
that Sparrow paved the way for auricular con
fession. Watts for penance, Heylin for altar
worship, Montague for saint worship, and Laud
for the mass.
It was a very just observation of a Venitian
gentleraan, in his travels to England about this
time,t " that the universities, bishops, and di
vines of England daily embraced Catholic doc
trines, though they professed them not with open
mouth : they held that the Church of Rome
was a true church ; that the pope was superior
to all bishops ; that to him it pertained to call
general councils ; that it was lawful to pray for
souls departed ; and that altars ought to he
erected in aU churches : in sura, they believed
aU that was taught by the Church of Rome, hut
not by the court of Rome." Reraarkable are the
words of Heylin to the sarae purpose -.X " The
greatest part of the controversy between us
and the Church of Rorae," says he, " not being
in fundaraentals, or in any essential points of
the Christian reUgion, I cannot otherwise look
upon it but as a most Christian and pious work to
endeavour an agreeraent in the superstructure ;
as to the lawfulness of it, I could never see any
reason produced against it : against the irapossi-
bUity of it, it has been objected that the Church
of Rome will yield nothing ; if, therefore, there
be an agreement, it must not he their raeeting
us, but our going to them ; but that all in the
Church of Rome are not so stiff, appears from
the testimony of the Archbishop of Spalato,
who acknowledged that the articles of the
¦Church of England were not heretical, and by
the tre^se of Franciscus de Clara.^ Now, if,
* Rushworth, p. 137. Prynne, p. 195, &c.
t May's Hist, of Pari., p. 25.
X FuUer's Appeal, part iii., p. 63, 65.
§ His real name was Christopher Davenport. He
was the son of an alderman of Coventry, and, with
Jlis brother John, was sent to Merton CoUege, in
Oxford, in the year 1613. John became afterward a
Woted Puritan, and then an Independent. Christo
pher, by the invitation of some Romish priests livhig
in pr near Oxford, went to study at Douay in 1616.
He afterward spent some time in the University of
Salamanca, from whence he returned to Douay, and
read 'first philosophy and then divinity there. At
length be became ajnissionary into England, and a
-chaplain to Queen Henrietta Maria, under the name
of Franciscus a Sancta Clara. Among many learned
works of which he was the author, was '-' An Expo
sition of the Thirty-nine Articles in the most favour
able Sense." "But," says Bishop Warburton, "it

without prejudice to truth, the controversies
might be composed, it is most probable that
other Protestant churches would have sued to
be included in the peace ; if not, the Church of
England mil lose nothing by it, as being hated
by the Calvinists, and not loved by the Luther
ans." This was the ridiculous court scheme
which Archbishop Laud used all his interest to
accoraplish ; and it is no irapertinent story to
our present purpose, because it is well attested,
that a certain countess (whose husband's father
the archbishop had raarried, and thereby brought
hiraself into trouble) having turned papist, was
asked by the archbishop the cause of her chan
ging, to whora she replied, it was because she
always hated to go in a crowd. Being asked
again the reason of that expression, she an
swered, that she perceived his grace and raany
others were raaking haste to Rorae, and, there
fore, to prevent going in a press, she had gone
before them.*
It is certain the papists were in high reputa
tion at court ; the king counted them his best sub
jects, and relaxed his penal laws, on pretence
that hereby foreign Catholic princes raight be
induced to show favour to their subjects of
the Reformed-religion. Within the compass of
four years, seventy-four letters of grace were
signed by the king's own hand ; sixty-four priests
were dismissed from the Gate-house, and twen
ty-nine by warrant from the secretary of state,
at the instance ofthe queen, the queen-mother,
or sorae foreign ambassador. Protections were
frequently granted, to put a-stop to the proceed
ings of the court of justice against them.t I
have before me a list of popish recusants, con
victed in the twenty-nine EngUsh counties of
the southern division, frora the first of King
Charles to the sixteenth, which amounts to no
less than eleven thousand nine hundred and
sevenlyt (as the account was brought into the
Long Parliament by Mr. John Pulford, employed
in their prosecution by the king himself), all of
whom were released and pardoned. And if
their nurabers were so great in the south, how
must they abound in the northern and Welsh
counties, where they are computed three to one !
Many of them were promoted to places of the
highest honour and trust ; Sir Richard Weston
was lord-high-treasurer, Sir Francis Winde-
bank secretary of state. Lord Cottington was
chancellor of the exchequer, and Mr. Porter of
the bedchamber ; besides these, there were
Lord Conway, Sir Kenelra Digby, Sir Toby
Mathews, Mr. Montague, Jr., the Duchess of
Montague, the Countess of Newport, and many
others, all papists, who were in high favour,^
and had the king and queen's ear whensoever
they pleased. The pope had a nuncio in Eng-

pleased neither party." 'The Spanish Inquisition put
it into the Index Expurgalorius ; and it would have
been condemned at Rome had not the king and
Archbishop Laud pressed Penzani, the pope's agent
at London, to stop the prosecution. He died the
31st of May, 1680. — Warburton's supplemental volume,
p. 483 ; and Wood's Athena Oxon., vol. ii., p. 415,
&c. — Ed.
* Fuller's Appeal, p. 61. It was the daughter of
William, earl of Devonshire. — Jesse's Court of the
Stuarts, vol. u., p. 385. — C.
t Rushworth, vol. ii., part u., p. 284.
X Foxes and Firebrands, part ui., p. 75.
^ CoUyer's Eccles. Hist., vol. ii., p. 780.

332

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

land, anithe queen an agent at Rorae ; Cardi
nal Barbfrini was raade protector of the Eng
lish nation, and a society was erected under the
title of " The Congregation for Propagating the
Faith."* RichardSraith, tutelar bishop of Chal
cedon, exercised episcopal jurisdiction over the
English Catholics by commission from the pope ;
he conferred orders, and appeared in Lincoln
shire with his mitre and crosier ;t Seignior Con
or Cunaeus, the pope's legate, gained over sev
eral ofthe gentry, and attempted the king him
self by presents of little popish toys and pic
tures, with which his majesty was wonderfully
delighted.J The papists had a common purse, ^
with which they purchased several monopolies,
and bestowed the profits upon their best friends ;
several of their raUitary men were put into
coraraission, and great nurabers were listed in
his raajesty's armies against the Scots, ||
Bnt let the reader forra his judgment of the
number and strength of the Roman Catholics
frora Lord Clarendon,5r who says, " The pa
pists had for many years enjoyed a great calm,
being on the raatter absolved from the severest
parts of the law, and dispensed with for the
gentlest. They were grown to be a part of the
revenue, without any probable danger of being

" Fuller's Church History, b. xi., p. 137. Prynne,
p. 198, t Foxes and Firebrands, part ui,, p, 124,
X Mr, Neal here goes beyond hisauthor, who says,
" which yet could prevail nothing with the king,"
But then he remarks in the margin, that it " was
strange that the king did not send Cunaeus packing,
when he thus tempted and assaulted him." On the
truth anil force of this remark, it may be presumed that
Mr Neal grounded his representation of the king's
being delighted with the legate's presents ; for, in
stead of dismissing him, he often received him at
Hampton Court, and solicited his services for the
Palatinate, which certainly indicated no displeasure
at his gifts. — Ed.
Ij Foxes and Firebrands, part iii., p. 134.
II Dr. Grey properly observes, that the place in
CoUyer to which Mr. Neal here refers mentions not
one syllable of this. The truth is, that Collyer is al
leged only to prove the influence which the papists
had at court. 1 have therefore annexed the refer
ence to a preceding sentence. The doctor adds,
"Nordol believe that he (i. c.,Mr Nealjcan produce
the least authority for his assertion, that great num
bers of papists were listed in his majesty's armies
against the Scots," It is to be wished that Mr. Neal
had referred here exactly to his authority. But to
supply this omission, it may be observed that the
queen employed Sir Kenelm Digby and Mr. Walter
Montague to raise liberal contributions for the war
from the papists, whose clergy vied with the English
on this occasion ; on this ground some styled the for
ces raised the popish army. The circumstance ren
ders it, to say the least, exceedingly probable that
papists were enlisted. It was afterward charged on
the king that he employed them in his armies ; the
Earl of .\cwcastle did not deny it ; and the ParUa
ment produced lists of popish officers in the king's
service, with their names, quality, and employs. It
was also urged against the Pariiament, that there
were great numbers of papists, both commanders and
others, m their army. Dr. Grey quotes Dugdale to
prove this. Rapin observes on this charge, that not
a single Cathohc was named by those who brought
the charge, nor were the muster-rolls to which the
appeal was made ever published.- Whitelocke's Me
moirs, p. 31, Mrs. Macauley's History, vol. ii., p.
¦i-'M. Svo. Rapin, vol, ii., p. 462, 468, folio. An Es
say towards a True Idea ofthe Character and Reign of
Charles /., p. gg ; and Dugdale' s Short View cf Ihe
1 roubles, &c., p. 105, 564.— Ed. f Vol. i., p. 148.

made a sacrifice lo the law. They were looked
upon as good subjects al court, and good neigh
bours in the country, all the restraints and re
proaches of former times being forg^ten : but
Ihey were not prudent managers of iiieir pros
perity, being elated with the connivance and
protection they received ; and though I am per
suaded their nurabers increased not, their pomp
and boldness did to that degree, that, as if they
affected to be thought dangerous to the state,
they appeared more publicly, entertained anti
urged conferences raore avowedly, than had be
fore been known. They resorted at common
hours to mass to Soraerset House, and returned
thence in great multUudes with the same hare-
facedness as others come from the Savoy, or
other neighbouring churches. They atterapted,
and soraetiraes gained proselytes, of weak, un
informed ladies, with such circumstances as
provoked the rage, and destroyed the charity.
of great and powerful families, which longed
for their suppression ; they grew not only secret
contrivers, but public professed promoters of,
and rainisters in, the raost odious and raost
grievous projects, as in that of soap, forraed,
fraraed, and executed by alraost a corporation
of that religion, which under that license and
notion raight be, and were suspected lo be, qual
ified for other agitations. The priests and such
as were in orders (orders that in themselves
were punishable wilh death) were departed from
their forraer raodesty and fear, and were as will
ing to he known as to be hearkened to ; inso
rauch that a Jesuit at Paris, who was coming
for England, had the boldness to visit the am
bassador there, who knew him to be such, and
offerfd hira his service, acquainted him with
his journey, as if there had been no laws there
for his reception ; and for the raost invidious
protection and countenance of that whole party,
a public agent frora Rome (first Mr. Con, a
Scottish man, and after him the Count of Ro-
setti, an Italian) resided in London in great
pomp, publicly visited the court, and was avow
edly resorted to by the Catholics of all condi
tions, over whora he assuraed a particular ju
risdiction, and was caressed and presented mag
nificently by the ladies of honour who inclined
to that profession. They had likewise, with
more noise and vanity than prudence would
have adraitted, raade public collections of mon
ey to a considerable sum, upon sorae recom
mendations frora the queen, and lo be by her
raajesty presented, as a free-wUl offering from
his Roraan Catholic subjects to the kiiUL for the
carrying on the war against the Scot" which
drew upon them the rage of that nation, with
little devotion and reverence to the queen her
self, as if she desired to surpress the Protestant
religion in one kingdora as well as the other, by
the arms ofthe Roraan Catholics,"
Frora this account, corapared with the fore
going relation, it is evident there never was a
stronger corabination in favour of popery, nor
was the Protestant religion at any tirae in a
more dangerous crisis, being deserted by its
pretended friends, while it was secretly under
mining by its most powerful enemies.
The case was the sarae wilh the civU liber
ties and properties of the people : no raan had
anything that he could call his own any longer
than the king pleased ; for in the famous trial oi

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

333

Mr. Hampden, of Buckinghamshire, in the case
of ship-money, aU the judges of England, except ,
Crook and Hutton,* gave it for law " that the
king raight levy taxes on the subject by writ
under the great seal, without grant of Parlia
ment, in cases of necessity ; or when the king
dom was in danger, of which danger and neces
sity his raajesty was the sole and final judge ;
and that by law his raaj-esty raight corapel the
doing thereof in case of refusal or refractori
ness." This deterraination was entered in all
the courts of Westrainster Hall, and the judges
were coramanded to declare it in their circuits
throughout the kingdom, to the end that no man
might plead ignorance. " The damage and
mischief cannot be expressed," says Lord Clar
endon, t " that the crown sustained by the de
served reproach and infamy that attended this
behaviour of the judges, who, out of their court
ship, submitted the grand questions of law to
be measured by what they caU the standard of
general reason and necessity." While these
extraordinary methods of raising money were
built only upon the prerogative, people were
more patient, hoping that some time or other
the law would recover its power ; but when they
were declared by all the judges to be the very
law itself, and a rule for determining suits be
tween the king and subject, they were struck
with despair, and concluded, very justly, that
Magna Charta and the old English Constitution
were at an end.
Let the reader now recoUect himself, and
then judge of the candour of the noble historian,
who, notwithstanding the cruel persecutions
and oppressions already mentioned, celebrates
the felicity of these times in the following
words : " Now, after all this, I raust be so just
as to say, that from the dissolution of the Par
liaraent in the fourth year of the king, to the
beginning of the Long Parliaraent, which was
about twelve years, this kingdom, and aU his
majesty's dominions, enjoyed the greatest calm,
and the fuUest measure of felicity, that any
people, in any age, for so long time together,
have been blessed with, to the wonder and envy
of all other parts of Christendom : the court
was in great plenty, or, rather, excess and lux
ury ; the country rich and full, enjoying the
pleasure of its own wealth ; the Church flour
ished with learned and extraordinary men ; and
the Protestant religion was more advanced
against the Church of Rome by the writings
of Archbishop Laud and ChiUingworth than it
had been since the Reformation. Trade in
creased to that degree that we were the ex
change of Christendom, foreign merchants look
ing upon nothing so much their own as what
they had laid up in the warehouses of this king
dom. The reputation of the greatness and
power of the king with foreign princes was
much more than any of his progenitors. And
lastly, for a complement of all these blessings,
they were enjoyed under the protection of a
king of the most harraless disposition, the most
¦exemplary piety, and the greatest sobriety, chas
tity, and mercy that any prince had heen en
dowed with, and who might have said that
which Pericles was proud of upon his death
bed, concerning lus citizens, ' that no EngUsh-

raan had worn a mourning-gown through hia
occasion.' In a word, raany wise men thought
it a time wherein those two adjuncts, imperium
and libertas, were as well reconcUed as pos
sible."* Not a line of this panegyric will bear exami
nation. When his lordship says " that no peo
ple in any age had been blessed with so great
a calm, and such a fuU raeasure of felicity for
so long a tirae together [twelve years]," he
seems to have undervalued the long and pacific
reign of his majesty's royal father. King .fames,
who was distinguished by the title of Blessed.
But where was the liberty or safety of the sub
ject, when Magna Charta and the Petition of
Right, which the king had signed in full Parlia
ment, were swallowed up in the gulf of arbi
trary power 1 and the statute laws of the land
were exchanged for a rule of government de
pending upon the soverign will and pleasure of
the crown ^ If the court was in excess and
luxury, it was with the plunder of the people,
arising frora loans, benevolences, ship-money,
monopolies, and other illegal taxes on mer
chandise. The country was so far from grow
ing rich and wealthy, that it was every year
draining off its inhabitants and substance, as
appears not only by the loss of the foreign
manufacturers, but by his raajesty's proclama
tions, forbidding any of his subjects to trans
port themselves and their effects to New-Eng
land without his special license. Was it pos
sible that trade could flourish when almost
every branch of it was engrossed, and sold by
the crown for large sums of raoney, and when
the property of the subject was so precarious
that the king might caU for it upon any occasion,
and, in case of refusal, ruin the proprietor by ex
orbitant fines and imprisonment 1 Did no Eng
lishman wear a mourning-gown in these times,
when the Seldens, the HoUises, the Elliots, the
Strouds, the Hobarts, the Valentines, the Cori-
tons, and other patriots were taken out of the
Parliament House and shut up for many years
in close prisons, where some of them perished 1
How many of the nobility and gentry were
punished with exorbitant fines in the Star
Chamber 1 How raany hundred rainisters and
others were ruined in the High Coraraission, or
forced from their native country into banish
ment, contrary lolaW! ThejaUs in the several
counties were never free from State or Church
prisoners during the past twelve years of his
majesty's reign, 'and yet it seems no English
man wore a mourning gown through his occa
sion l Is it possible to believe that the reputa
tion of the greatness and power of King Charies
I. with foreign princes (however harmless, pi
ous, sober, chaste, and merciful he might be)
was equal to that of Queen Elizabeth or King
Henry VIII. 1 What service did he do by his
arms or counsels for the Protestant reUgion, or
for the Uberties or tranquillity of Europe 1
When his majesty's affairs were in the great
est distress, what credit had he abroad^ or
where was the foreign prince (except his own
son-in-law) that would lend hira either men or
money 1 If the Protestant religion was ad
vanced in speculation by the writings of Arch
bishop Laud and Chillingworth, is it not suffi-

* Rapin, vol.n. p. 295, 296, folio edit.
t Vol. i., p. 70.

* Lord Clarendon's Representation of the Times,
vol. i., p. 74, 76.

334

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

ciently evident that the Roman Catholics w;ere
prodigiously increased in numbers, reputation,
and influence! Upon the whole, the people of
England were so far frora enjoying a full meas
ure of felicity, that they groaned under a yoke
of the heaviest oppression, and were prepared
to lay hold of any opportunity to assert their
liberties ; so that to make his lordship's repre
sentation of the limes consistent with truth,
or with his own behaviour at the beginning of
the Long Parliaraent, one is almost tempted
to suspect it must have received sorae amend
ments or colourings from the hands of his ed
itors. This was the state of affairs at the end
of the pacific part of his reign, and forward to
the beginning ofthe Long Parliament.

CHAPTER VI.
FKOM THE BEGINNINO OP THE COMMOTIONS IN
SCOTLAND TO THE LONG PAELIAMENT IN THE
YEAR 1640.
We are now entering upon a scene of ca
lamity which opened in the north, and in a few
years, like a rising tempest, overspread both
kingdoms, and involved them in all the mis
eries of a civil war. If Archbishop Laud could
have been content with being raetropolitan of
the Church of England alone, he raight have
gone to his grave in peace ; but grasping at
the jurisdiction of another church, founded upon
different principles, he pulled both down upon
his head, and was buried in the ruins.
We have mentioned the preposterous pub
lishing the Scots book of canons a year before
their liturgy, which was not finished till the
month of October, 1636. His raajesty's rea
sons for corapiling it were, that " his royal father
had intended it, and made a considerable prog
ress in the work, in order to curb such of his sub
jects in Scotland as were inclined to Puritan
ism ; that his present majesty resolved to pur
sue the same design, and therefore consented to
the publication of this book, which was in sub
stance the same with the English liturgy, that
the Roman party might not upbraid us with
any material differences, and yet was so far
distinct that it might be truly reputed a book
of that Church's composing, and established by
his royal authority as King of Scotland."*
The compUers of this liturgy were chiefly
Dr, Wederburne, a Scots divine, beneficed in
England, but now Bishop of Dunblain, and Dr,
Maxwell, bishop of Ross, Their instructions
frora England were to keep such Catholic saints
in their calendar as were in the English, and
that such new saints as were added should be
the raost approved, but in no case to omit St.
George and St. Patrick ; that in the book of or
ders those words in the English book be not
changed, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost;" and
that sundry lessons out of the Apocrypha be
inserted ; besides these, the word presbyter be
inserted instead of priest ; and the water in the
font for baptism was to be consecrated. There
was a benediction or thanksgiving for departed
saints ; some passages in the communion were
altered in favour of the real presence ; the rii-
brics contained instructions to the people when
* Rushworth, vol. i., part u., p. 366.

to stand, and when to sit or kneel : to all which
the Scots had hitherto been strangers Tho
main parts of the liturgy were the eame wiiU
the English, that there raight be an appearance
of uniformity ; it was revised, corrected, and
altered by Archbishop Laud and Bishop Wren,
as appeared by the original found in the arch
bishop's charaber in the Tower, in which the
alterations were inserted with his own hand.
The liturgy, thus modelled, was sent into
Scotland, with a royal proclamation, dated De
cember 20, 1636, commanding all his majesty's
loving subjects of that kingdora to receive it
with reverence, as the only forra his majesty
thinks fit to be used in that Kirk, without so
much as laying it before a convocation, synod,
general assembly, or Parliament of that nation.
It was appointed lo be read first on Easier Sun
day, 1637, against which time aU parishes were
to be provided wilh two books at least ; but the
outcries of the people against it were so vehe
ment, that it was thought advisable to delay it
to the 23d of July, that the lords of the session
[or judges] might see the success of it before
the end ofthe term, which always ends the 1st
of August, in order to report in their several
counties the peaceable receiving the book at
Edinburgh and parts adjacent. "The Archbish
op of St. Andrew's, with sorae of his more pru
dent brethren, foreseeing the disorders that
would arise, advised the deferring it yet long
er ; but Archbishop Laud was so sanguine of
success, that he procured a warrant frora the
king, commanding the Scots bishops to go for
ward at all events, threatening that if they mo
ved heavUy, or threw in unnecessary delays,.
the king would remove thera, and fill their sees
with churchmen of more zeal and resolution.*
In obedience, therefore, to the royal cora
mand, notice having been given in aU the pul
pits -of Edinburgh that the Sunday following
[July 23, 1637] the new service-book would be
read in all the churches, there was a vast con
course of people at St. Giles's, or the great
church, where both the archbishops and divers
bishops, together with the lords of the session,
the magistrates of Edinburgh, and many ofthe
council were assembled ; but as soon as the
dean began to read, the service was interrupted
by clapping of hands, and a hideous noise among
the meaner sort of people at the lower end of
the church ; which the Bishop of Edinburgh ob
serving, stepped into the pulpit and endeavoured
to quiet them, but the disturbance increasing,
a stool was thrown towards the desk ; upon
which the provost and baUiffs of the city came
from their places, and with much difficulty

* " This," says Dr. Grey, " is not very hkely ; and
as he [i. e., Mr. Neal] produces no vouchers for what
he says, he cannot reasonably take it amiss if we do
not readily assent to it." To this it is sufficient to
reply, that the fact is stated by CoUyer in his Eccle
siastical History, vol. ii., p. 770, whose words Mr.
Neal uses. The eagerness of Laud to carry this
point was stimulated by the Earl of Traquair, who
carried a letter to him from some of the lately-pre
ferred Scotch bishops, who had an overbalance of
heat and spirits, urging execution and despatch in
the business. In Ibis instance the archbishop was
the dupe of the insidious poUcy of the Earl of Tra
quair, whose aim was, by pushing things to extremi
ty, to ruin the older Scotch bishops, who, as he
thought, stood in the way of his ambitious views,
and " might grow loo big for his interest."— Ed. ,

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

335'"

thrust out the populace, and shut the church
doors ; yet such were the clamours from with
out, rapping at the doors, and throwing stones
at the windows, that it was with much difficul
ty that the dean went through the service ; and
when he and the bishop came out of church in
their habits, they were in danger of being torn
in pieces by the mob, who followed them, cry
ing out, " Pull them down ; a pape, a pape, an
tichrist," &c.
Between the two sermons the magistrates
took proper measures for keeping the peace in
the afternoon, but after evening prayer the tu
mult was greater than in the morning ; for the
Earl of Roxburgh, returning to his lodgings
with the bishop in his coach, was so pelted
with stones and pressed upon by the multitude,
that both were in danger of their lives. The
clergy who read the liturgy in the other church
es met with tbe like usage, insomuch that the
whole city was in an uproar, though it did not
yet appear that any besides the meaner people
were concerned in it ;* however, the lords of
the council thought proper to dispense with
reading the service next Sunday, till their ex
press returned from England with farther in
structions, which Laud despatched with all ex
pedition, telling thera it was the king's firra res
olution that they should go on with their work,
and blaraing them highly for suspending it.
Araong the rainisters who opposed reading
the liturgy were the Rev. Mr. Ramsay, Mr. Rol-
lock, Mr. Henderson, Mr. Hamilton, and Mr.
Bruce, who were charged with letters of horn
ing for their disobedience. But they stood by
what they had done, and in their petition to the
council gave the foUowing reasons for their
conduct: "(I.) Because the service-book had
not been warranted by a general assembly,
which is the representative body of the Kirk,
nor by any act of Parliaraent. (2.) Because
the liberties of the Scots Kirk, and the form of
worship received at the Reformation, and uni
versally practised, stood still warranted by acts
ofthe General Assembly and acts of Parliaraent.
(3.) Because the Kirk of Scotland is a free and
inciependent Kirk, and, therefore, her own pas
tors are the proper judges what is raost for her
benefit. (4.) Sorae of the cereraonies contained
in this book have occasioned great divisions in
the Kirk, forasrauch as they are inconsistent
with the forra of worship practised in it, and
syrabolize with the Kirk of Rorae, which is
antichristian. (5 ) Because the people, having
been otherwise taught, are unwiUing to receive
the new book till they are better convinced."
These reasons were of weight with the coun
cil, but they durst not show favour to the pris
oners without allowance from England, which
coiild not be obtained ; the zealous archbishop
stopping his ears against all gentle methods of
accomraodation, hoping to bear down aU oppo
sition with the royal authority.
WhUe the country people were busy at har
vest things were pretty quiet, but when that
was over they carae to Edinburgh in great nura
bers, and raised new disturbances, upon which
the council issued out three proclamations : one,
for the people that came out of the country to
return home ; a second, for removing the ses
sion or term frora Edinburgh to Linlithgow ;
* Rushworth's CoUection, vol. ii., p. 388.

and a third, for calling in and burning a sedi
tious paraphlet, called a " Discourse against the
English Popish Cereraonies, obtruded on the
Kirk of Scotland ;"* aU dated October 17, 1637.
These proolaraations inflaraed the people to such
a degree, that the very next day the Bishop of
Galloway would have been torn in pieces by the
mob, as he was going to the council-house, if
he had not been rescued by Mr. Steward ; but,
missing of his lordship, they beset the council-
house, and threatened to break open the door,
insomuch that the lords who were assembled
were obliged lo send for sorae of the popular
nobility in town to their relief; however, the
people would not disperse till the council had
proraised lo join with the other lords ;n peti
tioning the king against the service-book, and
to restore the silenced rainisters.
Soon after this, two petitions were presented
to the lord-chancellor and council against the
liturgy and canons ; one in the name of aU the
men, women, children, and servants of Edin
burgh, and the other in the name of the noble
men, harons, gentry, ministers, and burgesses.
Their objections against them were. the same
with those already mentioned. The petitions
were transmitted to the king, who, instead of
returning a soft answer, ordered a proclaraation
to be published frora Stiriing [Feb. 19, 1637]
against the late disorderly turaults, in which,
after having declared his abhorrence of all su
perstition and popery, he expressed his displeas
ure against the petitioners ; and, to prevent any
farther riots, his majesty ordered the term or
session to be removed from Linlithgow to Stir-
ling,t twenty-four miles from Edinburgh, with
a strict injunction that no stranger should re
sort thither without special license. His maj
esty also forbade aU assemblies or convocations-
of people to frame or sign petitions upon pain of
high treason, t and yet declared, at the same
time, that he would not shut his ears against
them, if neither the form nor raatter were preju
dicial to his royal authority.
Upon pubUshingthis proclaraation, sundry no-
bleraen, barons, rainisters, and burghers met.
together, and signed the following protest : " 1.
That it is the undoubted right of the subjects
of Scotland to have immediate recourse to the
king by petition. 2. That archbishops and bish
ops ought not to sit in any judicatory in this.

* Rushworth, vol. i., part ii., p. 400.
t " There is no order given in this proclamatiori,
(1 wUl take upon me to say, having perused it care
fully) for the removal of the session or term from.
Linlithgow to Stirling, as Mr. Neal affirms," says
Dr. Grey. This is true ; and Mr. Neal's inaccuracy
here lies in representing the removal of the session
from LinUthgow to Stirling, as directed by this proc
lamation ; whereas it was the act of the councU,
after the Earl of Roxburgh arrived in Scotland with
certain instructions from the king to the councU,
who were to meet at Dalkeith, to consider qf the dis
ordered affairs of the kingdom. It should seem that
this removal was in consequence of those instruc
tions ; especially as the proclamation expressly inhib
ited the resort of the people to Stirling, " where,"
says his majesty, " our council sits," without a war
rant. — Rushworth, vol. ii., part ii., p. 730. Guthry, as
quoted by Dr. Harris, expressly says that the king's
proclamation ordained that the council and sessions
should remove from Edinburgh, first to Lithgow,.
and afterward to StirUng. — Life, <fc., of Charles I.,
p. 282.— Ed.
X Rushworth, vol. ii., part ii., p, 731, 732.'

336

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

kingdom, civU or ecclesiastical, till they have
purged themselves of those crimes which are
ready to be proved against thera. 3. That no
proclaraation of council, in presence of the arch
bishops and bishops, shall be prejudicial to any
of our proceedings. 4. That neither we, nor any
that adhere to us, shall incur any daraages for
not observing the liturgy or book of canons, as
long as It is not established by General Assera
bly or act of Parliament. 5. 'That if any incon
venience faU out (which God prevent) upon
pressing the late innovations, we declare the
sarae is not to be imputed lo us. 6. That all
our proceedings in this affair have no other
tendency but the preservation of the true Re
formed religion, and the laws and liberties of
the kingdom."
The councU, being apprehensive of danger
from these large assemblies and combinations
of people, agreed that, if they would return
peaceably to their houses, they might appoint
sorae of their number of all ranks and orders to
represent the rest, till his majesty's pleasure con
cerning their protest should be farther known.*
Accordingly, four tables, as they were called,
were erected at Edinburgh ; one of the nobility,
another ofthe gentry, a third ofthe burroughs,
and a fourth of the rainisters. These prepared
and digested raatters for the general table,
formed of commissioners from. the other four,
where the last and binding resolutions were
taken. One of the first things concluded upon by the
tables was the renewing their confession of
faith, and the solemn league and covenant sub
scribed by King James and his royal household,
March 2, 1580-1, and by the whole Scots nation
in the year 1590, with a general band for main
tenance of true religion and the king's person.
To this covenant was now added a narrative of
sundry acts of Parliaraent, by which the Re
formed religion had been ratified since that
tirae, with an admonition wherein the late in
novations were renounced, and a band of de
fence for adhering to each other in the present
-cause. +
In their covenant they declare, in the most
solemn manner, " that they believe with their
hearts, confess with their mouths, and sub
scribe with their hands, that the confession of
faith then established by act of Parliament is
the true Christian faith and religion, and the only
ground of their salvation. They farther declare
their abhorrence of all kinds of papistry in gen-
-eral, and then enumerate sundry particulars of
popish doctrine, discipline, and cereraonies, as
the pope's pretended priraacy over the Christian
Church ; his five bastard sacraments, the doc
trine of transubstantiation, the mass, purgatory,
prayers for the dead, and in an unknown lan
guage, justification by works, auricular confes
sion, crosses, iraages, altars, dedicating of kirks,
with aU other rites, signs, and traditions brought
into the Kirk without or contrary to the Word
of God. All which they proraise to oppose to
the utmost of their power, and to defend the
ancient doctrine and discipline of their Kirk all
the days of their lives, under the pains contain
ed in the law, and danger both of body and soul
in the day of God's fearful judgment, protesting

* Rushworth, vol. i., part ii., p. 734.
X NalsoD's Collection, p. 20.

and calling the Searcher of all hearts to wit
ness that their minds and hearts do fully agree
with this their confession, promises, oath, and
subscriptions. They protest and promise, un
der the same oath, handwriting, and pains, to
defend the king's royal person and authority
with their goods, bodies, and lives, in defence
of Christ's Gospel, the liberties of their country,
the administration of justice, the punishment
of iniquity, against all his enemies within the
realra and without ; and this they do from Iheir
very hearts, as they hope God will be their de
fence in the day of death, and the coraing of
the Lord Jesus Christ. To whom, with the Fa
ther and Holy Spirit, be all honour and glory
eternally." Then foUows a recital of the acts of Parlia
ment by which the Reformed religion was es
tablished among them. But instead of the
band pf defence annexed to the covenant of
1580, they framed a new one suited lo the pres
ent tirae, in which, after reciting the king's
coronation oath, they declare " that, as Ihey
wiU defend the king's royal person and author
ity, they will also support the authority of par-
liaraents, upon which the security ofthe lands,
livings, rights, and properties depend, and with
out which neither any law or lawful judicatory
can be established. They declare the late in
novations brought into the Kirk to be contrary
to the covenant above mentioned, and, there
fore, they will forbear the practice of them tiU
they are tried and allowed in a free assembly,
and in Parliament ; and not only so, but they
promise and swear, by the great name of God,
lo resist all these errors and corruptions to the
utraost of their power all the days of their lives.
They then proraise and swear over again to de
fend the king's person and authority in the
preservation of the aforesaid true religion, laws,
and liberties of the kingdom, and to assist and
stand by one another at all adventures, with
out suffering themselves to be divided by any
allureraent or terror frora this blessed and loyal
conjunction, and without being afraid of the
odious aspersions of rebellion or combination
which their adversaries may cast upon them.
And they conclude with calling the Searcher of
hearts to witness to their sincerity, as they
shaU answer it to Christ in the day of account,
and under pain of the loss of aU honours and
respect in this world, and God's everlasting
wrath in the next." All this was sworn lo and
subscribed with great seriousness and devotion,
first at Edinburgh, in the month of February,
1637-8, and afterward in the several counties
and shires, where it was received by the com
raon people as a sacred oracle, and subscribed
by all such as were thought to have any zeal
for the Protestant religion and the liberties of
their country. The privy counsellors, the
judges, the bishops, and the friends of arbi
trary power, were the principal persons who
refused. The Universities of St. Andrew's and
Aberdeen were said to oppose it, and those of
Glasgow did not subscribe without sorae limit
ations. There cannot be a more solemn and awful
engagement to God and each other than this !
what the reasons were that induced King James
and the whole Scots nation to enter into it in
I the years 1580 and 1590, are not necessary tu

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

.337

be determined ; but certainly such a combina-
.tion of subjects without the consent of their
sovereign, in a well-settled government, is un
warrantable, especially when it is confirmed by
an oath, as no oath ought to be adrainistered
but by commission from the chief magistrate.
The only foundation, therefore, upon which this
covevant can be vindicated is, that the Scots
apprehended that their legal church establish-
.ment had. been broken in pieces by the king's
assuming the supremacy, by his erecting a High
€ommission, and by his imposing upon them a
book of canons and liturgy without consent of
Parliament or General Asserably.
The councU sent advice of the proceedings
-of the covenanters from time to time, and ac
quainted his majesty that the cause of all the
commotions was the fear of innovations in the
doctrine and discipline of the Kirk, by introdu
cing tiie Uturgy, canons, and High Commission ;
-that it was, therefore, their hurable opinion,
that the reading the service-book should not be
urged at present. Upon this the king sent the
.Marquis of Hamilton, his high commissioner,
into Scotland, with instructions to consent to
the suspending the use of the service-book for
the present, but at the same time to dissolve
the tables, and to require the covenant to be
delivered up within six weeks. His majesty
adds, "that if there be not sufficient strength
in the kingdora to oblige the covenanters to
return to their duty, he will come in person
from England at the head of a sufficient power
to force thera ;" and, in the raean time, the
marquis is empowered to use all hostile acts
against them as a rebellious people.
Upon theraarquis's arrival at Holyrood House,
he was welcoraed by great numbers ofthe cov
enanters of all ranks and qualities, in hopes that
he would call a General Assembly and a free
Parliament ; but when he told them this was
not in his instructions, they went home full of
resentments. The people nailed up the organ-
loft in the church, and admonished the marquis
not to read the liturgy. The ministers caution
ed their hearers against consenting lo ensnaring
propositions ; and a letter was sent to the mar
quis and council, exhorting them to subscribe
-the covenant. His lordship sent advice of these
ihings to court, and moved his majesty either
to yield to the people or hasten his royal arras.
¦The king replied that he would rather die than
yield to their impertinent and daranable de
mands, but admitted of the marquis's flattering
them to gain time,* provided he did not consent
to the caUing a General Assembly or Parliaraent
till they had disavowed or given up the cove
nant.! When this was known, both ministers
and people declared with one voice that they
would as soon renounce their baptism as their
covenant ; but withal avowed their duty and
allegiance to the king, and their resolutions to
stand by his majesty, in defence of the true re
ligion, laws, and liberties of the kingdora. The
marquis, not being able to make any impressiqn
on the covenanters, returned to England with
an account of the melancholy state of affairs in
that kingdom, which surprised the English court.

* Dr. Grey would supply from the original, " by
all the honest means you can, without forsaking your
ground."— Ed.
X Rushworth, vol. i., part u., p. 752, 762.
Vol. I.— U u

and reflected some disgrace upon the archbish
op ; for, as his grace was going to council, Archi
bald, the king's jester, said to him, " Whae's
feule now 1 Does not your grace hear the news
from StriveUng about the liturgy V* His grace
complaining of this usage to the counoil, Archi
bald Armstrong, the king's fool, was ordered to
have his coat pulled over his ears, to be dis
charged the king's service, and banished the
court. After some time HamUton was sent back, with
instructions (if necessity required) to revoke the
liturgy, the canons, the High Commission, and
the five articles of Perth ; and with authority
to subscribe the confession of faith of 1580, with
the band thereunto annexed, and to take orders
that aU his majesty's subjects Subscribed the
same.t He raight also promise the caUipg a
General Assembly and ParUament within a com
petent time, but was to endeavour to exclude
the laity, from the assembly. The design of
subscribing the band ofthe old covenant of 1580
was to secure the continuance of episcopacy,
because that band obliges them to maintain the,
religion at that time professed, which the king
would interpret of prelatical government, as be
ing- not then legally discharged by Parliament,
and because it contained no promise of mutual
defence and assistance ag;ainst all persons what
soever, -which might include the king himself.
However, the covenanters did not think fit to
subscribe over again, and therefore only thank
ed the king for discharging the liturgy, the can
ons, and High Commission.
At length the marquis published a proclama
tion for a General Assembly to meet at Glasgow,
November 21 [1638]. The choice of merabers
went everywhere in favour of the covenanters ;
the Rev. Mr; Henderson, one of the silenced
ministers, was chosen moderator, and Mr. John
ston clerk-registrar ;t but the bishops presented
a declinator, " declaring the assembly to be un
lawful, and the members of it not qualified to
represent the clergy ofthe nation : (1.) Because
they were chosen before the presbyteries had
received the royal mandate to make election.
(2.) Because most of them had not subscribed
the Articles of religion, nor sworn to the king's
supremacy in presence of the bishops, for neg
lect of which they were ipso facto deprived.
(3.) Because they had excluded the bishops,
who, by the act of Asserably at Glasgow, 1610,
were to be perpetual raoderators. (4.) Because
there -were lay-elders among them who had no
right to be there, nor had ordinarily sat in pres
byteries for above forty years. (5.) Because
they apprehended it absurd, as well as contrary
to the practice of the Christian Church, that
archbishops and bishops should be judgetl by a
mixed assembly of clergy and laics." Signed
by the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, the Bishops
* On the stool being thrown at the dean's head,
who first read it in the cathedral at Edmburgh, Archy
said it was "the stool of repentance." He had a
particular spleen against Bishop Laud, and the grav
ity of history wUl be relieved by another stroke of
his humour pointed at this prelate. Once, when the
bishop was present, he asked leave to say grace,
which being granted him, he said, " Great praise be
given to God, and Utile Laud to the devU." — Gran
ger's Biog. History, vol. u., p. 400. — Ed.
t Rushworth, vol. i., part u., p. 767, &c.
X Rushworth, p. 865-867.

338

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Galloway, Ross, and
Brechin, The force of these objections, how strong
soever in themselves, was tak(-n off by the
king's owning the .Assembly, and silting in it by
his commissioner seven days, though at the
dissolution he declared their proceedings to be
utterly destructive ofthe narae and nature ofa
free assembly.
The bishops' declinator being read, was unan
imously rejected, and a committee appointed to
draw up an answer. In the raean tirae the
Assembly was busy in examining elections, in
which the covenanters carried everything before
them ; the marquis, therefore, despairing of any
good issue, determined, according to his instruc
tions, to dissolve them ; and accordingly went
to the great church where they sat, and read
over his majesty's concessions; as, (1 ) "That
his raajesty was wiUing to discharge the ser
vice-book and the book of canons, (2) To dis
solve the High Commission. (3.) That the ar
ticles of Perth should not be urged, (4,) That
no oath should be required of any rhinister at
his entrance into the ministry but what is re
quired by act of Pariiament, (5) That lor the
future there should be general assemblies as oft
en as the affairs of the Kirk shall require ; and
that the bishops should be censurable by the
Assembly, according to their merits, (6.) That
the confession of faith of 1580 should be sub
scribed hy aU his majesty's subjects of Scot
land." These, although very considerable abate
ments, did not reach the requirements of the
covenanters, which were, the dissolution ofthe
order ofthe bishops, and ofthe above-mention
ed grievances, by a statute law. • The marquis
went on, and in along speech declaimed against
lay-elders, "an office," as he said, "unknown
in the Church for fifteen hundred years, such
persons being very unfit to judge of the high
mysteries of predestination, effectual grace, ante
and post lapsarian doctrines, or to pass sentence
upon their superiors in learning and office."
He therefore advised thera to break up and
choose another asserably of aU clergymen ; but
his motion striking at the very being and law
fulness of their present constitution, was unan
imously rejected ; whereupon the marquis dis
solved them, after they had sat only seven days,
forbidding them to continue their sessions upon
pain of high treason ; and next morning the
dissolution was published by proclamation at the
market-cross. But the Assembly, instead of submitting to
the royal command, continued sitting, and the
very next day [November 29] published a prot
estation to justify their proceedings, wherein
they affirm, " 1. "That ruling elders have con
stantly sat in their assemblies before the late
times of corruption. 2. That his raajesty's
presence in their asserablies, either in his own
person or by his coramissioners, is not for vo
ting, but as princes and emperors of old, in a
princely manner, to countenance their meet
ings, and preside in them for external order.
3. That it is clear, by the doctrine and disci
pline of the Kirk, contained in the book of poli
cy, and registered in the book of the Asserably,
and subscribed by the presbyteries of this Kirk,
that It is unlawful in itself, and prejudicial to
the privUeges that Christ has left his Church,

for the king to dissolve or break up the assem
bly of this Kirk, or to st;iy their proceedings, for
then it would follow that religion and church
government should depend absolutely upon the
pleasure of the prince, 4 That there is no
pretence hy act of .\ssembly, or Pariiament, or
any preceding practice, whereby the king's maj
esty, or his commissioner, may lawfully dis
solve the General .Assembly of the Church of
Scotland without their consent. 5 That the
asserablies of the Kirk have continued sitting,
notwithstanding any contraraand, as it is evi
dent by aU the records thereof; and in particu
lar, by the General Assembly of 1582, And,
lastly, to dissolve the Assembly before any griev
ances are redressed, is to throw back the whole
nation into confusion, and to raake every man
despair hereafter ever to see innovations re
raoved, the subjects' complaints regarded, or
offenders punished. For these reasons they
declare it lawful and necessary lo continue the
present Asserably till they have tried and cen
sured all the bygone evils, and the introductors
of them, and have provided a solid course for
continuing God's truth in this land with purity
and liberty ; they declare, farther, that the said
Assembly is and shall be esteemed and obeyed
as a most lawful, full, and free General Assem
bly of this kingdom, and that the acts, senten
ces, censures, and proceedings of it shall be
obeyed and observed hy aU the subjects of this
kingdom."* Archbishop Laud was vexed at these bold
and desperate proceedings of the Assembly, and
thought of nothing but dispersing them by arms.
" I will be bold to say," says his grace, " never
were there more gross absurdities, nor-half so
many, in so short a time, committed in any
public meeting ; and for a national assembly,
never did the Church of Christ see the like."
" I am as sorry as your grace [the Marquis of
Hamilton] can be that the king's preparations
can make no more haste ; I hope you think I
have called upon his majesty, and by his com
mand upon so^e others, to hasten all that may
be, and more than this I cannot do ; I have
done, and do daily caU upon his raajesty for his
preparations ; he protests he makes all the haste
he can, and I believe him, but the jealousies of
giving the covenanters umbrage too soon have
raade preparations here so late."
The Asserably, according to their resolu
tion, continued sitting several weeks, till they
had passed the following acts : an act for dis
annulling six late assemblies therein mentioned,
held in the years 1606, 1608, 1610, 1616, 1617,
1618, with the reasons ; an act for abjuring and
abolishing episcopacy; an act for condemning
the five articles of Perth ; an act for condemn
ing the service-book, book of canons, book
of ordination, and the High Coraraission ; an
act for condemning archdeacons, chapters, and
preaching deacons ; an act for restoring pres
byteries, provincial and national assemblies, to
their constitution of ministers and elders, and
to their power and jurisdiction contained in the
book of policy,t with many others of the like
nature. They then pronounced sentence of
deposition against the bishops, eight of whom
were excomraunicated, four excluded from the

* Rushworth, vol. i., part u., p. 863-865.
t Ibid., p. 873.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

339

ministerial ftmction, and two only aUowed to
officiate as pastors or presbyters. Upon this.
Dr. Spotswood, bishop of St. Andrew's, and lord-
high-chancellor of Scotland, retired to London,
where he died the next year. Most of his
brethren the bishops took the same method ;
only four reraained in the country, three of
whom renounced their episcopal orders, viz.,
Alexander Ramsey, bishop of Dunkeld, George
Graham, bishop of Orkney, and James Fairby,
bishop of Argyle ; but the fourth, George Guth-
rey, bishop of Murray, kept his ground and
weathered the storm. At the close of the ses
sion, the Assembly drew up a letter lo the king,
complaining of his majesty's commissioner, who
had proclaimed thera traitors, and forbade the
people to pay any regard to lheiracts,and praying
the king to look upon thera stiU as his good and
faithful subjects. They also published another
declaration to the good people of England, in
vindication of their proceedings, which his maj
esty took care to suppress, and issued out a
proclaraation against the seditious behaviour of
the covenanters, which he commanded to be
read in aU the churches in England.*
It was easy to foresee that these warm pro
ceedings must issue in a war, especially when it
is remembered that his majesty consulted with
none but the declared eneraies of their Kirk,
viz.. Laud, Harailton, and Wentworth. On the
26th of January the king published his resolu
tion to go in person against the Scots Covenant
ers at the head of an army ; for this purpose
the nobUily were summoned to attend his maj
esty, and all the wheels of the prerogative
were put in motion to raise men and raoney. f
Dr. Pierce, bishop of Bath and WeUs, in his
letter to his clergy, calls it "beUum episcopale,"
a war for the support of episcopacy, that they
should therefore stir up their clergy to a liberal
contribution after the rate of three shillings and
tenpence ih the pound, according to the valua
tion of their livings in the king's books. The
archbishop also wrote to his comraissary, Sir
John Lamb, for a contribution in the civil courts
of Doctors' Commons, requiring him to send
the names of such as refused to himself at
Lambeth. The queen and her friends under
took for the Roraan Catholics ; the courtiers
and the country gentlemen were applied to to
lend money on this occasion, which the former
readily complied with, but ofthe latter forty only
contributed together about £1400. With these,
and some other assistances, the king fitted out
a fleet of sixteen men-of-war, and raised a
splendid army of twenty-one thousand horse
and foot.
The Scots, being informed of the prepara
tions that were making against them in Eng
land, secured the important castles of Edin
burgh, Dumbritlon, and Frith, and raised an
army of such volunteers as had the cause of
the Kirk at heart, and were determined to
sacrifice their lives in defence of it ; they sent
for their old general, Lesley, frora Gerraany,
who upon this occasion quitted the emper
or's service, and brought over with him sev
eral experienced officers. But their greatest
distress was the want of firearms, ammuni-
* Rushworth, vol. i., part u., p. 876.
t Prynne's Introd., 177, 178, 196. Rushworth,
vol. i., part u., p. 791.

tion, and money, there hot being above three
thousand arms to be found in the whole king
dom ; and having no money, their soldiers made
such a ragged appearance, that when the king
saw them, he said, " they would certainly fight
the English if it were only to get their fine
clothes." But the success of this war will faU
within tlie compass ofthe next year.
To return lo England : the Star Chamber and
High Commission went on with their oppres
sions as if they were under no apprehensions
from the storra that was gathering in the North.
Many ministers were suspended and shut up in
prison, as Mr. Plenry Wilkinson, B.D., of Mag
dalen College, Oxford; Mr. George Walker,
Mr. Smith, Mr. SmaU, Mr. Cooper, Mr. Brewer,
a Baptist preacher,* who lay in prison fourteen
years ; Mr. Foxley, of St. Martin's in the Fields,
who was confined in a chamber in the Gate
house not four yards square for twenty months,
without pen, ink, or paper, or the access of
any friends, even in his extreme sickness ; and
aU this without knowing his crime, or so much
as guessing at it, unless it was for speaking in
favour of the feoffees. t
Great nurabers of Puritans continued to flock
into New-England, notwithstanding the pro
hibition of the councU last year, insorauch that
the Massachusetts Bay began to be too strait
for them ; in the latter end of the year 1636
about one hundred families traveUed farther
into the country, and settled on the banks of
the River Connecticut, with the Reverend Mr.
Hooker at their head ; another detachment
went from Dorchester, a third from Water-
town, and a fourth from Roxbury, and built

* It does not appear whether he was ever bene
ficed in the Established Church. The first account
of him we meet with is, that in the year 1626 he was
a preacher among the Separatists in and about Ath-
ford, in Kent. In that year, through the instigation
of Laud, he was prosecuted and censured in the
High Commission Court, and committed to prison,
where he remained no less than fourteen years.
The archbishop, afterward speaking of the mischief
done by the nonconformity of Mr. Brewer and Mr.
Turner, says, "The hurt which they have done is
so deeply rooted that it is impossible to be plucked
up on a sudden, but 1 must crave time to work it off
by little and little." His grace, however, fixed upon
the most direct and effectual method of doing this ;
for in his account of his province, addressed to the
king in the year 1637, he says, "1 must give your
majesty to understand, that at and about Athford,
in Kent, the Separatists continue to hold, their
conveiiticles, notwithstanding the excommunication
of so many of them as have been discovered. Two
or three of their principal ringleaders. Brewer, Fen
ner, and Turner, have long been kept in prison, and
it was once thought fit to proceed against them by
the statute of abiuration. Not long since BreWer
slipped out of prison, and went to Rochester and
other parts of Kent, and held conventicles, and put
a great many people into great distemper against the
Church. He is taken again, and was called before
the High Commission, where he stood silent, but in
such a jeering, scornful manner as I scarcely ever
saw the like.' So in prison he rehiains." This was
a short and certain method of stopping their mouths.
Mr. Brewer having been confined in prison fourteen
years, even till the meeting of the Long Parliament,
he was then set at liberty by an order from , the
House of Commons, November 23, 1640, upon his
promise to be forthcoming when called, and this is
all we know oi hka.-.-Nalson's Collec, vol. i., p. 570.
— C. t Pryrjie, p. 388.

340

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

the towns of Hartford, Windsor, 'Wethersfield,
and Springfield, in thai colony. Next year
[1637] the passengers from England were so
numerous that they projected a new settlement
on the southwest part of Connecticut River, in
a large bay near the confines of New- York ;
the leaders of this colony were Theophilus
Eaton, Esq., and the Reverend Mr. Davenport,
who carae frora England wilh a large retinue
of acquaintance and foUowers ; they spread
along the coast, and first buUt the town of New.
Haven, which gives name to the colouy ; and,
after sorae tirae, the towns of Guilford? .Milford,
Stamford, Brentford, &c. Notwithstanding
these detachments, the Massachusetts Bay
had such frequent recruits from England, that
they were continuaUy budding new towns or
enlarging their settlements in the neighbour
hood. Among the divines who went over this sum
mer was the Reverend Mr. Ezekiel Rogers,
M..A., some tirae chaplain in the faraily of Sir
Francis Barrington, of Hatfield Broad Oak, in
Essex, and afterward vicar of Rowley, in York
shire, where he continued a successful preach
er to a nuraerous congregation almost twenty
years.* The archbishop of that diocess [Dr.
Matthews] being a moderate divine, permitted
the use of those lectures or prophesyings which
Queen Elizabeth had put down ; the ministers
within certain districts had their monthly ex
ercises, in which one or two preached, and oth
ers prayed, before a nuraerous and attentive
audience. One ofthe hearers that bore an ill-
will to the exercises told the archbishop that
the rainisters prayed against him ; but his grace,
instead of giving credit to the informer, answer
ed, with a smile, that he could hardly believe
bim. Because "those good men know," says he,
" that if I were gone to heaven, their exercises
would soon be put down ;" which carae to pass
accordingly, for no sooner was his successor
[Mr. Neile] in his chair, but he put a period to
them, and urged subscription wilh so much se
verity that raany of the clergy were suspended
and silenced, araong whora was Mr. Rogers,
who, having no farther prospect of usefulness
in his own country, erabarked with several of
his Yorkshire friends for New-England, where
he arrived in the suraraer of the year 1638,
and settled at a place which he called Rowley.
Here he spent the reraainder of his days, amid
a variety of afflictions and sorrows tiU the year
1660, when he died, in the seventieth year of
his age.
Mr.'Samuel Newraan, author of that concord
ance of the Bible that bears his narae, was
born at BanbQry, educated at Oxford, and hav
ing finished his studies, entered into holy or
ders, and became rainister of a sraaU Uving in
that county ; but the severe prosecutions of the
spiritual courts obliged him to no less than sev
en removals, tiU at length he resolved to get
out of their reach, and reraove wilh their friends
to New-England, where he arrived this suraraer,
and settled at Rehoboth, in the colony of New-
Plymouth, where he spent the remainder of his
days to the year 1663, when he died, in the
sixty-lhird year of his age.t He was a hard

* Mather's History of New-England, b. ui., p. 101
i Mather's Hist., p. 113.

student, a lively preacher, and of a heavenly
conversation.* Mr. Charles Chauncey, t B.D., educated in
Cambridge, and Greek lectuier of his own col-"
lege in that university. He was afterward set
tled at A\'are, and was an admired and useful
preacher, till he was driven from thence, as has
been related. When the Book of Sports was
published, and the drums beat about the town
to sumraon the people to their dances and rev
els on the Lord's Day evening, he preached
against it, for which he was suspended, and
soon after totally silenced, I Few suffered more
tor noncunforraity, says my author, by fines, by
iraprisonment, and by necessities, than Mr.
Chauncey : at length he deterrained lo reraove
to New-England, where he arrived in the year
1638, and became president of Harvard Col
lege, in Cambridge. Here he continued a raost
learned, laborious, and useful governor, till the
year 1671, when he died, in the eighty-second
year of his age ; he left behind him six sons,
the eldest of which was Dr, Isaac Chauncey,
well known heretofore aniong the Nonconform
ist rainisters of London.
I pass over the lives of many other divines
and substantial gentlemen who deserted their
native country for the peace of their conscien
ces ; but it deserves a particular notice that
there were eight sail of ships at once this spring
in the River Thames bound for New-.England,
and filled with Puritan families, among whom
(if we may believe Dr, George Bates and Mr.
Dugdale, two famous royalists) were, Oliver
Cromwell, afterward protector of the Coramon-
wealth of England, John Harapden, Esq., and
Mr. Arthur Haselrigge, who, seeing no end of
the oppressions of their native country, deter
rained to spend the remainder of their days in
America ; but the councU, being informed of
their design, issued out an order, dated May 1,
* Mr Newman arrived in 1638, and spent one year
and a half at Dorchester, five years at Weymouth,
and nineteen at Rehoboth. — C.
t«He received his grammar education at Westrain
ster School, and was at school at the time the Gun
powder Plot was to have taken effect, and must have
perished if it had succeeded. He was an accurate
Hebrecian and Grecian, and admirably skilled in all
the learned languages. Latin and Greek verses of
his appeared in the collections of poetical compU-
ments of condolence or congratulation offered by the
university on different occasions to the courts of
James 1. and Charles I. He was at Boston in order
to take passage for England, in consequence of an
invitation to settle again with his old people at Ware,
when the importunities of the overseers of Harvard
College prevailed with him to accept the president
ship of that seminary, in which place he continued,
highly honoured for his learning and piety. A grand
son of his son Isaac, also named Charies, minister of
the first church in Boston, died the lOlh of February,
1787, in the eighty-third year of his age ; having been
an ornament to his profession, distinguished by his
extensive benevolence and invincible integrity, a
warm and virtuous patriot, for nearly six years the
able, faithful instructer and friend of his flock, and
the author of many works, which remain monu
ments of his abilities, application, and excellent tem
per. The most valuable and laboured were, " The
Salvation of all Men," a treatise ; " Five Disserta
tions on the Fall and its Consequences ;" and a tract
on the " Benevolence of the Deity," all published in
London, — See Dr. Grey, and Clarke's Funeral Sermon

\for Dr. Charles Chauncey, 1787. — Ed.
' X Mather's History of New-England, p.

134.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

341

1638, to make stay of those ships, and to put on
shore all the provisions intended for the voyage.
And to prevent the like for the future, his raaj
esty prohibited all masters and owners of ships
to set forth any ships for New-England with
passengers without special license frora the
privy councU ; and gives this reraarkable reason
for it, " Because the people of New-England
were factious, and unworthy of any support from
hence, in regard of the great disorders and want
of government among them, whereby many that
have been well affected to the Church of Eng
land have been prejudiced in their estates by
them."* When the Puritans might not transport them
selves to New-England, they reraoved with their
families into the Low Countries ; among the di
vines who went thither about this time were Dr.
Thoraas Goodwin, educated in Cambridge, and
a great admirer of Dr. Preston. In the year
1628 he was chosen to preach the lecture in
Trinity Church, and held it till the year 1634,
when he left the university and all his prefer
ments, through dissatisfaction with the terms
of conformity ; having lived in retirement till
this time, he withdrew wilh some select friends
to Holland, and settled at Arnheim, in Gelder-
land, where he continued till the beginning of
the Long Parliament.
Philip Nye, M.A., educated in Magdalen Hall,
Oxon, and a popular preacher at St. Bartholo
mew Exchange, London.
Mr. Jeremiah Burroughs, a most candid and
moderate divine,t educated in Cambridge, and
afterward a faraous preacher to two of the lar
gest congregations about London, viz.. Stepney
and Cripplegate.
Mr. Williara Bridge, M.A., and fellow of
Eraannel College, Cambridge ; he was first rain
ister in Essex, and afterward settled in the city
of Norwich, in the parish of St. George Tora-
bland, where he continued till he was silenced
for nonconforraily by Bishop Wren, in the year
1637, and excoraraunicated.
Mr. Sydrach Sympson, educated in Cam
bridge, and afterward a celebrated preacher in
London. These were afterward the five pillars
of the Independent or Congregational party, and
were distinguished by the name of the Dissent
ing Brethren in the asserably of divines.
Several gentleraen and merchants of figure
disposed of their effects, and went after them
into exile, as Sir Matthew Poynton, Sir William
Constable, Sir Richard Saltington, Mr. Law
rence, afterward lord-president of the council,
Mr. Andrews, afterward lord-mayor of London,
Mr. Aske, since a judge, Mr. Bouchier, Mr,
James, Mr, White, and others. The States re
ceived them with great humanity, granting
thera the use of their churches at different

hours of the day, with the liberty of ringing a'
bell for public worship, though they did not ap
prove of the Dutch discipline, or join in com
munion with their churches.
Great was the damage the nation sustained
by these removals : Heylin observes,* " The
severe pressing of the ceremonies made the
people in raany trading towns tremble at a vis
itation ; hut when they found their striving in
vain, and that they had lost the comfiirt of the
lecturers, who were turned out for not reading
the second service at the coraraunion-table in
their hoods and surplices, and for using other
prayers besides that of the fifty-fifth canon, it
was no hard matter for those ministers to per
suade them to transport themselves into for
eign parts : ' The sun,' said they, ' shines as-
comfortably in other places, and the Sun of
righteousness much brighter ; it is better to go
and dwell in Goshen, find it where we can, than-
tarry in the midst of such Egyptian bondage as
is among us; the sinful corruptions of the
Church are now grown so general that there is-
no place free from the contagion ; therefore,
" go out of her, my people, and be not partakers
of her sins." ' " And hereunto they were en
couraged by the Dutch, who chose rather to
carry their manufactures home than be obliged
to resort to their parish churches, as, by the
archbishop's injunctions, they were obliged.
The eyes of all England were now towards
the North, whither the king went, March 27, to
put himself at the head of his army raised
against the Scots, the Earls of Arundel, Essex,
and Holland being the chief comraanding offi
cers under his raajesty. The Scots, under the
command of General Lesley, received them
upon the borders ; but when the two armies
had faced each other for some time, the king,
perceiving that his Protestant nobUity and sol
diers were not hearty in his cause, gave way to
a treaty at the petition of the Scots, which
ended in a pacification, June 17, by which all
points of difference were referred to a General
Asserably, to be held at Edinburgh, August 12,
and to a Parliaraent which was to raeet about
a fortnight after. In the mean tirae both ar
mies were to be disbanded,! the tables to be
broken up, and no meetings held except such
as are warranted by act of Parliament. Ac
cordingly, the king dismissed his army, but with
very disobliging circumstances, not giving the
nobility and gentry so rauch as thanks for
their affection, loyalty, and personal attend
ance, which they resented so highly that few
or none of them appeared upon the next sum
mons ; the Scots delivered back the king's forts
and castles into his majesty's hands, and dis-

* Rushworth, vol. i., part u., p. 409.
t He steered a middle course between Presbyte
rianism and Brownism, and seems to have been much
of an Independent, or CongregationaUst of the pres
ent day. — Biog. Britan., vol. ii., p. 620. Mr. Baxter,
who knew his great worth, said, " If all the Episco
palians had been Uke Archbishop Usher, all the Pres
byterians like Stephen Marshall, and all the Inde
pendents like Jeremiaji Burroughs, the breaches of
the Church would have been sooner healed." Mr.
Burroughs's Exposition of Hosea, in four quarto vol
umes, wiU perpetuate his reputation as one of the
ablest divines and soundest expositors of the age. — C.

*LifeofLaud, p. 367.
t Dr. Grey quotes Lord Clarendon as stating " that
the king's army, by the very words of the agreement, ,
was not to be disbanded untU all should be executed
on the part of the Scots." But not to say that the
accounts of this treaty in the Memoirs of the Mar
quis of Hamilton, p. 142, and in Guthry, as quoted
by Dr. Harris, p. 288, mention no such limitation.
Lord Clarendon himself undermines his own author
ity on this matter, by telling his reader that " no two
who were present at the treaty agreed in the same
relation of what was said and done ; and, which was
worse, not in the same interpretation of the meaning
of what was comprehended m the writing." — Cla'sn- •
don's History, vol. i., p. 123. — Ed.

342

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

banded the soldiery, wisely keeping their offi
cers in pay liU they saw the effect of the pacifi
cation.* The General Assembly met at Edinburgh ac
cording to the treaty, but being of the same
constitution wilh the last, the bishops present
ed another declinator to his majesty's commis
sioner [the Earl of Traquair], and were excused
giving their attendance by express letter from
the king, his majesty, in his instructions to his
commissioner, having yielded them the point of
lay-elders. The Assembly, therefore, without
any opposition, confirmed the proceedings of
that at Glasgow, which was of very dubious
authority. "They appointed the covenant to be
taken throughout the kingdom, and explained
the bond of mutual defence to a consistency
with their late conduct. They voted away the
new service-book, the book of canons, the five
articles of Perth, the High Coraraission, and
with one consent deterrained that diocesan
episcopacy was unlawful, and not to be allowed
in their Kirk.t This the Eari of Traquair did
not apprehend inconsistent with his private in
structions frora the king, which were these :
" We allow episcopacy to be abolished for the
reasons contained in the articles, and that the
covenant of 1580. for satisfaction of our people,
be subscribed. Again, if they require episcopacy
to be abjured, as contrary to the constitution of
the Church of Scotland, you are to give way to
il, hut not as a point of popery, or as contrary to
God's law or the Protestant religion. Again, in
giving way to the abolishing episcopacy, be care
ful it be done without the appearing of any war
rant from the bishops in prejudice of episcopacy
as unlawful, but only in satisfaction to the people
for settling the present disorders, and such other
reasons of state ; bnt herein you must be care
ful that our intentions appear not to any." It
is evident from hence that his majesty's usage
of the Scots was neither frank nor sincere ; he
had no design to abolish episcopacy, and only
consented to suspend it because he was told
that the bishops being one of the three estates
of Pariiament, no law made in their absence
could be of force, much less an act for abolish-
iag their whole order, after they had entered
their protest in forra. When his raajesty gave
way to the subscribing the covenant, it was
with another reserve, " as far as raay stand
with our future intentions well known to you.
For though we have discharged the service-
book and canons, we wiU never consent that
they be condemned as popish and supersti
tious;!: nor wiU we acknowledge that the High
Commission was without law, nor that the five
articles of Perth be condemned as contrary to
the confession of faith ; it is enough that they
be laid aside." His raajesty's instructions con
clude, " that if anything be yielded in the pres
ent Assembly prejudicial to his raajesty's ser-
vice, his commissioner shall protest, that his

'Mrs. .Macaulay, m her detaU of this treaty, men
tions as a memorable circumstance, unnoticed by
historians, and very expressive of the pacific disposi
tion ofthe Scots, that they told the king, that if he
would give them leave to enjoy their reUgion and
their laws, they would, at their own expense, trans
port their army to assist the recovery of the Palati-
f^^te.— History of England, vol. ii., p. 283, note, 8vo
edjt,— Ed. f Nalson's Collection, p. 246, 247.
liaison's Collection, p. 254, 255.

majesty may be heard for redress thereof in hia
own tirae and place."
The Scots Parliament met August 31 [1639],
and having first subscribed the solemn league
and covenant with the king's consent, Ihey con
firmed all the acts of the General Assembly,
concluding with the utter extirpation of episco
pacy as unlawful.* But the king having by
letter to his commissioner forbidden him to con
sent to the word unlawful, lest it should be in
terpreted absolutely, though it seems lo have a
reference only to the Kirk of Scotland, his lord
ship prorogued the Parliament, first for fourteen
days, and then, by the king's express command,!
for nine months, without ratifying any of their
acts. The Eari of Dunfermlin and Lord Lou
don were despatched to London, to beseech his
majesty to consent to their ratification ; but
they were sent back with a reprimand for their
misbehaviour, being hardly admitted into the
king's presence. It seeras too apparent that
his raajesty meant little or nothing by his con
cessions hut to gain time ; for in his declaration
before the next war, about six months forward,
he says, " Concerning our promise of a free
Parliament, no raan can iraagine we intended
it should be so free as not to be liraited by the
enjoyment of their religion and liberties, accord
ing to the ecclesiastical and civU laws of that
kingdom ; but if they pass these bounds, we are
disobliged, and they left at-liberty to fly at our mo
narchical government without control, to wrest
the sceptre out of our hands, and to rob the
crown of the fairest flower belonging to it."t
The king, therefore, did not really intend the
alteration of any of the civil or ecclesiastical
laws of that kingdom, and by his majesty's not
ratifying any of their acts, it was evident that
the English court had resumed their courage,
and were deterrained once more to try the for
tune of war.
In the mean time, to balance the declara
tion of the Scots Assembly, Bishop HaU, at the
request of Laud, composed a treatise of the
" Divine Right of Episcopacy," which the arch
bishop revised. The propositions which he ad
vances are these: (1.) That form of government
which is of apostolical institution ought lo be
esteemed of Divine right. (2.) That form which
was practised and recoramended by the apos
tles, though not expressly comraanded, is of
apostolical institution. (3.) The government set
up by the apostles was designed for perpetuity.
(4.) The universal practice of the primitive
Church is the best rule to judge ofthe apostoli
cal practice. (5.) We ought not to suppose the
primitive fathers would change the form of gov
ernraent they had received frora the apostles.
(6.) The accession of privilege and honourable
titles does not affect the substance of the epis
copal function. (7.) The Presbyterian govem
ment, though chaUenging the glorious title of
Christ's kingdom and ordinance, had no found
ation in Scripture, or in the practice of the
Church for fifteen hundred years, and is alto
gether incongruous and unjustifiable.
The bishop's book was altered in many pla
ces, contrary to his own inclinations, by the
* Nalson's Collection, p. 256.
t The term of prorogation, as Mr. Grey points it
out, is expressed in Nalson thus: "tUl tne next
spring." — Ed. X Nalson's Collection, p. 273.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

343

archbishop, and particularly in those wherein
he had called the pope antichrist, or spoke too
favourably of the morality of the Sabbath, and
said that presbytery was of use where episco
pacy could not be obtained. His grace disap
proved of his lordship's waiving the question
whether episcopacy was a distinct order, or only
a higher degree of the same order ; and of his
advancing the Divine right of episcopacy no
higher than the apostles, whereas he would have
it derived from Christ himself Upon the whole,
his lordship's book was so modeUed by his met
ropolitan, that, in the debate hereafter mention-
-ed, he could hardly go the lengths of his own
perforraanoe. The bishops still kept a strict hand over the
Puritans : not a sermon was to be heard on the
distinguishing points of Calvinism all over Eng
land. In some diocesses great complaints were
.made of Puritan justices of peace for being too
strict in putting the laws in execution against
profaneness. At Ashford, in Kent, the arch-
-bishop said he must have recourse to the stat
utes of abjuration, and caU in the assistance of
the temporal courts to reduce the Separatists,
the censures of the Church not being sufficient.
Upon the whole, there was no abatement of the
-height of conformity, even to the end of this year,
though the flames that were kindled in Scotland
began to disturb the tranquUlity of ihe Church.
Mr. Bagshaw, a lawyer of some standing in
the Middle Temple, being chosen reader in that
-house for the Lent vacation, began to attack
the power of the bishops. In his lectures on
the 25lh Edw, III., cap. vii., he maintained that
acts of Parliament were valid without the as-
.sent of the lords spiritual. 2. That no bene
ficed clerk was capable of temporal jurisdiction
-at the raaking that law. And, 3. That no bish-
¦op, without calling a synod, had power as a di-
•ocesan to convict a heretic. Laud, being in-
aformed of these positions, told the king that
.Bagshaw had justified the Scots covenanters
in decrying the teraporal jurisdiction of church
men, and the undoubted right ofthe bishops to
their seats in Parhament ; upon which he was
immediately interdicted all farther reading on
-those points ; and though Bagshaw hurably pe
titioned the lord-keeper and the archbishop for
liberty to proceed, he could get no other an
swer, after long attendance, than that it had
been better fbr him not to have raeddled with
that argument, which should stick closer to him
than he was aware of* Whereupon he retired
-into the country.
The resolution of the English court to renew
,the war wilh Scotland was owing to the Lord-
deputy Wentworth, whom Archbishop Laud
had sent for from Ireland for this purpose.
"This nobleman, from being an eminent patriot,
-was become a petty tyrant, and had governed
Ireland in a most arbitrary and sovereign man
ner for about seven years, discountenancing the
Protestants because they were Calvinists, and
inclined to Puritanism, and giving aU imagin
able encouragement to the Roraan Catholics as
friends to the prerogative, whereby he suffered
the balance of power in that kingdora to fall into
the hands of the papists. Wentworth, being
<;ome to court, was immediately created Earl of
Strafford and knight ofthe Garter, and, in concert
" * HeyUn's Lffe of Laud, p. 407.

with Laud, advised the king to set aside the
pacification, and to push the Scots war with
vigour, offering his majesty eight thousand Irish
and a large sum of money for his assistance ;
but this not being sufficient, the war was
thought so reasonable and necessary to the
king's honour that it might be ventured with
an English Parliaraent, which being laid before
the council, was cheerfully agreed to, and, after
twelve years' interval, a Parliament was sum
moned to meet April 13, 1640.
The Scots, foreseeing the impending storm,
consulted where to fiy for succour ; some were
for throwing theraselves into the hands of the
French, and, accordingly, wrote a very subrais-
sive letter to that monarch, signed by the hands
of seven Scots peers, but never sent ; for, upon
application to their friends at London, they were
assured, by a letter drawn lip by Lord Saville,
and signed by himself, wilh the names of Bed
ford, JSssex, Brook, Warwick, Say and Seal,
and Mandeville (who agreed to the letter, though
they were so cautious as not to write their own
names), " that the hearts of the people of Eng
land were with them; that they were convin
ced the liberties of both nations were at stake,
and, therefore, they might depend upon their
assistance as soon as a fair opportunity offer
ed." Upon this encouragement the Scots laid
aside their design of applying to France, and
resolved lo raise another army from among
themselves, artd march into England.
" The Parliament that met at Westrainster,"
says the noble historian,* "was raade up of
sober and dispassionate men, exceedingly dis
posed to do the king service ;" and yet his maj
esty would not condescend to speak to them
frora the throne,t ordering the Lord-keeper
Finch to acquaint them with the undutiful be
haviour of the Scots, whora he was deterrained
to reduce, and therefore would not adrait of the
raediation of the two houses, but expected their
immediate assistance, after which he would
give thera tirae to consider of any just griev
ance to be redressed. But the Coraraons, in
stead of beginning with the supply, appointed
committees for religion and grievances, which
disobliged the king so much, that, after several
fruitless attempts to persuade them to begin
with the Subsidy Bill, he dissolved them in an
ger, without passing a single act, after they
had sat about three weeks. The blame of this

* Clarendon's Hist., vol. i., p. 139.
t Lord Clarendon says, " After the king had
shortly mentioned his desire to be again acquainted
with Parliaments after so long an intermission," &c.,
lie referred the cause to be enlarged on by the speaks
er. " It is plain from hence," Dr. Grey adds, " that
his majesty did condescend to speak to them from
the throne." This is observed to impeach Mr. Neal's
veracity. But when the reader has laid before him
the short speech delivered from the throne, he wUl
judge whether Mr. Neal stands charged with more
than an maccuracy. It is given us by Nalson, vol. i.,
p. 306. " My Lords and Gentlemen,
" There never was a king that had a more great
and weighty cause to call his people together than
myself ; I will not trouble you with the particulars ;
I have informed my lord-keeper, and command him
to speak, and to desire your attention." This was
not properly a speech from the throne, but, as Mrs.
Macaulay calls it, " a short preface" to the lord-
keeper's speech. — Ed.

344
hasty dissolution was by sorae cast upon Laud,
bv others on Sir Harry \'ane, while the king
laid it on the raisbehaviour of the House of
Commons, who would not take his royal word for
redress of grievances, after they had voted the
necessary supplies ; he therefore sent the leading
members ofthe House into custody, and commit
ted them prisoners to the Fleet and other prisons.
His majesty having failed of a parliamentary
supply at the tirae he demanded it, was told
by Lord Strafford, and others of the councU,
that he was now absolved frora all rules of gov
ernment, and raight take what his necessities
required, and his power could obtain. This,
indeed, w-as no raore than his majesty had been
doing for twelve years before ; but sorae people
dfew an unhappy conclusion from this maxim,
viz.. that if the king was absolved from aU rules
of governnraent, the people were absolved frora
all rules of obedience.
However, all the engines of arbitrary power
were set at work to raise raoney for the war,
as loans, benevolences, ship-money, coat and
conduct money, knighthood, monopolies, and
other springs of the prerogative, some of which,
says Lord Clarendon, were ridiculous, and oth
ers scandalous, but all very grievous to the
subject. Those who refused payment were
fined and imprisoned by the Star Chamber or
council-table, among whora were some of the
aldermen of London, and sheriffs of several of
the counties. The courtiers advanced £300,000
in three weeks, the clergy in convocation gave
six subsidies, the papists were very generous ;
Strafford went over to Ireland, and obtained four
subsidies of the Parliament of that kingdom ;
soldiers were pressed into the service in all
counties, few listing themselves voluntarily ex
cept papists, many of whora had ooramissions
in the army, which gave rise to a common say
ing among the people, that the queen's array of
papists were going to establish the Protestant
religion in Scotland.
The people groaned under these oppressions,
the odium whereof fell upon Laud and Strafford,
who were libeUed, and threatened wilh the fury
ofthe populace. May 9, 1640, a paper was fixed
upon the old Exchange, animating the appren
tices to pull the archbishop out of his palace at
Lambeth ; upon this the trained bands were or
dered into St. George's Fields ; nevertheless,
the mob rose and broke his windows, for which
one of thera, being apprehended, suffered death
as a traitor, though he could not be guilty of
more than a breach of the peace. From Lam
beth the mob went lo the house of the pope's
agent, where they were dispersed by the king's
guards, and some of them sent to the White Lion
prison ; but the following week [May 15] they
rose again, and rescued their friends. The coun
try was in the sarae rautinous posture, there
being frequent skirmishes between them and
the new-raised soldiers, even to bloodshed. The
city train-bands were in arms all the summer,
but the campaign proving unsuccessful, there
was no keeping the people within bounds after
ward ; for while the High Commission was sit--
ting at St. Paul's, October 22, near two thou
sand Brownists, as the archbishop calls them,
raised a disturbance, and broke up the court,
crying out, "No bishops— no High Coramis-
fiion." Such were the distempers ofthe times.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

The convocation that sat with this Parlia
ment was opened April 14, with more splendour
and magnificence than the situation of affairs
required. The serraon was preached by Dr.
Turner, canon residentiary of St. Paul's, from
St. Matt,, xvi,, 16, " Behold, I send you forth as
sheep araong wolves," After wliich they ad
journed to the Chapter-house, where the king's
writ of suramons being read, the archbishop, in
a Latin speech, recommended lo the Lower
House the choosing a prolocutor, to be present
ed to himself or his comraissary Ml the chapel of
Henry VII. on Friday following, to which tirae
and place the convocation was adjourned.
On the 17th of .April, after Divine service. Dr.
Steward, dean of Chichester and clerk of the
closet, was presented to the archbishop as pro
locutor in the chapel of Henry VII., whora his
grace approved, and then produced his majes
ty's commission under the great seal, authori
zing them " to raake and ordain certain canons
and constitutions for the established true reli
gion, and the profit of the state of the Church
of England."* The commission was lo remain-
in force during the present session of Parlia
ment, and no longer; and by a remarkable
clause, " nothing was lo be concluded without
the archbishop's being a party in the consulta
tion." It was intended also to draw up an Eng
lish pontifical, which was to contain the form
and manner of royal coronations ; a form for
conseci-ating churches, churchyards, and chap
els ; a form for reconciling penitents and apos
tates ; a book of articles, lo be used by all bish
ops at their visitation ; and a short form of
prayer for before sermon, comprehending the
substance ofthe fifty-fifth canon. But most of
these projects were interrupted by the suddea
dissolution ofthe Parliament.
Tho convocation, according to ancient cus
tom, should have broken up at the sarae time ;.
but one of the Lower House having acquainted
the archbishop with a precedent in the 27th year
of Queen Elizabeth, of the clergy's granting a
subsidy or benevolence of two shUlings in the-
pound, to be raised upon all the clergy, after
the Parliaraent was risen, and levying it by
their own synodical act only, under the penalty
of ecclesiastical censures, it was concluded from
thence that the convocation raight sit independ
ent of the Parliaraent, and therefore, instead;
of dissolving, they only adjourned for a few
days to take farther advice, t
The zealous archbishop, relying upon this-
single precedent, applied to the king for a cora
raission to continue the convocation during his
majesty's pleasure, in order to finish the canons
and constitutions, and to grant the subsidies al
ready voted. The case being referred to the
judges, the majority gave it as their opinion,
" that the convocation being called hy the king's
writ under the great seal, doth continue till it
be dissolved by writ or commission under the
great s«al, notwithstanding the Parliament be
dissolved." Signed, May 14, 1640, by ,
John Finch, Custos, M. S.
H. Manchester, John Braraston,
Ralph Whitfield, Rob. Heath,
Edw. Littleton, John Banks.
* Collyer's Eccles. Hist., p. 793. Heylin's Lifeof
Laud, p. 423. t FuUer's Appeal, p. 67, 69.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

345

Upon this, a commission under the great seal
was granted, and the convocation reassembled ;
however, notwithstanding the opinion of these
gentlemen ofthe long robe, Dr. Hacket, Brown
rigge, Holdisworth, and others, to the number
of thirty-six, protested earnestly against it,
though, because the session was warranted by
so many considerable persons, they did not
withdraw, nor enter their protest in forra of law,
as they ought to have done* They were far
ther so influenced by 'his majesty's message,
sent by Sir H. Vane, secretary of state, to ac
quaint them "that it was his royal pleasure
that none of the prelates or clergy "should with
draw from the synod or convocation till the
affairs they had in comraand from the king were
perfected and finished."
Upon this dubious foundation the convocation
was continued, and a committee of twenty-six
appointed to prepare raatters for the debate of
the House ; but the mob being so inflamed as to
threaten to pull down the Convocation-house,
the king appointed them a guard of the militia
of Middlesex, comraanded by Endyraion Porter,
groom ofthe bedchamber, a papist, under whose
protection the synod was continued till the can
ons were perfected, and six subsidies granted
by way of supply for the exigence of his majes
ty's affairs, to be collected in six years, after
the rate of four shilhngs in the pound, amount
ing to about £120,000, after which it was dis
solved [May 29] by a special mandate or writ
frora his majesty, after it had continued twenty-
five sessions. 'The canons having been appro
ved by the privy-council, were subscribed by as
many of both houses of convocation as were
present, and then transraitted to the provincial
Synod of York, by whom they were subscribed
at once, without so much as debating either
matter or form. Dr. John WiUiams, bishop of
Lincoln, was in the Tower, and had no concern
with the canons. Dr. Goodman, bishop of Glou
cester, a concealed papist, was the only prelate
who declined the subscription, till the archbish
op threatened him with deprivation, and the
rest of the brethren pressing him to comply, he
was persuaded to put his name to the book ;
but several of the raembers of the lower House
avoided the test by withdrawing before the day
of subscription ; for, out of above one hundred
and sixty, of which both houses of convocation
consisted, there were not many more than one
hundred names to the book.
The unreasonableness of continuing the syn
od after the dissolution of Parliaraent appears
from hence, that the convocation, consisting of
bishops, deans, archdeacons, and clerks, the
three former act in their personal capacities
only, and may give for theraselves what subsi
dies they please ; but the clerks being chosen
for their respective cathedrals and diocesses,
legally to sit as long as the Parliaraent contin
ues, desist from being public persons as soon as
it is dissolved, and lose the character of repre
sentatives ; they are then no raore than private
clergymen, who, though they raay give the king
what suras of money they please for themselves,
cannot vote away the estates of their brethren,
unless they are re-elected. Besides, it was
contrary to all law and custom, both before and
since the act of subraission of the clergy to King
* Fuller's Church History, b. ix., p. 168.
Vol. I.— X z

Henry VIIL, except in the single instance of
Queen Elizaheth.
The oanons of this synod, consisting of sev
enteen articles, were published June 30, and
entitled " Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiasti
cal, treated uponhy the Archbishops of Canter
bury and York, Presidents of the Convocation
for their respective Provinces, and the rest of
the Bishops and Clergy of those Provinces, and
agreed upon with the King's Majesty's License,
in their several Synods begun at London and
York, 1640."*
Canon 1. — Concerning the Regal Power.
" We ordain and decree that every parson^
vicar, curate, or preacher, upon one Sunday in
every quarter of the year, in the place where he
serves, shall read the following explanation of
the regal power :
"That the most high and sacred order of
kings is of Divine right, being the ordinance of
God himself, founded in the prirae laws of na
ture and revelation, hy which the suprerae pow
er over all persons civil and ecclesiastical is-
given to thera.
"That they have the care of God's Church,
and the power of calling and dissolving councils,.
both national and provincial.
" That for any person to set up in the king's.
realms any independent coercive power, either
papal or popular, is treasonable against God'
and the king. And for subjects to bear arras
against their king, either offensive or defensive,
upon any pretence whatsoever, is at least to re
sist the powers ordained of God ; and though
they do not invade, but only resist, St. Paul
says, they shall receive daranation.
" And though tribute and custora, aid and sub
sidy, be due to the king by the law of God, na
ture, and nations, yet subjects have a right .and
property in their goods and estates ; and Ihese-
two are so far frora crossing one another, that
they rautuaUy go together for the honourable
and corafortable support of both.
" If any clergyraan shall voluntarily and care
lessly neglect to publish these explications, ha
shall be suspended ; or if, in any serraon or pub
lic lecture, he shaU maintain any position con
trary hereunto, he shall be forthwith excomrau
nicated and suspended for two years ; and if
he offend a second time, he shall be deprived."-
Canon 2. — For the belter observing ihe Day of his
Majesty's Inauguration.
" The synod decrees and ordains that all per
sons shall come to Church the morning of the
said day, and continue there tUl prayers and
preaching are ended, upon pain of such punish
ment as the law inflicts on those who wUfuUy
absent themselves frora church on holydays."
Canon 3. — For suppressing the Growth of Popery.
" All ecclesiastical persons, within their sev
eral parishes or jurisdictions, shaU confer pri
vately with popish recusants ; but if private con
ference prevail not, the Church must and shall
come to her censures ; and to make way for
thera, such persons shall be presented at thie
next visitation who came not to church, and
refuse to receive the holy Eucharist, or who.
either say or hear mass ; and if they remain

Nalson's CoUection, p. 545.

316

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

obstinate after citation, they shaU be excom
municated. " But if neUher conference nor censure pre-
vaU, the Church shall then complain of them to
the civU power ; and this sacred synod does
earnestly entreat the reverend justices of as
size to be careful in executing the laws, as they
wiU answer it to God. And every bishop shall
once a year send into the Court of Chancery a
-significavit ofthe names of those who have stood
excomraunicated beyond the time liraited by
law, and shall desire that a writ de excommuni
cato capiendo may be at once sent out against
them all.
" Care is like-wise to be taken that no person
be admitted to teach school but who has sub
scribed to the Church as the law directs ; and
that no excommunicate person be absolved by
any appeal, unless he first lake the oath de pa-
rendo juri et stando mandatis ecclesice."
Canon 4, — Against Socinianism.
" It is decreed that no persons shall import,
print, or disperse any of their books, on pain of
excommunication, and of being farther punished
in the Star Chamber. No minister shaU preach
any- such doctrines in his sermons, nor student
have any such books in his study, except he be
a graduate in divinity ;* and if any layman em
brace their opinions, he shall he excomraunica
ted, and not absolved without repentance and
abjuration." [N.B. None ofthe doctrines of Socinus, nor
any of his peculiar sentiraents, are men
tioned in this canon.]
Canon 5, — Against Sectaries.
"The synod decrees that the canon above
mentioned against papists shaU be in fuU force
against all Anabaptists, Brownists, Separatists,
and other sectaries, as far as they are applica
ble ; and farther, the clause against the books
of Socinians above mentioned shall be in force
against all books written against the discipline
and government ofthe Church of England.
" It is also ordained, that such persons who
resort to their parish churches to hear the
sermon, but do not join in the public prayers,
shall be subject to the same penalties with oth
er sectaries and recusants."
Canon 6. — An Oath for preventing Innovations
in Doctrine and Government.
" The synod decrees that all archbishops,
bishops, priests, and deacons shall, before the
2d of November next, take the following oath,
which shall be tendered hy the bishop in person,
-or sorae grave divine deputed by hira, and shall
be taken in presence of a public notary."
THE OATH.
" I, A. B., do swear that I do approve the
¦doctrine, discipline, and government establish
ed in the Church of England, as containing all
things necessary to salvation ; and that I wiU
not endeavour, by myself or any other, directly
or indirectly, to bring in any popisht doctrine

* Dr. Grey supplies here, from Nalson, " or such
as have episcopal or archidiaconal ordination, or any
doctor of laws in order as aforesaid." — Ed.
t In his majesty's duphcate of this canon, sent by
.the archbishop to the Bishop of Ely, the word popish

contrary to that which is so established ; nor
will I ever consent lo alter the government of
this Church by archbishops, bishops, deans, and
archdeacons, &c., as it stands now established,
and as hy right it ought lo stand, nor yet ever
to subject il to the usurpations and supersti
tions of the See of Rome. .And aU these things
I do plainly and sincerely acknowledge and
swear, according lo the plain and common
sense understanding of the same words, without
any equivocation, or raental evasion, or secret
reservation whatsoever ; and this I do heartily,
willingly, and truly, upon the faith of a Chris
tian. So help me God in Jesus Christ."
"If any beneficed person in the Church shaU
refuse this oath, he shall, after one nionih,* be
suspended ab officio ; after a second month, he
shaU be suspended ab officio et beneficio; and af
ter a third month, t if he continue to refuse, he
shall be deprived.
" It is likewise ordained, that all that are in
corporated in either ofthe universities, or take
any degree, whether lawyers, divines, or phy
sicians, shaU take the same oath ;t and all gov
ernors of halls and colleges in the universities ;
aU schoolmasters, and, in general, aU that enter
into holy orders, or have license to preach."
Canon 7.-^A Declaration concerning some Riles
and Ceremonies.
" The synod declares that the standing of
the coraraunion-table sideways, under the east
window of the chancel or chapel, is in its own
nature indifferent ; but forasmuch as Queen
Elizabeth's injunctions order it to be placed
where the altar was, we therefore judge it prop
er that aU churches and chapels do conform
themselves to the cathedral or mother-church
es. And we declare that the situation of the
holy table does not imply that it is or ought to
be esteemed a true and proper altar, whereon
Christ is again sacrificed ; but it may be caUed
an altar in the sense of the primitive Church ;
and because it has heen observed that some
people in time of Divine service have irrever
ently leaned, cast their hats, or sat upon or un
der the communion-table, therefore the synod
thinks raeet that the table be railed round.
" It is farther recommended to aU good peo
ple, that they do reverence at their entering in
and going out of the church ; and that all com
municants do approach the holy table to receive
the communion at the rails, ^ which has hereto
fore been unfitly carried up and down by the
minister, unless the bishop shall dispense with
it." Canon 8. — Of Preaching for Conformity.
" All public preachers shall twice a year
preach positively and plainly, that the riles and
ceremonies of the Church of England are law
ful, and that it is the duty of all people to con
form to them."

is omitted, as it is in the duplicate sent to the Vice-
chancellor of Cambridge, and several others.
* Allowed " to inform himself"
+ " For his better information."
X The sons of noblemen are expressly excepted. —
Dr. Gret.
^ " At the rails" is not in the original, but appears
to be impUed by the order to raU round the commu
nion-table. — Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

347

Canon 9. — A Book of Articles for Parochial Vis
itation.
" No other hook of articles of inquiry shaU
be used in parochial visitation but that which
is drawn up by the synod."
Canon 10. — Ofthe Conversation ofthe Clergy.
" The clergy are enjoined to avoid aU excess
es and disorders, and by their Christian conver
sation to adorn their holy profession."
Canon 11. — Chancellors' Patents.
" No bishop shall grant any patent to any
chancellor, or official, for any longer term than
the life of the grantees, and the bishop shall
keep in his own hands the power of instituting
to benefices and of licensing to preach."
Canon 12. — Chancellors' Censures.
" No chancellor, commissary, or official, not
being in holy orders, shaU inflict any censure
on the clergy in criminal causes, other than for
neglect of appearing ; but all such causes shall
be heard by the bishop, or some dignified cler
gyraan with the chancellor."
Canon 13. — Excommunication and Absolution.
"No sentence of excommunication or abso
lution shall be pronounced but by a priest, and
in open consistory, or at least in the church or
ehapel, having first received it under the seal
-of an ecclesiastical judge, from whora it coraes."
Canon 14. — Of Commutations.
" No corarautation of penance to be admitted
without consent of the bishop, and the money
¦to he disposed of to charitable uses."
Canon 15. — Of Jurisdictions.
"No executor shall be cited into any court
-or office for the space of ten days after the death
¦of the testator, though the executor may prove
the will within such time."
Canon 16. — Of Licenses to Marry.
" No license to marry shaU be granted to any
party, unless one of the parties have been com-
morant in the jurisdiction of the ordinary to
whom he applies for the space of one month
before the said license be desired. The archi
episcopal prerogative is excepted."
Canon 17. — Against vexatious Citations.
" No citation into any ecclesiastical court
.shall be issued out but under the hand and seal
of one of the judges of those courts, and within
thirty days after committing the crime ; and un
less the party be convicted by two witnesses,
he shall be allowed to purge hiraself by oath,
without paying any fee ; provided that this can-
¦on extend not to any grievous crime, as schisra,
incontinence, raisbehaviour in the church in the
time of Divine service, obstinate inconformity,
¦or the like."
When these canons were made public, they
•were generally disliked ; several pamphlets were
printed against them, and dispersed among the
people; as, "England's Complaint to Jesus
Christ against the Bishops' Canons ; wherein
the Nakedness of them is exposed in a solemn
-Application to, Jesus Christ as the Saviour of
his Church ;" " Queries relating tp the several
Articles and Determinations ofthe late Synod,"

&c. AU who loved the old English Constitution
were dissatisfied with the first canon, because it
declares for the absolute power of kings, and
for the unlawfulness of defensive arras on any
pretence whatsoever. ThePurUans disappro
ved the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth canons ;
but the whole body of the clergy were nearly
concerned in the sixth, being obliged by the 2d
of November to take the oath therein mention
ed, on pain of suspension and deprivation. The
London clergy, among whom were Dr, West-
field, Downham, Burges, Mr. Calamy, Jackson,
John Goodwin, Offspring, and others, drew up
a petition against it to the privy council ; and,
to give it the more weight, procured a great
many hands. The ministers, schoolmasters,
and physicians in Kent, Devonshire, Dorset
shire, Northamptonshire, and in most counties
of England, took the same method ; some ob
jecting to the oath, as contrary to the oath of
supremacy ; some complaining of the et ccetera
in the middle. Others objected lo the power of
the synod to impose an oath, and raany con
fessed that they wished sorae things in the dis
cipline of the Church might be altered, and,
therefore, could not swear never to attempt it
in a proper way. Some of the bishops endeav
oured to satisfy their clergy by giving the raost
favourable interpretation to the oath. Bishop
Hall told them that it meant no more than this,
" That I do so far approve of the discipline and
doctrine ofthe Church, as that I do believe there
is nothing in any other pretended discipline or
doctrine necessary to salvation besides that
which is contained in the doctrine and disci
pline of the Church of England. And as I do
allow the government ,by archbishops, bishops,
deans, archdeacons, so I will not, upon the sug
gestion of any factious persons, go about to
altar the same as it now stands, and as by due
right (being so established) it ought to stand in
the Church of England."* But most of the
bishops pressed the oath absolutely on their cler
gy, and to my certain knowledge, says Mr.
FuUer,t obliged them to take it kneeling, a cer
emony never required in taking the oath of al
legiance and supremacy : to such extravagance
of power did these prelates aspire upon the wing
of the prerogative !
The archbishop was advised of these difficul
ties by Dr. Sanderson, afterward Bishop of Lin
coln, who assured his grace, by letter,t "that
multitudes of churchmen, not only of the pre-
ciser sort, but of such as were regular and oon-
forraable, would utterly refuse to take the oath,
or be brought to it with much difficulty and reluc
tance, so that, unless by his raajesty's special
direction, the pressing the oath may be for
borne for a time, or that a short explanation of
sorae passages in it raost liable to exception he
sent to the several persons who are lo admin
ister the sarae, to be publicly read before the
tender of the said oath, the peEuie of this Church
is apparently in danger to be raore disquieted
by this one occasion than by anything that
has happened within our raeraories." However,
this resolute prelate, as if he had been deter
rained to ruin his own and his raajesty's affairs,
would relax nothing to the times, hut would
have broken the king's interest araong the- con-
* Nalson's Collection, p. 496, 498.
t Book xi., p. 171. X Nalson, p. 497.

348
formable clergy, if the nobility and gentry, with
the king at York, ha'd not prevailed with his
majesty to lay hira under a restraint by the fol
lowing letter, under the hand of the principal
secretary of state :
" May it please your grace,
" I ara, by his raajesty's command, to let you
know, that, upon several petitions presented by
divers churchmen, as well in the diocess of
Canterbury as York, to which many hands are
subscribed, as the mode of petitions now are,
against the oath in the canons made in the last
synod, his majesty's pleasure is, that as he
took order, before his coming into these parts,
that the execution of neither should be pressed
on those that were already beneficed in the
Church, which was ordered at the councU-board
in your grace's presence, hut that it should be
administered to those who were to receive or
ders and to he adraitted, it is his raajesty's
pleasure that those should be dispensed with
also, and that there be no prosecution thereof
tiU the meeting ofthe convocation,
"York, Sept, 30, 1640. H. Vane."*
We have mentioned the secret correspond
ence between the English and Scots nobility to
recover the liberties of both kingdoms, which
encouraged the Scots to march a second time
to their border, where the king met thera with
his array, commanded by the Earls of Nor
thumberland and Strafford ; but it soon appeared
that the English nobility were not for conquer
ing the Scots, nor had the Protestant soldiers
any zeal in his majesty's cause, so that after
a small skirmish the Scots army passed the
Tweed, August 21, and on the 30th took pos
session of the importanttown of Newcastle, the
royal army retreating before them as far as York,
and leaving them masters ofthe three northern
counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, and
Durham, where they subsisted their army and
raised what contributions they pleased. As
soon as the Scots entered Newcastle, they sent
an express to the lord-mayor and aldermen of
London to assure them they would not inter
rupt the trade between that town and the city
of London, but would cultivate all manner of
friendship and brotherly correspondence. They
also sent messengers to the king, with an hum
ble petition that his majesty would please " to
confirm their late acts of Parliament, restore
their ships and merchandise, recall his procla
mation which styles them rebels, and call an
English Parliament to settle the peace between
both kingdoras." This was foUowed by another,
signed by twelve peers, with his majesty, at
York, and by a third frora the city of London.
The king, finding it impossible to carry on the
war, appointed coramissioners to treat with the
Scots at Rippon, who agreed to a cessation of
arms for two months from the 26th of October,
the Scots to have £850 a day for maintenance
of their array, and the treaty to be adjourned to
London, where a free Parliaraent was immedi
ately to be convened. The caUing an English
Parliament was the grand affair ll^at had been
concerted with the Scots before their coming
into England, and it was high time, because, to
all appearance, this was the last crisis for sa-
ving the Constitution. If the Irish and English
* Nalson, p. 500.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

armies were raised to rsduce Scotland under
the arbitrary power ofthe prerogative (as Lord
Clarendon confesses), what could bo expected
but that afterward they should march bai-k
into England and establish the same despotic
power here, with a standing array, beyond all
recovery 1
Sad and melancholy was the condition ofthe
prirae ministers when they saw themselves re
duced to the necessity of submitting their con
duct to the examination of an English Pariia
ment, supported by an army frora Scotland, and
the general discontents of the people I Several
of 'the courtiers began to shift for themselves ;
some withdrew frora the storm, and others,.
having been concerned in various illegal proj
ects, deserted their masters, and made their
peace by discovering the king's councils to the
leading merabers of Parliament, which disabled
the junto from making any considerable efforts
for their safety. All men had a veneration for
the person of the king, though his majesty had
lost ground in their affections by his ill usage of
Parliaments, and hy taking the faults of his
ministers upon himself But the queen was in
no manner of esteem with any who had the
Protestant religion and the liberties of their
country at heart. The bishops had sunk their
character by their behaviour in the spiritual
courts, so that they had nothing to expect but
that their wings should be clipped. And the
judges were despised and hated for betraying
the laws of their country, and giving a sanction
to the illegal proeeedings of the councU and
Star Chamber. As his raajesty had few friends
of credit or interest araong the people at horae,
so he had nothing to expect from abroad ;
France and Spain were pleased with his dis
tress ; the foreign Protestants wished well to
the oppressed people of England ; they publish-
their resentments against the bishops for their
hard usage of the Dutch and French congrega
tions, and gave it as their opinion that a Prot
estant king who countenanced papists, and at
the same tirae drove his Protestant subjects out
ofthe kingdom, was not worthy the assistance
of the Reformed churches, especially after he
had renounced communion with them, and de
clared openly that the religion ofthe Church of
England was not the sarae with that ofthe for
eign Protestants.
Three considerable divines.of a very different
character died about this time : Mr. John BalU
educated in Brazen-nose CoUege, Oxon, and af
terward rainister of Whitmore, a small village
near Newcastle in Staffordshire, where he lived
upon £20 a year, and the profits of a little
school. He was a learned and pious man, de
serving as high esteem, says Mr. Baxter, as the
best bishop in England, though he was content
with a poor house, a mean habit, and a small
maintenance. Being dissatisfied with the terms
of conformity, it was some time before he could
meet with an opportunity to be ordained with
out subscription, but at last he obtained it from'
the hands of an Irish bishop, then occasionally
in London ; though he lived and died a Non
conformist, he was an enemy to a separation,
and wrote against Mr. Can and Mr. Robinson
on that head. His last work, entitled " A Stay
against Straying," was subscribed by five most
noted Presbyterian divines, who aU testified that

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

349

he died abundantly satisfied in the cause of Non
conformity, which he distinguished from separ
ation. His other works were very numerous,
and of great reputation in those times.* He
died October 20, 1640, in the fifty-sixth year of
his age.-l
Dr. Lawrence Chadderton, born in Lanca
shire, 1546, of popish parents, who, when they
heartl their son had changed his religion, disin
herited him ; he was first fellow of Christ's Col
lege, and afterward minister of Emanuel Col
lege, Cambridge. King James nominated hira
one of the four representatives of the Puritans
in the Hampton Court Conference, and after
ward one of the translators of the Bible.f He
coraraenced D.D. 1612, and governed his col
lege with great reputation many years, being
reraarkable for gravity, learning, and piety ; he
had a plain but effectual way of preaching, says
Fuller,^ having a strict regard for the Sabbath,
and a great aversion to Arrainianisra. He was
a fine, grayheaded old gentleraan, and could
read without spectacles to his death, which
happened in the hundred and third year of his
age. Being advanced in years, and afraid of
being succeeded by an Arminian divine, he re
signed his mastership to Dr. Preston, whom he
survived, and saw Dr. Sancroft, and after him
Dr. Holdisworth, succeed him, which last at
tended his funeral, at St. Andrew's Church, and
gave him a large and deserved commendation
in a funeral sermon. 1!
Dr. Richard Neile, archbishop of York, born
in King-street, Westminster, of mean parents,
his father being a tallow-chandler. He was ed
ucated in St. John's College, Cambridge, and
passed through all the degrees and orders of
preferraent in the Church of England, having
been a schoolraaster, curate, vicar, parson, chap
lain, raaster ofthe Savoy, Dean of Westminster,
elerk of the closet to two kings. Bishop of Roch
ester, Litchfield, Lincoln, Durham, Winchester,
and, lastly. Archbishop of York. The Oxford
historian says he was an affectionate subject to
his prince, an indulgent father to his clergy, a
bountiful patron to his chaplains, and a true
friend to all that relied upon him. Dr. Heylin
confesses that he was not very eminent either
for parts or learning ; Mr. Prynne says he was
3. popish Arminian prelate, and a persecutor of
all orthodox and godly rainisters. It is certain
he had few or none of the qualifications of a
primitive bishop ; he hardly preached a sermon
in twelve years, and gained his preferments by
flattery and servile court compliances. He was
a zealous advocate for pompous innovations in
the Church, and oppressive projects in the state,
for which he would have felt the resentraents
-of the House of Commons had he lived a little
longer ; but he died very seasonably for him
self, in an advanced age, October 31, 1640, three
-days before the meeting ofthe Long Parliament.
* His " Ground^iof the Christian Religion" passed
through fourteen editions, and was translated into
the Turkish language. Mr Ball's treatise on Faith,
and on " The Power of Godliness," are works of
.great merit, and are still eagerly sought after. — C.
t Clarke's Lives, annexed to his General Martyr
ology, p. 147. X lb., p, 146. ^ Book ii., p. 1 18.
II Clarke's Lives, annexed to the Martyrology, p.
146, 147. Dr. Chadderton has a monument at the
entrance of Emanuel College Chapel.— C.

[To the divines to whose memory Mr. Neal
pays the just tribute of respect in this chapter,
may be added the great Mr. Joseph Mede. He
was descended from a good famUy, and born in
October, 1586, at Berden, in Essex. He re
ceived his grammar learning first at Hoddesdon,
in Hertfordshire, and finished it at Weathers-
field, in Essex. While he was at this last
school, he bought BeUarmine's Hebrew Gram
mar, and, without the assistance of a master,
attained considerable sklU in the Hebrew tongue.
In 1602 he was sent to Christ's CoUege, in Cam
bridge. In 1612 he took the degree of master
of arts, and in 1618 that of bachelor in divinity ;
but his modesty and humUity restrained him
frora taking the degree of doctor. After taking
the first degree, by the influence of Bishop An
drews hewas chosen feUow of his college, hav
ing been passed over at several elections as
one suspected of favouring Puritanical princi
ples. In 1627, at the recommendation of Arch
bishop Usher, lie was elected provost of Trinity
CoUege, Dublin, but declined accepting this pre
ferment, as he did also when it was offered him
a second time in 1630. On the sraaU income
of his fellowship and a college-lecture he was
extremely generous and charitable, and con
stantly appropriated a tenth of it to charitable
uses. Temperance, frugality, and a care to
avoid unnecessary expenses enabled him to do
this. His thoughts were much employed on
the generous design of effecting a universal pa
cification among Protestants. It was a favour
ite saying with him, " that he never found him
self prone to change his hearty affections to any
one for mere difference in opinion." He was
a friend to free inquiry : " I cannot believe,"
said he, "that truth can be prejudiced by the
discovery of. truth; but I fear that the mainte
nance thereof by fallacy or falsehood may not
end with a blessing," He was an eminent and
faithful tutor. It was his custora to require the
attendance of his pupils in the evening, to ex-
araine them on the studies of the day ; the first
question he then proposed to every one in his
order was, "Quid dubitasl" What doubts have
you raet with in your studies to-day 1 For he
supposed that to doubt nothing, and to under
stand nothing, was nearly the sarae thing. Be
fore he dismissed thera to their lodgings, after
having solved their questions, he commended
them and their studies to God's protection and
blessing by prayer. He was anxious and labo
rious in his study of history and antiquities, and
diligently applied every branch of knowledge to
increase his skill in the sacred writings. He
led the way in showing that papal Rorae was
one principal object of the Apocalyptic vis
ions ; and was the first who suggested the sen
tiraents since espoused and defended by the
pens of Lardner, Sykes, and Farmer, that the
demoniacs in the New Testiment were not real
possessions, but persons afflicted with a lunacy
and epilepsy. His days were spent in studious
retirement. He died on the 1st of October,
1638, in the fifty-second year of his age. In
1677, a complete edition of his works was pub
lished in folio by Dr. Worthington. — British Bi
ography, vol. iv., p. 446-452, and his Life, pre
fixed to his Works.] — Ed.

350

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

CHAPTER VII.
KING CHAHLES I., 1640.
THE CHARACTER OF -THE LONG PARLIAMENT, 
THEIR ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE LATE CONVO
CATION ,VXD CANONS,  THE IMPEACHMENT OF
DR. WILLIAM LAUD, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBU
RY.  VOTES OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AGAINST
THE PROMOTERS OF THE LATE INNOVATIONS.
We are now entering upon the proceedings
ofthe Long Parliament, which continued sitting
with some little intermission for above eighteen
years, and occasioned such prodigious revolu
tions in Church and State, as were the surprise
and wonder of all Europe. The House of Com
mons have been severely censured for the ill
success of their endeavours to recover and se
cure the Constitution of the country ; but the
attempt was glorious, though a train of unfore
seen accidents rendered it fatal in the event.
The members consisted chiefly of country gen
tlemen, who had no attachment to the court ;
for, as Whitelocke observes, " Though the court
laboured to bring in their friends, yet those who
had most favour with them had least in the
country ; and it was not a little strange to see
what a spirit of opposition to the court proceed
ings was in the hearts and actions of the most
of the people, so that very few of that party had
the favour of being chosen raerabers of this Par
liaraent."* Mr. Echard insinuates sorae unfair
methods of election, which raight be true on
both sides ; but both he and Lord Clarendon
admit that there were many great and worthy
prtriots in the House, and as eminent as any
age had ever produced ; men of gravity, of wis
dom, and of great and plentiful fortunes, who
would have been satisfied with some few amend
ments in Church and State.
Before the opening of the session, the princi
pal members consulted measures for securing
the frequency of Parliaments ; for redressing
the grievances in Church and State ; and for
bringing the king's arbitrary rainisters to jus
tice ; to accoraplish which, it was thought ne
cessary lo set sorae bounds to the prerogative,
and to lessen the power of the bishops ; but it
never entered into their thoughts to overturn
the civil or ecclesiastical constitution, as will
appear from the concurrent testimony of the
most unexceptionable historians.
" As to their religion," says the noble histo
rian, t " they were all merabers of the Establish
ed Church, and almost to a man for episcopal
government. Though they were undevoted
enough to the court, they had all imaginable
duty for the king, and affection for the govern
ment established by law or ancient custom ;
and wUhout doubt the majority of that body
were persons of gravity and wisdom, who, be
ing possessed of great and plentiful fortunes,
had no mind to break the peace of the kingdom,
or to make any considerable alterations in the
government of the Church or State." Dr. Lewis
du Moulin, who lived through these limes, says
" that both Lords and Commons were raost, if
not all, peaceable, orthodox Church of England
men, aU conforming to the rites and ceremonies
of episcopacy, but greatly averse to popery and
tyranny, and to the corrupt part of the Church
* Memorials, p. 35.
t Clarendon, vol. i., p. 184, &c.

that inclined towards Rome." This is farther
evident from their order of November 20, 1640,
Ihat none should sit in their House but such as
would receive the communion according to the usage
of the Church of England. The Commons, in
their grand reraonstrance of December 1, 1641,
declared to the world, " that it was far from
their purpose to let loose the golden reins of
discipline and government in the Church, to-
leave private persons or particular congrega
tions to lake up what forra of Divine service
they pleased; for we hold it requisite," say they,.
" that there shonid be throughout the whole
realra a conformity lo that order which the law
enjoins according to the Word of God," The
noble historian adds, farther, " that even after
the battle of Edgehill, the design against the
Church was not grown popular in the House ;
that in the years 1642 and 1643 the Lords and
Coramons were in perfect confoiniity to the
Church of England, and so was their army, Ihe
general and officers both by sea and land being
neither Presbyterians, Independents, Anabap
tists, nor Conventiclers ; and that, when' they
cast their eyes upon Scotland, there were, in
truth, very few in the two houses who desired
the extirpation of episcopacy. Nay, his lord
ship is of opinion that the nation in general
was less inclined to the Puritans than to the
papists ; at least, that they were for the Estab
lishment ; for when the king went to Scotland
[1641], the Common Prayer was much rever
enced throughout the kingdora, and was a gen
eral object of veneration to the people. There
was a fuU subraission and love lo the establish
ed government of the Church and Stale, espe
cially lo that part ofthe Church which concern
ed the liturgy and Book of Coramon Prayer;"
which, though it he hardly credible, as will ap
pear hereafter by the numbers of petitions from
several counties against the hierarchy, yet may
serve to sUence those of his lordship's admirers
who, through ignorance and ill will, have repre
sented the Long Parliament, and the body of
the Puritans at their first sitting down, as in a
plot against the whole ecclesiastical establish
ment. If we may believe his lordship's character of
the leading members of both houses, even of
those who were most active in the war against
the king, we shall find even they were true
churchraen according to law, and that they had
no designs against episcopacy, nor any incli
nations to presbytery or the separation.*
The Earl of Essex was captain-general and
comraander-in-chief of the Parliamentary army,
and so great was his reputation, that his very
name commanded thousands into their service.
It had been impossible for the Parliament to
have raised an army, in Lord Clarendon's opin
ion, if the Earl of JEssex had not consented to
be their general ; and " yet this nobleman,"
says he,t " was not indevoted to the function
of bishops, but was as much devoted as any

* It is very important for the reader to bear these
facts in recollection. The exactions and overbear
ing tyranny of the Church led these men to their fu
ture course, as the only means of self.preservation.
The laity saved the kingdom from the doom which
threatened it. — C.
t Clarendon, vol. i., p. 182, 185, 189, 211, 213, 233,
507 ; and vol. u., p. 211, 212, 214, 462, 597, &c.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

351

man to the Book of Common Prayer, and obli
ged all his servants to be present with him at
it ; his household chaplain being always a con
formable man and a good scholar."
The Earl of Bedford was general ofthe horse
under the Earl of Essex, but " he had no desire
that there should be any alteration in the gov
ernraent of the Church ; he had always lived
towards ray Lord of Canterbury hiraself wilh all
respect and reverence ; he frequently visited
and dined with hira, subscribed liberally to the
repairing of St. Paul's, and seconded aU pious
undertakingsl" Lord Kirabolton, afterward Earl of Manches
ter, was a raan of great generosity and good-
breeding, and no man was raore in the confi
dence of the discontented party, or more trust
ed ; he was commander of part of the Par
liament forces, and rather complied with the
changes ofthe times than otherwise ; he had a
considerable share in the restoration of King
Charies II, , and was in high favour with hira
tUl his death.
The Earl of Warwick was adrairal of the
Parliament fleet ; he was the person who seiz
ed on the king's ships, and employed thera
against him during the whole course of the war ;
he was looked upon as the greatest patron of
the Puritans, and "yet this nobleman," says
Lord Clarendon, " never discovered any aver
sion to episcopacy, hut much professed the con
trary." In trtfth, says the noble historian, when the
bill was brought into the House to deprive the
bishops of their voles in Parliaraent, there were
only at that tirae taken notice of in the House
of Peers the Lords Say and Brook, as positive
enemies to the whole fabric ofthe Church, and
to desire a dissolution ofthe government.
Among the leading members in the House of
Coraraons we may reckon William Lenthall,
Esq., their speaker, " who was of no ill reputa
tion for his affection to the governraent both of
Church and State," says his lordship, and de
clared on his deathbed, aftertheRestoration,that
he had always esteemed the episcopal govern
ment to be the best government ofthe Church,
and accordingly died a dutiful- son of the Church
of England.
Mr. Pym had the leading influence in the
House of Commons, and was, in truth, the raost
popular man, and most able to do hurt of any
who lived in his time ; and yet. Lord Clarendon
says, " though he was an enemy to the Armin
ians, he professed to be very entirely for the
doctrine and discipline of the Church of Eng
land, and was never thought to be for violent
measures till the king carae lo the House of
Coramons and attempted to seize him among
the five members.".
Denzil UoUis, Esq., after the Restoration pro
moted to the dignity of a baron, was at the
head of all the Parliament's councils tUl the
year 1647. " He had an indignation," says
Lord Clarendon, " against the Independents,
nor was he affected to the Presbyterians any
otherwise than as they constituted a party to
oppose the others, but was weU pleased with
the government ofthe Church."
Sir H. Vane, the elder, did the king's af
fairs an unspeakable prejudice, and yet, " in his
judgraent, he liked the government both of

Church and State ; nay, he not only appeared!
highly conformable himself, but exceeding sharp
against those that were not."
Sir John Hotham was the gentleman who>
shut the gates of Hull against the king, and in
a sally that he made upon the king's forces
shed the first blood that was spilled in the civil
war, and was the first his raajesty proclairaed
a traitor; and yet his lordship declares "he
was very well affected to the government."
His lordship is a little more dubious about
the famous Mr. Harapden, but says that most
people believed " his dislike was rather to some
churchmen than to the ecclesiastical govern
ment ofthe Church."
I might mention Mr. Whitelocke, Selden^
Langhorne, and others, who are represented
without the least inclination to Presbytery ; but
it is sufficient to observe, from his lordship,.
" that all the Earl of Essex's party, in both.
houses, were men of such principles that they
desired no alteration in the court or govern
ment, but only of the persons that acted in it ;.
nay, the chief officers of his army were so zeal
ous for the Uturgy, that they would not hear a,
man as a rainister that had not episcopal ordi
nation," Nathaniel Fiennes, Esq., Sir H. Vane, jun.,.
and, shortly after, Mr. Harapden, were be
lieved lo be for root and branch ; yet, says his
lordship, Mr. Pyra was not of that mind, nor
Mr. HoUis, nor any of the northern men, nor
any of those lawyers who drove on most furi
ously with thera, all of whora were well pleas
ed with the government of the Church ; for
though it was in the hearts of some ievr to re
move foundations, they, had not the courage
and confidence to communicate it,"
This was the present temper and constitu
tion of both houses ; from which his lordship
justly concludes that, "as they were aU of
them, almost to a man, conformists to the
Church of England, they had all imaginable
duty for the king and affection for the govern
ment established bylaw ; and as for the Church,
the major part even of these persons would
have been willing to satisfy the king ; the rath
er, because they had no reason to think the
two houses, or, indeed, either of them, could
have been induced to pursue the contrary."
How injurious, then, are the characters of those
Church historians, and others, who have repre
sented the members of this Parliaraent, even at
their first session, as men of the new religion,.
or of no religion, fanatics, men deeply engagetl
in a design against the whole Constitution im
Churoh and State !
The Parliament was opened November 3;.
with a most gracious speech from the throne,
wherein his raajesty declares he would concur
with them in satisfying their just grievances,
leaving it with them where to begin. Only
sorae offence was taken at styling the Scots-
rebels at a tirae when there was a pacification;
subsisting ; upon which his raajesty came to
the House, and, instead of softening his lan
guage, very imprudently avowed the expres
sion, saying he could caU them neither better
nor worse. The houses petitioned his raajesty
to appoint a fast for a Divine blessing upon
their counoils, which was observed Noveraber
17 ; the Rev. Mr. Marshal and Mr. Burges

332

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

preached before the Commons, the former on 2
Chron., xv,, 2. " The Lord is with you while
you are with him ; if you seek him he will be
found of you, but if you forsake him he wUI for-
.sake you ;" the latter on Jer., i., 5, " They shall
ask the way to Zion with their faces thither
ward, saying. Come, and lot us join ourselves
to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that shaU
not be forgotten," The sermons were long,
but delivered with a great deal of caution : the
House gave them thanks and a piece of plate
for their labours. The Bishops of Durham and
Carlisle preached before the Lords in the Abbey
Church of Westminster ; the one a courtier,
and the other a favourer of the Puritans, The
Lord's Day following, all the members in a
body received the sacrament from the hands of
Bishop Williams, dean of Westminster, not at
the rails about the altar, but at a communion
table, placed, by order ofthe House, in the mid
dle ofthe church on that occasion.
At their first entrance upon business they
appointed four grand committees ; the first to
receive petitions about grievances of religion,
which was afterward subdivided into twenty or
thirty ; the second for the affairs of Scotland
and Ireland ; the third for civil grievances, as
ship-money, judges, courts of justice, monopo
lies, &c. ; the fourth concerning popery, and
plots relating thereunto. Aniong the grievan
ces of religion, one of the first things that carae
before the House was the acts and canons ofthe
late convocation : several warm speeches were
made against the compUers of them, November
9 ; and, among others. Lord Digby, who was as
yet with the country party, stood up and said,
¦" Does not every Parliament-man's heart rise
to see the prelates usurping lo themselves the
grand pre-eminence of Parliament! the grant
ing subsidies under the name ofa benevolence,
under no less a penalty to them that refuse it
than the loss of heaven and earth — of heaven
by excommunication, and of earth by depriva
tion, and this without redemption by appeal 1
What good man can think w-ith patience of
.such an ensnaring oath as that which the new
<!anons enjoin to be taken by ministers, law
yers, physicians, and graduates in the Universi
ty, where, besides the swearing such an imper
tinence as that things necessary to salvation
are contained in discipline ; besides the swear
ing those to be of Divine right which aniong the
learned was never pretended to, as the arch
things in our hierarchy ; besides the swearing
not to consent to the change of that which the
state may, upon great reasons, think fit to al
ter ; besides the bottomless perjury of an et ccet-
¦era ; besides aU this, men must swear that they
swear freely and voluntarily what they are
compelled to ; and, lastly, that they swear to
the oath in the literal sense, whereof no two of
the makers theraselves, that I have heard of,
could ever agree in the understanding."*

* Dr. Grey contrasts this speech of Lord Digby's,
as far as it censures the convocation for taxing the
clergy, with some reflections on it from CoUyer, who
asserts that the clergy had always the privilege of
taimg their own body ; that from Magna Charta to
the 37th of Henry VIII. there is no parliamentary
confirmation of subsidies given by the clergy; and
that in 1585 there is an instance of the convocation
granting and levying a subsidy or benevolence by sy-
•nodical aulhority. The credit of Mr. Neal's history,

Sir B. Rudyard, Sir. J. Culpeper, Sir Edward
Deering, Sir Harbottle Grimelone, spoke with
the sarae warrath and saliru-al wit for dischar
ging the canons, dismounting Ihem, and iin-lt-
ing them down; nor did any gentleman stand
up in their behalf but Mr. Holbourn, who is said
to make a speech of two hours in their vindica
tion ; but his arguments raade no impression
on the House, for at the close of the debate a
committee of twelve gentlemen, among whom
were Mr. Selden, Maynard, and Coke, was ap
pointed to search for the warrants by which
the convocation was held, after the Parliament
broke up, and for the letters patent of the be
nevolence, and for such other raaterlals as might
assist the House in their next debate upon this
aiguraent, which was appointed for Deceraber
14, when sorae of the members would have ag
gravated the crirae of the convocation to high
treason, but Sergeant Maynard and Mr. Bag
shaw moderated their resentments, by convin
cing thera that they were only in a praemunire.
At the close of the debate the House came to
the following i-esolutions :
Resolved ncm. contradicenlc, " That the cler
gy of England, convened in any convocation or
synod, or otherwise, have no power to make
any constitutions, canons, or acts whatsoever,
in raatters of doctrine, discipline, or, otherwise,
to bind the clergy or laity of the land, without
con.sent of Parliaraent.
Resolved, " That the several constitutions
and canons ecclesiastical, treated upqn by the
Archbishops of Canterbury and York, presidents
of the convocations for their respective prov
inces, and the rest ofthe bishops and clergy of
those provinces, and agreed upon with the
king's raajesty's license, in their several synods
begun at London and York, 1640, do not bind
the clergy or laity of the land, or either of ihem.
Resolved, " That the several constitutions
and canons made and agreed to in the convo
cations or synods above mentioned, do contain
in them many matters contrary to the king's
prerogative, to the fundaraental laws and stat
utes of this realm, to the rights of Parliament,
to the property and liberty of the subject, and
matters tending to sedition, and of dangerous
consequence. Resolved, " That the several grants of benev
olences or contributions, granted lo his most
excellent majesty by the clergy of the provinces
of Canterbury and "Vork, in the several convo
cations or synods holden at London and York
in the year 1640, are contrary to the laws, and
ought not to bind the clergy,"

in this point, is no farther concerned than as he faith
fully represents Lord Digby's speech. This Dr, Grey
does not dispute. Yet it may be proper to observe,
that a great lawyer says " that the grants of the cler
gy were Ulegal, and not binding, unless they were
confirmed in Parliament ;" and that Lord Clarendon,
speaking of this convocation giving subsidies out of
Parliament, censures it as doing that " which it cer
tainly might not do." The last subsidies granted by
the clergy were those confirmed by the statute 15
Car. 1., cap. x. Since which. Ibis practice of grant
ing ecclesiastical subsidies has given way to another
method of taxation, comprehending the clergy as
well as the laity ; and in recompense for it, the ben
eficed clergy are allowed to vote for knights of the
shire, — Collyer's Eccles. Hist., vol. ii., p. 795. Black-
stone's Commentaries, vol. i., p. 311, 8vo, 1778; and
Lord Clarendon's Hist., vol. i., p. 148. — Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

353

If the first of these resolutions he agreeable
to law, I apprehend there were then no canons
subsisting, lor those of 1603 were not brought
into Parliament, but', being raade in a parlia
mentary convocation, were ratified by the Icing
under the great seal, and so became binding on
the clergy, according to the statute of the 25th
of King Henry VIII. In the Saxon times, all
ecclesiastical laws and constitutions were con
firmed by the peers, and by the representatives
-of the people ;* but those great councils, to
which our Parliaments succeed, being made up
of laics and ecclesiastics, were afterward separ
ated, and then the clergy did their business by
themselves, and enacted laws without confirm
ation of king or Parliament, during the reign
•of popery, till the act of the submission of the
-clergy to King Henry VIIL, so that the claim
of making canons without the sanction of Par
liaraent seemed to stand upon no other founda
tion than the usurped power of the pope : nor
¦did the Parliaments of those times yield up their
¦right ; for in the 51st of Edward III. the Cora
mons passed a bill that no act or ordinance
¦should be made for the future upon the petition
-of the clergy, without the consent of the Com
mons ; " and that the said Commons should
jaot be bound for the future by any constitu
tions of the clergy to which they had not given
their consent in Parliament." But the bill be
ing dropped, things went on upon the former
footing tiU the reign of King Henry VIII.,!
when the pope's usurped power being abolish-
>ed, both Parhament and clergy agreed, by the
jVot of Submission, that no canons should be
* Dr. Grey controverts, and says, " 1 should be
,glad to know what authority he has for this asser
tion." It is not for the editor to give the authority,
when Mr. Neal has not himself referred to it ; but he
-can supply the want of it by an authority which, if
Dr. Grey were li-ving, would command his respect,
viz., that of Dr. Burn, who tells us that, " even in the
Saxon times, if the subject of any laws was for the
¦outward peace and temporal government of the
'Church, such laws were properly ordained by the
liing and his great council of clergy and laity inter
mixed, as our acts of Parliament are still made.
But if there was any doctrine to be tried, or any ex-
-ercise of pure discipline to be reformed, then the
¦clergy of the great council departed into a separate
-synod, and there acted as the proper judges. Only
when they had thus provided for the state of reUgion,
they brought their canons from the synod to Ihe
,great council, to be ratified by the king, with the ad-
wice of his great men, and so made the consritutions
^of the Church to be laws of the realm. And the
Norman revolution made no change in this respect."
This author farther says, " that the convocation-tax
4id always pass both houses of Parliament, since it
<;ould not bind as a law till it had the consent of the
¦Legislature." Judge Fosterj in his examination of
Bishop Gibson's Codex, appeals to the laws of Eth-
«lbert and Witbred, kings of Kent, and of Ina of
'Wessex ; to the laws of Alfred, Edward the Elder,
Athelstan, Edmund, Edgar, and Canute, as proofs
that the ecclesiastical and civU concerns of the king-
¦dom were not, in the times ofthe Saxons, under the
care of two' separate legislatures, and subject to dif
ferent administrations, but blended together, and
•directed by one and the same Legislature, the great
<;ouncUs, or, in modern style, the ParUaments, of the
respective kingdoms during the heptarchy, and of the
United Kingdom aitervrard.— Bum's Ecclesiastical
Law, vol. ii., p. 22, 26, 8vo. An Examination of the
.Scheme of Church Power laid down in the Codex, p.
1?0, &c.— En. t FuUer's Appeal, p. 42.
Vol. L— Y y

binding without the royal assent ; and that the
clergy in convocation should not so much as
consult about any without the king's special
license. But Sergeant Maynard delivered it as
his opinion in the House, that it did not follow,
that because the clergy raight not make canons
without the king's license, that therefore they
might make them and bind them on the clergy
by his license alone ; for this were to take
away the ancient rights of Parliament before
the pope's usurpation, which they never yielded
up, nor does the act of submission of the clergy
take away. Upon this reasoning the Coramons
voted their first resolution, the strength of
which I leave to the reader's consideration.
The arguments upon which the other resolu
tions are founded will be laid together, after we
have related the proceedings of the convoca
tion. The convocation was opened November 4,
1640. Dr. Bargrave, dean of Canterbury,
preached the sermon, and Dr. Steward, dean
of Chichester, was chosen prolocutor, and pre
sented to the archbishop's acceptance in King
Henry VII. 's chapel, when his grace made a
pathetic speech, lamenting the danger of the
Church, and exhorting every one present to
perform the duty of their places with resolu
tion, and not to be wanting to theraselves or
the cause of religion ; but nothing of moment
was transacted, there being no commission
from the king; only Mr. Warraistre, one ofthe
clerks for the diocess of Worcester, being con
vinced of the invalidity of the late canons,
moved the House that they might cover the pit
which they had opened, and prevent a parlia-
raentary inquisition, by petitioning the king for
leave to review them ; but his motion was re
jected, the House being of opinion that the can
ons were justifiable ; nor would they appear so
mean as to condemn themselves before they
were accused. Mr. Warraistre suffered in the
opinion of his brethren within doors for his
cowardly speech, and was reproached from
without as an enemy to the Church and a turn
coat, because he had subscribed those articles
which now he conderaned. This obliged him
to publish his speech to the world, wherein,
after having declared his satisfaction in the
doctrine, discipline; and governraent of the
Church of England, as far as it is established
by law, he goes on to wish there had been no
private innovations introduced ; for though he
approves of an outward reverence in the wor
ship of God, he is against directing it to altars
and images. He apprehends it reasonable that
such innocent ceremonies as have a proper ten
dency to decency and order should be retained,
but wishes the removal of crosses and images
out of churches, as scandalous and supersti
tious, having an apparent tendency towards
idolatry ; and that there raight he no lighted
candles in the daytirae ; he then gives his rea
sons against the oath in the sixth canon, and
concludes with these words : " If ray subscrip
tion be urged against what I have said, I was
persuaded it was the practice of synods and
councUs that the whole body shoultl subscribe
to those acts which are passed by the major
part as synodical acts, notwithstanding their
private dissent ; if my subscription implied any
more, I do so far recant and condemn it in my-

354
self, and desire pardon both of God and the
Church, resolving, by God's grace, to be more
cautious hereafter." Mr ^^¦armistre•s behav
iour showed him lo be a wise and discreet cler
gyman ; and his being sequestered frora his liv
ings sorae lime after, for not submitting to the
Parliament, shows him to have been a man of
principle, not to be moved from his integrity by
the resentments of his friends or the flatteries
of his enemies. And though the convocation
w-as so sanguine at their first coming togeth
er as to despise Mr. Warraistre's motion, yet
w-hen they saw the vigorous resolutions of the
House of Commons against the canons, and the
articles of impeachraent against the raetropoli
tan for high treason, one of which was for
compiling the late canons, they were dispirited,
and in a few weeks deserted their stations in
the Convocation-house ; the bishops also dis
continued their meetings, and in a few weeks
both houses dwindled to nothing, and broke up
without either adjournment or prorogation.
To return to the Parliament. It was argued
against the late convocation, that they were no
legal assembly after the dissolution of the Par
liament ; that his majesty had no more power
to continue them than to recall his Parliament ;*
nor could he, by his letters patent, convert them
into a national or provincial synod, because the
right of their election ceasing at the expiration
ofthe convocation, they ought to have been re-
chosen before they could act in the name of the
clergy whom they represented, or bind them by
their decrees. It is contrary to all law and
reason in the world, that a number of men, met
together in a convocation, upon a summons lim
ited to a certain tirae, should, after the expira
tion of that time, by a new commission, be
changed into a national or provincial synod,
without the voice or election of any one-person
concerned. The Commons were therefore at a
loss by what name to call this 'extraordinary
asserably, being in their opinion neither convo
cation nor synod, because no representative
body of the clergy. The w-ords convocation

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

* Archbishop Laud, to exculpate himself from
blame in this matter, declared that " this sitting of
the convocation was not by his advice or desire, but
that he humbly desired a writ to dissolve it." It was
set up in defence of 'this measure (and the argument
has since been adopted by Dr. Warner), that the Par
Uament and convocation, being separate bodies, and
convened by different writs, the dissolution of the
former dop.s not necessarily infer the dissolution of
the latter, which could not rise till discharged by
another writ. Dr. Burn has advanced this reason
into a general principle, bat on no other authority
than that of Dr. Warner in this case. The lord-
keeper, the judges, and king's council assured the
king that the clergy might legally continue their sit
ting. But much allowance is to be made for the in
fluence under which the opinion of court-lawyers is
given ; as in the case of ship-money. Mr. Neal's
reasoning on this point carries great weight with it.
Lord Clarendon speaks of the continued sitting of the
convocation as rather unprecedented ; for he says that
this assembling of the clergv customarily began and
ended with Parliaments. It was evidently impoUtic,
in such a conjuncture of time, to deviate from the
custom, and to stretch the prerogative. Dr. Grey's
Eiununriiiim in loc. Nalson's Collection, vol, i, p.
365. Wiimtr's Eccles. Hist, vol, u,, p. 535. Bum's
Eccles. Law, vol. u., p. 27 ; and Lord Clarendon's Hist.,
VOL L, p. 148.— Ed.

and synod are convertible terms, signifying the
same thing, and it is cs.-^ential to both that they
be chosen by (if they are to make constitutions
and canons to bind) the clergy. Some, indeed,
have thought of a small distinction, as that ,i
convocation must begin and end wilh the Par
liament, whereas a synod may be called by
the king out of Parliament ; but then suclv
an asserably cannot give subsidies for their
brethren, nor make laws by which they wiU be
bound. The objections to the particular canons were
these :
1. Against the first canon it was argued, that
the compilers of it had invaded the rights and
prerogatives of Parliament, by pretending lo
settle and declare the extent of the king's pow
er, and the subjects' obedience.
By declaring the sacred order of kings to he
of Divine right, founded in the prime laws of
nature and revelation, by which they condemn
ed all other governments.
By affirming that the king had an absolute
power over all his subjects, and a right to the
subsidies and aids of his people without consent
of Parliaraent.
By affirming that subjects raay not bear arms-
against their king, either offensive or defensive.
upon any pretence whatsoever, upon pain of
receiving to themselves damnation.
By taking upon themselves to define some
things to be treason not included in the statute
of treasons.
And, lastly, by inflicting a penalty on such
of the kiqg's subjects as shaU dare to disobey
them, in not reading and publishing the above-
mentioned particulars ; in all which cases it
was averred that they had " invaded the rights
of Parliament, destroyed the liberty of the sub
ject, and subverted the very fundamental laws
and constitutions of England."
2. It was objected against the second canon,
that they had assumed the legislative power, in
appointing a new holyday contrary to the stat
ute, which says that there shaU be such and.
such holydays, and no more.
4, It was objected against the fourth eanon,
that whereas the determination of heresy is ex
pressly reserved to Parliament, the convoca
tion had declared that to be heresy which the law
takes no notice of, and had condemned Socin
ianism in general, without declaring what was
included under that denomination, so that after
aU it was left in their own breasts whom they
would condemn and censure under that char
acter. 6. It was objected against the sixth canon,
that it imposed a new oath upon the subject,
which is a power equal, if not superior, lo the
making a new law.* It was argued likewise
against the oath itself, that in sorae parts it was
* The archbishop, in reply to this objection, refer
red to various canons made in King James's time, and
appointing different oaths, merely by the authority
of convocation, viz., canons 40, 118, 103, and 127, as
precedents, which had never been declared illegal,
nor the makers of them censured by Parliaments ;
and which justified, therefore, the power assumed
by this convocation. His lordship in urging, and Dr.
Grey in repeating, this defence, did not perceive that
it is a bad and insufficient plea for doing wrong, that
others had escaped the censure and punishinent due
to iUegal conduct. — Grey's Examination in loc. — Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

355

Very amblglious and doubtful, and in others di
rectly false and illegal.
We are to swear in the oath that " we ap
prove the doctrine, discipline, or government
established in the Church of England," and yet
we are not told wherein that doctrine and dis
cipline are contained ; whether by the doctrine
of the Church we are to understand only the
Thirty-nine Articles, or likewise the Homilies
and Church catechism ; and by the discipline,
only the Book of Canons, or likewise all other
ecclesiastical orders not repealed by statute ;
for it is observable that the words of the oath
are, " as it is estabUshed," and not as it is es
tabUshed by law. And the ambiguity is farther
increased by that remarkable et coetei-a, inserted.
in the' body of the oath ; for whereas oaths
ought to be explicit, and the sense of the words
as clear and determined as possible, we are
here to swear to we know not what, to some
thing that is not expressed ; by which raeans
we are left to the arbitrary interpretation of the
judge, and may be involved in the guilt of per
jury before we are aware.
But, besides the ambiguity of the oath, it con
tains some things false and illegal ; for it af
firms the government of the Church by arch
bishops, bishops, deans, and archdeacons, to be
of Divine right ; for after we have sworn to the
hierarchy as established by the law ofthe land,
we are to swear farther, that " by right it ought
so to stand :" which words are a mere tautolo
gy, or else must infer some farther right than
that which is included in the legal establishment,
which can be 1,0 other than a Divine right.
Now, though it should be allowed that the gov
ernment of the Church by bishops is of Divine
right, yet certainly archbishops, deans, and arch
deacons can have no pretence to that claim.
Besides, to swear " never to give our consent
to alter the government of this Church by arch
bishops, bishops, &c., as it stands now estab
lished," is directly contrary to the oath of su
premacy, for in that oath we are sworn to as
sist his majesty in the exercise of his ecclesias
tical jurisdiction or government, by his com
mission under the great seal, directed to such
persons as he shaU think raeet ; so that if his
majesty should think fit at any time to commis
sion other persons to exercise ecclesiastical
jurisdiction than at present, we are sworn by
the oath of supremacy not only to consent, but
to aid and assist him in it, whereas in this
new oath we swear never to consent to any
such alteration.
Nothing is more evident than that the disci
pline of the Church is alterable ; the Church
itself laments the want of godly discipline, and
many of the clergy and laity wish and desire an
amendment ; it is therefore very unreasonable
that all who take degrees ip the universities,
many of whom may be members of Parliament,
shall be sworn beforehand "never to consent
to any alteration." And though it is known to
aU the world that many ofthe conforming cler
gy are dissatisfied with some branches of the
present establishment, yet they are to swear
that they take this oath " heartUy and wiUing
ly," though they are compelled to it under the
penalties of suspension and deprivation. Some
objections were made to the seventh and other
canons, but these were the chief

Archbishop Laud, in his answer to the im
peachraent of the House of Coramons against
himself, boldly undertakes to refute aU these
objections, and lo justify the whole, and every
branch of the canons ; his words are these : " I
hope I ara able to make it good in any learned
assembly in Christendom, that this oath, and
all those canons (then made, and here before
recited), and every branch in them, are just and
orthodox, and moderate, and raost necessary
for the present condition of the Church of Eng
land, how unwelcome soever to the present dis
tempers."* Lord Clarendon expresses himself
modestly on the other side ; he doubts whether
the convocation was a legal assembly after the
dissolution of the Parliament, and is very sure
that their proceedings are not to be justified.
"The Convocation house," says he, "which is
the regular and legal assembling of the clergy,
was, after the deterraination of the Parliaraent,
continued by a new writ under the proper title of
a synod ; made canons, which it was thought
it raight do ; and gave subsidies out of Parlia
raent, and enjoined oaths, which certainly it
might not do ; in a word, did raany things
which in the best of times raight have been
questioned, and, therefore, were sure to be con
demned in the worst." The Parliament that
sat after the Restoration was of the same mind
with his lordship, forasmuch as these canons
were excepted out of the act of 13 Car. IL, cap.
xii., and declared of no validity. Mr. Echard is
of opinion that the synod that fraraed these
canons was not a legal representative of the
clergy after the dissolution of the two houses.
But Bishop Kennet, in his complete history,
says that these public censures of the canons
were grounded uptin prejudice and faction ; that
it is hard to find any defect of legality in the
making of them ; and that, if these canons were
not binding, we have no proper canons since
the Reformation ; he therefore wishes thera, or
some others Uke them, revived, because "in
very much of doctrine and discipline they are a
good example to any future convocation ; and
that we can hardly hope for unity, or any
tolerable regularity, without some constitutiona
ofthe like nature." Strange! that a dignified
clergyraan, who held his bishopric upon revo
lution principles, should wish the subversion of
the Constitution of his country, and declare for
principles of persecution. If I might have lib
erty to wish, it should be that neither we nor
our posterity may ever enjoy the blessings of
unity and regularity upon the footing of such
canons. Upon the same day that the House passed the
above-raentioned resolutions against the can
ons, several warm speeches werejnade against

* Dr. Grey asks here, "Where does the archbish
op say this ? Our historian quotes no aulhority ; and
as he is often faulty when he quotes chapter and
verse, so without it 1 am unwilling whoUy to depend
upon his bare ipse dixit." The editor is not able, at
present, to supply here Mr. Neal's omission ; but he
finds the same words oi Archbishop Laud quoted by
Dr. Warner (who never refers to his authorities), as
spoken in the House of Lords. And the doctor ex
presses on them his belief that, as to many of the
articles contained in the canons, the archbishop here
undertook to do what he would have found it diffi
cult to make good. — Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii., p.
535.— Ed.

356

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

the Archbishop of Canterbury as the chief au
thor of them ; and a committee was appointed
to inquire more particularly how far his grace
had been concerned in the proceedings of the
convocation, and in the treasonable design of
subverting the religion and laws of his country,
in order to draw up articles against him. Next
day the Earl of Bristol acquainted the House
of Lords that the Scots commissioners had
presented some papers against the Archbishop
of Canterbury,* which were read by the Lord
Paget, and then reported to the House of Cora
mons, at a conference between the two houses.
Their charge consisted of divers grievances
(which had occasioned great disturbances in
the kingdom of Scotland), ranged under three
heads, of all which they challenged the arch
bishop to be the chief author upon earth.
The first branch ol the charge consisted of
" divers alterations in religion, iraposed upon
them without order and against law, contrary
to the form established in their Kirk;" as, his
enjoining the bishops to appear in the chapel in
their whites (1), contrary to the custom of their
Kirk and the archbishop's own promise; his di
recting the English service to be read in the
chapel twice a day (2) ; his ordering a list of
those counsellors and senators ofthe CoUege of
Justice who did not communicate in the chapel,
according to a form received in their Kirk, to be
sent up to him, in order to their being punish
ed (3) ; his presumptuous censuring the practice
of the Kirk in fasting soraetiraes on the Lord's
Day, as opposite to Christianity itself (4) ; his ob-
* "Mr. Neal," says Dr. Grey, "has given us all
the objections of the Scots against the archbishop ;
and 1 am so oldfashioned a person as to think that
the archbishop's answers to their objections should
likewise have been produced by an impartial histo
rian." He renews the same complaint against our
author in his second volume, p. 173. Mr. Neal's rea
son for passing over the archbishop's answer appears
to have been, that his grace evaded the whole charge
at his trial by pleading the Act of Oblivion at the pa
cification of the Scots troubles. But, as Dr. Grey
has endeavoured to supply Mr. Neal's deficiency, the
substance of the archbishop's defences shall be given
in the following notes ; and the reader will judge of
their importance, and of Nr. Neal's conduct in omit
ting them.— Ed.
(1.) His grace replies to this charge, " that he un
derstood himseU a great deal better than to enjoin
where he had no power ; and perhaps he might ex
press his majesty's command, as dean of his chapel
in England, that the service in Scotland should be
kept answerable to it here as much as might be." —
Ed.
(2.) Here his grace pleads his majesty's command,
and his hope that it was no crime for a bishop in
England to signify to one in Scotland the king's
pleasure concerning the service of his own chapel. —
(3.) The defence set up on this head by the arch
bishop was, the king's command ; and that the form
prescribed, which was kneeUng, was an article of the
Synod of Perth, raade in a General Assembly, and
confirmed by act of Parhament. As to the requisition
itself, he pleaded that it amounted to no more than
if his majesty should command all his judges and
cjunsellors in England, once in the year, to receive
the communion in his chapel at Whitehall. — Ed.
(4.) The archbishop vindicates himself in this in
stance, by ample testimonies from the fathers, and
by decrees of ancient councils, to prove that, in the
ancient Church, it was held unlawful to fast on the
Lord's Day. The fact, there is no doubt, was so,

taining warrants for the sitting ofa High Com
mission Court once a week, al Edinburgh (5) ;
and his directing the taking down of galleries
and stone walls in the kirks of Edinburgh and si
Andrew's, to raake way for altars and adoration
towards the east (6).
The second branch of their charge was, "his
obtruding upon them a book of canons and con
stitutions ecclesiastical, devised for the estab
lishing a tyrannical power in ,ne persons of
their prelates, over the cons' ences, liberties,
and goods of the people (7) ; and for abolishing
that discipline and government of their Kirk,
which was settled by law, and had obtained
among them ever since the Reformation." For
proof of this, they alleged that the Book of Can
ons was corrected, altered, and enlarged by
hira at his pleasure, as appears hy the interline
ations and marginal notes in the book, written
with the archbishop's own hand ; that he had
added some entire new canons, and altered oth
ers in favour of superstition and popery ; and,
in several instances relating to the censures of
the Churoh, had lodged an unbounded power in
the prelates over the consciences of men.
The third and great innovation with which
they charged the archbishop was, " the Book
of Common Prayer, administration of the sac
raments, and other parts of Divine worship,
brought in without warrant from their Kirk, to
be universally received as the only form of Di
vine service, under the highest pains, both civU
and ecclesiastical (1) ; which book contained

and it gave the archbishop a ground of arguing with
the Church of Scotland on their practice : but would
it justify the asperity of censure towards weaker
Christians, or the exercise of authority where every
one ought lo be persuaded in his own mind '! — Ed.
(5.) His grace answers to this charge, that the
warrants were not procured by him, but by a Scotch
man of good place, employed about it by the bish
ops ; and that the High Commission Court was set
tled, and in full execution in the Church of Scotland,
in 1610, before ever he appeared in public life. — En.
(6.) The archbishop absolutely denies, to the best
of his memory, giving command or direction for la-
king down the galleries of St. Andrew's ; and urges,
that it was very improbable that he should issue such
commands where he had nothing, who in London,
and other parts of his province, permitted the galler
ies of the churches to stand. As to the galleries and
stone walls in the kirks of Edinburgh, they were re
moved by the king's command ; not to make way for
altars and adoration towards the east, but to convert
the two churches into a cathedral. — Ed.
(7.) The term " obtruding" the archbishop thinks
bold, especially as pointing at the king's authonty,
whose command enjoined the Book of Canons on the
Church of Scotland, and who, in this, exercised no
other power than that which King James challenged
as belonging to him in right of his crown. His grace
does not allow the imputations cast on the Book of
Canons ; and if they did not belong to them, he pleads
that it was owing to invincible ignorance and the
Scotch bishops, who would not tell wherein the can
ons went against their laws, if they did. As to him
self, it was his constant advice, in the whole busi
ness, that nothing against law should be attempted.
—Ed. (1.) "That the liturgy was brought in without
warrant of the Kirk," if it were true, the archbishop
pleads was the fault of the Scotch prelates, whom
he had, on all occasions, urged to do nothing, in this
particular, without warrant of law ; and lo whom,
though he approved the liturgy and obeyed his maj
esty's command in helping lo or^'er that book, he

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

337

many popish errors and cereraonies repugnant
to tlieir confession of faith, constitutions of
their General Asserablies, and to acts of Parlia
ment." Several of these errors are raentioned
in the article, and they declare theraselves
ready, when desired, to discover a great raany
more of the same kind ; all which were im
posed upon tlie kingdom, contrary to their ear
nest supplications ; and, upon their refusal to
receive the servioe-book, they were, by his
grace's instigation, declared rebels and trai
tors (2) ; an army was raised to subdue them,
and a prayer, composed and printed hy his di
rection, to be read in all the parish churches in
England, in tirae of Divine- service, wherein
they are called " traitorous subjects, having cast
off all obedience to their sovereign ;" and sup
plication is made to the Alraighty to cover their
faces wilh shame, as enemies to God and the
king. They therefore pray that the archbish
op* may be immediately removed from his maj
esty's presence, and that he may be brought to
a trial, and receive such censure as he. has de
served, according to the laws of the kingdom.
The archbishop has left behind him a partic
ular answer to these articles in his diary,t which
is written with peculiar sharpness of style, and
discovers a great opinion of his own abilities,
and a contempt of his adversaries ; but, either
from a distrust of the strength of his reply or
for some other reasons, his grace was pleased
wisely to evade the whole charge at his trial,
by pleading the Act of Oblivion (3) at the pacifi
cation ofthe Scots troubles, t
When the report of these articles was made
to the Commons, the resentments of the House
against the archbishop iraraediately broke out
into a flarae ; many severe speeches were raade
against his late conduct ; and, among others,
one was by Sir Harbottle Grimstone, speaker
of that Parliament which restored King Charles
II., who stood up and said, " that this great man,
the Archbishop of Canterbury, was the very sty
of all that pestilential filth that had infested the
government ; that he was the only man that
had advanced those who, together with hira
self, had been the authors of all the miseries
the nation, now groaned under ; that he had
managed all the projects that had been set on
foot for these ten years past, and had conde-

whoUy left the manner of introducing it, because he
was ignorant of the laws of Scotland. — Ed.
(2.) His grace contends that they deserved these
titles, but he did not procure that they should be de
clared such ; but the proclamation fixing these names
on thera went out by the common advice of the lords
ofthe council. — Ed.
* In the original, " this great firebrand." — Dr. Grey.
t In the History of his Troubles and Trial. — Dr.
Grey. (3.) This Dr. Grey denies, and adds, " that he
pleaded the king'sispecial pardon." The doctor con
founds here two different matters. The Act of Obliv
ion was pleaded by his grace before the trial came
on, to cover himself from the charge of the Scots
commissioners ; the king's pardon was produced
when the trial was over, in bar of the ordinance
passed for his execution Mr. Neal, in which he is
supported by the authority of Collyer, speaks of the
former. Lord Clarendon, whom Dr. Grey quotes,
expressly speaks of the latter. The reader ¦wiU not
deem it generous in the doctor to impeach Mr. Neal's
veracity on the ground of his own mistake. — Ed.
X Collyer's Eceles. Hist., vol.i., p. 380,

scended so low as to deal in tobacco, by which
thousands of poor people had been turned out
of their trades; for which they served an ap
prenticeship ; that he had been charged in this
house, upon very strong proof, with designs to
subvert the government, and alter the Protest
ant religion in this kingdom as well as in Scot
land ; and there is scarce any grievance or
complaint comes before the House wherein he
is not raentioned, like an angry wasp, leaving
his sting in the bottom of everything." He
therefore moved that the charge of the Scots
commissioners might be supported by an im
peachment of their own, and that the ques
tion raight now be put, whether the archbishop
had been guUty of high treason 1 which being
voted, Mr. HoUis* was immediately sent up to
the bar of the House of Lords to impeach him
in the narae of all the commons of England,
and to desire that his person might be seques
tered, and that, in convenient tirae, they would
bring up the particulars of their charge ; upon
which, his- grace, being commanded to with
draw, stood up in his place and said, "that he
was heartily sorry for the offence taken against
him, but humbly desired their lordships to look
upon the whole course of his life, which was
such as that, he was persuaded, not one man
in the House of Coramons did believe in his
heart that he was a traitor." To which the
Earl of Essex replied, " that it was a high re^
flection upon the whole House of Commons to
suppose that they would charge him with a
crime which themselves did not believe." Af
ter this his grace withdrew, and being called in
again, was deUvered to the usher, of the black
rod, to be kept in safe.custody till the House of
Coraraons should deliver in their articles of im
peachment. Upon the 26th of February, Mr. Pym, Mr.
Harapden, and Mr. Maynard, by order of the
Commons, went up to the Lords, and at the
bar of that house presented their lordships with
fourteen articles, in maintenance of their for
mer charge of high treason against the archbish
op, which were read, his grace being present.
In the first, he is charged with endeavouring
to subvert the Constitution, by introducing an
arbitrary power of government, without any
limitation or rule of law. In the second, he is
charged with procuring sermons to be preached,
and other pamphlets to be printed, in which the
authority of Parliaments is denied, and the ab
solute power of the king asserted lo be agreea
ble to the law of God. The third article char
ges hira with interrupting the course of justice,
by raessages, threatenings, and promises to the
judges. The fourth, with seUing justice in his
own person, under colour. of his ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, and with advising his majesty to
sell places of judicature, contrary to law. In
the fifth, he is charged with the canons and oath
imposed on the subject by the late convocation.
In the sixth, with robbing the king of suprema
cy, by denying the ecclesiastical jurisdiction- to
be derived from the crown. In the seventh,
with bringing in popish doctrines, opinions, and
ceremonies, contrary to the Articles, of the
Church, and cruelly persecuting those who op
pose them. In the eighth, he is charged with
* Denzil HolUs was brother-in-law to the Earl of
Strafford.— C.

358

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

promoting persons to the highest and best pre
ferments in the Church who are corrupt in doc
trine and manners. In the ninth, with employ
ing such for his domestic chaplains as he knew
to be popishly affected, and comrailted lo them
the licensing of books, whereby such writings
have been published as have been scandalous
to the Protestant religion. The tenth article
charges hira with sundry attempts to reconcile
the Church of England with the Church of
Rome. The eleventh, with discountenancing
of preaching, and with silencing, depriving, im
prisoning, and banishing sundry godly and or
thodox ministers. The twelfth, with dividing
the Church of England from the foreign Prot
estant churches. The thirteenth, with being
the author of aU the late disturbances between
England and Scotland. And the last, with en
deavouring to bereave the kingdora of the legis
lative power, by alienating the king's mind frora
his ParUaraents.
At the delivery of these articles, Mr. Pym de
clared that the Commons reserved totheraselves
the liberty of presenting sorae additional arti
cles, by which they intended to make their
charge raore particular and certain as to the
time and other circumstances, and prayed their
lordships to put the cause into as quick a for
wardness as they could.
When the archbishop had heard the articles
read, he made his obeisance to the House, and
said " that it was a great and heavy charge, and
that he was unworthy to Uve if it could be made
good ; however, it was yet but in generals, and
generals made a great noise, but were no proof
For human fraUties he could not excuse him
self, but for corruption in the least degree he
feared no accuser that would speak truth. But
that which went nearest him was, that he was
thought false in his religion, as if he should
profess with the Church of England, and have
his heart at Rome." He then besought their
lordships that he might enlarge himself, and so
made a short reply to each article, which con
sisted in an absolute denial ofthe whole. The
Lords voted him to the Tower, whither he was
carried in Mr. Maxwell's cOach through the city,
on Monday, March 1. It was designed he should
have passe-1 incognito ; but an apprentice in
Newgate-street happening to know hira, raised
the raob, which surrounded the coach, and fol
lowed hira with huzzas and insults tiU he got
within the Tower gate. Indeed, such was the
universal hatred of all ranks and orders of men
against this insolent prelate, for his cruel usage
of those who had fallen into his hands in the
time of his prosperity, that no man's fall in the
whole kingdora was so unlaraented as his. His
grace being lodged in the Tower, thought it his
interest to be quiet, without so rauch as moving
the Lords to be brought to a trial, or putting in
his answer lo the articles of impeachment, till
the Commons, after two or three years, exhib
ited their additional articles, and raoved the
peers lo appoint a day for his trial.
Before the archbishop was confined, he had
the mortification to see most of the Church and
State prisoners released. November 16, the
Bishop of Lincoln was discharged from his ira
prisonment in the Tower, and his fine remitted.
. K?' ^^^ ""^'"S * P"''''<= '^s'- he appeared in the
Abbey Church at Westminster, and officiated as

dean. When he resumed his seat in the House
of Lords, he behaved with more temper than
either the king or the archbishop eould expert ;
whereupon his majesty sent for him, and en
deavoured to gain him over lo the court, by
promising to make him full satisfaction for his
past sufferings ; in order to which, his majesty
commanded aU the judgments that were entered
against hira lo be discharged, and within a
twelvemonth translated hira lo the Archbish
opric of Vork, wilh leave lo hold his deanery
of Westminster in commendam for three years ;
the bishop, therefore, never complained to tho
House of his sufferings, nor petitioned for satis
faction. Mr. Prynne, Mr. Burton, and Dr. Bastwick,
being remanded from the several islands to
which they had been confined upon their hum
ble petition to the House of Commons, were
met sorae miles out of town hy great numbers
of people on horseback, wilh rosemaries and
bays in their hats, and escorted into the city in a
sort of triumph, with loud aoclaraalions for their
deliverance;* and a few weeks after, the House
carae to the following resolutions : " That the
several judgraents against thera were Ulegal,
unjust, and against the liberty of the subject ;
that their several fines be remitted ; that they
be restored to their several professions ; and
that, for reparation of their losses, Mr. Burton
ought to have £6000, and Mr. Prynne and Dr.
Bastwick £5000 each, out of the estates of the

* Piynne gives the following account of his own
and Burton's entrance into London : " The next morn
ing, early, multitudes of their friends from London
and elsewhere met them at Stanes, and came flock
ing into them afresh every foot, till they came to
Brainford, where they dinad. AU the way from
Stanes to Brainford was very full of people, which
came to meet them and welcome them into England,
some in coaches, others on horseback, others on foot.
After dinner they took horse for London, riding both
together ; but the way between Brainford and Lon
don, though broad, was full of coaches, horses, and
people, to congratulate their return, that, they were
forced to make stops, and could ride scarcely one
mile an hour, so that it was almost night ere they
came to Charing Cross, when they encountered such
a world of people in the streets that they could hard
ly pass them ; the city marshal, when they came into
the Old Bailey, being forced to make way for them
with his horse troops ; the crowd of people was so
great that they were near three hours in passing from
charing Cross to their lodgings in the city, having
torches to Ught them when it grew dark. The peo
ple were so extraordinarily joyful of their return, that
they rang the bells hi most places they passed for
joy ; ran to salute them, and shake them by the hands,
crying out with one unanimous shout, ' Welcome
home! welcome home!' ' God bless you ! God bless
you !' ' God be thanked for yourreturn !' and the like ;
yea, they strewed the ways where they rode wilh
herbs and flowers, and, running to their gardens,
brought rosemaries and bays thence, which they gave
to them, and the company that rpde with them into
London, who were estimated to he about one hun
dred coaches, many of them having six horses apiece,
and at least two thousand horse ; those on foot being
innumerable. The day they came from Egham into
London, the sun arose most gloriously upon them
as soon as they came out of their inn, withont any
cloud (which they both observed), and so continued
shining all the day, without interposition of any ob
stacle to ecUpse its rays, so as heaven and earth
conspired together to smile upon them, and to con
gratulate their safe return from their bonds and ex-
Ues."— Pre;o(e»' Tyranny, p. 113-115. — C.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

359

Archbishop of Canterbury, the high commis
sioners, and those lords who had voted against
them in the Star Charaber ;" but the confusion
-of the tiraes prevented the payment of the
money. Dr. Leighton was released about the same
time, and his fine of £10,000 remitted: the
¦reading his petition drew tears from the House,
-being to this effect :
" The humble petition of Alexander Leighton,
-prisoner in the Fleet,
" Humbly showeth,
" That on February 17, 1630, he was appre
hended coraing frora sermon by a High Com-
-mission warrant, and dragged along the streets
Tvith bills and staves to London House. That
-the jaUer of Newgate being sent for, clapped
Jiira in irons, and carried him with a strong
power into a loathsome and ruinous dog-hole,
fuU of rats 'and mice, that had no Ught but a
-small grate, and the roof being uncovered, the
snow and rain beat in upon him, having no
'bedding, nor place to make a fire but the ruins
of an old smoky chimney. In this woful place
-he was shut up for fifteen weeks, nobody being
suffered to corae near him, till at length his
Tvife only was admitted.
" That the fourth day after his commitment,
the pursuivant, with a mighty multitude, came
to his house to search for Jesuits' books, and
•used his wife in such a barbarous and inhuman
manner as he is ashamed to express ; that they
rifled every person and place, holding a pistol
-to the breast of a chUd of five years old, tlireat-
'ening to kUl him if he did not discover the
tooks ; that they broke open chests, presses,
-boxes, and carried away everything, even house
hold stuff, apparel, arms, and other things ;
that at the end of fifteen weeks he was served
-with a subpoena, on an information laid against
hira hy Sir Robert Heath, attorney-general,
whose dealing with hira was full of cruelty and
-<leceit ; but he was then sick, and, in the ofjin-
'ion of four physicians, thought to be poisoned,
because all his hair and skin came off ; that in
-the height of this sickness the cruel sentence
was passed upon him raentioned in the year
1630, and executed November 26 foUowing,
when he received thirty-six stripes upon his
- naked back with a threefold cord, his hands be
ing tied to a stake, and then stood almost two
-hours in the pillory, in the frost and snow, be
fore he was branded in the face, his nose slit,
and his ears cut off; that after this he -vv'as car
ried by water to the Fleet, and shut up in such
a room that he was never well, and, after eight
years, was turned into the common jail." The
House voted him satisfaction for his sufferings ;
but it does not appear that he actually received
any, except being keeper of Lambeth House as
a prison, for which he must be very unfit, being
now in the seventy-second year of his age, and
/Worn out with poverty, weakness, and pain.
Besides those afore named, there were like
wise set at liberty Dr. Osbaldeston, one of the
prebendaries of Westminster ; the Reverend
' Mr. Henry Wilkinson, B.D., of Magdalen HaU,
Oxford, Mr. Smith, Wilson, Small, Cooper, and
3rewer, who had been in prison fourteen
.years;* Mr. George Walker, who had been
/ committed for preaching a sermon, October 14,
* Nalson's Col., p. 571.

1638, at St. John the Evangelist's, London, and
detained four weeks in the hands of a messen-
geii, to whom he paid £20 fees.* This gentleman,
after his prosecution in the Star Chamber, had
been shut up ten weeks in the Gate-house, and
at last compelled to enter into a bond of £1000
to confine himself in his bi-other's house at
Chiswick, where he continued tiU this time, his
parsonage being sequestered ; and, in general,
all who were confined by the High Commission
were released, passing their words to be forth
coming whenever they should be called for.
The imprisonment of the above-mentioned
gentlemen being declared Ulegal, it is natural
to imagine the House would make some inqui
ry after their prosecutors. About the latter
end of January, Dr. Cosins, prebendary of Dur
ham, and afterward bishop of the diocess, was
sent for into custody on account of the super
stitious innovations whieh he had introduced
into that cathedral. t The doctor, in his an
swer, denied the whole charge, and as to the
particulars, he replied, that the marble altar
with clierubira was set up before he w-as preb
endary of the church ;t that he did not approve
of the iraage of God the Father, and that to his
knowledge there was no such representation in
the churoh at Durham ; that the crucifix with
a blue cap and golden beard was mistaken for
the top of Bishop Hatfield's tomb, which had
been erected raany years before ; that there
were but two candles on the comraunion-table,
and that no more were used on Candlemas
night than in the Christmas holydays ; that he
did not forbid the singing the psalras in raetre,^
nor direct the singing of the anthera to the
three kings of Colen, II nor use a consecrated
knife at the sacraraent. The Lords were so
far satisfied with the doctor's answer as not to
comrait him at present;! but the Commons hav
ing voted hira unfit to hold any ecclesiastical
promotion, the doctor, foreseeing the storm was
coming upon the Church, wisely withdrew into
France,** where he behaved discreetly and pru-

* Nalson's Col., p. 570. t Ibid., p. 273.
X But when Smart was one of the chapter; and
that many of the things objected to himself were in
troduced while his accuser was prebendary. — Dr.
Grey, from Collyer. — Ed.
ij But used to sing them himself with the people
at morning prayer. — Ed.
II But ordered it, on his first coming to the cathe
dral, to be cut out of the old song-book belonging to
the choristers ; and no such anthem had been sung
in the choir during his being there, nor, as far as his
inquiry could reach, for threescore years before. —
Dr. Grey, from Collyer. — Ed.
% The doctor's answer was entered on the rolls of
Parliament, and made good before the Lords by him
self, and by the witness that Smart and his son-in-
law produced against him. Upon this. Smart's law
yer told him, at the bar of the House of Lords, that
he was ashamed of the complaint, and refused to
proceed in the support of it. Collyer also says that
many of the lords declared that Smart had abused
the House of Commons by a groundless complaint
against Cosins, who, by an order from the Lords, de
livered to him by the Earl of Warwick, had liberty
to go where he pleased. — Eccles. Hist., vol. ii., p. 798.
—Ed.
** He fixed his residence in Paris, where he was
appointed chaplain to the Protestant part of Queen
Henrietta's family. Many advantageous offers were
made to him to tempt him over to the communion
of the Church of Rome, and he was also attacked

3(X)
dently till the Restoration, being softened in his
principles by age and sufferings,
Dr Matthew Wren, late Bishop of -\orwich,
and now of Ely, having been remarkably severe
against the Puritan clergy in his diocesses, the
inhabitants of Ipswich drew up a petition against
him, anil presented it to the House, December
22, 1640.* upon which the comraittee of Pariii-
menl exhibited a charge against hiin, consisting
of twenty-five articles, relating to the late inno
vations. It was carried up to the Lords by Sir
Thomas Widdrington, and sets forth, that du
ring the lime of his being Bishop of Norwich,
which was about two years, fifty ministers had
been excomraunicated, suspended, and deprived
" for not reading the second service at the
coramunion-table ; for not reading the Book of
Sports ; for using conceived prayers before the
afternoon sermon," &c, ; and that, by his rigor
ous severities, raany of his majesty's subjects,
to the number of three thousand, had removed
themselves, their families, and their estates to
Holland, and set up their manufactories there,
to the great prejudice ofthe trade of this king
dom. I do not find that the bishop put in a par
ticular answer to these artieles, nor was he ta
ken into custody, but only gave bond for his ap
pearance. Some time after, the Commons voted
him unfit to hold any ecclesiastical preferment
in the Church, and both Lords and Coramons
joined in a petition to the king to reraove the
said bishop from his person and service ; after
whieh he was imprisoned, with the rest of the
protesting bishops. Upon his release, he reti
red to his house at Downham, in the Isle of
Ely, from 'B'hence he was taken by a party of
Parliaraent soldiers, and conveyed to the Tow
er, where he continued a patient prisoner till
the end ofthe year 1659, without being brought
to his trial or admitted to bail.
Complaints were made against several other
bishops and clergymen, as Dr. Pierce, bishop of
Bath and Wells, Dr. Montague, bishop of Nor
wich, Dr. Owen, bishop of Landaff, and Dr.
Manwaring, bishop of St. David's ; but the
House had too many affairs upon their hands to
attend lo their prosecutions. Of the inferior
clergy, Dr, Stone, Chaffin, Aston, Jones, and
some others, who had been instruments of se
verity in the late times, were voted unfit for
ecclesiastical promotions. Dr. Layfield, arch
deacon of Essex, pleaded his privUege as a
member of convocation, according to an old po
pish statute of Henry VI. ,t but the comraittee
overruled it, and voted the doctor into custody

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

by threats of assassination, but continued an un
shaken Protestant. The arts of the papists succeed
ed with his only son, whom they prevailed with to
embrace the Catholic faith, and to lake upon him
religious orders. This was a very heavy affliction
10 his father, who, on this ground, left his estate
from him. — Granger's History of England, vol. ui,, p.
234, Svo : and Nalson's CoUectmns, voL i., p. 519. — Ed.
' Nnl-on's Collections, p. 002,
t There was no particular propriety, rather it was,
as Dr. Grey intimates, somewhat invidious in Mr.
Neal thus to characterize this statute, relative to the
privilege of the clergy <oming to convocation, as it
must, being of so ancient a date, necessarily be po
pish, as IS one fourth part of the statute law ; and
there are various instances of its being enforced since
the Reformation, and even in the present centurv, of
which Dr. Grey gives ample proof.— Ed.

of the sergeant-at-arms ; Dr. Pocklington, can
on of Windsor and prebendary of Peterborough,
was complaineil of for two books, one c-nliiled
the Christian .\ltar, the other Sunday no Sab
bath, which had been lieciised by Dr. Bray, one ,
of the arelibishop's chaplains. The doctor ac
knowledged his offence at the bar of Ihe House,
confessed that he had not examined tin! books
with that caution that he ought, and made a
public recantation in the (Jhuroh of Westrain
ster; but Pocklington, refusing to recant about
thirty false propositions which the Bishop of
Lincoln had collected out of his books, was sen
tenced by the lord-keeper " to be deprived of
his ecclesiastical preferments, to he forever disa
bled to hold any place or dignity in the Church or
commonwealth, never to come within the verge
of his majesty's court, and his hooks to be burned
by the hands ofthe coramon hangman, in the city
of London and the two universities." Both the
doctors died soon after. The number of peti
tions that were sent up to the committee of re
ligion from all parts of the country against their
clergy is incredible ;* some complaining of their
superstitious impositions, and others ofthe im
morality of their lives and neglect of their
cures, which shows the little esteem they had
araong the people, who were weary of their
yoke, regarding them no longer than they were
under the terror of their excommunications.
Such was the spirit of the populace that it
was difficult to prevent their outrunning au
thority, and tearing down in a tumultuous raan
ner what they were told had heen illegally set
up. At St. Saviour's, Southwark, the mob
pulled down the rails about the coraraunion-ta
ble. At Halstead, in Essex, they tore the sur
plice, and abused the service-book ; nay, when
the House of Coramons was assembled at St.
Margaret's, Westminster, as the priest was be
ginning his second service at the communion
table, some at the lower end of the church be-
gjn a psalm, which was followed by the con
gregation, so that the minister was forced to
desist. But, to prevent these seditious practi
ces for the future, the Lords and Commons pass- v
ed a very severe sentence on the rioters, and
published the following order, bearing date Jan
uary 16, 1640-1, appointing it to be read in all
the parish churches in London, Westminster,
and the borough of Southwark, viz. : " That
Divine service shall be performed as it is ap
pointed by the acts of Parliament of this realm,
and that all such as disturb that wholesome or
der shall be severely punished by law." But
then it was added, "that the parsons, vicars,
and curates of the several parishes shaU for
bear to introduce any rites or cereraonies that
may give offence, otherwise than those which

* Dr. Grey judges it not at all incredible ; because,
on the authority of Lord Clarendon, he adds, unfair
methods of obtaining petitions were used in those
times of iniquity and confusion. The disingenuous
art of which his lordship complains vvas procuring
signatures to a petition drawn up in modest and du
tiful terms, and then cutting it off and substituting
another of a different strain and spirit, and annexing
it to the list of subscribers. This practice, if his
lordship asserted it on good evidence, deserves to be
censured in the strongest terms. A virtuous mmd
has too often occasion to be surprised and shocked
at the arts which party prejudice and views can
adopt.-History ofthe Rcbellum, vol. i., p. 203.— Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

361

are established by the laws of the land." The
design of this proviso was to guard against the
late innovations, and particularly against the
clergy's refusing the sacrament to such as
would not receive it kneeling at the rails.
There was such a violent clamour against
the high clergy, that they could hardly officiate
according to the late injunctions without being
affronted, nor walk the streets in their habits,
says Nalson, without being reproached as po
pish priests, Caesar's friends, &c. The reputa
tion ofthe liturgy began to sink ; reading pray
ers was caUed a lifeless form of worship, and a
quenching the Holy Spirit, whose assistances
are promised in the matter as weU as the man
ner of our prayers ; besides, the nation being in
a crisis, it was Ihought impossible that the old
forms should be suitable to the exigency of the
times, or to the circumstances of particular
persons, who might desire a share in the devo
tions of the Church. Those ministers, there
fore, who prayed with fervency and devotion,*
in words of their own conception, suitable ei
ther to the sermon that was preached or to the
present urgency of affiiirs, had crowded and at
tentive auditories, while the ordinary service of
the Church was deserted as cold, formal, and
without spirit.
The discipline of the Church being relaxed,
the Brownists or Independents, who had as
sembled in private, and shifted frora house to
house for twenty or thirty years, resumed their
courage, and showed themselves in public. We
have given an account of their origin, from Mr.
Robinson and Mr. Jacob, in the year 1616, the
last of whora was succeeded by Mr. John La
thorp, formerly a cleMyman in Kent, but hav
ing renounced his orders, he became pastor of
this little society. In'Pis time the congregation
was discovered by Tomlinson, the bishop's
pursuivant, April 29, 1632, at the house of Mr.
Huraphry Barnet, a brewer's clerk, in Black
friars, where forty-two of whom were app»e-
hended and only eighteen escaped : of those
that were taken, sorae were confined in the
Clink, others in New Prison and the Gate
house, where they continued about two years,
and were then released upon baU, except Mr.
Lathorp, for whom no favour could be obtain
ed ; he therefore petitioned the king for liberty
to depart the kingdom, which being granted, he
went, in the year 1634, to New-England, with
about thirty of his followers. Mr. Lathorp was
a man of learning, and of a meek and quiet
spirit, but met with some uneasiness upon oc
casion of one of his people carrying his child to
* Dr. Grey gives some specimens of this, which
are very much in the style of those in the piece en
titled " Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence." The im
proved taste of this age, and rational devotion, revolt
at them. But Dr. Grey did not reflect that the of
fensive improprieties which he exposes were not pe
culiar to extemporary prayer, nor to the Puritans ;
they were agreeable to the fashion of the age, and incor
porated themselves with the precomposed prayers pub
lished by royal command. The thanksgiving for vic
tory in the north, 1643, affords an instance of this.
"Lord! look to the righteousness of our cause. See
the seamless coat of thy Son torn, the throne of thine
Anointed trampled on, thy Church invaded by sac
rilege, and thy people miserably deceived with Ues."
— Robinson's 7'ranslation of Claude's Essay on tlie
Composition ofa Sermon, vol. ii., p. 64. — Ed.
Vol. I.— Z z

be rebaptized by the parish minister, some of
the congregation insisting 'that it should be
baptized, because the other'adrainistration was
not valid ; but when the question was put, it
was carried in the negative, and resolved by the
majority not to make any declaration at pres
ent whether or no parish churches were true
churches. Upon this, some of the raore rigid,
and others who were dissatisfied about the law
fulness of infant baptism, desired their dismis
sion, which was granted them ; these set up by
themselves, and chose Mr. Jesse their minister,,
who laid the foundation ofthe first Baptist con
gregation* that I have met with in England.
But the rest renewed their covenant ". lo walk,
together in the ways of God, so far as he had
made them known or should make them known
to them, and to forsake all false ways," And
so steady were they to their vows, that hardly
an instance can be produced of one that de
serted to the Church by the severest prosecu
tions. Upon Mr. Lathorp's retiring into New-Eng
land, the congregationt chose for their pastor
the famous Mr. Canne,t author of the marginal
references in the Bible, who, after he had
preached to them in private houses for a year
or two, was driven by the severity ofthe times
info HoUand, and became pastor ofthe Brown
ist congregation at Amsterdam.
After Mr. Canne, Mr. Samuel Howe under
took the pastoral care of this little flock ; he was
a man of learning, and printed a small treatise.

* According to Crosby, this is a mistake, for there
were three Baptist churches in England before that
of Mr. Jesse. One formed by the separation of many
persons from Mr. Lathorp's in 1633, before he left
England. Another by a second separation from the
same church in 1638, the members of which joined
themselves to Mr. Spilsbury. And a third, which ori
ginated in 1639 with Mr. Green and Captain Spencer,
whom Mr. Paul Hobson joined. — Crosby's History ojf
the English Baptists, vol. iu., p. 41, 42. — Ed.
t This was the Church meeting in Deadman's
Place ; it aU along acted on the principle of mixed
communion, and chose their pastors indifferently
from among the Baptists or P^dobaplists. li this-
Church weathered through the period of the com
monwealth, it must have been scattered by persecu
tion soon after the Restoration. — Wilson's Dissent
ing Churches, vol. iv,, p. 124. — C.
X Crosby says that the church of which Mr..
Canne, Mr. Samuel Howe, and Mr. Stephen More-
were successively pastors, was constituted and plant
ed by Mr. Hubbard. And it is not certain whether
Mr. Canne was a Baptist or not. He was the au
thor of three sets of notes on the Bible, which ac
companied three different editions of it. One print
ed by him at Amsterdam, 1647, which refers to a.
former one, and professes to add " many Hebraisms,
diversitie of readings, with consonancie of paralleL
Scriptures, taken out of the last annotation, and all
set in due order and place." Another is commonly
known, and has been often reprinted. There was
also an impression of it at Amsterdam, 1664. A new
edition of the Bible of 1664 is a desideratum. — Two
Treatises of Henry Ainsworth, pref, p. 35, note ; and
Crosby, vol. ui., p. 40. — Ed. Mr. Canne was, beyond
all doubt, a Baptist, for the records of the church at
Broadmead, Bristol, which separated from the Estab
lishment in 1640, mention Mr. Canne as having first
settled them in the order of a Christian Church-
The minutes run thus: "The Providence of God
brought to this city one Mr. Canne, a baptized man-
It was that Mr. Canne that made notes and refer
ences upon the Bible," &c. — Wilson's Hist, of Disi-
senting Churches, vol. iv., p. 128-9. — C.

%2

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

-called " The Sufficiency of the Spirit's Teach
ing."* But not being enough upon his guard
in conversation, he laid hiraself open to the in
formers, by whose raeans he was cited into the
spiritual courts and excoramunicated ; hereup
on he absconded, tUl, being al last taken, he
was shut up in close prison, where he died.
His friends would have buried him in Shore-
-ditch churchyard, but, being e.Kcomraunicaled,
the officers ofthe parish would not admit it, so
they buried him in a piece of ground at .-Vnni-
seed Clear, where many of his congregation
-vvere buried after him.f
Upon -\tr. Howe's death, the little church was
tforced to take up with a layman, .Mr. Stephen
.More, a citizen of London, of good natural parts,
and of considerable substance in the world : he
had been their deacon for some years, and, in
the present exigency, accepted of the pastoral
-office, to the apparent hazard of his estate and
•liberty. However, the face of affairs beginning
-now to change, this poor congregation, which
had subsisted alraost by a rairacle for above
twenty-four years, shifting frora plaoe to place
-to avoid the notice of the public, ventured to
-open their doors in Deadraan's Place, in South-
•u-ark, January 18, 1640-1. Mr. Fuller calls
thera a congregation of Anabaptists, who were
met together to the nuraher of eighty ; hut by
their journal or church-book, an abstract of
which is now before me, it appears to be Mr.
ilore's congregation of Independents, who, be
ing assembled in Deadman's Place on the Lord's
Day, were disturbed by the raarshal of the
King's Bench, and most of them committed to
the Clink Prison. Next morning, six or seven
-of the men were carried before the House of
Lords, and charged with denying the king's su
premacy in ecclesiastical matters, and with
* The treatise here mentioned, we are informed,
displayed strength of genius, but was written by a
cobbler, as appears by the foUowing recommenda-
.tory lines prehxed to it :
-" What How ? liow now 1 hath How such learning found.
To throw art's curious image to the ground ?
dCambndge and Oxford may their glory now
Veil to a cobbler, if they knew but How."
This treatise was founded on 2 Peter, iu., 16, and
designed to show, not the insufficiency only of human
learning to the purposes of religion, but that it was
-dangerous and hurtful. So that Mr. Neal was mis
taken in speaking of its author as a man of learning.
— Crosby, vol. in., p. 39, note. — Ed.
t Crosby's History of the English Baptists, vol. i.,
p. 165. The followuig honourable testimony was
borne to M r. Howe's memory by Roger Williams :
"Among so many instances, dead and living,- to the
everlasting praise of Christ Jesus, and of his Holy
Spirit, breathing a blessing where he listeth, 1 can
not but wilh honourable testimony remember that
eminent Christian witness and prophet of Christ,
even that despised and yet beloved Samuel Howe,
who being by calling a cobbler, and without human
learning, which vet in its sphere and place he hon
oured—who yet, I say, by searching the Holy Scrip-
lures, grew so excellent a textuary or Scripture-
learned man, that few of those high rabbles that
scorn to mend or make a shoe could aptly or readi
ly, from the Holy Scriptures, outgo him * * ? ?
however he was forced lo seek a grave or bed in the
highway, yet was his life, and death, and burial, being
attended with many hundreds of God's people, hon-
-ourable, and how much more on his rising again,
slorious."_77,. Hireling Ministry none of Christ's,
I/ondon, 165-3, p. u, 12.— C.

preaching in separate congregations, contrary
lo the statute ofthe 35lh Eliz The latter Ihey
confessed, and as lo the former, Ihey declared
to the House that " they could acknowledge no
other head of the Church but Christ ; that they
apprehended no prince on earth had power lo
make laws to bind the conscience ; and thai
such law s as were contrary lo the laws of God
ought not to be obeyed ; but that they disowned
all foreign power and jurisdiction." Such a
declaration a luelvcmonlh ago might have cost
them their ears ; but the House, instead of re-
milting them lo the ei-elesiastical courts, dis
missed thera with a gentle reprimand, and three
or four of the members carae, out of curiosity,
lo their asserably next Lord's Day, to hear their
minister preach, and to see him administer the
sacrament, and were so well satisfied that they
contributed lo their collection for the poor.
To return to the Parliament. It has been
observed that one of their first resolutions was
to reduce the powers of the spiritual courts.
The old popish canons, which were the laws hy
which they proceeded (as far as they had not
been controlled by the comraon law or particu
lar statutes), were such a labyrinth, that when
the subject was got Into the Coraraons, he knew
not how to defend hiraself, nor which way lo
get out. The kings of England had always de
clined a reformation of the ecclesiastical laws,
though a plan had been laid before them ever
since the reign of King Edward VI. But the
grievance was now become insufferable, by Ihe
numbers of Ulegal iraprisonraents, deprivations,
and fines levied upon the subject in the late
times, for crimes not actionable in the courts of
Westminster Hall ; it was necessary, therefore,
to bring the jurisdiction of these courts to a
parliamentary standarj^ hut, tiU this could be
accomplished by a new law, all that could he
done was lo vote down the late innovations,
which had very little effect ; and, therefore, on
the 23d of January, the House of Commons
ordered commissioners to be sent into all
the counties to demolish, and remove out of
churches and chapels all "images, altars, or
tables turned altarwise, crucifixes, superstitious
pictures, or other monuments and relics of idol
atry," agreeably tothe injunctions of King Ed
ward VI. and Queen Elizabeth. How far the
House of Coramons, who are hut one branch of
the Legislature, may appoint comraissioners lo
put the laws in execution, without the concur
rence of the other two, is so very questionable,
that Iwill not take upon me to determine.
The University of Cambridge having com
plained of the oaths and subscriptions imposed
upon young students at their matriculation, as
subscribing to the Book of Common Prayer
and to the Thirty-nine Articles, the House of
Commons voted "that the statute made twen
ty-seven years ago in the University of Cam
bridge, imposing upon young scholars a sub
scription, according to the thirty-sixth canon of
1603, is against law and the liberty of the sub
ject, and ought not to be imposed upon anystu--
denls or graduates whatsoever." About five
months forward they passed the sarae resolu
tion for Oxford, which was not unreasonable,
because the universities had not an unhmited
power, by the Ihirty-sixlh canon, to call upon
aU their students to subscribe, but only upon

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

363

such lecturers or readers of divinity wjiom they
had a privUege of licensing ; and to this I con-
xjeive the last words of the canon refer : " If
either of the universities offend therein, we
leave thera to the danger of the law and his
^majesty's censure."
And it ought to be remembered, that all the
proceedings of the House of Commons this
year in punishing Helinquents, and all their
votes and resolutions about the circumstances
of public worship, had no other view than the
cutting off those iUegal additions and innova-
.tions which the superstition of the late times
had inti-oduced, and reducing' the discipline of
.the Church to the standard of the statute law.
No raan was punished for acting according to
Jaw ; but the displeasure of the House ran high
.against those who, in their public rainistrations,
or in their ecclesiastical courts, had bound those
things upon the subject which were either con
trary to the laws of the land, or about which the
.laws were altogether sUent.

CHAPTER vni.
THE ANTIQUITY OF LITURGIES, AND OP THE EPIS
COPAL OBDE-R, DEBATED BETWEEN BISHOP HALL
AND SMECTYMNOns.  PETITIONS FOR AND
AG-tlNST THE HIERARCHY.  ROOT AND BRANCH
PETITION.  THE MINISTERS' PETITION FOR REF
ORMATION.  SPEECHES UPON THE PETITIONS. 
PROCEEDINGS AGAINST PAPISTS.
The debates in Parliaraent concerning the
English liturgy and hierarchy engaged the at
tention of the whole nation, and revived the
controversy without doors. The press being
open, great nurabers of anonyraous pamphlets
appeared against the Establishment, not with
out indecent and provoking language, under
these and the like titles : Prelatical Episcopacy
not from the Apostles; Lord-bishops not the
Lord's Bishops ; Short View of the Prelatical
Church of England ; A Comparison between
the Liturgy and the Mass Book ; Service Book
jio better than a Mess of Pottage, &c. Lord
Brook attacked the order of bishops in a trea
tise of the " Nature of Episcopacy," wherein
Jie reflects in an ungenerous manner upon the
low pedigree of the present bench, as if nothing
-except a noble descent could qualify men to sit
araong the peers. Several of the bishops vin-
^licated their pedigree and farailies, as Bishop
WiUiams, Moreton, Curie, Cooke, Owen, &c.,
and Archbishop Usher defended the order, in a
treatise entitled "The Apostolical Institution
of Episcopacy ;"* but then by a bishop his lord-

* Nalson, in his Collections, vol. u., p. 279, 280,
and after him, Collyer, Ecclesiastical History, vol.
ii., p. 808, have abridged the arguments of this piece ;
but these abstracts do not show, as Dr. Grey would
intimate, the extent of jurisdiction, or the nature of
the power, according to Bishop Usher's idea, exer
cised by the primitive bishops. They go to prove
only a superiority to elders ; and by a quotation from
Beza, it should seem that this prelate, as Mr. Neal
-says, meant by a bishop only a president of the pres
bytery of a place or district. The Presbyterians are
charged with misrepresenting the bishop's opinion,
and with printing a faulty and surreptitious copy of
his book. If this were done knowingly and design
edly, it must rank with such pious arts as deserve
jcensure. — Dr. Grey. — Ed.

ship understood no more than a slated president
over an assembly of presbyters, which the Puri
tans of these tiraes were wiUing to admit. The
most celebrated writer on the side ofthe Estab-
llshraent was the learned and pious Bishop
HaU, who, at the request of Archbishop Laud,
had published a treatise entitled " Episcopacy
of Divine Right," as has been related.* This
reverend prelate, upon the gathering of the
present storra, appeared a second time in its
defence, in "An humble Remonstrance to the
High Court of Parliament ;" and some time af
ter, in " A Defence of that Reraonstrance," in
vindication of the antiquity of liturgies and of
diocesan episcopacy.
The bishop's remonstrance was answered by
a celebrated treatise under the title of " Smec
tymnuus," a fictitious word made up of the ini
tial letters of the naraes of the authors, viz.,
Stephen Marshal, Edmund Calamy, Thomas
Young, Matthew Newcomen, and WiUiam Spur-
stow. When the bishop had replied to their
book, these divines published a vindication of
their answer to the "Humble Remonstrance;"'
which, being an appeal to the Legislature on
both sides, may be supposed to contain the
merits of the controversy, and will therefore
deserve the reader's attention.
The debate was upon these two heads :
1. Of the antiquity of Uturgies, or forms of
prayer. 2. Of the apostolical institution of diocesan
episcopacy. 1. The bishop begins with liturgies, by which
he understands " certain prescribed and limited
forms of prayer, composed for the public ser
vice of the Church, and appointed to be read at
all tiraes of public worship." The antiquity of
these his lordship derives down frora Moses, by
an uninterrupted succession, to the present
tirae. " God's people," says he, " ever since
Moses's day, constantly practised a set forra,
and put it ever to the tiraes of the Gospel.
Our blessed Saviour, and his gracious forerun
ner, taught a direct forra of prayer. When Pe
ter and John went up to the teraple at the ninth
hour of prayer, we know the prayer wherein
they joined was not of an exterapore and sud
den conception, but of a regular prescription ;
and the evangelical Church ever since thought
it could never better improve her peace and
happiness than in composing those religious
models of invocation and thanksgiving, which
they have traduced unto us, as the liturgies of
St. James, BasU, and Chrysostonuand which,
though in some places corrupted, slrve to prove
the thing itself"
Smectymnuus replies, that if there had been
any liturgies in the times of the first and raost
venerable antiquity, the great inquiries after
them would have produced thera to the world
before this time; but that there were none in
the Christian Church is evident from TertuUian
in his Apology, cap. xxx., where he says the
Christians of those times, in their public assem
blies, prayed " sine monitore quia de pectore,"
withotit any prompter except their own hearts.

* Laud objected to some of his positions, and
some involving important principles, and Hall was
compUant enough to adopt his suggestions. — Heylin's
Laud, 398-402. Jones's Life of Bishop Hall, 1.53-168.
— C.

364

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

And in his treatise of prayer, he adds, there are
sorae things to be asked " according to the oc
casions of every man." St. Austin says the
same thing, ep. 121 : "It is free to ask the
same things that are desired in the Lord's Pray
er, aliis atque aliis verbis, sometimes in one
manner of e.xpression, and sometimes in anoth
er." And before this, Justin Martyr, in his
Apology, says, 6 -pocariJc, the president, or he
that instructed the people, prayed according to
his ability, or as well as he could. Nor was
this liberty of prayer taken away till the tiraes
when the Arian and Pelagian heresies invaded
the Church ; it was then first ordained that
none should pray " pro arbitrio, sed seraper
easdem preces;" that they should not use the
liberty which they had hitherto practised, but
should always keep to one form of prayer. —
Concil. Load., can. 18. StUl, this was a forra
of their own composing, as appears by a canon
of the CouncU of Carthage, anno 397, which
gives this reason for it : " Ul nemo in preeibus
vel patrem pro filio, vel filiura pro patre nomi-
nel, et cuin altari adsistitur semper ad patrem
dirigatur oratio ; et quicunque sibi preces ali
unde describit, non lis utatur nisi prius eas cum
fratribus instructioribus contulerit ;" i. e., "that
none in their prayers might mistake the Father
for the Son, or the Son for the Father; and
that, when they assist at the altar, prayer might
be always directed to the Father ; and whoso
ever composes any different forms, let him not
make use of them till he has first consulted with
his raore learned brethren." It appears from
hence that there was no uniform prescribed
liturgy at this tirae in the Church, hut that the
more ignorant priests might make use of forms
of their own composing, provided they consult
ed their more learned brethren ; till at length it
was ordained at the CouncU of MUan, anno
416, that none should use set forms of prayer
except such as were approved in a synod.
They go on to transcribe, from Justin Martyr
and TertuUian, the manner of public worship in
their times, which was this : first the Scriptures
were read ; after reading followed an exhorta
tion to the practice and imitation of what was
read ; then all rose up and joined in prayer ;
after this they went to the sacraraent, in the
beginning whereof the president of the assem
bly poured out prayers and thanksgivings, ac
cording to his ability, and the people said Amen ;
then followed the distribution of the elements,
and a coUection of alms. This was Justin
Martyr's liturgy or service, and TertuUian's is
the sarae, only he mentions their beginning with
prayer before reading the Scriptures, and their
love-feasts, which only opened and concluded
with prayer, and were celebrated with singing
of psalms. Although the Sraectymnuans admit
that our blessed Saviour taught his disciples a
form of prayer, yet they deny that he designed
to confine thera to the use of those words only,
nor did the primitive Church so understand it,
as has been proved from St. Austin. The pre
tended liturgies of St. Jaraes, BasU, and St.
Chrysoslora are of little weight in this argu
ment, as being aUowed by the bishop, and the
most learned critics, both Protestants and pa
pists, to be fuU of forgeries and spurious inser
tions. Upon the whole, therefore, they chal
lenge his lordship lo produce any one genuine

liturgy used in tho Christian Church for three
hundred years after Christ.*
Frora the antiquity of liturgies in general, the
bishop descends lo a more particular commend
ation of that which is established in the Church
of England, as that it was drawn up by wise
and good men with great deliberation ; that it
had been sealed with the (jlood of martyrs, and
was selected out of ancient models, not Roman,
hut Christian.
In answer to which, these divines appeal lo
the proclaraation of Edward VI., wherein the
original of it is published lo the world. The
statute mentions four different forms then in
use, out of which a uniform office was lo be
coUected, viz., the use of Sarum, of Bangor, of
York, and of Lincoln, all which were Roman
rather than Christian ; they admit his lordship's
other encoraiuras of the English liturgy, but
affirm that it was stUl imperfect, and in many
places offensive to tender consciences.
The good bishop, after all, seeras wiUing to
compromise the difference about prayer. " Far
be il frora me," says his lordship, " to disheart
en any good Christian from the use of conceived
prayer in his private devotions, and upon occa
sion also in the public. I would hate lo be
guUty of pouring so much water upon the spirit,,
to which I should gladly add oU rather. No ;
let the fuU soul freely pour out itself in gracious
expressions of its holy thoughts into the bosom
ofthe Alraighty ; let both the sudden flashes of
our quick ejaculations, and the constant flames
of our more fixed conceptions, mount up frora
the altar of a zealous heart unto the throne of
grace ; and if there be sorae stops or solecisms
In the fervent utterance of our private wants,
these are so far from being offensive, that they
are the most pleasing music to the ears of that
God unto whom our prayers corae ; let them
be broken off with sobs and sighs, and incon
gruities of our delivery ; our good God is no
otherways affected to this iraperfect elocution
than an indulgent parent is to the clipped and
broken language of his dear child, which is
raore delightful to him than any other's smooth
oratory. This is not to he opposed in another
* Bishop Bumet says [Hist. Ref, part U., p. 721
that it was in the fourth century that the liturgies of
St. James, St. BasU, &c., were first mentioned; that
the Council of Laodicea appointed the same prayera
to be used mornings and evenings, but that these forms
were left to the discretion of every bishop ; nor was
it made the subject of any public consultation till
St. Austin's time, when, in their dealing with here
tics, they found they took advantage from some of
the prayers that were in some churches ; upon which
it was ordered that there should be no public prayers
used but by common advice. Formerly, says the
bishop, the worship of God was a pure and simple
thing, and so it continued till superstition had so in
fected the Church that those forms were Ihought too
naked, unless they were put under more artificial
rules, and dressed up with much ceremony. In
every age there were notable additions made, and all
the writers almost in the eighth and ninth centuries
employed their fancies to find out mystical significa
tions for every rite that was then used, till at length
there were so many missals, breviaries, rituals, pon
tificals, pontoises, pies, graduals, antiphonals, psal
teries, hours, and a great many more, that the under
standing how to officiate was become so hard a piece
of trade, that it was not to be learned without long,
practice.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

363

by any man that hath found the true operations
of this grace in himself—" " What I have pro
fessed concerning conceived prayers is what I
have ever allowed, ever practised, both in pri
vate and public. God is a free spirit, and so
should ours be, in pouring out our voluntary de
votions upon all occasions ; nothing hinders
but that this liberty and a public liturgy should
be good friends, and go hand in hand together ;
and whosoever would forcibly separate thera,
let them bear their own blame : the over-rigor
ous pressing of the liturgy, to the justling out
of preaching or conceived prayers, was never
intended by the lawmakers or moderate gov
ernors ofthe Church." If the bishops, while in
power, had practised according to these pious
and generous principles, their affairs could not
have been brought to such a dangerous crisis at
this time.
2. The other point in debate between the
bishop and his adversaries related to the supe
rior order of bishops. And here the controversy
was not about the narae, which signifies in the
Greek no more than an overseer, but about the
office and character ; the Smectymnuan divines
contended that a priraitive bishop was no other
than a parochial pastor or preaching presbyter,
without pre-erainence or any proper rule over
his brethren. His lordship, on the other hand,
affirras that bishops were originally a " distinct
order from presbyters, instUuted by the apos
tles themselves, and invested with the sole
power of ordination and ecclesiastical jurisdic
tion ;" that in this sense they are of Divine in
stitution, and have pontinued in the Church by
an uninterrupted succession to the present time.
The bishop enters upon this argument with un
usual assurance, bearing down his adversaries
with a torrent of bold and unguarded expres-
-sions. His words are these : " This holy call-.
ing (raeaning the order of bishops as distinct
.frora presbyters) fetches its pedigree from no
less than apostolical, and, therefore. Divine in-
atitution. Except all histories, aU authors fail
us, nothing can be more plain than this ; out
of them we can and do show on whora the
apostles of Christ laid their hands, with an ac-
knowledgraent and conveyance of imparity and
jurisdiction. We show what bishops, so or
dained, lived in the time of the apostles, and
succeeded each other in their several charges
under the eyes and hands of the then living
apostles. We show who iraraediately succeed
ed those iraraediate successors in their several
sees, throughout allthe regions ofthe Christian
Church, and deduce their uninterrupted line
through all the following ages to this present
day ; and if there can be better evidence under
heaven for any matter of fact (and in this
cause raatter of fact so derived evinceth mat
ter of right), let episcopacy he forever aban
doned out of God's Church. Again, if we do
not show, out of the genuine and undeniable
writings of those holy men who lived both in
the times of the apostles and some years after
them, and conversed with thera as their bless
ed fellow-labourers, a clear and received dis
tinction both of the naraes and offices of bish
ops, presbyters, and deacons, as three dis
tinct subordinate caUings in God's Church,
wUh an evident specification of the duty and
charge belonging to each of them, let this

claimed hierarchy be forever rooted out of the
Church."* The bishop admitst that, in the language of
Scripture, bishops and presbyters are the same;
that there is a plain identity in their denomina
tion, and that we never find these three orders
mentioned together, bishops, presbyters, and
deacons ; hut though there be no distinction of
names, his lordship apprehends there is a real
distinction and specification of powers, which
are, 1. The sole right of ordination.
2. The sole right of spiritual jurisdiction.
1. The sole right of ordination his lordship
proves frora the words of Paul, 2 Tim., i., 6 :
" Stir up the gift of God which is in thee by
the laying on of ray hands ;" and that this
power was never comraunieated to presbyters
from the words of St. Jerome, by whom ordina
tion is excepted from the offiee of a presbyter ;
"quid facit episcopus, quod non facit presbyter
ordinatione." And yet (says his lordship) our
English bishops do not appropriate this power
to themselves : " Say, brethren, I beseech you,
after all this noise, what bishop ever undertook
to ordain a presbyter alone, or without the con
current imposition of raany hands? This is
perpetuaUy and infallibly done by us."
"The Smectymnuan divines contend, on the
other hand, that bishops and presbyters were
originally the same ; that ordination to the
office of a bishop does not differ from the ordi
nation of a presbyter ; that there are no powers
conveyed to a bishop from which presbyters
are excluded, nor any qualification required in
one more than in the other ; that, adraitting
Timothy was a proper bishop, which they deny,
yet that he was ordained by the laying on of
the hands of the presbytery as well as that of
St. Paul's, 1 Tim., iv., 14 ; that the original of
the order of bishops was from the presbyters
choosing one from among themselves to be
stated president in their assemblies, in the sec
ond or third century ; that St. Jerome declares,
once and again, that in the days of the apostles
bishops and presbyters were the same ; that as
low as his time they had gained nothing but
ordination ; and that St. Chrysostom and The
ophylact affirra, that while the apostles lived,
and for sorae ages after, the narae of bishops
and presbyters were not distinguished. This,
say they, is the voice of the most primitive an
tiquity.! But the Sraectymnuans are amazed
at his lordship's assertion 'that the bishops of
the Church of England never ordained without
presbyters, and that this was so constant a
practice that no instance can be produced of its
being done without them. " Strange !" say

* Remonstrance, p. 21. f Defence, p. 47.
X In the debate of the House on this head, the
authority of that very ancient parchment copy of
the Bible in St. James's library, sent by CyriUus, pa
triarch of Alexandria, to King Charles I., being all
written in great capital Greek letters, was vouched
and asserted by Sir Simon d'Ewes, a great antiqua
ry, wherein the postscripts to the Epistles to Timo
thy and Titus are only this : " This first to Timothy,
written from Laodicea ; to Titus, written from Ni-
copolis ;" whence he inferred that the styhng of
Timothy and Titus first bishops of Ephesus and
Crete were the spurious additions of some Eastern
bishop or monk, at least five hundred years after
Christ. — Rushworth, vol. iv., p. 284.

366

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

they, "when some of us have been eyewit
nesses of many scores who have been ordain
ed by a bishop in his private chapel, without
the presence of any presbyter except his do
mestic chaplain, who only read prayers. Be
sides, the bishop's letters of orders make no
mention of the assistance of presbyters, but
challenge the whole power to themselves, as
his lordship had done in his book entitled Epis
copacy of Divine Right, the fifteenth section of
which has this title, ' The Power of Ordination
is only in Bishops.' "
But the main point upon which the bishop
lays the whole stress of the cause is. Whether
presbyters may ordain without a bishop 1 For
the proof of this, the Smectyranuans produced
the author of the coniraent on the Ephesians,
which goes under the name of St. Ambrose,
who says that in Egypt the presbyters ordain if
the bishop be not present ; so also St. Augus
tine, in the same words ; and the chorepiscopus,
who was only a presbyter, had power to impose
hands, and to ordain within his precincts wilh
the bishop's license ; nay, farther, the presbyter
of the city of Alexandria, with the bishop's
leave, raight ordain, as appears frora Con. Ancyr.
Carit., 3, where it is said, " It is not lawful for
chorepiscopi to ordain presbyters or deacons ;
nor for the presbyters of the city, without the
bishop's letter, in another parish ;" which ira-
plies they raight do it with the bishop's letter
or perhaps without it, in their own ; and Fir-
milianus says of thera who rule in the Church.
whora he calls " seniores et prsepositi," that
is, presbyters as well as bishops, that they had
the power of baptizing and of laying on of hands
in ordaining.*

* It may be some satisfaction to the reader to see
the judgment of other learned men upon this argu
ment, which has broken the bands of brotherly love
and charity between the Church of England and all
the foreign Protestants that have no bishops.
The learned prelate of Ireland, .-Vrchbishop Usher,
in his letter lo Dr. Bernard, says, " i have ever de
clared my opinion to be, that ' episcopus et presbyter
gradu tantum differunt, non ordine,' and, consequent
ly, that in places where bishops cannot be had, the
ordination by presbyters stands valid ; but the ordina
tion made by such presbyters a.'i have severed them
selves from those bishops to whom they have sworn
canonical obedience, 1 cannot excuse from being
schismatical. I think that churches that have no
bishops are defective in their government ; yet, for the
justifying my communion with them (which 1 do love
and honour as true members of the Church univer
sal), I do profess, if I were in Holland, 1 should re
ceive the blessed sacrament at the hands ofthe Dutch,
with the like affection as 1 should from the hands of
the French ministers were 1 at Charenton." The
same most reverend prelate, in his answer to Mr.
Baxter, says, " that the king having asked him at the
Isle of Wight whether he found in antiquity that
presbyters alone ordained any, he repUed yes, and
that he could show his majesty more, even where
presbyters alone successively ordained bishops, and
mstanced in Jerome's words (Epist. ad Evagrium),
of the presbyters of Alexandria choosing and making
iheir own bishops from the days of Mark till He-
raclus and Dionysius.— Baxler's Life, p. 206.
This was the constant sense of our first Reform
ers, Cranmer, PUkington, Jewel, Grindal, Whitgift,
&c., and even of Bancroft himself; for when Dr.
-\ndrews, bishop of Ely, moved that the ScoU bish
ops elect might first be ordained presbyters in the
year 1610, Bancroft replied there was no need of it,
sliwe ordination by presbyters was valid ; upon which

2. The other branch of power annexed to tho
episcopal office is the sole right of spiritual ju
risdiction ; this the bishop seems in some sort
lo disclaira : " Whoever," says he, "challenged
a sole jurisdiction \ We willingly grant that
presbyters have, and ought to have, jurisdiction
within their own charge, and that in all great
affairs of the Church Ihey ought lo be consult
ed We admit that bishops of old had their ec
clesiastical council of presbyters, and we still
have the sarae in our deans and chapters ; but
we Sly that the superiority of jurisdiction is so
in the bishop, that presbyters may not exercise
it without hira, and that the exercise of exter
nal jurisdiction is derived frora, by, and under
him, to those who exercise il within his dio
cess." This his lordship proves frora several
testiraonies out ofthe fathers.
The Smectyranuans agree with his lordship,
that in the ancient Church bishops could do no
thing without the consent ofthe clergy ; nor in
cases of excoraraunication and absolution with
out the allowance of the whole body of the
Church to which the delinquent belonged, as
appears frora the testimonies of TertuUian and
St. Cyprian ; but they aver, upon their certain
knowledge, that our English bishops have exer
cised several parts of ecclesiastical jurisdiction
without thoir presbyters. And farther (say
they), where, in aU antiquity, do we raeet witli
such delegates as lay-chancellors, commissa
ries, and others as never received imposition
of hands 1 These offices were not known in
those tiraes, nor can any instance be produced
of laity or clergy who had them for above four
hundred years after Christ.
Upon the whole, aUowing that, in the third
or fourth century, bishops were a distinct order
from presbyter-s, yet, say these divines, our
modern bishops ofthe Church of England differ
very widely from thera ; the priraitive bishops
were elected by a free suffrage of the presby
ters, but ours by a congi d'elire from the king.
They did not proceed against criminals but with.
the consent of their presbyters, and upon the
testimony of several witnesses ; whereas ours
proceed by an oath ex officio, by which men are
obliged to accuse themselves ; the primitive
bishops had no lordly titles and dignities, no
lay-chancellors, commissaries, and other offi
cials, nor did they engage in secular affairs, &c.
After several comparisons of this kind, they re
capitulate the late severities of the bishops in
their ecclesiastical courts, and conclude with
an hurable petition to the high court of Parlia
raent, " that if episcopacy be retained in the

the said bishop concurred in their consecration. And
yet lower, when the Archbishop of Spalato was in
England, he desired Bishop Moreton to reordain a
person that had been ordained beyond sea, that he
might be more capable of preferment ; to which the
bishop replied, that it could not be done but lo the
scandal ofthe Reformed churches, wherein he would
have no hand. The same reverend prelate adds, in
his Apol. Cathol., that to ordam was uiejus antiquum
of presbyters. To these may be added the testimony
of Bishop Burnet, whose words are these ; " As for
the notion of distinct offices of bishop and presbyter,
1 confess it is not so clear to me, and therelore, since
I look upon the sacramental actions as the highest
of sacred performances, 1 cannot but acknowledge
those who are empowered for them must be of the
highest office in the Church."— Vindica/ion ofthe
Church of Scotland, p. 336.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

36T

Church, it may be reduced to its primitive sim
plicity ; and if they raust have a liturgy, that
there raay be a consultation of divines to alter
and reform the present ; and that even then it
may not be imposed upon the clergy, but left
to the discretion ofthe rainister how much of it
to read when there is a sermon."
By this representation it appears that the
controversy between these divines might have
been coraproraised if the rest of the clergy had
been of the same spirit and temper with Bishop
HaU ; but the court-bishops would abate nothing
as long as the crown could support them ; and
as the Parliament increased in power, the Puri
tan divines stiffened in their demands, till meth
ods of accommodation were impracticable.
While this controversy was debating at home,
letters were sent from both sides to obtain the
judgment of foreign divines, but most of thera
were so wise as to be sUent. Dr. Plume, in the
Life of Bishop Hacket, writes that Blondel, Vos-
sius, Hornbeck, and Salmasius were sent to by
the king's friends in vain ; Blondel published a
very learned treatise on the Puritan side ; but
Deodate, from Geneva, and Amyraldus, frora
France, wished an accommodation, and, as
Plume says, were for episcopal government.
The papists triumphed, and had raised expecta
tions frora these differences, as appears by a
letter of T. White, a Roraan Catholic, to the
Lord-viscount Gage, at Dublin, dated February
12, 1639, in which are these words : " We are
in a fair way to assuage heresy and her episco
pacy, for Exeter's hook has done more for the
Catholics than they could have done them
selves, he having written that episcopacy in of
fice and jurisdiction is absolutely jure divino
(which was the old quarrel between our bish
ops and King Henry VIIL, during his heresy),
which book does not a little trouble our adver
saries, who declare this tenet of Exeter's to be
contrary to the laws of this land. All is like to
prosper here, so I hope with you there."* Hovv-
ever, it is certain the body of foreign Protest
ants were against the bishops, for this reason,
among others, because they had disowned their
ordinations ; and could it be supposed they
should compliment away the validity of their ad
ministrations to a set of men that had disowned
their coramunion, and turned the French and
Dutch congregations out of the land ? No :
they wished they might be humbled by the Par
liament. Lord Clarendon adds, " They were
glad of an occasion to publish their resentments
against the Churoh, and to enter into the same
conspiracy against the crown, without which
they could have done little hurt."
But the cause of the hierarchy being to be
deeided at another tribunal, no applications
were wanting on either side to make friends in
the Parliament-house, and to get hands to peti
tions. The industry of the several parties on
this occasion is almost incredible ; and it being
the fashion ofthe time to judge ofthe sense of
the nation this way, messengers were sent all.
oyer England to promote the work. Lord Clar
endon, and after him Dr. Nalson and others of
that party,-complain of great disingenuity on the
side of the Puritans : his lordship says,t " that
the paper which contained the ministers' peti-
* Foxes and Firebrands, part u., p. 81.
t Clarendon, vol. i., p. 204.

tion was filled with very few hands, but that
many other sheets were annexed, for the recep
tion of nurabers that gave credit to Iho under
taking ; but that, when their names were sub
scribed, the petition itself was cut off, and a
new one of a very different nature annexed lo'
the long list of naraes ; and -when some of the
ministers complained to the Rev. Mr. Marshall,
with whom the petition was lodgedj that they
never saw the petition to which tneir hands
were annexed, but had signed another against;
the canons, Mr. MarshaU is said to reply that it
was thought fit by those that understood bu
siness better than they, that the latter peti
tion should be rather preferred than the for
mer." This is a charge ofa very high nature,*
and ought to be weU supported : if it had been
true, why did they not complain to the coramit-
tee which the House of Commons appointed to--
inquire into the irregular methods of procuring
hands to petitions ? His lordship answers, that
they were prevailed with to sit still and pass it
by ; for which we have only his lordship's
word, nothing of this kind being to be found in
Rushworth, Whitelocke, or any disinterested
writer of those tiraes.
However, it cannot be denied that there was
a great deal of art and persuasion used to get
hands to petitions on both sides, and raany sub
scribed their naraes who were not capable to
judge of the merits of the cause. The petitions
against the hierarchy were of two sorts : some
desiring that the whole fabric might be destroy
ed ; of these the chief was the root and brancli
petition, signed by the hands of about fifteen
thousand citizens and inhabitants of London ::
others aiming only at a reformation of the hie
rarchy ; of these the chief was the ministers''
petition, signed with the names of seven hun
dred beneficed clergymen, and followed by oth
ers, wilh an incredible nuraber of hands, from
Kent, Gloucestershire, Lancashire, Nottinghara,
and other counties. The petUions in favour of
the present Establishraent were not less nu
merous, for within the compass of this and the
next year there were presented to the king and-
House of Lords no less than nineteen from the-
two universities, from Wales, Lancashire, Staf
fordshire, and other counties, subscribed with,
about one hundred thousand hands, whereofj.
according to Dr. Walker, six thousand were no
bility, gentry, and dignified clergy. One would.
think by this account that the whole nation had
been with them ; but can it be supposed that
the honest freeholders of Lancashire and Wales
could. be proper judges of such allegations in
their petitions as these : That there can be no
Church without bishops ; that no ordination
was ever performed without bishops ; that with
out bishops there can be no presbyters, and, by
consequence, no consecration of the Lord's-
Supper ; that it has never been customary for-
presbyters to lay hands upon bishops, from

* This charge we have seen brought forward by
Dr. Grey to discredit what Mr, Neal had reported
concerning the number of petitions sent up from all
parts of the country against the clergy. When, as
he proceeded in his review of Mr. Neal's history, he
saw that our author had hfmself laid before his read
ers this charge of Lord Clarendon's, it would have-.
been candid in him to have cancelled his own stric--
tures on this point, or to have exposed the futiUty ot-
Mr. Neal's reply to his lordship. — Ed.

368

HISTORY OF THE PURITA.NS.

whence the disparity of their function is evi
dent ; thai a bibluip has a cliaratler that cannot
be communicated but by one ofthe same dis
tinction ; and that the Church has been gov
erned by bishops, without interruption, for fif
teen hundred years 1 These are topics fit to be
debated in a synod of learned divines ; but the
tacking a hundred thousand names of freehold
ers on either side could prove no more than
that the honest countrymen acted too rauch by
an implicit faith in their clergy. Loud com
plaints being made lo the Parliament of unfair
methods of procuring names to petitions, the
House appointed a committee to examine into
the matter ; but there being great faults, as I
¦apprehend, on both sides, the affair was dropped.
The root and branch petition was presented
to the House December 11, 1640, by Alderman
Pennington and others, in the narae of his maj
esty's subjects in and about the city of London
ami adjacent counties. It was thought lo be
the contrivance of the Scots comraissioners,
who were become vcry^popular at this time.
The petition showeth, " that whereas the guv-
ernment of archbishops and lord-bishops, deans
and archdeacons, &c., with their courts and
ministrations in thera, have proved prejudicial,
and very dangerous to the Church and Com
monwealth ; Ihey themselves having formerly
held that they have their jurisdiction or power
of human authority, till of late they have claim
ed their caUing iraraediately from Christ, which
is against the laws of this kingdora, and deroga
tory to his raajesty's stale royal. And where
as the said governraent is found, by woful ex
perience, to be a main cause and occasion of
many foul evils, pressures, and grievances of a
very high nature to his raajesty's subjects, in
their consciences, liberties, and estates, as in a
schedule of particulars hereunto annexed raay
in part appear :
" We therefore raost hurably pray and be
seech this honourable assembly, the premises
considered, that the said government, with all
its dependances, roots, and branches, raay be
abolished, and aU the laws in their behalf made
void, and that the government, according to
God's Word, may be rightly placed among us ;
and we, your humble supplicants, as in duly
bound, shall ever pray," &c.
The schedule annexed to the petition con
tained twenty-eight grievances and pressures,
the chief of which were, the bishops suspend
ing and depriving ministers for nonconformity
to certain rites and ceremonies ; their discoun
tenancing preaching ; their claim of jus divi
num; their administering the oath ex officio;
the exorbitant power of the High Coraraission,
with the other innovations already raentioned.
The friends of the Establishment opposed this
petition, with one of their own in favour of the
hierarchy, in the following words :
"To the honourable the knights, citizens,
&c., the petition of, &c., hurably showeth,
"That whereas, of late, a petition, subscribed
by many who pretend to be inhabitants of this
city, hath been delivered, received, and read in
this honourable House, against the ancient,
present, and by law established government of
the Church, and that not so much for the ref
ormation of bishops as for the utter subversion
4ind extirpation of episcopacy itself — we, w-hose

names arc underwritten, to show there be many,
and those of the betier sort of the iiihahiturils
of this city, otherwise and better minded, do
humbly represent unto this honourable House
these considerations foUowing :
1. "That episcopacy is as ancient as Chris
tianity itself in this kingdom.
2. '• That bishops were the chief instruments
in the relurraalion of the Church against po
pery, and afterward the raost erainent marlyrs
for the Protestant religion, and since, the best
and ablest champions for the defence of it.
3. " That, since the Reliirmation, the times
have been very peaceable, happy, and glorious,
notwithstanding the episcopal goveinment in
the Church, and, therefore, that this govern
ment can be no cause of our unhappiness.
4, " We conceive that not only many learned,
but divers other godly persons, would be mm-li
scandalized and troubled in conscience if the
government of episcopacy, conceived by them
to be an apostolical institution, were altered ;
and since there is so much care taken that no
man should be offended in the least ceremony,
we hope there will be some that sui-h men's
consciences may not be pressed upon in a raat
ter of a higher nature and consequence, espe
cially considering that this governraent by epis
copacy is not only lawful and convenient for
edification, but likewise suitable to, and agree
able with, the civil policy and governraent of
this state. ,
5. " That this government is lawful, il ap
pears by the immediate, universal, and constant
practice of all the Christian world, grounded
upon Scripture, from the apostles' time to this
last age, for above fifteen hundred years togeth
er, it being utterly incredible, if not impossible,
that the whole Church, for so long a tirae, should
not discover, by God's Word, this government
to be unlawful, if it had been so ; to which may
be added, that the raost learned Protestants,
even in those very churches which now are
not governed by bishops, do not only hold the
government by episcopacy to be lawful, but
wish that they themselves might enjoy it.
"Again, That the government by episcopacy
is not only lawful, but convenient for edification,
and as much or more conducing to piety and
devotion than any other, it appears, because no
modest man denies that the primitive times
were most famous for piety, constancy, and
perseverance in the faith, notwithstanding raore
frequent and more cruel persecutions than ever
have been since ; and yet it is confessed that
the Church in those tiraes -was governed by
bishops. " Lastly, That the government ofthe Church
by episcopacy is most suitable to the form and
frarae ofthe civil government herein this king
dom, it appears hy the happy and flourishing
union of them both for so long a time together;
whereas no man can give us an assurance how
any church governraent besides this (whereof
we have had so long experience) will suit and
agree with the civU policy of this state. And
we conceive it may be of dangerous conse
quence for raen of settled fortunes to hazard
their estates by raaking so great an alteration,
and venturing upon a new forra of government,
whereof neither we nor our ancestors have had
any trial or experience, especially considering

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

360

that those who would have episcopacy to be
abolished have not yet agreed, nor (as we are
verily persuaded) ever will or can agree upon
any other common form of governraent to suc
ceed in the room of it, as appears by the many
different and contrary draughts and platforms
they have made and published, according to the
-several humours and sects of those that made
them ; whereas, seeing every great alteration
in a church or state must needs be dangerous,
it is just and reasonable that whosoever would
introduce a new form instead of an old one,
should be obliged to demonstrate and make it
•evidently appear aforehand that the govern
ment he would introduce is proportionably so
much better than that he would abolish, as raay
recompense the loss we may sustain, and may
be worthy of the hazard we must run in abol
ishing the one, and introducing and settling of
the other ; but this we are confident can never
be done in regard of this particular.
"And therefore our humble and earnest re
quest to this honourable House is, that as well
in this consideration as all the other aforesaid,
we raay still enjoy th^ .government which
most probably holds its institution from the
apostles, and most certainly its plantation with
-our Christian faith itself in this kingdom, where
it hath ever since flourished, and continued for
many ages without any interruption or altera
tion ; whereby it plainly appears, that as it is
the most excellent government in itself, so it is
the raost suitable, most agreeable, and every
way most proportionable to the civil constitu
tion and temper of this state ; and therefore
we pray and hope will always be continued
and preserved in it and by it, notwithstanding
the abuses and corruptions which in so long a
tract of time, through the errors or negligence
-of men, have crept into it ; which abuses and
corruptions being aU of them (what and how
-many soever there may be) but merely acci
dental to episcopacy, we conceive and hope
there may be a reformation of the one without
a destruction of the other.
" Which is the humble suit of, &c., &c."
A third petition was presented to the House,
January 23, by ten or twelve clergymen, m the
narae of seven hundred of their brethren who
had signed it, called the ministers' petition,
praying for a reforraation of certain grievances
in the hierarchy, but not an entire subversion
of it ; a schedule of these grievances was an
nexed, which being referred to the committee,
Mr. Crew reported the three foUowing as prop
er for the debate of the House : ¦' 1 . The secu
lar employments of the clergy. 2. The sole
power of the bishops in ecclesiastical affairs,
and particularly in ordinations and churoh cen
sures. 3. The large revenues of deans and
chapters, with the inconveniences that attend
,t-he application of them."
/ Two days after the delivery of this petition
•[January 25] his majesty came to the House,
and very unadvisedly interrupted their debates
by the following speech: "There are some
men that more maliciously than ignorantly wiU
put no difference between reformation and al
teration of governraent; hence it comes to
pass that Divine service is irreverently inter
rupted, and petitions in an iU way given in,
•neither disputed nor denied, against the present
Vol. I.— a a a

established government, in the names of divers
counties, with threatenings against the bishops
that they will make them but ciphers. Now I
must tell you that I make a great difference
between reformation and alteration of govern
ment ; though I am for the first, I cannot give
way to the latter. If some of them have
overstretched their power, and encroached too
much on their temporality, I shall not be un
willing that these things should be redressed
and reformed ; nay, farther, if you can show
me that the bishops have some temporal au
thority inconvenient for the state, and not ne
cessary for the government of Church and up
holding episcopal jurisdiction, I shall not be un
wiUing to desire them to lay it down ; but this
must not be understood that I shall any ways
consent that their voices in Parliaraent should
be taken away, for in all the times of my pred
ecessors, since the Conquest and before, they
have enjoyed it as one of the fundaraental con
stitutions of the kingdom." This unhappy
method of the king's coming to the House and
declaring his resolutions beforehand was cer
tainly unparliamentary, and did the Church no
service ; nor was there any occasion for it at
this time, the House being in no disposition as
yet to order a bill to be brought in for subvert
ing the hierarchy.
In the months of February and March, sev
eral days were appointed for the consideration
of these petitions ; and when the biU for the
utter extirpating the episcopal order was
brought into the House in the months of May
and June, several warm speeches were raade
on both sides : I wiU set the chief of thera be
fore the reader at one view, though they were
spoken at different tiraes.
Among those who were for root and branch,
or the total extirpating of episcopacy, was Sir
Henry Vane, who stood qp and argued that,
" since the House had voted episcopal govern
ment a great impediment to the reformation
and growth of religion, it ought to be taken
away ; for it is so corrupt in the foundation,"
says he, " that if we pull it not down, it wiU
fall about the ears of those that endeavour it
within a iew years. This government was
brought in by antichrist, and has let in all
kinds of superstition in the Church : it has
been the instrument of displacing the most
godly and conscientious ministers, of vexing,
punishing, and banishing out of the kingdom
the most religious of aU sorts and conditions,
that would not comply with their superstitious
inventions" and ceremonies. In a word, it has
turned the edge of the government against the
very life and power of godliness, and the favour
and protection of it towards all profane, scan
dalous, and superstitious persons that would
uphold their party : it has divided us from the
foreign Protestant churches, and has done what
it could to bind the nation in perpetual slavery
to themselves and their superstitious inven
tions by the late canons. Farther, this gov
ernment has been no less prejudicial to the civil
liberties of our country, as appears by the bish
ops preaching up the doctrine of arbitrary pow
er, hy their encouraging the late illegal projects
to raise money without Parliament, by their
kindling a war between England and Scotland,
and faUing in with the plots and combinations

373

Hl.-^TORV OF THE PI'RIT.VNS.

that have been entered into against this pres
ent Pariiament." sir Harry concludes from
these premise.-*, "thai the Protestant religion
raust aJways be in danger as long as it is in the
hands uf such governors ; nor can there be any
hopes of reformation in the state whUe the bish
ops have votes in Pariiaraent ; that the fruit
being so bad. the tree must be bad. Let us not,
then, halt between two opinions," says he, "but
wUh one heart and voice give glory to God by
complying with his providence, and with the
safety and peace of the Church and State,
V. hich is by passing the Root and Branch Bill."*
Mr. Sergeant Thomas gave the House a long
historical narration ofthe viciousness and mis
behaviour of the bishops in the tiraes of popery ;
of their treasonable and rebeUious conduct to
wards their sovereigns ; of their antipathy to
the laws and liberties of their country ; of their
iL'norance, pride, and addictedness lo the porap
of this world, lo the apparent neglect of their
spiritual functions ; and of their enraUy to all
methods of reformation to this day.t
Mr. Bagshaw stood up to reply to the objec
tions made against abolishing the order of bish
ops. " It Is asserted," says he, " that il is of Di
vine right, which is contrary to the statute 37
of Henry VIII., cap. xvii., which says they have
their episcopal authority, and all other ecclesi
astical jurisdiction whatsoever, solely and only
by, from, and under the king.
" It is argued that episcopacy is inseparable
from the crown, and therefore it is commonly
said. No bishop, no king ; which is very ridicu
lous, because the kings of England were long
before bishops, and may still depose them.
" It is said that episcopacy is a third state in
Parliament ; but this I deny, for the three states
are the king, the lords temporal, and the com
mons. Kings of England have held several
Parliaments without bishops ; King Edward I.,
in the 24th of his reign, held a Parliament ex-
cluso clcro; and in the Parliament of the 7th
Richard II. there is mention made of the con
sent of the lords temporal and the coraraons,
hut not a word of the clergy ; since, therefore,
the present hierarchy was of mere human in-
=.titution, and had been found a very great griev
ance to the subject, he inclined to the root and
branch petition."
Mr. ^\'hite entered more fully into the merUs
ofthe cause, and considered the present bishops
of the Church with regard to their baronies,
their temporalities, and their spiritualities.
" The forraer," says he, " are merely of the
king's favour, and began in this kingdora the
-ith of Williara the Conqueror, by virtue where
of they have had plaee in the House of Peers in
Pariiaraent ; but in the 7th Henry VIll. (1648,
Kel.) It was resolved by all the judges of Eng
land that the king raay hold his Parliaraent by
hiraself, his temporal lords, and commons, with
out any bishop ; for a bishop has not any place
in Parliament by reason of his spiritualities, but
merely hy reason of his barony, and according
ly acts of Parliament have been made without
thera, as 2 Richard IL, cap. iii., and at other
times ; nor were they ever called spiritual lords
in our statutes tUl 16 Richard 11., cap. i.
¦ Nalson's Collections, vol. u., p. 276.
-r Ibid., vol. u., p. 211.

" By the bi-shop's spirilualiiiea I moan those
spiritual powers whieh raise him above ihe or
der of a presbyter; and here I consider, first.
his aulhority over pn-sbylers by the oath of
eanonical obedience, hy which he may com
mand thera to colU-i-t tenths granted in eonvu-
eation, aeeiirdiiig to 20 Henry VI , cap. xui.
Secondly, his oflice, which is partly judicial and
partly ministerial; by tin- forraer he judges in
his courts of all raatters ei-ole.siastical anil spir
itual within his diiioess, and of the fitness of
such as are preseiiled to hiin to be Instituted
into benefices ; by the latter he is to eonsn-rali'
places dedicated lo Divme service. 9 lluiiry
\'l., cap. xvii., he is lo provide for the offielatint;
of cures in the avoidance of ehiin-lies, on nei;-
lect of the patron's presenting thereunto. He
is to certify loyal [or lawful] mairiinony, gen
eral bastardy, and excommunication, lb- is lo
execute judgments given in quare impedit, upon
the writ ad admittcndum clericum. He is to at
tend upon trials for life, to report the sufficiency
or insufficiency of such as demand elergy ; and,
lastly, lie is to ordain deacons and presbyters.
"Now all these tHings being given to these
bishops ;'Krc humano," says Mr. \V'liitc, " I con
ceive may, for just reasons, be taken away. He
affirras that, according to Scripture, a bishop
and presbyter is one and the sarae person : (1.)
Their duties are raentioned as the same, tho
bishop being to teach and rule his church, 1
Tim., lil., 2, 5 ; and the presbyter being to do
the very same, 1 Pet., v., 2, 3. (2.) Presbyters
in Scripture are said to be bishops of the Holy
Ghost, Acts, XX., 28. And St. Paul charges the
presbyters of Ephesus to take heed to the flock
over which the Holy Ghost had made ihem
bishops or overseers ; and other bishops the
Holy Ghost never made. (3.) Among the enu
meration of church officers, Eph., iv., 11, where
of the three former are extraordinary, and are
ceased, there remains only the pastor and
teacher, which is the very same with the pres
byter. The bishop, as he is more than this, is
no officer given by God ; and It is an encroach
ment on the kingly office of Christ to admit
other officers into the Church than he himself
has appointed.
" Seeing, then, episcopacy may be taken away
in all wherein it exceeds the presbyter's office,
which is certainly yure lUr.inn, we ought to re
store the presbyters to their rights which the
bishops have taken from them, as particularly
to the right of ordination, excommunication,
and liberty to preach the whole counsel of God
without restraint from a bishop : they should
have their share in the disciphne and govern
ment ofthe Church; and, in a word, all superi
ority of order between bishops and presbyters
should be taken away." Mr. White is farther
of opinion that the bishops should be deprived
of their baronies, and all intermeddling with
civil affairs ; that institution and induction, the
jurisdiction of tithes, causes matrimonial and
testamentary, and other usurpations of the ec
clesiastical courts, should be restored to the
civU judicature, and be deterrained by the laws
of the land.
In order to take off the force of these argu-
I ments in favour of the root and branch peti
tion, the friends of the hierarchy said that the
I very best things might be corrupted ; that to

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

'371

take away the order of bishops was to change
the whole Constitution for they knew not what ;
they therefore urged the ministers' petition for
reformation, and declaimed with vehemence
against the corruptions ofthe late times.
Lord Falkland, who, in the judgment of the
noble historian, was the raost extraordinary
person of his age, stood up and said,
"Mr. Speaker,
"He is a great stranger in our Israel who
knows not that this kingdom has long laboured
under many and great oppressions, both in reli
gion and liberty, and that a principal cause of
both has heen sorae bishops and their adhe
rents, who, under pretence of uniformity, have
brought in superstition and scandal under the
title of decency ; who have defiled our churches
by adorning them, and slackened the strictness
of that union that was between us and those of
our religion beyond sea : an action both impol
itic and ungodly.*
" They have been less eager on those who
damn our Church than on those who, on weak
conscience, and perhaps as weak reason, only
abstain frora it. Nay, it has been more dan
gerous for men to go to a neighbouring parish
when they had no sermon in their own, than to
be obstinate and perpetual recusants. While
mass has been said in security, a conventicle
has been a crime ; and, which is yet more, the
conforming to ceremonies has been raore ex
acted than the conforming to Christianity ; and
whUe men for scruples have been undone, for
attempts of sodomy they have only been ad
monished. "Mr. Speaker, they have resembled the dog
in the fable : they have neither practised them
selves, nor employed those that should, nor
suffered those that would. They have brought
in catechising only to thrust out preaching ;
cried down lectures by the name of faction,
either because other men's industry in that duty
appeared a reproof to their neglect, or with in
tent to have brought in darkness, that they
might the easier sow their tares while it was
night. "In this they have abused his majesty as well
as his people ; for when he had with great wis
dom silenced on both parts those opinions that
wUl always trouble the schools, they made use
of this declaration to tie up one side and let the
other loose. The truth is, Mr. Speaker, as some
ministers in our state first took away our mon
ey, and afterward endeavoured to make our
money not worth taking, by depraving it, so
these men first depressed the power of preach
ing, and then laboured to make it such, as the
harm had not been much if it had been depress
ed; the chief subjects ofthe serraons being the
jus divinum of bishops and tithes ; the sacred-
ness of the clergy ; the sacrilege of irapropria-
tions; the demoUsh ing of Puritanism ; the build
ing up of the prerogative, &c. In short, their
work has been to try how much of the papist
might be brought in without popery, and to de
stroy as much as they could of the Gospel,- with
out bringing themselves in danger of being de
stroyed by the law.
" Mr. Speaker, these men have been betrayers
of our rights and liberties, by encouraging such

* Rushworth, vol. iv., p. 1^4, or part iii., vol. i.

men as Dr. Beal and Manwaring ; by appear
ing for monopolies and ship-money ; some of
them have laboured to exclude all persons and
causes of the clergy from the temporal magis
trate, and, by hindering prohibitions, to have ta
ken away the only legal bounds to their arbi^
trary power ; they have encouraged all the
clergy to suits, and have brought all suits to the
council-table, that, having all power in ecclesi
astical matters, they might have an equal pow
er in temporals ; they have both kindled and
blown the common fire of both nations,, and
have been the first and principal cause of the
breach since the pacification at Berwick.
" Mr. Speaker, I have represented no small
quantity, and no mean degree of guilt ; but this
charge does not lie against episcopacy, but
against the persons who have abused that sacred
function; for if we consider that the first spread
ers of Christianity, the first defenders of it, both
with their ink and blood, as well as our late Re
formers, were all bishops ; and even now, in this
great defection of the ord?r. there are some
that have been neither proud nor ambitious ;
some that have been learned opposers of popery
and zealous suppressors of Arminianism, be
tween whom and their inferior clergy there has
been no distinction in frequent preaching ;
whose lives are untouched, not only by guilt,
but by malice ; I say, if we consider this, we
shaU conclude that bishops may be good men ;
and let us but give good men good rules, and
we shall have good government and good tiroes.
" I am content to take away frora them all-
those things which raay, in any degree of pos--
sibility, occasion the like mischiefs with those-
I have raentioned: I ara sure neither their lord^-
ships, judging of tithes, wills, and marriages,
no, nor their voices in Parliament, are jure di
vino. Ii their revenues are too great, let us
leave thera only such proportion as raay serve,
in some degree, for the support of the dignity
of learning and encouragement of students.
If it be found they will employ their laws against .
their weaker brethren, let us take away those
laws, and let no ceremonies, which any number
count unlawful and no man counts necessary,,
be imposed upon them ; but let us not abolish,.
upon a few days' debate, an order that has last
ed in most churches these sixteen hundred
years. I do not believe the order of bishops to •
be jure divino, nor do I think them unlawifol;,
but, since all great changes in government are"
dangerous, I am for trying if we cannot take
away the inconveniences of bishops and the in
conveniences of no bishops. Let us, therefore,
go upon the debate of grievances, and if the
grievances raay he taken away and the ordeir
stand, we shall not need to coramit the London
petition at all ; but if it shaU appear that the
abolition of the one cannot be but by tbe de
struction of the other, then let us not commit
the Lon.(ion petition, but grant it."
Lord George Digby, an eminent Royalist,
spoke with great warmth against the root and
branch petition, and with no less zeal, for a ref
ormation of grievances.
"If the London petition," says his lordship,
" may be considered only as an index of griev-'
ances, I should wink at the faults of it, for no
man within these walls is more sensible of the
heavy grievances of church government thaa

372

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS

myself, nor whose affections are keener for
the clipping those wings of the prelates, where
by they have raoiinted to such insolence ; hut,
having reason to believe that some aim at the
total extirpation of bishops, 1 cannot restrain
myself from labouring lo divert it.
" 1 look upon the petition with terror, as on
a comet or a blazing star, raised and kindled
out ofthe poisonous exhalations of a corrupted
hieiarchy : niethought the comet had a terrible
tail, and pointed to the north ; and I fear all the
prudence of this House will have a hard work
to hinder this meteor frora causing such distem
pers and combustions as it portends by its ap
pearance : whatever the event be, 1 shall dis
charge ray conscience freely, unbiased both
frora popularity and court respect."*
His lordship then goes on to argue the un
reasonableness of abolishing a thing because
-of sorae abuses that attend it ; he coraplains
ofthe presuraption ofthe petitioners in desiring
the repeal of so raany laws at once, and not ap
plying in a raore raodest raanner for a redress
of grievances, as the rainisters have done On
the other hand, he allows the behaviour of the
prelates had given too just an occasion for it ;
that no people had been so insulted as the peo
ple of England had lately been, by the insolen
ces ofthe prelates : " Their vengeance has been
so laid, as if it were meant no generation, no
degree, no complexion of mankind should es
cape it. Was there a man of tender con
science," says his lordship, " him they loaded
with unnecessary impositions ; was there a
man of legal conscience, him they nettled wilh
innovations and fresh introductions to popery;
was there a man of an humble spirit, him they
trampled lo dirt in their pride ; was there a
man of proud spirit, him they have bereft of
reason, with indignation at their superlative in
solence ; was there a raan faithfully attached
to the rights of the crown, how has he been
galled by their new oath ! was there a man that
durst mutter against their insolences, he may
inquire for his lugs. They have been within
the bishops' visitation as if they would not only
derive their brandishment of the spiritual sword
frora St. Peter, but of the raaterial one too, and
the right to cut off ears ; for ray part, I ara so
inflaraed with these things, that I ara ready to
cry, with the loudest of the fifteen thousand,
Down with thera to the ground.
" But, Mr. Speaker, we raust divest ourselves
of passion : we all agree a reformation of Church
government is necessary ; but, before I can
strUce at the root and agree to a total extirpa
tion of episcopacy, it must be made manifest to
me, (1.) That the mischiefs we have felt arise
frora the nature of episcopacy, and not frora its
abuse. (2.) Such a forra of governraent must
be set before us as is not liable to proportionable
inconveniences. (3.) It raust appear that the
Utopia is practicable. Let us, therefore, lay
aside the thoughts of extirpating bishops, and
reduce them to their primitive standard ; let us
retrench their diocesses ; let them govern by
assemblies of their clergy ; let us exclude thera
irora intermeddling in secular affairs, and ap
point a standing comraittee to collect aU the
grievances of the Church, and no raan's votes

Rushworth, p. 17

shall be given with more zeal for redressing
them than raine."
Surely the bishops raust have behaved very
Ul in the late tiraes, ihal Iheir very best friends
could load thera wilh such reproaches ! Sir
Benjamin Rudyard, surveyor of ihe Court of
Wards, Sir Harbottle Grimstone, wilh a great
many others of unquestionable duty and hi>ally
to the king, spoke the same language ; and it de
serves 10 be remembered, says Lord Claren
don,* that, in the midst of these complaints, the
king was never mentioned but with great hon
our ; all the grievances being laid at the door
of his ininisters, and all hopes of redress being
placed in his majesty alone. Al the close of
the debate, it was ordered that the root and
branch petition should remain in the hands of
the clerk of the House of Coraraons, with direc
tion that no copy should be delivered out ; but,
after the throwing out of the bUI lo deprive the
bishops of their votes in Parliaraent, it was re
vived, and a biU brought in by Sir Edward
Deering [May 20, 1641] for the utter extirpa
ting of the whole order, as will be seen here
after. It was in this debate that some smart repar
tees passed between the raerabers : Mr. Grim
stone argued thus : that bishops are jure dioino
is a question ; that archbishops are not jure di
vino is out of question ; now that bishops which
are questioned whether ;'iirc dicmo, qr archbish
ops which out of question are not jure divino,
should suspend ministers which are jure divino,
I leave to you to be considered. To which Mr.
Seldon answered, that the convocation is jure
divino is a question ; that Parliaments are not
jure divino is out ofthe question ; that religion
is jure divino is no question ; now that the con
vocation which is questionable vihether jure di
vino, and Parliaments which out of the question
are not jure divino, should meddle with religion
which questionless is;'«re divino, I leave to your
consideration. In both which I apprehend there
is more of a jingle of words than strength of
arguraent.t But the House was unaniraous for a reforma
tion of the hierarchy, which was all that the
body of the Puritans as yet wished for or desi
red. The ministers' petition was therefore
coramitted to a comraittee of the whole House,
and on March 9 they carae to this resolution :
"That the legislative and judicial power of bish
ops in the House of Peers is a great hinderance
to the discharge of their spiritual function, prej
udicial to the commonwealth, and fit to be taken
away by bUl ; and that a biU be drawn up to
this purpose." March 11, it was resolved far
ther, " that for bishops or any other clergyman
to be in the commission of peace, or to have
any judicial power in the Star Chamber or in
any civil court, is a great hinderance to their
spiritual function, and fit to be taken away by
hiU." And not many days after it was resolv
ed that they should not be privy councillors or
in any temporal offices.
WhUe the House of Coraraons were thus pre
paring to clip the wings of the bishops, they
were not unmindful of the Roman Catholics ;

* Clarendon, vol. i., p. 203.
t Selden's argument is considered by Bishop War
burton as a thorough confutation of Grimstone's.—
Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

373.

these were criminals of a higher nature, and
had a deep share in the present calaraities ;
their numbers were growing, and their pride
and insolence insufferable : they flocked in great
numbers about the court, and insulted the very
courts of judicature ; the queen protected them,
and the king and archbishop countenanced
them as friends of the prerogative. Andreas
ab Harbensfield, the Queen of Boheraia's chap
lain, advised his grace of a popish confederacy
against the king and the Church of England ;
but when the names of Montague, Sir Kenelm
Digby, Winter, Windebank, and Porter, aU pa
pists, and officers about the -court, were men
tioned as parties, the whole was discredited
and stifled. When the House of Coraraons pe
titioned the king to issue out a proclaraation
for putting the laws in execution against pa
pists, it was done in so defective a manner that
the comraittee reported it would avail nothing ;
for in the clause which enjoins allpopish recu
sants to depart the city in fifteen days, it is ad
ded, " without special license had thereunto ;"
so that if they could obtain a license frora his
majesty, or from the lords of the councU, the
bishop, the lieutenant, or deputy-lieutenant of
the county, then they were not within the pen
alty. Besides, the disarming of all popish re
cusants was limited to recusants eonvicted ; so
that if they were not convicted, a justice of
peace could not disarra thera. They observed,
farther, that raany recusants had letters of grace
to protect their persons and estates ; that, in
stead of departing from London, there was a
greater resort bf papists at present than hereto
fore ; and that their insolence and threatening
language w-ere insufferable and dangerous. A
gentleman having given information in open
court to one ofthe judges ofthe King's Bench,
that in one parish in the city of Westrainster
there were above six thousand recusants, the
coraraittee appointed Mr. Heywood, an active
justice of peace, lo collect and hring in a
list of the naraes of all recusants within that
city and liberties ; for which purpose all the in
habitants were sumraoned to appear and take
the oaths in Westminster Hall : but while the
justice was in the execution of his office, and
pressing one James, a papist, to take thera, the
wretch drew out his knife and stabbed the jus
tice in the open court, telling him, " he gave
him that for persecuting poor Catholics." The
old gentleman sunk down with the wound, but
by the care ofthe surgeons was recovered, and
the criminal taken into custody.* This Mr.
Heywood was the very person who, being com
manded by King James I. to search the cellars
under the Parliament house at the tirae of the

* Dr. Grey is displeased with Mr. Neal for not in
forming his reader how the king acted on this occa
sion ; especially as he says, according lo the first
edition, "the king favours them," i e., the papists.
This is the marginal contents of the foUowing para
graph, and the fact is there fully established. With
respect to the attempt made on the life of Mr. Hey
wood, his majesty, it should be acknowledged, ex
pressed a proper abhorrence of it, and " recommend
ed it to ParUament to take course for a speedy and
exemplary punishment" of it. For which the House
returned their humble thanks. But this instance of
loyal justice is not sufficient to wipe off the charge
of general and great partiaUty towards the Catholics.
— Rushworth's Collections, part ui., vol. i., p. 57. — Ed.

Gunpowder Plot, took Guy Faux with his dark
lantern in his hand, which lantern is preserved
araong the archives of Oxford, with Mr. Hey-
wood's name upon it in letters of gold.
The Parliaraent, alarraed at this daring at
terapt, sent orders to all the justices of peace of
Westrainster, London, and Middlesex, requiring
thera to coramand the church-wardens to make
a return of the names of aU recusants within
their parishes, in order to their being proceeded
against according to law ; a few days after, the
like orders were sent to the justices in the re
moter counties. The houses petitioned his maj
esty to discharge all popish officers in garrisons
or in the army who reftised to take the oaths
of allegiance and supremacy, and to fill up their
places with Protestants. March 16, they peti
tioned his majesty to reraove aU papists from
court, and particularly Sir Kenelra Digby, Sir-
Toby Matthews, Sir John Winter, and Mr. Mon
tague, and that the whole body of Roman Cath
oUcs might be disarmed. The answer returned
was, that his majesty would take care that the
papists about the court .should give no just cause
of scandal ; and as for disarming them, he was
content it should be done according to law-
So that their addresses had no other effect thaa
to exasperate the papists, the king and queen
being determined to protect them as long as,
they were able.
'There was at this time one Goodman, a sera-
inary priest, under conderanation in Newgate,
whora the king, instead of leaving to the sen
tence of the law, reprieved in the face of his-
Parliament ; whereupon both houses [January
29, 1640] agreed upon the following remon
strance :
" That, considering the present juncture, they
conceived the strict execution of the laws
against recusants more necessary than formerly,.
1. " Because, by divers petitions from sever
al parts of the kingdom, complaints are raade of
the great increase of popery and superstition ;
priests and Jesuits swarra in great abundance
in this kingdora, and appear as boldly as if there-
were no laws against them.
2. " It appears to the House that of late-
years many priests and Jesuits condemned for
high treason have been discharged out of prison.
3. " That at this tirae the pope has a nuncio-
or agent in this city, and papists go as pubUcly
to mass at Denmark House, and at St. Jaraes's
and the ambassadors' chapels, as others do to
their parish churches.
4. " That the putting the laws in execution-
against papists is for the preservation and ad
vancement -of the true religion established in
this kingdom, for the safety of their majesties''
persons, and the security of governraent.
5. " It is found that Goodraan the priest has
been twice formerly committed and discharged ;
that his residence now in London was in abso
lute contempt of his majesty's proclaraation ;
that he was formerly a minister of the Church
of England ; and, therefore, they humbly desire
he may be left to the justice of the law."
To this remonstrance the liing repUed,
" That the increase of popery and supersti
tion, if any such thing had happened, was con- ,
trary to his inclination ; but to take off all occa
sions of complaint, he woiUd order the laws to
be put in execution.

374

HISTORY OF THE ITRIT.VNS.

" That he would set forth a proclamation to
cojnmand Jesuits and priests to depart the king
dom within a month ; and in case they either
failed or returned, they should be proceeded
against according to law.
" .4s touching the pope's nuncio, Rosetli, his
coraraission reached only to keep up a corre
spondence between the queen and pope, in things
relative to the exercise of religion ; that this
correspondence earae within the compass ofthe
full liberty of conscience secured her by the
articles of marriage ; however, since Roselti's
character happened to be misunderstood and
gave offence, he had persuaded the queen to
consent to his being recaUed.
"Farther, his majesty promised to take care
to restrain his subjects frora going to mass at
Denraark House, St. Jaraes's, and the chapels of
the ambassadors.
" Lastly, touching Goodman, he was content
to remit him to the pleasure ofthe House ; but
he puts them in mind that neither Queen Eliza
beth nor King James ever put any to death
merely for religion ; and desired them to con
sider the inconveniences that such a conduct
might draw upon his subjects and other Prot
estants in foreign countries."
How sti-ange this assertion ! Let the reader
rec-ollect the many executions of papists for de
nying the supremacy ; the burning the Dutch
-Vnabaptists, for whora Mr. Fox, the martyrolo
gist, intcri-eded in vain ; and the hanging of
Barrow-, fireenwood, Penry, &c., in the reign
of Queen Elizabeth ; let hira also reraember the
burning of Bartholomew Legale and Edward
Wightman for the Arian heresy by King James
L (of all which, and some others, the Commons,
in their reply, put his majesty in mind), and
then judge of the truth of this part of his dec
laration. Nor did the Jesuits regard the other
-parts of it, for Ihey knew that they had a friend
in the king's bosom that would protect them,
and therefore, instead of removing out of the
land, they lay concealed within the verge ofthe
court. Even Goodman himself was not execu
ted,* though the king promised to leave hira to
the law, and though he hiraself petitioned, like
* 'V\hitelocke informs us that the king left him to
Ihe Parliament, " and Ihey," says Bishop VVarburton,
•- would not order his execution. The truth of the
matter was this : each party was desirous of throw
ing the odium of Goodman's execution on the other,
so between both the man escaped," On this ground,
his lordship exclaims, " How prejudiced is the rep
resentation of our historian !" In reply to this reflec
tion, it may be asked. Did it not show the king's par
tiality and reluctance to have the law executed against
Goodman, that he remitted the matter lo the House t
Did not the inflicting the sentence of the law Ue
solely with himself, as invested with the executive
power? and yet he did not inflict it. Doth not this
conduct justify Mr. Neal's representation? nay, that
representation is just and candid if it pointed to the
reprieve onl y, which produced the remonstrance of the
Parliament. There would not have been any occa
sion for that reuionstrance had it not been for his
maipst\'s attachment to men of that description.
The advocates of the king have considered his con
duct towards Goodman as an amiable act of humanity ;
nay. as proceeding from a mind most sensibly touch
ed with the " gallantry," as it is called, of this man
in petitioning to be made a sacrifice lo the justice of
the law, to serve his majesty's interests and affairs.
— Dr. ijr,-y, and Nalson's Collections, vol. i., p. 716
—En.

Jonah the prophet, to be thrown overboard lo
allay the tempest between the king and his sub-
jeels Sueh was his majesty's allachnuMit to
this people ! to the apparent hazard of the Prot.
estant religion and the peace of his kingdoms,
and lo the sacrificing all good c-oncspondence
between himself and his Parliament,

CHAPTER IX.
FROM THE IMPE.ACHMEXT OF THE EARL OF STR.IK-
FORD TO THE RECESS OF THE PARLIAMENT UPON
THE kino's PROGRESS IN SCOTL.tNU
It is impossible to account for the prodigious
changes of this and the years immediately suc
ceeding, without taking a short view of some
civil occurrences that paved the way for them.
In pursuance of the design of bringing corrupt
ministers* to justice, the Parliament began wilh
Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford, an able
statesman, but a raost dangerous enemy of the
laws and liberties of his country, whora they im
peached of high treason Noveraber 1 1, 1640, and
brought to his trial the 22d of March foUowing.
The grand article of his impeachmentt was, "for
endeavouring to subvert the fundaraental laws
of England and Ireland, and lo introduce an ar
bitrary and tyrannical governraent." This was
subdivided into several branches, supported by
a multiplicity of facts, none of which were di
rectly treason by law, but being put together,
were construed lo be such by accuraulation.
The earl's reply to the facts consisted partly in
excuses and evasions, with an hurable acknowl-
edgraent that in some things he had been mis
taken ; but his principal defence rested upon
a point of law, "Whether an endeavour to sub
vert the fundamental form of government, and
the laws of the land, was high treason at com
mon law, or by any statute in force 1" Mr.
Lane, the counsel for the prisoner, maintained,
(1.) "That all treasons were to be reduced to
the particulars specified in the 25th Edw. III.,
cap. ii. (2.) That nothing else was or could be
treason, and that it was so enacted by the 1st
Henry IV,, cap. x. (3.) That there had been
no precedent to the contrary since that time.

* They were a remarkable party who assembled
round the council-table of Charles I. Beside the un
fortunate monarch there sat the magnificent Buck
ingham, the loyal Hamilton, the severe Strafford,
the high-churchman Laud, the melancholy Falkland.
and the gay and graceful Holland. In the midst of
these high and haughty councils, and high resolves,
how Utile did they foresee the wretched fate which
awaited them ! There was not one of that assembly
whose death was not violent. Charles, Hamilton,
Strafford, Laud, and HoUand died on the scaffold,
Buckingham fell by the hand of an assassin, and
Falkland, under circumstances of peculiar bitterness,
on the battle-field. — Jesse's Court of Ihe Stuarts, vol.
ii., p. 31", 310.— C.
t When the Earl of Strafford was impeached, the
king came into the House of Lords and desired that
the articles against him might be read, which the
lord-keeper ordered to be done, while many lords
cried out. Privilege ! privUege ! When the king was
! departed, the House ordered that no entry should be
] made of the king's demand of hearing Ihe articles
I read, or of the keeper's compliance with it. — A MS.
! Memorandum of Dr. Birch in the British .Museum, cmd
ipioted in the Curiosities of Literature, vol. U., p. I'^'J
I— Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

375

And (4.) That by 1 Mary, cap. xii., an endeav
our to subvert the fundamental laws ofthe land
ia declared to be no more than felony.
The Commons felt the weight of these argu
ments, and, not being wUling to enter into de
bate with a private barrister, changed their ira-
peaclin)ent to a bill of attainder, which they
had a right to do by virtue of a clause in the
25th Edw. III., cap. ii.,* which refers the decis
ion of what is treason, in all doubtful cases,
to the king and Parliament.f The attainder
passed the Commons April 19, yeas two hun
dred and four, noes fifty-nine ; but it is thought
would have been lost in the House of Lords
had it not been for the following accident, which
put it out of the power of the earl's friends to
.save him.
The king being weary of his Parliament, and
ilesirous to protect his servant, consented to a
project of some persons in the greatest trust
about the court to bring the army that was
raised against the Scots up to London, in order
to awe tbe two houses, to rescue the earl, and
to take possession of the city of London. Lord
¦Clarendon sayst the last motion was rejected
with abhorrence, and that the gentleman who
made it was the person who discovered the
whole plot. The conspirators met in the queen's
lodgings at Whitehall, where a petition was
drawn up for the officers of the army to sign,
and to present to his majesty, with a tender of
their readiness to wait upon him in defence of
his prerogative against the turbulent spirits of
the House of Commons ; the draught was shown
to the king, and signed, " In testimony of his
majesty's approbation, C. R.," but the plot be
ing discovered to the Earl of Bedford, to the
Lords Say and Kirabolton, and to Mr. Pym,
with the naraes of the conspirators, aU of them
absconded, and some fled immediately into
France. Mr. Pym opened the conspiracy to the House

* The words of the statute are,
" And because that many other like cases of trea
son may happen in time to come, which a man can
not think or declare at this present time, it is accord-
-ed that if any other case, supposed treason, which is
not above specified, doth happen before any justice,
the justices shall tarry without any going to ludgment
¦of the treason tiU the cause be showed and declared
before the king and his Parliament whether it ought
to be judged treason or felony."
t The bill of attainder against the Earl of Slraf-
iford being formed on this principle and authority,
there was a great propriety in the following clause
-of it, viz. : " That no judge or judges, justice or jus
tices whatsoever, shall adjudge or interpret any act or
thing to be treason, nor hear or determine treason,
in any other manner than he or they should or ought
-to have done before the passing of this act." This
clause has been considered as a reflection on the
bUl itself, and as an acknowledgment that the case
vvas too hard, and the proceedings too irregular, to
be drawn into a precedent. But this is a miscon-
straction of the clause, which did not intimate any
consciousness pf wrong in those who passed it ; but
was meant to preserve to Parliament the right,
in future, which is exercised in this instance, of de
termining what is treason in all doubtful cases, and
was intended to restrain, the operation of the bUl to
this single case. It showed, observes Mrs. Macau
lay, a very laudable attention to the preservation of
pubhc hberty. — Macaulay's History, vol. u., 8vo, p.
444, note (t) ; and Dr. Harris's Life of Charles I, p.
.324, 325.— Ed. X Clarendon, vol. i., p. 248.

of Commons May 2,- 1641,* and acquainted thera
that, among other branches of the plot, one was
to seize the Tower, to put the Earl of Strafford
at the head of the Irish army of papists, who
were to be transported into England, and to se
cure the important town of Portsmouth, in or
der to receive succours from France ; Sir WUI
iam Balfour, lieutenant of the Tower, confess
ed that the king had sent him express orders to
receive a hundred men into that garrison under
the comraand of Captain BilUngsly, to favour
the earl's escape ; and that the earl hiraself of
fered hira £20,000 in raoney, and to advance his
.son in marriage to one of the best fortunes in
the kingdom. Lord Clarendon has used aU his
rhetoric to cover over this conspiracy, and to
make posterity believe it was little more than
the idle chat of some officers at a tavern ; but
they who will compare the depositions in Rush-
worth with his lordship's account of that mat
ter, says Bishop Burnet, will find that there is a
great deal more in the one than the other is will
ing to believe, t Mr. Echard confesses that the
plot was not wholly without foundation. The
court would have disowned it, but their keeping
the conspirators in their places raade the Parlia
ment beUeve that there was a great deal raore
in it than was yet discovered ; they therefore
sent orders immediately to secure the town and
haven of Portsmouth, and to disband the Irish
army ; they voted that all papists should be re
moved from about the court, and directed let
ters to Sir Jacob Ashley to induce the army to
a dutiful behaviour, and to assure them of their
full pay.
The consequences of this plot were infinitely
prejudicial to the king's affairs ; the court lost
its reputation ; the reverence due to the king
and queen was lessened ; and the House of
Coramons began to be esteemed the only bar
rier ofthe people's liberties ; for which purpose
they entered into a solemn protestation to stand
by each other with their lives and fortunes ; the
Scots army was continued for their security ; a
biU for the continuance of the present Parlia
ment was brought in and urged with great ad
vantage ; and, last of all, by the discovery of
this plot the fate of.the Earl of Strafford was
deterrained ; great numbers of people crowded
in a tumultuous manner to Westminster, cry-

* Rapin, vol. ii., p. 369, folio. Strafford, as is well
known, had been long distinguished among the pop
ular leaders of the House of Commons for his vio
lent opposition to the court. Whether his defection
was owing to ambition, the love of power, or to an
awakened dread for the Constitution of his country ;
whether it was the splendid promises of Charles, ea
ger to gain over so powerful a mind, or a fear that his
associates were proceeding to too great lengths, it is
now impossible to determine. However, his sudden
leap from a patriot to a courtier was as severe a blow
to his own party as it was a triumph to the court.
To the astonishment of all men, he was created sud
denly, July 22, 16-28, Baron Wentworth, Newmarsh
and Oversley. Shortly after his elevation he met his
old friend Pym. "You see," said Strafford, "that 1
have left you." " So I perceive," was Pym's reply ;
" but we shall never leave you as long as you have a
head on your shoulders." If this be true,it is certain
that Pym kept his word, and never lost sight of
Strafford till he had brought him to the block. — Jes
se's Court ofthe Stuarts, vol. ii., p. 353. — C.
t May's Hist., p. 97-99. Rushworth, part iu., vol.
i., p. 291.

376

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

ing. Justice ! justice I and threatening violence
to those members of the House of Commons
who had voted against his attainder. In this
situation of affairs, and in the absence of the
bench of bishops (as being a case of blood), the
hill passed with the dissent only of eleven peers.
The king had sorae scruples about giving it the
royal assent, because, though he was convinced
the earl had heen guilty of " high crimes and
raisderaeanors," he did not apprehend that an
" endeavour to subvert the fundaraental form
of government, and to introduce an arbitrary
power, was high treason ;" his majesty con
sulted his bishops and judges, but was not sat
isfied tiU he received a letter from the earl him
self, beseeching his raajesty to sign the biU, in
order to raake way for a happy agreeraent be
tween hira and his subjects. Mr. Whitelocke
insinuates* that this letter was but a feint of
the earl's, for when Secretary Carlton acquaint
ed him with what the king had done, and wilh
the motive, which was his own consent, he rose
up in a great surprise, and lifting up his eyes to
heaven, said, " Put not your trust in princes,
nor in the sons of raen, for in them there is no
salvation. "t Two days after this [May 12], he
was executed on Tower HiU, and submitted to
the axe with a Roman bravery and courage ;
but at the restoration of King Charles II. his at
tainder was reversed, and the articles of accu
mulative treason declared nuU, because what is
not treason in the several parts cannot amount
to treason in the whole. t
This was the unhappy fate of Thoraas Went
worth, earl of Strafford, once an erainent patri
ot and asserter of the liberties of his country,
but after he was called to court, one of the most
arbitrary ministers that this nation ever pro
duced. He was certainly a gentleman of dis
tinguished abilities, as appears by the incom
parable defence he raade on his trial, which
gained hira more reputation and esteem with
the people than all the latter actions of his life
put together ; but still he was a public enemy
of his country, and had as great a share in
those fatal counsels that brought on the civil
war as any raan then living. " The earl," says
Mr. Echard, " was of a severe countenance, in-

* Memorials, p. 44.
T W'hile the trial was in progress, the earl received
ihe following remarkable letter from Charles :
" Strafford — The misfortune that is fallen upon
you by the strange mistaking and conjunction of
these times being such that 1 must lay by the thought
of employing you hereafter in my affairs, yet 1 can
not satisfy in honour or conscience without assuring
you now, in the midst of all our troubles, that, upon
the word of a king, you shall not suffer in life, honour,
or fortune. This is but justice, and, therefore, a very
mean reward from a master to so faithful and able a
servant a.s you have shown yourself to be ; yet it is
as much as 1 conceive the present limes will permit,
though none shall hinder rae from being
" Your constant, faithful friend,
"Charles R."
— Strafford's Lnitrrs. vol. ii., p. 416.
" The world," remarks a modem writer, " wUl more
readily forgive the faults of Strafford than they will
acquit Charies for having consented to his death."
daries, in his last moments on the scaffold, observ-
ed, " 1 will only observe this- that an unjust sen
tence, that 1 suffered to take effect, is punished by an
.'^"J"st sentence on mK"—King Charles's Works, p.
-•-'-""^ \ Nalson's Collections, vol. u., p. 203.

sufferably proud and haughty, having a sover
eign contempt of the people, whora he never
studied to gratify in anything ; the ancient no
bility looked upon his suddt-n rise and univer
sal influence in public affairs with envy, so that
he had but few friends, and a great raany ene
mies." Lord DIghy, in his famous speech* against
the Bill of Attainder, wherein he washes his
hands ofthe blood ofthe Earl of Strafford, has,
nevertheless, these expressions : " I confident
ly believe hira the most dangerous minister, and
the raost insupportable lo free subjects, that
can be charactered. I believe his practices in
themselves have been as high and tyrannical as
any subject ever ventured upon ; and the ina-
lignity of them is greatly aggravated by those
abilities of his, whereof God has given him the
use, but the devil the application. In a word,
I believe him stiU that grand apostate to the
commonwealth, who must not expect to be par
doned in this world till he be despatched to the
other." Lord Falkland says, " That he committed so
raany raighty and so raanifest enorraities and
oppressions in the kingdom of Ireland, that the
like have not been committed by any governor
in any government since Verres left Sicily ; and
after his lordship was called over frora heing
deputy of Ireland, to be in a manner deputy of
England, he and the junctillo gave such coun
sels and pursued such courses as it is hard to
say whether they were more unwise, more un
just, or raore unfortunate."
Lord Clarendon says,t " That he had heen
compelled, for reasons of state, to exercise
many acts of power, and had indulged some to
his own appetite and passion, as in the case of
the Lord-chanceUor of Ireland and the Lord
Mount Norris, the former of which was satis
pro imperio, but the latter the most extravagant
piece of sovereignty that, in a time of peace,
had been executed by any subject." From
whence the reader may conclude, that whatev
er encoraiuras the earl raight deserve as a gen
tleman and a soldier, yet, as a statesman, he
deserved the fate he underwent.
The execution of this great personage struck
terror into all the king's late ministers ; some
of them resigned their places, and others re
tired into France ; araong the latter was the
Lord-keeper Finch and Secretary Windebank.
Six of the judges were impeached of high
crimes and misdemeanors, for " interpreting
away the laws of their country ;" but the Par
liaraent had too much business upon their hands
to attend to their prosecution at present. Thus
this unhappy prince was deprived of those coun
seUors who were in his own arbitrary senti
ments, and left as in a manner to hiraself, and
the powerful influence of his bigoted queen and
her cabal of papists : for the new rainisters who
succeeded were such in whom the king would
place no confidence. So that most raen expect
ed' that these vigorous proceedings would in
duce him to put a speedy end to the session.
But that which prevented it was the want of
money to pay off the armies in the north ; his

* This is one of the most splendid oralions of the
English Pariiament. It is worthy of close study, and
may be found at length in Baker's Chronicles. — C.
t Vol. i., p. 250.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

377-

majesty pressed the houses to despatch this af
fair, and relieve the country from the burden
of contribution ; on the other hand, the Com
mons looked upon the Soots as their security,
and that, if they were sent home, they should
again be at the mercy of the prerogative, sup
ported by a standing array. I-Iowever, they
had begun to borrow money of the city of Lon
don towards the expense ; but when the plot to
dissolve the Parliament broke out, the citizens
declared they would lend nothing upon parlia
mentary security, because their sitting was so
very precarious. This gave rise to a motion
for the continuance of the present Parliaraent
tiU they should dissolve theraselves, which was
presently turned into a short bUl, and passed
both houses with very little opposition, as the
only expedient that could be thought of to sup
port the public credit : it enacts, " that this
present Parliament shall not be adjourned, pro
rogued, or dissolved, without their own con
sent," and was signed by coraraission with the
BUl of Attainder against the Earl of Strafford.
AU men stood amazed at the king's weakness
on this occasion ; for, by this hasty and unad
vised measure, he concurred in a change of the
whole Constitution, giving the two houses a co
ordinate power in the Legislature wilh himself,
for as long time as they pleased : if his majesty
had fixed their continuance to a liraited tirae,
it might have satisfied the people and saved the
prerogative ; but, hy raaking them perpetual, he
parted with the sceptre ouFof his own hands,
and put it into the hands of his Parliament.
"This," says Mr. Echard, "has made some
writers doubt whether those who afterward
took up arras against the king could be legally
terraed rebels. For by passing this act his maj
esty made the two houses so far independent
upon himself, that they immediately acquired
an uncommon authority, and a sort of natural
right to inspect and censure his actions, and to
provide for the safety ofthe kingdora."
While the Coramons were alarmed with the
discovery of the plot and the flight of the con
spirators, Mr. Pyra moved that both houses
might join in some band of defence for the se
curity of their liberties and of the Protestant re
ligion ; accordingly, the following protestation
was drawn up, and subscribed the very next
day by the whole House [May 3] :
" I, A. B., do, in the presence of Almighty
God, vow and protest to maintain and defend,
ras far as lawfuUy I may, v/ith my life, power,
and estate, the true Reforraed Protestant reli
gion, expressed in the doctrine of the Church
of England, against all popery and popish inno
vations in this realm, contrary to the said doc
trine ; and according to the duty of ray aUe-
giance, I will raaintain and defend his majesty's
royal person, honour, and estate ; also the pow
er and privilege of Parliament, the lawful rights
and Uberties of the subject, and of every person
who shall raake this protestation in whatsoever
he shall do, in the lawful pursuance of the
same. And to my power, as far as lawfully I
may, I wUl oppose, and by all good ways and
means endeavour to bring to condign punish
ment, aU such who shaU by force, practice,
counsel, plot, conspiracy, or otherwise, do any
thing to the contrary in this protestation con
tained. And farther, that I shall, in aU just
Vol. L— B b b

and honourable ways, endeavour to preserve
the union and peace between the three king
doms of England, Scotland, and Ireland ; and
neither for hope, fear, nor any other respect,
shaU relinquish this proraise, vow, and protest
ation."* May 4, this protestation was made by all the
peers present in Parliament, except the Earl of
Southampton and Lord Roberts ;-f even by the
bishops themselves, though (as Lord Claren-
dont observes) it comes little short of the Scots
covenant. Their lordships, indeed, would have
interpreted those words, " the true Reformed
Protestant religion, expressed in the doctrine
of the Church of England," to have included the
government or hierarchy of the Church ; but it
was resolved and declared by the House,^ that
by those words was and is raeant only the pub
lic doctrine professed in the said Church, so-
far as it is opposite to popery and popish inno
vations ; and that the said words are not to ex
tend to the maintenance of any form of worship,
discipline, or government, nor of riles and cer
emonies. II Within two days the protestation
was taken by eighty teraporal lords, seventeen
bishops, nine judges, and four hundred and thir
ty-eight of the House of Coraraons. Next day
it was printed, and sent to the sheriffs and jus
tices of peace in the several counties of Eng
land, to be taken by the whole nation, with the
foUowing directions :ir
"  That it be taken in the afternoon of
sorae Lord's Day after serraon, before the .con
gregation be disraissed, by all masters of fami
lies, their sons that are of a proper age, and men-
servants, in the manner following. First, That
notice be given to the minister by the church
wardens of the intention. Secondly, That the
minister acquaint the people in his sermon of"
the nature of the protestation. Thirdly, That
the rainister first take it himself, reading it dis
tinctly with an audible voice, that all present
may hear it ; then the asserably shall take the-
writing in their hands, saying with a distinct and
audible voice, 'I, A. B., do, in the presence of
Alraighty God, vow and protest the same, which
the leading person that reads it did,' naming
the person. Fourthly, The names of all that
take it shall be subscribed in a register ; and
the names of those that refuse shall be en
tered."

* Clarendon, vol. i., p. 251, &c.
+ "Alleging that there was no law that enjoined
it, and that the consequence of such voluntary en
gagements might produce effects that were not in
tended. "^iord Clarendon, as quoted by Dr. Grey. —
Ed. X Vol. i., p. 253.
Ij Mr. Neal, according to Lord Clarendon, has mis
represented this matter. For he says, that this ex
planation was procured in the House of Commons,
without ever advising with the House of Peers. The
peers had previously taken the protestation. — Hist.
of the Rebellion, vol. ii., p. 252. Mr. Neal is properly
corrected here by Dr. Grey. — Ed.
II Rushworth, part iu., vol. i.
ir The EngUsh House of Commons was nominally
made up of Episcopalians, and it is not quite fair to
hold up the enforcement of this protestation, and oth
er measures of the Long Parliament, as Presbyterian
intolerance. It was two years after before the Sol
emn League and Covenant was established. — See the
History of the Westminster Assembly, by Rev. W. M-
Hetheringlon. — C.

H 1 S T 0 R 'i' OF THE PURITANS.

The cUies of London and Westrainster ob
served these din-c-tions. but the reraoter coun
ties were complained of for neglect ; upon
which the House of Commons passed a bill to
oblige all persons to take il throughout the king
dora ; which was lost in the House of Lords,
the whole bench of bishops opposing it ; where
upon the Commons carae to this resolution,
that " whosoever would not take the protesta
tion was unfit to bear offices in the Church or
coramonwealth." This was carrying matters to a very extraor
dinary length. There had been a parliament
ary association in the reign of Queen Elizabeth,
-which her raajesty confirmed, and a solemn
league and covenant in Scotland, which the
king had complied with ; but the enforcing a
protestation or vow upon his majesty's subjects
without his consent was assuming a power
which even this dangerous crisis of affairs, and
the uncommon authority with which this Par
liament was invested by the late Act of Contin
uance, can by no means support or justify.
The odium of putting a stop to the protestation
feU upon the bench of bishops, who were al
ready sinking under their own weight ; and his
majesty's not interposing in this affair at aU
was afterward made use of as a precedent for
imposing the solemn league and covenant upon
the whole kingdom without his concurrence,*
The Puritans had also objected lo the lordly
titles and dignities of the bishops ; but their
votes in the House of Peers were now esteem
ed a very great grievance, and an effectual bar
to the proceedings of Parliament. It was re-
merabered that they had been always averse to
reforraation ; that they had voted unanimously
against the supremacy in King Henry Vlll.'s
reign, and against the Act of Uniformity in
Queen Elizabeth's. It was now observed that
they were the creatures ofthe court, and a dead
weight against all reforraation in Church or
State ; twenty-six votes being suffioient at any
time to turn the scale in that House, whose fujl
number was not above a hundred ; il was there
fore moved that a bUl might be brought in to
take away their seats in Parliaraent, which was
readily agreed to. The bill, says Lord Claren
don, t was drawn up with great deliberation,
and was entitled, " An Act for restraining
Bishops, and others of the Clergy in Holy Or
ders, frora intermeddling in Secular Affairs."
It consisted of several branches ; as, " that no
bishop should have a vote in Parliament, nor
any judicial power in the Star Charaber, nor be
a privy councUlor, nor a judge in any teraporal
courts ; nor should any clergyraan be in the
commission of peace." To raake way for the
passing of this bUl, it was alleged that if this
were granted the Coraraons would be satisfied,
and little or nothing farther atterapted to the
prejudice of the Church. It therefore passed
the House of Commons without opposition, and
was sent up to the House of Peers May 1, 1641.
Mr FuUer sayst that Lord Kirabolton would
have persuaded the bishops to resign their votes
in Pariiaraent, adding, that then the teraporal
lords would be obliged in hononr to preserve
their jurisdiction and revenues. The Eari of
£ssex also eraployed somebody to treat private-

* -Nalson's Col., vol. iL, p. 414.
•f ^ ol. 1., p. 234. t

X Book ix., p. 185.

ly wilh the bishops on the samp head ; but
they rejected all overlun-s of aoeoinmodalion,
resolving lo make their utmost elforts, and to
keep possession of iheir seats lUl a superior
strength should dispossess them ; accordingly,
the bUl met with a vigorous opposition in the
Upper House, and after a second reading was
thrown out, without so much as bring eonimit-
ted (a countenance frequently given to biUs
they never intend to pass) ; hut tho whole
bench of bishops voting for themselves, it is no
wonder it was lost by a considerable majority.
Mr. Fuller says it would have heen thrown out
if the bishops had not voted at all ; for though
the temporal lords were content to exclude
them frora all secular offices and einploynients
in the state, they were in no disposition to take
away their suffrages in the House of Peers.
Many learned speeches were made in both
houses upon this occasion ; the reasons of the
Coramons for passing the bill were these : (1.)
Because their attendance on secular affairs, not
relating tothe Church, is a great hinderance to
their spiritual function.* "No man that war-
reth," saith St. Paul to Timothy, "entangletb
himself with the affairs of this life." (2.) Be
cause it is contrary to their ordination-vow-,
for when they enter into holy orders they prom
ise to give themselves wholly to that vocation.
(3.) Because councils and canons in several
ages have forbid their meddling in secular af
fairs. (4.) Because the twenty-four bishops de
pend on the two archbishops, and take an oath
of canonical obedience to them. (5.) Because
their peerage is not of the same nature with the
temporal lords, being but for life. (6.) Because
they depend on the crown for translation to
greater bishoprics. (7.) Because it is not fit
that twenty-six of them should sit as judges
upon complaints brought against theraselves
and their order.t
Bishop Williams published an answer to
these reasons, entitled the Abstract, to which
there presently carae out a reply. The chief
speakers on behalf of the bishops, in the House
of Peers, were the Lord-viscount Newark, af
terward Earl of Kingston, Dr. Williaras, lord-
bishop of Lincoln, afterward Archbishop of
York, the Marquis of Hereford, the Earls of
Southampton, Bath, and Bristol. But instead
of transcribing their speeches, I wiU give the
reader a sumraary of their arguments, and of
their adversaries' reply.
First, It was argued that " bishops had voted
in Parliaraent alraost ever since the Conquest,
according to Matthew Paris, Sir Henry Spel-

* Rushworth, p. 281. Nalson's Collections, vol.
ii., p. 260.
t On these reasons. Dr. Harris observes, " That,
whatever might have been Ihought of them at that
time, we are to suppose that they have long been of
no force. The zeal for the Constitution in Church
and Slate, the abhorrence of aU ministerial measures
inconsistent therewith, the opposilion to everything
contrary to liberty and the public good ; and, above
all, the self-denial and contempt of the world, hu
mihty, and constant discharge of episcopal duties,
required in the New Testament : I say all these
things show how much the bishops since the Refor
mation are altered, and how much those are mista
ken who represent them as a dead weight in the
House of Lords, and a useless expense to the pub
Uc."— Z.//e of Charles I., p. 330, 331.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

379

man, and others." To which it was replied,*
that tirae and usage ought to be of no weight
with lawmakers, on the behalf of things which
are allowed to be inconvenient ; abbots had vo
ted as anciently in Parliament as bishops, and
yet their votes were taken away.
Secondly, It was said that " the bishops vo
ting was no considerable hinderance in their
spiritual function ; for Parliaments were to sit
but once in three years, and then but for a
month or two together ; but though no clergy
man should entangle himself wilh the affairs of
this life, the apostle does not exclude him from
intermeddling." To which it was answered,
that the episcopal function, if w-ell discharged,
was enough for all their lime and thoughts ;
and that their diocesses were large enough to
eraploy aU their labours, in visitation, confirraa
tion, preaching, &c. The design of the Apos
tle Paul was certainly to exhort Timothy to
withdraw himself as ranch as possible from the
affairs of this life, that his thoughts might be
more entire for his evangelical work ; and,
therefore, in another place, he exhorts hira to
give hiraself wholly to these things.
Thirdly, It was said that " clergymen had al
ways been in the commission of the peace, from
the first planting of Christianity, and that they
were best qualified for it." To which it was
answered, that they were most unfit for this era-
ployment, because it had a direct tendency to
hinder their usefqjness in their pulpits ; and to
the fact it was replied, that the first clergymen
¦that were made justices of the peace, or had
power in temporal jurisdiction, were the Bish
ops of Durham and York, 34 Edw. III. That
before the Act of Conformity, 1 Edw. VI., the
clergy were not put in commission for the
peace ; and that the reason of their being then
adraitted was, that they might persuade the
people to conformity ; but if in conscience they
held it not consistent wilh their spiritual call
ing, they might refuse.
It was farther said, that the taking away one
whole bench out of the House of Peers was an
ill precedent, and might encourage the Com
mons one time or other to cut off the barons, or
some other degree of the nobUity. To which
it was replied, that the peerage of the bishops
did not stand upon the same footing with the
rest of the no.bility, because their honour does
not descend to their posterity, and because they
have no right to vote in cases of blood ; if they
had the same right of peerage with the tempo
ral lords, no canon ofthe Church could deprive
them of it ; for it was never known that the
canons of the Church pretended to deprive the
barons of England of any part of their inherent
jurisdiction. It was argued farther, that if the hench of
bishops were deprived of their votes, they would
he left under very great disadvantages ; for
whereas the meanest commoner is represented
in the Lower House, the bishops wiU be thrown
out of this common benefit ; and if they have
no. share in consenting to the laws, neither in
their persons nor representatives, what justice
can oblige them, to keep those laws 1
To which it was replied, that they have the
same share in the Legislature vvith the rest of
the freeholders of England ; nor is there any

* Nalson's- OoUections, vol. ii., p. 251, &c.

more reason that the bishops, as bishops, should
be a part ofthe Legislature, than the judges or
the lawyers, as such, or any other incorporated
profession of learned men.
But the principal argument that was urged
in favour of bishops was, that " they were one
ofthe three estates in Parliament ; that as such
they were the representatives ofthe whole body
of the clergy, and, therefore, to turn them out
would be to alter the Constitution, and to take
away one whole branch of the Legislature : the
Pariiament would not then be the complete rep
resentative body of the nation, nor would the
laws which were enacted in their absence be
valid. To support this assertion it was said,
(1.) That the clergy in all other Christian king
doms of these northern parts raake up a third
estate, as in Gerraany, France, Spain, Poland,
Denraark, Scotland ; and, therefore, why not in
England? (2.) When King Henry V. was bu
ried, it is said the three estates assembled, and
declared his son Henry VI. his successor. The
petition to Richard, duke of Gloucester, to ac
cept the crown, runs in the name of the three
estates ; and in his Parliaraent it is said ex
pressly, that at the request of the three estates
(2. c., the lords spiritual and temporal, and
commons in ParUament asserabled), he was
declared undoubted king of these realms ; to
which may be added, the statute of 1 Eliz., Cap.
iii., where the lords spiritual and teraporal, and
coraraons, are said to represent the three es
tates of this realm.
It was replied to this, that the bishops did
not sit in the House as a third estate, nor as
bishops, but only in the right of their baronies
annexed to their bishoprics, 5 Will. I: AU
the bishops have baronies except the Bishop of
Man, who is as much a bishop, to all intents
and purposes of jurisdiction and ordination, as
the others, but has no place in Parliaraent, be
cause he does not hold per iniegram baronium.
It raust be adraitted, that in ancient times the
lords spiritual are soraetiraes mentioned as a
third estate of the realm, but it could not be in
tended by this that the clergy, much less the
bishops, were an essential part of the Legis
lature;, for if so, it would then foUow that no
act of Parliament could be valid without their
consent ; whereas divers acts are now in force,
from which the whole bench of bishops have
dissented, as the Act of Conformity, 1 Ed w. VL,
and the Act of Supremacy, 1 Eliz.* If the ma
jor part of the barons agree, and the House of
Coraraons concur, any biU may pass into an
act with the consent ofthe king, though all the
bishops dissent, because their votes are over
ruled by the major part of the peers. In the
Parliament of Northampton, under Henry II.,
when the bishops challenged their peerage,!
they said, " Non sedemus hie episcopi sed bar-
ones," We sit not here as bishops, but as bar
ons ; we are barons, and you are barons — here,
therefore, we are peers. Nor did King Charles
himself apprehend the bishops to be one of the
three estates, for in his declaration of June 16,
1642, he calls himself one, and the lords spirit
ual and teraporal, and commons, the other two.
In ancient times the prelates were sometimes
excluded the ParUament, as in 25 King Edw. I.,

* Nalson's Collections, vol. ii., p, 502, Sec.
t Fuller'^ Appeal.

360

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS

when they would not agree to grant an aid to
his majesty in the Parliament at Carlisle ; and
before that time several acts had passed against
the oppressions of the clergy, in which the entry
in the records stands thus : " The king having
consulted with the earls, barons, and the other
nobles ; or by the assent of the earls, barons,
and other lay people;" which shows the bish
ops did not consent, for if they had Ihey would
have been first named, the order of the nobility
in aU ancient records being prelates, earls, and
barons.* When the convocation had cited Dr.
Standish before them, for speaking words against
their power and privilege, in lhe7lh Henry \T1I ,
It w-as determined by aU the judges ofthe land,
in presence of the king, that his majesty might
hold his Parliaraent without calling the bishops
at all. It appears, therefore, frora hence, that
the bishops never were accounted a third estate
of the realra, in such a sense as to raake thera
an essential branch of the Legislature ; nor are
they the representatives of the clergy, because
then the clergy would be twice represented,
for as many of thera as are freeholders are
represented with their fellow-subjects in the
House of Commons ; and as clergymen they arc
represented in convocation, the writ of election
to convocation being to send two clerks ad con-
scnlicndum, &c. Besides, none can properly be
called representatives of others but such as are
chosen by them ; the bishops, therefore, not be
ing chosen for this purpose, cannot properly be
the representatives of the clergy in Parliaraent ;
they sit there not in their spiritual character,
but by virtue of the baronies annexed to their
bishoprics ; and if the king, with consent of
Parliament, should annex baronies to the courts
of justice in \\'estminster Hall, or to the su
prerae magistracy of the city of London, the
judges and the lord-mayor, for the tirae being,
would have the same right of peerage. But
none of these arguments were deemed of suffi
cient weight wilh the lords to deprive them of
their seats in Parliament.
The loss of this bill, with the resolute behav
iour of the bishops, who were determined to
part with nothing they were in possession of,
inflamed the Commons, and made them con
clude that there was no hope of reformation
whUe they were a branch of the Legislature. It
was observed that the bishops were unusually
dUigent in giving their attendance upon the
House at this time, and always voted with the
court. Some of the leading members, therefore,
in the warmth of their resentments, brought in
a hill in pursuance of the root and hranch peti
tion, which had been laid aside for some time,
for the utter extirpation of aU bishops, deans,
and chapters, archdeacons, prependaries, chant
ers, with all chanceUors, officials, and officers
belonging to thera ; and for the disposing of their
lands, manors, &,c., as the Parliament shaU ap
point. t A rash and inconsiderate attempt I For
could they expect that the bishops should abol
ish theraselves? Or that the temporal lords
should consent to the utter extirpating an order
of churchmen, when they would not so much
as give up one branch of their privUege ? The
biU being drawn up by Mr. St. John, was deliv
ered to the speaker by Sir Edward Deering,

with a short speech, in which he took noliee of
the moderation of the House in the late lull,
hoping that, hy pruning and tiiking off a few
unnecessary branches from the bishops, llic tree
might prosper the betier I but that tins soft
method having proved ineffectual, by reason of
their incorrigible obstinacy, it was now- neces
sary lo put the " axe to the root of the tree "*
'- I never was for ruin," says he, " as long as
there was any hope of rel'oniiing ; and now I
profess, that if those hopes revive and prosper,
I will divide my sense upon this bill, and yield
my shoulders to underprop the primitive, law
ful, and just episcopacy." He concluded with
a sentence in Ovid :
" Cuncta prius lentanda, sed immedicnbUc vulnus
Ense reddendum est, ne pars sincera trahatur."1
The reading of this bill was very much op
posed, because it was brought in contrary lo
the usage of Parliaraent, without first asking
leave ; however, it was once read, and then
adjourned for ahnost two months: a little be
fore the king went to Scotland, it was carried
by a majority of thirty-one voices to read it a
second time, and comrait il to a committee of the
w hole House, of which Mr, Hyde [Lord Claren
don] was chairman, who made use of so much
art and industry to embarrass tho affair, that
after twenty days the biU was dropped.
Sir Edward Deering's speech in the commit
tee wiU give light into the sentiments of the
Puritans of these times :t '^*l'he ambition of
sorae prelates," says he, " wiU not let them •
see how inconsistent two contiary functions are
in one and the sarae person, and, therefore,
there is left neither root nor branch of that so
good and necessary a bill which we lately sent
up, and, consequently, no hope of such a ref
orraation as we all aira at ; what hopes, then,
can we have that this biU, which strikes at root '
and branch, both of their seats of justice, and
of their episcopal chairs in the Church, wiU
pass as it is, and without a tender of some
other governraent in lieu of this, since the voices
are stUl the sarae which threw out your former
biU '"ij Sir Edward, therefore, proposed anoth
er forra of governraent, if the House should
think fit to abolish the present, which was, in
a raanner, the same wilh Archbishop Usher's,
hereafter mentioned ; as, " First, That every
shire should be a distinct diocess or church.
Secondly, That in every shire or church twelve
or more able divines should be appointed, in the
nature of an old primitive constant presbytery.
Thirdly, That over every presbytery there
should be a president, let him be called bishop,
or overseer, or moderate, or superintendent, or
by what other name you please, provided there
be one in every shire, for the government and
direction ofthe presbytery, in the nature ofthe
Speaker of the House of Coraraons, or chair-

* Rushworth, part ui., vol. i., p.
i Nalson's Collections, vol. u..

396.
p. 248, 295, 30O.

* Clarendon, vol. i., p. 237. Nalson, ut ante, p.
248. t Lord Clarendon represents Sir Edward Deering
as a man of levity and vanity, easUy flattered by be
ing commended ; and says, " that the application of
the above lines was his greatest motive to deliver
the speech which they close." Dr. Harris (Life of
Charles 1., p. 327) says " he could not be actuated
by so mean a motive; and that he was a raan of
sense, virtue, and learning, perhaps not inferior to
his lordship, and of a family vastly superior." — Ed.
X Nalson's Coll., vol. ii., p. 295, &c. ij Ibid.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS,

381

man of a committee." Accordingly, it was re
solved, July 10, " That ecclesiastical power for
the government of the Churoh be exercised by
commissioners." July 31, resolved, " That the
raembers for every county bring in the names
of nine persons to be ecclesiastical commission
ers, on whom the power of church government
shall be devolved ; but that no clergyman be of
the commission." This was designed as a
temporary provision, and shows that the Puri
tans of these times did not intend the Presby
terian government, but only a reduction of
Episcopacy to what they apprehended a raore
primitive standard ; and if the bishops would
have relinquished some part of their jurisdic
tion, the mischiefs that befell them afterward
might have been prevented ; however, for the
present, the prosecution of it was laid aside.
But the House went more readily into the
debate for abolishing deans and chapters, and
applying their revenues to better purposes.*
This alarmed the cathedral-men, and put them
upon consulting how lo ward off the danger
that threatened them ; for this purpose, one
.divine was deputed from every cathedral in
England to solicit their friends in the houses
on behalf of their several foundations; and it
must be owned they did aU that men could do,
leaving no stone unturned that might be for
their advantage. Addresses were presented
.. from both universities in their favour :-! the ad-
<]ress from Oxford prays " for the continuance
of the present form of church governraent as
' the most ancient and apostolical ; and for the
¦continuance of cathedral-churches, with their
lands and revenues, as dedicated to the service
of God soon after the first plantation of Chris
tianity here ; as foundations thought fit to be
preserved, when the nurseries of superstition
were demolished at the Reformation ; as con
firmed by the laws of the land ; as nurseries of
students and learned raen in divinity ; as the
upholders of divers schools, hospitals, high
ways, bridges, and other pious works ; as ben
eficial to those cities where they are situate,
by hospitality, by relief of the poor, and by oc
casioning the resort of many strangers, to the
benefit ofthe tradesmen and inhabitants ofthe
places where they are built ; as the chief sup
port of many thousand families of the laity, who
enjoy estates from thera in a free way ; and as
yielding an ample revenue to the crown, and a
maintenance to many learned professors in the
university." The address from the University
of Cambridge was to the same purpose, and,
therefore, prays, " that the religious bounty of
their ancestors, for the advancement of learn
ing, and of learned men, may be preserved from
ruin and alienation ; but, withal, to take or
der that they may he reduced to the due ob
servation of their statutes, and that all innova
tions and abuses may be reformed." The dep
uties from the several cathedrals drew up a pe
tition to the Lords and Commons to be heard
by their counsel ; but being informed that the
House would not allow them that benefit, and
that if they had anything to offer they must ap
pear and plead their own cause, they made
choice of Dr. John Hacket, prebendary of St.
Paul's and archdeacon of Bedford, as their ad

vocate, who, being admitted to the bar of the
House, May 12, after the petitions from the two
universities had been read, made a laboured
speech in their behalf, insisting chiefly on the
topics ofthe Oxford address.
He recommended cathedrals, " as fit to sup
ply the defects of private prayer," the public
performance whereof should be in some place
of distinction.* And whereas the exquisite-
ness of the music gave offence to sorae ears,
as hindering their devotion, he requested, in
the narae of his brethren, that it raight be raod-
erated to edification, and reduced to the form
that Athanasius recommends, "ut legentibus
sint quara cantantibus simUiores."
He alleged that " at the Reformation preach
ing began in cathedrals ;" and whereas sorae
have said that lecture-preachers were an up
start corporation, the doctor observed that the
local statutes of all the cathedrals required lec
tures on the week-days ; and he requested, in
the narae of his brethren, that the godly and
profitable performance of preaching might be
more exacted.
He urged that " cathedrals were serviceable
for the advancement of learning, and training
up persons for the defence of the Church ;" and
that the taking thera away would disserve the
cause of religion, and be a pleasure to their ad
versaries. He added, that " the ancient and genuine use
of deans and chapters was a senatus episcopi,"
to assist the bishop in his jurisdiction ; and
whereas some of his reverend brethren had
complained that bishops had for many years
usurped the sole government to themselves and
their consistories, the continuing of chapters
rightly used would bring it to a plurality of as
sistants. He then put thera in mind of " the antiquity
of the structures, and the number of persons
maintained by them," amounting to many thou
sands ; he instanced their tenants, vvho by their
leases enjoyed six parts in seven pure gain, and
had therefore petitioned for their landlords ;
and showed that the cities in which cathedrals
were built were enriched by the hospitality of
the clergy and the resort of strangers.
He enlarged farther " upon their endow
ments, as encouragements to industry and vir
tue :" that several faraous Protestants of for
eign parts had been maintained by being install
ed prebendaries, as Casaubon, Saravia, Dr. Pe
ter du Moulin, Vossius, and others ; that the
crown had great benefit from these founda
tions, paying greater sums into the exchequer
for first-fruits and tenths, according to propor
tion, than other corporations.
And, lastly, he puts them in mind that "these
structures and estates were consecrated to Di
vine service, and barred all alienation with the
raost dreadful imprecations."
In the afternoon Dr. Cornelius Burges ap
peared on the other side of the question, and
made a long speech concerning the unprofitable
ness of those corporations ; he coraplained of
the " debauchery of singing-men," and of their
vicious conversation ; he spoke against " music
in churches" as useless and hurtful. He made
a distinct answer to the particulars of Dr. Hack-

* Fuller's Church History, b. xi., p. 176.
t Nalson's Coll., vol. u., p. 305, 306.

* Fuller, b. xi., p. 177.

3S2

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

f t's speech ; and in conclusion said, " Though
he apprehended it necessary to apply these
foundations to better purposes, it was by no
means lawful to alienate them from public and
pious uses, or to convert them to any private
persons' profit."
The farther debate of this bill was adjourned
for a week, and then coraraitted to a corarait
tee of the whole House, when the two follow
ing remarkable speeches were raade against
these foundations.*
The first by Mr Sergeant Thoraas, who ad
mits "that there were deans in St. Austin's
time, but that they were not officers of the
Church untU some centuries after. St. Austin
gives this account of their original : that the
monks, for their more convenient retirement
and contemplation, appointed officers, whom
they called deans, ' eo quod denis sunt praepos-
iti :' because every raan had the care of ten
monks, and was to provide them all necessaries
of life, that their devotions might not be inter
rupted with worldly cares. In the foUowing
ages of darkness and superstition, princes and
others bestowed large revenues upon these
monks from the opinion they had of the aus
terity and sanctity of their lives ; and as the
monks grew rich, the office of the dean, who
was the ' prsepositus' or steward, grew more
considerable, tiU in St. Bernard's time it was
ordained that none but a presbyter should be a
dean : 'Ne sit decanus nisi presbyter.' At the
reforraation of religion, w-hen many other reli
gious foundations were brolte up, these were
preserved, and in the constitutions of King
Henry VIII. and Edward VI. it is ordained that
aU deans should he presbyters, men of gravity,
learning, and prudence ; that they should govern
the cathedral churches according to their stat
utes ; that they should preserve discipline, and
see that the holy rites be performed in a grave
and decent manner ; that they be assistants to
the bishops within their several cathedrals, as
the archdeacons are abroad, for which reason
they should not be absent from their cathedrals
without the most urgent necessity, to be allow
ed by the bishop, but one or other of them is to
preach in their cathedrals every Lord's Day."
The sergeant then observed how unlike our
present deans were to their predecessors, how
little they observed the statutes of their insti
tution, and gave it as his opinion that it was
not reasonable that such vast revenues should
be allowed to persons who were of so Utile use
to the Church or comraonwealth.
-Mr. Pury, alderman of Gloucester, pursued
the same argument ; he produced a copy ofthe
statutes ofthe dean and chapter of Gloucester,
with their original grant about the time of the
Reformation. " We have erected," says the
king, " cathedrals and colleges in the place of
monasteries, that where ignorance and super
stition reigned the sincere worship of God might
flourish, and the Gospel of Christ Jesus be pure
ly preached ; and, farther, that the increase of
the Christian faith and piety, the instruction of
youth in good learning, and the sustentalion of
the poor, may be forever kept, maintained and
continued "t He then produced the statutes.

, , '„ Rusbworth, part ui., vol. i., p. 285 Nalson's
CoU.. vol. u., p. -J8-2.
-Nalson's Collections, vol. il, p. 289.

which ordained " thai tho said deans, pn heiids,
and (iinons, shall always reside and dwell in
the houses of the said cathedrals, and iheie
keep a family, with i;ood hospitality to lied tho
poor, and to distnbiiie alms. That thoy should
' preach the Word in season and out of season,'
especially in the cathedral church, and have
youth profitably taiiijlit Ihi-n- To ihis end ihey
are to have a conunon table in Iho comraon hall
of the cathedral, where the canons, scholars,
choristers, and officers are to eat together
The said dean and chapter are to give yearly
£20 to the poor, besides what is given lo their
own poor alras-racn ; and i20 more to the re
pairing bridges and highways thereabout. For
ihe perforraance of the said statutes and prem
ises, the deans, prebendaries, canons, and other
ministers of the cathedral, are obliged lo take
oath, and every one of them doth swear that, lo
the uUiiost of ^is power, he will observe lliem
inviolably." The alderraau observes from hence, " that
not one ofthe above-mentioned statutes are, or
have been kept, or the matters in any of them
contained, performed by any of the deans or
prebendaries of the said cathedral in his raera-
ory. That they corae once a year to receive
the rents and profits of the lands, but do not
distribute to the poor their proportion ; nor do
they mend the highways and bridges ; nor do
they keep any coraraon table ; and instead of
preaching 'in season and out of season,' they
neither practise it themselves, nor encourage
il in others. Infinite are the pressures that
raany cities near unto deans and chapters have
endured by thera and their procurement ; so
far have they been from a common benefit.
Since, then, the said deans and chapters are but
trustees, and the profits of the said lands have
been so ill eraployed, contrary to the trust in.
thera reposed, the alderman was of opinion
that, by a legislative power in Parliaraent, it
was fill to take them away and put them into
the hands of feoffees, to be disposed of lo such
pious and charitable uses as they were first in
tended for ; by which raeans the preaching of
the Gospel raight be effectually encouraged,
sraaUer livings augmented, and the necessities
ofthe poor better supplied."
These speeches made such an impression
upon the House, that, after a long debate, they
came to these resolutions : " That all deans,
dean:3 and chapters, archdeacons, prebendaries.
chanters, canons, and petty canons, and their
officers, shall be utteriy abolished and taken
away out ofthe Church ; and that all the lands
taken by this bill from deans and chapters shall
be put into the hands of feoffees, to be employ
ed for the support of a fit number of preaching
rainisters for the service of every church, and
for the reparation of the said churches, provis
ion being made that his majesty be no loser in
his rents, first-fruits, and other duties ; and that
a competent maintenance shaU be made to the
several persons concerned, if they appear not
delinquents to this house." But none of these
votes passed into a law, nor was there the least
prospect of their being confirraed by the Lords
as long as the bishops were in that house, who
stood together like a wall against every attempt
ofthe Commons for alterations in the Church,
tUl, by an unexpected providence, thoy were

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

383

broken in pieces, and made way for their own
ruin. The firmness ofthe bishops against all abate
ments or relaxations in favour of the Puritans
exasperated the people, and put an end to all
prospect of agreeraent. A coraraittee of ac
comraodation had been appointed by the House
of Lords, March 12, to consider of such innova
tions in religion as were proper to be taken
away, which, by the plot of the court to bring
up the army, and the loss of the late bills for
reformation of the hierarchy, was now broken
lip.* It consisted often earls, ten bishops, and
ten harons. " This committee," says Archbish
op Laud in his Diary, " will meddle with doc
trine as well as ceremony, and will call some
divines to them to consider of the business, as
appears by a letter hereunto annexed, sent by
the Lord-bishop of Lincoln to sorae divines to
attend this service. Upon the whole, I believe
this committee will prove the national synod of
England, to the great dishonour of the Church,
and what else may follow upon it God knows."
At their first meeting they appointed a sub
committee of bishops, and divines of different
persuasions, to prepare matters for their debate ;
the Bishop of Lincoln was chairman of both,
and was ordered to call together the sub-cora-
mittee with all convenient speed, which he did
by a letter directed to each of them in the fol
lowing words :
" I am commanded by the lords of the com
mittee for the innovations in matters of reli
gion, to let you know that their said lordships
have assigned and appointed you to attend them
as assistants in that committee, and to let you
know, in general, that their lordships intend to
examine aU innovations in doctrine and disci
pline introduced into the Church without law
since the Reformation ; and (if their lordships
shall find it behooveful for the good ofthe Church
and State) to examine after that the degrees
and perfection of the Reforraation itself, which
I am directed to intimate to you, that you may
prepare your thoughts, studies, and meditations
accordingly, expecting their lordships' pleasure
for the particular points as they shall arise.
Dated March 12, 1640-1."
Their names were these :
Dr. WiUiams, bishop of Lincoln,
Dr. Usher, archbishop of Armagh,
Dr. Morton, bishop of Durham,
Dr. Hall, bishop of Exeter,
Dr. Samuel Ward, Dr. Twisse,
Dr. Jonh Prideaux, Dr. Burges,
Dr. Sanderson, Mr. White,
Dr. Featly, Mr. MarshaU,
Dr. Brownrigge, Mr. Calamy,
Dr. Holdsworthe, Mr. HiU.
Dr. Hacket,
Sorae others were named, but these were all
who appeared : they consulted together six sev
eral days in the Jerusalem Chamber, at West
minster, the dean entertaining them aU the
while at his table. The result of their confer
ences was drawn up for the debate of the
committee in certain propositions and queries,
under the foUowing heads :

* Laud's Diary, p. 61. History of his Troubles,
p. 174.

1. Innovations in Doctrine.
1. " Quaere, whether in the twentieth article
these words are not inserted, ' the Church has
authority in controversies of faith 1'
2. " Several false doctrines have been preach
ed, even aU the doctrines of the CouncU of
Trent, abating only such points of state popery
against the king's supremacy as were raade
treason by the statute ; for example, some
have preached justification by works ; others,
that works of penance are satisfactory before
God ; that private confession is necessary to
salvation, necessitate medii ; that absolution of a
priest is more than declaratory ; that the Lord's
Supper is a true and proper sacrifice. Some
have defended prayer for the dead, and the law
fulness of monastic vows ; sorae have denied
the raorality of the Sabbath ; some have preach
ed that subjects are bound to pay taxes contra
ry to the laws of the realra ; some have defend
ed the whole substance of Arrainianisra ; and
others have given just occasion of being sus
pected of Socinianism.
3. " Several dangerous and reprovable books
have been printed," which are mentioned in the
copy of their proceedings now before me.
2. Innovations in Discipline.
As, 1. " Turning the holy table into an altar.
2. " Bowing towards it or to the east many
times, with three congees, at access or recess
in the church.
3. " Placing candlesticks on altars in paro
chial churches in the daytime, and making can
opies over thera with curtains, in imitation of
the veU ofthe temple ; advancing crucifixes and
iraages upon the parafront or altar-cloth, and
corapelling all coraraunicants to corae up before
the rails.
4. "Reading the litany in the body of the
church, and some part ofthe morning-prayer at
the altar when there is no coramunion ; and
the minister's turning his face to the east when
he pronounces the creed or reads prayers.
5. " Offering bread and wine by the hands of
the church-wardens, or others, before the con
secration of the elements. Having a credentia,
or side-table for the Lord's Supper. Introdu
cing an offertory before the communion, besides
the giving alms to the poor afterward.
6. " Prohibiting rainisters to expound the
catechism ; suppressing lectures on the week
day, and serraons on Sunday afternoon. Pro
hibiting a direct prayer before sermon, and
bidding of prayer.
7. " Singing Te Deum in prose in parish
churches. Standing up at the hymns of the
church ; and always at Gloria Patri. Carrying
children frora baptism to the altar, to offer them
to God ; and prohibiting the buUding galleries
in churches, where the parishes are very popu
lous. 8. "Introducing Latin service in the com
munion at Oxford ; and into morning and even
ing prayer in Cambridge.
9. " Pretending for their innovations the in
junctions and advertisements of Queen Eliza
beth, which are not in force, but appertain to
the liturgy printed in the second and third of
Edward VI., which the Parliament had reforra
ed and laid aside."

384

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

Memorandum for Reformation.
1. " That in all cathedral and collegiate
churches two sermons be preached every Sun
day, and likewise every holyday ; and one lec
ture at least on working days every week in
the year.
2 " That the music used in cathedral and
collegiate churches be framed with less curios
ity ; and that no hymns or antheras be used
where ditties are fraraed hy private men, but
such as are contained in the Holy Scriptures,
or in our liturgy or prayers, or have public al
lowance. 3. " That the reading-desk be placed in the
church, where Divine service may be best heard
of the people."
3. Considerations upon the Book of Common
Prayer.
1. " Whether the names of some departed
saints should not be struck out ofthe calendar?
2. " Whether the rubric should not be mend
ed, where all those vestraents are coramanded
-which were used in the second year of Edward
VI. !
3. " Whether lessons of canonical Scripture
should not be inserted into the calendar instead
of .\pocrypha?
4. " In the rubric for the Lord's Supper,
whether it should not be inserted, that such as
intend to communicate shall signify their names
to the curate over night, or in the morning be
fore prayers ?
5. " 'The next rubric to be explained, how far
a minister raay repulse a scandalous and noto
rious sinner frora the communion?
6. " Whether it be not fit lo insert a rubric,
touching kneeling at the communion, that it is
to comply, in all humility, with the prayer which
the minister makes, when he delivers the ele
ments ?
7, " Whether there should not be a rubric lo
take away all offence from the cross in baptism?
Or, whether it be more expedient that it be
wholly disused ? And, whether this reason
shall be published, that in ancient liturgies no
cross was signed upon the party but where oil
also was used, and therefore, oil being now
omitted, so may that which was concomitant
wih it, the sign ofthe cross?
8. " Whether the catechism raay not receive
a little more enlargement ?
9. " Whether the times prohibited for mar
riages are quite to be taken away ? Whether
those words in the office, ' With ray body I
thee worship,' should not he thus altered : I
give thee power over my body ? And, whether
that part of the rubric which obliges the new-
married persons to receive the communion the
sarae day of their raarriage, raight not be chan
ged for the next Sunday when the communion
is celebrated?10. " Whether, in the absolution for the sick,
it were not betier to say, I pronounce thee ab
solved ? And in the office for the dead, instead
of those words, ' In sure and certain hope of
the resurrection to eternal life,' whether it were
not better to say. Knowing, assuredly, that the
dead shall rise again?"
Some other amendments of smaller moment
were proposed, but these were the chief No
mention was made of a reformation of episco

pacy, because their chairman, the Bishop of Lin
coln, had undertaken that province, and accord
ingly presented the House of I.,ords with a rec
onciling scheme, which was dropped after the
first reading. It consisted often articles.
1. "That every bishop, being within his dio
cess, and not disabled by ill health, shaU preach
once every Lord's Day, or pay £& to the poor,
to be levied hy the next justice ofthe peace.
2. " That no bishop shaU be justice of the
peace except the Dean ofWeslrainsler, in West
rainster and St. Martin's. [This seems lo be a
proviso for hiraself]
3. " That every bishop shall have twelve as
sistants besides the dean and chapter ; four lo
be chosen by Ihe king, four by the Lords, and
four by the Coramons, for jurisdiction and ordi
nation. 4. " That in all vacancies, these assistants,
with the dean and chapter, shall present lo the
king three of the ablest divines in the diocess,
who shall choose ono to be bishop.
5. " That deans and prebendaries shaU not be
nonresidents at their cathedrals above sixty
days. 6. " That sermons shaU be preached in the
cathedrals twice every Lord's Day, once every
holyday, and a lecture on Wednesdays, wUh a
salary of one hundred marks per annum.
7. " That aU archbishops, bishops, and colle
giate churches, &,c., shaU be obliged to give a
fourth part of their fines and iraproved rents to
buy in irapropriations,
8. "That all double-beneficed men shall pay
the value of half their living to the curate.
9. " No appeal shall be raade to the Court of
Arches or Court of Audience.
10. " It is proposed that canons and ecclesi
astical constitutions shaU be drawn up, and suit
ed to the laws of the realm by sixteen learned
persons, six to be nominated by the king, five
by the Lords, and five by the Coramons."
Archbishop Usher offered another scheme for
the reduction of episcopacy into the form of sy
nodical government, received in the ancient
Church ; in which his grace supposes, that of
the many elders that ruled the Church of Eph
esus, there was one stated president, whom our
Saviour calls the angel ; and whom Ignatius, in
one of his epistles, calls the bishop, to whom,
in conjunction wilh the elders or presbyters,
the whole government of the Church, both as
to doctrine and discipline, was coramitted. He
therefore proposes that these be continued ; and
for a regulation of their jurisdiction, that suffra
gans should be appointed to hold raonthly syn
ods of presbyters, frora whora there should be
an appeal to diocesan, provincial, and national
ones ; and more particularly,
1. " That the rector of every parish, with the
church-wardens, should admonish and reprove
such as live scandalously, according to the qual
ity of their offence ; and if hy this means they
are not reclaimed, to present thera to the next
monthly synod, and in the mean time debar
them tlie Lord's Table.
2, "Whereas, by a statute of 26 Henry
VIIL, suffragans are appointed to be erectejl in
twenty-six several places of this kingdom, the
number of them may be conformed to the num
ber of the several rural deaneries into which
every diocess is subdivided ; which being done.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

the suffragan may every month assemble a syn
od of the several rectors or incumbent pastors
within the precinct, and according to the major
part of their votes conclude all matters that
should be brought into debate before them.
3. "A diocesan synod raight be held once or
twice a year, wherein all the suffragans, and
the rest of the rectors or incumbent pastors, or
a certain select nuraber out of svery deanery
within that diocess, raight meet, with whose
consent aU things might be concluded by the
bishop or superintendent ; or in his absence, by
one of his suff'ragans, whom he should appoint
as moderator in his room ; and here the trans
actions of the monthly synods may be revised
and reformed.
4. " The provincial synod may consist of all
the bishops and suffragans, and such of the cler
gy as should be elected out of every diocess
within the province ; the primate of either prov
ince might be moderator, or, in his room, one of
the bishops appointed by him. This synod might
be held every third year, and if the Parliament
be sitting, both the primates and provincial syn
ods might join together, and make up one na
tional synod, wherein all appeals from inferior
synods might be received, all their acts exam
ined, and all ecclesiastical affairs relating lo the
state ofthe Church in general established."
Several other proposals were made to the
House of Commons by those Puritans who
were for revising and altering some things in
the Church, but not ibr root and branch ;* as,
that his raajesty should be raoved to caU a na
tional synod, or a select number of divines of
the three nations under his majesty's govern
ment, with an intimation to all Reformed
churches to send their deputies, to settle a uni-
forra model of government for the Church of
England, to be confirraed by Parliaraent, leaving
to other nations a Christian liberty in those
forras of discipline which are raost agreeable to
their civil government.
Others proposed " that the present liturgy
might be continued, but that the Apocryphal
lessons be entirely omitted ; that all sentence^
of Holy Scripture be according to the last trans
lation ; that the word minister be used instead
of priest ; with sorae other amendraents. That,
with regard to Episcopal government, bishops
be obUged to constant preaching in their metro
politan or parochial churches ; that they never
ordain without consent of three or four presby
ters at least ; that they do not suspend by their
sole authority, but wilh consent of presbyters,
and that for weighty causes ; that none raay be
excommunicated but by the bishop himself,
with consent of the pastor in whose parish the
-delinquent dwells, and that for heinous and
very scandalous criraes only. That the fees of
ecclesiastical courts be regulated, and that bish
ops, chancellors, and their officials, may be sub
ject to the censure of provincial synods and
convocations." But all these attempts for accommodation
were blasted by the stiffness of the bishops,
and by the discovery of the plot to bring the
army to London to dissolve the Parliament;
this put the nation into a ferment, and widened
the distance between the king and the two hous-

* Nalson's CoUSctions, vol. ii., p. 203.
Vol. I.— C c o

385
es, upon which the comraittee broke up about
the middle of May, without bringing anything
to perfection. Mr. Fuller has observed very
justly, " that the moderation and mutual compli
ance of these divines might have saved the body
of episcopacy, and prevented the civil war ; but
the courfc bishops expected no good from thera,
suspecting the Doctrinal Puritans (as they nick
named those bishops and Episcopal divines),
joined with the Disoiplinary Puritans, would
betray the Churoh between them. Some hot
spirits would abate nothing of Episcopal power
or profit, but maintained that the yielding any
thing was granting the day to the opposite par
ty." It is the observation of another learned
writer, upon the comraittee's agreeing to have
the Psalms in the liturgy printed according to
the new translation ; to expunge all Apocryphal
lessons ; to alter certain passages in the Book
of Coramon Prayer ; and some other things,
with which divers of the Presbyterians said
they were satisfied, " that if the Episcopal men
had raade these concessions when they were in
full power, they had prevented the raischiefs
that were coraing upon thera ; but as things
were at present, neither side appeared very weU
satisfied." There were deep resentments in the breasts
of both parties ; the bishops were incensed at
the bold attacks of the House of Commons upon
their peerage and spiritual jurisdiction ; and
the Puritans had a quick sense of their forraer
sufferings, which raade them restless till they
had abridged their power. It is very remarka
ble, and looks Uke an appearance of Divine dis
pleasure against the spirit of these tiraes, that
Archbishop Usher's scheme for the reduction
of Episcopacy, which at this tirae would have
satisfied the chief body of the Puritans, could
not be obtained from the king and bishops ; that
afterward, when the king offered this very
scheme at the treaty of the Isle of Wight, the
Parliament and Puritan divines would not ac
cept it, for fear of breaking with their Scots
brethren. Again, when the Presbyterian minis
ters, at the restoration ofKing Charles II., pre
sented it to his majesty as a model with which
they were satisfied, and which would compre
hend, in a manner, their whole body, both the
king and bishops rejected it with contempt, and
would not suffer it to be debated.
It may not be improper in this place to make
a few remarks upon this part of Mr. Rapin's ac- ¦
curate and judicious History of England, who,
in his account of these tiraes, seeras to repre
sent the body of the Puritans to be Presbyteri
ans, and as having forraed a conspiracy against
the whole fabric of the Church, from the very
beginning of this Parliament, whereas the
state of the controversy between the Church
and the Puritans was now changed. In the
reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I.,
the Puritans were for the most part Presbyte
rians, though even then there were many Epis
copalians araong them ; but, from the time that
Arminianism prevaUed in the Church, and the
whole body ofthe Calvinists came to be distin
guished by the narae of Doctrinal Puritans, both
parties seeraed to unite in a raoderate episcopa
cy, there being little or no mention of the old
book of disciphne for twenty years before the
commencement of the civil war, and all the

386

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

controversy turning upon points of Calvinism ;
upon a reduction ofthe exorbitant power ofthe
bishops; or upon innovations, as they were
called, and ceremonies. There w^ere few either
araong the clergy or laity who had a zeal for
presbytery, or desired any more than to be rid
of their oppressions. .Mr. Rapin, however, is
of opinion* that " among the raembers of Par
liament there were real Presbyterians, who
ihought, no douhi, of altering the wliqle gov
ernraent ofthe Church. These are represented
as deep politicians, as w-orking under ground,
and making use of all kinds of artifices to ac
complish their designs, which they took care
not to discover." He owns, indee»i, that " the
Presbyterians were not very numerous in the
House, but that they were supported by a prel ty
great party in the kingdom, and particularly hy
the Scots ;" which assertion seeras lo me to
require stronger evidence than he has thought
fit to produce. I have shown, from Lord Clar
endon, that both houses of Parliament, at their
first sitting down, were alraost to a raan for the
constitution ofthe Church ; that they aimed at
no raore than a redress of grievances; and that
there were not above two or three in both hous
es that were for root end branch. That all
the merabers reeeived the coramunion accord
ing lo the usage of the Church of England, at
their first sitting down, and brought a certifi
cate of their having so done; That the peti
tion of the Puritan ministers was not for setting
up presbytery, but only for reforming the griev
ances of the hierarchy ;t the controversy be
tween Bishop Hall and the Smectymnuan di
vines proceeded on the sarae footing, as did the
Coranuttee of .\ccomraodation. In short, when
the Parliament was obliged to fly lo the Scots
for assistance in the war, and to receive their
covenant ; and when, afterward, they found it
necessary lo pay the utmost deference to their
advices, lest they should w-ithdraw their array,
and leave thera to the raercy of an enraged
king, they could never, in the worst of times,
be induced to estabUsh their discipline in the
Church of England, without reserve of the ec
clesiastical power to themselves. And as to
the rainisters who composed the assembly of
divines at Westminster, though in a course of
time Ihey carried things very high, yet I am of
opinion, wilh Mr. Fuller,!: that at first " they
rather favoured the Presbyterian discipline, or were
brought over to embrace it by the Scots," than that
they came thither possessed with sentiments of its
Divine authority. However, it is certain that at
the Restoration these very divines offered to give
it up for Archbishop Usher's model of primitive
episcopacy. It must be confessed, that soon after the be-
•ginning of the Parliament there were many
among the coramon people who were enemies
to the whole ecclesiastical constitution, heing
supported bythe Scots commissioners, who had
conceived an implacable antipathy against the
order of bishops, which theyhad voted contrary
to the 'Word of God. But this was not the case

* Vol. u., p. 359, 447, foho edition.
f The history of the Church of England shows
the stem resistance which it has ever made to re
form If ever it be reformed from its papistical ap
pendages, it mastbe/riOTi without.— C.
1 Book XL, p. 19S.

ofthe Puritan clergy, who wanted only lo get rid
ofthe tyranny of the bishops, and were w illing to
leave the Parliaraent lo model Ihegoverimionlof
the Church as they ph asod. .-\nd allliough, as
the influence of the Scots over the two houses
increased, presbytery prevailed, and when the
Parliament were at Iheir mi rcy, and forced to
submit to what condiiions they would impose
upon Ihem for their assistance, the Kirk disci
pline gained the ascendant, and at length ad-
vanceii into a Divine right in the assembly of
divines, yet the Parliament would never eoiiio
into II, and when the Si;ots were gone home it
dwindled by degrees, till It was almost totally
eclipsed by the rising greatness of the Independ
ents. It appears, therefore, lo me, that there was
no formal design as yet, either in the House of
Commons or among the Puritan cler^'y, lo sub
vert the hierarehy. and erect the Presbyterian
government upon its ruins; there were no con
siderable number of Presbyterian ministers in
the nation ; and the leading raembers in both
houses were known lo be of another stamp.
" We are confident," says the king, in his letter
to the Council of Scotland, August 26, " that the
most considerable persons in both houses of
Purliament, and those who make the fairest pre
tensions lo you of uniformity in church govern
ment, wUl no sooner embrace a presbyterial
than you an episcopal."* And Bishop Burnet
speaks the same language. So that what was
done in the House of Commons afterward was
the result of the situation of their affairs, and
not of any formed design : as that changed, so
did their councils and measures. The contrary
to this ought not to be supposed, but proved by
incontestable matters of fact, which neither Mr.
Rapin, nor any other historian whom I have
read, lias yet done. And I will venture to say,
that if there were such invisible Presbyterians
behind the curtain, who planned the subversion
ofthe hierarchy, and blew it up, as it were, with
out hands, they raust have been abler states
men, and masters of much more worldly poli
tics, than their posterity have ever been re
markable for.
To return to the Pariiament. There were
two bills which affected the prerogative now
ready for the royal assent : one to abolish the
Court of High Commission, and regulate the
privy council ; the other, to take away the Star
Charaber. To induce the king to pass them
more readily, the Coraraons sent up a money-
hill with them ; but when the king came to the
House [July 3, 1641] he passed the money-biU,
and told the houses he must take some tirae to
consider of the others, which disgusted the
Coramons so much that they returned to their
house and immediately adjourned. At their
next meeting they feU into new heats, which
his majesty being informed of, came to the
House of Peers, and, having sent for the Cora
raons, reprimanded them for their jealousies, and
then passed the biUs ; he also put them in mind
what he had done this session ; "that he had
yielded that the judges should hold their places
quamdiu se bene gesserint ; that he had given
away his right to ship-money ; granted a law
for triennial Parliaments, and for securing the
money borrowed for disbanding the armies;

* Hamilton's Memohs, book iv., p. 197.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

387

in a word, that he had hitherto given way to
everything, and, therefore, they should not won
der if in some things he began now to refuse."*
Lord Clarendon insinuates that the king passed
these hUls with reluctance ; frora whence an
other ingenious writer concludes, that if ever
the ministry had regained their power, it was
hkely they would advise his majesty to declare
thera void, as being extorted from him by force
and -violence.
The act for abolishing the High Coraraission
Court repeals that branch of the statute 1 Eliz.,
cap. i., upon which this court was founded, and
then enacts, "that no archbishops, bishops, vic
ars-general, chancellor, or official, nor commis
sary of any archbishop, bishop, or vicar-gener
al, or any other spiritual or ecclesiastical offi
cer, shaU, by any grant, license, or commission
from the king, his heirs or successors, after the
1st of August, 1641, award, impose, or inflict
any pain, penalty, fine, araerceraent, iraprison
ment, or other corporeal punishment, upon any
ofthe king's subjects, for any contempt, misde
meanor, crime, matter, or thing whatsoever be
longing to spiritual or ecclesiastical jurisdic
tion, or shall ex officio tender or administer to
any person any corporeal oath, to make any
presentment of any crime, or to confess or ac
cuse himself of any crime, offence, delinquency,
or misderaeanor, whereby he or she may be
liable to any punishment whatsoever, under
penalty of treble charges, and £100 to him or
them who shall first deraand or sue for the
same. And it is farther enacted, that after the
said 1st of August, 1641, no new court shaU be
erected, or deemed, or appointed, that shall
have the like power, jurisdiction, or authority
as the High Commission Court had, or pretend
ed to have, but all such coraraissions, letters
patent, &c., from the king, or his successors,
and all acts, sentences, and decrees raade by
virtue thereof, shaU be utterly void."
By passing this act, all coercive power of
church consistories was taken away, and the
spiritual sword, that had done such terrible ex
ecution in the hands of sorae bishops, was put
into the scabbard. It was very extraordinary
that the bishops, who were then in- the House
of Lords, should so supinely suffer themselves
to be surprised out of their power. Some were
ready to observe a hand of justice, says Mr.
FuUer, t that seeing many simple souls, by cap
tious interrogatories, had been circumvented
by the High Commission Court into a self ac
cusation, an unsuspected clause in this statute
Should abolish all their lawful authority :. for
there is no proviso in the act to confine it only
to the High Commission, but it extends to all
archbishops, bishops, and aU spiritual or eccle
siastical officers in any of their courts. Lord
Clarendon sayst that the king was apprehen
sive that the body ofthe bill exceeded the title,
and, therefere, made a pause in consenting to
pass it, but that some bishops prevaUed with
his majesty to sign it, to take off the odium
from that bench, of their being enemies to aU
reforraation; for it was insinuated, says the
noble historian, that since they opposed a due
regulation of their power, there would be no
way but to cut them off root and branch.
* Nalson's CoUections, vol. i., p. 327.
t Book xi., p. 181. X Clarendon, vol. i., p. 284.

The act for taking away the Star Chamber,
and regulating the privy council, dissolves the
said eourt from the 1st of August, 1641, " and
repeals all those acts, or clauses of acts of Par
liament, by which any jurisdiction, power, or
authority is given to the said court, or to any
ofthe officers or ministers thereof And it or
dains farther, that neither his majesty, nor his
privy council, have, or ought to have, any juris
diction, power, or authority, by English bill, pe
tition, articles, libel, or other arbitrary way, to
examine or draw in question, determine or dis
pose of, the lands, teneraents, hereditaraents,
goods, or chattels of any ofthe subjects of this
kingdom," Thus fell the two chief engines of the late ar
bitrary proceedings in Church and State, which.
had the liberties and estates of many worthy
and pious families to answer for. By the pro
viso in the act for aboUshing the High Commis
sion, that " no new court shall be erected with
like powers for the future," it appears how odi
ous their proceedings were in the eyes of the
nation. Lord Clarendon admits* tifcat the ta
king away the Star Chamber at this time was
very popular ; but is of opinion that it would be
no less politic in the crown to revive it when
the present distempers are expired ; however, I
rely on the wisdom of a British Parliament,.
that they will njpver consent to it.
When the king had signed the two bUls, he
desired the advice of his Parliament concer'B}-
ing a manifesto which he intended to send to
the Diet of Ratisbon in favour of the Palatine
family, wherein he declares that he will not
abandon the interests of his sister and nephew,
but will eraploy all his force and power in their
behalf until they are restored. This was high
ly acceptable to the Puritans, who had always,
the interest of that house at heart. The mani
festo was read July 7,t when the Coraraons de
clared their approbation of it, and resolved to.
give his majesty such assistance therein as
shall stand with the honour of his majesty, and
the interest and affections of his kingdom, if
the present treaty does not succeed. 'The
peers concurred in the same vote; and both
houses desired the king to recomraend it to the
Parliament of Scotland, which-, his majesty
proraised. Many warra speeches were made on,
this occasion in favour of the Queen of B'ohe-
mia, by Sir Simon d'Ewes, Mr. Denzil HoUis,
and Sir Benjamin Rudyard.t " The restoring
the prince to his electorate," says "Sir Benja
min, " wUl restore the Protestant religion there ;-
it wUl strengthen and increase it in Germany,
which is of great and vast consequence. It
will likewise refresh and comfort the heart o£
that most noble, virtuous, andjnagnanimously-
suffering Queen of Bohemia his majesty's sis
ter, and his highness's mother, who is ever to
be highly and tenderly regarded by this house,
and by this kingdom." Mr. Denzil HoUis said,
" The House of Commons looks upon those dis
tressed princes, of so glorious an extraction,
with an eye of tenderness, wishing every drop
of that princely blood may ever he illustrated
with honour and happiness. To hear that these
princes should have their patrimony taken, from

* VoL i., p. 285.
t Rushworth, part iu., vol. i., p. 310.
I Nalson's Collections, p. 326-328, 378..

¦.-¦-9^

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

them, and suffer things so unworthy their birth
and relation, is a thing that makes our ears to
tingle, and our hearts to rise within us. But
there is another raotive which has an irresisti
ble operation with us, winch is the advance
ment of Protestant religion. The Protestant
religion and this kingdom raust live and die to
gether ; and it is m.-idness to suppose the Prot
estant religion can continue here, if we suffer
it lo be destroyed and eradicated out of the
neighbouring countries. Religion is the heart
of England, and England is the heart of the
Protestant religion in aU the other parts of
Christendom ; let us, therefore, like wise men,
that foresee the evil afar off, rather meet it at
a distance, than stay tUl the Austrian ambition
and popish power corae to our door."* These
were the sentiraents of the Puritans in this Par
liaraent with respect to the ancestors of his
present raajesty and t^e Protestant religion.
The Queen of Bohemia was so sensible of their
particular regards for her family, that she re
turned them her thanks ; but the manifesto
£nded in aothing.t
The Coraraons not being able to come at their
jnteaded alterations in the Church while the
-bench of bishops reraained united in the House
of Peers, formed several schemes to divide
thera : it was first proposed to set large fines
upon both houses of convocation for corapUing
the late canons, and a bUl was brought in for
that purpose ; but, upon better copsideiation, it
was thought raore effectual for the present to
make examples of those bishops only who had
been the principal movers in that affair ; agree
ably to this resolution, a committee was appoint
ed, July 31, to draw up an impeachment against
one half of the bench, viz.. Dr. Laud, archbish
op of Canterbury ; Dr. Curie, bishop of Win
chester ; Dr. Wright, bishop of Coventry and
Litchlield ; Dr. Goodman, bishop of Gloucester ;
Dr. Hall, bishop of Exeter ; Dr. Owen, bishop
of St. Asaph ; Dr. Pierce, bishop of Bath and
Wells ; Dr. Wren, bishop of Ely ; Dr. Roberts,
bishop of Bangor ; Dr. Skinner, bishop of Bris
tol; Dr. Warner, bishop of Rochester; Dr. Tow
ers, bishop of Peterborough ; Dr. Owen, bishop
of Landaff.t The impeachraent was of high
criraes and raisderaeanors : " for raaking and
publishing the late canons, contrary to ihe king's
prerogative, lo the fundaraental laws of the
realm, to the rights of Parliaraent, and to the
property and liberty of the subject ; and con
taining matters tending lo sedUion, and of dan-
,gerous consequence ; and for granting a benev-
¦olence or contribution to his majesty, to be paid
bythe clergy of that province, contrary to law,"
It was carried up to the Lords, August 4, by Ser
geant Wild, who demanded, in the name of aU
the Commons of England, that the bishops might
be forthwith put to answer the criraes and mis
demeanors above mentioned, in the presence
ofthe House of Commons; and that such far
ther proceedings might be had against them as
to law and justice appertained. The Coramons
were in hopes that the bishops would have quilted
their voles in Parliament to be discharged ofthe
prBemunire; but they resolved to abide by their
right, and therefore only desired time to prepare
their answer, and counsel for their assistance ;

* Rushworth, p. 316. f Ibid., p. 357.
X Ibid . part iu., vol. L, p. 359.

accordingly. Ihey were allowed three months'
tirae to put in their answer, and counsel of
their own nomination, viz.. Sergeant Jermin, Mr.
Chute, .\lr Heme, and Mr. Hales *
From this tirae Ihe bishops feU under a gen
eral disregard; the cry of the populai-e was
against Ihem, as the chief iinpedinients of all
reformation in Church and State ; and even the
teraporal peers Healed them with neglect, ex
pressing their dislike al the Bishop of London
being styled Right Honourable. Besides, the
lords spiritual were not distinctly mentioned in
the bills that passed this session, according to
ancient usage ; the clerk of the Parliament, in
reading the bills to the House, turned his back
upon the bench of bishops; and when the hous
es went in a body to chureh on a fast-day, the
teraporal barons gave theraselves precedence of
the bishops. These were the preludes to their
downfaU, which happened about six months
forward, though frora this lime they were little
better than ciphers in the House.
These resolute proceedings against the bish
ops put the court upon forming new projects to
break up the Parliament. It w as observed that
the strength and courage of the House of Com
mons rose from their confederacy wilh the
Scots, whoso army in the north was entirely in
their interest ; it was therefore resolved in coun
cil to detach that nation, if possible, from the
Parliament, and to bring them over to the king,
by yielding everything they should desire; for
this purpose his majesty declared his resolution
to the two houses to visit his native country in
person within fourteen days, and desired them
to finish the bills which were before them by
that time. The Commons being aware of the
design, and apprehensive of danger, if the king
should put himself at the head of the English
army in the north, sent away the Earl of Hol
land immediately with money to pay off, which
was done without mutiny or disturbance ; but
the business of the houses being very urgent,
and the time short, they voted, that in this case
of great necessity, concerning the peace of the
kingdom, they would sU the next day, being
Sunday, by six o'clock in the morning ; which
they did, and having heard a serraon, returned
to the Plouse about nine, and sat all day long
on the Lord's Day, coramonly called Sunday
[August 8, 1641]. But, lest this raight be mis
construed as a profanation, or be drawn into
example, they published the following declara
tion :t
" Whereas, both houses of Parliament found
it fit to sit in Parliament upon the 8lh of Au
gust, being Lord's Day, for many urgent occa
sions, being straitened in time by his majes
ty's resolution to go within a day or two lo
Scotland, they think fit to declare, that they
would not have done this hut upon inevita
ble necessity ; the peace and safely of both
Church and State being so deeply concerned.
which they do hereby declare, to this end, that
neither any other inferior court or counoil, or
any other person, raiy draw this into example,
or make use of it for their encouragement, in
neglecting the due observation of the Lord's
Day." * Fuller's Church History, book xL, p. 183
t Rushworth, p. 362. Nalson's CoUections,

p. 436.

Nalson's Collections, vol. il.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

380-

The same vote passed the House of Lords
nemine contradicenlc, and was ordered to be
printed. August 10, his majesty came to the House
and gave his assent to a biU concerning knight
hood ; against the oppressions of the stannary
courts ; for regulating the clerks of markets ;
and for confirming or ratifying the peace [or
pacification] with the Scots. This last being
an affair of gneat consequence, I shall give the
reader an abstract of the treaty, which had been
depending ever since Noveraber 23, 1640, be
tween the coramissioners of both nations, who
agreed to the following conclusions_ [August 7],
which the king ratified and confirmed the very
day he set out for Scotland.
" That the acts of Parliament held at Edin
burgh, June 2, be published by his majesty's
authority, and have in all tirae to corae the full
strength of laws.
" That the Castle of Edinburgh, and other
forts of Scotland, should be furnished and used
for the defence of the kingdom, with the advice
of the states of Parliament..
" That all those who in England or Ireland
have heen imprisoned, or otherwise censured
for subscribing the covenant, and for refusing
to take the oath contrary to the sarae, shall be
released and freed from such censures ; and
for the tirae to come the subjects of Scotland,
living in Scotland, shall not be obliged to any
oaths contrary to the laws or religion of that
kingdom ; but if they come to reside in England
or Ireland, they shaU be subject to the laws as
others are.
"That aU his majesty's courts of justice
shall be free and men against all evil counsel
lors and delinquems ; that the Parliament of
Scotland shaU have liberty to proceed against
such ; and that his raajesty will not employ
any person, in any office or place, who shall be
judged incapable by sentence of Parliament ;
nor make use of their service, nor grant them
access to his royal person, without consent of
Parliament. " That aU ships and goods on both sides be
restored, and that £300,000 be given to the
Scots by the English, for their friendly assist
ance and relief
" That all declarations, proclamations, &c.,
that have been published against the loyally
and dutifulness of his majesty's subjects of
Scotland, be recalled and suppressed ; and that
at the close of the treaty of peace the loyalty of
his majesty's said subjects shall be made known
at the time of public thanksgiving in all places,
and particulariy in aU parish churches of his
majesty's dominions.
- " That the garrisons of Berwick and Cariisle
be removed, and all things be reduced to the
state they were in before the late troubles.
"Whereas, unity in religion and uniformity
in church governraent have been desired by the
Scots as a special means for preserving the
peace between both kingdoms, his majesty,
wUh the advice of both houses of Parliaraent,
doth approve of the affection of his subjects in
Scotland, in their desire of having a conformity
of church government between the two nations.
And as the Pariiament hath already taken into
consideration the reformation of church gov
ernment, so they wiU proceed therein in due

time, as Shall best conduce to the glory of God,
the peace of the Church, and both kingdoms.
" That the Prince of Wales shall be permitted
to repair into Scotland, and reside there, as
there shall be occasion.
" That his majesty will give ear to the infor
mations of Parliament, and when that is not
sitting, to the councU and college of justice, so
far as to make choice of sorae one of such as
Ihey, hy coraraon consent, shaU recoramend to-
places of trust in the councU, the session, and
other judicatures. Or, if his majesty shall think
any other person fit, he shall acquaint his Par
liament, lo the intent, that if by their informa
tion any just exception shall be made to the
said person, his majesty may nominate another.
""That sorae noblemen, &C., of the Scots
nation shall be placed about the king, and that
his majesty will endeavour to give just satis
faction to his people with regard to his placing
none hut persons ofthe Reformed religion about
his own and the prince's person."
Then follows an act of oblivion, with excep
tion to the Scots prelates and four others ; and
in the close the ratification ofthe whole in these
words :
" Be it enacted by his majesty, with the as
sent of the Lords and Commons in this present
Parliament assembled, that the said treaty, and
all the articles thereof, be and stand forever
ratified and established, and have the force,
vigour, strength, and authority of a law, stat
ute, and act of Parliaraent. And his majesty,
for himself and his successors, promises, in verbo'
principis, never to come in the contrair of this
statute and sanction, nor anything therein con
tained, but to hold the same in all points firm-
and stable, and cause it to be truly observed,
according to the tenour and intent thereof, now
and forever. And the Parliaments of both
kingdoms respectively give full assurance, and
make public faith, for the true and faithful ob
servation of this treaty, &c., hinc inde, in all
times to corae."
Bishop Burnet very justly observes a coUu-
sion in the king's ajiproving the desire of his-
Soots subjects for uniformity of church govern
raent. His majesty wished it a^ much as they,
but with a very different view ; the king was
for bringing them to the English standard,
whereas the Scots intended lo bring the Eng
lish to theirs. However, his majesty was re
solved to contradict them in nothing, that he
raight break the confederacy between the two
nations ; for Lord Saville had now inforraed
him of the correspondence of some of the Eng
lish nobility with the Scots, which encouraged
them to raise an array and raaroh to the bor
ders. He had shown him a copy of the letter
with the forged names of Essex, Bedford, Man-
devUle, and others, exciting them to assert the
liberties of their Church and nation, and prom
ising all the assistance they could give with
safety to themselves. His majesty, therefore,
resolved to gain over the Scots, that he raight
he at liberty to prosecute the inviters and re
cover his prerogative in England, which he
knew he could accomplish by the assistance of
the Irish, if the English Puritans were left to
themselves. The Parliament was aware of the
design, and therefore appointed one lord and
two commoners to foUow his majesty to Scot-

390

HISTORY OF THE PURIT.VNS.

land, in order to keep up a good correspondence
wilh the Pariiaraent of that nation, and lo ex
hort Ihem, since they had gained their own
liberties by the assistance of the English Pariia
ment, not to desert them liU the English also
had recovered theirs. ,
The king set out post, .\ugust 11, 1641, and
arrived at Edinburgh in ihree or four days. The
Parliament raet .-August 19, when his majesty
acquainted them, iu a most gracious speech,
that the end of his coraing into his native coun
try was to quiet the distractions of the king
dom ; " and this I mind," says his majesty,
" fully and cheerfuUy to perform, for I assure
you I can do nothing with raore cheerfulness
than to give my people general satisfaction ;
wherefore, not offering to endear hiraself to you
in words, which is not ray way, I desire, in the
first place, to settle that which concerns reli
gion, and the just liberties of this my native
country, before I proceed to any other act."*
Accordingly, his niajesty allowed of their late
proceedings in opposing the English liturgy, and
erecting tables in defence of their liberties ; he
confirmed the acts of their Assembly at Glas
gow, which declared that -¦ the government ofthe
Church hy archbishops and bishops was eontra
ry 10 the Word of God, and was, therefore, abol
ished." The Rev. Mr. Henderson waited on
the king as his chaplain, and was appointed to
provide preachers for hira while he was in that
country, his raajesty having declared that he
would conform to theirmanner of worship while
he was among thera. .Mr. Henderson had the
rent of the royal chapel; Mr. GUlespie had a
pension, and the professors of the several uni-
versUies had their provisions augraented by the
revenues forraeriy belonging to the bishops.
His majesty conferred titles of honour upon
in.iny of their gentry ; and all parties were so
well pleased, that it was said, when his raajesty
left the kingdora, that he departed a contented
king frora a contented people.
No sooner was the king returned but the
English bishops reproached his majesty with
his concessions, especially for admitting " the
English hierarchy to be contrary to the Word
of God." Thex told him he had unraveUed the
web which his father and hiraself had been
weaving in that country for above forty years,
and, instead of raaking the Scots his friends, he
had only created a new thirst in the English
Parliament to follow their example. These re
monstrances had such an influence upon the
unhappy king, that he repented heartily of what
he had done, and told Dr. Saunderson, after
ward Bishop of Lincoln, when he was in the
Isle of Wight, that two errors did rauch afflict
hira, his consenting to the Earl of Strafford's
death, and his abolishing episcopacy in Scot
land ; and that if God should ever restore him
to the peaceable possession of his crown, he
would demonstrate his repentance by a public
confession and a voluntary penance i\ think,
says the doctor), by going barefoot from the
Tower of London, or WhitehaU, to St. Paul's,
and desiring the people to intercede wuU God
for him. This shows how rauch superstition
StiU remained in his raajesty's mate and con
stitution, when he could imagine the going bare-
foot through the streets could atone for his rais-
* Rushworth, part ui., vol. I, p. 382.

takes ; and how little dependance was to be
had upon his promises and declarations . that
even in the year 1648, when the necessity of
his affairs obliged him to consent to a uniform
ity of Presbyterian governraent In both nations,
he could declare in privalt lo his chaplain that
•'if he was ever restored to Ins throne, he
would do public penance for abolishing episco
pacy in Scotland." Upon the whole, the king's
journey into his native country did him no ser
vice ; for, though the Scots were pleased with
his majesty's concessions, they durst not de
pend upon thera so long as he was under the
direction ofthe queen and the English bishops,
and they continued to think theraselves obUged,
from gratitude, affection, and interest, to culti
vate a good understanding with the English
Parliament, and to assist them in recovering
their religion and liberties.
Upon the day of thanksgiving for tho pacifi
cation belw een the two nations [September 7J,
Bishop Williaras, dean of Westrainster, without
any direction from his superiors, composed a
form of prayer for the service of the day, with
which the House of Coramons was offended,
and came to this resolution : " That the Bishop
of Lincoln had no power lo set forth any prayer
to be read on the public thanksgiving ; and that
no rainister is obliged to read the said prayer ;
and the House is of opinion, and doth order,
that the said prayer be not read in the liberties
of Westrainster, or elsewhere."* Dr. Burges
and Mr, MarshaU preached before the Cora
mons, and read the following order, appointed
by both houses to be published in all the
churches throughout England, with his raajes
ty's consent. ^
"Whereas, according to We act of this pres
ent Parliaraent for confirraation of the treaty
of pacification, it was desired by the coramis
sioners of Scotland that the loyalty and faith
fulness of his majesty's subjects [of Scotland]
raight be raade known at the tirae of thanksgiv
ing, in all places, and particularly in all parish
churches of his raajesty's dorainlons ; which
request was graciously condescended to by his
raajesty, and confirraed by the said act : it is
now ordered and commanded by both houses of
Parliaraent, that the same be effectually done
in aU parish churches throughout this kingdom,
on Tuesday, September 7, at the time of the
public thanksgiving, by the respective ministers
of each parish, or their curates, who are here
by required to read this present order in the
church." The order being read, the rainisters declared
that, notwithstanding all which had passed in
the late coraraotions, the Scots nation were stUl
his raajesty's faithful and loyal subjects. Thus, .
as the caUing and continuance of an English
Parliament, after twelve years' interval, was
owing to the marching of the Scots army into
the north of England, it was by the powerful
support and assistance of that Parliament, and
the expense of a miUion of money, that the
Scots obtained the present pacification, with
the full recovery of their kirk discipline and
civU liberties.
In the midst of this ferment of the spirit of
men, the workings of opposite counsels, and the
taking the sword out ofthe hands ofthe spirit-

Nalson's CoUections, vol. ii., p. 476, 477.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

391

ual courts, it is not to be wondered that the
state of reUgion was unsettled, and that men
'began to practise with some latitude in points
of ceremony and forras of worship. It has been
observed that in the beginning of the year the
House of Commons had ordered commissioners
to be sent into all the counties of England, for
removing the late innovations. June 28, it was
farther ordered, " that neither university should
do reverence to the coramunion-table." And,
August 31, " that the church-wardens of the
several parishes shall forthwith reraove the
communion-table from the east end of the
churches where they stand altarwise, and take
away the raUs and level the chancels, as before
the late innovations." Upon complaint of the
want of serraons, and that the incumbents in
many places -would not adrait preachers into
their pulpits, though the parish maintained
thera, it was ordered, June 14, "That the deans
and chapters of all cathedrals be required, and
enjoined, to suffer the inhabitants to have free
liberty to have a sermon preached in their ca
thedrals every Sunday in the afternoon " July
12, ordered, "That in aU parochial churches
where there is no preaching in the afternoon, if
the parishioners will not maintain a conforma
ble lecturer at their own charge, the parson or
vicar shall give way to it, unless he wUl preach
hiraself" Septeraber 6, ordered, "That it be
lawful for the parishioners of any parish to set
-up a lecture, and lo maintain an orthodox min
ister at their own charge, to preach every
Lord's Day where there is no preaching, and to
preaeh one day every week where there is no
weekly lecture."* But, notwithstanding these
votes, some bishops inhibited preaching on
Sundays in the afternoon ; and in particular
Dr. Montague, bishop of Norwich, upon which
the Commons voted, " That his lordship's inhi
bition of the Reverend Mr. Carter to preach
in his own parish church was void ; and that
every minister may preach in his own parish
church as often as he pleases."
Many petitions being sent from divers coun
ties for preaching ministers, a committee of
forty members of the House, caUed the Com
mittee for Preaching Ministers, was appointed
to send rainisters where there were vacancies,
and to provide for their maintenance.t These
gentleraen recoramended many of the late si
lenced ministers, as the Reverend Mr. Case,
Mr. Marshall, Sedgwick, Burroughs, whom
some of the vicars refused to adrait into their
pulpits, or at least dissuaded their parishioners
from hearing them, upon which sorae of thera
were required to attend the committee ; and
because great complaints were made to the
House of the idleness and viciousness of the
country clergy, another committee was appoint
ed to examine into such complaints, and was
called the Committee for Scandalous Ministers, t

* Nalson's CoUections, vol. n., p. 288, 383, 457.
t Clarendon, vol. i., p. 295.
X "By 'scandalous ministers,'" says Dr. Grey,
'.'no more was meant than the being truly orthodox,
truly conformable . to the rules and orders of the
¦Church, and faithful and obedient subjects to his
majesty." It is sufficient to oppose to this round as-
, sertion of Dr. Grey an authority not to be contro
verted, that of Fuller, Church History, b. xi., p. 207.
.He informs us that some of the clei^ were outed for

The day before the recess of the Pariiament
[September 8, 1641], it was resolved by the
Commons, " That the Lord's Day should be
duly observed and sanctified ; that aU dancing,
or other sports either before or after Divine ser
vice, be forborne and restrained ; and that the
preaching God's Word be promoted in the af
ternoon, in the several churches and chapels of
this kingdom ; and that ministers and preach
ers be encouraged thereunto. The chancellors
of the two universities, the heads of colleges,
all patrons, vicars, and church-wardens, are to
make certificate of the performance of these
orders ; and all defaulters to be returned to
Parliament before the 30th of October next.
Ordered farther, that all crucifixes, scandalous
pictures of any one or more persons of the Trin
ity, and all images of the Virgin Mary, shall be
taken away and abolished ; and that all tapers,
candlesticks, and basins be removed from the
communion-table. That aU corporeal reveren
ces at the narae of Jesus, or towards the east
end of the church, chapel, or chancel, or to
wards the communion-table, be forborne."*
These orders to be observed in all cathedral
and collegiate churches and chapels, in the two
universities, by the respective officers and min
isters of these places, and by the readers and
benchers ofthe inns of court, t
The House of Lords consented to some of
these resolutions, but not to all. They agreed
in their committee, " that no raUs should be
placed about the communion-table where there
were none already, but not to the pulling down
all that were set up ; and that all chancels
raised within fifteen years past shall be level
led ; that images of the Trinity should be abol
ished, without limitation of time, and all images
of the Virgin Mary erected within twenty years
past."t But as for bowing at the name of Je
sus, they insisted that it should be left indiffer
ent. So that when the question was put to
agree or not to agree with the resolutions of the

their affection to the king's cause merely, and many
were charged with delivering false doctrines, whose
positions were found at the least disputable ; and
urges that many of the complainers were factious
people, and the witnesses against the clergy seldom
deposed on oath ; yet, after these deductions, he al
lows that many were outed for their misdemeanors ;
and adds, " some of their offences were so foul, it is
a shame to report them, crying to justice for punish
ment." He appears, indeed, to have his doubts
whether their crimes were sufficiently proved ; for
if the proof were perfect, the persons ought to have
lost their lives, and not their livings only. . This is,
however, a proof against Dr. Grey's unlimited asser
tion, that in many instances the imputation of scan
dalous crimes, supported by considerable evidence
at least, was the ground of proceeding. Mr. Baxter
tells us that it was no sooner understood that the
committee was formed, than multitudes in all coun
ties came up with petitions against their ministers.
Two hundred of the names of scandalous ministers,
their places, and articles proved against them, were
published by Mr. White,' the chairman of the com
mittee ; and moderate men were grieved to see so
much ignorance and such gross immoraUties ex
posed to the derision of the world. And yet Dr.
Grey could say, that scandalous ministers meant no
more than the loyal and orthodox. — Baxter's Life,
part i., p. 19, folio. — Ed.
* Nalson's Collections, vol. u., p. 482.
t Rushworth, part iii., vol. i., p. 386.
X Ibid., p. 482, 483.

392

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS

Commons, it passed in tbe negative, eleven
against nine. The Coraraons, therefore, pub
lished their resolutions apart, and desired the
people to wall patiently for the intended refor
raation, without any disturbance of the worship
of God and of the peace of the kingdom. Upon
which the Lords, in a heat, appointed their or
der of January 19, 1640-1, already raentioned,
to be reprinted,* "that Divine service should be
perforraed, as it is appointed by act of Parlia
raent, and that all who disturb that wholesorae
order shall be severely punished according to
law. That all parsons, vicars, and curates, in
their several parishes, do forbear to introduce
any riles or ceremonies that may give offence,
otherwise than those that are established by the
laws of the land." This was voted by twelve of
the lords present, the other six entering their
protest ;+ after which both houses adjourned for
six weeks. Mr. Rapin observes,!: that there
seeras no necessity for the Lords to renew this
order ; and that it was done out of spleen and
revenge because the Commons had made a
declaration against innovations, and it was not
doubted but the bishops were the chief authors
of it.
Lord Clarendon represents the putting these
orders of the House of Coraraons in execution
as a transcendent presumption, and a breach of
the privilege ofthe House of Lords ; and though
in one place his lordship acknowledges that lit
tle or nothing of moment was done in pursu
ance of the order of the two houses, yet upon
this occasion he says,^ " that seditious and fac
tious persons caused the windows to be broken
down in churches, tore away the rails, removed
the comraunion-lables, and coramitted many
insolent and scandalous disorders, and that if
any opposed' thera they were sent for before
the comraittee." But the fairest account of
this raatter may be gathered from Mr. Pym's
report to the House at their first meeting after
the recess.
" The coraraittee of religion," says he, "have
sent down divers of your declarations into the
country, and have found that in sorae places,
where there were good ministers, they were
retained, and in other places neglected. We
cannot say there have been any great turaults,
though the execution ofthe orders ofthe House
has occasioned something tending that way. In
some parishes they came to blows, and in others
they would have done the Uke if care had not
been taken to prevent it. At St. GUes's, Cripple
gate, the parishioners were almost at daggers
drawing about the raUs ofthe coraraunion-table,
which they would not suffer to be removed.
The like opposition was made to the orders of
the House at St. George's, Southwark, St. Ma
ry's, Woulnoth, St, Botolph's, Aldersgate, and
a few other places, but in most places they
were quiet."
If the innovations complained of were ac
cording to lav/, neither -Lords nor Commons
had authority to remove them, for in a time of
public peace and tranquUlity a vote of Parlia
ment cannot suspend or set aside the laws ; but
¦» Rushworth, part ui., vol. i., p. 387. Clarendon,
vol. 1., p. -293.
t -Nalson's Collections, vol. ii., p. 485
X \ ol. il, p. 38-2, foho.
V Clarendon, vol. i., p. 29.

if they were apparently contrary to law, I do
not see why either house of I'arliaiuent, or
even the parishioners Ihoniselvea, by a vote of
their vestry, might not order ihera lo be lakcn
away. Remarkable are the words of Sir I^d-
ward Deering to this purpose . " The orders of
the House," says he, " are, doubtless, powerful,
if grounded upon the laws of the land ; upon
this warrant we may, by an order, enforce any
thing that is undoubtedly so grounded; and, by
the same rule, we may abrogate whatsoever is
introduced contrary to the undoubted founda
tion of your laws ; but we may not rule and gov
ern by arbitrary and disputable orders, espe
cially in matters of religion."'
The Lords disapproved ofthe tumultuous at
terapts of private persons, and punished them
severely. Complaint being raade by the inhab
itants of St. Saviour's, Southwark, of cerlala
persons who had pulled down the rails of the
coraraunion-table in an insolent and riotous
manner, they were sent into custody, and hav
ing been heard by their counsel at the bar of
Ihe House, the church-wardens of the parish
were ordered to set up new rails at the costs
and charges of the offenders, in the manner
they had stood for fifty years before, but not
according lo the raodel of the four or five last
years, t The rioters also were enjoined to make
a public confession of their fault in the body of
the church, on a Sabbath day when the con
gregation should be present, and to stand cora
mitted to the Fleet during the pleasure of the
House. t Upon another complaint of the pa
rishioners of St. Olave's, Southwark, against
others that had raade a turault in their church,
and used irreverent speeches during the admin
istration of the sacrament, the delinquents
were sent into custody, and, after hearing, they
were committed to the King's Bench lor six.
months, without bad or mainprize, and ordered
to stand upon a high stool in Cheapside and in
Southwark, for two hours on a raarket day, and.
lo acknowledge their fault publicly; they were
also fined £20, and lo find sureties for their
good behaviour ; but when they had been ira-
prisoned about a month, upon their humble
petition, and acknowledgment of their raisde
raeanors, they were released.^
If we may give credit to the petition from.
Canterbury, things were everywhere in great
confusion ; for il says, " that the reUgion and
government by law estabUshed has been of late
most miserably distracted by ill-affected per
sons, hy whose means the houses of God are
profaned, and in part defaced ; the ministers of
Christ are contemned and despised ; the orna
ments and many utensils of the church are
abused ; the Uturgy and Book of Comraon Pray
er depraved and neglected ; that absolute raodel
of prayer, the Lord's Prayer, vilified ; the sac-
raraents of the Gospel, in some places, rudely
administered, in other places omitted ; solemn
days of fasting observed, and appointed by pri
vate persons ; marriages Ulegally solemnized ;
burials uncharitably performed ; and the very
ftindamentals of religion subverted by the pub
lication of a new creed, and teaching the abro-
* Rushworth, vol. i., part ui., p. 391.
t Nalson's Collections, vol. u., p. 271, 322.
X Ibid., vol. ii., p. 291, 292.
Ij Ibid., vol ii., p. 395.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

.393

gation of the moral law ; many offensive ser
mons are preached, and many impious pam
phlets printed." Lord Clarendon says,* " that
the pulpits were supplied with seditious and
schismatical preachers. That in order to poi
son the hearts ofthe king's subjects, care was
taken to place such ministers and,lecturers in
the most populous towns and parishes as abhor
red the present government and teraperature of
the Church and State ;" and then adds, " I am
confident there was not, from the beginning of
this Parliaraent, one orthodox or learned man
recommended by them to any church in Eng
land." Strange ! when scarce one was rec
ommended who had not been educated in our
universities, and subscribed all the doctrinal ar
ticles of the Church of England I But his maj
esty's language is more severe in his declara
tion of August 12, 1642. " Under pretence of
encouraging preaching," says he, "they have
erected lectures in several parishes, and com
mended sueh lecturers as were raen of no learn
ing nor conscience, but furious promoters of the
most dangerous innovations ; many have taken
no orders, yet were recommended by members
of either house to parishes ; and when mechan
ic persons have been brought before them for
preaching in churches, and have confessed the
same, they have heen dismissed without pun
ishment, and hardly with reprehension. All
persons of learning and eminency in preaching,
and of sober and virtuous conversation, of great
examples in their lives, and even such as among
these men had been of greatest estimation, and
suffered somewhat for them, were discounte
nanced, and such men cherished who boldly
preached against the governraent ofthe Church,
against the Book of Coraraon Prayer, against
our kingly lawful power, and against our per
son. Farther, a license even to treason is ad
mitted in pulpits, and persons ignorant in learn
ing and understanding, turbulent and seditious
in disposition, scandalous in life, and uncon
formable in opinion to the laws of the land, are
imposed upon parishes to infect and poison the
minds of our people."
What character the Parliaraent divines had
for learning, for orthodoxy, of doctrine, and so
briety of raanners, will appear hereafter. The
Commons, in their reply to his majesty's decla
ration, denied the whole of this charge, and
averred, " that they were careful in their inqui
ries into the learning and morality of those
whom they recoramended ; that they were not
for encouraging faction and schism, but for pre
ferring those who were for a parliaraentary ref
ormation in the Church and State ; that they
had shown their resentments against mobs and
tumults, and against the preaching of laymen ;"t
for when they were informed that Mr. Robin
son, Spencer, Banks, Durant, and Green, being
mere laymen, had presumed to preach pubUcly,
they sent for thera [June 7], and repriraanded
them by their speaker in these words : " The
House has a great distaste of your proceedings,
and if you offend at any time in the like kind
again, this House will take care you shall be
severely punished."
Far be it from ine to apologize' for the furious
preachers of these tiraes, though it wiU appear
* Vol. i., p. 295.
i Nalson's Collections, vol. ii., p. 265, 270.
Vol. I.— D d d

hereafter that the complaints of the royalists
are very much exaggerated. It was certainly
a great disadvantage to the Parliaraent's cause
that they could not get a good supply of learned
and able preachers, the keys of adraission into
holy orders being at this time in the hands of
the bishops, who were very strict in their ex
amination into the political principles of those
they ordained ; this reduced the committee to
the necessity of adraitting sorae few who came
well recoraraended from New-England or Soot-
land, and had been only ordained by presbyters,
and such young students who, by producing'
their testimonials from the universities, were
allowed to preach for sorae time as candidates.
They were under the like disadvantages as to-
presentations or inductions, most of them being-
in the hands of the king and the bishops.
The Archbishop of Canterbury continued to-
ordain clergymen of his own principles in the
Tower, whereupon the House of Lords ordered-
[October 28] that his jurisdiction should be se
questered, and adrainistered by his inferior offi
cers, tiU he should be acquitted of the charge
of high treason that was against him. His
grace often admitted such clergymen to livinga-
as were obnoxious to the two houses, insomuch- <
that the Lords found it necessary to enjoin him
to acquaint their house with the naraes of such
persons as he nominated to any ecclesiastical
benefice, promotion, or dignity within his dis
posal, to be approved of first by the House, be
fore they were collated or instituted. On the
other hand, when a minister was chosen by the-
parishioners, and recommended to his grace for
admission, if he did not like his principles and
character, he would either except against him,
or suffer the living to lapse lo the crown. This-
created him new enemies, and kept alive the
resentments of the Coraraons. At length the
archbishop acquainted the king with his case,
who sent hira a pereraptory letter, requiring-
him " that as often as any benefice, or other
spiritual promotion, should become void in his
gift, to dispose of it only to such persons as hisi
raajesty should norainate ; and that if either or
both houses should coraraand him otherwise, he-
should then let it faU in lapse to the crown."'
As soon as the houses were acquainted with
this, they published an order of their own, re
quiring the archbishop to dispose of no benefice<
or spiritual promotion that should become void
at any time before his trial, without the leave
and order of the two houses at Westminster.
Such was the struggle between the king and
Parliaraent for the pulpits ! It being thought.
(Of great consequence on both sides to fill them
with raen of their own principles, who would-
be zealous in the cause in which they were sev
erally engaged.
All the bishops were under a cloud, and in;
no degree of favour either with the Parliaraent
or people, except the Bishop of Lincoln, who,
having sorae years been in prison, had no share
in the late innovations. This prelate, in the
recess of Parliaraent, visited his diocess, and-
exhorted the people in his serraons to keep tO"
their lawful minister, and not go after tub-
preachers in conventicles. He acquainted them
with the laws, and told them that no power
could protect thera frora the penalty of statutes
unrepealed. "Look hack," says his lordship.

394

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

" from the beginning of Queen Elizabeth. Can |
the Gospel stand belter against the Church of|
Rome, than it has done under the bishops, lit- 1
urgy, and canons ! Tlicfefore, don't abandon
the good old way, for another which you do nut !
know how much evil raay be in it.'' But his
rhetoric had very little eftect ; nor did the Par-[
liament approve of his conduct, at a lime wheui
his majesty was out of the kingdom, and whenj
it was resolved to attempt sorae considerable
alterations in the hierarchy. |
The distractions in the State w-ere no less
threatening than those of the Church. The
plague was in the city of London, which dis
persed the merabers, so that they could hardly
make a house. The disbanding the army in
fested the roads with highwaymen, insomuch
that it was hardly safe to travel from one town
to another. The officers (many of whom were
papists) crowded to London, and took lodgings
about Covent Garden and Whitehall, under pre
tence of receiving the remainder of their pay ;
these behaved with unusual insolence, and
struck terror into the minds of the people. The
mob was frequently up in one part of the town
or another ; one while they threatened the pope's
• nuncio, and another while the queen-mother,
upon which they retired out of the kingdom ;
but the queen herself stood by her friends ; she
had a convent of Capuchins in her court, and
protected great numbers of the king's subjects
and others from the sentence of the lavk's. The
lord-mayor was commanded lo bring in a list of
popish recusants about London, and all the
papists in the several counties were ordered to
be disarmed ; " which, though it had little or
no effect," says Lord Clarendon,* " served to
keep up fears and apprehensions in the people
of dangers and designs ;" which wiU appear
presently not to have been groundless. 'This
was the melancholy state of the nation, when
on a sudden it was thunderstruck with the sur
prising news of one of the most barbarous mas
sacres of the Protestants in Ireland that the
records of any age or nation can produce.
Lord Clarendon is of opinion that the Parlia
ment, instead of adjourning, should now have
broken up and returned horae, since the princi
pal grievance of Church and State had been re
dressed, and the Constitution secured by the
act for triennial parliaments. But not lo trouble
the reader with affairs of state, what religious
grievances were actually redressed ? except the
shortening the power ofthe spiritual courts, by
the acts lor abolishing the Court of High Com
mission and Star Charaber, not one of the late
innovations was abolished by law ; nor was,
there any alteration in the liturgy or form of
church governraent. The sole power of the
bishops in ordination and jurisdiction remained
to be regulated ; nor was there any reforraation
of deans and chapters ; all which the PurUans
hoped for and expected. In short, the whole
govemment of the Church remained entire,
notwithstanding the fierce attacks of the Com
mons against it. The act for triennial parlia
ments wiU appear not to have been a sufficient
security lo the Constitution, if we consider how
many acts of Parliament the king and his arbi
trary ministers had broke through the last fifteen
years; that his raajesty had stUl the same prin-

Vol. i., p. 290.

eiplcs, and was likely to be in the same hands
upon the dissolution of this r.irliarat-nl Be
sides, it was said that these laws had been ex
torted from hioi by force, and, therefore, wu-rii
not binding ; and if ,i Pariiament should be
called after three ye.irs, ihal it was dissolvablu
at pleasure; so that in all probability things
would have Returned to the old i-hannel if the
Parliaraent had now dissolved themselves. Sup
posing, thcreloi-o, but not admitting, ihat the
principal grievances of Church and State had
been redressed, I leave it with the reader w helh-
er, in the present situation of aU.iirs, a mere re
dress of past grievances was sufficient without
some security against the return of the like in
time lo come.
Among the remarkable divines who died
about this lime, was Dr. John Davenant, bishop
of Salisbury, born in London, and educated a
fellow-commoner in Queen's College, Cam
bridge, of which he was afterward master, and
Lady Margaret professor in the same universi
ty. He was a celebrated Calvinist, and one of
those divines appointed by King James to rep
resent the Church of England at the Synod of
Dort, where he behaved with great prudence
and moderation ; and upon his return lo Eng
land was prelerred lo the bishopric of Salis
bury ; but in the beginning of the reign of King
Charles, he became obnoxious lo the court for
venturing to picacli on the doctrine of predes
tination, contrary to his raajesty's declaration,
and was forced to make his submission beforo
the privy councU. He was a quiet and peacea
ble prelate, humble and charitable, a strict ob
server of the Sabbath, an enemy lo the pomp
and luxury ofthe clergy, and one who lamented
the high proceedings of the court. He had a
great reputation in foreign parts for profound
learning and an unblemished life ; and after he
had enjoyed his bishopric about twenty years,
ended his days in peace and honour, April 20,
1641, a little before the beginning of the troub
les that afterward oame upon the Church and
kingdom.* He died of a consumption, and a
few hours before his death prayed pathetically
for a quarter of an hour, " blessing God for his
fatheriy corjection, forasmuch as his whole life
having been full of mercy, he had been ready to
doubt whether he was a true chUd of God till
this last sickness."!
Dr. Richard Montague, bishop of Norwich,
was a divine of a different character; he was
born in Westminster, educated in Eaton Col
lege, and afterward fellow of King's College.
-Mr. Fuller says he was a celebrated Grecian
and church antiquary, well read in the fathers,
but a superstitious admirer of church ceremo-
nies.t He was a thorough Arminian, a crea-

* Fuller's Worthies, b. u., p. 207; and Church
Hist., b- xi., 176.
t This eminent and worthy prelate was a bene
factor to Queen's CoUege, in Cambridge, giving to
it the perpetual advowsons of the rectories of Chev-
erel-Magna and Newton-Tony, in Wiltshire, and a
rent charge of -£31 10j>. per amium for the founding
of two Bible clerks, and buying books for the library
in the same coUe«e. — Biogr. Britan., vol. iv., second
edition, p. 631.— Ed.
X Fuller's words, as Dr, Grey observes, are, " But
aU his diocess being not so well skUled in antiquity
as himseff, some charged hkn with superstitious
urging of ceremorues." He is aUowed to have urged

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

395

ture of Archbishop Laud's, and an ill instru
ment between the king and Parliament in the
late times, and, therefore, vo'ted unfit for any
church preferment ; but when the king resolved
to govern without Parliaments, his majesty
preferred him first to the bishopric of Chiches
ter, and then to Norwich, where he show-ed his
zeal for the Church by a vigorous and illegal
prosecution of the Puritans. He was accused
by the present Parliament for superstitious in
novations ; and would, no doubt, have felt their
resenj;ments, if he had not gone, as Mr. FuUer
expresses it,* a more compendious way, to an
swer for all his proceedings in the high court of
heaven. He died AprU 12, 1641.
The Rev. Mr. John Eaton, M.A., and vicar
of Wickham Market, was born in Kent, 1575,
and of a peculiar mould, says Mr. Echard, t
very paradoxical in his opinions, and reckoned
a great Antinomian, and one ofthe founders of
that sect, for which he more than once suffered
imprisonment. His chief performance was a
book entitled " The Honeycomb of free Justifi
cation by Christ alone," for which he was im
prisoned in the Gate-house at Westminster.
Mr. Echard admits that hy means of his zeal,
his exemplary patience, and piety, he was ex
ceedingly admired in the neighbourhood where
he lived, and strangely valued for many years
after his death. In truth, though he commit
ted sorae uiistakes in his assertions about the
doctrine of grace, he was, nevertheless, says
Mr. Archdeacon, a pattern of faith, holiness,
and cheerfulness, in his sufferings, to succeed
ing generations. He died in the sixty-seventh
year of his age.

CHAPTER X.
TROM THE REASSEMBLING OF THE PARLIAMENT TO
-THE king's leaving HIS PALACE OF WHITE
HALL, JANUARY 10, 1641-2.
Before his majesty left Scotland, advice
came to London [November 1] of a general in
surrection ofthe papists In Ireland, and a most
cruel and bloody massacre of the Protestants of
that kingdom. t The project of an insurrection
ceremonies ; but, according to FuUer and Dr. Grey,
that is not superstition, though they may be unau
thorized by Scripture, if they be sanctioned by antiqui-
'¦y. — Ed. How strange that men who are so anxious
Jor the sanction of antiquity, do not faU back upon the
simple usages of the apostohc age ! Error -stalked
into the Church at the very heels of the apostles, and
we owe some of the Epistles themselves to the early
appearance of errOr. — C.
* Book i., p. 194. t Ath. Ox., vol. U., p. 1-6.
X A fair judgment of this horrid affair, it may be
observed, cannot be formed without considermgit in
connexion with the causes that led to it. lt"should be
viewed as the result of various circu mstances, which,
for a course of years, had irritated the minds of the
Irish, and at last raised them toa pitch of phrensy and
Cruelty, of which we cannot read without being shock
ed at the recital. The Irish had been pursued vvith
a constant, rigorous, and unremitting persecution.
'fhey had suffered extortions,, imprisonments, and ex
communications. Their estates had been seiaed un
der the pretext of a judicial inquiry into defective ti
tles, in which inquiry verdicts against them were ex
torted from jurors. They had been heavily taxed
for their superstitions, and totaUy precluded the

li

was formed in the months of March and April,
1641, not without the privity of the English
court, and executed October 23 following ; no
information of it having been given to the Prot
estants tUl the very night before it was to take
place, when it was too late to prevent the ef
fects of it in the country, and almost to save
the city of Dublin itself When the express
that brought the news was road in the House,
it produced a general silence for a time, all
men being struck with horror. When it was
told without doors, it flew like flashes of light
ning, and spread universal terror over the
whole kingdom. Every day, and almost every
hour, produced new messengers of misery, who
brought farther intelligence of the mercUess
cruelly ofthe papists towards the poor Protest
ants, whose very name they threatened to ex
tirpate out ofthe kingdom.
On the appointed day between twenty and
thirty thousand of the native Irish appeared in
arms in the northern counties, and having se
cured the principal gentleraen, and seized their
effects, they murdered the coramon people in
cold blood, forcing many thousands to fly frora
their houses and settlements naked, into the
bogs and woods, where they perished with hun
ger and cold. No ties of friendship, neighbour
hood, or consanguinity were capable of soften
ing their obdurate hearts, in a cause which they
called "the cause ofloyaltyand reUgion." Some
they whipped to death, others they stripped na
ked and exposed to shame, and then drove them,
like herds of swine, to perish in the mountains :
many hundreds were drowned in rivers ; some
had their throats cut ; others were dismember
ed. With some the execrable villains made
themselves sport, trying who could hack deep
est into an Englishman's flesh. Husbands were
cut in pieces in the presence of their wives ;
wives and young virgins abused in the sight of
their nearest relations ; nay, they taught their
children to strip and kill the children of the Eng
lish, and dash out their brains against the stones.
Forty or fifty thousand were massacred after this
raanner in a few days, without distinction of age,
sex, or quality, before they suspected their dan
ger, or had tirae to provide for their defence.
In a few weeks the insurrection was so general
that they took possession of whole counties, raur-
derihg the inhabitants, plundering their houses,
and kUling or driving away their cattle. Multi
tudes of poor distressed creatures and famUies
fled, naked and half starved, first to Dublin, and
from thence to England, with death and despair
in their countenances. At length the Irish ar
my, having ravaged all the northern counties,
blocked up the city of Dublin itself, with all the
poor distressed Protestants who had taken sanc
tuary in it ; but not being masters of the sea,
the city was relieved, and part of the country
secured, tUl the Parliament was at leisure to

exercise of their religion. Their appUcation to
Charles I. for a toleration had been scornfully reject
ed, in consequence of a protestation against it, drawn
up by tKe Primate Usher and twelve bishops. The
detail of their sufferings maybe seen in "Jones's
Letter to the United Societies of Belfast." By
which it will appear that from the Reformation they
had been the victims of religious persecution and
CivU devastation ; as, to use the autihor's words, al
most to justify, but certainly to exlequate, the dread
ful ensuing period of 1641. — Ed.

396

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS

pour out all their vengeance upon the heads of
the murderers, by the hands of the vlctorioue
and terrible Olivt-r CromweU.
The frequent r.\presses which pressed one
after another to England, with the multitudes
of distressed creatures that got passage into
several parts of the kingdora, filled the hearts
of aU true Protestants with infinite conjectures
and prodigious iraaginalions of treasonable de
signs against this as well as the neighbouring
kingdora. They were afraid, and not without
reason, that a second part of this tragedy might
be acted on themselves ; the Parliaraent, there
fore, ordered themselves a guard of train-bands,
and entered immediately inlo measures to se
cure the nation frora the impending storm.
But before we dismiss the Irish insurrection
and massacre, it will not be improper to trace
it frora the original, and inquire into the au
thors, and the several parties concerned in it.
The Earl of Antrim, and Sir Phelim O'Neal,
who were at the head of the Irish Catholics,
having acquainted the pope's nuncio and sorae
of the priests about the queen how easily they
could assurae the governraent of Ireland, and
assist the king against the English Puritans,
letters were written in the queen's narae, and
perhaps in the king's,* authorizing thera to take
up arms and seize the government. t The Irish
received the orders with pleasure ; and conclu
ded farther among themselves, that it was ne
eessary at the same tirae to extirpate the Prot
estants out of that kingdom before they could
with safety transport their array into England.
That this was iheir design appears from their
remonstrance, published upon the very day of
the insurrection, in which they say, " that hav
ing some liberty of religion granted thera by the
king, they perceived the Parliaraent was wrest
ing his majesty's prerogative from hira, in order
to extinguish their religion ; therefore, to sup
port his raajesty's prerogative, and lo confirra
liis royal and ever happy love to them, they had
taken up arras ; and accordingly bound them
selves to one another by the following oath :
. " That they would maintain the Roman Cath
olic religion ; that they would bear true faith
and allegiance to the king and his heirs, and
defend hira and iheni with their lives and es
tates against aU persons that should endeavour
to suppress the prerogative, or do any acts con
trary to regal governraent, to the power and
privUege of Parliaments, and to the rights and
privileges ofthe subject."

* Dr. Grey is severe in hisanimadversions on Mr.
Neal's insinuation, that the English court, and even
the king, were privy to the Irish insurrection. Bish
op Warburton, on the same ground, has impeached
our author's candour and impartiality : our reply to
whom, in the two following notes, will serve as an
answer to Dr. Grey. 1 wiU add here, that Mr. Bax
ter says " that the soberer part could not believe that
the Irish rebels had the king's commission." — His
life, p. 29, foho. A deed was passed on the credu
lous with that name, by affixmg to il the great seal
taken off from some grant or patent. The distinction
which Mr. Neal afterward makes between the insur
rection and the massacre is justified by what Bishop
Bumet asserts in a passage quoted in the beginning
of the paragraph, where the distinction occurs. —
Rushworth's Collections, part iii., vol. i., p. 402. — Ed.
t Prynne's Introduction, p. 220-252. Bumet'sHis-
tory. Life, and Times, vol- L, p. 55, Edmburgh edit.
Rushworth, vol. iv., p. 398, &c.

They called themselves Inc queen's army,
and published a prficlaraation from their camp
at Newry, declaring that they acted by llie
king's coraraission, under the great seal of Scot
land, dated at Edinburgh, October 1, 1641, and
by letters under his sign-manual, of the same
date with the coraraission ; which I believe, with
Lord Clarendon, was a forgery ; though il is a
little unaccountable that his majesty should
never, by any public act or declaration of his
own, clear himself of so vile a calumny. How
ever, though the king gave out no commission,
there is too much reason to believe* that the
queen and her popish councU, and even the
king himself, were not unacquainted with the
design of an insurrection before it took place,
and that her majesty gave it all the countenance
she could wilh safely ; but when these bloody
butchers overacted their parts to such a degree
as to massacre near two hundred thousand Prot
estants in cold blood, to make way for their
tyranny, it was lime for all parlies to disown
them. Bishop Burnet observes, " That in the first
design of an insurrection there was no thought
of a raassacre ; this came inlo their heads as
they were contriving methods of executing it ;
and as the people were governed by the priests,
these were the men that set on the Irish lo all
the blood and cruelly that foUowed." There
was a consultation at the Abbey of Multifernan,
in the county of West-Mealh, where it was de
bated what course should be taken with the Prot
estants ; some were for expeUing thera as the
King of Spain did the Moors ; others pressed
to have them universally cut off; but not com
ing to a conclusion, they left the army to act at
discretion.-! How far the pope's nuncio and
the queen's council might be consulted about
the massacre is a secret : if we distinguish be
tween the insurrection, in order to assurae the
government inlo the hands of the Irish papists,
and the massacre which attended it, we may
conclude, without any breach of charity, that
the English court admitted of the forraer,
though they raight wash their hands of Ihe
latter, t
The Parliament, in tTieir declaration of March
9, 1641, say that the rebeUion in Ireland was
framed and contrived in England, and that they
had taken several depositions, proving that the
English papists were to rise about the same

* Bishop Warburton taxes the following insinua
tions agamst the king as being " certainly very un
just and groundless." The reader will observe that
Mr. Neal's insinuations go no farther than that the
king was acquainted with, if he did not encourage,
the design of the Irish to appear in arms. He by no
means charges him with consenting or being privy to
the massacre. As lo the hand he had in the rebellion,
two modem historians have, with great candour, ful
ly slated tKe evidence pro and con. Dr. Harris, in his
Life of Charles I, p. 336, 351 ; and Mrs. Macaulay,
vol. in., p. 84-93, the note. From the arguments sla
ted by these writers, it will appear that there were
certain grounds for Mr Neal's insinuations, and if so,
Ihey cannot be very unjust. — Eo.
t Nalson's Collection, vol. U., p. 633.
X li by the court here be meant the king. Bishop
Warburton condemns Mr. Neal as " scandalously un
charitable." It is more reasonable to explain Mr.
Neal by himself; and the parlies whom he particu
larized in this very sentence are the queen and Ihe
pope's nuncio. — Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

time ;* that the rebels said ihey acted by the
king's authority ; that they called themselves
the queen's array, and declared that " their pur
pose •was to -corae to England after they had
done in Ireland, to recover the royal preroga
tive, wrested from hira by the Puritan faction
in the House of Commons." Mr. Pym declared
in Pariiament that several disbanded officers
and soldiers of the king's army went over to
Ireland, and listed araong the rebels by the
king's express warrant, which his majesty de
nied; but -when the matter was examined, it
appeared that his authority had been abused by
sorae who were very near his person.
The concern of the court in this dark affair is
evident frora the relation of the Earl of Essex,
who told Bishop Burnet " that he had taken all
the pains he could lo inquire into the original
of the Irish raassacre, but could not see reason
to believe the king was accessory to it ; but he
did believe that the queen did hearken to the
propositions raade by the Irish, who undertook
to take the government of Ireland into their
own hands, which they thought they could easi
ly perform, and then they promised to assist the
•king against the hot spirits of Westminster."
With this the insurrection began, and all the
Irish believed the queen encouraged il.
There was farther discovery of this fact at
the restoration of King Charles II., when the
Marquis of Antrim, who had been at the head
-of the rebellion, and whose estate had been con
fiscated, finding himself likely to be excluded
the Act of Indemnity, came to London to peti
tion his majesty to examine the warrants he
had acted upon. Accordingly, a coraraittee of
council was appointed, and the marquis pro
duced sorae letters frora the king, which did
not araount to a fuU proof; but in one of thera
the king says that he was not then at leisure,
but referred himself to the queen's letter, and
said that was aU one as if he writ hiraself +
Upon this foundation the raarquis produced a
series of his own letters lo the queen, in which
he gave her an account of every one of those
particulars that were laid to his charge, and
showed the grounds he went upon, and desired
her majesty's direction to every one of these ;
and he had answers ordering hira to do as he
-did. This affair, says the bishop,j: the queen
herself, who was then at court, espoused with
great zeal, and said she was bound to save
him. So a report was drawn up hy the com
raittee, declaring that he had fully justified him
self in everything ; but the Earl of Northumber
land, who was chairman, refused to set his
hand to it, saying, " He was sorry the marquis
had producetl such warrants ; but he did not

* Rapin, vol. ii., p. 419, 420, folio edition.
t To invalidate the argument drawn from the de
fence which the Marquis of Antrim set up. Dr. Grey
.'urges that the marquis had not the least concern in
the massacre or first insurrection, and refers to the
-evidence of this produced by the Rev. Thomas Cart,
- in a piece entitled "The Irish Massacre set in a true
Light," 1715. Dr. Harris notices the same argument
as advanced by Mr. Hume : but he denies the mat-
I ter, and says, that " nothing is more certain than
.'that Antrim had a hand in the first -rebeUion in Ire
land." Of this he brings various proofs. — Life of
Charles I., p. 350.— Ed.
X Bumet's Hist., Life and Tunes, vol. i., p. 54, 55,
Edm. ed.

397
think that they ought to serve his turn, for he
did not believe that any warrant from the king
or queen could justify so rauch bloodshed, in
so many black instances as were laid against
him." Upon the eari's refusing to sign the re
port, the rest of the coraraittee declined it, and
there it dropped ; whereupon the king himself
wrote over to the Duke of Orraond that he had
so vindicated himself that he must get him in
cluded in the Act of Indemnity; but the Lord
Mazarine and others not being satisfied to give
their vote in favour of such a criminal, not
withstanding the instructions they had receiv
ed from England, the marquis was obliged, in
his own defence, to produce in the House of
Commons a letter frora King Charles I., wrote
with his own hand, giving him express orders
to take up arms ;* upon which he was pardon
ed, and his estate restored.
In the letter of King Charles II. to the Duke
of Orraond above mentioned, under his majes
ty's own hand, and entered in the signet office
July 13; 1663,t there is this remarkable passage :
" That the referees who had examined the raar
quis [of Antrim's] case, had declared to him,
they had seen ' several letters, all of them of
the handwriting of our royal father to the said
marquis,' and several instructions concerning
his treating with the Irish in order to the king's
service, by reducing thera to their obedience,
and by drawing some forces from them for the

* Here Dr. Grey asks, " And what is aU this to the
Irish massacre ? The letter, it is plain, related to his
joining Montrose in Scotland." To prove this, the
doctor appeals to the letter of King Charles 11., quo
ted in the next paragraph, in which his majesty ex
pressly allows that the marquis was instructed to
draw some forces from Ireland for the service of
Scotland. And, on the authority of Mr. Cart, he re
fers to an act of Pariiament, anno 1617, 1618, Car.
U., in which the king, speaking of his letter to the
Duke of Ormond, says, "It was only to declare that
the Marquis of Antrim was employed in Ireland to
procure what forces he could from thence, to be
transported into Scotland for his late majesty's ser
vice, under the late Marquis of Montrose." Whoev
er reads King Charles 11. 's letter, which is given at
full length in Ludlow's " Truth brought to Light,''a
pamphlet printed in 1693, in answer to Dr. HoUing-
worth, will not think the hmitation of his majesty's
meaning, here offered, consistent with the strain and
tenour of that letter, which refers to the Irish rebeU
ion in the most general terms, as well as speaks of
" drawing some forces from the Irish for the service
of Scotland," and alludes to various other actings
of the marquis with the Irish confederates. It was
proved, on the trial of the marquis's claim to be in
cluded in the Act of Indemnity, that he was to have
had a hand in surprising the castle of Dublin, in
1641 ; and seven other charges were substantiated
against him. After a trial of seven hours, the king's
letter being opened and read in court, Rainford, one
ofthe commissioners, said "that the king's letter on
his behalf was evidence without exception;" and
thereupon he was declared an innocent papist. —
Truth brought to Light, p. 15. The plea of this let
ter was the instructions given to the marquis by
Charles L, and, as Mr. Neal's quotation states, it ap
plied to every transaction with the Irish Catholics.
Ludlow avers it as a well-known fact, that the mar
quis had his head and hands deeply and early en
gaged in the bloody work of the rebeUion, and was
among the first in it. — Memoirs, 4to, p. 423, edition of
1771. As to the act of Pariiament, to which Mr.
Cart refers, it is not to be found in the statutes at
large, 4to, nor in Pickering's statutes. — Ed.
t Ludlow's Memours, vol. iu,, p, 353.

398

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS

service of Scotland. That, besides letters and
orders under his majesty's osvn hand, there
was sufficient evidence and lesiiraoiiy ol sev
eral raessages and directions sent frora our roy
al father and our royal mother, with the privity
and direction of the king our father, by which
It appears, that whatever correspondence or
actings the said raarquis had with the confed
erate Irish Catholics, wgs directed and allowed
by the said letters and instructions ; and that
the king hiraself was well pleased with what
the raarquis did after he had done it, and ap
proved ofthe same,"
1 have been more particular in accounting for
this insurrection, because whoever were the
authors of it, they are, in the judgment of Lord
Clarendon, answerable for all the calaraities of
the civil war. " It was Ireland," says his lord
ship,* " that drew the first blood. If they had
not at that time rebelled, and in that manner.
It IS very probable all the miseries which after
ward befeU the king and his dominions had
been prevented." At whose door, then, the guilt
of all this blood must be laid, I freely leave vvith
the reader.
Upon the first news of the Irish raassacre, the
Coramons turned themselves into a comraittee
of the whole House, and carae to the following
resolutions : " That aU Roman Catholics of
quality in the several counties of England be
secured, and that all papists depart from Lon
don to their respective places of abode in the
country ; that the House of Lords be desired to
join with the Coramons in a petition for dissolv
ing the convent of Capuchins, and sending them
out of the kingdom ; that the foreign ambassa
dors be desired to dehver up such priests of the
king's subjects as are in their houses ; that a
list be brought in ofthe queen's servants ; and
that a proclamation be issued out for all stran
gers that are not Protestants to give an account
of their naraes and places of abode, or depart
the kingdom." They also despatched a mes
senger to the king, beseeching him to concur
with them in securing the nation against any
farther attempts of the papists ; and not to era
ploy any in his councUs who were favourers of
popery, superstition, or innovation in religion.
They voted .£200,000 lo be borrowed immedi
ately for the service of Ireland, and appointed
the train-bands of Westminster to guard them
from the insolence and affronts of vagrant sol
diers about the court, and to secure them from
other designs which they had reason to sus
pect. The Lords ordered aU Romish recusants
to remove out of the inns of court and chan
cery. The Commons ordered the oaths of alle
giance and supremacy to be tendered to aU
Irish gentlemen within those courts ; " for it
now appears," says Mr. Pym, "that the reli
gion of the papists is incompatible with any
other religion ; it is destructive to aU others, and
wiU endure nothing that opposes it. There are
other religions that are not right, but not so de
structive as popery, for the principles of popery
are subversive of aU states and persons that
oppose it."t
When the king returned from Scotland the
latter end of November, and had been received
* \"ol. L, p. 299.
t Nalson's CoUection, vol. U., p. 620.

with the acclamalions of the citi'zens of Lon
don,'' he was prevailed with by the queen and
her faction to check the proceedings ofthe two
houses, since the Scots were easy, and the
hearts of the English nation seeraed lo be wilh
hira ; his majesty had reeoiniuended the sup
pressing the Irish rebellion to the Scots repre
sentatives, and by letter had coramitted the
care of it also to the English Parliament ;
whereupon the House of Commons, in the
king's absence, authorized the Earl of l.ieicester,
by an ordinance of their own, to raise forces,
and the lord-high admiral to provide shipping
for their transportation from Chester, and oili
er ports ; hut when the king came to Whitehall
he seemed so unwiUing to act against the pa
pists, that the Parliaraent were afraid of sending
Protestant soldiers out ofthe kingdom, lest his
raajesty should take advantage of their ab
sence, and break up the Constitution ;t for he
had already coramanded away the Parliament's
guard, teUing them they had nothing to fear
frora the papists, and that their jealousies of
plots and massacres were imaginary.^ He
pardoned seven popish priests who were under
sentence of condemnation, contrary to the pe
tition of the House of Commons. He turned
out the Earl of Leicester, lord-lieutenant of
Ireland, and Sir William Parsons, one of the
most active Protestant justices in that king
dora. He intercepted the parliaraentary sup
plies in their way to Chester, and received a
deputation frora the Irish Catholics with great
er cereraony and respect than frora his Protest
ant subjects. Nor could his raajesty be pre
vailed with to issue out a proclaraation decla
ring the Irish rebels, till the beginning of Janua
ry, and even then only forty copies were print
ed, and not one to be dispersed till farther or
ders.^ Indeed, the king proclairaed a raonthly
fast, and offered to raise an array of English for
the relief of Ireland, which the Commons de
clined ; and instead thereof, appointed a com
mittee to treat for ten thousand Scots, which
the House of Lords, by direction frora the king,
put a stop to ;ll so that between both, the rehef
of Ireland was neglected. The king would
have persuaded the Parliaraent to send over ten
thousand English, that they might find it more
difficult to raise forces in case ofa breach with
hira ; but the Coramons prevailed with the Scots
to offer ten thousand of their nation, that they
might not be obhged to leave themselves naked
and defenceless in so critical a juncture.
Upon the whole, it seems to rae that this bar
barous insurrection and massacre was formed
cither here or in Ireland, to distress the Parlia
ment, after the failure of the design of doing it
by the EngUsh army. The king seems lo have

* Nalson's Collection, p. 675, &c.
+ Rapin, vol u., p. 386, 387, foUo.
X Rapin, p. 388, foUo. Nalson, vol. U., p. 400, 684.
Ij Rapin, vol. U., p. 401, folio edition.
II " The king," says Dr. Grey, " was not concerned
in it, as appears from Rapin, the author he (i. «., .'^'r.
Neal) refers to." The doctor then relates, in Ra
pin's words, the three questions on this point deba
ted by the Lords. In which statement Ihere is, it a
true, an entire silence about the king's interference.
But the doctor had overlooked the preceding para
graph, which establishes Mr. Neal's assertions; in
which Rapm says, " the king had found means lo
gain the Peers." — Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

399-

heen wiUingly ignorant* of the progress of the
affair, having intrusted the correspondence with
the queen and her council ; but when he heard
•how the Irish had overacted their part he was
surprised, and thought it necessary to declare
against Ihem ; yet, when he came to his queen,
he appeared too favourable to their persons and
conduct, and instead of going briskly into the
measures that were proposed to subdue them,
his raajesty played the politician, and would
have made use of the Irish rebeUion to pul him
self at the head of an army to break up his Eng
lish Parliament.
WhUe tjie king was in Scotland, it was given
out by some ill-designing people that, since his
niajesty had yielded so much to the Scots, he
might be persuaded to introduce presbytery into
England at his return ; upon which his raajesty
sent the following letter to Mr. Nichols, clerk
of the councU :
. " I hear it is reported that, at my return, I
intend to alter the government of the Church
of England, and to bring it to that forra it is in
here ; therefore, I coraraand you to assure all
my servants, that I will be constant to the dis
cipline and doctrine.of the Church of England,
established by Queen Elizabeth and my father ;
and that I resolve, by the grace of God, to die
in the maintenance of it. Edinburgh, October
18, 1641."*
Accordingly, his majesty resolved to fill up
the vacant sees, and ordered five congi d' Hires
to be drawn, for five clergymen therein named ;
but the two houses joining in a petition to his
majesty to suspend his commands till he came
home, the matter was delayed ; however, soon
after his return, he made the foUowing removes
and proraotions.
Dr. WiUiams, bishop of Lincoln, was transla
ted to the province of York, in the room of Dr.
Neile, deceased, and Dr. Winniffe, dean of St.
Paul's, a grave and moderate divine, was made
Bishop of Lincoln ; Dr. Duppa, bishop of Chi
chester, was tr^mslated to Salisbury, vacant by
the death of Dr. Davenant ; and Dr. King, dean
of Rochester, was promoted to Chichester. Dr.
Hall was translated from Exeter to Norwich,
in the room of Bishop Montague ; and Dr.
Brownrigge, master of Catharine Hall, Cam
bridge, an eminent and learned divine, was ad
vanced to Exeter. Dr. Skinner was translated
, from Bristol to Oxford, vacant by the death of
Dr. Bancroft,; and Dr. 'Westfield, archdeacon of
St. Alban's, a very popular preacher, was pro
moted to Bristol ; Dr. Prideaux, king's professor
of divinity in Oxford, was made Bishop of Wor
cester, in the room of Bishop Thornborough,
deceased. The bishopric of Carlisle being va
cant by the death of Dr. Barnabas Potter, a
Puritan bishop, commonly called the penitential
preacher, was given in commendam to the most
reverend Dr. Usher, archbishop and primate of
Ireland, during the commotion in that kingdom.

* " This," says Bishop Warburton, " is a vUla
nous accusation, destitute of all proof and likelihood."
His lordship might have spared some of his warmth
and bitterness. , For if it be an accusation, it comes
forward as a conclusion arising from the facts and
authorities stated in the preceding pages. It is prop
erly the opinion of the author, and the reader will
judge how far it justly fiows from the evidence laid
before him. — En.
t Nalson's CoUection, vol. u., p. 683.

Most of these divines stood well in the opinion-
of the people, but their accepting bishoprics in
this crisis did neither the king nor themselves
any service. After this his majesty nominated
but two bishops throughout the course of his
reign ; one was Dr. Frewen, dean of Gloucester
and president of Magdalen College, Oxon, to
the bishopric of Coventry and Litchfield, 1644,
and Dr. Howel, prebendary of Windsor, to Bris
tol, about ten months after.
A comraittee, had been appointed above a
twelveraonth ago, at the raotion- of Lord Digby,
" to draw out of all the grievances of the natiOn
such a remonstrance as raight be a faithful and
lively representation to his niajesty of the de
plorable state of the kingdom ;"* but was laid .
aside till this time, when the prospect of an
agreement between him and his Parliament be
ing almost at an end, after the breaking out of
the Irish insurrection and massacre, it was per
fected and read in the House pf Commons No
vember 22, when it met with so strong an op
position that it was carried only by nine voices,t
after a long debate from three in the afternoon
till three in the morning, which made onet say
" it looked Uke the verdict of a starved jury."
Many were of opinion that those grievances
which had been redressed by the late acts of
Parliament ought to have been covered, lest
the reviving them should make the breach wider
between the king and Parliannent, whUe others
thought the mentioning thera "could do no harm
if it was done wilh respect, and that it was in
a manner necessary in order to introduce the
intended limitation of the royal power. How
ever, this was the crisis that discovered the
strength of the two parties, and was managed
with such warmth, that Oliver Cromwell is said
to teU Lord Falkland that, " if the remonstrance
had been rejected, he would have sold all he
had next morning, and never have seen England
more." It is difficult to say which side of the question-
was rIght.'S Mr. Rapinll will not take upon him

* Bishop Warburton asks here, "Why are we
told this but to mislead us ? A year ago, before tlie
king had made full satisfaction for his misgovern-
ment, such a remonstrance was seasonable ; now he
had made full satisfaction, it was factious and sedi
tious." To tills question of his lordship's it may be
retorted. Why should a design to mislead be insinu
ated against Mr. Neal ? Has he not, in the same
paragraph, informed his readers that " many were of
opinion that those grievances which had been re
dressed ought to have been covered ?" Doth he not
fairly state the whole business ? And doth he not,
with candour and impartiality, avoid biasing his
reader, while he waives giving a decided opinion on
the conduct of the ParUament in this affair'? AU
this appears, in the hurry of his remarks at breakfast-
time, to have escaped his lordship's notice. Had he
read on, before he wrote in the margin of his book,
it would have precluded his censure. — Ed.
t "This is a mistake copied from Clarendon. The
numbers for passing the remonstrance was one hun
dred and fifty-nine against one hundred and forty-
eight, so it was carried by eleven voices. — Harris's
Life of Oliver Cromwell, p. 74. — Ed.
I Dr. Harris supposes this was Sir Benjamin
Rudyard, who, according to Willis, was in three
ParUaments the representative of Portsmouth, and
was afterward returned for Old Sarum once, for
Dowton once, and for Wilton twice. — Ed.
^ Clarendon, vol. u., p. 312.
II Rapir., vol ii., p. 388, fol. edit.

400

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS

"lo determine wlielhrr it was necessary for the
welfare of the kingdora to put it out of the
king's power to govern for the future in the
same arbitrary raanner as he had done for fif
teen years ; but he thinks the reason for it very
pl.iiisible, and does not well see what security
thev could have who were for leaving the king
in possession of the same power he had before
cnjoved ; especially if it be considered that his
majesty had slUl the sarae arbitrary principles,
and the same inviolable attachment lo his queen
and the popish faction, besides the current re
port that the court had fomented the Irish in
surrection, which had filled the minds of the
people with distracting terrors. It is certain
the king had conceived an implacable aversion
to the leading merabers of the Puritanical parly
in both houses, and .having quieted the Scots,
was determined to make them examples, of
which they were ignorant. After all, whether
these and the like reasons were sufficient to
justify the whole of the Paliament's conduct in
this affair, I w-ill not presume to determine.
The remonstrance was presented to the king
at Hampton Court [Deceraber 1, 1641], about
a w-eek after his majesty's return frora Scot
land, with a petition for redress of grievances
therein contained. It is easy to suppose it was
not very acceptable, but the king gave the com
mittee his hand to kiss, and took time to return
an answer.* Thu remonstrance enumerates the
several grievances, oppressions, and unbounded
acts ofthe prerogative, since his majesty's ac
cession, to ihe number of almost two hundred,
and eharges their rise and progress, (1.) On
lh& Jesulted papists. (2 ) On the court, bish
ops, and corrupt part of the clergy. (3.) On
such corrupt counsellors and courtiers as for
private ends had engaged themselves in the in
terest of some foreign princes, to the prejudice
ofthe king and state. "These ministers are said
to carry on their designs, (1.) By suppressing
the power and purity of religion, and of such
persons as were best affected to it (2.) By
cherishing the Arminian party in those points
wherein ihey agree wUh the papists, in order to
widen the difference between the coraraon Prot
estants and those called Puritans ; and by in
troducing such opinions and cereraonies as tend
to an accommodation with popery., (3.) By fo
menting differences and discontent between the
king and his Pariiament, and by putting hira
upon arbitrary and illegal methods of raising
supplies. I omit the grievances of the State ; those
which related to the Church were such as fol
low :
1. The suspensions, excoramunications, dep
rivations, and degradations of divers painful,
learned, and pious ministers of the Gospel by
the bishops, and the grievous oppression of
great numbers of his majesty's faithful subjects
2. The sharpness and severity of the High
Commission, assisted by the council-table, not
much less grievous than the Romish InquisUion.
3. The rigour of the bishops' courts in the
country, whereby great numbers ofthe meaner
tradesmen have been irapoverished and driven
out of the kingdom to Holland and New-Eng-

* Rushworth, part iii.,
CoUection, p. 694.

vol. L, p. 438. Nalson's

land. The advancing those lo ecclesiastical
proferracnts who were most officious in promo
ting superstition, and most virulent in railing
against godliness and honesty.
4. The design of reconciling the Church of
England wilh Rome, and imposing upon the
Church of Scotland siioli popish superstitions
and innovations as inight dispose Ihem to join
wilh lOngland in the intended recoiieillalion
5. The late i-anons and oath imposed upon
the clergy under the severest penalties, and
the continuance of the convocation by a new
commission, after the dissolution of the Parlia
ment, wherein they raised taxes upon the sub
ject for the maintenance of what was caUed
" beUum episcopale." The rooting out of the
kingdora by force, or driving away by fear, the
Puritans ; under which narae they include all
that desire lo preserve the laws and liberties
of the kingdom, and to maintain religion in the
power of it.
6. The exempting papists from penal laws,
so far as amounted to a toleration, besides con
ferring upon thera many other privileges and
court favours ; these, say thoy, have had a
secretary of state of their own religion, and a
nuncio from the pope, by 'whose authority the
popish nobility, clergy, and gentry have been
convocated after the manner of a Parliament ;
new jurisdictions have been erected of popish
ai-chbishops ; taxes have been levied ; another
state raoulded within this state, independent in
governraent, and secretly corrupting the igno
rant professors of our religion, &c. The pa
pists have been furnished with arms and ammu
nition, listed in the king's service, and encour
aged by the weekly prayers of their priests for
the prosperity of their designs, to promote the
Catholic cause. They complain, farther, of a
party of bishops and popish lords in the House
of Peers, who have caused rauch opposition and
delay in the prosecution of delinquents, and
hindered the passing some good bUls for the re
forming abuses and corruptions in Church and
State ; and ofa malignant part^ that has coun
tenanced the rebeUion in Ireland.
After the recital of these grievances, they ac
knowledge with thankfulness the raany acts
that his raajesty has passed this session for the
public good, and put his raajesty in mind of the
large sums of money they had raised for his
service, araounting to no less than a million
and a half They declare, " that it is far from
their purpose or desire to let loose the golden
reins of discipline and government in the
Church, to leave private persons or particular
congregations to take up what forra of Divine
service they please ; for we hold it requisite,"
say they, " that there should be throughout the
whole realra a conforraity to that order which
the laws enjoin, according to the Word of God ;
and we desire to unburden the consciences of
men frora needless and superstitious ceremo
nies, to suppress innovations, and to take away
the monuments of idolatry. To effect this in
tended reforraation, we desire thei^ raay be a
general synod of the most grave, piOTs, learned,
and judicious divines of this island, assisted
with some" frora foreign parts professing the
same religion with us, who raay consider of aU
things necessary for the peace and good gov.
ernment of the Church, and represent the re-

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

401

suit of their consultations to the Parliament, to
be allowed and confirmed, and to receive the
stamp of authority. It is our chief care to ad
vance and promote learning, and to provide a
competent maintenance for conseionable and
preaching ministers throughout the kingdom.
We intend, likewise, to reform and purge the
fountains of learning — the two universities,
that the streams flowing thence may be clear
and pure, and an honour and comfort to the
whole land. And seeing that the religion of
papists has such principles as certainly tend to
the destruction and extirpation of all Protest
ants, when they have opportunity to effect it,
it is necessary to keep them in such a condition
that they may not be able to do us any hurt."
In the petition that attended this reraon
strance, after having assured his raajesty that
they had not the least intention to lay any blem
ish upon his royal person by the foregoing dec
laration, but only to represent how his royal
authority and trust had been abused, they hum
bly beseech his majesty to concur with his peo
ple in a parlijjmentary way, (1.) "For the de
priving the bishops of their votes in Parliament,
and abridging their imraoderate power, usurped
over the clergy and other your good subjects,
to the hazard of religion and prejudice of the
just liberties of your people. (2.) For the ta
king away such oppressions in religion, church
governraent, and discipline, as have been brought
in and fomented by them. (3.) For uniting aU
such your loyal subjects as agree in fundament
als against papists, by removing some oppres
sions and unnecessary ceremonies, by which
divers weak consciences have been offended,
and seera to he divided from the rest." (4.)
They conclude " with beseeching his raajesty
to remove from his counsels all favourers of
popery and arbitrary power, and promoters of
the above-mentioned pressures and corruptions,
and to eraploy such as his Parliament might
-confide in ; and that, in his princely goodness,
he would reject.all solicitations to the contrary,
how powerful and near soever."*
His majesty, in his answ,er to this petition,
about a week after, complains very justjy ofthe
^disrespect of the Coramons in printing their re
monstrance before he had tirae to return an an
swer. To the preamble and conclusion of the
petition, he says, that " he knows of no wicked,
arbitrary, and malignant party prevalent in the
governraent, or near himself and his children ;"
and assures them that the mediation of the
nearest to him has always concurred in such
persons, against whora there' can be no just
cause of exception. To the several articles
his majesty replies : first, concerning religion,
" that he is wiUing to concur with all the just
desires of his people, in a parliamentary way,
for preserving the peace of the kingdom from
•the designs of the popish party.
"That for depriving the bishops of their
votes in Parliament, he thought their right was
grounded on the ftindamental laws ofthe king
dom and constitution of Parliaraent, but since
you desire our concurrence in a parliaraentary
way," says the king, " we wUl give^ao farther
answer at present.
"As for abridging the extraordinary power

* Nalson's Collection, vol. ii.,
Vol. I.— E e e

P..692.

of the clergy, if there reraain any excesses or
usurpations in their jurisdictions, we neither
have nor wiU protect thera.
_" Concerning church corruptions, as you
style them, and removing unnecessary ceremo
nies, we are willing to concur in the removal
of any Ulegal innovations which may have crept
in ; and if our Parliaraent advise us to caU a
national synod for that purpose, we shaU take
it into considei-ation.
" But we are very sorry to hear, in such gen
eral terms, corruption in religion objected, since
we are persuaded in our own conscience that
no church can be found upon earth that pro-
fesseth the true religion with raore purity of
doctrine than the Church of England doth ; nor
where the government and disciphne are jointly
raore beautified, and free from superstition, than
as they are here established by law, which, by
the grace of God, we will with constancy main
tain while we live, in their purity and glory, not
only against all invasions of popery, but also
from the irreverence of those many schismatics
and separatists wherewith of late this kingdom
and this city abound, to the great dishonour
and hazard both of Church and State ; for the
suppression of whora vi^e require your tiraely
aid and active assistance,"
Sorae time after [December 15, 1641] his
majesty published , his answer to the remon
strance,* with a declaration to all his loving
subjects, in which he professes hiraself fully
satisfied " that the religion of the Church of
England is most agreeable to the Word wf God,
and that he should be ready to seal it with his
blood if God should call him to it. That as for
cereraonies in religion, which are in their own
nature indifferent, he is wUling, in tenderness
to any number of his subjects, that a law should
be made for the exemption of tender conscien
ces from punishraent, or prosecution for such
ceremonies as by the judgment of most raen
are held to be indifferent, and of sorae to be ab
solutely unlawful, provided the peace of the
kingdora be not disturbed, nor the present de
cency and comeliness of God's service estab
lished in the Churoh discountenanced ; nor the
pious, sober, and devout actions of those rev
erend persons who were the first labourers in
the blessed Reformation be scandalized and
defamed. His majesty then adds, that he can
not, without gri'ef of heart and some tax upon
himself and his ministers for not executing the
laws, look upon the bold license of some men,
in printing pamphlets and serraons so full of bit
terness and malice against the present govern
ment and the law estabUshed, so full of sedition
against hiraself and the peace of the kingdora,
that he is many times amazed to consider hy
what eyes these things are seen, and by what
ears they are heard ; he therefore commands
again, aU his officers and ministers of justice to
proceed against thera with all speed, and put
the laws in execution. "+ Agreeably to. this
declaration, his majesty issued out his royal
proclamation December 10, requiring obedience
to the laws and statutes ordained for the estab
lishing true religion in this kingdom, and com
manding that Divine service be performed as
heretofore ; and that aU officers and ministers.

* Nalson's CoUection, vol. n., p. 647, &G.
t Rushworth, part iu., vol. i., p. 456.

402

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

ecclesiastical, and teraporal, do put the said
laws in due e.\i-i-ulion ag.iinst all wilful con
temners and disturbers ol Divine worship, eon
trary lo the s.ud law-s and statutes.
Thus niaturs stood between the king and
Pariiaraent when all raen expected the court
interest in the House of Peers would be broken,
bv the issue of the inipeachraent of thirteen
bishops, for corapUing the late canons, which
was now approaching. The Lords had resolv
ed that such bishops as w ere irapeached should
not sit in the House when the merits of their
cause was in debate, but that when the manner
of proceeding was to be settled, they might be
present, but not vote. To enable them the bel
ter to make iheir defence, it was resolved, far
ther, Ihat the Bishop of Rochester, with one
other bishop, might have access twice to the
.\rchbisliop of Canterbury in the Tower to con
sult with him about their answer lo the im
peachment ; and that all the lords-bishops may
have access to and have copies of any acts and
records in any of his raajesty's courts of jus-
lice that may serve for their defence. On the
lOlh of November the bishops pul in their an
swer, consisting of a plea and demurrer, in
which they neither cdnfess nor deny the fact,
but endeavour lo show that the ofl'enoe of ma
king canons could not amount lo a preraunire ;
which was certainly true, provided they had
been made in a legal convocation, and that the
canons theraselves had not been contrary to
the king's prerogative and the fundamental
law-s of the land. The answer was signed with
all their hands except the Bishop of Glouces
ter's, who pleaded not guilty modo et forma.*
The Coniinons were dissatisfied wilh the bish
ops for not pleading directly to their charge ;
and with the Lords for receiving a demurrer
when they were not present, contrary to the
request which they sent up with the impeach
raent, especially when the nature of the case,
being a mere matter of fact, could not require
.it ; they therefore prayed the Lords by Ser
geant Glyn to set aside the demurrer, and to
admit them to make proof of their charge with
out any farther delay ; or if they were satisfied
wilh the cliarge, and the bishops would not
plead to it, lo proceed immediately to judg
ment ; but the Lords, instead of complying
w-ith the Coramqns, gave the bishops their op
tion, and ordered thera to declare by Saturday
whether they would plead to the impeachraent
or abide by their demurrer, when they declared
they w-ould abide by their demurrer; -upon
which the Lords appointed .Monday following
[December 11] to hear them by their counsel in
presence of the Commons ; but the House, re
senting this dilatory method of proceeding in a
ease which they allege was so apparent and
manifest to the whole world, would not appear ;
the most active merabers declaring among
their friends, with a sort of despair, that they
would be concerned no farther against the bish
ops, for Ihey now saw it was in vain to attack
a number of men whom the court and the
House of Lords were resolved to protect.
When this was rumoured in the city, it
alarmed the people, whose fears were already
sufficiently aw-akened with the apprehensions
ot a popish raassacre and insurrection within

-Nalson's Collection, vol. U., p. 715, 731.

ihrir own walls. The aldermen and commoa
council ininiediulily assembled, and drew up n
pclilion to support the courage of the Com
mons, and went with it lo \\ ( slininsler in si.xly
coaches, attended by a great number of Iho
lower people.* The peliiion pra-vs, " that the
House of Commons would still be a ine.iiis lo
the king and ihe House of I'rc-rs, lo concur
with them [the Coimnons] in redrrssiiig iho
grievances ol Chui-i-h and stale, and for iho
better effecting iR-nof, that tho popish lords
and bishops may be reiiRned out of the House
of Peers." The spcakir relumed them thanks
in the name of the House, and promised lo take
their address inlo consideration in due lime .V
few days after, great miiubei-s of people assem
bled at Blackhealh to sign a petition lo the
same purpose; and within a fortnight the ap
prentices of London went up with a petition
signed with a raultiliide of names, ecimplainlng
ofthe decay of trade, oei-asioned by papists and
prelates, and by a raalignanl party that 'adhered
to thera ; and praying that the popish lords, and
other erainent persons of that religion, raight bo
secured, and that prelacy raight*be rooted nut,
aecording to their former petition, commonly
called Ihe root and braneh. The Commons re
ceived their petition favourably, hut the king,
instead of calming the citizens, increased their
jealousies and suspicions by removing, al this
very time. Sir WUIiam Belfour frora the lieu
tenancy of the Tower, and putting Colonel
Lunsford into his place, a suspected papist, of
no fortune, who had been once outlawed, and
was fit for any desperate attempt; this unsea
sonable promotion occasioned petitions to his
raajesty for his removal, which with much diffi
culty, after some time, was obtained, but the
jealousies of the people still remained.
The petitions above mentioned against the
bishops were confronted with others out of the-
counlry in their favour. Noveraber 18, the
humble petition ofthe knights, esquires, gentle
men, parsons, t vicars, curates, &c., of Rutland
shire, was presented to the House, signed by
about eight hundred and forty hands, praying
for the continuance of episcopacy, as the only
governmentof apostolical institution sealed with
the blood of martyrs, admirably suited to the civil
governraent of this kingdom, and affirming that
no presbyter ever laid on hands without a bish
op. December 8, a petition of the Uke nature
was presented from Huntingdonshire, and two
days after another frora Somersetshire, signed
with above fourteen thousand naraes tlj

' -Nalson's Collection, vol. ii., p. 733.
t " And householders m the county of Rutland, in
behalf of themselves and famihes :" omitted. — Dr.
IJrfi/ t There were also petitions from the counties of
Cheshire, Nottingham, Devonshire, Stalibrd, Kent,
the six shires of North Wales, the counties of Lan
caster, Cornwall, and Hereford. Of these petitions,
that from Devon had eight thousand signatures, that
from Stafford three thousand, and those from the six
shires of North Wales thirty thousand, .\mong the
petitioners were computed, where the different ranks
of the petitioners were classed, to be five peers, two
hundred and twenty-live knights, three hundred and
ninety-nine divines, one thousand five hundred and
eighty-eight gentlemen, and twenty-eight thousand
three hundred and tliirty-six freeholders, — Dr. Grey's
Examination, vol. i., p. 312, 314.
^ .Nalson's Collection, vol. ii., p. 726, 7'.i7.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

403

On the other hand, the ministers appointed
to solicit their remonstrance formerly mention
ed, addressed the House, December 20, 1641,
acknowledging "-their piety and zeal for the
true religion, against popery and superstition ;
in countenancing the sacred ordinance of
preaching; in encouraging painful and godly
ministers, formerly set aside, but now profita
bly employed in many congregations ; in dis
countenancing of bold intruders, who, without
a sufficient call, have thrust themselves into
the sacred office ; as also, of all unworthy and
scandalous ministers ; in freeing divers godly
ministers from prison and exile, and others from
heavy censures ; in preventing the utter ruin of
the petitioners, by setting aside the late oath and
canons, the High Commission, and other illegal
pressures of ecclesiastical courts ; in making
an order to take away all superstitious rites and
ceremonies, images, pictures, and other inno
vations out of churches ; in conducting the late
peace with Scotland to a happy conclusion, and
in their vigorous endeavours for the relief of
Ireland, &c. But whereas there still remain a
great many grievances to be removed, they are
necessitated to renew their former suit for re
dress of the aforesaid evils, and for taking away
whatever shaU appear to be the root and cause
of thera. And whereas the petitioners, and
many others, are desirous in all things to sub
mit to the laws, so far as possible they may,
yet, merely out of tenderness and scruple of
conscience, they dare not continue, as formerly
they did, the exercise of some things enjoined ;
not only because they have more seriously
weighed the nature and scandal of them, and
because sundry bishops, and other grave di
vines, called to their assistance by order ofthe
House of Peers, have, as they are informed, dis
covered divers particulars which need altera
tion in the liturgy ; and because there is not, as
they humbly conceive, at this day, coramonly
extant, any Book of Common Prayer without so
many alterations and additions as render it in
many parts another thing from that which is by
law established ; but chiefly, because the House,
from a sense of its defects, has taken the ref
ormation thereof under consideration, which
they hoped would be some shelter against the
strict pressing the use of it, till their pleasure
was declared in a parliamentary way. But,
though the petitioners have been comfortably
assured of some ease herein, yet now, to their
great sorrow, they apprehend that the same
things are anew enforced, which may occasion
much trouble and vexation to sundry peaceable
and worthy ministers, some of whom have been
indicted upon the statute of 1 Eliz., cap. ii.,
since the beginning of this present Parliament,
and others threatened for omissions of some
things coraplained of to this high court, and
StUl depending before you. The petitioners,
therefore, pray the House to resume the consid
eration of their former petition, and to commit
the sarae to the debate of a free synod, and, in
the mean time, to he mediators to his majesty
for some relaxation in matters of ceremony,
and of reading the whole liturgy. They farther
pray, that a monthly fast may be appointed and
rehgiously observed during the present sessions
bf Parliament, and they will be ready at any
time to offer reasons why there should be a

synod of a different constitution frora the con
vocation now in being, when they shall be re
quired."* The carrying up these petitions to West
minster, and especially that of the London ap
prentices, occasioned great tumults about the
Parliaraent-house. The king was at his palace
at Whitehall, attended by a great number of
disbanded officers, whom his majesty received
with great ceremony, and employed as a guard
to his royal person. These officers insulted the
comraon people, and gave them, ill language as
they passed by the court to the Parliament-
house, crying out. No bishops — no popish lords 1
If the people ventured to reply, the officers fol
lowed their reproaches with cuts and lashes,
which, says Lord Clarendon, t produced some
wounds, and drew blood. Mr. Baxter says
they came out of WhitehaU, and catched some
of them, and cut off their ears. Frora these
skirraishes, and from the shortness of the ap
prentices' hair, which was cut close about their
ears, the two parties began first- to be distin
guished by the names of Roundhead and Cava
lier. David Hyde, one of the reformades, first
drew his sword in the palace-yard, and swore
he would cut the throats of those roundheaded
dogs that bawled against the bishops. Dr.
WiUiaras, bishop of Lincoln, lately promoted to
the see of York, going by land to the House of
Peers, in company wilh the Earl of Dover," and
hearing a youth cry out louder than the rest. No
bishops — no popish lords ! stepped from the earl
and laid hands on hira, but his companions res
cued him, and about a hundred of them sur
rounded the bishop, hemmed him in, and with
a universal shout cried out. No bishops ! after
whieh they opened a passage and let his grace
go forward to the House.t The same day. Colo
nel Lunsford, coraing through Westminster HaU
in company with thirty or forty officers, drew
his sword and wounded about twenty apprenti
ces and citizens : others, walking in the abbey
while their friends were waiting for an answer
to their petition, were ordered by the vergers lo
clear the church, lest the ornaments of the ca
thedral should suffer daraage ; upon which raost
of them went out, and the doors were shut, but
some few remaining behind, were apprehended
and carried before the bishop, which occasioned
another skirraish, in which Sir Richard Wise
man was killed by a stone from the battlements ;
after which the officers and soldiers sallied out
upon the mob with sword in hand, and obliged
tliem fo retire. The news of this being reported
in the city, the whole populace was in arms,
and resolved to go next morning to Westmin
ster with swords and staves. The lord-mayor
and sheriffs raised the train-bands, and having
ordered the city gates to be kept shut, they rode
about all night to keep the peace ; hut it was
impossible to hinder the people's going out in
the day. On the other hand, the king com
manded the militia of Westminster and Mid
dlesex to be raised hy turns, as a guard to bis
royal person and family ; upon which several
gentlemen ofthe inns of court offered their ser
vice, in case his majesty apprehended any dan-

* Nalson's Collection, vol. ii., p. 764.
t Vol. i., p. 339.
i Rushworth, part iu., vol. i., p. 463.

HISTORY OF THE P U R 1 T .\ N S

ger.* The House of Commons, being no less
afraid of iheinselves. petitioned for a guard out
of the cU\ of London, under the comraand of
the Earl of Essex, which his raajesty relused,
bat lold thera he would take as rauch care of
them as of his own children ; and if this would
not suffice, he would command such a guard lo
wait upon Iheiu as he would be answerable to
God for ; but the House, not being willing lo
trust to the king's guard, dechned his majesty's
offer, and not prevaiUng for one of their own
choosing, they ordered halberds to be brought
inlo the House, and resolved, in case of an as
sault, to defend themselves
The Lords exerted themselves lo disperse the
tumuUs, by sending their gentleraan-Hsher ofthe
black rod to comraand the people lo depart lo
their homes, and by appointing a coramillee to
inquire inlo the causes of thera. His majesty
also published a proclamation [Deceraber 28,
1641] forbidding all tumultuous assemblies of
the people. But the Commons, being unwilling
to affront the cUizens, were not so vigorous iii
suppressing thera as it is thought the eireura-
stanees of things required ; for as the king relied
upon his guard of officers, the Coramons had
their dependance upon the good-wiU of the cit
izens. Not that the House can be charged wilh
encouraging Uimults.t for the very next day
after the king's proclamation they sent a mes
sage to the Lords, declaring their readiness to
concur in all lawful raethods lo appease thera ;
but being sensible their strength was araong the
inhabitants of London, without whose counte
nance and support everything must have been
given back into the hands of the court, they
were tender of entering upon vigorous meas
ures. WhUe these tumults continued, the bishops
were advised to forbear their attendance upon
the House, at least till after the recess of Chrisl-
? Rushworth, part ui., vol. i., p. 456, 471.
-f Bishop Warburton is very warm on this asser
tion, and calls it "a notorious falsehood." The
House, he says, " has been charged by all mankind
with encouraging the tumults, though not with pub
licly avowing that they did encourage them." The
truth or falsehood of Mr. Neal's assertion will depend
on the explanatiou of the word " encourage ;" if it
means connivance at, and giving countenance to, the
tumults, its veracity may be impeached. For when
the Lords desired, on December 27, the House to
join in publishing a declaration against the tumults,
and in petitioning the king for a guard, they waived
taking the request into consideration, on the plea
that the hour was too late for it. When the next day
came, they adjourned the matter to tbe succeeding.
The mob being again assembled on the 29th, they
sent their message to the Lords. Mr. Neal does not
immediately state these circumstances, but he repre
sents the Commons as not acting with vigour in sup
pressing Ihe riots, and as placing some dependance
on the spirit which the people showed. Mr. Neal,
therefore, by encouraging the tumults, must be un
derstood lo mean, as Rapm expresses it, " taking any
resolution to encourage these tumults," or avowing
an approbation of them : then his assertion is, in the
^dgment of even Bishop Warburton, just and true.
The reader cannot but observe, that Mr. Neal Ihought
that the tumults were not, at first at least, disagree
able to the Commons. Yet it should be obsencd,
that \\ hitelocke, speaking of Ihem, says, " it was a
disinal thmg to aU sober men, especiaUy members of
Parliament, to see and hear them."-Menun-iaU, p.

raas , but this looking loo much like cowardice,
their lordships deurmined lo do their duty ; and
beeause the streets were crowded with unraly
people, they agreed lo go by water in Iheir
barges; but as soon as llu-y came near to thi-
shore, the inob saluted Ihem with a voiles of
stones, so that, lu-iiig afraid lo land, Ihey rowi-d
back and relumed to Iheir own houses. Upon
this repulse, twelve of them met privately at
the .\rchbishop of York's lodgings in Weslmin-
ster, to consult what raeasurt-s were to bo la-
ken. The arehbishop advised Ihem to go no
more to the House, and immediately, in a heat,
drew- up the following protestation against what
soever the two houses should do in their ab
sence, which aU present signed with their hands,
except the Bishop of \^'lnohester.
"To the king's most exc-eUent'raajesty, and the
lords and peers now assembled in Parlia
ment.
" The humble petition and protestation of aU
the bishops and prelates now called hy his
majesty's wnls to attend the ParUaraeiil, and
present about London and Westminster for
that service.
" Whereas the petitioners are caUed up by
several and respective writs, and under great
penalties, to attend the Parliament, and have a
clear and indubitable right to vole in biUs, and
other matters whatsoever debatable in Parlia
ment, by the ancient customs, laws, and stat
utes of this realm, and ought to be proleoteil by
your majesty quietly lo attend and prosecute
that great serviee: they humbly remonstrate
and protest, before God, your majesty, and the
noble lords and peers now assembled in Parlia
raent, that as they have an indubitate right to
sit and vote in the House of Lords, so are they,
if they raay be protected frora force and vio
lence, most ready and willing to perform their
duties accordingly. And that they do abomi
nate aU actions or opinions tending lo popery
and the maintenance thereof ; as also, aU pro-
pension and inclination to any malignant party,
or any other side or party whatsoever, to the
which their own reasons and conscience shall
not move thera to adhere. But whereas they
have been at several tiraes violently menaced,
aiffronted, and assaulted by multitudes of people
in their coraing to perform their services in that
honourable house, and lately chased away and
put in danger of their lives, and can find no re
dress or protection, upon sundry complaints
raade to both houses in these particulars : they
hurably protest before your majesty, and the
noble House of Peers, that saving unto them
selves all their rig;hts and interest of sitting and
voting in that house at other tiraes, Ihey dare
not sit or vote in the House of Peers, unlU your
majesty shall farther secure them frora all af
fronts, indignities, and dangers in the premises.
La.stly, whereas their fears are not built upon
fantasies and conceits, but upon such grounds
and objections as may well terrify men of reso
lution and much constancy, they do, in aU hu
mUity and duty, protest before your majesty,
and the peers of that raost honourable House
of Parliament, against all laws, orders, voles,
resolutions, and deterraihalions, as in them
selves null, and of none effect, which in their
absence, since the 27th of this month of Decern-

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

405

her, 1641, have already passed; as likewise
against all such as shall hereafter pass in that
most honourable house, during the tirae of this
their forced and violent absence frora the said
most honourable house ; not denying, but if
their absenting of themselves were wUful and
voluntary, that most honourable house might
proceed in all the premises, their absence, or
this protestation, notwithstanding. And hura
bly beseeching your most excellent majesty to
command the clerk of that House of Peers to
enter this their petition and protestation among
their records,
''And they wUl ever pray God to bless, dec.
" John Eborac, George Hereford,
Tho. Duresme, Rob. Oxon,
Ro. Cov. Lichf Mat. Ely,
Jos. Norwich, Godfrey Gloucester,
Jo. Asaph, Jo. Peterborough,
Gul. Bath and WeUs, Morice Landaff."
This protestation was presented to the king
by Archbishop WUliaras,* who undertook to
justify the lawfulness of it ; but his majesty de
clining to appear in so nice an affair, delivered
it into the hands of the Lord-keeper Littleton,
who by his majesty's command read it in the
House of Lords the next morning. After sorae
debate the Lords desired a conference with the
Commons, when the keeper, in the name of the
House of Peers, declared, that "the protesta
tion ofthe bishops contained matters of high and
dangerous consequence, extending to the in
trenching upon the fundamental privileges and
being of Parli-aments, and, therefore, the Lords
thought fit to communicate it to the Com
mons. "t The protestation being communica
ted to the House of Coraraons, they resolved,
within half an hour, to accuse the twelve bish
ops of high treason, " for endeavouring to sub
vert the fundamental laws and being of Parlia
ments," and sent up their impeachment by Mr.
Glyn, who, having delivered it at the bar of the
House of Lords, the usher of the black rod was
ordered to go immediately in search ofthe bish
ops, and bring them tb the House ; the bishops
appearing the sarae evening [December 30],
were se'^questered from Parliament, ten of them
being sent to the Tower, the Bishops of Dur
ham and Norwich,t by reason of their great age
and the service they had done the Church of
God by their writing and preaching, being com
mitted to the custody of the black rod, with an
aUowance of £5 a day for their expenses. ij
The adversaries of the bishops in both hous
es were extremely pleased with their unadvised
conduct ; one said it was the finger of God, to
bring that to pass which otherwise could not
ha^ve been compassed. There was but one gen
tleraan in the whole debate that spoke in their
behalf, and he said " he did not believe they
were guilty of high treason, but that they were
stark raad, and, therefore, desired they may be
sent to Bedlam." Lord Clarendonll censures
this protestation, as proceeding from the pride
and passion of Archbishop Williams ; he admits
that the eleven bishops were ill advised in going
into his measures, and suffering themselves to
be precipitated into so hasty a resolution, though

. * Clarendon, voL i., p. 351.
t Rushworth, part iu., vol. i., p. 467.
i Morton and HaU.
^ Fuller, b. xi.,'p. 188. || Vol. i., p. 355.

he is certain there could be nothing of high
treason in it. However, their behaviour gave
such scandal and offence, even to those who
passionately desired to preserve their function,
that they had no compassion or regard for their
persons. The objections that I have met with against
the'protestation are these : First, That it tend
ed to destroy the very being of parliaments, be
cause it put a stop to all laws, orders, votes,
and resolutions made in the absence of the
bishops. Secondly, The presence of the bishops
is hereby made so essential that no act can pass
without them, which is claiming a negative
voice, like the king's. Thirdly, The bishops
desiring the king to comraand the clerk of the
House of Peers to enter their protestation on
record was derogatory to the rights of Parlia
raent, as though the king by his coramand
could make a record of Parliament. Fourthly,
The annulling all laws that might be made at
this time, when Ireland was in so rauch danger
from the breaking out of the Irish massacre,
was a sort of conspiring with the rebels to de
stroy that kingdom. Fifthly, It was said that,
besides the unwarrantable expressions in the
protestation, the form of presenting and trans
mitting it was unjustifiable.
On the other hand, it was said, on behalf of
the bishops, that there was a raanifest force put
upon thera ; and a violence offered to the free
dom of one member of Parliament is a violence
offered to the whole ; that, therefore, they had
a right to protest, and guard their privileges,
without being accountable for the iU consequen
ces that might follow. Yet surely this manner
of asserting their privUege was irregular; should
they not have petitioned the Lords to secure
their passage to Parliaraent, rather than have
put a negative upon all their proceedings 1 I
have raet with only one learned writer who
coramends the bishops upon this occasion, and
he advances them, in romantic language, to the
rank of heroes : his words are these : " Had
the bishops done less, they had fallen short of
that fortitude which might justly be expected
from them. They had reason to conclude the
root and branch work would certainly go for
ward, and, therefore, to be silent under such an
outrage would look like cowardice. When the
prospect I's thus menacing, and a raan is almost
certain to be undone, the most creditable expe
dient is to spend himself in a blaze, and flash to
the last grain of powder. To go out in a smoke
and smother is but a mean way of coming to
nothing. To creep and crawl to a misfortune
is to suffer like an insect. A man ought to fall
with dignity and honour, and to keep his mind
erect, though his fortune happens to be crushed.
This was the bishops' meaning, and for making
so handsome a retreat they ought to stand
coraraended upon record."* But, with 'due re
gard to this reverend divine, was there no me
dium between being silent, and taking upon
them, in such a crisis, to stop all the business
of Parliament ? For, if the proceedings of the
House of Peers are null without the bishops, it
is- no less certain that those of the House of
Commons are null without the Peers ; from
whence it must follow that the whole Pariia-

* CoUyer's Eccles. Hist., vol. u., p. 819.

406

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

ment was incapable of acting. Mr. Rapin* is
of opinion that the king hoped " that this affair
might occasion the dissolution of the Pariia
ment. " But if he did, his majesty was much
mistaken, for the bishops and popish lords be
ing now- absent, the majority of the whole
House of Peers was against the court ; which
vi-\t .1 the queen and her faction, and put thera
upon such an extravagant piece of revenge as
effectually broke the peace ofthe kingdora, and
rendered the king's affairs irretrievable.
His raajesty having been assured that the
Lord Kirabolton. and five of the raost active
merabers in the House of Commons, viz., Denzil
HoUis, Sir .\rthur Haslerigge, John Pym, John
Harapden, and WiUiara Stroud, Esqrs., had in
vited the Scots into England, and were now the
chief encouragers of those turaults that had
kept the bishops and popish lords frora the
House ; that they had aspersed his governraent,
and were endeavouring to deprive hira of his
royal power; in a word, that theywere con
spiring to levy war against hira, resolved to
impeach them of high treason ; accordingly, his
majesty sent his attorney-general to the House
with the articles [January 3, 1642], and al the
same time despatched officers to their houses
to seal up their trunks, papers, and doors ; but
the members not being ordered into custody, as
his niajesty expected, the king w-ent himself lo
the House ne.xt day in the afternoon [January
4] lo seize them, attended with about two hun
dred officers and soldiers, armed with swords
and pistols ; the gentlemen ofthe inns of court,
who had offered their service to defend the
king's person, having had notice to be ready at
an hour's warning. t The king having entered
the House, went directly to the speaker's chair,
and looking about him, said, wilh a frown, " I
perceive the birds have fled, but I wiU have
thera wheresoever I can find them, for as long
as these persons are here this House will never
be in the right way that I heartily wish it ; I
expect, therefore, that as soon as they come lo
the House, that you send thera to me." Having
then assured the raerabers that he designed no
force upon them, nor breach of privilege, after
a little while he withdrew ; bat as his majesty
w as going out, many members cried aloud, so
as he might hear thera. Privilege ! pjivUege It
The House was in a terrible panic while the
king was in the chair, the door of the House,
wilh aU the avenues, being crowded with offi
cers and soldiers : as soon, therefore, as his
majesty was gone they adjourned till the next
day, and then for a week. It was happy that
the five raerabers had notice of the king's cora
ing, just tirae enough to withdraw into the city,
otherwise il raight have occasioned the effusion
of blood, for, without doubt, the armed soldiers
at the door waited only for the word to carry
them aw-ay by force. Next day his ra-ijesty
went inlo the city [January 5] and deraanded
them of the lord-mayor and court of aldermen
then asserabled by his order at GuildhaU, pro
fessing, at the sarae time, his resolution lo pros-
ecuie all who opposed the laws, whether papists
or Separatists, and lo defend the true Protestant
religion which his felher professed, and in which

• Vul L, p. 405, foho.
t \^ hilelocke's .Memorials, p. 50. i Ibid., p. 51.

he would continue lo the end of his life * But
though his luajesly was nobly entertaiiiod by
the sheriffs, he now perceived that this rash and
unadvised action had lost hiin the hearts of the
citizens, there being no acclamations or huz
zas, as usual, only here and there a voice, na
he went along in his coach, crying out. Privi
lege of Parliament I privilege of Parliament I
However, he persisted in his resolution, and
January 8 published a proclamation, command
ing all magistrates and officers of justice lo ap
prehend the accused members and carry lliem lo
the Tower,
It is hard to say wilh any certainty w ho jjul
the king upon this unparalleled act of violence,
a species of tyranny which the most arbitrary
of his predecessors had never atlenipled. If
his majesty deUberated at all upon what he "
was going about, we must conclude that he in
tended to dissolve the Parliament, and to re
turn to his former methods of arbitrary govern
raent ; because by the sarae rule that the king
raight take five raembers out of the House, he
might take five hundred ; besides, several of the
articles laid against them were equally chargea
ble on the majority of the House. Il now ap
peared, says Rapin, + that the king was resolved
to be revenged on those that had offejided him ;
and that there was no farther room to confide
in his royal word. Some say that this was
Lord Digby's mad project, who, when he found
his majesty, after his return out of the city,
ve.xed at his disappointment, offered lo gowUh
a select company and bring thera dead or alive ;
but the king was afraid of the consequences of
such an enterprise ; and Digby, being ordered
to attend in his place in the House, thought fit
to withdraw out of the kingdora. Mr. Echard,J:
with greater probability, lays it upon the queen
and her cabal of papists ; and adds, that when
the king expressed his distrust of the affair, her
raajesty broke out into a violent passion, and
said, "AUez, poltron," &c., " Go, coward, and
pull those rogues out by (he ears, or never see
ray face any raore ;" which it seems, says the
archdeacon, determined the whole matter.
The citizens of London were so far from de
livering up the five members, that they pelition-

* Rushworth, part iii., vol. i., p. 479.
t Vol. u., p. 408, 409, folio edition.
X Bishop Warburton is much displeased with Mr
Neal for quoting the authority, and giving in to the
opinion ot Echard. For he says, " It was a known
and uncontroverted fact that the advice was Digby's."
To invalidate the supposition that the measure pro
ceeded from the queen's counsels, his lordship urges
that the queen was not capable of any vigorous
steps, being intimidated with the fear of an impeach.
ment, and actually projecting her escape : as if dan
ger and alarm were incompatible wilh concerting
and adopting the means of avoiding the threatening
evil ; as if Digby might not be the ostensible adviser
of measures which others suggested and instigated.
That he was the sole author of this measure, is not
so uncontroverted a fact as the bishop conceived it
to be ; and it may be aUeged in favour of Mr. Neal
and Echard, that among the divers excuses made for
this action, some imputed it to the irritation and
counsel of the women ; telling the king, " that if he
were King of England, he would not suffer himself
to be baffled about such persons." The notice of
this intended step was given to these five gentlemen
by a great court lady, their Iriend, who overheard
some discourse about it — Whitelocke's Memorial, p.
50, 51.— Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS

407

ed the king that thoy might he at liberty and
proceeded against according to the methods of
Parliament. At the sarae time, they acquainted
his raajesty with their apprehensions of the ruin
of trade, and ofthe danger of the Protestant re
ligion, by reason of the progress of the rebellion
in Ireland, and the number of papists and other
disbanded officers about the court. His majes
ty, finding he had lost the city, fortified White
haU with men and ammunftion, and sent can-
Boniers inlo the Tower to defend it if there
should be occasion.* When the citizens com
plained of this, his majesty replied, " that it was
done with an eye lo their safety and advantage ;
that his forti<'ying Whitehall was not before it
was necessary ; and that if any citizens had
been wounded, it was undoubtedly for their
evil and corrupt demeanour." But they had no
confidence in the king's protection. A thou
sand mariners and saUors offered to guard the
jive merabers to Westminster by water upon
the day of their adjournment [January 11], and
the train-bands offered the committee at Guild
hall to do the same by land, which was accopt-
-ed, and the offer of the apprentices reftised.
Things being come to this extremity, his maj
esty, to avoid the hazard of an affront from the
populace, took a fatal resolution to leave White
hall, and accordingly, January 10, the day be
fore the Parliament was to meet, he removed
with his queen and the whole royal family to
Hampton Court, and two days after to Wind-
-sor, from whence he travelled by easy stages
to "Vork ; never returning to London till he was
brought thither as a criminal to execution.
By the king's deserting his capital in this
manner, and not returning when the ferment
was over, he left the strength and riches ofthe
iingdom in the hands of his Parliament ; for
the next day, the five members were conducted
by water in triumph to Westminster, the train
bands ofthe city marching at the same time by
land, who, after they had received the thanks
¦of the House, were dismissed ; and Sergeant
Skippon, with a company of the city militia,
was appointed to guard the Parliament-house ;
"frora this day," says Lord Clarendon, t "we
may reasonably date the levying war in England,
whatsoever has been since done being but the
-superstructures upon these foundations." It
must be considered that two days after [Janua
ry 12] the king sent a message to the House
waiving his proceedings with respect to the
flve members, and proraising to be as careful of
their privileges as of his life or crown ; and a
little affer offered a general pardon ; but the
-Commons had too much reason at this time not
to depend upon his royal promise ; they insist-
-ed that the accused members should be brought
to their trial in a legal and pariiamentary way ;
in order to which, they desired his raajesty to
inform them what proof there was against
thera ; it being the undoubted right and privi
lege of Parliament that no member can be pro-
iieeded against without the consent of the
House ; which his majesty refusing to comply
with, removed farther off to Windsor, and en
tered upon measures very inconsistent with the
.peace of the kingdora.t
* Rapin, vol. n., p. 408, folio edition.
t Vol. i., p. 383.
X Rushworth, part iii., vol. i., p. 492.

To return to the bishops : about a fortnight
after their commitment [January 17, 1642] they
pleaded to the impeachment of the House of
Commons, " Not guilty in manner and form,"
and petitioned the Lords for a speedy trial,
which was appointed for the 25th instant, but
was put off fVom time to time, tiU the whole
bench of bishops was vqted put of the House,
and then entirely dropped ; for the very next
day after their commitment, the Commons de
sired the Lords to resume the consideration of
the bill that had been sent up some months ago,
for taking aw-ay all temporal jurisdiction from
those in holy orders, which the Lords promis
ed : it had passed the Coramons without any
difficulty about the time of the Irish insurrec
tion, and was laid aside in the House of Lords,
as being thought impossible to pass while the
bishops' votes were entire : when it was re
vived at this juncture, the Earl of Bedford and
the Bishop of Rochester made a vigorous stand
against it.* His lordship urged that it was
contrary to the usage of Parliament when a bill
had been once rejected to bring it in a second
time the same session. To which it was re
plied that it was not the same biU [having a
new title], though it was to accomplish the
same end. Besides, the distress of the times
required some extraordinary measures for their
redress ; and, farther, since the king had been
graciously pleased to pass an act for the con
tinuance of this Parliament as long as they
thought fit to sit, and thereby parted with his
right of proroguing or dissolving them, the na
ture of things was altered, and, therefore, they
were not to be tied down to the ordinary forms
in other cases. The question being put wheth
er the bUl should be read, it passed in the af
firmative ; upon which the consideration of it
was resumed, and after sorae few debates the
bill was passed by a very great majority, Feb
ruary 6, 1641-2, the citizens of London ex
pressing their satisfaction by ringing of bells
and bonfires. But it was stiU apprehended that
the king would refuse his assent, because, when
he had been pressed to it, his raajesty had said
it was matter of great concernment, and there
fore he would take time to consider ; however,
the Commons, not content with this delay, sent
again to Windsor to press his compliance upon
the foUowing reasons: "Because the subjects
suffered by the bishops exercising temporal ju
risdiction, and making a party in the House of
Lords ; because it was apprehended that there
would be a happy conjunction of both houses
upon the exclusion of the bishops ; and the
signing of this bill would be a comfortable
pledge of his raajesty's gracious assent to the
future remedies of those evils which were to be.
presented to hira."t
This message from the House of Commons
was seconded by those of greatest trust about
the king, who argued, "that the combination
against the bishops was irresistible; that the
passing this bill was the only way fo preserve
the Church ; and that if the Parliaraent was
gratified in this, so many persons in both hous
es would be fuUy satisfied that they would join
in no farther alterations ; but if they were
crossed in this", they would endeavour an extir
pation of the bishops and a demolishing of the

? Clarendon, vol. i., p. 302, 416. t Ibid., p. 427.

408

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

whole fabric of the Church.'' They argued far
ther, " that force or indirect means having been
made use of to obtain the bill, the king might
by his power bring the bishops in again when
the present distempers were coraposed ;" an
argument by which his majesty might have set
aside all his concessions, or acts of grace (as
he pleased to call Ihem), to his Parliaraent at
once. But none of these reasons would have
prevaUed, had not the queen made use of her
sovereign influence over the king. Her majes
ty was made to believe, by Sir J. Culpeper,'that
her own preservation depended upon the king's
consent lo the biU ; that if his majesty refused
It. her journey into Holland would be slopped,
and her person possibly endangered by sorae
mutiny or insurrection ; whereas the using her
interest with the king would lay a popular obli
gation upon the kingdom, and make her accept
able to the Parliament. These arguments car
rying a face of probabUity, her raajesty wrested
the king's resolution frora him, so that the bill
was signed by commission, February 14, to
gether with another against pressing soldiers,
his majesty being then at Canterbury, accom
panying the queen in her passage to Holland.
But his raajesty's signing them wilh so much
reluctance did him a disservice.* AU raen
took notice of his discontent ; and Lord Clar
endon sayst he has cause to believe that the
king was prevailed wilh to sign thera, " be
cause he was lold that there being violence and
force used to obtain them, they were therefore
in themselves nuU, and in quieter tiraes raight
easily be revoked and disannuUed." A dan
gerous doctrine, as it may tend to overthrow
the raost established laws of a country I To
give the reader the act itself:
" Whereas bishops and other persons in holy
orders ought not to be entangled with secular
jurisdiction, the office of the ministry being of
such great importance that it will lake up the
whole raan. And for that it is found, by long
experience, that their intermeddling with secu
lar jurisdictions hath occasioned great mischiefs
and scandals both to Church and State, his
majesty, out of his religious care ofthe Church
and souls of his people, is graciously pleased
that it be enacted, and by authority of this pres
ent Parliaraent be it enacted, that no archbish
op or bishop, or other person that now is, or
hereafter shaU be, in holy orders, shaU at any
time after the 15th day of February, in the year
of our Lord 1642, have any seat or place, suf
frage or vote, or use or execute any power or
authority in the Parliaments of this realm, nor
shall be of the privy councU of his raajesty, his
heirs or successors, or justices ofthe peace, of
oyer and terminer or jail delivery, or execute
'any teraporal authority, by virtue of any cora-
.raission ; but shaU be wholly disabled, and be
incapable to have, receive, use, or execute, any
of the said offices, places, powers, authorities,
and things aforesaid.
"And boil farther enacted, by the authority
aforesaid, that all acts frora and after the said
15lh of February, which shall be done or exe
cuted by any archbishop or bishop, or other
person whatsoever in holy orders ; and all and
every suffrage or voice given or delivered by

lliein or any of thera, or other thing done by
them or any of thera. contrary lo the puifiort
and true meaning of this act, shall be ullerly
void to all intents, eonslructions, and purposes."
Thus the peerage of the bishops and tho
whole secular power of the elirgy ceased lor
about twenty years ; how far they contribiiled
lo it by their pride and ambition, their sovereign
contempt of the laity, and indiscreet beh;iviuur
towards their Protestant brethren, has been al
ready observed. Their eneraies said the hand
of God was against Ihcni, because Ihey had
given loo rauch countenance lo the ridicnling
of true devotion and piety, under the name of
godly Puritanism ;* because they had silenced
great numbers of ministers, erainent for learn
ing and religion, for not complying with certain
indifferent riles and cereraonies, while others,
who were vicious and insufficient for their of
fice, were encouraged ; because they made a
stricter inquiry after those who fasted and
prayed, and joined together in n-ligious exerci
ses, than after those who were guilty of swear
ing, drunkenness, and other kinds of debauch
ery ; because they discouraged afternoon ser
raons and lectures, and encouraged sports ami
pastimes on tho Lord's Day ; because they had
driven many hundred families out of the land ;
and were, upon the whole, eneraies lo the civil
interests of their country. Others observed,
that raost of them verged too much towards the
See of Rome, and gave ground to suspect that
they were designing a union between the two
churches,t which, at a time when the Roraan
Catholics in Ireland had irabrued their hands in
the blood of alraost two hundred thousand Prot
estants, and were so nuraerous at horae as to
make large and public collections of raoney to
support the king in his war against the Scots,
was sufficient to raake every sincere Protestant
jealous of their power. Besides, the bishops
theraselves had been guilty of raany oppres
sions ; they had, in a manner, laid aside the
practice of preaching, that they might be the
more at leisure for the governing part of their
function ; though even here they devolved the
whole of their jurisdiction upon their chancel
lors and under-officers.t They did not sit in
their consistories to hear complaints, or do jus
tice either to clergy or laity, but turned over
the people to registrars, proctors, and appari
tors, who drew their money from them against
equity and law, and used thera at discretion.
Few or none of them made their visitations in
person, or lived in their Episcopal' cities ; by
which means there was no kind of hqjpilalily
or Uberality to Ihe poor. Divine service in the
cathedrals was neglected or ill perforraed, for
want of their presence and inspection. Instead
of conferring orders at the raother-chureh, they
made use of the chapels of their private houses,
without requiring the assistance of their deans
and chapters upon such solemn occasions; ihey
pronounced the censures of deprivation and
degradation in a monarchal and absolute raan-

* Rushworth, part iu., vol. i., p. 552.
¦^ ol. 1., p i2[i. 4.J0

* Baxter's History, Life, and Times, p. 33.
t There is a remarkable resemblance belwern
many of these church dignitaries and some of our
modem pn-lates. A thoughtful man cannot avoid
alarm when he marks ihe sympathy of the present
day for these ]irrsecutors ofthe saints. — C.
X CoUyer's Kcclesiaslical History, vol. ii.,.p. 820.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

409

ner, not caUing in the deans and chapters to
any share of the administration. And, upon
the whole, they did little else but receive their
rents, indulge their ease, consult their grandeur,
and lord it over their brethren. These were
the popular complaints against them, which
made the citizens rejoice at their downfall, and
attend the passing the biU with bonfires and
Uluminations. However, if all these things
had not concurred in a nice and critical junc
ture of affairs, the attempts of the House of
Commons would have been in vain, neither
the king nor peers being heartily willing to de
prive them of their seats in Parliament. This
was one of the last bills the king passed, and
the only law which he enacted in prejudice of
the Established Church.* Here his majesty
made a stand, and, by a message sent to both
houses, desired not to be pressed to any one
single act farther, tiU the whole affair of church
government and the liturgy was so digested
and settled that he might see cleariy what was
fit to remain, as well as what was fit to be
taken away.

CHAPTER XI.
from the king's leaving WHITEHALL TO THE
COMMENCEMENT OF THE CIVIL WAR.
All things now tended to a rupture between
the king and Parliament, the Legislature being
divided, and the Constitution broken. While the
royal faraily. was at Hampton Court, the officers
and soldiers who were quartered about Kings
ton, to the number of two hundred, made such
disturbances that the railitia of the country was
raised to disperse thera. After a few days the
king removed to Windsor, where a cabinet
councU was held in presence of the queen, in
which, besides the resolution of passing no
more biUs, already mentioned, it was farther
agreed that her majesty, being to accompany the
princess her daughter to HoUand, in order to her
marriage with the Prince of Orange, should take
with her the crown jewels and pledge them for
ready money, with which she should purchase
arms and ammunition, &c., for the king's ser
vice. She was also to treat with the Kings of
France and Spain for four thousand soldiers,
by the mediation ofthe pope's nuncio. It was
farther resolved, that his majesty should come
to an agreeraent with the Parliament tUl he un
derstood the success of her negotiations, but
should endeavour to get possession of the ira-
portant fortresses of Portsmouth and Hull,
where the arms and artUlery of the late army
iri the north were deposited. Mr. Echard says
lit was resolved that the queen should remove
to Portsmouth, aiM the king to HuU ; that be
ing possessed of those places of strength, where
his friends might resort to him with safety, he
should sit still till the hot spirits at Westminster
could be brought to reason ;t but this important
secret heing discovered, the Parliament entered;
upon more effectual measures for their safety :
they sent to Colonel Goring, governor of Ports
mouth, not to receive any forces into the.town
but by authority of the king, signed by -both
houses of Pariiament. Sir John Hotham was

* Rushworth, part:ui., vol. i., p. 554.
t Rapin, -vol. u., p. 433, folio edition.
Vol. I. — F f f i

sent to secure the magazine at Hull, and a
guard was placed about the Tower of London, to
prevent the carrying out any ordnance or am-,
munition without consent of Parliament. Lord
Clarendon, and after him Mr. Echard, censure
the two houses for exercising these first acts
of sovereignty ; how far they were necessary
for their own and the public safety, after what
had passed, and the resolutions of the councils
at Windsor, I leave with the reader.
The command -of the railitia had been usual
ly in the crown, though the law had not posi
tively deterrained in whom that great power
was lodged, as Mr. Whitelocke undertook to
prove before the comraissioners at Uxbridge ;?
the king clairaed the sole disposal of it, where
as the Parliament insisted that it was not in
the king alone, but in the king and Parliaraent
jointly ; and that when the kingdora is in immi
nent danger, if the royal power be not exerted
in its defence, the military force may be raised
without it. But waiving the question of right,
the Parliament desired the coraraand of the
railitia might be put into such hands as they
could confide in only for two years, till the
present disorders were quieted. This the king
refused, unless the House would first give up
the question of right, and vest the sole com
mand of the railitia in the crown by forra of
law ; which the Parliament declined, and voted
the advisers of that answer enemies of the
kingdom. Multitudes of petitions were presented to the
houses from the city of London, and from the
counties of Middlesex, Hertford, Essex, &c.,t
* "In the treaty at U.xbridge, printed in King
Charles's works, and in Dugdale's Short View of
the Troubles of England, and separate by itself, in
quarto, by Litchfield, 1645, 1 can find," says Dr. Grey,
"no such offer of proof made by Mr. Whitelocke."
This is true, and the reason may be assigned ; the
piece referred to exhibits only the requisitions on one
side and the answers on the other, without going
into the detail of the matters that were the subjects.
of conversation merely ; but because the assertion
of Mr. Neal be not found in the Relation of the
Treaty of Uxbridge, and he subjoins no authority for
il. Dr. Grey adds, " he will not, 1 hope, take it amiss
if we do not implicitly take his word." The reader
will judge of the candour and liberality of this insin
uation when he is informed that Mr. Neal spoke on
the best authority, that of Mr. Whitelocke himself,
Memorials, p. 124 ; who farther tells us that a mo
tion was made to appoint a day to hear him and Sir
Edward Hyde (who advanced the doctrine of the
king's absolute power over the mihtia) debate the
point; but by the interference of the Earl of South
ampton, and some other gentlemen, the debate was
declined. But the commissioners of both kingdoms,.
on their return to their quarters, gave Whitelocke
thanks, and ^said " the honour of Parliament was
concerned therein, and vindicated by him." — Ed.
t Dr. Grey observes, with a sneer, that among
these petitions were some remarkable ones ; name
ly, one from the porters, fifteen thousand in number;
another in the name of many thousands of the poor
people ; and a third from the tradesmen's wives in
and about the city of London, delivered by Mrs. Aime
Stagge, a brewer's wife. " These petitions," says
the doctor, " would have been worthy a place in Mr.
Neal's curious collection." The contempt which,
Dr. Grey casts on these petitions, will not appear
generous or just to one who reflects on theiobject of
these petitions, which were highly interesting ; who
i estimates things not by the fluctuation andfactitious
claims of rank and wealth, but by the standard of

410

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS

beseeching ihem to provide for the safety of the
nation, by disarming papists, hy taking care of
the Proieslants in Ireland, by bringing evil
counsellors to punishraent, by pulling the king
dom inlo a posture of defence, and by eomniit-
tmg the forts and castles of the kingdom to such
persons as both houses could confide in ; but
their hands were lied, because the king, w ho
has the sole execution of the laws, would act
no longer in concert with his Parliament. The
Coraraons, encouraged by the spirit ofthe peo
ple, petitioned a second tirae for the railitia, and
fraraed an ordinance with a list of the nanfes
of such persons in whora they could confide
His raajesty, in order to amuse the House and
gain lime, lold them " that he could not divest
hiraself of that just power that God and the
laws of the kingdom had placed m hira for the
defence of his people, for any indefinite tirae."
After this they presented a third petition to
the king, at Theobald's [March 1], in which
they protest, " that if his raajesty persists in
that denial, the dangers and distempers of the
kingdom were such as would endure no longer
delay ; and, therefore, if his majesty wiU not
satisfy their desires, they shall be enforeed, for
the safety of the kingdora, to dispose of the
miUlia by authority of both houses of Parlia
ment, and they resolve to do it accordingly;"'
beseeching his raajesty, at the sarae lime, to
reside near his Parliaraent. The king was so
inflaraed w-ith this protestation, that he told
Ihera "he was araazed at their raessage, but
should not alter his resolution in any point,"+
-And instead of residing near his Parliaraent,
he reraoved to Newmarket, and, by degrees, to
York. Upon this the Commons vuied, March
4, " that the kingdom be forthwith put into a
posture of defence by authority of both houses,
in such a way as is already agreed upon by both
houses of Parliament ¦,"X and next day they
published an ordinance for that purpose. March
9, both houses presented a declaration to the
king at Newmarket, " expressing the causes of
their fears and jealousies, and their earnest de
sires that his majesty would put from him those
wicked and mischievous counsellors that have
caused these differences between him and his
Parliament ; that he would come tci*Whilehall,
and continue his own and the prince's resi
dence near his Parliaraent, which he raay do
wUh more honour and safety than in any other
place. We beseech your majesty," say they,
*' to consider in what state you are, and how

reason and rectitude ; and who respects the rights of
property, how small soever that property be, of secu
rity, and of conscience, which attach themselves to
every class and order of men. With respect to the
petition of the virtuous matrons, and the respect with
which it was treated by Pariiament, who commission
ed Mr. Pym to return an answer in person, both are
sanctioned by the Roman History : the Legislature of
that great eiopire, when towering lo Us utmost splen
dour, received and encouraged the petitions of wom
en. — Macaulay's History of England, vol. ui., p. 187,
Ui, the note. The female petitioners, in the in
stance before us, by their public spirit, and the share
they took ui the common calamities produced by
oppression, did honour to themselves and their sex ;
and the conduct of the House towards them was not
less poUtic than complaisant. — Eo.
* Rushworth, part in., vol. i., p. 523.
t Ibid., p. 5-24.
t Rapm, vol. u., p. 419, foUo edit.

easy the w:iy is lo happiness, greatness, and
honour, if you will join with your Parliament ,
this IS aU we i-xpeet, ;ind lor ihis we will return
to you our lives and fortunes, and do every
thing we can to support your just sovereignty
and power. But it is not words alone thai
will secure us ; Ihat whieh wo desire is .some
real ell'ect in granting those things that the
present necessities of the kingdom require."
They add, Lirther, " that his majesty's removal
lo so great a distance not only obsiruoled the
proceedings of Parliament, but looked like an
alienation of the kingdom from hiraself and
family."* His majesty's best friends advised
hira to lake this opportunity of reuirning lo
London, " and it must be solely imputed to his
majesty's own resolution," says Lord Claren
don, " that he took not that course ;" but in
stead of this he broke out into a passion, and
lold thera he had his fears for the true Protest
ant profession and the laws as well as they .
" What would you have '." says his majesty.
" Have 1 viol.ited your laws, or denied to pass
any bill for the ease of my subjects '. 1 do not
ask what you have done for me. God so deal
with rae and mine, as ray inlcntions are upright
for maintaining the true Protestant profession
and the laws of the land." Being asked by the
Earl of Pembroke whether he would not grant
the railitia for a little lime, his raajesty swore
by (iod, "No, not for an hour." When he
was put in mind of his frequent violations of
the laws, his majesty replied, " that he had
made ample reparation, and did not expect to
be reproached with the actions of his minis-
ters."+ As his majesty insisted upon the railitia, he
clairaed also an inalienable right to aU the forts
and garrisons of the kingdom, with an uncon
trollable power to dispose of the arras and am-
raunition laid up in them, as his proper goods.
This the Pariiaraent disputed, and raaintained
that they were his majesty's only in trust for
the public, and that in discharge of this trust
the Parliament sitting are his counseUors ; for
if the king had such property in the forts and
magazines as ho claimed, he might then sell or
transfer them into the enemy's hand as abso
lutely as a private person may his lands and
goods ; which is a strange maxim, and contra
ry to the act of 40 Edw, 111.
Many declarations passed between the king
and his Parliament on this arguraent, while
each party were getting possession of aU that
they could. The king was contriving to make
sure of the raagazine of HuU, but the Pariiaraent
were beforehand with his majesty, and not only
secured that important fortress, but got the
coraraand of the fleet [March 31], which sub-
rallied to the Earl of Warwick, whom the Par
liament appointed to be their admiral.
The ordinance of March, 5, for disposing of
the mUitia by both houses of Parliament with
out the king, in case of extreme danger to the
nation, of which danger the two houses were
the proper judges, with the subsequent resolu
tion of March 16, were the grand crises which
divided the House into two parties. Mr. Hyde,
afterward Lord Clarendon, Mr. Bridgeman, Mr.
Palmer, and other eminent lawyers and genlle-
* Rushworth, part ui., vol i., p. 52^.
t Ibid., p. 533.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

411

men, having given their opinion against the or
dinance, quitted their seats, arid retired to the
king. On the other hand. Sergeant Maynard,
Whitelocke, Glyn, Selden, the Lord-keeper Lit
tleton, Mr. Lee, St. John, Griraston, and divers
others of no less judgraent in law, and of a su
perior interest in their country, accepted of
commissions in the railitia, and continued in
the service ofthe Parliament. Many retired to
their country-seals, and were for standing neu
ter in this nice conjuncture ; but those that re
mained in the House were about three hundred,
besides fifty that were employed in the country,
and about fifty more absent with leave ; the
rest went over to the king, and were sorae time
after expelled the House. But frora this time
the sitting merabers were more resolute, and
met with less opposition.
March 15, his majesty acquainted the houses
from Huntingdon, wilh his design to reside for
some time at York ; and adds, that he expected
" they should pay a due regard to his preroga
tive, and to the laws established ; and that none
of his subjects should presume, under colour of
any order or ordinance of Parliament to which
his majesty is not a party, to do or execute what
is not warrantable by the laws." His raajesty's
intention, by this message, was to put a stop
to aU farther proceedings ofthe Parliaraent, for
their own and the nation's security, tiU they had
digested all their grievances into a body. Upon
receiving this declaration both Houses came to
these resolutions, among others :
. Marfh 16, Resolved, "That thOse who ad
vise his majesty to absent himself frora the Par
liament are enemies to the peace of the king
dom, and justly suspected to be favourers of the
rebellion in Ireland."*
Resolved, " That the ordinance of Parliament
for the militia is not inconsistent with the oath
of allegiance ; but that the several commissions
granted by his majesty under the great seal lo
the lieutenants of the several counties, are iUe
gal and void."t
Resolved, " That in cases of extreme danger,
and of his majesty's refusal' to act in concert
with his Parliaraent, the people ought, by the
fundaraental laws of the kingdora, to obey the
ordinances of both houses concerning the mili
tia ; and that such persons as shall be appoint
ed deputy-lieutenants, and are approved by both
houses, ought to take upon them to execute
their offices."
It was resolved farther, "That the two hous
es of Parliament, being the representative body
of the whole nation, and two parts in three of
the Legislature, were the proper judges of the
state and condition of it."
Resolved, " That when both houses agreed
that the nation was in extreme danger, as they
now did, the king was obliged, by the laws of
the land, to agree to those remedies which they
who are his great councU should advise him to.
This seems evident from the statute of 25 Edw.
III., entitled, the Statute of Provisors of Bene
fices, which says, ' that the right of the crown
of England, and the laws of the realm, are such
that, upon the mischiefs and daraages that hap
pen to this realra, our sovereign lord the king
.-ought, and is hound by his oath, with the accord

of his people in Parliament, to ordain remedy
for reraoving thereof'"*
Resolved, " That if in such a tirae of danger
his raajesty deserts his Parliament, or refuses
lo concur with them in ordaining such remedies
as are absolutely necessary for the coramon
safety, then the two houses ought to look upon
theraselves as the guardians of the people, and
provide for their defence.
Resolved- " That when the Lords and Cora
mons, which is the supreme court of judicature
in the kingdom, shall declare what the law of
the land is, to have this not only questioned,
hut contradicted, and. a command that it should
not be obeyed, is a high breach of privilege of
Parliaraent." His majesty, on the other hand, averred, " that
the kingdom was in no danger, but from the ar
bitrary proceedings of the Parliament, who were
invading the royal prerogative, and subverting
the Constitution in Church and State.
" That if the kingdora was really in danger,
he was the guardian and proteoter of his people,
and was answerable to God only for his con
duct ; but that ParUaraents were teraporary, and
dissolvable at his pleasure ; that he should, there
fore, consider them as his counsellors and ad
visers, but not his comraanders or dictators."
His raajesty admitted "that in some doubt
ful cases the Parliament were judges of the law,
but he did not think himself bound lo renounce
his own judgment and understanding, by passing
laws that might separate frora his crown that
which was in a manner essential to it, viz., a
power to protect his subjects."
To which the Commons replied, "that the
king alone could not be judge in this case, for
the king judges not matters of law but by his
courts ; nor can the courts of law be judges of
the state of the kingdora against the Parliaraent,
because they are inferior ; but as the law is de
termined by the judges, who are the king's coun
cU, so the state of the nation is to be determined
by the two houses of Parliament, who are the
proper judges of the Constitution. If, therefore,
the Lords and Commons in Parliaraent assem
bled declare this or the other matter to be ac
cording to law, or according to the Constitution
of the kingdom, it is not lawful for any single
person, or inferior court, to contradict it,"t
But instead of tiring the reader with a long
paper war in support of these propositions, I
will raake one general reraark, which may
serve as a key to the whole controversy. If
we suppose the kingdom to be in its natural
state, after the king had withdrawn from his
Parliament, and would act no longer in concert
with them ; if the Constitution was then en
tire, and the most considerable grievances re
dressed ; if the laws in being were a sufficient
security against the return of popery and ar
bitrary power, and there was good reason to
believe those laws would have free course,
then the king's arguments are strong and con
clusive ; for in aU ordinary cases, th.e adminis
tration of justice, and the due execution of the
laws, is vested in the crown ; nor may the Lords
and Commons in Parliaraent raake new laws,
or suspend and alter old ones, without his raaj
esty's consent. But, on the other hand, if, in

* Rushworth, p. 534.
t Rapin, vol. ii., p. 422, foUo edit.

* Rushworth, p. 669.
t Rushworth, part iu., vol. i., p, 698. Rapin, p. 477.

11-2

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

the opinion* of the Ixirds and Commons in
Parliament asserabled, w ho are the representa
tives of Ihe whole nation, the Conslilution is
broken, by the king's deserting his two houses,
and resolving to act no longer in concert with
thera, or by any other overt acts of his majes
ty's council inconsistent with the Constitution ;
or if bolh houses sliaU declare! the religion and
liberties of the nation lo be in iiiiminent danger,
either from foreign or domestic enemies, and
the king wdl not concur wilh his ParUament lo
apply such remedies as the wisdom of his two
houses shall think necessary ; then, certainly,
after proper petitions and remonstrances, they
may, from the necessity of the ease, provide
for the pubhc safely, as much as in the case of
nonage or captivity of the prince. In order,
therefore, lo decide in the present controversy,
we must make an estimate of the true condi
tion of the nation ; whether it was in its natu
ral state ; or whether the Coiislilulion, being
divided and broken by the king's deserting his
Parliament, the legal form of government was
not dissolved t In the former case, I appre
hend the king was in the right ; in the latter,
the Parliament.
This unhappy controversy was managed
wilh great warmth and mutual reproaches,
though with this decency, that the king did not
charge his Parliament with criminal designs,
but only a malignant party in both houses ; nor
did the Parliament reproach the person of the
king, but laid all their grievances upon his evU
counseUors ; however, it is easy to observe
that it was iraposslble the parlies should agree,
beciuse they reasoned upon a different princi
ple ; the king supposing the nation was in a
sound slate, and that, therefore, the laws ought
to lake their natural course ; the Parliament
apprehending the Constitution broken, and that,
therefore, it was their duty to provide for the
public safely, even without the king's concur
rence. But we shaU have more light inlo this
controversy hereafter.
To return lo the history. Though the Scots
were made easy at home, being in full posses
sion of their civU and religious rights, yet they
could not reraain unconcerned spectators of the
ruin of the English Parliament, partly out of
gratitude for the favours they had received, and
partly frora an apprehension that the security
of their own settlement, as weU as the introdu
cing their kirk discipline into England, depend
ed upon il. While the king was at Windsor,
the Scots commissioners at London offered
their mediation between his majesty and his
iwo houses : in their petition, they tell his maj
esty " that the liberties of England and Scot
land must stand and fall together ;" and after
sorae expressions of grief for the distractions
of England, which they conceive lo arise from
* It should rather be — if, according to the opinion
— of the Lords and Commons, ice. — Ed.
t Rather — if, as bolh houses shaU declare, the re
hgion and hberties of the nation be m imminent
danger, iScc. The controversy turns not on the
opmion and declara'tion of the two houses, but on
the irulh of the facts stated. And these amendments
preserve the contrast between the opposite parts of
Mr. Neal's proposition, which he is very poUlely
represented by Bishoj. Warburton as not knowing
how lo slate. — Ed.

the plots of the papists and prelates, whose aim
has been not only to prt-venl any farther rcl'uriu-
ation, but to subvert the purity and Irutli of re
ligion ; they offer their serviee to couiposi- the
differences, and beseech his niajesty •• lo have
recourse lo the faithful advice of both houses of
Parliament, w Inch w ill not only quiet the rainds
of his English subjects, but remove the jealou
sies and fears thai raay possess the hearts of his
subjects in his other kingdoras." Iu llieir pa
per of the same date, to both houses of Parlia
ment, January 15, " they return thanks to the
Parliament of England for the assistance given
to the kingdora of Scotland in setlling their late
troubles; and, next lo the providence of God
and his raajesty's goodness, they acknowledge
their obligations to the mediation and brutlierly
kindness of the English Parliament ; and now-,
by way of return, and to diseliargo the trust re
posed in lliem, they offer their mediation be
tween them and the king, beseeching the hous
es lo consider of the lairesl and most likely
methods lo compose the differences in Church
and State." Bishop Burnet says their design
was to get episcopacy brought down and pres
bytery set up, to tho first of which most of the
members were willing to consent, but few were
cordial for the latter.
The king was highly displeased with the
Scots mediation, and sent them word that the
case of England and Scotland was different ; in
Scotland, says his majesty, episcopacy was
never settled by law, and is found to be contra
ry to the genius ofthe people; but in Enelajid,.
it is rooted in the very Constitution, and has
flourished without interruption for eighty years ;
he therefore commands them not to transact
between him and his Parliaraent, without first
communicating their propositions to him in
private. At the same tirae, his niajesty sent let
ters inlo Scotland, and ordered the chanceUor
to use his utmost efforts to keep that kingdom
to a neutrality. On the other hand, the Parlia
raent threw themselves into the arras of the
Scots ; they thanked the coramissioners for
their kind and seasonable' interposition, and
prayed thera to continue their endeavours la
remove the present distractions, and to pre
serve the union between the two kingdoms.
They wrote likewise inlo Scotland to the same
purpose, the effects of which wUl appear at
the ne.xt raeeting of Parliaraent.
In the mean lime, the Lords and Commons,
in order to encourage the expectations of their
friends in both kingdoms, published the follow
ing declaration of their intentions :
" Die Sabbali, April 9, 1642.
" The Lords and Commons declare, that they
intend a due and necessary reforraation ofthe
governraent and discipline of the Church, and
to take away nothing in the one but what wdl
be evil and justly offensive, or at least unneces
sary and burdensome ; and for the better effect
ing thereof, speedily to have consultation with
godly and learned divines ; and because this
wiU never of itself attain the ends sought there
in, they wiU use their utraost endeavours to es
tablish learned and preaching ministers, with a
good and sufficient maintenance, throughout
the whole kingdora, wherein many dark corners
are raiserably deslilule of the raeans of silva-

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

413

lion, and raany poor ministers want necessary
provision." This declaration was ordered to be published
by the sheriffs of the several counties, for the
satisfaction of the people.
The distance between London and York in
creased the misunderstanding between the king
and his Parliament ; numbers of persons trav
elling between the two places with secret in-
teUigence, the Parliament appointed the follow
ing oath to be taken by all who came from the
king's quarters :
" I, A. B., do swear from my heart, that I
wiU not, directly or indirectly, adhere unto or
wiUingly assist the king in this war, or in this
cause against the Parliaraent, nor any forces
raised without consent of the two houses of
Parliaraent, in this cause or war. And I do
likewise swear, that my coming, and submit
ting myself under the power and protection of
ParUament, is without any manner or design
whatsoever to the prejudice ofthe proceedings
of this present Parliament, and without direc
tion, privity, or advice ofthe king, or any of his
counoil or officers, other than I have raade
known. So help me God and the contents of
-this book."
This was caUed the negative oath, and was
voted April 5, 1642.
As soon as the correspondence was thus in
terrupted, nurabers of libeUous newspapers,
mercuries, and weekly intelligencers, began to
appear full of scandal and reproach, whereby
the conduct of great and wise men was asper
sed, innumerable false reports spread through
the nation, and the spirits of the people sharp
ened for war. On the side of the king was
Mercurius Aulicus, and on the side of the Par
liament Mercurius Britannicus. When the king
fixed his -court at Oxford, the learned garrison
drew their pens for the king, as the politicians
of London did for the Parliaraent ; and while
the arraies were in the field, these gentlemen
-employed themselves in celebrating their won
derful exploits to the people ; so that, beside
the above-mentioned weekly papers, there ap
peared Mercurius Rusticus, Pragmaticus, Pub-
lious, diurnals and inteUigencers without nura
ber. The pulpits, also, were eraployed in the
sarae work ; the preachers dealt too much in
politics, and made free with the characters and
actions of their superiors : there were incendi
aries on both. sides: the king's preachers en
hanced his majesty's character, and treated the
Parliahient as rebels and traitors ;* and. the
JParliament ministers were no less culpable, for
though they avoided speaking disrespectfully of
the person ofthe king, they declaimed againsf
the hierarchy, against evU and popish counsel
lors, and glanced at the queen herself, as pre
venting the harmony between his raajesty and
the Parliament, and pushing him upon measures
that were destructive to the Protestant religion
and the Constitution of their country ; which,
how true soever in itself, was a subject very
unfit for the pulpit.
The great resort ofthe nobUity and gentry to
the eourt at York gave his majesty new life,
and encouraged him to treat his Parliament with
very sovereign language ; he sent them word,
that "he would have nothing extorted from

* Rushworth, part iii., vol. i., p. 760.

him ; nor would he grant them anything farther
than the law had put into his hands."* At the
same time, his raajesty atterapted to seize upon
the magazine at Hull, pursuant to the scherae
forraed at Windsor in January last ; and ac
cordingly appeared before the town with three
hundred horse, AprU 23d, but was denied en
trance with raore than twelve attendants ;
whereupon, after an hour's tirae aUowed for de
liberation, his raajesty caused Sir John Hotham
the governor to be proclaimed a traitor, by two
heralds at, arms, and then retired to York, full
of resentment for the affront he had received,
which he did not fail to communicate to the
Pariiaraent, demanding justice against Sir John
Hotham according to law; however, the Par
liament stood by their governor, and ordered
the arras and 'aramunition in Hull to be remo
ved to the Tower of London, except what was
necessary for the defence of the place.
Upon his majesty's return to York, he com
manded the committee of Parliament, which
were spies upon his actions, to retire to Lon
don, but they excused themselves, as being or
dered to continue hy those who employed thera.
His majesty also sumraoned the nobility and
gentry ofthe northern counties to raeet him at
York [May 12], when he acquainted them with
his reasons for refusing the Militia BiU, and
with the treasonable behaviour of Sir John Hot
ham in keeping him out of Hull, and depriving
hira of his raagazine, being his own proper
goods. " Since treason is countenanced so
near me," says his majesty; " it is tirae to look
to my safety ; none can blame me to apprehend
danger. I am therefore resolved to have a
guard — ." The gentry were divided in their
sentiraents about the king's conduct, and gave
answers as they were differently affected,
though all were willing to serve his raajesty
according to law. After several other assem
bhes of the nobility, gentry, freeholders, and
rainisters of York had been held by his majes
ty's command, in all which he declared that
" he was resolved to defend the true Protestant
religion established in the reign of Queen Eliz
abeth, to govern by law for the future, and
that he had no intention to make war with his
Parliament, except it were in way of defence,"!
a regiment of horse was raised for the security
of his majesty's person, and the comraand given
to the Prince of Wales. This was the first levy
of troops in the civU war, his raajesty having
as yet only a regiment ofthe railitia of six hun
dred raen, besides the reformadoes that attend
ed the court.
About the same time [May 17] the king or
dered the courts of justice to remove from
Westminster to York, and sent for Sergeant-
major Skippon, an old experienced officer, to
attend hira in person, which the Parliaraent
prevented ; but were not so successful in rela
tion to the great seal, which the keeper sent
privately to the king by the raessenger that
came for it [May 22], and next day followed
himself This was a sensible disappointment
to the Parliament, especially as it was attended
with the loss of nine other peers, who deserted
their stations in the House about the same

* Rapin, p. 354.
t Rushworth, part in., vol. i., p. 615, 624. Rapm,
vol. u., p. 434, 435, fol. ed.

414

H I S T O R y OF T 11 1; 1' U R IT .V N S.

time, and went over to the king, as did consid
erable numbers of the Commons, his majesty
having now given orders to all his friends lo
leave the House and repair lo hira, which, in
stead of breaking up the Parliaraent, as intend
ed, strengthened the hands ofthe country party,
and gave ihem an opportunity, after sorae tirae,
of expelling the deserters.
Things being come to this crisis, the Parlia
raent voted. May 20, "that it was now appa
rent that the king, seduced by wicked counsel,
intended to raake war upon the Parliament.
That whensoever the king maketh such war it
is a breach of trust, contrary to his coronation
oath, and tending to the dissolution ofthe gov
ernment. That whosoever shall serve or as
sist his majesty in such war are traitors, and
have been so adjudged by two acts of Parlia
ment, U Rich. 11., and 1 Henry IV. May 28
they ordered all sheriffs and justices of peace,
&c., to make slay of aU arras and aramunition
carrying to York, and to disperse all forces
coming together by the king's commission."
To justify their respective proceedings, both
parties published their reasons to the world ; a
summary of which being contained in ihe Par
liament's memorial of May 19, and the king's
answer, I shall give the reader an abstract of
them. The Parliament, in their meraorial, avow, in
the presence of the all seeing Deity, -'that the
sincerity of their endeavours has been directed
only by the king's honour and the public peace,
free from all private aims, personal respects,
and passions whatsoever. They coraplain of
his raajesty's being drawn into the north, far
from his Parliament, which has given occasion
to many false rumours and scandalous reports,
to the interrupting the good understanding be
tween the king and his Parliament. They take
notice of those evU counsellors which have pre
vailed with his raajesty to raake infractions
upon his royal word, as that, ' On the word of
a king, and as I ara a gentleraan, I wUl redress
the grievances of ray people. I am resolved to
put myself on the love and affection of ray Eng
lish subjects. We do engage soleranly, on the
word ofa king, that the security of all and eve
ry one of you from violence is and shall be as
much ray care as the preservation of us and our
children.' Since which time the studies and
chambers of some of the raerabers had been
broken open, and six of thera attempted to be
seized in the Parliament House, the blame of
which they are wiUing to impute to his evil
counseUors. And though the king disavows
such counsellors, we hold it our duty," say
they, " hurably to avow there are such, else we
must say, that all the iU things done in his maj
esty's name have been done by himself, where
in we should neither follow the direction of the
law, which says the king can do no wrong ; nor
the affections of our own hearts, which is to
clear his majesty as much as may he of all rais-
government, and lo lay the fault upon his min
isters * If any ill be done in raatters of state,
the council are to answer for it ; and if any raat
ters of the law, judges. They acknowledge the
many excellent acts that his majesty had lately
passed for the advantage of his. subjects," but
then add, " that in none of them have they be-

* Rushworth, part iu., voL i., p. 693.

reaved his majesty of any just, necess.iry, or
profitable prerogative of the crown Thiy de
clare their disallowauoe of all seditious libels,
but complain of many mutinous peiiiiuns that
have been presented lo the king lo divide him
from his Parliament ; and w-hereas the king had
insinuated that the Church w as lo be destroyed
to make way for presbytery, they aver thai thoy
desire no more than to encourage piety and
learning, and to place learned and pious preach
ers in all parishes, with a sufficient mainte
nance Upon the whole, Ihey aver the king
dom to be in imminent danger frora enemies .
abroad, and a popish and discontented parly at
home, and that in such a case the kingdom
must not be without means to preserve itself.
They aver that the ordinary means of providing
for the public safety is in the king and Parlia
ment ;* but because the king, being only a sin
gle person, may be liable to many accidents,
the wisdom of the state in such cases has in
trusted the two houses of Parliament to supply
what shall be wanting on the part of the prince,
as in cases of captivity, nonage, or where the
royal trust is not discharged ; which the Lords
and Commons having declared to be the pres
ent case, there needs no farther authority t»
confirm it, nor is il in the power of any person
at court to revoke that judgraent. They then
mention some proofs of the nation's danger,
and conclude by praying for the protection of
Almighty God upon the king, and beseech his
majesty to cast from him his evil counsellors,
assuring him and the whole kingdom that they
desire nothing more than to preserve the purity
and power of religion, lo honour the king in al!
his just prerogatives, and to endeavour, lo the
utmost of their power, that all parishes may
have learned and pious preachers, and those
preachers competent livings. And they doubt
not to overcome all difficulties, if the people do
not desert thera to their own undoing ; and
even in this cause they declare they will not
betray their trust, but look beyond their own
lives and estates, as thinking nothing worth
enjoying without the liberty, peace, and safety
of the kingdom, nor anything too much to be
hazarded for the obtaining ctfit."t
His majesty, in his answer, is not wiUing to
charge his Parliaraent wilh raisbehaviour, but
only a malignant party in both houses. He
denies the several plots and conspiracies raen
tioned in their declaration, and takes notice of
their raisapplying the word " Parliaraent" to the
vote of bolh houses, whereas the king is an es
sential part of the Parliament. His raajesty
confesses that his going to the House of Cora
mons to seize the five members was an error
in form, but maintains the matter of the accu
sation to be just, and therefore thinks he ought
not to be reproached with it. He neither af
firms nor denies the design of bringing the array
to London, but quibbles with the words " de
sign" and "resolution," as Rapin observes. King
Charles I. being very skUful in such sort of am
biguities. His raajesty made no reply to the
Parliament's reasoning upon the head of 'the
king's neglecting to discharge his trust, but
seeras to insinuate that the Parliaraent should
in no case meddle wilh the governraent without

* Rushworth, part iu., vol. i., p. 699,
t Ibid., vol. 1., p. 704. Rapm, vol. u., p. 4-:

4-12, foUo.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

415

an express law. He denies his knowledge of any
evil counseUors about hira, and declares that he
did not wiUingly leave his Parliaraent, but was
driven away by the tumults at Whitehall ; and
adds, that, by the help of God and the laws of
the land, he would have justice for those tu
mults ; nor does his raajesty own the proraoting
or retaining in his service any who are disaffect
ed to the laws of the kingdora ; but he will not
take a vote of Parliament for his guide, till it is
evident they are without passion or affection.
The king charges them home wilh the greatest
violation of the laws and liberties of the subject.
" " What is become ofthe law that man was born
tol" says he. "And where is Magna Charta,
if the vote of Parliament may make a lawl"
His raajesty concludes with a severe remark on
the Parliament's calling the petitions presented
toliim "rautinous." "HathamultUude of raean,
inconsiderable people about the city of London
had Uberty to petition against the governraent
of the Church, against the Book of Comraon
Prayer, &c., and been thanked for it I And
shaU it be called mutiny in the gravest and best
citizens in London, and gentry of Kent, to frame
petUions to be governed by the known laws of
the land, and not by votes of Parliament 1 Is
not this evidently the work of a faction 1 Let
heaven and earth, God and man, judge between
us and these men !"
The reader wUl judge ofthe weight of these
declarations according to a former reraark. The
Parliament supposes the " nation in iraminent
danger, and the royal power not exerted in its
defence ;" m which case, they, as guardians of
the people, apprehend, themselves empowered
to act in its defence. The king supposes the
nation to be in its ngtural state, and in no man
ner of danger, but from a malignant party with
in the two houses, and ihit, tticrefore, the laws
should have their free and ordinary course.
Upon these contrary suppositions the arguments
on both sides are invincible : but (as has been
already observed) it was impossible they should
produce any good effect, tiU it was first agreed
whether the nation was in danger, or -jihether
the royal promise might be relied upon with
sflfstv On the 2d of June the Parliament presented
the king with the sum of aU their desires for
the reformation and security of Church and
State, in nineteen propositions, according to his
majesty's coramand in January last. Those
which relate to the state are built upon the sup
position above.ihentioned, that the nation was in
imminent danger ; and that, after so many infrac
tions of the royal word, it was not to be relied
upon for the exeeution of the laws but in con
junction with the Pariiaraent. They therefore
pray "that his majesty's privy councillors, com
manders efforts and garrisons, and all the great
officers of state, raay be approved by the two
houses ; that the judges may hold their places
quam diu se bene gesserint ; that the raUjtia may
be in the baijds of the Parliament for the pres
ent ; that all public business raay be deterrained
by a majority of the council ; and that they may
take an. oath to maintain the petition of right,
and such other laws as shaU be enacted this
present session. They pray that the justice of
¦ Pariiament -may pass upon delinquents ; that the
Lord Kirabolton and the five members may be

effectually cleared by act of Pariiament, and-
that his majesty would enter into alliances wilh
foreign princes for the support of the Protestant
religion," &c. It is hard to express his iriajes-
ty's resentment against all these proposition.-?
(except the last two), which he says were fit
only to be offered to a vanquished prisoner ; ,
that he were unworthy of his noble descent if
he should part with such flowers of the crown
as are worth all the rest of the garland : " If
these things are granted," says he, " we may
have the title of a king, and be waited upon
bareheaded ; we raay have our hand kissed, and
have swords and raaces carried before us, but
as to real power, we should reraain but the out
side, the picture, the sign of a king." His raaj
esty, therefore, rejected them in the gross, with
this sovereign reply : " Nolumus leges Angliae-
mutari." The propositions relating to reUgion are
these :
Prop. 4. " That he or they to whom the gov
ernment and education of the king's children
shall be committed be approved by both houses
of Pariiaraent, and in the intervals of Parlia
ment by the majority of the privy council ; and
that sueh servants against whom the houses
have any just exception be remov.ed.*
Prop. 5. "That the marriages of the king's
children be with consent of Parliament, under
penalty of a prsemunire on such as shall con
clude them otherwise, and not to he pardoned
but by Parliaraent.
Prop. 6. " That the laws in force against
Jesuits, priests, and popish recusants be strict
ly put in execution, without any toleration or
dispensation to the contrary ; and that some
more effectual course raay be enacted by au
thority of ParUament to disable them frora ma
king any disturbance in the state, or eludingthe
laws by trusts or otherwise.
Prop. 7. " That the votes of popish lords in
the House of Peers be taken away, so long as
they continue papists ; and that your majesty
wUl consent to such a bUl as shaU be drawn,
for the education of the children of papists by-
Protestants in the Protestant religion.
Prop. 8. " That your raajesty wUl be pleased
to consent that such a reformation be raade of
I *e church goveWnent and liturgy as both
hdises of Parliament shall advise, wherein
they intend to have consultation with divines,
as is expressed in their declaration for that pur
pose ; and tliat your majesty wUl contribute
your best ass'istance for the raising of a suf
ficient maintenance for preaching ministers
through the kingdom ; and that your majesty
will be pleased to give your consent to the laws
for the taking away of innovations and super
stitions, and -of pluralities, and against scanda
lous ministers."
To these propositions his raajesty replied as
foUows :
To the fourth and fifth, concerning the edu
cation and disposal of his chUdren, " that he
had coraraitted thera to the care of persons of
quality, integrity, and piety, with special regard
to their education in the principles of the true
Protestant reUgion, but that he would never
part with that trust, which God, nature, and

Rushworth, part ui., vol. i., p. 793.

416

HISTORY OK THE P U R I T .\ N S

the laws of the land had. placed in him; nor
would he suffer any lo share with hira in Ins
power of treaties ; but he assured ihera that
he would not entertain any treaty of raarriage
for his children without due regard to the Prot
estant religion and the honour of his faraily ;
and that he would take such care of the Prince
of Wales, and his other children, as should
juslily him to God as a father, and to his do
minions as a king "
To the sixth proposition, ooneorning popish
recusants, his niajesty admitted, " that if they
could find any more effectual course to disable
thera from disturbing the state, or eluding the
laws, by trust or otherwise, he ought to give
his consent to it."
To the seventh, concerning the votes of po
pish lords, his majesty replied, " that he was
informed those lords had prudently withdrawn
from the House of Peers, but he did not con-
-ceive that a law against the votes of any,
where blood gave thera their right, was so
proper in regard of the privilege of Parliament ;
however, his majesty was content that, as long
as Ihey did not conform to the doctrine and
discipline of the Church of England, they should
not sit in the House of Peers, but only vote by
proxy. .-\s for a bill for the educating the chil
dren of papists in the Protestant religion, he
should be verv glad of il, and would encourage
it." To the eighth proposition, touching reforma
tion of church government and liturgy, his maj
esty refers thera to his declaration of Decem
ber 1, in which he had declared "that he was
willing lo remove illegal innovations; that if
his Parliaraent advised hira to call a synod to
examine into sueh ceremonies as gave offence,
he would lake it into consideration, and apply
himself to give due satisfaction therein ; but he
was persuaded in his conscience that no church
could be found upon earth that professed the
true religion with raore purity of doctrine than
the Church of England ; nor where the govern
ment and discipline are raore beautified, and
free frora superstition, than as they are here es
tablished by law ; which his majesty is deter
mined with constancy lo maintain as long as
he lives, in their purity and glory, not only
against aU innovations of ptfery, but from the
irreverence of those raany schisraatics and sep
aratists wherewith of late this kingdom aniJthe
city of London abound, for the suppression of
whom his majesty requires the assistance of
his Pariiament. .As for such matters in reli
gion w hich were in their own nature indifferent,
his majesty refers Ihera to his first declaration,
printed by advice of his privy councU, in which
he had declared that he was wiUing, in tender
ness to any number of his loving subjeets, to
admit that some law might be made for the ex
emption of tender consciences frora punishraent
or prosecution for such ceremonies ; provided
it be attempted and pursued wilh that raodesty,
teraper, and submission, that the peace and
quiet of the kingdora be not disturbed, the de
cency and comeliness of Gbd's service discoun
tenanced, nor the pious, sober, devout actions
of Ihe first Reformers scandalized and defamed.
His majesty adds, that he had forraeriy referred
the composing the present distractions about
church government and Uturgy to the wisdora

1 of the Parliaraent, but desired he might not be
[iressed 10 any single act on his part, tUI the
whole be so digested and seltlid by both houses,
that his ni.ijesiy may clearly see what is fil to
lie left as well as what is lit lo he taken aw,iy.
His majesty observes with satislaetion that
they desire only a rclbrinalion, and not, as is
daily preached in i-onventieles, a desiriiction of
the present discipline and liturgy, and promises
to concur with his Parliament in raising a suf
ficient raaintenance for preaching ministers, in
such manner as shall be most for the advance
ment of piety and learning ; but as Ibr the other
biUs, against superstitious innovations and plu
ralities, his majesty can say nothing lo thein
nil he sees them."
Il was now apparent to all men that this
controversy, which had hitherto been debated
by tho pen, raust be decided hy the sword ; for
this purpose the queen was all this while In
Holland negotiating foreign supplies. Her raaj
esty pledged the crown jewels ; and, with the
money arising frora thence, purchased a small
frigate of thirty-two guns, called the Provi
dence, and freighted it with two hundred bar
rels of powder, two or three thousand arms,
seven or eight fieldpieoes, and some ready
money for the king's service; all which were
safely convi-yed to his majesty al York, about
the beginning of June. '^The Parliament had
been advertised ofthe queen's proceedings, and
acquainted the king with their advices, whieh
al first he was pleased to disown, for in his deo-
laration of March 9, he tells the Parliament,
" Whatsoever you are advertised from Paris,
&.C., of foreign aids, we are conWeni no .»obcr,
honest man in our kingdom can beheve mat we
are so desperate, or so sepseless, as to enter-
lain such designs, as would not only bury this
our kingdom in certa/n destruction and ruin,
but our name and posterity in perpetual scorn
and infamy,"* One would think by this that
the king did not know what was doing with the
crown jewete, though they were carried over
with his leave, and, as Mr. Whitelocket says,
that wirti them and the assistance ofthe Prince
of f>ange, a sufficient party might be raised for
the king. But in this answer, as in raost others,
Jlis majesty had his ambiguities and reserva
tions.!;

• Clarendon, vol. i., part li., p. 445, 462.
t Memorials, p. 52.
X Bishop Warburton contends that by "foreign
aids" the king understood, what the Parliament cer
tainly meant, foreign troops. His lordship, therefore,
asserts, " there is no ambiguity here ; but there is
neither end nor measure," he adds, "to this histo
rian's prejudices and false representations." The
exact state of the matter is, that the Parliament, in
their declaration, do use the words " foreign force,"
and explicitly mention the loan of four thousand men
apiece by the Kings of France and Spam. The king
in his answer says, only in general, '- that whatever
their advertisements from Rome, &c., were, he was
confident no sober, honest man," &c., without using,
as Mr. Neal inaccurately represents him doing, the
terms " foreign aids." But will it follow from hence
that the king's answer was free from ambiguity and
res<^-rvation, or Mr. Neal's charge false ? If what .Mr.
Whitelocke says were true, there was a duphcity
and ambiguity in the king's reply ; and it consisted
in this, not in the use of an equivocal term, but in
censuring the measures of which he was suspecled,
as senseless, desperate, and pernicious ; at the same

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

417

It was the king's great misfortune never to
get possession of a conven lent place of strength
upon the coast. The governor of Portsmouth
declaring for him, the Parliament immediately
¦ordered the militia of the county to block up the
place by land, whUe the Earl of Warwick did
the sarae hy sea, so that it was forced to sur
render for want of provisions, before the king
could relieve it. The like disappointraent he-
fell his raajesty at HuU, which he besieged a
second tirae, July 4,* with three thousand foot
and about one thousand horse, while Sir J. Pen
nington, the king's admiral, blocked it up by
sea ; but the governor, drawing up the sluices,
laid the country under water, and obliged the
army to retire. This was a severe disappoint
ment ; because his majesty had sent word to
the Parliament, June 14, that, " by the help of
God and the law, he would have justice upon
those .that kept him out of HuU, or lose his life
in requiring it,"t
On the other hand, the Commons, upon the
desertion of the king's friends, ordered a gen
eral caU ofthe House, June 16, and that every
member should answer to his narae on forfeit
ure of £100. The Lords ordered the nine peers
that went after the great seal to appear at their
bar, June 8, and fo* their non-appearance [June
27], deprived them of their privilege of voting
in the House during the present Parliament.
As the Commons had taken aU imaginable pre
cautions to hinder the king from getting the
forts and magazines of the kingdom into his
possession, they ordered aU suspected places to
be searched for arms and aramunition. In the
archbishop's palace at Lambeth they seized
arms for about five hundred men, and lodged
them in the Tower of London ; in Cobham HaU
they seized five cart-loads of arras ; and below
Gravesend about one hundred pieces of cannon.
As soon as they heard the king had receiv
ed supplies from beyond sea and was preparing
tp besiege Hull, they ordered their ordinance
for raising the railitia to be put in execution in
Essex [June 7], when all the regiraents appear
ed full, besides a great nuraber of volunteers,
who declared they would stand by the Parlia
ment in this cause with their lives and fortunes.
The king forbade the railitia's appearing in arms
without his consent, according to the statute 7
Eliz., cap. i., and issued out commissions of ar
ray, according to an old statute of 5 Henry IV.,
appointing several persons of quality to array,
muster, and train the people in the several
counties ; but the Parliament, by a declaration,
endeavoured to prove these commissions to be
illegal, contrary to the petition of right, and to
a statute of this present Parliament ; and went
on with mustering the militia in several other
counties^ where the spirit ofthe people appear
ed to be with them. The execution of these
counter-commissions occasioned some skirmish
es wherever the two parties happened to meet.
On the 10th of June, 1642, the Parliament
published proposals for borrowing raoney upon

time he was actuaUy takmg such or simUar steps. —
Ed. * According to Dr. Grey, thero is an error in this
date ; for the king issued a proclamation of his in
tention to besiege HuU upon the 11th of July, so
could not lay siege to it upon the 4lh. — Ed.
t Rushworth, p. 601,
Vol. I.— G o a

the public faith at -eight per cent, interest, al
lowing the full value of the plate, besides one
shiUing per ounce consideration for the fashion.
Upon information of this, the king immediately
wrote to the Lord-mayor of London to forbid the
citizens lending their money or plate, upon pain
of high treason ; notwithstanding which, such
vast quantities were brought into GuildhaU
within ten days, that there were hardly officers
enough lo receive it. Mr, Echard computes the
plate at £11,000,000, which is monstrous, for
in reaUty it was but £1,287,326 ; the gentry of
London and Middlesex brought in the best of
their plate, and the meaner sort their gold rings,
thimbles, and bodkins. Lord Clarendon says,
this zeal of the people arose from the influence
and industry of their preachers ; which might
be true in part, though it vvas rather owing to a
quick and feeling apprehension ofthe danger of
their liberties and religion, by an inundation of
popery and arbitrary power.
The king also tried his credit with the peo
ple, -by publishing a declaration inviting his
subjects to bring in their money, plate, horses,
and arms to York, upon the security of his for
ests and parks for the principal, and eight per
cent, interest, with very little success, except
among the courtiers and the two universities.
July 7, his majesty sent letters to the vice-
chancellor and heads of coUeges in Oxford, de
siring them to lend him their public stock, enga
ging, upon the word ofa king, to allow them eight
per cent, for that and aU other sums of raoney
that any private gentleraan or scholar should
advance. Hereupon it was unanimously agreed
in convocation to intrust his majesty with their
public stock, amounting to £860, which was
iraraediately delivered to Mr. Chaworth, his
majesty's messenger. The several coUeges
also sent his majesty their plate ; and private
gentleraen contributed considerable suras of
money to the value of above £10,000.* The two
houses of Westrainster being inforraed of these
proceedings, published an ordinance, declaring
this act of the university " a breach of trust,
and an aUenation ofthe public raoney, contrary
to the intent of the pious donors, and, therefore,
not to be justified by the laws of God or raan ;"
that it was also contrary to their engageraents,
for the university being yet in the hands ofthe
Parliament, the Lord Say and his deputy-lieu
tenants had been with the several raasters and
heads of houses, and obtained a soleran promise
from each of them that their plate should be
forthcoming, and should not be made use of by
the king against the Parliament ; and yet, con
trary to their engagement, they sent it away
privately to York, where it arrived July 18, as
appeared by his majesty's most gracious letter
of thanks, t As soon as the two houses weVe
informed of this, they sent for the four princi
pal managers of this affair into custody, viz..
Dr. Prideaux, bishop of Worcester, Dr. Samuel
Fell, dean of Christ Church, Dr. Frewen, and
Dr. Potter, who absconded ; and the scholars^
encouraged hy their principals, bought arras,
formed themselves into companies, and, laying
aside their acaderaical studies, were instructed
in the art of war, and perforraed the mUitary
* Clarendon, vol. U., p. 88.
t Rushworth, part iu., vol. i., p. 759.

418

HISTORY I'F THE PURITANS

exercises under their respective captains and
leaders. Such was the zral of the vice-chan
cellor. Dr. Pink, that, not content with marshul-
Ungthe university, he promoted the king's coin-
mission of array araong the townsmen, and re
ceived one of his majesty's troops of horse
into garrison, for whieh he was afterward ap
prehended and coraraitted to the Gale-house at
Westminster. The Parliament, provoked w ith
this behaviour of the university, threatened to
quarter sorae of Ih^r own regiments upon
them, which frightened away half the scholars,
and put- the rest into such a terrible panic that
the vice-chanceUor thought proper to write the
following submissive letter to the Earl of Pem
broke, their chancellor ;
" Right Honourable,
"May il please your lordship to know, that
this university is now in extreme danger of suf
fering all the calamities that warlike forces raay
bring upon ft.* Such forces, we hear for ecr-
lain, are some of thera already on their raarch,
and others are raising to assault us, and, if they
may have their wills, to destroy us ! My lord,
you have been solicitous whom to appoint your
chancellor for next year, but if these forces
come forward, and do that ej^ecution upon us
that we fear they intend, there will be no use at
all for a vice-chancellor, for what will be here
for hira to do, where there will be no scholars
for him to govern 1 Or what should scholars
do here, having no libraries left them lo study
in, no schools to dispute in, chapels to serve
God in, colleges or haUs to hve or lodge in, but
have all these ransacked, defaced, demoUshed,
so as posterity may have lo say, See I here was
for a long time, and tiU such a year, a univer
sity of great renown and eminence in all man
ner of learning and virtue, but now laid utterly
waste, and buried in her own ruins. And then
the question will be, \\'hat I had we no lord
chanceUor 1 or was he not able to protect us 1
We are aU confident that if your lordship would
interpose for us to the honourable houses of
Parliament for our safety and security, all would
be weU with us. The delinquents that were
sent for are not one of them here at this time.
Sir John Byron, with his regiment of troopers,
we shall soon prevaU with to withdraw from
us, if he may with safely march back to the
king, who, of his own gracious care of us, sent
hun hither. And if your lordship shaU be se
cured, that no other forces shall be here im
posed upon us, that wUl take the liberty to ex
ercise that barbarous insolence with which the
iUiterately rude and ruffianly rabble of the vul
gar threaten us ; against such only our young
men have lately taken in hand the arras we
have (a very few-, God knows, and in weak
hands enough) lo save themselves and us frora
having our libraries fired, our colleges pillaged,
and our throats cut by thera, if they should sud
denly break in upon us. And this, ray lord, is
aU the sinful intent we have had in perraltting
iHtm to train in a voluntary and peaceable raan
ner so as they have done. Good ray lord, thai
which I most earnestly beg of your honour is,
that at the humble request of the university
you would pul in action wilh all speed what
may be raost prevalent with the Parhament for

* Rushworth, part in., vol. u., p. 11.

the peace and security of this place, and for the
.staying of our students, a great [lart of whom
(such stout and hardy nun are Ihey), up(m
alarms and frights, such as have bci-u hourly
here of late, are fled away from us home lo
their mothers. The disciples, when in danger
of drowning, clamoured our s.iviour, ' .M.isicr,
carest thou not that we perish '.' But 1 am
bold to assume for \in\T honour, and to assure
all of this university under your happy govern
ment, that you w ill not suUcr us lo perish, and
that you will at this time give us a clear and
real evidence of il, having this representation
ofthe peril we are now in, made lo your hon
our by rae,
" Your lordship's hurable servant.
"Provost, vice-chancellor of Oxford.
"Sept. 12, 1642."
This letter being sent two months after the
university had conveyed their plate and money
to the king ; afli-r Ihey had refused lo send up
such principal managers of that affair as the
Pariiament had dciiiandcd ; after they had l;i-
ken up arras, and received a regiment of his
majesty's forces into garrison, the Earl of Prni-
broke only returned the following angry answ-i-r
" Sir,
" If you had desired ray advice and assistance
in time, I should wUlingly have contributed ray
best endeavours for your safely and protection,
but your unadvised counsels and actions have
reduced you to the straits you are now in ; and in
discretion you raight have foreseen, that the ad
mitting cavaliers, and taking up arras, could not
but raake the university a notorious raark of op
position against the Parliaraent, and, therefore,
to be opposed by it. If you had contained your
selves within the decent, raodest bounds of a
university, you might justly have challenged
me, if I had not performed the duty of a chan
cellor. The best counsel I now can give you
is, that you presently dismiss the cavaliers, and
yield up to the Parliament such delinquents as
are araong you ; then, the cause being taken
away, the effect will follow. When you have
put yourselves into the right posture of a uni
versity, I will be a faithful servant lo you, and
ready to do you all the good offices I can wilh
the Parliament, as I ara now sorry you have
brought upon yourselves these troubles.
" I rest your very true friend,
" Pembroke and Montocmery.
"Sept. 13, 1642."
Cambridge University followed the example
of Oxford, for upon reading his majesty's letter
of June 29 to the vice-chancellor. Dr. Holds-
worth, they readily agreed also lo intrust the
king with their public money : what the whole
sum amounted to does not appear, but raay be
guessed by the particulars of one college, a
receipt for whieh is preserved among the ar
chives, and is as foUows :

"July 2, 1642.
" Received, the day and year above written,
of Wm. Beale, doctor in divinity, master of St.
John's College, in the University of Cambridge,
for the king's use (according to the intendment
and direction of his raajesty's letters ofthe 29th
of June last, to the vice-chancellor of the said

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

419

nniversity)j the sum of £150. I say, received
from the treasury ofthe said coUege hy me,*
"John Poley."
This Mr. Poley was fellow of Pembroke HaU,
and one ofthe proctors ofthe university. When
the king had secured their money, he sent to
borrow their plate, under pretence of preserving
it from the Parliament ; for this purpose he wrote
another letter to the vice-chancellor, with direc
tions to take an exact account, not only of the
\^eight, but also, of the form of every piece, to
gether with the names, arms, and mottoes of
the respective donors, that if his raajesty shonid
not preserve it as entire as it was, he might
restore it hereafter in the same weight and form,
and with the same marks, aU which he ensured
upon his royal word. There is no account re
maining of what plate the coUeges deUvered lip
for his majesty's use, though many wished, says
Mr. Fuller, that every ounce had been a pound
for his sake ; but in the treasury of St. John's
College there are the particulars of what that
college delivered in, together with the weight,
forms, and names ofthe chief benefactors, which
amounts, in the whole, according to avoirdupois
weight, to two thousand sixty-five ounces and
a half, as expressed in the foUowing receipt :
"Augusts, 1642.
"I do acknowledge that there has been de
livered to me, in the name and on behalf of the
master, fellows, and scholars of St. John's Col
lege, in Carabridge, two fir boxes, marked with
these three letters, S. J. C, containing in them
all the several pieces of plate above written,
which said plate weigheth, as appears hy the
particulars, two thousand sixty-five ounces and
a half, more or less, which they deposited into
the king's hands for the security thereof and
his majesty's service, according to the tenour of
his majesty's letters, written and directed to
the vice-chancellor of the university.* "John Poley."
Aecording to this calculation, the king might
receive from all the colleges together about £8 or
£10,000 in plate, besides money. Colonel Oli
ver Crorawell, with his company of soldiers, en
deavoured to intercept the convoy, but under
the conduct of Mr. Barnaby Oley, their guide,
who was acquainted with aU the by-roads, they
escaped the enemy, and delivered up their
charge to the fci-ng about the tirae when he was
-Betting up his royal standard at Nottingham.
CroraweU having missed the convoy, returned
to Cambridge and took possession of the town
and university for the Pariiament, who, being
acquainted with what was done, sent them an
angry message, as they had done to Oxford,
fuU of resentments for their disposing of the
public money, contrary to the trust reposed in
them. The masters and feUows excused them
selves by alleging the royal mandate ; where
upon the two houses sent a mandate of their
own to the vice-chanceUor and heads of colle
ges in convocation assembled, desiring them to
contribute their assistance to the cause m which
they [the Pariiament] were engaged ; but though,
as Dr. Barwick observes, the commander of the
garrison kept them sitting tiU midnight, they
would lend nothing, because they apprehended

it to he contrary to religion and a good con
science ; the houses, therefore, ordered Dr. Beal,
Dr. Martin, and Dr. Sterne, masters of St. John's,
Jesus', and Queen's CoUege, into custody;*
upon which many ofthe scholars deserted theit
stations, and listed in the king's service.
Besides the two universities, tbe king ap
plied underhand to the papists, who were firm
to his interest, though he durst not as yet avow
his correspondence with thera ; for in his dec
laration of June 3, he assures the rainisters and
freeholders of Yorkshire that he would not
make use of foreigners, or of persons disaffect
ed to the Protestant reUgion. Again, we have
taken order that the power of the sword shall
not come into the hands bf papists. t August
10, his raajesty commands that no papist should
be listed^as a soldier in his army ; which was
expedient, to avoid as much as possible the re
proach of an aUiance with those people, who
were at this tirae becorae infaraous by the Irish
massacre. Though his majesty had but few
Roman Catholics. among his own forces, the
Duke of Newcastle's army was filled with them,
and popery was countenanced to that degree
at York that mass was said in every corner of
the street, and the Protestants so affronted that
they were almost afraid to go to church.f
The king applied to his Roman Catholic sub
jects to advance two or three years ofthe rent
that they paid as composition for their estates
as recusants, which they not only coraphed
with, but wrote to their friends abroad to bor
row more ; proclamation was made at Bruges,
and other parts of Flanders, that aU people
who would loan any money to maintain the Ro
man Catholics in England, should have it repaid
in a year's time, wUh many thanks.
The I.>ancashire papists, having been lately
disarmed by order of Parliament, petitioned his

* Dr. Barwick's Life, p. 22.

Ibid., p. 24.

* They were immediately after carried to London
by CromweU, and confined in the Tower and other
prisons for some years, particularly in the noisome
hold of a ship.— Dr. Grey ; Barwick's Life, p. 32, wore
(t) ; and Fuller's History of Cambridge, p. 168. — Ed.
t Rushworth, part ui., vol. i., p. 625.
X Dr. Grey would impeach the truth of this detail,
and says, that as Mr. Neal " quotes no authority for
these particulars, I am -wUling to believe that they
are not all of them true." As for the first particular^
1 can refer for Mr. Neal to Rapin, vol. n., p. 468, arf
the matter has been, within these few years, Mated
and discussed by Mrs. Macaulay, vol. iii., p. til, 378,
Svo. The fact was admitted by the Earl of New
castle himself, and he published a long declaratioir,.
partly to vindicate himself on this head, which is-
preserved in Rushworth, part in., vol. u., p. 78, &c.
Though I am not able to ascertain the authorities ors
which my author states the other particulars, a let
ter of intelligence of the affairs in Yorkshire, which
the Parhament received, and which has been givers
to the public since Mr. Neal's history appeared,, af
fords a general confirmation to his account. It rep
resents that the papists, after the king's proclama
tion for raising his standard, flocked from Ireland,
Lancashu-e, and aU parts ofYorkshire, to York; that
there were great rejoicings among them, and a great-
forwardness to assist the service shown. The cii
cumstances represented by our author were uotun
natural or improbable consequences of such a con
fluence and exultation -Of the papists. And'it appears
from this letter that the cavaliers in general were
guUty of tuniults, outrages; and depradation.— Par-
Uamentary History, vol. xi., p. 335, 381, 405, quoted by.
Mrs. Macaulay, vol. iu., p. 343, 344, 8vo.^Eb.

420

HISTORY' OF THE PURITANS.

majesty that, since the war was begun, their
arras raight be redelivered, that they might be
in a capacity lo defend his raajesty's royal per
son and Iheir own families. To which his maj
esty consented in the foUowing words :
- — The laws for disarming recusants being
to-prevent dangers in a time of peaee. but not
intended to bar you frora the use of arms in
tune of war for your own safety, or the defence
of our person — Our will and coraraand, there
fore. Is, and we charge and require you upon
your allegiance, that with aU possible speed
you provide sufficient anns for yourselves, your
servants, and your tenants, which we authorize
and require you to keep and use for the defence
of us, yourselves, and your country, against
all forces raised against us, under colour of any
order or ordinance of Parliaraent, and we shall
use our utraost pow er lo protect you and yours
against aU injuries and violence.*
¦' Given under our signet at Chester, Septem
ber 27, in the eighteenth year of our reign,"
-Agreeably to this, Mr. George Tempest, a
priest, writes to his hrother in the king's army,
" Our priests at Lancaster are at liberty ; Cath
olic commanders are adraitted, and all well
enough that way; God .Vlinighty, as 1 hope,
wUl belter prosper the cause." And another
adds, "that there is no prosecution of priest or
papist in Northumberland."
When the Parliament objected this to his
majesty, and named the very officers, he was
highly displeased, and in his answer makes use
of these soleran expressions : " For that contin
ued dishonest accusation of our inclination to
the papists, w-hich the authors of it in llicir
own consciences know to be most unjust and
groundless, w-e can say no raore, and wc can
do no raore, lo the satisfaction ofthe world. —
That any priests or Jesuits iraprisoned have
"been released by us out of the jail at Lancaster,
or any other jail, is as false as the father of
lies can invent. Neither are the persons naraed
in that declaration, to whora coraraissions are
supposed to be granted for places of command
in this war, so rauch as known to us ; nor
have they any command, or to our knowledge
are present in our army. And it is strange that
our oaths and protestations before Alraighty
God, for the maintenance of the Protestant
religion, should be so slighted. — ^\'e desire to
have our protestations believed by the evidence
of our actions."! Surely this soleran appeal
to Almighty Cod was ambiguous and evasive !
or else we must conclude that his majesty was
very little acquainted with what was done in
his name, and by his commission.
It was only five days after this that the mask
was thrown off, for his raajesty confesses, iu
his declaration of October 27, that the raalice
and fury of his enemies had reduced him to the
necessity of accepting the serviee and affection
of any of his good subjects, whatsoever their
religion was ; that he did know of some iev/
papists whose eminent abilities in coraraand
and conduct had moved him lo employ them in
his service ; but he assures his good subjects
that he would always use his endeavours lo
suppress their religion, by executing the laws
already in force against papists, and in concur-
* Rushworth, vol. u , part ul, p. 50. t Ibid., p. 31.

ring in any other remedies which his Iwo
houses should think proper.
.\s the king w-:is i educed to tho ncressity of
accepting the service and affection of the pa
pists, so, on the other hand, the Pariiament
look aU imncinable care lo cultivate a good
corr( -.pondeuce with the .Scol.s, and lo secure
that nation in tlii-ir inleicsis ^\¦e have re
membered that the Scots commissioners at
London offered their raediiilion in the begin
ning of the year, which the Parliament accept
ed ; but the king, from his extreme hatred of
the Pieshylerian discipline, refused, command
ing thera to be content with their own sctllc-
inenl, and not lo racddlo in the affairs of an
other nation. But the breach between the king
and his two houses growing wider, the council
of Scotland sent their chancellor, in the month
of .May, lo renew their offers of a mediation
between the two parties, which the king reject
ed as before;* and the raiher, because they
slUl insisted upon the abolishing of episcopacy,
which his raajesty believed lo be of Divine in
stitution, and upon a uniforraity of Presbyte
rian governinent in the two nations ; whereas
the raajority of both houses, being of Erastian
principles, were under no difficulties about a
change of discipline, apprehending that the
civU raagistrate raight set up what form of
governraent was most conducive lo tho good
of the state. The Parliament, therefore, treat
ed the chancellor with great respect, and not
only accepted the mediation, but wrote lo the
General Assembly, which vvas to meet in July,
acquainting thera with the crisis of their affairs,
and desiring their advice and assistance in
bringing about such a reforraation as was de
sired. To which the Asserably returned an
answer, dated August 3, 1642, to the following
purpose. " .\fter giving God thanks for the Parlia
ment's desire of a reforraation of religion, and
expressing their grief that it moves so slowly,
they observe, that their comraissioners, far from
arrogance and presumption, had, with great re
spect and reverence, expressed their desires for
unity of religion, that- there might be one con
fession of faith, one directory of worship, one
public catechism, and one form of church gov
ernment. t The Asserably," say they, " now en
ter upon the labours of the coramissioners, being
encouraged by the zeal of forraer tiraes, when
their predecessors sent a letter into England
against the surplice, tippet, and corner-cap, in
the year 1566, and again in the years 1.583 and
1589. They are now farther encouraged by
the king's late answer to their comraissioners
in their treaty for Ireland, wherein his raajesty
approves of the affection of his subjects of
Scotland, in their desires of conforraity of
church government ; by his majesty's late prac
tice while he was in Scotland, in resorting to
their worship, and estabUshing it by act of Par
liament. They are also encouraged by a letter
sent from many reverend brethren ofthe Church
of England, expressing their prayers and en
deavours against everything that shall he prej
udicial 10 the establishment of the kingdom of
Christ. They therefore advise to begin with
a uniformity of church government ; for what

* Duke of Hamilton's Memoirs, book iii, p. 194
t Rushworth, vol. u., part ui., p. 387.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

421

hope can there be," say they, " of one confession
of faith, one forra of worship and catechism,
till prelacy be plucked up root and branch, as a
plant which God had not planted? Indeed,
the Reforraed kirks hold their form of govern
ment by presbyters 'to be jure divino, and per
petual, but prelacy is alraost universally held hy
the prelates themselves lo be a human ordi
nance, and may, therefore, be altered or abol
ished, in cases of necessity, without wronging
any man's conscience ; for the aecomplishing
of which they proraise their best assistance."
In the Parliaraent's answer to this letter,
" they acknowlege the friendship of their breth
ren in Scotland, and express their desires of
unity in religion, that in all his majesty's domin
ions there might he but one confession of faith
and forra of church governraent ;* and though
this is hardly to be expected punctually and ex
actly, yet they hope, since they are guided by
the same spirit, they shall be so directed as to
cast out everything that is offensive to God,
and so far agree with the Scots, and other Re
formed ehurches, in the substantials of doc
trine, worship, and discipline, that there may
be a free communion in all holy exercises and
duties of public worship, for the attaining
whereof they intend an asserably of godly and
learned divines, as soon as they can obtain the
royal assent. We have entered into a serious
consideration," say they, " what good we have
received frora the governraent of bishops, and
do perceive it has been the occasion of many in
tolerable burdens and grievances, by their usurp
ing a pre-eminence and power not given them
by the Word of God, &c. We find it has also
been pernicious to our civil government, inso
much as the bishops have ever been forward to
fill the minds of our princes with notions of ar
bitrary power over the lives and liberties of the
subject, by their counsels and in their sermons.
Upon which accounts, and many others, we do
declare, that this government, by archbishops,
bishops, their chancellors and coraraissaries,
deans and chapters, archdeacons, and other ec
clesiastical officers depending upon the hierar
chy, is evU, and justly offensive and burden
some to the kingdom, a great impediment to
reformation, and very prejudicial to the civU
government, and that we are resolved the same
shaU be taken away. And we desire our breth
ren of Scotland to concur with us in petitioning
his majesty that we may have an assembly of
divines ; and to send some of their own minis
ters to the said assembly, in order to obtain
uniformity in church government, that so a more
easy passage may be made for settligg one con
fession of faith, and directory of public worship,
for the three kingdoms."
The king, being 'alarmed with the harmony
between the two kingdoms, sent a warm re
monstrance to the CouncU of Scotland, August
26, the very week he set up his standard at Not
tingham, in which he declares, ,
" That he desired uniformity as much as they,
in sueh a way as he iri his conscience thought
most serviceable to the true Protestant religion ;
hut that his two houses of Pariiament had nev
er raade any proposition to him since their
meeting concerning uniformity of church gov
ernment ; so far," says his majesty, " are they

* Rushworth, vol. n., part ni., p

390.

from desiring such a thing, that we are confi
dent the most considerable persons, and those
who make the fairest pretensions to you of that
kind, will not sooner erabraoe a presbyterial
than you an episcopal.* And truly it seeras,
notwUhstanding whatsoever profession they
have raade to the contrary, that nothing has
been less in their minds than settling the true
religion, and reforming such abuses in the
Church as possibly raay have crept in contrary
to the established laws ofthe land, to which we
have been so far frora being averse, that we
have pressed them to it. And whenever any
proposition shall be made to us by them, which
we shall conceive may advance the unity ofthe
Protestant religion, according to the Word of
God, or establish church government according
to the known laws of the kingdora, we shaU let
the world* see that nothing can be more agree
able to us than the advancing so good a work."
Here his majesty explains the uniformity he
all along intended, and very justly observes,
that the Parliaraent no more believed the Divine
institution of presbytery than others did of dio
cesan prelacy ; for though they were content,
in order to secure the assistance of the Scots
nation, to vote away the power of archbishops
and bishops, yet when they had conquered the
king, and had nothing to fear from their neigh
bours, they could not be prevailed with to es
tablish the Scots presbytery without reserving
the power ofthe keys to themselves.
Lord Clarendon very justly observes, "that
the Parliament were sensible they could not
carry on the war but by the help ofthe Scots,
which they were not to expect without an al
teration of the government of the Church, to
which that nation was violently incUned ; but
that very much the major part ofthe members
that continued in the Parliaraent-house were
cordially affected to the established governraent,.
at least not affected to any other, "t But then,
to induce them to consent to such an alteration,
il was said the Scots would not take up arms
without it ; so that they raust lose all, and let.
the king return as a conqueror, or submit to the
change. If it should be said this would make
a peace with the king impracticable, whose af
fection to the hierarchy all raen knew, it was
answered, that it was usual in treaties to ask
raore than was expected to be granted ; and, it
might be, that their departing from their propo
sition concerning the Church might prevail with.
the king to give them the militia. Upon these
motives the bUl to abolish episcopacy was.
brought into the House, and passed the Com
mons September 1, and on the 10th ofthe same
month it passed the Lords.- The noble histo
rian says that marvellous art and indiistry were
used to obtain it ; that the majority of the
Commons was really against it, and that it was
very hardly submitted to by the Hoiise of Peers.
But the writer ofthe Parliaraentary Chronicle,
who was then at London, says, the bUl passed
nulla contradicenlc, not a negative vote being
heard araong them all, and that there were bon
fires and ringing of bells for joy aU over the
cityt ¦The biU was entitled, " An Act for the utter

? .Duke of Hamilton's Memoirs, b. iv., p. 197.
f Clarendon, vol. ii., p. 117.
X ParUamentary Chronicle, p. 150.

HlSTtiRY OF THE PURITANS.

.-ibolishing and taking away of all archbishops,
bishops, their chanceUors and coinmissaries,"
v^C. It ordains, that " after the fifth of Noveraber,
1613, there shall be no archbishop, bishop, chan
cellor, or coramissary of any archbishop or
bishop, nor any dean, sub-dean, dean and chap
ter, archdeacon, nor any chancellor, chanter,
treasurer, sub-treasurer, succenlor, or sacrist,
of any cathedral or coUegiatc church, nor any
prebendary, canon, canon-residentiary, petty
canon, vicar choral, chorister, old vicars or nvw
vicars, of or within any cathedral or collegiate
churches in England or Wales. — That their
names, titles, jurisdictions, offices, and func
tions, and the having or using any jurisdiction
or power, by reason or colour of any such
naraes and titles, shall cease, deterraine, and
becorae absolutely void.
" That all the raanors, lordships, castles,
messuages, lands, tenements, rents, and all
other, possessions and hereditaraents whatso
ever, belonging lo any archbishopric or bishop
ric, shaU be in the real and actual possession
and seisin ofthe king's raajesty, his heirs and
successors, to hold and enjoy in as ample a
manner as they were held by any archbishop or
bishop w-ithin two years last past, except im
propriations, parsonages, appropriate tithes, ob
lations, obventions, pensions, portions of tithes,
parsonages, vicarages, churches, chapels, ad
vowsons, nominations, coUalions, rights of pat
ronage and presentation.
"That aU irapropriations, parsonages, tithes,
&c., and all other hereditaraents and posses
sions whatsoever, belonging to any dean, sub-
dean and chapter, archdeacon, or any of their
officers, be put into the hands of trustees, lo pay
to aU and every archbishop, bishop, dean, sub-
dean, archdeacon, and all other officers belong
ing to collegiate and cathedral churches, such
yearly stipends and pensions as shall be appoint
ed by Parliaraent. And they shall dispose of
all the aforesaid raanors, lands, tithes, appropri
allons, advowsons, &.(;., for a corapetent main
tenance for the support of such a number of
preaching ministers in every cathedral and col
legiate church as shall be appointed by Parlia
ment ; and for the maintenance of preaching
ministers in other places of the country where
such raaintenance is wanting ; and for such
other good uses, to the advancement of religion,
piety, and learning, as shall be directed by Par-
liEunent. " Provided, that all revenues and rents as
have been, and now ought to be, paid for the
maintenance of gramraar-schools or scholars, or
for the repairing any church, chapel, highway,
causeway, bridges, schoolhouse, almshouse, or
other charitable uses, payable by any ofthe per
sons whose offices are taken away by this act,
shall be continued. Provided, also, that this act
shaU not extend to any college, church, corpo
ration, foundation, or house of learning in either
of the universities."
It raay seera strange that the Parliaraent
should abolish the present establishraent before
they had agreed on another, but the Scots
W'ould not declare for them till they had done it.
Had the two houses been inclined lo presbytery
(as some have maintained), it would have been
easy to have adopted the Scots model at once ;

hut as the bill for extirpating episcopacy was
not lo take place till above a year forward, it
is apparent they were willing il should nut lake
place al all, if in that tune ihcy could come to
an accomraodation wUh the king ; and if iho
breach should then rciiuiMi, tlicy proposed lo
consult w ilh an assembly of divines what form
to erect in its stead. Thus the old English hie
rarchy lay prostrate for about eighteen yens,
although never legaUy abolished for want of ihi-
royal assent; and therefore, at the restoration
ofKing Charles II., it took place again, wiihout
any new law lo restore it ; which the Presby
terians, who were then in the saddle, not under
standing, did not provide agamst as Ihey might
While the king and Parliaraent were thus
strengthening themselves, and calling in sever
ally aU the succours they could get, the scene
of the war began to open ; his majesty travelled
w Ith a large retinue into several of the northern
and western counties, siiinraoning the people
together, and in set speeches endeavouring to
possess them of the justice of his cause, prom
ising, upon the word of a king, that for the fu
ture he would govern by law. Upon this assu
rance, about forty lords, and several members
who had deserted*' the House of Commons, sign
ed an engagement to defend his majesty's per
son and prerogative, to support the Protestant
religion established by law, and not to submit
to any ordinance of ParUament concerning the
militia that had not the royal assent. Great
numbers listed in his majesty's service, whereby
an army was forraed, which marched a second
tirae to the siege of Hull.
* Bishop Warburton censures Mr. Neal for using
the word "deserted," " which," he says, "isaiiarty
word, and implies betraying the.ir trust." His lord
ship owns that the conduct of the members, who left
the House and retired 10 the king, was so called by
the Parliament ; but an historian's adopting, m this
case, the term which impeaches their fidelity, he
considers " taking for granted the thing in dispute,"
But, with his lordship's leave, his stricture contounds
the province of the historian with that of the mere
chronologist. The former does not merely detail
events, but investigates their causes, and represents
their connexion and influence. It is not easy to say
how he can do this, without forming and expressing
a decided opinion on them. That opinion floes not
bind the reader, nor is the impartiality of the histo
rian violated, if facts are fairiy and fully stated. In
the case before us, it may be farther urged, that Ihe
word "deserted" not only conveyed Mr.aNeal's idea '
of the conduct of the members who left the Parlia.
ment, but truly represented it. They forsook the
scats to vvhich they were elected ; they left the post
which was assigned to ihem ; and they withdrew
from the stage of debate and action, lo which the
king's writ .had called, and to which the voice
of their constituents had sent them. They were
representatives, chosen to act in conjunction witli
the other representatives : instead of proceeding on
this principle, they formed a separate junto and fac.
tion. The first duty of a representative is to fulfil
the trust reposed in him, 'The word "deserted,"
says his lordship, is a party word : grant it. Yet the
use of it was not inconsistent with the impartiaht)
of the historian : for though it should not give the
most favourable idea of the conduct of these mem-
bcrs, it conveys the judgment which the Parliament
lid'l of it ; and of the rectitude of this judgment ihe
reader is still leftto form hi.- own scntiiin-uts. The
mailer at the lime was considered in the most seri
ous light, and greatly alarmed and diBtrc^scd aU who
loied the peace of the nation. — See May's Parlia
mentary History, p. 58, &c. — Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

423

A week after the king was set down before
this fortress, and not before [July 12] the two
houses, after long debates, came to this resolu
tion, that an array should be raised for the de
fence of the king and Parliaraent, that the Earl
of Essex should be captain-general, and the
Earl of Bedford general of the horse, who were
empowered lo resist and oppose with force all
such whom they should find in arms, putting in
execution the king's coraraission of array. The
reasons of this resolution arising frora the king's
extraordinary preparations for war, were pub
lished at the sarae time ; and in their declara
tion of August 4, they say, " that ihey would
have yielded up everything to the king, could
they have been assured that by disarming thera
selves they should not have been left naked,
while the mUitary sword was in the hands of
those evil counsellors who, they had reason to
fear, had vowed the destruction of the two hous
es, -and, through their sides, of the Protestant
religion ; but, being well acquainted with their
designs, they apprehend that their duty to God
and their country obliges thera to hazard every
thing for the maintenance of the true religion,
the king's person, honour, and estate, and the
liberties of England." On the 9th of August
the king proclaimed the Eari of Essex and all
his adherents traitors, unless they laid down
their arras within six days ; and in another
manifesto declared both houses of Parliament
guilty of high treason, and forbid all his subjects
to yield obedience to thera. The Parliament,
also, on their part, proclaimed all who adhered
to the king in this cause traitors against the
Parliament and the kingdom.* August la, the
king by proclamation commanded all his sub
jects on the north of Trent, and within twenty
miles south of it, to appear in arras for the sup
pressing the rebels that were raarching against
him ; and about the same tirae issued out an
other proclaraation, requiring all men who could
bear arras to repair to him at Nottingham, where
he intended to set up his standard on Monday,
August 22. In the raean time, his majesty gave
out new commissions to augment his forces,
and marching through Lincoln, took away the
arms of the train-bands for the use of" his troops.
At length, being arrived at the appointed place,
he caused his standard to be erected in the open
field, on the outside of the castle wall, at Not
tingham, but very few came to attend it ; and
the weather proving stormy and tempestuous, it
was blown down the same evening, and could
not be fixed again in two days. Three weeks
after this [Septeraber 9], the Earl of Essex, the
Parliament's general, left London, to put him
self at the head of their army of fifteen thousand
men at St. Alban's. The king, with an array of
equal strength, marched frora Nottingham to
Shrewsbury, and having refreshed his forces
there for some time, broke up October 12, in or
der to march directly for London ; but the Earl
of Essex putting hiraself in the way, both
armies engaged at EdgehiU, near Keinton, in
?Varwickshire, on Sunday, October 23, the very
same day twelvemonth after the breaking out
of the Irish massacre ; the battle continued fi-om
three in the afternoon tUl night, with alraost
equal advantage, the nuraber of slain on both
sides being about four thousand. Thus the
* Rapin, vol. ii., p. 457, folio edition.

sword was drawn -which was drenched in the
blood of the inhabitants of, this island for sever
al years, to the loss of as raany Protestant lives
as perished by the insurrection and massacre of
Ireland.

CHAPTER XII.
THE STATE OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.  THE
RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF BOTH PARTIES,
WITH A SUMMARY OF TIIE .GROUNDS OF THE
CIVIL WAR.
We have already seen the unsettled state of
religion Upon the king's progress into Scotland,
with the complaints of the Royalists for want of
decency and uniformity. The hierarchy had
for some time been a dead weight, the. springs
that raoved it being slopped by the iraprison
ment of the bishops and the check that was
given to the spiritual courts ; but,now the whole
fabric was taken down after a year, though
when that was expired no other discipline was
erected in its room ; nor was the narae, style,
and dignity of archbishops and bishops taken
av\'ay by ordinance of Parliaraent tiU Septera
ber 5, 1646, that is, tUl the war was over, and
the king a prisoner. In this interval there
was prpperly no established forra of govern
ment, the clergy being permitted to read more
or less of the liturgy as th^y pleased,* and to
govern their parishes according to their dis
cretion. The vestments were left indifferent,
sorae wearing them, and others, in imitation of
the foreign Protestants, raaking use of a oloak.
February 2, 1642-3, the Commons ordered that
the statute of the University of Cambridge,
which imposes the use of the surplice upon all
students and graduates, should not be pressed,
as being against the la-^Y and liberty of the sub
ject ; and three days after, th^y made the same
order for the schools of Westminster, Eton,
and Winchester. Bishop Kennet says that
tithes were denied to those who read common
prayer ; and it is as true, that they were with
held from those that did not read it ; for many,
taking advantage ofthe confusion ofthe tiraes,
eased theraselves of a burden for which sorae
few pleaded conscience, and others the uncer
tain title of those that clairaed thera.
Though the Parliament and Puritan clergy
were averse to cathedral-worship, that is, to a
variety of musical instruments, choristers, sing
ing of prayers, anthems, &c., as unsuitable to
the solemnity and simplicity of Divine service,
yet was it not prohibited ; and though the rev
enues of prebendaries and deans, &c., had been
voted luseless, and more fit to be applied to the
maintenance of preaching ministers, yet the
stipends of those who did not take part with
the king were not sequestered tUl the latter
end of the year 1645, when it was ordained,
" that the deans and prebendaries of Westmin
ster who absented themselves, or were delin-
* Here, as Dr. Grey observes, is an inaccuracy.
The use of the liturgy was not permitted during the
whole of this interval, as appears by Mr. Neal's own
account, vol. iii. ; for it was prohibited, and the di
rectory estabhshed in its room, previously to the
abolition of the episcopal titles and dignity, by ordi
nances of ParUament on the 3d of January, 1644-!'J
and 23d of August, 1645.— Ed.

424

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS

quents, or bad not taken the covenant, should i
be suspended from their several offices and
places, except Mr. Osbaldeston ," but the
names, lilies, and offices of deans and chapter^
were nol abolished liU alter the king's death, in
the year 1649. the Pariiaraent proceeding with
some caution as long as there was any pros
pect of an accoinmodaiion with the king In
deed, the beauty of the cathedrals was in some
measure defaced about this lime, by the ordi
nance for the removing crucifixes, iraages. pic
tures, and other monuments of superstition, ont
of churches. .Many fine paintings in the win- ;
dows and on the walls were broken and de- |
stroyed, wiihout a decent repair of the damage.
In Lambeth- Chapel the organ was taken down
[November 25], The following summer, the
paintings, pictures, superstitious ornaments.
and iraages were ilelai cJ or reraoved out of
the Cathedrals of Canterbury, Rochester, Chi- :
Chester, Winchester, Worcester. Lincoln, Litch- '
field, Salisbury, Gloucester, St Paul's in Lon
don, the CuUegiate Church of Westminster.
&C- " But," says my author, "1 do not find j
that they then seized the revenues and estates
of the cathedrals, but contented themselves
with plundering and imprisoning some of the
principal raembers, and dispersing raany of the ^
rest ; and several of those places coraiqg after
ward into his raajesty's bands, the service did ,
nol whoUy cease, nor were the doors of those j
stalely fabrics finaUy closed at that time," |
Though the discipline of the Church was at
an end, there was, nevertheless, an uncomraon <
spirit of devotion araong the people in the Par- '¦
liaraenl quarters ; the Lord's Day was observed ;
wilh reraarkable strictness, the churches being
crowded wilh numerous and attentive hearers j
three or four tiraes in the day ; the officers of 1
the peace patrolled tha streets and shut up all j
public-houses ; there was no traveUing on the I
road, or waUcing in the fields, except in cases '
of absolute necessity. Religious exercises were |
set up in private families, as reading the Scrip- 1
tures, family prayer, repeating serraons, and
singing of psalms, which was so universal that
you raight walk through the city of London on
the evening of the Lord's Day without seeing
an idle person, or hearing anything but the voice
of prayer or praise from churches and private
houses. .'^s is usual in times of public calamity, so at
the breaking out of the civU war, aU public di
versions and recreations were laid aside. By
an ordinance of September 2, 1642, it was de
clared, that " whereas public sports do not agree
with public calamities, nor public stage-plays
with the seasons of huraUialion, this being an
exercise of sad and pious soleranity, the other
being spectacles of pleasure too commonly ex
pressing lascivious rnirlh and levity, il is there
fore ortlained that, while these sad causes
and set times of humUiation continue, pubUc
stage-plays shall cease and be forborne; in
stead of which are recommended to the people
of this land the profitable duties of repentance,
and making their peace wilh God."*

- Rushworth, vol ii, part iii., p. 1. Il is worthy
of notice how decorous and truly respectable are all
the public acts of the Parhament, andhow hule they
appear iiKe the productions of enthosiasts or fanat
ics. — C.

The set limes of hnmihalion mentioned in
the ordinanci- rclers lo the monthly (it-i ap
pointed by the king al the request oi the I'ar-
iiainrnt [January ¦<. 1641], on account of the
Irish insurrection and massacre, to be obscrvnl
every last Wcdnesilay in the month as long aa
the calamities of that nation should require ii
But when the king set up his standard al .N"l-
linghani, the two houses, apprehending that
England was now lo be the scat of war, pub
lished an ordinance for the more strict obser
vation of this fast, in order to implore a lliwne
bh-ssmg upon the consiillalions of Parliament,
and to deprecate the calamities ihat Ihreatencd
this nation. -Ml prc.ichers were enjoined lo
give notice of it from the pulpit the preceding
Lord's Day, and lo exhort llieir hearers U) a
solemn and religious observation of the whole
day. by a devout attendance on the service of
iJod in sorae church or chapel, by abstinence,
and by refraining from worldly business and
diversions all public-houses are likcw isc for
bid 10 sell any .sorts of liquors (except in cases
of necessity) till the public exercises and reli-
gious duties of the day were ended ; which
continued wilh little or no intermission Iron.
nine in the morning till four in the afternoon,
during which lime the people were at ihcir de
votions, and Ihe ministers engaged in one part
or other of Divine worship.
But, besides ihe monthly fast, the opening of
the war gave rise to another exercise of prayer
and exhortation lo repentance fur an hour
every morning in the week .Most of the citi
zens of London having some near relation or
friend in the army of the Earl of Essex, so
many biUs were sent up lo the pulpit every
Lord's Day for their preservation, that the min
ister had neither lime to read thera nor to rec
ommend their cases to God in prayer ; it was
therefore agreed, by some London divine--, to
separate an hour for this purpose every morn
ing, one half lo be spent in prayer, and the
other in a suitable exhortation to the people.
The Reverend Mr Case, minister of St .Mary
Magdalen, Milk-slreet, began il in his church
al seven in the raorning, and when it had con
tinued there a month, il was reraoved by turns
to other churches at a distance, for the accom
raodation of the several parts of the city, and
was caUed the raorning exercise. The service
was performed by divers ministers, ^nd earnest
intercessions were made, in ihe presence of a
numerous and crowded audience, for the wel
fare of the public as well as particular cases.
When the heat of the war was over it became
a casuistical lecture, and was carried on by
the rnost learned and able divines till tbe res
toration of King Charle.s II. Their sermons
were afterward published in several volumes
qnarto, under the title of the Morning Exer
cises,* each sermon being the resolution of
some practical case of conscience This lec-
* These Morning Exercises are now to be procuroi
but rarely; they consist of seven small quarto vol
umes, including a supplemental one, and are m great
demand. They are regarded as furnishing one of
the best compends of theology in the Enghsh lan
guage. No library of any pretensions should be
wiihout thi-i admirable w.jrk ; and aiihoij;.'h it is
very expensive, it wiU repay the own**! Tiie unri
valled volume on Popery is abuLl to be republished
at Boston. — C.

t'_.':jr.3.vi:ui oi utmiit'r ir.'in wi ^'nyui

¦Vy.liLJ AM 's{\ f r"l J^]> A/jVJ.

«,*»-

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

425

ture, though in a different form, is continued
among the Protestant Dissenters to this day.
Some time after, another morning lecture was
set up in the abbey-church of Westminster, be
tween the hours of six and eight, for the bene
fit of that part of the town, and especially of
the raembers of Parliament ; it was carried on
by Dr. Staunton, Mr. Nye, Marshal, Palmer,
Herle, Whitaker, and Hill, all raembers of tho
Assembly of Divines. In Short, there were
lectures and sermons every day in the week in
one church or another, which were well at
tended, and with great appearance of zeal and
affection. Men were not backward to rise be
fore day, and go to places of worship at a great
distance, for the benefit of hearing the Word of
God. Such was the devotion ofthe city of Lon
don and parts adj acent in these d angerous tiraes I
Nor was the reforraation of manners less re
markable ; the laws against vice and profane
ness were so strict, and so rigorously put in
execution, that wickedness was forced to hide
itself in corners. There were no gaming
houses, or houses of pleasure ; no profane
swearing,-drunkenness, or any kind of debauch
ery, to be seen or heard in the streets. It is
commonly said that the religion of these tiraes
was no better than hypocrisy and dissiraula-
tion ; and, without all doubt, there were nura
bers of men who made the form of godliness a
oloak to dishonesty ; nay, it is probable that
hypocrisy, and other secret immoralities, might
be the prevaUing sins of the age, all open vices
being suppressed ; but stUl I am persuaded that
the body ofthe people were sincerely reUgious,
and, -with all their faults, I should rejoice to
see, in our days, such an appearance of religion,
and aU kinds of vice and profaneness so effect
ually discountenanced.
If we go from the city to the camp of the
Earl of Essex, we shall find no less probity of
manners among them, most of his soldiers be
ing men who did not fight so much for pay as
for religion and the liberties of their country.
Mr. Whitelocke observes,* " that Colonel Crom-
weU's regiraent of horse were raost of thera
freeholders' sons, who engaged in the war upon
principles of conscience ; and that, being well
armed within by the satisfaction of their con
sciences, and without with good iron arras, they
would as one man stand firmly and charge des
perately." The sarae authort adds, "that Col
onel Wilson, who was heir to an estate of
i!2000 a year, and was the only son of his fa
ther, put hiraself at the head of a gaUant regi
ment of citizens, who listed themselves in the
Parliament's service purely upon conscience ;
this," says he, " was the condition of raany
others also of like quality and fortune in those
times, who had such an affection for their reli
gion, and the rights and liberties of their coun
try, that pro aris et focis they were willing to
undergo any hardships or dangers, and thought
no service too rauch or too great for their coun
try." The most eminent divines served as
chaplains to the several regiments ; Dr. Bur
ges and Mr. Marshall were chaplains to the
Earl of Essex'fe regiment ; Dr. Downing to
Lord Roberts's ; Mr. Sedgwick to Colonel Hol-
Us's ; Dr. Spurstow to Mr. Hampden's ; Mr.
Aske to Lord Brooks's, &c. WhUe these con-

* Memorials, p. 68.
Vol. I.-:H h h

t Ibid., p. 72.

tinued, none of the enthusiastic follies, that
were afterward a reproach to the army, discov
ered themselves. There were among them
some who afterward joined the sectaries ; sorae
who were mercenaries, and (if we raay believe
his majesty's deelaration after the battle of
EdgehiU) some who were disguised papists ;
but, upon the whole. Lord Clarehdon confesses,
there was an exact discipline in the army ; that
they neither plundered nor robbed the country ;
all complaints of this kind being redressed in
the best manner, and the offenders punished.
The Rev. Mr. Baxter, who was himself in the
array, gives this account of thera :* "The gen
erality of those people throughout England who
went by the name of Puritans, Precisians, Pres
byterians, who followed sermons, prayed in
their farailies, read books of devotion, and were
strict observers of the Sabbath, being avowed
eneraies to swearing, drunkenness, and all
kinds of profaneness, adhered to the Parlia
raent : with these were mixed some young
persons of warm heads and enthusiastic prin
ciples, who laid the foundation of those sects
and divisions which afterward spread over the
whole nation, and were a disgrace to the cause
which the Parliaraent had espoused. Of the
clergy, those who were of -the sentiments of
Calvin, who were constant preachers of the
Word of God themselves, and encouragers of it
in others ; who were zealous against popery,
and wished for a reformation of the discipline
of the Church, were on the Parliament's side.
Among these were some of the elder clergy,.
who were preferred 'before the rise of Arch
bishop Laud ; all the deprived and silenced
ministers, with the whole body of lecturers and
warm popular preachers both in town and
country ; these drew after them great numbers
of the more serious and devout people, who
were not capable of judging between the king
and Parliaraent, but followed their spiritual
guides frora a veneration that they had for their
integrity and piety. Many went unto the Par
liaraent, and filled up their armies afterward,.
merely because they heard men swear for the
coramon prayer and bishops, and heard others
pray that were against them : because they
heard the king's soldiers, with horrid oaths,
abuse the narae of God, and saw them live in
debauchery, while the Parliament soldiers flock
ed to sermons, talked of. religion, and prayed
and sung psalras together on tlieir guards. And
all the sober raen that I was acquainted with,
who were against the Parliament," says Mr.
Baxter, " used to say the king had the better
cause, but the Parliament had the better raen. "t
The Puritan [or Parliament] clergy were
zealous Calvinists, and having been prohibited
for some years from preaching against the Ar
minians, they now pointed all their artillery
against them, insisting upon little else in their

* Baxter's Life, p. 26, 31, 33, &c., fol.
t To the authorities quoted by Mr. Neal, Bishop
Warburton opposes that of Oliver CromweU, who, in
his speech to his Parliament, represented the Presby
terian armies of the ParUament as chiefly made up,
before the self-denying ordinance, of decayed " serv
ing-men, broken tapsters, and men without any sense
of religion ; and that it was his business to inspire
that spirit of reUgion into his troops on the reform, to
oppose the principle of honour in the king's troops,.
made up of gentlemen." — Ed.

126

11 1 .s T O R Y OF THE PURITANS.

sermons but the doctrine."; of predestination,
justil.calion by f.uth alone, salvation hy free
grace, andnhe inahility of man lo do that which
is good. The duties ol the second table were loo
much neglected ; from a strong aversion to .\r-
minianism, these divines, unhappily, made way
for Antinoraianisni, verging from one extreme
to another, till, at length, some of lire weaker
sort were lost in the wild mazes of enthusias
tic dreams and visions, and others, frora false
principles, pretended lo justify the hidden works
of dishonesty. The Assembly of Divines did
what they could to put a stop to the growth of
these pernicious errors ; but the great scarcity
of preachers of a learned education, who took
part wilh the Parliament, left some pulpits in
the country empty, and the people to be led
aside, in many places, by every bold pretender
to inspiration.
" The generality ofthe stricter and more dil
igent sort of preachers," says Mr. Baxter, "join
ed the Parliament, and took shelter in their
garrisons ; but they were alraost all conforma
ble ministers ; the laws and the bishops having
cast out the Nonconformists long enough be
fore, and not left above two in a county :
those who made up the Asserably of Divines,
and who, through the land, were the honour of
the Parliaraent party, were alraost all such as
tUl then had conformed, and took the cererao
nies to be lawful in cases of necessity, but
longed to have that necessity removed." He
admits " that the younger and less experienced
ministers in the country were against amend
ing the bishops and liturgy, apprehending this
was but gUding over their danger ; but that
this was not the sense of the Parliament, nor
of their principal divines. The raatter of bish
ops or no bishops," says he, " was not the
main thing, except with the Scots, for thou
sands that wished for good bishops were on the
Parliaraent side. Almost all those afterward
called Presbyterians, and all that learned and
pious synod at Westminster, except a very few,
had been Conformists, and kept up an honour
able esteem for those hishops that they thought
religious, as Archbishop Usher, Bishop Dave
nant, HaU, Moreton, &e. These would have
heen content with an araendraent of the hierar
chy, and went into the ParUament because
they apprehended the interests of religion and
civil liberty were on that side."*
But the political principles of these divines
gave the greatest disgust to the Royalists ; they
encouraged the people to stand by the Parlia
ment, and preached up the lawfulness of de
fending their religion and liberties against the
king's evil counsellors. They were for a limit
ed monarchy, agreeable to our present happy
Constitution, for which, and for what they ap
prehended the purity of the Protestant religion,
they contended, and for nothing more ; hut for
this they have suffered in their moral charac
ter, and have been left upon record as rebels,
traitors, enemies to God and their king, &c.-f
His majesty, in one of his declarations, caUs
them 'I ignorant in learning, turbulent and sedi
tious in disposition, scandalous in life, uncon
formable to the laws of the land, libellers, revi-

I ler? bolh of Church and .st.iie, and preachers of
I sedition and treason itself" Ixird Clarendon
j says, "that under the notion of reformation,
1 and cxlirpaling popery, ihcy infused seditious
inclinations into the hearts of men iigainst the
present government of the I liurch and .Slate,
that when the army was raised llie.\ ooiilained
themselves within no bounds, and inveighed as
freely against the person of tho king as ihey
had before against the worse malignanls, pro
fanely and blasphemously applying what had
been spoken by the prophets against the most
wicked and impious kings, to stir up the people
against their most gracious sovereign." His
lordship adds, " that the Puritan clergy were
the chief incendiaries, and had the chief infiu
ence in proraoting the civil war. The Kirk
reformation in Scotland and in this kingdom,"
says his lordship, " was driven on by no men
so much as those of their clergy ; and, wiihout
doubt, the Archbishop of Canterbury never had
such an influence over the councils at court as
Dr. Burges and ^Mr. Marshal had then on the
houses ; nor did'all the bishops of Scotland to
gether so much meddle in temporal affairs as
Mr, Henderson had done."*
Strange I when the Scots bishopS were ad
vanced to the highest posts of honour and civU
trust in that kingdom, and when Archbishop
Laud had the direction of aU public affairs in
England for twelve years together. Was not
the archbishop at the head of the councU-table,
the Star Chamber, and the Court of High Cora
raission 1 Was not his grace the contriver or
promoter of all the monopolies and oppressions
that brought on the civil war 1 What could the
Puritan clergy do like this 1 Had Ihey any pla
ces of profit or trust under the governraent, or
any coraraissions in the ecclesiastical courts'!
Did they amass to themselves great riches or
large estates 1 No ; they renounced all civil
power and jurisdiction, as well as lordly titles
and dignities, and were, for the most part, con
tent with a very moderate share of the world.
If they served the Parliament cause, il was in
visiting their parishioners, and by their sermons
from the pulpits : here they spent their zeal,
praying and preaohing as men who were in
earnest for what they apprehended the cause
of God and their country. But it is easy to
remark, that the noble historian observes no
measure with the Puritan clergy when they fall
in his way.
Nor were the Parliament divines the chief
incendiaries between the king and people, if we
may believe Mr. Baxter, who knew the Puri
tans of those times rauch better than bis lord
ship. " It is not true,'' says this divine,t " that
they stirred up the people to war ; there was
hardly one such man in a county, though they
disliked the late innovations, and were glad the
Parliaraent were atterapting a reformation."
They might inveigh too freely in their sermons
against the vices of the clergy and the severi
ties of tbe late l;imes, but in aU the first ser
mons that 1 have read,!: for some years after

* Baxter's Life, p. 33, 35, 37.
t Husband's Collections, p. 514, &c.

* Vol. i., p. 302. t Baxter's Life, p. 34.
X Dr. Grey, who mistakes this for the assertion of
Baxter instead of Mr. Neal, opposes to it his own re
mark on the fast-sermons between the year 1640 and
the death of the king : from which, he says, he could
produce hundreds of instances for the disproof of

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

427

the beginning of the war, I have met with no
reflections upon the person of the king, but a
religious observation of that political maxim.
The king can do no wrong.
His lordship adds, that " they profanely and
blasphemously applied what had been spoken
by the prophets against the most wicked and
raost impious kings, to stir up the people against
their most gracious sovereign. If this were
really the case, yet the king's divines came not
behind them jn applying the absolute dominion
ofthe kings of Judah in support ofthe unbound
ed prerogatives of the kings of England, and in
cursing the Parliament, and pronouncing dam
nation upon all who died in their service. I
could produce a large catalogue oT shocking ex
pressions to this purpose, but I wish such of-
Jences buried in oblivion, and we onght not to
form our judgments of great bodies of men frora
the excesses of a few.
We shall have an opportunity hereafter tp
compare the learning of the Puritan divines*
-with the Royalists, when it wiU appear that
there were men of no less erainence for litera
ture with the Parliaraent than with the king, as
the Seldens, the Lightfoots, the Cudworths, the
Pococks, the Whichcotes, the Arrowsmiths,
&c. ; but as to their morals, their very adver
saries wUl witness for them. Dr. G. Bates, an
eminent Royalist, in his Elenchus, gives them
this character : " Moribus severis essent, in
•concionibus veheraentes, preeibus et piis officiis
prompti, uno verbo ad caetera boni," i. e., " They
were men of severe and strict morals, warm
and affectionate preachers, fervent in prayer,
ready to all pious offices, and, in a word. Other
wise [that is, abating their political principles]
.good men," And yet, with aU their goodness,
they were unacquainted with the rights of con
science, and when they got the spiritual sword

what is said above. As a specimen, he quotes many
passages from sermons of the most popular and lead
ing men of those times. Some of these passages, it
appears to me, point strongly at the king, and go to
prove that royal personages are amenable for evil
conduct. But, besides that they are g^ven detached
iroin their connexion, it is to be considered, that if
Mr Neal had read the same discourses, they would
affect his mind differently from what they did Dr.
Grey, who, through all his animadversions, appears
to have looked upon Charles as an immaculate
prince, and to have been a disciple to the advocates
for passive obedience and nonresistance. — Ed.
* Mr. Neal is here charged with contradicting
' what he had said p. 159, where he speaks of "the
great scarcity of preachers of a learned education."
This is said when Mr. Neal is representing the diffi
culty the Assembly of Divines had to supply the pul
pits through the country. This might be the case
when speaking ofthe kingdom at large, and yet there
jqight be some of no less eminence for literature than
-any^who sided with the king. Mr. Neal gives the
names of such ; but Bishop Warburton wUl not allow
that they were of the Parliament party : " the most
that can be said of them is," he adds, " that they sub
mitted to the power." But their acting with the As
sembly of Divines was certainly more than a sub
mission to power — it was talcing a lead in the affairs
of the ParUament ; this, if the cause had been repug
nant to their principles, they might, and as honest
men would, have declined doing, as did Bishop Ush
er, Dr. Holdsworth, and the other Episcopalian di
vines, who were also chosen to attend the assembly,
but who stayed away frora it, because it was not, in
their opinion, a legal convocation. — Ed.

into their hands, managpd it very little better
than their predecessors the bishops.*
The clergy who espoused the king's cause
were the bench of bishops, the while body of
the cathedral, and the major part of the paro
chial clergy, with the heads and raost ofthe fel
lows of both universities, among whom were
men of t/fB first rank for learning, politeness,
piety, ana probity of manners, as Archbishop
Usher, Bishop Hall, Moreton, Westfield, Brown
rigge, Prideaux, Dr. Hammond, Saunderson,
&c., who joined the king, not merely for the
sake of their preferments, but beeause they be
lieved the unlawfulness of subjects resisting
their sovereign in any case whatsoever. Araong
the parochial clergy were men of no less name
and character. Lord Clarendont says, "that
if the sermons of those tiraes preached at court
were collected together and published, the world
would receive the best bulk of orthodox divin
ity, profound learning, convincing reason, nat
ural, powerful eloquence, and adrairable devo
tion, that hath been cora'hiunioated in any age
since the apostles' time." And yet, in the very
same page, he adds, "There was - soraetiraes
preached there raatter very unfit for the place,
and scandalous for the persons." I submit this
paragraph to the reader's judgment ; for I must
confess, that after having read nver several of
these court-sermons, I have not been able to
discover all that learning and persuasive elo
quence which his lordship adraires ; nor can
much be said for their orthodoxy, if the Thirty-
nine Artieles be the standard. But whatever
decency was observed at court, there was hard
ly a sermon preached by the inferior clergy
within the king's quarters, wherein the Parlia
ment divines were not severely exposed and
ridiculed under the character of Puritans, Pre
cisians, Formalists, Sabbatarians, canting hyp
ocrites, &c. Such was the sharpness of men's
spirits on both sides !
Among the country clergy there was great
room for complaints, many of them being plu
ralists, nonresidents, ignorant and illiterate,
negligent of their cures, seldom or never visit
ing their parishioners, or discharging any more
of their function than would barely satisfy the
law. They took advantage ofthe Book of Sports
to attend their parishioners to their wakes and
revels, by which means raany of thera becarae
scandalously iramoral in their conversations.
Even Dr. Walker admits that there were among
thera men of wicked lives', and such as were a
reproach and scandal to their function ; the par
ticulars of which had better have been buried
than left upon record. t.
The comraon people that filled up the king's
array were of the looser sort ; and even the
chief officers, as Lord Goring, GranviUe, WU-
mot, and others, were men of profligate lives,
and 'made a jest of religion ; the private senti
nels were soldiers of fortune, and, not having
their regular pay, lived for the most part upon
free plunder. When they took possession of a
town, Ihey rifled the houses of all who were
called Puritans, and turned their famUies gut of
doors. Mr. Baxter says, " that when he "lived
at Coventry, after the battle of EdgehUl, there

f See also thetestimony of Wood and others. — C.
I- Vol. i.. n. 77.

-1 Vol. i., p. 77.
i Sufferings ofthe Clergy, p. 72.

4^

Hl^^TORY OF THE ITRITANS.

were above thirty worthy ministers in that city
who had fled thither for refuge from the soldiers
and popular furv, as he hiraself also had done,
though they had never raeddled in the wars.
Araong these were the Reverend Mr. Vines,
Mr .'Vnlhony Burgess, .Mr Burdal, Mr Broin-
shil. Dr. Bryan, Crew-, Craddock, and others
And here," says he, " 1 must repe^he great
cause of the Parliament's strength and of the
king's ruin : the debauched rabble, encouraged
by the gentry, and seconded by the coramon
soldiers of his army, took aU that were called
Puritans for their eneraies ; so that if any man
was noted for a strict and famous preacher, or
for a man of a precise and pious life, he was
plundered, abused, and put in danger of his life ;
if a man prayed in his family, or was heard to
repeat a sermon or sing a psaira, they present
ly cried out rebels, roundheads, and all their
raoney and goods proved guUty, however inno
cent they were themselves. Upon ray certain
knowledge, it was this that filled the armies
and garrisons of the Parliament wilh sober and
pious men. Thousands had no mind to meddle
in the wars, but to live peaceably at home, if
the rage of the soldiers and drunkards would
have suffered them. Some stayed at home tiU
they had been imprisoned ; some till they had
been plundered twice or thrice over, and had
nothing left ; others were quite tired out with
the insolence of their neighbours, with being
quartered upon, and put in continual danger of
their lives, and so they sought refuge in the
Parliament garrisons."*
This was so notorious, that at length it came
to the king's ear, who, out of mere compassion
to his distressed subjects, issued out a procla
mation, bearing date Noveraber 25, 1642, for
the betier governraent of his army ; the pream
ble of which sets forth, " that his majesty, hav
ing taken inlo his princely consideration the
great misery and ruin of his subjects, by the
plundering, robbing, and spoiUng of their hous
es, and taking from them their raoney, plate,
household-stuff, cattle, and other goods, under
pretence of their being disaffected to us and our
service, and these unlawful and unjust actions
done by divers soldiers of our array, and others
sheltering theraselves under that title ; his raaj
esty, detesting such barbarous proceedings, for
bids his officers and soldiers to make any such
seizures for the future without his warrant.
And if they go on to plunder and spoil the peo
ple, hy taking away Iheir money, plate, house
hold goods, oxen, sheep, or other cattle, or any
victuals, corn, hay, or other provisions, going to
or frora any market, without raaking satisfac
tion, his majesty orders them to be proceeded
against by martial law." This was as much as
the king could do in his present circumstances ;
yet it had very little effect, for his majesty hav
ing neither money nor stores for his army, the
officers could maintain no disciphne, and were
forced to connive at their living at free quarter
upon the people.
Thus this unhappy nation was miserably har
assed, and thrown into terrible convulsions hy
an unnatural civU war — the nobility and gentry,
with their dependants, being chiefly with the
king ; the merchants, tradesmen, substantial

farmers, and, in general, ihe middle ranks of
people, siding with the Parliament.
It is of little consequence to inipiire who be
gan this unnatural and bloody war. None will
blarae Iheni. on w hose part it w as just and una
voidable, for taking all necessary precautions ia
their defence, and making use of such advan
tages as Providence put into their hands to de
feat the designs of the enemy, and nothing can
excuse the other. His raajesty professed before
God to his nobles at York, that he had no in
tention lo make war upon his Parliament. And
in his last speech upon the scaffold, he affirms
•' that he did not begin a w.ir wilh the two hous
es of Parliament, but that they began with him
upon the point of the militia ; and if anybody
wiU look upon the dates of the dbmmlssions,"
says his majesty, " theirs and mine, they wiU
see clearly that they began these unhappy troub
les, and not I." Yet, with all due submissioa
to so great an authority, were the dates of com
missions for raising the militia the beginning of
the war 7 Were not the crown-jeWels first
pawned in HoUand, and arras, aramunition, and
artiUery sent over to the king at York? Did
not his majesty sumraon the gentlemen and
freeholders to attend him as an extraordinary
guard, in his progress in the North, and appear
before Hull in a ¦warlike manner, before the rais
ing the militia 1 Were not these warlike prep
arations? Dr, Welwood says, and I think aU
impartial judges must allow, that they look very
much that way. Mr. Echard is surprised that
" the king did not put himself into a posture of
defence sooner ;"* but he would have ceased
to wonder if he had remembered the words of
Lord fclarendon : " The reason why the king did
not raise forces sooner was, because he had nei
ther arms nor ammunition, and tiU these could
be procured from HoUand, let his provocations
and sufferings be what they would, he was to
submit and bear it patiently." It was, therefore,
no want of wiU, but mere necessity, that hin
dered the king's appearing in arms sooner than
he did. Father Orleans confesses that it was
agreed with the queen, in the cabinet-council
al Windsor, that while her majesty was negoti
ating in Holland, the king should retire to 'Vork,
and there make his first levies. He adds, "ihat
all mankind believed Ihat his majesty was under
hand preparing for war, that the sword might cut
asunder those knots he had made wilh his pin."
In order to excuse the unhappy king, who was
sacrificed in the house of his friends, a load of
guilt is with great justice laid upon the queen,
who had a plenUude of power over his majesty,
and could turn him about which way she pleased.
Bishop Burnet says, " that by the livehness of
her discourse she made great impressions upoa
the king ; so that to the queen's want of judg
ment, and the king's own temper, the sequel of
aU his misfortunes was owing."-! Bishop Ken
net adds, that " the king's match with the lady
was a greater judgment upon the nation than
the plague which then raged in the land ; and
that the influence of a stately queen over an af
fectionate husband proved very fatal bolh to
prince and people, and laid in a vengeance for
future generations." The queen was a great

* Baxter's Life, p. 44.

* Memoirs, p. 64.
t History of his Life and Times, vol. i, p. 39,
Scotch edition.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

bigot to her religion, and was directed by her
father confessor to protect the Roman Catho
lics, even to the hazard of the king's crown "and
¦dignity. Though his majesty usually consulted
her in all affairs of state, yet she sometimes
presumed to act without hira, and to make use of
his narae without his knowledge. " Il was the
queen that made all the great officers of state,"
says Lord Clarendon : " no preferments were
bestowed wUhout her allowance." She was
an eneray to ParUaraents, and pushed the king
upon the most arbitrary and unpopular actions,
to raise the English gqyernment to a level with
the French. It was the queen that countenan
ced the Irish insurrection ; that obliged the king
to go to the House of Commons and seize the
five members ; and that was at the head of the
council at Windsor, in which it was determined
to break with the Parliament -and prepare for
war; "This," says the noble historian, viz.,
the king's perfect adoration of his queen, his
resolution to do nothing without her, " and his
being inexorable as to everything he promised
her, were the root and cause of all other griev
ances. The two houses often petitioned the
king not to admit her majesty into his councils,
or to follow her advice in matters of state ;
but he was not to be moved from his too servile
regards to her dictates, even to the day of his
.death."* Sundry others of his majesty's privy councU
¦had their share in bringing on the calamities of
the war, though when it broke out they were
either dead, dispersed, or imprisoned ; as the
Duke of Buckingham, Earl of Strafford, .A.rch-
bishop Laud, Finch, Windebank, Noy, &c.
These had been the most busy actors at the
council-table, the Star Chamber, and Court of
High Coraraission, and were at the head of all
the monopolies and illegal projects that ensla
ved the nation for above twelve years, and
might have done it forever, had they been good
husbands of the public treasure, and not brought
upon themselves the armed force of a neigh
bouring nation. The politics of these statesmen
were very unaccountable, for as long as they
could subsist without a parliamentary supply,
they went on with their ship-money, court and
conduct money, raonopolies, and suchlike re
sources ofthe prerogative ; as soon as the Par
liament sat, these were suspended, in expecta
tion of a supply from the two houses, before
theyhad inquired into the late inroads upon the
Constitution ; but when they found this could
not be obtained, they broke up the Parliament
in disgust, fined and imprisoned the members
for their freedom of speech, and returned to
their former methods of arbitrary government.
All King Charies's Pariiaraents had been thus
* " Many passages have been quoted from his letters
to his queen, as proofs of his spiritless submission.
It was Charles's great misfortune, that he was too
easily wrought upon to follow the advice of others,
and frequently of persons less gifted than himself
Milton says of him, in his panegyric on Cromwell,
' 'Whether . with his enemies or his friends, in the
court or in the camp, he was always in the hands of
another ; now of his wife, then of the bishops ; now
ofthe peers, then of the soldiery ; and last, of his en
emies : that for the most part he foUowed the worser
counsels, and almost always of the worser men.^
There is as much justice as acrimony in this remark.
—Jesse's Courtof the Stuarts, vol. u., p. 69-70.— C.

429
dissolved, even to the present, which would,
undoubtedly, have been treated in the sarae
manner, had it not been for the Act of Contin
uation.* On the other hand, a spirit of English liberty
had been growing in the nation for sorae years,
and the late oppressions, instead of extinguish
ing it, had,only kept it underground, tiU, having
collected raore strength, it bnrst out with the
greater violence ; the patriots of the Constitu
tion watched all opportunities to recover it :
yet, when they had obtained a Pariiament by
the interposition of the Scots, they were dis
posed to take a severe revenge upon their late
oppressors, and to enter upon too violent meas
ures in order to prevent the return of power
into those hands that had so shamefully abused
it. The five merabers of the House of Cora
raons, and their friends who were concerned in
inviting the Scots into England, saw their dan
ger long before the king carae to the House to
seize thera, which put thera upon concerting
measures not only to restore the Constitution,
but to lay farther limitations upon the royal
power for a time, that they raight not be expo
sed to the mercy of an incensed prince, so soon
as he should be delivered from the present Par
liament. It is true, his majesty offered a gen
eral pardon at the breaking up of the session,
but these members were afraid to rely upon it,
because, as was said, there was no appearance
that his raajesty would govern by law for the
future, any raore than he had done before.
The king, being made sensible ofthe designs
and spirit of the Commons, watched all oppor
tunities to disperse them, and not being able to
gain his point, resolved to leave the two houses,
and act no longer in concert with thera, which
was, in effect, to deterraine their power ; for to
what purpose should they sit, if the king will
pass none of their biUs, and forbid his subjects
to obey any of their votes or ordinances till
they had received the royal assent ? It was
this that dismerabered and broke the Constitu
tion, and reduced the Parliament to this dilera-
raa, either to return home, and leave aU things
in the hands of the king and queen and their
late rainistry, or to act by theraselves, as the
guardians of the people, in a tirae of iraminent
danger : had they dissolved themselves, or stood
still while his majesty had garrisoned the strong
fortresses of Portsmouth and Hull, and got pos
session of all the arras, artUlery, and ammuni
tion of the kingdom ; had they suffered the fleet
to faU into his majesty's hands, and gone on
meekly petitioning for the militia, or for his maj
esty's return to his two houses of Parliament,
till the queen was returned with foreign recruits,
or the Irish at liberty to send his majesty suc
cours, both they and we must, in all probability.

* This act has been called " a violent breach of
the Constitution of this government :" but the author
who has cast this reproach on it also observes,
that "if this act had not' been obtained, perhaps it
would have been impossible to oppose the king's at
tempts with effect." On this ground, the " Act of
Continuation" has been called " an act of fideUty of
the representatives of the people to their constitu
ents ; an instance of the expedience and righteous
ness of recovering the violated Constitution, by
means not strictly justifiable when the times are
peaceable, and the curators of government just and
upright." — Memoirs of HoUis, vol. U., p. 591. — Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS

430
have been buried in the ruins ofthe liberties of
our counlrv. The two houses were not insen
sible of the risk they ran in crossing the meas
ures of their sovereign, under whose govern
ment they thought they were lo live, and who
had counsellors about him .who would not fail
to put hira upon the severest reprisals, as soon
as the sword ofthe kingdora should return into
his hands ; but they apprehended that their
own and the public safely was at stake ; and
that the king was preparing to act against thera,
by raising extraordinary guards lo his person,
and sending for arms and araraunilion frora
abroad ; therefore they ventured to make a
stand in their own defence, and to perform such
acts of sovereignty as were necessary to put it
out of the power of the court lo make thera a
sacrifice to the resentments of their eneraies.
But though in a just and necessary war it is
of Ultle moment to inquire who began it, it is,
nevertheless, of great consequence to consider
on which side the justice of it lies. Let us,
therefore, take a short view of the arguments
on the king's side, with the Parliament's reply.
1. It was argued by the Royalists, " that all
grievances, both real and imaginary, were re
moved by the king's giving up ship-money, by
his abolishing the Court of Honour, the Star
Charaber, and High Commission, and by his
giving up the bishops' votes in Parliament."
The Pariiament writers own these to be very
important concessions, though far from com
prehending aU the real grievances of the na
tion. The queen was still at the head of his
majesty's councils, without whose approbation
no considerable affairs of government were
transacted. None of the authors of the late
oppressions had been brought to justice except
the Earl of Strafford, and it is more than prob
able, if the Parliament had been dissolved, they
would not only have been pardoned, but re
stored to favour. Though bishops were de
prived of their seats in Parliament, yet the de
fects in the public service, of which the Puri
tans complained, were almost untouched, nor
were any effectual measures taken to prevent
the growth of popery, which threatened the ruin
of the Protestant religion.
2, It was argued farther, " that the king had
provided against any future oppressions of the
subjects by consenting to the act for triennial
Pariiaraents." To this it was replied, that the Triennial Act,
in the present situation of the court, was not a
sufficient security of our laws and liberties ; for
suppose at the end of three years, when the
king was in full possession of the regal power,
having aU the forts and garrisons, arras and
ammunition of the kingdom at his disposal,
with his old rainistry about hira, the council
should declare that the necessity of his raajes
ty's affairs obliged him to dispense with the
'Triennial Act, what sheriff of a county, or
other officer, would venture to put it in execu
tion! Besides, had not the king, from this
very principle, suspended and broke through
the laws of the land for twelve years together
before the meeting of this ParUament 1 And
did not his raajesty yield to the new laws
with a manifest reluctance? Did he not affect
to caU thera acts of grace, and not of justice 1
* Clarendon, vol. i., p 202.

Were nol .some of Ihem extorted frora him by
such arguiiicius as these: •' that his consent to
Ihcin being forced, they were in themselves in-
vahd, and might be avoided in heltcr limes f
Lord Cl.irendon says' he had reason lo believe
this ; and if his lordship believed it, I cannot
see how it can reasonably be lalleil in ques
tion. Bishop Burnet is of the same mind, and
declares, in the History of his Life and Times,
" that his raajesty never c;irae into his conces
sions seasonably, nor with a good grace ; alt
appeared to be extorted frora him; and there
were grounds to believe' that he intended not
to stand to thera any longer than he lay under
that force that visibly drew Ihem upon him,
contrary to his own inclinations." To aU which
we may may add the words of Father Orleans,
the Jesuit, who says, " that all mankind be
lieved at that time that the king did not grant
so much but in order to revoke aU."t
3. It was said " that the king had seen his
mistake, and had since vowed and protested, in
the most solemn raanner, that for the future he
would govern according to law."
To this it was replied, that if the petition of
right, so soleranly ratified from the throne in
presence of both houses of Parliament, was so
quickly broke through, what dependance could
be had upon the royal proraise 1 For though
the king himself might be a prince of virtue
and honour, yet his speeches,' says Mr. Rapin,
were full of ambiguities and secret reserves,
that left room for different interpretations ; be
sides, many things were transacted without his
knowledge, and, therefore, so long as the queen
was at the head of his counsels, they looked
upon his royal word only as the proraise of a
rainor, or of a raan under superior direction,.
which was the raost favourable interpretation
that could be made of the many violations of it
in the course of fifteen years. " The queen,
who was directed by popish counsels," says
Bishop Burnet, " could, by her sovereign power,
make the king do whatsoever she pleased."
4. It was farther urged, "that the Parliament
had invaded the royal prerogative, and usurped
the legislative power, without his majesty's
consent, by claiming the militia, and the appro
bation of the chief officers, both civil and mili
tary, and by requiring obedience to their votes
and ordinances."
This the two houses adraitted, and insisted
upon it as their right, in cases of necessity and
extrerae danger, of which necessity and dan
ger they, as the guardians of the nation, and
two parts in three of Legislature, were the
proper judges : " The question is not," say
they, " whether the king be the fountain of jus
tice and protection, or whether the execution
of the laws belongs primarily to himi But if
the king shaU refuse to discharge that duty and
trust, and shall desert his Parliament, and, in a
manner, abdicate the government, whether there
be not a power in the two houses to provide for
the safety and peace of the kingdoml or, if
there be no Parliament sitting, whether the na
tion does not return to a stale of nature, and is
not at liberty to provide for its own defence by
extraordinary methods'!" This seems to have

* Clarendon, vol. i., p. 430.
+ History of his Own Times, vol. i., p. 40, Edin
burgh.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

431'

been the case in the late glorious revolution
of King WiUiara and Queen Mary, when the
Constitution being broken, a convention of the
nobility and coramonalty was sumraoned with
out the king's writ, to restore the religion and
liberties of the people, and place the crown
upon another head.
5. The king, on his part, maintained that
" there was no danger from hira, but that all
the danger was from a malignant party in the
Parliament, who were subverting the constitu
tion in Church and State. His majesty averred
that God and the laws had intrusted him with
the guardianship and protection of his people,
and that he would take such care of them as
he should he capable of answering for it to
God." With regard to dangers and fears, the Parlia
ment appealed to the whole world whether there
were not just grounds for them, after his maj
esty had violated the petition of right, and at
tempted to break up the present Parliaraent, by
bringing his army to London ; after he had en-
tered'their house with an armed force to seize
five of their members ; after he had deserted
his Parliament, and resolved to act no longer in
concert with them ; after his majesty had be
gun to raise forces under pretence of an extra
ordinary guard to his person, and endeavoured
to get the forts and ammunition ofthe kingdom
into his possession, against the time when he
should receive supplies from abroad ; after they
had seen the dreadful effects of a bloody and
unparalleled insurrection and massacre of the
Protestants in Ireland, and were continually
alarmed with the increase and insolent beha
viour of the papists at home ; and, lastly, after
~ they had found it impracticable, by their most
humble petitions and reraonstrances, to reraove
the qaeen and her cabal of papists from the di
rection of the king's councils ; after aU these
things (say they), " we must maintain the
gitounds of our fears to be of that moment, that
we cannot discharge the trust and duty which
lie upon us, unless we do apply ourselves to the
use of those means which God and the laws
have put into our hands for the necessary de
fence and safety of the kingdom."*
There were certainly strong, and perhaps
unreasonable jealousies and apprehensions of
danger on both sides. The king complained
that he was driven from Whitehall by popular
turaults, where neither his person nor famUy
could remain in safety. He was jealous (as he
said) for the laws and liberties of his people,
and was apprehensive that his Parliament in
tended to change the Constitution, and wrSst
the sceptre and sword out of his royal hands.
On the other side, the two houses had their
fears and distrusts of their own and the public
safety ; they were apprehensive that if they put
the forts and garrisons, and all the strength of
the kingdom, into his majesty's power as soon
as they were dissolved, he, by the influence of
his queen and his old counseUors, would return
to his maxims of arbitrary government, and
never call another Parliaraent ; that he would
take a severe revenge upon those merabers
who had exposed his measures and disgraced
his rainisters ; and, in a word, that he would
break through the late laws, as having been ex-

* Rapin, p. 468.

torted frora him hy force or violence ; hut it
was very much in the king's power, even at the
treaty of Uxbridge in 1644-5, to have removed
these distrusts, and thereby have saved both
himself, the Cliurch, and the nation ; for, as
the noble historian observes, "the Parliaraent
took none of the points of controversy less to
heart, or were less unfted in anything, than in
what concerned the Church."* And with re
gard to the State, that " many of them were for
peace, provided they raight have inderanity for
what was past, and security for time to corae."
Why, then, were not this inderanity and secu
rity offered'! which must necessarily have di
vided the Parliamentarians, and obliged the
most rigorous and violent to recede from their
high and exorbitant deraands, and, by conse
quence, have restored the king to the peacea
ble possession of his throne.
Upon the whole, if we beUeve with the noble-
historian, and the writers on his side, " that the
king was driven by violence from his palace at
Whitehall, and could not return with safety ;
that all real and imaginary grievances of Church
and State were redressed ; and that the king
dom was sufficiently secured from all future in
roads of popery and arbitrary power by the
laws in being," then the justice and equity of
the war were most certainly with the king-
Whereas, if we believe " that the king volunta
rily deserted his Parliaraent, and that it was
owing alone to his majesty's own pereraptory
resolution that he would not return (as Lord
Clarendon adraits) ; if by this means the Con
stitution was brolten, and the ordinary courts
of justice necessarily interrupted ; if there were
sundry grievances still to be redressed, and the
king resolved to shelter hiraself under the laws
in being, and to raake no farther concessions ;
if there were just reasons to fear," with Bishop
Burnet and Father Orleans, that the king " would
abide by the late laws no longer than he was-
under that force that brought them upon hira ;"
in a word, " if, in the judgraent of the Lords and
Commons, the kingdora was in irarainent dan
ger of the return of popery and arbitrary power,
and his raajesty would not condescend so rauch
as to a temporary security for their satisfac
tion," then we must conclude that the cause
ofthe Parliaraent at the commencement of the
war, and for sorae years after, was not only
justifiable, but comraendable and glorious ; es
pecially u we believe their own most solemn
protestation,! in the presence of Almighty God,
to the kingdora and to the world, " that no pri
vate passion or respect, no evil intention to his
majesty's person, no designs to the prejudice
of his just honour or authority, had engaged
them to raise forces, and take up arras against
the authors of this war in which the kingdom
is inflamed. "t

* "Vol. u., p. 581, 594. .
t Rushworth, vol; u., part iu., p. 26.
X Bishop Warburton grants that " Charles was a
man of ill faith;" irom whence arose the question,
" Whether he was to bp trusted ? Here," he adds,
" we must begin to distinguish. It was one thing
whether those particulars, who had personally of
fended the king, in the manner by which they ex
torted this amends from liim ; and another, whether
the public, on all principlas of civU government,
ought not to have sat down satisfied. 1 think par
ticulars could not safely take his word, and that the

432

HISTORY OF TIIE PURITAN:

publir could not honcsilv refuse it. You wdl say,
then, tho lendi-r-< in Parlmment were ju-.li lied m their
mistrust. Here, again, wc must distinguish. Had
thov.been pnvaic men, w c should nol dispute it. Bui
they liore another character ; they wcro represents.
lives of ihi public, and should, thcnlorc, have acted
in Ihol capaciii " Some w ill consider these distinc
tions, -i-l up hy his lordship, as savouring more of
chicanerv than solid ro;isonmg. The simple ipics-
tion 1-^, \\".-is Charles w-orthy lo be trusted? No'
His lordship grants that he was a man of Ul laiih.
How, then, could the re|iresentativfcs of the people
nonestly commit the national interest lo a man
whose duplicity and msincerity had repeatedly de.

ceivod them, ond, m deceiving Ihem, had decoi>ol
the public ? If ihi'v could not safoly lake hia word
for themselves, how could ihey do it for iheir con-
slituonts ! In all their negotiations with him, Ihey
had been acliiu;. nol for Ihemsclvca only, but lor ihu
nation. It w:is inconsistent with Ihc trust invested
in them to s.u-rilicc or risk ihe national welfare b«
easy credulity ; a credulity which, in Iheir priviiii-
concerns, wi.-^dom and pnidciu-c would have con
demned. IW-sidi-s. the insincerity of Ch:irlc-* had
been so notorious, Ihey had no ground to suppose
that the public would expect or iippritvc of their doing
It. lo whom the proofs o! his insiru-criiy off'ered ihem-
selves immedKiU'U. and with all their lorce. — Kn

PREFACE
TO VOL. III. OF THE ORIGINAL EDITION.

No period of civil history has undergoiie a more critical examination than the last
seven years of Kmg Charles I., which was a scene of such confusion -and inconsist
ent management between the king and Parliament, that it is very difficult to discover
the motives of action on either side. The king seems to have been directed by se
cret springs from the queen and her council of papists, who were for advancing the
prerogative above the laws, and vesting his majesty with such an absolute sovereign
ty as might rival his brother of France, and enable him to estabUsh the Roman
Catholic rehgion in England, or some how or other blend it with the Protestant.
This gave rise to the unparalleled severities of the Star Chamber and High Commis
sion, which, after twelve years' triumph over the laws and liberties of the subject,
brought on a fierce and bloody waj, and after the loss of above a hundred thousand
lives, ended in the sacrifice of the king himself, and the subversion of the whole Con
stitution. Though all men had a veneration for the person of the king, his ministers had ren
dered themselves justly obnoxious, not only by setting up a new form of government
at home, but by extending their jurisdiction to a neighbouring kingdom, under the
governraent of distinct laws, and inclined to a form of church discipline very difier-
ent from the English ; this raised such a storm in the north, as distressed his majes
ty's administration, exhausted his measure, drained all his arbitrary springs of sup
ply, and (after an intermission of twelve years) reduced him to the necessity of re
turning to the Constitution, and calling a Parliament ; but when the public grievances
came to be opened, there af>peared such a collection of ill-humours, and so general
a distrust between the king and his two Houses, as threatened all the mischief and
desolation that followeii- Each party laid the blame on the other, and agreed in
nothing but in throwing off" the odium ofthe civil war from themselves.
The afiairs of the Church had a very considerable influence on the welfare of the
State : the Episcopal character was grown into contempt, not from any defect of
learning in the bishops, but from their close attachment to the prerogative, and their
own insatiable thirst of power, which they strained to the utraost in their spiritual
courts, by reviving old and obsolete customs, levying large fines on the people for con
tempt of their canons, and prosecuting good men and zealous Protestants fbr rites and
cereraonies tending to superstition, and not warranted by the laws of the land. The
king supported them to the utmost ; but was obliged, after some time, to give way,
fir^t, to an act for abolishing the High Commission, by a clause in which the power of
the bishops' spiritual courts was in a manner destroyed ; and, at last, to an act de
priving them of their seats in Parliament. If at this time any methods could have
been thought of to restore a mutual confidence between the king and his two Houses,
the remaining differences in the Church raight easily have been compromised ; but
the spirits of men were heated, and as the flames of the civil war grew fiercer, and
spread wider, the wounds of the Church were enlarged, till the distress of the Par
liament's affairs obliging them to call in the Scots, with their solemn league and cove
nant, they became incurable.
When the king had lost his cause in the field, he put himself at the head of his di
vines, and drew his learned pen in defence of his prerogative and the Church of
England ; but his arguments were no more successful than his sword. I have brought
the debates between the king and Mr. Henderson, and between the divines of both
sides at the treaties of Uxbridge and Newport upon the head of Episcopacy, into as
narrow a compass as possible ; my chief design being to trace the proceedings of the
Vol. I.— In

434 PREK.^CE
Parliament and their assembly at Westminster, which (whether justifiable or not)
ought to be placed in open view, though none of the historians of those times have
" ventured to do it.
The Westminster assembly was the Parliament's grand council in mailers of re
ligion, and made a very- considerable figure, both at home and abroad, through tho
course of the civil war, till they disputed the power of the keys w ilh their superiors,
and split upon the rocks of Divine right and covenant-uniformity. The records of ihis
venerable assembly were lost in the fire of London ; but I h;n e given a largo and
just account of their proceedings, from a manuscript of one of their iiieinbers, and
some other papers that have fallen into my luuiils, and have entered as far into their
debates with the Erastians, Independents, and others, as was consistent w ith ihe life
and spirit of the history.
Whatever views ihe Scots raight have from the beginning of the war, the Parlia-
inent would certainly have agreed with the king upon the foot of a limited Episcopa
cy till the calling the assembly of divines, after which the solemn league and cove
nant became the standard of all their treaties, and was designed to introduce the Pres
byterian government in its full extent, as the established relioiuii of both kingdoms.
This tied up the Parliament's hands from yielding in time to the king's most rea
sonable concessions at Newport, and rendered an accommodation iiniiracticable ; I
have therefore transcribed the covenant at large, with the reasons for and against it.
Whether such obligations upon the consciences of men are justifiable from ilic ne
cessity of aflairs, or binding in all events and revolutions of guvernment, I shall not
determine ; but the imposing then, upon others was certainly a very great hardship.
The remarkable trial of Archbishop Laud, in which the antiquity and use of the
several innovations complained of by tl»e Puritans are stated and argued, has never
been pubhshed entire to the world. The archbishop left in his diary a summary of
his answer to the charge of the Commons, an4 Mr. Prynne, in his Canterbury's Doom,
has pubhshed the first part of his grace's triaV, relating principally to points of reli
gion ; but all is imperfect and iminethodical. i have therefore compared bolh ac
counts together, and supplied the defects of one wiiVi the other ; the whole is brought
into a narrow corapass, and thrown into such a method as will give the reader a
clear and distinct view of the equity of the charge, and how far the archbishop de
served the usage he met with.
I have drawn out abstracts of the several ordinances relating to the rise and prog
ress of Presbytery, and traced the proeeedings of the commii'j>e for plundered and
scandalous ministers, as far as was necessary to my general design, without descend
ing too far inlo particulars, or attempting to justify the whole of tl,eir conduct ; and
though I am of opinion that the number of clergy who suffered purely on the ground
of religion was not very considerable, it is certain that many able and learned divines,
who were contented to live quietly and mind the duty of their places, had vei-v hard
measure from the violence of parties, and deserve the compassionate regards of pos
terity ; some being discharged their livings for refusing the covenant, and others plun
dered of everything the unruly soldiers could lay their hands upon, for not complying
with the change of the times.
In the latter end of the reign of Queen Anne, Dr. Walker, of Exeter, published " An
Attempt to recover the Number and Sufferings of the Clergy of the Church of England ,"
but with notorious partiality, and in language not fit for the lips of a clergyman, a
scholar, or a Christian ; every page or paragraph, almost, labours with the cry of " re
bellion, treason, parricide, faction, stupid ignorance, hypocrisy, cant, and downright
knavery and wickedness," on one side ; and " loyalty, learning, primitive sanctity,
and the glorious spirit of martyrdom," on the other. One must conclude, from the
doctor, that there was hardly a wise or honest patriot with the Parliament, nor a weak
or dishonest gentleman with the king. His preface'* is one of the raost furious in
vectives against the seven most glorious years of Queen Anne that ever was publish
ed ; it blackens the memory of the late King William HI., to whom he applies that
passage of Scripture, " I gave them a king in my anger, and took him away in my
wrath ;" it arraigns the great Duke of .Marlborough, the glorj- of the English nation,
* Preface, page 8-11.

PREFACE. 435
and both houses of Parliament, as in a confederacy to destroy the Church of Eng
land, and dethrone the queen. -" Rebellion," says the doctor, " was esteemed the most
necessary requisite to qualify any one for being intrusted with the governinent, and
disobedience the principal recortimendation for her majesty's service. Those were
thought the most proper persons to guard the throne, who, on the first dislike, were
every whit as ready to guard the scaffold ; yea, her majesty was in effect told all this
to her face, in the greatest assembly of the nation. And to say all that can be said
of this matter, all the principles of 1641, and even those of 1648, have been plaiidy
and openly revived."
Thus has this obscure clergyman dared to affront the great author, under God, of all
our present blessings ; and to stigmatize the Marlboroughs, the Godolphins, the Stan
hopes, the Sunderlands, the Cowpers, and others, the raost renowned heroes and
statesmen of the asre.
It must be confessed, that the tumults and riotous assemblies of the lower sort of
people are insufferable in a well-regulated government; and without all question,
some of the leading raembers of the Lous' Parliament made an ill use of the populace,
as tools to support their secret designs : but how easy were it to turn all this part of
the doctor's artillery against himself and his friends ; for Prynne, Burton, and Bast
wick, in their return frora their several prisons, were not attended with such a nu
merous cavalcade as waited upon the late Dr. Sacheverel, in his triumphant progress.
through the western counties of England and Wales ; nor did they give themselves
up to the same excess of licentiousness and rage. If the raob of 1641 insulted the
bishops, and awed the Parliament, so did the doctor's retinue in 1710 ; nay, their zeal
outwent their predecessors', when they pulled down the meeting-houses of Protestant
Dissenters, and burned the materials in the open streets, in maintenance of the doc
trines of passive obedience and nonresistance, which their pious confessor had been
preaching up ; " a bold, insolent man," says Bishop Bumet, " with a very small meas
ure of religion, virtue, learning, or good sense :" but to such extremes do men's pas
sions carry them when they write to serve a cause ! I have had occasion to make
some use of Dr. Walker's confused heap of materials, but have endeavoured carefully
to avoid his spirit and language.
No man has declaimed so bitterly against the proceedings of Parliament upon all
occasions as this clergyman ; nor coraplained raore loudly of the unspeakable dam
age the liberal arts and sciences sustained by their purging the two universities ; the
new heads and fellows of Oxford are called " a colony of Presbyterian and Inde
pendent novices from Cambridge ; a tribe of ignorant enthusiasts and schisraatics ;
an illiterate rabble, swept from the plough-tail, from shops and grammar-schools,"* &c.
The University of Cambridge is reported by the same author " to be reduced to a
mere Munster by the knipper-dolings of the age, who broke the heart-strings of learn
ed men, who thrust out one of the eyes of the kingdom, and made eloquence dumb,
philosophy sottish, widowed the arts, drove away the muses from their ancient habi
tation, and plucked the reverend and Orthodox professors out of their chairs. They
turned religion into rebellion, and changed the apostolical chair into a desk foi blas
phemy. They took the garland from off the head of learning, and placed it on tue
dull brows of ignorance. And having unhived a numerous swarra of labouring bees,
they placed in their room swarms of senseless drones."t Such is the language of
our historian, transcribed from Dr. Berwick ! I have carefully looked into this af
fair, and collected the characters of the old and new professors from the most approved
writers, that the disinterested reader may judge how far religion and learning suffer
ed by the exchange.
The close of this volume, which relates the disputes between the Parliament and
army ; the ill success of his raajesty's arms and treaties ; the seizure of his royal per
son a second time by the army ; his trial before a pretended high court of justice,
and his unparalleled execution before the gates of his royal palace by the military
power, is a most melancholy and affecting scene ; in which, next to the all-disposing
providence of God, one cannot but remark the king's inflexible temper, together with
the indiscretion of his friends, especially his divines, at^ a time when his crown was
* ¦Walier's Introduct., p. 139, 140. t ¦Walker's Introd., p. 115, Querela Cant

i:l6 P R E K .\ C 1-:
lost by the fortune of war, and his very life al the mercy of his onenues. \or is the
unwarranl able stillness of the Parliament less uiiaccouiitablu, w hoii they saw the vic
torious army drawing towards London, flushed with the liel'eal of llie .Si uis and i^ng-
lish loyalists, and determiiieil to set aside tluii very uniformity they were contending
for. If his majesty had yielded at first what he did at last, witli an appearance of
sincerity; or if the two Houses had complied wilh his concessions while Cromwi-U
was in Scotland ; or if the army had been raade easy by a general indulgi-iice and
toleration, with the distribution of some honours and bounty-money among the offi
cers, the crown and Consutulion might have been saved ; " but so many miraculous
circumstances contributed lo his majesty's ruin," snys Lord Clarendon," "that men
might well think that heaven and earth conspired it."
The objections to the first volume of the History ofthe Puritans, by the author of
'• The \ indication of tho Ciovernnieiu, Doctrine, and Worship of the Church of Eng
land," obliged me to review the principal facts iu a small pamphlet, wherein I have
endeavoured to discharge myself as an historian, without undertaking the dcfeiiec of
their several principles, or making myself an advocate for the whole of their conduct.
I took the liberty to point out llie mistakes of our first Reformers as 1 passed along,
but with no design to blacken their memories ; for, w ith all their foibles, they were
glorious instruments in the hand of Providence lo deliver this nation from anti-Chris
tian bondage ; but ihey were free to confess the work was left imperfect , that they
had gone as far as the tiraes would admit, and hoped their successors would bring
the Reformation to a greater perfection.
But the state of the controversy was entirely changed in the lime of the civil wars ;
for after the coraing in of the Scots, the Puritans did not fight for a reformation of
the hierarchy, nor for the generous principles of religious liberty to all peaceable
subjects, but for the same spiritual power the bishops had exercised ; for when they
had got rid of the oppression of the spiritual courts, under which they had groaned
almost fourscore years, they were for selling up a number of Presbyterian consisto
ries in all the parishes of England, equally burdensome and oppressive. Unhappy
extreme ! that wise and good raen should not discover the beautiful consistency of
tnith and liberty ! Dr. Barrow and others have observed, that in the first and purest
ages of Christianity, the Church had no coercive power, and apprehend that'll may
still subsist very well without it.
The body of Protestant Dissenters of the present age have a just abhorrence of the
persecuting spirit of their predecessors, and are content that their actions be set in a
fair li<rht,'as a warning to posterity. They have no less a dread of returning into tho
hands of spiritual courts, founded on the bottomless deep of the canon law, and see
no reason why they should not be equally exposed, till they are put upon a better foot ;
though it is an unpardonable crime, in the opinion of some churchmen, to take notice,
even in the most respectful manner, of the least blemish in our present establishment,
¦\vhich, how valuable soever in itself, is allowed by all to be capable of amendments.
Some little essays of this kind have fired the zeal of the Bishop of Litchfield and
Coventry,! who, in a late charge to the clergy of his diocess, is pleased to lament over
the times in the following mournful language : " At so critical a juncture," says his
lordship, " when common Christianity is treated with an avowed contempt and open
profaneness ; when an undisguised immorality prevails so very generally ; when there
is scarce honesty enough to save the nation from ruin ; when, with regard to the Es
tablished Church in particular, the royal supremacy is professedly exposed, as incon
sistent with the rights of conscience, even that supremacy, which was the ground
work of the Reformation among us from popery, which was acknowledged and sworn
to by the old Puritans, though now, inconsistently enough, disowned and condemned
in the new history and vindication of them and their principles ; when so destructive
an atterapt has been made on the legal maintenance of the clergy by the late Tithe
Bill, and, consequently, on the fate of the Christian religion araong us ; when an at
tempt has been lately made on the important outworks of our ecclesiastical establish
ment, the Corporation and Test Acts, with the greatest insolences towards the Church,
and most undutiful menaces to the civil government ; when the Episcopal authority
• Vol. . ., p. 458. t Dr. SmaUbrook.

PREFACE. 437
has been wellnigh undermined, under a pretence of reforming the ecclesiastical
courts ; and if that order had been rendered useless, as it must have been when it
had lost its authority, then the revenues would have been soon thought useless ; and
in the result of things, the order itself inight have been considered as superfluous,
and perhaps, in due time, thought fit to be abohshed; when churches have been
put into such a method of repair as would end in their ruin in a little tirae ; and when
the correction of the abuses of the matriraonial licenses has been laboured in so ab
surd a manner as to permit the marriage of minors without consent of their parents or
guardians ; when these melancholy circumstances have so lately concurred, it is
natural to infer our zeal for the Church should be in proportion to its danger ; and if
these are not proper occasions for zeal for our ecclesiastical constitution, it is not easy
to assign circumstances that may justly deraand it."* How fine and subtle are these
speculations ! I have not observed any insolences towards the Church, or undutiful
menaces to the civil governraent in the late writings of the Dissenters ; but if one pin
of the hierarchy be removed by the wisdom of the Legislature, the whole building is
supposed to fall, and all religion along with it. His lordship, therefore, advises his
clergy to study the Bishopt of London's Codex, in order to defend it ; and it can do
them no real prejudice to examine, at the sarae time, the principles of law and equity
on which it is founded.:]: As to the Dissenters, his lordship adds, " However, it will
become us of the clergy, in point of prudence, not to give any just suspicions of our
disgust to the legal toleration of thera, while they keep within due bounds ; that is,
while they do not break in upon the privileges and rights of the Established Church,
by declaring against all legal establishraents, or the legal establishment of the Church
of England in particular, or by not being quiet with the present limits of their tolera-
.tion, or by affecting posts of authority, and thereby brealdng down the fences of the
Church, and placing themselves on a level with it."§ But whether this would reraain
a point of prudence with his lordship, if the boundaries of his episcopal power were
enlarged,,is not very difficult to determine.
The Dissenters have no envy nor ill-will to the Churches of England or Scotland,
established by law (attended with a toleration of all peaceable Dissenters), any far
ther than they encroach on the natural or social rights of mankind ; nor are they so
weak as not to distinguish between high dignities, great authority, and large revenues
secured by law, and a poor maintenance arising frora the voluntary contributions of
the people, that is, between an establishraent and a toleration.
But I am to attend to the char^ of inconsistency brought against myself I had
observed, upon the reign of the bloody Queen Mary,|| that an absolute supremacy over
the consciences of raen, lodged with a single person, might as well be prejudicial as
serviceable to -true religion ; and in the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth,T[
that the powers then claimed by the kings and queens of England were in a manner
the same with those claimed by the popes in the times preceding the Reforraation,
except the adrainistration of the spiritual offices of the Church. This was that su
premacy which was the groundwork of the Reformation : of which I say, let the
reader judge how far these high powers are agreeable or consistent with the natural
rights of mankind. His lordship calls this a professed exposing the royal supreraa
cy, and the rather, because " that supremacy was acknowledged and sworn to by Jhe
old Puritans themselves, though now, inconsistently enough, disowned and condemned
by their historian." But surely his lordship should have inforraed his clergy, at the
same time, in what sense the Puritans took the oath, when it was before his eyes in
the same page ; and my words are these : " The whole body of the papists refused
the oath of supreraacy, as inconsistent with their allegiance to the pope ; but the Pu
ritans took it under all these disadvantages, with the queen's explication in her in
junctions, that is, that no more was intended thati that her majesty, under God, had
the sovereio-nty and rule over all persons born in her realm, either ecclesiastical or
temporal, so as no foreign power had, or ought to have, any superiority over them."**
Where is the inconsistency of this conduct of the old Puritans, or their new histo-
- Charge, p. 41, 42, 44. , , , t Dr. Gibson.
t See a late excellent exammation of the Codex Juris Eccl. Ang-1.
1) Charge, p. 46. II Hist. Pur., yol. i., p. 58. "! Ibid., p. 99, 100.
?* Hist. Pur., vol. i., p. 93. See Strype's Ann., vol. i., p. 159.

-138 PREFACE.
rian ? Or, where is the Dissenter in England who is not ready to swear to it with
this explication '.
But his lordship is pleased to reason upon this head ; and in order to support that
absolute supremacy which was the groundwork of the Reformation, affirms, that " all
Christian kings and emperors have the same power of reforming religion, and are un
der the same obligations as the Jewish kings were in cases of the like nature,"* with
out producing the least evidence or proof; whereas his lordship knows that the gov
ernment of the Jews was a theocracy ; that God himself was their king, and the laws
of that nation strictly and properly the laws of God, who is Lord of conscience, and
may anne.t what sanctions he pleases. Their judges and kings were eliosen and
appointed by God, not to make a new codex or book of laws either for Chureh or
State, but to keep the people to the strict observation of those laws and statutes that
he himself had given them by the hand of .Moses.
His lordship is pleased to ask, " If any high pretender to spiritual liberty and the
rights of conscience should inquire what authority the respective Jewish and Chris
tian powers had to interpose in matters that regarded the rights of conscience, since,
in fact, their assumed supremacy was a usurpation of those natural rights ?"f I an
swer, that with regard to the Jews, it was no usurpation, for the reasons before men
tioned ; and when his lordship shall prove a transfer of the same power to all Chris
tian princes, the controversy will be brought to a short issue. " But will it not be
replied," says the bishop, " that those kings and emperors were intrusted by God
with the care of the ecclesiastical as well as civil constitution ''"J If by the care
of the constitution he meant no more than the preserving their subjeets in the enjoy
ment of their inalienable rights, nobody denies it; but if, under this pretence, they
assume a sovereign and arbitrary power of modelling the ecclesiastical constitution-
according to their pleasure, and of enforcing their subjects' obedience by canons
and penal laws, I should doubt whether they are obliged to comply, even in things
not absolutely sinful in themselves, because it may derogate from tho kingly oflSce of
Christ, who is sole king and lawgiver in his own kingdom, and has not delegated
this branch of his authority to an}^ vicar-general upon earth. But 1 readily agree with
his lordship, that if any high pretender to the rights of conscience should have asked
the first Christian emperors by what authority they took on theraselves the alteration
or change of religion, they would have thought the question unreasonable, and wor
thy of censure ; they would have affirmed their own sovereignty, and have taught
the bold inquirers as Gideon did the men of Succoth, with briers and thorns of the
wUderness. The bishop goes on : " Let us now transfer this power of Jewish kings and Chris
tian emperors to our own kings, and the case will admit of an easy decision. "§ If,
indeed, an absolute supremacy in fnatters of religion be the natural and inalienable
right of every Christian king and emperor, the dispute is at an end ; but if it depend
upon a transfer, we must beg pardon if we desire his lordship to produce his com
mission for transferring the same powers that Almighty God gave the Jewish kings
of his own appointment to the first Christian emperors, who were neither chosen by
God, nor the people, nor the Senate of Rorae, but usurped the supreme authority by
the assistance of the military arm, and were some of them the greatest tyrants and
scourges of mankind.
His lordship adds, " Have not the English kings since the Reformation actually
been invested with the same supremacy as the Jewish kings and Christian emperors
were ?"|| I answer, such a supremacy is, in ray judgment, inconsistent with our pres
ent Constitution and the laws in being. The supreraacy claimed by King Henry
VIII. and his successors, at the Reformation, was found by experience too excessive,
and therefore abridged in the reigns of King Charles I. and King William III. No
one doubts but that the kings of England are obliged to protect religion and defend
the establishment as long as the Legislature think fit to continue it ; but as they may
not suspend or change it by their sovereign pleasure, so neither may they publish
edicts of their own to enforce it, as was the case ofthe first Christian emperors. The
reader will excuse this digression, as necessary to support a principal fact of my
history. • Charge, p. 20. t Ibid., p. 21, t Ibid., p. 22. ? Id. ibid. 11 ftld.

PREFACE. 439

I am sufficiently aware of the delicacy of the affairs treated of in this volume, and of
¦the tenderness of the ground I go over ; and though I have been very careful of my
temper and language, and have endeavoured to look into the mysterious conduct of
the several parties with all the indifference of a spectator, I find it very difficult to
form an exact judgment of the most important events, or to speak freely without of
fence ; therefore, if any passionate or angry writer should appear against this, or any
of the former volumes, I humbly request the reader to pay no regard to personal re
flections, or to any insinuations of any ill designs against the established religion or
the public peace, which are entirely groundless. I am as far from vindicating the
spirit and conduct of the warmer Puritans as of the governing prelates of those
times ; there was hard measure on both sides, though, if we separate politics from
principles of pure religion, the balance will be very much in favour of the Puritans.
In historical debates nothing is to be received upon trust, but facts are to be exam
ined, and a judgment formed upon the authority by which those facts are supported ;
by this method we shall arrive at truth ; and if it shall appear that in the course of
this long history there are any considerable mistakes, the world may be assured I
will take the first opportunity to retract or amend them, having no private or party
views, no prospect of preferment or other reward for my labours than the satisfaction
of doing some service to truth, and to the religious and civil liberties of mankind ;
and yet, after all, I must bespeak the indulgence and candour of my readers, which
those who are sensible of the labour and toil of collecting so many materials, and
ranging them in their proper order, will readily allow to one who sincerely wishes
the prosperity and welfare of all good men, and that the violence and outrage of these
unhappy times, which brought such confusion and misery bpth on king and people,
may never be imitated by the present or any future age.
Daniel Neal.
London, Nov. 4, 1735.

PART II.

CHAPTER I.
FKOM THE BATTLE OF EDGEHILL TO THE CALLING
THE ASSE.MBLY OF DIVINES .AT WESTMINSTER.
The king having recruited his army at Ox
ford, after the battle of EdgehiU, by the assist
ance ofthe University, who now gave his maj
esty aU their money, as they had before done
their plate, resolved to pursue his march to
London, in order to break up the Parliament
and surprise the city : while the Earl of Essex,
imagining the campaign was ended, lay quiet
about 'Warwick, tiU, being informed ofthe king's
designs, he posted to London, and ordered his
forces to follow wUh all expedition. The earl
arrived November 7, 1642, and was honourably
received by both houses of Parliament, who
presented him with a gratuity of £5000, and, to
strengthen his army, passed an ordinance that
sueh apprentices as would list in their service
should be entitled to a freedom of the city at
the expiration of their apprenticeship, equally
with those who continued with their masters.
In the beginning of November, the king took
possession of Reading without the least resist
ance, the Parliament garrison having abandon
ed it, which alarmed both houses, and made
tbem send an express to desire a safe-conduct
/or a committee of Lords and Commons to at
tend his majesty with a petition for peace ;*
the committee waited on his majesty at Coin-
brook, fifteen miles from London, and, having
received a favourable answer,! reported it to
* Rushwortli, vol. i., p. 58.
+ " He seemed to receive the petition with great
willingness, and called God to witness, with many
protestations, that he was tenderly compassionate of
his bleeding people, and more desirous of nothing
than a speedy peace." — May's Parliamentary History,
b. in., p. 33. The unmediate subsequent conduct of
the king was certairUy not consistent with such pro
fessions ; yet Dr. Grey is displeased with Mr. Neal
for insinuating that it was a breach of promise, and
accuses him of not giving the fairest account of this
action, which, he says, the king sufficiently justified.
But when the doctor passed this censure, it seems
that he had not looked forward to the next para
graph, where the motives of the king's behaviour
are stated. The committee deputed by the Parlia
ment to Colnbrook consisted of the Earls of Nor
thumberland and Pembroke, Lord 'Waiiimau, Mr.
Pierpont, Sir John Ipsley, and Sir John Evelyn :
when the king refused to admit the last gentleman,
because he had named him a traitor the day before,
the ParUament, though extremely displeased with
the exception, so as to vote it a breach of privUege,
yet, from their ardent desire of accommodation, per
mitted the petition to be presented without Sir John
Evelyn. — May, b. iu., p. 32. This yielding conduct
leates the king more inexcusable, as it serves to
show the sincerity of the Parliament in their over-
tares ; and Lord Clarendon says that it was believed
by many, that had the king retired to Reading, and
waited there for the answer of Parliament, they
Vol. I.— K k k

the two houses, who immediately gave orders
to forbear all acts of hostility, and sent a mes
senger to the king to desire the like forbear
ance on his part ; but the committee had no
sooner left Colnbrook than his majesty, taking
the advantage of a thick mist, advanced to
Brentford, about seven miles from London,*
which he attacked with his whole army, No
vember 13, and after a fierce and bloody ren
counter with the Parliament garrison, wherein
considerable nurabers were driven into the-
Thames and slain, he got possession of the
town, and took a great many prisoners. The
consternation of the citizens on this occasion
was inexpressible, imagining the king would
be the next morning at their gates ; upon which
the lord-mayor ordered the trained-bands im
mediately to join the Earl of Essex's forces,.
which were just arrived at Turnham Green,
under the command of Major-general Skippon,.
and there being no farther thoughts of peace,
every one spirited up his neighbour, and all re
solved, as one man, to live and die together.
Major Skippon went from regiment to regiment,
and encouraged his troops with such short, sol
dierlike speeches as these : " Come, my boys !
my brave boys I I will run the same hazards with
you ; remember, the cause is for God and the
defence of yourselves, -your wives, and children.
Come, my honest, brave boys ! let us pray heart
Uy, and fight heartily, and God will bless us."
When they were drawn up, they made a body
of about twenty-four thousand men eager for
battle ; but their orders were only to be on the
defensive, and prevent the king's breaking
through to the city. The two armies having
faced each other all day, his majesty retreated
in the night to Kingston, and from thence to
Reading, where having left a small garrison, he
returned to Oxford about the beginning of De
ceraber with his Brentford prisoners, the chief
of whom were condemned to die,t and had
would immediately have withdrawn their garrison
from 'Windsor, and delivered that castle to his maj
esty for his accommodation, to have carried on Ihe-
treaty he had proposed. — History, vol. ii., p. 73. The
motives on which the king acted in the action at
Brentford, which Mr. Neal has compressed into one
paragraph. Dr. Grey, by large quotations on diiferent
authorities, has extended through four pages, which.
affords a parade of confuting Mr. Neal. — Ed.
* 'Whitelocke, p. 62.
-f Rushworth, vol. v., p. 93.
¦The persons named by Rushworth, whom Mr.
Neal quotes, were Clifton Catesby, John Lilburne,
and Robet Vivers. Dr. Grey says that "it does not
appear that these three were taken prisoners at
Brentford." He should have added, from this place
in Rushworth, to which the reference is here made ;
for in p. 83 Rushworth informs his readers, with re
spect to Lilburne in particular, that he owned that
lie was at Brentford ; and by the others being inclu
ded in the same sentence, it is probable that ihey

HISTORY (ly THE PURITA.NS

been executed for high treason, if the two
houses had nol threatened lo make reprisals.?
The Parliament, lo prev.-nt a like surprise uf
the ciiy lor the future, empowered the lord-
mayor tu cause lines of circiiiiivall,ilion to be
drawn around it. and all tlio avenues I'orlihcd.
It ua.s nol without reason that the two
houses complained of the king's extraoriliiuu y
conduct on this occasion, which u,is owing to
the violent cuunsels of Prince Rupert and Lord
Di^lp.'., animated by some of his majesty's
frauds in the city, who imagined that if ihc
royal army appeared in the neighbourhood ot
London, the Parliament would accept of his
majesty's pardon and break up, or else the con
fusions would be so great that he might enter
and carry all before him ; but the project hav
ing failed, his majesty endeavoured lo excuse it
in the best manner he could : he alleged that,
there being no cessation of arms agreed upon,
he might justly take aU advantages against his
enemies He insisted, farther, upon his fears
of being hemmed in by the Pailiainent's forces
about Colnbrook, to prevent which, it seems,
he marched seven miles nearer the city. Lord
Cldrciiduii says,t Prince Rupert having ad
vanced 10 Hounslow wiihout order, his majes
ty, al the desire of the prince, marched loi-
ward lo disengage him from the danger of the
forces quartered in that neighbourhood ; which
is so very improbable, thai, in the opinion ol
Mr. Rapin, it is needless to refute il.t Upon
the whole, it is extremely probable ilie king
came Irom Oxford with a design of surprising
the city 01 London before the Earl of Essex's
army could arrive ; but, having missed his aim,
he framed Uie best prelences lo persuade the
people that his marching lo Brentlord was only
in his own defence.
Though lus majesty- look all occasions lo
make otfers of peace to his Parliament, in hopes
the nation would compel them to an agreement,
by leaving him in possession of all Ins preroga
tives, it IS sufficiently evident he had no inten
tions to yield anything lo obtain it;ii lor in Ins

were involved in the same charge of acting against
the king at Brentford.
* On the authontyof Lord Clarendon and Mr.
Echard, Dr Grey charges the chaplains of the Par
liament army. Dr. Downing and Mr. Marshal, with
publicly avowmg " that tho soldiers lately lakcn at
Brentlord, and discharged by the king upon their
oaths that they would never again bear arnis agamst
Jiim, were not oblii^ed by that oath," and with ab-
solving them from it. The doctor is also displeased
with Mr. Oldouxon for treating this account as a
falsehood, but he suppressi-s the grounds of .Mr.
Oldmixon's censure ol il, which are these; in the
first place, that there was no occasion to use these
ans. when the prisoners amounted to but one hun
dred and fifty men, which could not be wanted when
the city of London was pourmg out recruits ; and,
then, priesU> absolution was not the practice, nor the
power ol 11 the claun, of Puritan djvmes.— iiiisA-
worlh, vol. v., p. 59. Oldmixon's History of the Stu
arts, p. :.:U.— Ed. t History, p. 74.
X Rapm, vol u.,p. -165, foho edition.
Ij Without controvertmg Mr. Neal's authority. Dr.
Grey calls this a bold assertion, and appeals to va
rious messages for an accommodation which the
king sent to the Parliament. But of what avail to
prove a yielding and accommodating temper are
speeches without actions f or soltenmg overtures,
unless they be followed up by mild and pacific meas
ures, adopted with smcenty, and adhered lo with

letter lo Duke Hamilton, dated December 2,
16l'J, he sa\s, -'hi- li.td act up his icat upon Ihe
justice of lus cause, being resolved that no ex-
lieinity or nuslorlunc should miiki- liini yield;
lor," says his majesty, -- 1 will Or cuiiur .i glo.
nous king or a palieiit martyr ; and aa yet not
being the first, nor at this present apprehending
the other, I think it no unlit lime to e.-cpress this
my resolution to you."" The justice of llie
cause upon which his m.ijesty had set up his
rest was his declaration and promise to govern
for the future according to the l.iws ol the lanJ ;
but the point was to know whether tlii.-i iniglit
bo relied upon. The two houses adtnilled ihe
laws ofthe land to be iho rule of governinent, t
and thai the executive power in lime of peace
was with the king ;): but his lu.ijesty had so oft
en dispensed wiih the laws by the advice ofa
coirupl ministry, after repeated assurances lo
the contrary Iheieol", that lliey durst nol con
fide in his royal word, and insisted upon some
additional security for iheinselves and for the
Conslilution.'} On the other hand, his majesty
averred the Coiislituliun was in no danger from
him, but from themselves, who were acting ev
ery day in defiance of il. To w Inch it was an
swered, thai it was impossible the laws should
have. llieir due course lu lime of war as in the
height of peace, because this must elfcctually
tie up llieir hands. Neither parly by law could
raise money upon the subject without each
other's consent ; the king could nol do it with
out consent of Parliament, nor tho Parliament
without the royal. assent, and yet bolh had prac
tised Il since the opening of the war. . To have
recourse, tlierelore, to the laws of a weU-setlled
governiiieiit m limes of general confusion, was
weak and impraoticable. licsidos, his majesty
refused to give up any of his late ministers to

lirinnessf Did Charles I. act with this consistency?
Let them who are acquainted with the history of his
reign answer the question. Even Lord Clarendon
owns Ips belief thai, in mailers of great moment, an
opinion that the violence and force used in procuring
bills rendered them absolutely void, mUueaccd the
kinj,' to confirm them. — History, vol. i., p. 430.' What
coniidence could be placed in the professions and
siia-erity ot a man who could be displeased with tlje
Earl ol Northumberland because he would not per
jure himself fur Lord-Ueulenant Strafford ! — Sydney's
State Papers, quoted by Dr. Hams, Life of Charles I.,
p. 7'J, who has fully stated the evidence of Charles's
uissiniulation and want of faith. See also An Ea.iai/
towards a True Idea of tlie Character and li'-tgn of
Ch.irhs I, p 91, CSLC.-Ed.
• Duke ol Hamilton's Memoirs, b. iv., p. 203,
t Rapm, vol. ii., p. 4U(i.
i "Our laws h-ive nowhere, that 1 know of, dis
tinguished," aays Dr. Grey, " between times of peace
or v\ ar, with regard to the king's executive power "
This IS true . but it was the infeliciiy ofthe times of
which Air .Seal writes, that there arose new quea
lions out of the present emergency for which Ihc
standmg laws had made no provision, and difficulties
to which the) did not apply. — Ed.
Ij "Mr. .Nial," says Dr. Grey, "has not produced
one smgle proof in support of this assertion, anti 1
chaUeoge him lo instance in particulars." This may
appear a bold challenge from a writer who professed
lo be conversant in the history of those limes. But
as the doctor has thrown it out, we wiU produce an
instance of the king's violation of his word. He
gave his assent to the Petition of Right, a kind ol
second Magna Charta, which he immediately viola
ted, and continued to do for twelve years together.
— Essay towards a True Idea, &c., p. 94. — £d.

irtSTORY OF THE PURITANS.
the justice of Parliament ; for in his letter to
Duke Hamilton, he says, that " his abandoning
the Earl of Strafford had gone so near him, that
he was resolved no consideration should make
him do the like again." Upon these resolutions
he declined the mediation ofthe Scots commis
sioners, which gave the several parlies engaged
against him a fair opportunity of uniting their
interests with that nation.
This was a nice and curious affair. The
friends ofthe Parliament, who were agreed in
the cause of civil liberty, were far from being
of one raind in points of church disciphne ; the
major part were for episcopacy, and desired no
more than to secure the Constitution and re
form a few exorbitances of the hishops ; some
were Erastians, and would be content with any
form of government the magistrate should ap
point ; the real Presbyterians, who were for an
entire change of the hierarchy upon the foot of
Divine right, were as yet but few, and could
carry nothing in the House. It was necessary,
therefore, in treating with the Scots, who con
tended earnestly for their kirk government, to
deliver themselves in such general expressions
hat each party might interpret them as they
(vere incUned, or as should be expedient. This
¦contented the Scots for the present, and left the*
Parhament at full liberty, tUl they saw what
terms they could make with the king. Nor
could the churchmen be dissatisfied, because
¦they knew if they could put a period to the war
without the Scots, the two houses would not
caU in their assistance, much less submit to a
kirk discipline with which they had no manner
«f acquaintance ; and therefore Lord Clarendon
was of opinion,* that even at the treaty of Ux
bridge, if the Parliament could have obtained
an act of oblivion for what was past, and good
security for the king's government by law, the
affair of religion might easily have been com
promised ; but it required all the prudence and
sagacity the two houses were masters of to
keep so many different interests in points of re
ligion United in one common cause of liberty
-and the Constitution, at a time when great num
bers of the king's friends, in the very city of
London, were forming conspiracies to restore
him without any terms at all.
The king's affairs had a promising aspect this
winter. His forces in the North, under the Earl
of Newcastle, were superior to those of Lord
Perdinando Fairfax. In the western and mid
land counties there were several sieges and
rencounters, with various success, but nothing
decisive. Divers counties entered into associ-
-ations for their mutual defence on both sides.t
The four northern counties of Northumberland,
¦Cumberland, 'Westmoreland, and Durham asso
ciated for the king ;t after which the two houses
¦encouraged the like in those that owned their

* Dr. Grey asks, "'Wliere does Lord Clarendon
^scover this opinion?. Ashe(i'.e., Mr. Neal) is faulty
even when he quotes his authorities, I am unwUUng
to take his word when he makes no reference at aU."
What will the reader think of the candour of this hi-
sinuation, when he is told that the passages to which
Mr. Neal refers are to be found hi p. 581 and 594 of
the second volume of Lord Clarendon's History, and
that they are expressly quoted, and the references
are pointed out in Mr. Neal's account of the treaty at
Uxbridge ?— Ed.
t Rushworth, vol. v., p. 66. X Ibid., p- 64.

443
authority, and appointed generals to command
their troops ; the chief of which was the east
ern association of Essex, Cambridgeshire, the
isle of Ely, Hertford, Norfolk, Suffolk, and the
city of Norwich, whose militia were trained
and ready to march where necessity should re
quire within their several limits. In some parts
of England the inhabitants resolved to stand
neuter, and not be concerned on either side ;
but the Parliament condemned and disannuUed
all such agreements.
-'V.s the two houses depended upon the assist
ance ofthe Soots, his majesty had expectations
of foreign aids frora the queen, who had endeav
oured, by the influence of her son-in-law the
Prince of Orange, to engage the states of Hol
land in the king's interest, but they wisely de
clared for a neutrality ; however, they connived
at her private negotiations, and gave her a gen
eral passport, by virtue whereof she transport
ed a very large quantity of arms and ammuni
tion to Burlington Bay, and conveyed them to
the king at York. His majesty, also, in order
to bring over the Irish forces under the com
mand of the Duke of Ormond, consented to a
truce with the Irish rebels [signed September
15, 1643], in which he allowed the CathoUcs to
remain in possession of what theyhad conquer
ed since the Rebellion, to the great grief ofthe
Protestants,' who by this means were legally
dispossessed of their estates ; a most unpopu
lar action, in favour of a people who, by their
late raassacre, were become the very reproach
and infamy of human nature I* Thus the whole
kingdom was marshalled into parties, with their
drawn swords, eager to plunge them into each
other's breasts. t
The Parliament's cause having a dark and
threatening aspect, the Lords and Commons
were not forgetful to implore the Divine bless
ing upon their counsels and arms ; for which
purpose they published an ordinance, February
15, 1642-3, exhorting to the duty of repentance,
as the only remedy to«prevent public calamities.
It was drawn up by some of the Puritan divines ;
and because Bishop Kennet has branded it with
the reproachful characters of cant, broad hypoc
risy, and a libel against the Church, I will trans
cribe the substance of it in their own words :
" That flourishing kingdoms have been ruin
ed by impenitent going on in a course of sin.

* To wipe off the reflections which this transac
tion brings on the character of Charles I., Dr. Grey is
large in producing authorities to show that the situ
ation of the Protestants and of the army in Ireland,
through the length ofthe war and the failure of sup
plies from England, required a cessation of arms.
But if the reader would see a fuU investigation of
this business, he should consult Mrs. Macaulay's
History, vol. iv., Svo, p. 63-90. Two circumstances
will afford a clew into the policy and design of this
truce. To prevent opposition to it in the Irish coun
cil, the members who were suspected of an attach
ment to the Parliament of England were committed
close prisoners to the castle ; and the king derived
from it, as the price of granting it, £38,000, to assist
him to carry on the war against his Protestant sub
jects in England. I wUl only add, that the main
point aimed at by the rebels, and which the king en
couraged them to expect, was a new ParUament;
which, as the kingdom was circumstanced, would
have put the whole power of government into their
hands. — Mrs. Macaulay, p. 845.
+ Rushworth, vol. v., p. 537-539, 548.

411

111.^ TORY VF THE I'URI'rA.N;

the sacred siory plainly tells us ; and how- near
loruinour sinful n.il ion now is, the present l.iin-
entablo lace of il does loo plainly show. .\nd
though we sliould feel llie heavy stroke of God's
judgiuenis .\et seven limes more, it is our duty
to accept the punishment of our iniquities, and
10 s.iv. Righteous art Ihou, 0 Lord, and just
are tliv judgments. Vel, because the Lord,
who IS just, IS also merciful, and in his infiniie
iiiercy has left the excellent and successful rem
edy of repentance lo nations brought near the
gates of destruction and despair, oh ! let not
England be negligent in the application of il.
Humble addresses of a penitent people to a mer
ciful God have prevailed with hun ; they have
prevailed for .Nineveh when sentence seemed to
be gone out against her, and may also prevail
for England.
"It is therefore thought necessary, by the
Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled,
that aU his majesty's subjects be stirred up
to lay hold of this only and unfailing remedy of
repentance, freely acknowledging, and hearti
ly bewailing with deepest humiliation, bolh
their ow-n personal sins and those of the na
tion ; a confession of national sins being most
agreeable to the nation.il judgments under which
the land groans, and most likely lo be effectual
for the removing of them.
" .\niong the national sins are lo beTCckoned
the contempt of God's ordinances, and of holi
ness itself; gross ignorance, and unl'ruitfulness
under the means of grace , inulUludes of oaths,
blasphemies, profanation of llie Sabbath by sports
and games ; hixuiy, pride, piodigality in apparel,
oppression, fraud, violence, iV.c ; a connivance,
and almost a toleration of the idolatry of popery,
the massacre of Ireland, and the bloodsliod of
the martyrs in Queen Mary's lime, wliicb, hav
ing been a national sin. sliU calls for a national
confession. " .\ow-, that all the sin and misery of this
polluted and afflicted nation raay be bitterly sor
rowed for, with such gritf of heart and prepa
redness for a thorough reformation as God may
be pleased graciously to accept, it is ordained
that all preachers of God's 'Word do earnestly
inculcate these duties on their hearers, that at
length we may obtain a firm and happy peace
bolh with God and man ; that glory may dwell
in our land ; and the prosperity of the Gospel,
wilh all the privileges accompanying it, may
crown this nation. unto all succeeding ages."*
The reverend prelate above mentioned makes
the following remark upon this ordinance :
" \\'hen once the two houses could descend to
have such fulsome penitential forms put upon
Ihem, to adopt and to obtrude in their name upon
the nation, it was a sure sign that aU that was
sound and decent in faith and worship was now
lo be commanded into enthusiasm and endless
schisms." 1 leave the reader to examine wheth
er he can find any ground for so severe a cen
sure. Though the king had rejected the Scots' me
diation, and set up his rest upon the justice of
his cause, he was pleased, before the beginning
of the campaign, to admit of a treaty wiih his
two houses, for which purpose he sent a safe-
conduct of six lords, and as many commoners,
with their attendants, to repair to him at Ox-

» Rushworth, vol v.. p. 141.

ford, who, being adinilled to an audience in ono
of the colli-ges, produced lliu fuUuwuig propo
sals, which were read by the Earl of .Northum
berland :
1. "That the armies 'may bo diabanded on
both sides, and the king return to his Parliament.
2 " That deliiii|uenls may submit lu a lugiU
trial, and judgment ot I'arliainenl.
3. " That uU papists be disbanded and dis-
arnied. 4. ¦¦ That his majesty will ple.ise lo give his
consent tu the five bills lierealler mentioned.
5. "That an o.ilh may bo established by act
of P.irliamenl, wherein the papists shall abjure
and renounce the pope's supremacy, transub
stantiation, purgatory, worshipping llie eoiiso-
erated host, orucifi.\es, and images; and the re
fusing such oath lawfully ti-udereil sbaU bo a
sufflcienl conviction of recusancy. That your
majesty will graciouslv please lo consent lo a.
,bill for the education ol papists in tlu- I'lotestaiit
religion. And lo another bill for i[ie betier put
ting the law-s in execution ag.unst tliciii.
B. "That the Earl of lirisiol and Lord Her
bert may be removed from your m.ijesty's coun
cils, and from the court.
7. "That the miUlia may be settled in such
manner as shall be aKieed upon by both houses.
.S " That the chiel-jiislices and judges of the
several courts of law- may hold llieii place quam
diu se bene gesserint.
9. " That such persons as have been put out
of the commissions of the peace since April I,
104-^, may be restored, and that those whom iho
Parliament shaU except against be removed.
10. "That your majesty will please lo pass
the bill now presented, to secure the privileges
of Parliamenl from the ill consequences of the
late proceedings against the Lord Kinibollon and
the hve members.
11. " That an act may be passed for satisfy
ing such public debts as the Parliament has en
gaged the public faith for.
12. "That your majesty will please to enter
inlo alliances wilh foreign Protestant powers
for the defence of the Protestant religion, and
recovering the Palatinate.
13. "That in the general pardon, all offences
committed before the 10th of January, 1641,
which have been or shall be questioned in the
House of Commons before the 10th of January,
1643, be excepted. That all persons concerned
in the Irish rebellion be excepted, as likewise
William earl of Newcastle, and George lord
Digby, 14. " That such members of Parliament as
have been turned out of their places since the
beginning of this Parliament may be restored,
and may have some reparation upon the petition
of bolh houses."*
These things being granted and performed,
we shall be enabled, say they, to make it our
hopeful endeavour that your majesty and your
people may enjoy the blessings of peace, truth,
and justice.
The bills mentioned in the fourth proposition
were these .-
The first is entitled, " An act for the suppres
sion of divers innovations in cliurches and
chapels in and about the worship of God, and
for. the due observation of the Lord's Day, and

? Rushworth, vol. v., p. 165, 106.

HISTORY OF THE

the better advancement of preaching God's Holy>
Word in all parts of this kingdom."
It enacts, " That all altars and rails be taken
away out of churches and chapels before Aprjl
18, 1643, and that the coinniunion-table be fixed
in sorae convenient place in the body of the
church. That all tapers, candlgsticks, basins,
crucifixes, crosses, images, pictures of saints,
and superstitious inscriptions in churches or
churchyards, be taken away or defaced.
" That all damages done to the churches, or
-windows of churches, by the removal of any of
the aforesaid innovations, be repaired by the
proper officers of the parish or chapel.
"This act is not lo extend to any image, pic-
lure, or monument for the dead."
It enacts farther, " That all bowing towards
the altar, or at the name of Jesus, shaU be for
borne ; and for the better observation of the
Sabbath, that aU dancing, gaming, sports and
pastimes, shall be laid aside. That every min
ister that has cure of souls shall preach, or ex
pound the Scriptures, or procure some other
able divine to preach to his congregation every
Lord's Day in the forenoon ; and it shall be law
ful for the parishioners to provide for a serraon
in the afternoon, and a lecture on the week-day,
where there is no other lecture or preaching at
the same time ; and if any person oppose or hin
der them, he shall forfeit 40*. to the poor."-*
The second, entUled, " An act for the utter
abolishing and taking away of aU archbishops,
bishops,- their chancellors, and commissaries,''
&c.,'has been already inserted in the former
part of this history, t
The third is entitled, " An act for punishing
scandalous clergymen, and others."
It ordains, " "That the lord-chancellor, or lord-
keeper, for the time being, shall award com
missions under the great seal to persons of
worth and credit in every county of England
and "Wales ; which commissioners, or any three
or more of them, shaU have power to inquire by
ihe oaths of twelve lawful men of the said coun
ty of the foUowing offences in the clergy, viz.,
not preaching six times at least in a year, by
any ecclesiastical persons having cure of souls
under the age of sixty, and not hindered by
sickness or imprisonmeut ; of blasphemy, per
jury, or subornation of perj ury, fornication, adul
tery, coramon alehouse or tavern haunting,
drunkenness, profane swearing or cursing, done
or committed within three years past, by any
parson or vicar, or other person having cure of
souls, or by any lecturer, curate, stipendiary,
schoolraaster, or usher of any school. The
commissioners shall take information by articles
in writing : the party complaining to be bound
in a recognizance of £10 to prosecute at a time
appointed ; the articles of complaint being first
deUvered to the party complained of twenty days
before the trial, that he may prepare for his de
fence. Upon conviction, by the verdict of
twelve men, the party coraplained of shall be
deprived of his spiritual proraotions, and be ad
judged a disabled person in law, to have and en
joy the same incumbency or ecclesiastical pro
motion. This act to continue till November 1,
1645, and no longer."t

PURITANS.
The fourth is entitled.

445

* Husband's CoUections, fol., 119.
t Vol. u., p. 498, 499.
X Husband's CoUections, fol, 140.

. . . ' An act against the
enjoying pluralities of benefices by spiritual per
sons, and nonresidence."
It enacts, " That all persons that have two
or more benefices with cure of souls, of what
yearly value soever they be, shall resign them
aU but one before April 1, 1643, any license,
toleration, faculty, or dispensation to the con
trary notwithstanding.
" That if any spirUual person, having cure of
souls, sliall be absent from his cure above ten
Sundays, or eighty days in a year, except in
case of sickness, imprisonraent, or except he be
a reader in either university, or be sumraoned
to convocation, and be thereof lawfully con
victed in any court of justice, that his living
ShaU be deeraed void, and the patron have pow
er to norainate another person, as if the former
incumbent was dead."
The fifth, for calling an assembly of learned
and godly divines, to be consulted with by the
Parliament for the settling of the government
and liturgy of the Church, and for the vindica
tion and clearing ofthe doctrine of the Church
of England from false aspersions and interpret
ations, will be inserted at large when we come
to the sitting ofthe Assembly.
To the forementioned propositions and biUs,
his majesty, after a sharp reply-* to the pream
ble, returned the following answer : that though
many of them were destructive of his just pow
er and prerogative, yet because they might be
mollified and explained upon debates, he is
pleased to agree that a time»and place be ap
pointed for the meeting of commissioners on
both sides to discuss them, and to consider the
following proposals of his own :t
1. "That his majesty's revenues, magazines,
towns, forts, and ships may be forthwith resto
red. 2. " That whatsoever has been done or pub
lished contrary to the known laws of the land,
and his majesty's legal rights, raay be renounced
and recalled.
3. " That whatever Ulegal power over his
majesty's subjects has been exercised by either,
or both houses, or any committee, may be dis
claimed, and all persons that have been impris
oned by virtue thereof be forthwith discharged.
4. " That a good bill may be framed for the
better preserving the Book of Common Prayer
from the acorn and violence of Brownists, Ana
baptists, and other sectaries, with such clauses
for the ease offender consciences as his majes
ty has forraeriy offered.! ^
5, " That all persons to be excepted out of
the general pardon shall be tried per pares, ac
cording to common course pf law, and that it
be left to that to acquit or condemn them.
6. " That in the mean time there be a cessa
tion of arras, and free trade for all his majesty's
subjects for twenty days."
His majesty desired the last article might be
first settled, by which he proposed not only to
gain time, but to provide himself with several
necessaries from London, and to convoy safely
* Dr. Grey disputes tlje propriety of this epithet,
applied to the king's reply. The reader may judge
of it by referring to Lord Clarendon's History, vol. n.,
p. 123, &c.— Ed. t Rushworth, vol. v., p. 169.
X 'The king had never made any offer of this kind
but in general terms. — Mrs. Macaulay. — Ed.

11I.-<T0RV OF THE PURITAN:

to Oxford the ammunition and other stores the
ijueen had lately landed ai BurUngton Bay,' but
the Parliamenl were loo sensible of his designs
to consent to il They tlierelore empowered
their eonunissioners lo liegin wKh the first prop
osition, concerning resloringihe revenues ofthe
crown, and the delivery of his majesty's maga
zines, towns, forts, and ships, &c All which
they were authorized to agree lo, on condition
the persons with whom be would intrust them
were such as they could confide in. To which
the king replied, that the oaths of the officers
were a sufficient security, and if they abused
their trust he would leave them to the law. The
commissioners then went upon the other arti
cles, and spun out the treaty tiU the 12th of
AprU w-ilhout concluding one single point. The
king would be restored to the condition he was
in before the war, upon a bare promise that he
would govern for the future according to law ;
but the Parliament were resolved not to trust
themselves nor the Constitution in his hands
without the redress of some grievances and a
better security. Mr. Whitelocke says, that the
commissioners (of which he was one) having
been wiih the king one evening tUl midnight,
gave his majesty such reasons to consent to a
very material point, which would have much
conduced to a happy issue and success of the
treaty, that he told them he was fully satisfied,
and promised to let them have his answer in
writing, according lo their desire, next morn
ing.! But when the commissioners were with
drawn, some of tlftjcing's bedchamber, and they
went higher, fearing the king's concessions
would tend to peace, never left persuading him
tilllie had altered his resolution, and giive orders
for the following answer to be drawn up, direct
ly contrary to what he had promised the com
missioners. t
" .Vs soon as his majesty is satisfied concern
ing his own revenue, magazines, ships, and forts,
in which he desires nothing but that the just
known legal rights of his raajesty, devolved to
him from his progenitors, and of the persons
trusted by him, which have violently been taken
from both, be restored lo him and them —
" As soon as all the members of both houses
shaU be restored to the same capacity of sitting
and voting in Parliaraent as they had on the
1st of January, 1641, the same right belonging
unto them by iheir birthrights, and the free
elections of those that sent them ; and having
been voted frora them for adhering to his maj
esty in these distractions ; his raajesty not in-

*¦ Rapm, vol. li., p. 476, foUo.
t Whitelocke's Memoirs, p. 65,
X Dr. Grey censures -\lr. .Seal for not giving his
reader Mr. \Vhitelocke's account of the king's great
civibty to the Parliament commissioners. We will
supply the (*iussion. " The commissioners were al
lowed by his majesty a very free debate with him,
and had access to hun at all times. He used them
with great favour and civiUty ; and his general, Ru-
theri, and divers of his lords and officers, came fre
quently to their table. The king himself did them the
honour sometimes lo accept of part oi their wine and
provisions, which the earl (viz., of Northumberland)
sent tu him when they had anything extraordinary."
\Mutelocke adds, " In this treaty the kmg manifest
ed his great parts and abiUties, strength of reason,
and quickness of apprehension, with much patience
m hearing what was objected against him, wherem
he aUowed aU Ireedoro."— Memorials, p. 65. — Eb.

leiuluifj that this should extenil either lo ilie
bislio|is, whose voles have been taken away bv
bill, or to such in whose places, upon new
writs, new elections have been made
" As soon as his majesty and both houses
may be secured from such tumultuous assem
blies as, to thfe great breach of the privileges
and the high dishonour of Parliaments, have
formerly assembled about both houses, and
awed the members of the same, and occasion
ed two several complaints from the House of
Lords, and two several desires of that house to
the House of Commons, to join in a declaration
against them, the complying with which desire
inight have prevented -,dl the miserable distrm--
tions which li.ive ensued ; which security his
majesty conceives can be only settled by ad
journing the Parliament to some ollior place, at
the least twenty miles from London, the clioico
of which his majesty leaves lo both houses,
" His majesty will then most cheerfully and
readily consent that both armies be immedi
ately disbanded, and give a present meeting to
both houses of Parliament, at the same time and
place, at and to which the Parliament shall
agree to be adjourned :
" His majesty beingconfident that the law wUl
then recover its due credit and esiimaliou, and
that upon a free debate, in a full and peaceable
convention of Parliament, such provisions will
be made against seditious preaching and print
ing against his majesty, and the established
laws, which hath been one of the chief causes
of the present distractions ; and such care' will
be taken concerning the legal and known rights
of his majesty, and the property and liberty of
his subjects, that whatsoever hath been pub
lished or done in, or by colour of, any illegal
declarations, ordinances, or order of one or
bolh houses, or any committee of either of
them, and particularly the power to raise arms
without his majesty's consent, will be in such
manner recalled, disclaimed, and provided
against, and no seed will remain for the like to
spring out of for the future, to disturb the peace
of the kingdora, and to endanger the very being
of it."»
This resolute answer broke off the treaty,
and left the quarrel to be deeided by the sword ;
'upon which Bishop Kennet makes tho following
remark: "It is to be lamented that sorae of
the king's most intimate friends were against
his concluding a peace, and others were against
his obtaining an absolute victory. They were
afraid he should comply, lest his prerogative
might not be great enough to protect him ; and
yet afraid he should conquer, lest he might bo
tempted to assume an arbitrary power."t Ills
plain frora hence, that by peace the king meant
nothing but being restored to all the preroga
tives of his crown as before the war, without
any additional security ; and that there was no
room for a treaty tiU the previous question was
deterrained, " 'Whether there was just reason
to confide in the king, and restore him to his
rights upon his bare promise of government by
law for the future 1" For aU the propositions
necessarUy led to this point, and tUl this was
decided it was in vain to lose time upon the
others. * Rushworth, vol. v., p. 259, 260.
t CompL Hist,, p. 135.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

447

Thus ended the year 1642, in which died the
famous Tobias Crisp, D.D., third son of EHis
Crisp, of London, Esq. He was born in Bread-
street, London, 1600, educated at Eton School,
and having taken the degree of bachelor of arts
at Cambridge, retired to Oxford, and was in
corporated into Baliol CoUege in the beginning
of February, 1626. In the year 1627 he becarae
Rector of Brinkwortli, in Wiltshire, and a few
years after proceeded D.D. At Brinkworth he
was much followed for his edifying manner of
preaching, and for his great hospitality. Upon
the breaking out of the war, he was obUged to
fly to London to avoid the insolences of the
king's soldiers, where, his peculiar sentiments
about the doctrines of grace being discovered,
he met with a vigorous opposition from the city
divines. The doctor in his younger years had
, been a favourer of Arminianism, but changing
his opinions, he ran into the contrary extreme
of Antinomianism. He was certainly a learn
ed and religious person, modest and humble in
his behaviour, fervent and laborious in his min-
• isterial , work, and exact in his morals. Mr.
Lancaster, the publisher of his works, says
" that his life was so innocent and harmless
from aU evil, so zealous and fervent in all good,
that it seeraed to be designed as a practical con
futation of the slander of those who would in
sinuate that his doctrine tended to licentious
ness." The doctor was possessed of a very
large estate, with which he did a great deal of
good; but being engaged in a grand dispute
against several opponents (if wo may believe
Mr. 'Wood) he overheated hiraselti and fell sick
of the smaUpox, of which he died February 27,
1642, and was buried in the family vault in
Bread-street, London.* In his last sickness he
was in a most comfortable and resigned frame
of mind, and declared to them that' stood by his
firm adherence to the doctrines he had preach
ed ; that as he had lived in the belief ofthe free
grace of God through Christ, so he did now,
with confidence and great joy, oven as much as
his present condition was capable of, resign his
hfe and soul mto the hands of his heavenly Fa
ther. He published nothing in his lifetime, but
after his death his sermons were published, in
three volumes, from his own' notes, which, with
some additions, were reprinted by his son, in
one volume quarto, about the year 1689, and
gave occasion to some intemperate heats among
the Nonconformist ministers of those times.
Towards the end of this year died Robert
Lord JBrooke, a virtuous and religious gentle
man, a good scholar, and an eminent patriot,
but a deteriliined enemy of the hierarchy. In
the beginning of the war he took part with the
Parliament, and being made lord-lieutenant of
the counties of 'Warwick and Stafford, put him
self -at the head of twelve hundred men, and
marched against the Earl of Chesterfield, at
Litchfield, vvhom he dislodged from the town,
March 1, but next day, as he was looking out
of a window with his beaver up, and giving di
rection to his soldiers to assault St. Chads
Church, adjoining to the close where the Earl
of Chesterfield's forces lay, a musket-baU struck
him near the left eye, of which he instantly
died. The Parliamentary Chroniclet calls him

* Wood's Athen. Oxon., vol. u., p. 12, 13.
t P. 272,-

" the most noble, and ever-to-be-honoured and.
renowned pious Lord Brooke, whose most illus
trious narae and memory, both for his piety,.
prudence, incomparable magnanimity, and he
roic martial spirit, for his loyalty to the king,
and fidelity to the country, deserves to remain
deeply engraven in letters of gold on high-erect
ed pillars of marble."* On the other hand.
Archbishop Laud, in his Diary,t has sorae very
reraarkable observations upon his death, which
show the superstition of that prelate. " First,"
says his grace, " I observe that this great and
known enemy to cathedral churches died thus
fearfully in the assault of a cathedral ; a fear
ful manner of death in such a quarr«l ! Sec
ondly, that this happened upon St. Chad's Day,
of which saint the cathedral bears the name.
Thirdly, that this lord, coming from dinner,
about two years since, from the Lord Herbert's
house in Larabeth, upon some discourse of St.
Paul's Church, then in their eye upon the wa
ter, said to some young lords that were with
him, that he hoped to live to see that one stone
of that building should not be left upon another ;
but that church stands yet, and that eye is put
out that hoped to see the ruins of it.''}:
WhUe the treaty of Oxford was depending,
his majesty's friends in the city were contriving
to bring him to London, and deliver the Parlia
ment into his han4s.^ Mr. Tomkins, Chalon-
er, and Waller, a member of the House of Com
mons, in conjunction with some others, were to
carry off the king's children, to secure the most
active members of the House of Commons, a&
Mr. Pym; Hampden, Strode, &c., to seize the
Tower and the gates ofthe city, with the mag
azines, and to let in a party ofthe royal forces,
who were to be at hand ; for aU which they had
the king's commission, dated March 16, 1643.
'The day of rising was to be the last Wednes
day in May : but the plot being discovered by a
servant of Tomkins's before it was ripe for ex
ecution, the conspirators were apprehended and
tried ; Tomkins and Chaloner confessed the
facts, and were executed ; but Waller purchased
his life for £10,000, and was banished. II
Upon this discovery, both houses resoWed to
strengthen theraselves by a. new covenant or
vow, which was tendered first to their own
raembers, then to the army, and such of the
people as were wiUing to take it.l In it they
declare their abhorrence of the late plot, and
engage not to lay down their arms as long as
the papists were protected from justice, -but to
assist the Parliaraent according to their abili
ties in the just defence of the Protestant reli
gion and the liberties of the subject, against

* Parliamentary Chronicle, p. 272. -^ P. 211.
I It was the opinion of some of the Royalists, and
especially of the Roman Catholics, that the bullet
was directed by St. Chad. It is observable that the
same man who was by one party looked upon as a
monument of Divine vengeance (see South's Sermons,
serm. i., p. 270), was by the other reverenced as a
saint Baxter has placed him in heaven {Saints'
Everlasting Rest, p. 82, 83, edit. 1649), together with
White, Pym, and Hampden.— Granger's History of
England, vol. U., p. 144, 8vo, See also Mrs. Macau
lay's History, vol. ui., p. 417, 418, note, 8vo.— Ed.
Baxter's opinion of a man's spiritual state is hkely to
be regarded as a good authority.— C.
is Rushworth, vol, v„ p. 322. Rapin, vol. ii., p.
487, foUo. II Ibid., p. 326, 327. 1[ Ibid., p. 325.

41S

HISTORY OF THE PURITAN.-^

t^e forces raised by the king without their con
sent. .Nevcrlheless. the king's friends were
nol disheartened from entering into several
other combinations against the Parliament ;
one was discovered in .-Vugust, and another to
wards the latter end of the year : even the
lower sort of women, to the number of two or
three thousand, with while silk rib.-inds in their
hats, went in a body lo Westminster with a
petition for peace upon the king's terras, and
could not be dispersed without the railitary
arm :* aU which was occasioned by the corre
spondence the king held in London, notwith
standing the ordinance the Parliament had pub
lished in -April last, to prevent spies and intel
ligences from Oxford or the royal army coraing
to any part of the Parliament's quarters.
The king having faUed in his designs of sur
prising the city, resolved at last to starve the
citizens into their duty ; for which purpose he
issued a proclamation, July 17, prohibiting all
intercourse of trade and coramerce wilh thera,
and expre.ssly forbidding aU persons to travel to
London, or lo carry any goods, merchandise, or
provisions thither without special license from
himself t By another proclamation [Oct. 17],
his majesty forbids his subjects of Scotland,
and all foreign kingdoms and stales in amity
with him, to bring any ammunition, provision,'"
goods, or merchandise of any sort, lo London,
or any other town or city ih rebellion against
him. The prohibiting foreign merchandises
had very little influence upon the trade of the
city, because tlje Parliament were fnasters of
the seas ; but the town of Newcastle being gar
risoned by the king, the Londoners were dis
tressed the following winter for coals, which
obliged them to have recourse to the digging
turf, and cutting down aU feU wood on the es
tates of delinquents within sixty mUes of Lon
don. By another proclamation, his majesty
forbade aU his subjects, upon pain of high trea
son, lo obey the orders of Parliament ; and aU
tenants to pay their rents to such landlords as
adhered to the rebellion, but lo reserve them
for his majesty's use.
After this account of things, it is reasonable
to suppose that very extraordinary burdens
must be laid upon the people on both sides to
support the expenses of the war. The Parlia
ment at Westminster excised everything, even
the necessaries of life : all butchers' meat paid
one shiUing in twenty ; every rabbit a half-pen
ny ; and pigeons one penny in the dozen. .The
king's Parliament at Oxford did the like in his
majesty's quarters ; and by an ordinance of
March 26 foUowing, all persons within the cit
ies of London and Westminister, and the bills
of raortality, were to pay the weekly value of
one meal a week, on every Tuesday, for the
public service, which they were supposed to
abate in their families.! Such were the hard
ships of the limes !
The king's affairs this suramer were very
prosperous, and threatened the ruin of his ene
mies ; for, besides his army, which had been

* Rapin, vol. ii., p. 357, foUo.
+ Husband's Collections, foUo, 237, 366.
X For a more minute detaU of the ways by which
the ParUament raised money, sec Dr Grey, voL u., p.
42, &c., and Historical Account of aU Taxes, p. 296,
297.

recruiting in the winter, the queen furnished
him with foreign money, and wilh two thou
sand loot, a thousand horse, a hundred wagons
laden with ammunition of all sorts, six pieces
of cannon, and two mortars ; upon wliich the
House of Commons impeached her of high trea
son, for levying lorces wiihout consent of i'ar-
liament. In the month of April the Earl of Es
sex besieged and took the town of Reading,
from whence he marched wiihin ten miles of
Oxford, where Prince Rupert, wilh a parly of
horse, beat up his quarters, and killed the fa
mous Mr, Hampden in Chalgrave-field ; after
which Essex retired, and put his sickly forces
into quarters of refreshment.* In the North the
king's armies had a train of successes. Lord
Fairfax was defeated by the Earl of Newcastle,
at Alherstone Moor, June 30, and Sir WiUiam
Waller at the battles of Lansdown and Round-
away-down, July 5 and 13, which was followed
with the loss of Weymouth, Dorchester, Port
land Castle, Exeter, and almost all the West
About the latter end of July, Prince Rupert be
sieged and took the city of Bristol, and the
king himself sat down before Gloucester [.Au
gust 10], which so alarmed the two houses that
the shops in London were ordered to be shut
till the siege was raised, and a strong body of
the train-bands despatched to join the Earl of
Essex's broken troops, who, by this means,
were in a condition, in fifteen days, to march
to the relief of that important city ; upon the
earl's approach the king raised the siege-, and
Essex entered the town when reduced to the
last extremity ; and having supplied it with
necessaries, after three days returned towards
London. 'The king being joined by Prince Ru
pert with five thousand horse, got before him
to Newbury, where both armies engaged with
pretty equal success, till night parted them,
when his majesty retired to Oxford, and left the
way open for the earl to pursue his march. + In
this battle the city trained-bands, by their un
daunted bravery, are said to have gained im
mortal honour. But it is the opinion of most
historians that if, instead of silling down before
Gloucester, the king had marched his victori
ous army directly to London, after the taking
of Bristol, he might have put an end to the war,
the Parliament being in no readiness to oppose
him ; however, it is certain that about this
time the royal cause was in the height of its
prosperity, and the Parliament's at so low an
ebb that theywere obliged to throw themselves
into the hands of the Scots. It is no part of my
design to give a particular description of sieges
and battles, or a recital of the military exploUs
of the heroes of these times, any farther than
to inform the reader of the true situation o( af
fairs, and to enable him to form a just idea of
the grounds and reasons of those extraordinary
measures that each party took for the support
of their cause. Let us now, therefore, attend
the affairs of the Church.
The clergy on bolh sides had a deep share in
the calaraities of the times, bein^ plundered,
harassed, imprisoned, and their livings seques
tered, as they fell inlo the hands of the enemy.
The king's party were greatly incensed against
the Puritan clergy, as the chief incendiaries of

* Rapin, vol. ii., p. 477, foho.
t Rushworth, vol. v., p. 293, 294.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS;

449

the people and trumpeters of rebellion. Such
as refused to read the king's proclamations and
orders against the Parliament were apprehend
ed, and shut up in the common jaUs of York,
and other places within his majesty's quarters.
When any parties of the royal army got pos
session of a town that adhered to the Parlia
ment, they inquired presently for the minister's
house, which was rifled and plundered of every
thing that was valuable, and himself imprison
ed, if he could be found ; but the incumbents
usually took care to avoid the danger by flying
to the next Parliaraent garrison. Above thirty
Puritan ministers took shelter in the city of
Coventry after the fight of Edgehill, Great num
bers came to London with their families in a
naked and starving condition, leaving their
books, and everything they could not bring
away, to the mercy of the king's soldiers. The
prisoners underwent uncommon hardships, and
would have been executed as rebels if the Par
iiament had not threatened reprisals.
On the other hand, the Episcopal clergy were
.DO less harassed by the Parliament soldiers ;
these being in possession of the best livings in
the Church, were liable to suffer the greatest
damage ; multitudes of them left their cures
and took sanctuary in the king's arraies or gar
risons, having disposed of their goods and chat
tels in the best manner they could. Others,
¦who had rendered themselves obnoxious by
their sermons or declarations for the king, were
put under confinement in Lambeth, Winchester,
Ely, and most of the bishops' houses about Lon-
-don ; and for want of room, about twenty, ac
cording to Dr. Walker, were iraprisoned on
board of ships in the River Thames, and shut
down under decks, no friend being suffered to
<:ome to them.* The same writer observes,
that about one hundred Emd ten of the London
clergy were turned out of their livings in the
years 1642 and 1643, and that as many more
fled to prevent imprisonment ; yet it ought to
be remembered, that none were turned out or
imprisoned for their adhering to the doctrine
¦or discipline of the Church of England till after
the iraposing of the Scots covenant, but for im
morality, false doctrine, nonresidence, or for
•taking part with the king against the Parlia
ment. However, it is to be lamented that sev
eral pious and worthy bishops, and other cler
gymen, who withdrew from the world, and were
desirous to live peaceably without joining either
side, suffered afterward in common with the
rest of their brethren ; their estates and livings
being sequestered, their houses and goods plun
dered by ungovernable soldiers, and themselves
¦Teduced to live upon the fifths, or a smaU pension
from the ParUament, either because they could
not take the covenant, or comply with the new
directory for public worship. Among these we
-may reckon the most Reverend Archbishop Ush
er, Bishop Morton, HaU, and many others.
When the bishops' lands were seized for the
-service of the war, which- -was called BeUum
Episcopale, or the Bishops' War, it was not
possible to show favour to any under that char-
¦acter ; and though the two houses voted very
- considerable pensions to some of the bishops in
lieu of their lands that were sequestered, due
care was not taken ofthe payment ; nor would
* Walker's Sufifermg Clergy, part n., p. 180.
Vol. 1. — L l i.

several of their lordships so far countenance the
votes of the houses as to apply for it.
In order to account for these things, it wiU
he necessary to set before- the reader the pro
ceedings of the several committees of religion
frora the beginning of the present Parliament.
It has been remembered that a grand corarait
tee, consisting ofthe whole House of Coramons,
was appointed November 6, 1640, to inquire
into the scandalous immoralities ofthe clergy,*
of which the famous Mr. White, meraber of
Parliament for Southwark, a good lawyer, and,
according to Mr. Whitelocke, an honest, a learn
ed, and faithful servant ofthe public, was chair
man. Great numbers of petitions, with articles
of misbehaviour, were brought before them, re
lating to superstition, heresy, or the iraraorality
of their ministers, insomuch that the House was
forced to branch the committee into several
subdivisions for the quicker despatch of busi
ness. November 19, 1640, a sub-committee
was appointed " to consider how there may be
preaching ministers set up where - there are
none ; how they may be maintained where
there is no maintenance, and all other things of
that nature ; also to inquire into the true
grounds and causes of the scarcity of preaching
ministers throughout the kingdom, and to con
sider of some way of removing scandalous min
isters, and putting others in their places ;" for
which purposes the knights of shires and bur
gesses of the several corporations were ordered
to bring informations, within six weeks, of the
state of religion in their respective counties.
The sub-committee consisted of sixty-one mem
bers, together with the knights and burgesses
of Northumberland, Wales, Lancashire, Cum
berland, and the burgesses of Canterbury. Mr.
White was chairman of this, as well as of the
grand committee ; they had their regular meet
ings in the Court of Wards, and from the powers
above mentioned, were sometimes caUed the
committee for preaching ministers, but more
usually for scandalous ministers. They had the
inspection of all hospitals and freeschools, and
were authorized to consider of the expediency
of sending commissions into the several coun
ties 10 examine such clergymen as were accu
sed, and could not with convenience be brought
up to London.
But presentments against the clergy came in
so fast, that, for the despatch of business, they
were obliged to divide again into several smaUer
committees, which, from the names ofthe gen
tlemen in the respective chairs, were called Mr.
White's, Corbet's, Sir Robert Harlow's, and Sir
Edward Deering's committees, &c.t "Within a
short space above two thousand petitions were
brought before them, of which Mr. Corbet's com
mittee had no less than nine hundred. Great
complaints have been made of their severity by
those who wUl not believe the clergy were so
corrupt as really they were, nor remeraber the
poUtical principles for which most of them suf
fered. 'The forms of proceeding in the commit
tee were certainly unexceptionable, for they
were obliged to give proper notice to the party
accused to make his appearance ; the witnesses
were usually examined upon oath in his pres
ence ; a copy of the articles was given him if
desired, and a reasonable time assigned to pre-

* Walker's Attempt, p. 63.

t Ibid., p. 65.

450

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

pare for his defence.* Tbe articles of inquiry i
on which they proceeded were, 1. Scandalous
immoralilies of life, as drunkenness, swearing,
incontinency, and sometimes blasphemy and
sodomy. :: False or scandalous doctrine, i c,
popish and Arminian, these being understood to
be inconsistent \s iih the .Vrticles of the Church
of England. 3. Profanation of the Sabbath by
reading and countenancing the Book of Sports.
4. Practising and pressing the late innova
tions after they had been censured by the Par
liament as Ulegal. 5. Neglect of their cures by
not preaching according to their duty. 6. Ma
lignancy and disaffection to the Parliament, dis
covered by their assisting his majesty with
money, and persuading others lo do so ; by
reading the king's declarations, and refusing to
read the ParUainent's ; by not observing the
Parliament's fasts, but calling them rebels, trai
tors, and wishing the curse of God upon them
and their cause. These were apprehended rea
sonable matters of inquiry, and just grounds of
exception, as matters stood between the king
and the two bouses. And, after aU, the final
determination was not with Ihe comraittee ;
their opinion, wiih the evidence, was first laid
before the grand committee, then it was report
ed to the whole House, and finaUy referred to
the House of Lords before it was decisive.
One would think here should be little room for
complaint, and yet there was too much passion
and prejudice on both sides, which was owing
to the confusion of the tunes and the violent
resentments of each party. The commission
ers were too forward in exposing the failings of
the clergy, and encouraging witnesses of slender
credit ; on the other hand, the clergy were in
sufferably rude to the committee, defaming their
witnesses, and threatening revenge, for being
obliged to plead their cause before laymen.
However, few clergymen were sequestered by
the committee for scandalous ministers before
il was joined with that for plundered ministers ;
an account of which I shaU lay before the reader,
after I have given two or three examples of the
proceedings of the present committee, from the
relations of those clergymen who have left be
hind them an account of their sufferings.
The first is Mr. Symmonds, of Rayne, in Es
sex, who acknowledges that he was sequester
ed for preaching and publishing that " the king,
being the supreme magistrate, hath immediate
dependance on God, to whom alone he is ac
countable. — That authority is a sacred thing,
and essential to the king's person. — That re
sistance is against the way of God, destructive
to the whole law of God, inconsistent with the
spirit of the Gospel, the perpetual practice of
Christianity, the caUing of ministers, comraon
prudence, the rule of humanity, nature itself,
reason, the oath of allegiance, and even the
late protestation. "t Besides, he had notorious
ly defamed the Parliament, and pressed his au
ditors lo beUeve the king's declarations, " be
cause a Divine sentence was in his mouth, and
he cannot err. And that, if David's heart
smote him for cutting off Saul's garment, what
w ould It have done if he had kept him from his
castles, towns, and ships '" For which reasons,
the Lords and Commons in Parliament assem-

* VVaUier's Attempt, p. 81.
t Walker's Suffermg Clergy, p. 67.

bled ordered [March 3, 1012] his living lo bo
sequestered into the hands of Robert Atkins,
.\I A , who was appointed lo preach every
Lord's Day liU farther order, Mr. Synimonds
endeavoured to disciedit tho evidence, but Was
so lar from disowning the charge, that he after
ward vindicated it in a pamphlet, entitled " The
Loyal Subject's Belief"
A second gentleman, who has left an ac
count of his sufferings, is the Rev. Mr. Squire,
of Shoreditch ; he was articled against for
" practising and pressing the late innovations,
for saying the papists were the king's best sub-
jei-is, because of iheir loyally and liberality ; for
declaring that none should come to the sacra
ment unless they were as well affected to the
king as the papists ; for comparing his majes
ty to the man that feU among thieves, being
wounded in his honour, and robbed of his cas
tles and the hearts of his people ; that the
priest passing by was the Protestant, the for
ward professor the Levile, but the papist was
the good Samaritan ; and for affirming that Ihe
king's subjects, and all that they had, were at
his command.""- Mr. Squire denied some of
these articles, and extenuated others ; he pro
cured a certificate from several of his parish
ioners of his diligence in preaching, in catechi
sing, and in beating down popery for thirty
years past, all which might be true ; but Dr.
Walker admitsf thai from the beginning of the
war he was a most strenuous champion for al
legiance, that is, for passive obedience and
nonresistance, and most earnestly exhorted hia
people to the practice of it, which, as the times
then were, might be a sufficient reason for the
Parliament to silence hun.
The other clergyman is Mr. Finch, of Christ
Church, who was articled against for extortion,
superstition, nonresidence, and neglect of his
cure, and for being a common swearer, tavern-
hunter, and drunkard, which was proved by
very substantial evidence. Dr. Walker's de
fence of this gentleman is very reraarkable :
" Coraraon chanty," says he, " will oblige every
one to give raore credit to the bare word of a
clergyman, though in his own vindication, than
to that of his known and professed enemies."t
And yet, in the next page,^ he owns he was
not satisfied with Mr. Finch's character, nor in
some parts of his defence, in which he thinks
he does by no means, acquit himself from hav
ing been a man of an lU life. His case was
reported by the grand committee lo the House
of Commons, and by them to the Lords, who
all agreed he was unfit lo hold any ecclesiasti
cal living.
It must be left with the impartial world to
judge whether the Parliament had reason to
sequester these clergymen in their own defence.
The last was a naan of an immoral life, and the
two former, allowing them to be otherwise good
men, were certainly incendiaries against the
two houses, and preached up those doctrines
which were inconsistent with the Constilulion
and freedom of this country, as most of the pa
rochial clergy at thai tirae did.
The committee for plundered ministers took
its rise from those Puritan clergymen who,
* Walker's Sufi'ermg Clergy, p. 67.
-t Ibid,, p. 176. X Walker's Attempt, p. 71.
^ Ibid. , p. 72.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

451

being di'iven from their cures in the country by
the king's soldiers, fled to London with their
families, leaving their substance and house
hold furniture to the mercy ofthe eneray ; these
being reduced to very great exigencies, appUed
to the Parliament for relief; the Coraraons first
ordered a charitable collection for them at their
monthly fast, and four days after, viz., Decem
ber 31, 1642, appointed a committee to consider
qf the fittest way " for the relief of such godly
and well-affected ministers as have been plun
dered ; and what malignant clergymen have
benefioes in and about the town, whose benefices
being sequestered, may be supplied by others
who may receive their profits." The commit
tee consisted of Mr. Solicitor-general, Mr. Mar
tyn, Sir Gilbert Gerrard, Sir WiUiam Arrayn,
Mr. Prideaux, Mr. Holland, Mr. Rouse, Mr.
Case, Mr. Knightly, Sir WUIiam Hayman, Mr.
Wentworth, Mr. Ruthen, Mr. Wheeler, and Mr.
Spurstow, to whom were afterward added some
others ; among whom. Dr. Walker supposes,
was the famous Mr. White, who sat in the chair
of this committee, March 2, 1642-3. The com
missioners were upon their oath ; any four had
a power to act ; they were distinguished by the
narae of the " coraraittee for plundered minis
ters ;" but the Royalists, by way of reproach,
oaUed them the " committee for plundering min
isters." They began their meetings in the Court
of Exchequer, January 2, in the afternoon ;
two days after, they were ordered to examine
the complaints against Dr. Soam, minister of
Twittenliam and Stains, to send for parties and
witnesses, to consider of proper persons to sup
ply their cures, to apply the revenues to their
use if they found it necessary, and to report-
the proceedings to the House. July 27, 1643,
they were empowered to consider of informa
tions against scandalous ministers, though
there were no malignancy proved against them,
and to put out such whose scandal was suffi
ciently proved ; from which time the comraittee
for scandalous and plundered ministers were,
in a sort, united, and so continued to the end
ofthe Long Parliament.*
In order to sUence the clamours of the Roy
alists, and justify the severe proceedings of
thescicommittees, it was resolved to print the
cases of those whom they ejected, and submit
their conduct to the public censure ; according
ly, towards the latter end of the year, Mr. White,
the chairman, published a pamphlet, entitled
"The first Century of scandalous maUgnant
Priests, made and admitted into Benefices by
the Prelate in whose Hands the Ordination of
Ministers and Government of the Church had
been ; or, a Narration of the Causes for which
the Parliament has ordered the Sequestration of
the Benefices of several Ministers complained
of before them for "Viciousness of Life, Errors
in Doctrine, contrary to the Articles of our Reli
gion, and for practising and pressing supersti-
. tious In novations against Law, and for Malignan-
¦ cy against the Parliament." The author, in his
preface, says, the reason of his appearing in
print was, " that the Parliament might appear
just in their doings, that the mouth of iniquity
might be stopped ; that all the world might see
that the tongues of them that speak evil of the
Parliament are set on fire of hell ; that they
* WaUiet'3 Attempt, p. 37.

hide themselve under falsehood, and make lies
tlieir refuge." And then adds, " that the gross
est faults which were charged on the clergy
were proved by many witnesses, seldom less
than six." The whole century were convicted
of malignity, or disaffection to the Parliament ;
and about eighty of them of scandalous imrao-
ralities in their lives. Dr. Walker has endeav
oured to recover the reputation of seven or eight,
and would insinuate that the rest were con
victed upon- too slender evidence, the witnesses
not being always upon oath, nor, in his opinion,
of sufficient credit to impeach a clergyman ;
that some of the crimes were capital, and there
fore, if they had been proved, must have touched
not only the livings, but the lives of the crimi
nals ; and that the Parliament, who set up for
precise morals, accepted the mere verbal evi
dence of the most infamous people. However,
the doctor hiraself has admitted and confirmed
the oenturist's account of many of the scanda
lous ministers, by the inquiries he has made
into their characters in the places from whence
they were ejected. Mr. Fuller confesses " that
several of the offences of the clergy were so
foul, that it is a sharae to report them, crying
to justice for punishment." But then adds, in
favour of others, " that witnesses against them
were seldom examined on oath. That many of
the complainers were factious people. That
sorae of the clergy were convicted for deliver
ing doctrines that were disputable, and others
only for their loyalty."* Bishop Kennet says,
that several of them were vicious to a scandal.
And Mr. Archdeacon Echard is of the same
mind. But Mr. Baxter's testimony is more
particular and decisive, who says, " that in all
the countries where he was acquainted, six to
one at least, if not many more, that were se
questered by the committees, were by the oaths
of witnesses proved insufficient or scandalous,
or especially guilty of drunkenness and swear
ing. This I know," says the reverend author,
" wiU displease the party, but I am sure that
this is true."t
It is impossible to account for the particular
proceedings of aU the coramittees, of which
great outcries have been raade by the friends
ofthe sufferers. " If the meanest and most vi
cious parishioners could be brought to prefer a
petition against their parson to the House of
Commons, how falsely soever," says Lord Clar
endon, " he was sure to be prosecuted for a
scandalous minister."t His lordship adds,
" that the committees accepted ofthe evidence
not only of mean people, but of them who
were professed enemies of the discipline of the
Church ; that they baited the clergy with rude
and uncivil language ; that they obliged them
to a long and tedious attendance, and were very
partial in voting them out of their livings, right
or wrong." In another place he says, "that
these complaints were frequently exhibited by
a few of tiie meanest of the people against the
judgraent of the parish." The like representa
tion is made by most of the Royalists ; but the
writers on the side of the Parliament deny the
charge, and complain as loudly of the contempt
uous behaviour of the king's clergy to the com-
* Church History, b. xi., p. 207.
t Baxter's Life, p. 74.
j Sufferings of the Clergy, p. 65.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

mis-sioners, treating ihem .is a combination of
illiterate lavmen, who had nolliing lo do wilh
Ihe Church— nav. as rebels and traitors. Some
refused lo obcv iheir summons, and others who
appeared took their time in examining the spell
ing of words, the propriety of grammar, and
other little evasions, foreign lo the purpose.
They declared roundly they did not own the
tribunal before w-hich they stood ; they insulted
the witnesses, and threatened reprisals out of
court, when things should revert to their former
channel ; and, upon the whole, behaved as if they
had engrossed aU the law, learning, and good
sense of the nation to themselves. The cora
missioners, provoked at this usage, were obliged
to behave with some sharpness, in order to sup
port their own authority ; they would not in
dulge them the peculiar privilege they claimed
as clergymen, nor allow them, as scholars, to
debate the truth of those doctrines of which
they were accused, but confined them to mat
ters of fact. When they excepted against the
witnesses as ignorant mechanics, factious, schis
matical, enemies to the Church, &c,, they over
ruled their exceptions, as long as there were no
legal objections to their competency or credi-
bUity. "With regard to the country comraittees, tho
commissioners were chosen out of the deputy-
lieutenants and the best country gentlemen in
the Parliament interest. Most of the crimes
for which the clergy were sequestered were
confessed by themselves ; superstition or false
doctrine were hardly ever objected, far the
greatest part being cast out for malignity ; and
yet the proceedings of the sequestrators were
not always justifiable, for whereas a court of
judicature should rather be counsel for the pris
oner than the prosecutor, the commissioners
considered the king's clergy as their most dan
gerous eneraies, and were ready to lay hold of
all opportunities to discharge them their pulpits.
But, whatever might be the excesses or par
tiality of particular committees, no reasonable
blame can be laid upon the two houses, whose
instructions were, in my opinion, unexception
able ; the words of the ordinance are these :
"And to the end that those who wiU appear
before the committee may have the witnesses
examined in their presence, it is farther ordain
ed, that summonses, with sufficient warning
of the tirae and place when and where the
charge against thera shall be proved, be either
given to their persons or left at their houses ;
and, if they desire it, they shaU have a copy of
the articles against them, with a convenient
time to give in their answer under their hands,
which, together wilh their charge, and the
proofs upon every particular of it, the said dep
uty-lieutenants and coramittees of Parliaraent
shall send up to the coraraittee of this House
appointed to provide for plundered ministers,
which committee shaU, from time to time,
transmit them to this House."* And, farther,
to prevent all abuses, it is ordained, in the or
dinance for sequestration, " that if any person
or persons find themselves aggrieved with any
acts done by the sequestrators, their agents, or
deputies, and shaU not therein be relieved by
the sequestrators, upon complaint made to them,
or any two or more of them, then, upon infor-

Husband's CoUections, p. 311.

malion given lo both houses of Parliament, or
lo the committee of Lords and Commons afore
mentioned, such f.irlher order shall be taken
therein as shall be affreeable lo justice'" Here
was an appeal from a lower lo a higher court ;
and to prevent a scrutiny into the lives and
manners of the clergy, when thoir witnesses
might be dead, they were limited to such crimes
as had been committed within three years be
fore the beginning of the present Parliament;
so that, if the committees observed their orders,
there could be little cause of complaint ; yet,
as no one wUl undertake to vindicate aU their
proceedings, we must not, on the other hand,
give ear to the petulant and angry complaints
of every discontented clergyman,! I shall only
observe, farther, that these country comniiliees
hardly began to sit tUl the latter end of the year
1643 or the beginning of 1644; that they exer
cised their power very sparingly whUe the war
was in suspense, but when the royal forces had
been beat out of the field, and victory declared
on their side, they proceeded with more free-
dora, especiaUy against those who had raade
themselves parties in the war,
"Very different accounts are given of the num
bers and quality of the ejected clergy by their
several friends. Lord Clarendon says that all
the learned and orthodox divines of England
were deemed scandalous. And Dr, Walker
has taken a great deal of pains to increase their
numbers and vindicate their characters. By
this account one would think most of them
were of the first rank and character ; but Mr.
Baxter,t who was much better acquainted wilh
thera, says, " that when the Parliament purged
the ministry, they cast out the grosser sort of
insufficient and scandalous ones, and also some
few civU men who had assisted in the wars
against the Parliament, or set up bowing lo al
tars, and such innovations, but they left in near
one half of the ministers that were not good
enough to do much service, nor bad enough to
be utterly intolerable. These were a corapany
of poor, weak preachers, who had no great skill
in divinity nor zeal for godliness, but preached
weekly that that was true, and were free from
notorious sins." This seems a pretty fair re
lation of the matter ; however, we shall have
occasion to consider it raore fully hereafter.
Besides the sequestration of benefices, the
Parliaraent considered the king's clergy as par
ties in the war, and seized their estates, both
real and personal, under that character, towards
defraying the expenses of it ; for this purpose
they passed the following ordinance, April 1,
1643, the prearable to which sets forth,^ "that
it is most agreeable to common justice that the
estates of such notorious delinquents as have
been the causes or instruments of the public
calaraities, which have hitherto been employed
to the fomenting and nourishing of this mis
erable distraction, should be converted and
applied towards the support of the common
wealth. " Be it therefore enacted, that the estates, aa
well real as personal, of all such hishops, deans,
deans and chapters, prebends, archdeacons, and
of all other persons, ecclesiastical or temporal.

» Husband's Collections, p. 15.
t Sufferings ofthe Clergy, p. 81.
^ Husband's CoUections, fol. 13.

X Life, p. 95.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

453

who have or shall raise arras against the Par
liament, or have been or shall be in actual war
against the same ; or who have or shall volun
tarily contribute money, horse, plate, arms, am
munition, or other aid or assistance, towards
the maintenance of any force raised against the
Parliament, or for the plundering the king's sub
jects who have willingly contributed or yielded
obedience to the commands of both houses of
Parliaraent, and of all such who have joined or
shall join in any oath or association against the
Parliament, &c., shall be seized into the hands
of sequestrators, to be named by both houses
of Parliaraent, which sequestrators, or their
deputies, are to seize into Iheir hands, as well
all the raoney, goods, chattels, debts, and per
sonal estates, and all the manors, lands, tene
ments, hereditaments, rents, revenues, and prof
its of all the said delinquents before specified,
and also two parts of all the personal and real
estates of every papist ; and to let, set, and
demise the same frora year to year, as the re
spective landlords or owners thereof might have
done. And the authority of both houses is en
gaged to save them harmless from paying any
renls to their landlords, being delinquents ; and
aU the moneys, rents, and revenues that shall
arise from this ordinance, shall be applied to
the maintenance ofthe army and forces raised
by the Parliament, and such other uses as shaU
be directed by both houses of Parliament for
the benefit ofthe coramonwealth."
August 19, 1643, this ordinance was farther
explained, as including in the number of delin
quents such as absentedfrom their usual places
of abode or betook theraselves to the king's
forces, such as should erabezzle or conceal any
of their effects to avoid payraent of taxes and
assessments to the Parliament, or who kept
out of the way so that no tax could be levied
upon them, or who concealed or harboured the
goods or persons of delinquents, or who should
seize or molest any persons for obeying or exe
cuting any of the Parliament's orders.* A
clause was then added to the ordinance, em
powering the coramissioners to allow to the
wives and children of such deUnquents, for
their maintenance, any portion of their goods,
provided it did not exceed one fifth part. This
clause was construed to extend to the wives
and children of aU clergymen who were ejected
their livings on any account whatsoever. The
commissioners were also to seize two thirds of
the estates of papists, both real and personal,
and for thediscovering of them, were to tender
to such as they suspected the following oath :
" I, A. B., do abjure and renounce the pope's
supremacy and authority over the Catholic
Church in general, and over myself in particu
lar. And I do believe that there is not any
transubstantiation in the sacrament of the
Lord's Supper, or in the elements of bread and
wine, after consecration thereof by any person
whatsoever. And I do also believe that there
is not any purgatory, or that the consecrated
Host, crucifixes, or images ought to be wor
shipped, or that any worship is due to any of
them. And I also believe that salvation can
not he merited by works ; and all doctrines in
affirmation of the said points I do abjure and
renonnce, withput any equivocation, raental
* Scobel's CoUections, p. 49.

reservation, or secret evasion whatsoever, ta
king the words by me spoken according to the
common meaning of them. " So help me God."
Divers clergymen of considerable learning
and blameless lives, sound Protestants and
good preachers, lost their estates and liveli
hoods by falling within the compass of this or
dinance. How far such severities are justifi
able by the law of arms, in a time of civil war
and confusion, I shall not determine. It had
been well if those who would have given secu
rity for thoir peaceable behaviour could have
been distinguished. But what could the Par
liament do in their circumstances with men
who were always dealing in politics, privately-
sending the king raoney, preaching publicly that
he was above law, and stirring up the people to
sedition and disaffection to those powers by
whora they were protected 1 If others suffered
in this manner, it was a very hard measure.
Their estates might have been double taxed, as
those of papists and nonjurors have sinee been ;
but to take away their whole property, and re
duce thera to a fifth, and this at the raercy of se
questrators, was extremely rigorous and severe.
However, his majesty pursued the same
measures, and gave directions to seize the
lands and goods ofthe PaYliaraentarians, as ap
pears by his proclaraation of April 7 and May 8,
wherein he forbids aU his subjects to submit to
their orders ; and by another, dated May 15,
1643, complains " that divers of his clergy, em
inent for piety and learning, because they pub
lish his royal and just commands and declara
tions, and wiU not (against the known laws of
the land and their own consciences) submit to
contributions, nor publicly pray against us and
our assistants, but conform to the Book of Com
mon Prayer established by law, and preach
God's Word according to the purity of it, and
in their sermons will not teach sedition, nor
publish illegal commands and orders for fo
menting the unnatural war levied against us,
are sorae of them driven from their cures and
habitations, others silenced and discharged from
their cures, and persecuted, and their curates,
if orthodox, displaced, in whose places factious
and seditious persons are introduced. His raaj
esty, therefore, forbids aU his subjects to hinder
any of his clergy from exercising their func
tions, or to displace them ; and if any trans
gress this command, his majesty declares them
assistants of the rebeUion, and wiU proceed
against them according to law, as soon as he
can apprehend them, and, in the mean time, will
give .direction for taking their lands and goods
into safe custody."* Such were the extrem
ities on both sides !
The silencing so many clergymen at once
made it very difficult to find persons qualified
to fiU the vacant pulpits. This was an incon
venience that attended the reformation of Queen
Elizabeth, and was the case of the Established
Church again in the year 1662, when near two
thousand ministers were ejected on account of
their nonconformity. Lord Clarendon, with his
usual candour, says, ," that frora the beginning
of this Parliament he is confident not one learn
ed or orthodox man was recoramended by them
lo the Church of England ;" and yet some of
* Husband's CoUections, p. 177.

4M

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS

the greatest ornaments of the Church for learn
ing and eood sense, in the reign of King Charles
II., were of tUeir promotion, as Bishop Rey
nolds, Bishop WUkms, Dr. Ligbtfoot, Dr. Cud-
worth, Dr Wallis, and others. Mr Baxter, who
was a more competent judge in this respect,
says,* "that though now and then an unwor
thy person, by sinister means, crept into the
places of Ihe ejected ministers, yet commonly
those whom they put in were such as set them
selves laboriously lo seek the saving of souls.
Indeed, the one half of Ihem were very young ;
but that could not be helped, because there
were no others to be had ; the Parliament could
not make men learned Or godly, but only put
in the learnedest and ablest they could have ;
and though it had been to he wished that they
might have had leisure to ripen in the universi
ties, yet many of ihem did, as Ambrose, teach
and learn at once so successfully, as that they
much increased in learning themselves while
they profited others, and proportionably more
than many in the universities do." Those cler
gymen who had been silenced and imprisoned
by Archbishop Laud were set at liberty and
proraoted ; some who had fled to Holland and
New-England, on account of nonconformity, re
turned horae, and were preferred to consider
able lectures in the city, or to livings that had
been sequestered. The Parliament entertained
and promoted several Scots divines, and yet,
after all. Wanted a supply for several vacant
benefices, which obliged them to admit of some
unlearned persons and pluralists, not of choice,
but through necessity ; for when things were
more settled, the Assembly of Divines declared
against both ; and it deserves to be remember
ed, that the Parliament, instead of giving their
divines an absolute and full possession of the
sequestered livings, reserved to themselves a
right in their warrants to displace them if they
saw occasion, which shows their great pru
dence and caution, for by this means it was in
their power, upon the conclusion of peace, to
restore those who had been ejected merely for
their attachment to the king, without any in
justice to the present possessor. To put some
stop to the clamours of the Royalists at Oxford,
who gave out that the Parliaraent admitted
butchers, cobblers, bricklayers, and those who
had no call from God or man, they ordained,
July 27, 1643, "that the comraittees should not
nominate any person to vacant benefices but
such as should be examined and approved by
the Assembly of Divines then sitting at West
minster." Upon the whole, it is evident that
the two houses did the best they could in their
present circumstances, and perhaps better than
the Royalists did at the Restoration, 1660, when,
according to Dr. Walker, aU the sequestered
clergy who survived were restored to their liv
ings, even those who had been convicted of
the most scandalous immoralities, without any
marks of repentance or amendment.
The Parliament's affairs being low, and their
counsels divided, they nol only appUed to Heav
en, by extraordinary fastings and prayers, but
went on vigorously with their intended refor
mation. They began with the Sabbath, and on
March 22, 1642-3, sent to the lord-mayor ofthe
city of London to desire him to put in execu-
* Hist, of Life and Tunes, p. 74.

tion the statutes for the due observation of the
Lord's Day; his lordship, accordingly, issued his
precept the very nexi day to the aldermen,* re
quiring them to give strict charge to ihe church
wardens and constables within their several
wards, that from henceforth "they do nol per
mit or suffer any person or persons, in time of
Divme service, or at any time on the Lord's
Day, to be tippling in any tavern, inn, tobacco-
shop, alehouse, or other vicluaUing-house what
soever ; nor suffer any fruiterers or herb-wom
en to stand with fruit, herbs, or other victuals
or wares, in any streets, lanes, or aUeys, or any
other ways to pot things for sale, at any lime of
that day, or in the evening of it ; or any mdk-
woman to cry miUt ; nor to suffer any persons
to unlade any vessels of fruit, or other goods,
and carry them on shore ; or to use any unlaw
ful exercises or pastimes ; and to give express
charge to aU innkeepers, taverns, cook-shops,
alehouses, &c,, within their wards, not to en
tertain any guests to tipple, eat, drink, or take
tobacco, in their houses on the Lord's Day, ex
cept innkeepers, who may receive their ordi
nary guests or travellers, who come for the
despatch of their necessary business ; and if
any persons offend in the premises, they are lo
be brought before the lord-mayor, or one of his
majesty's justices of the peace, to be punished
as the law directs," This order had a very
considerable influence upon the city, which be
gan to wear a different face of religion to what
it had formerly done,t May 5 the book tolera
ting sports upon the Lord's Day was ordered to
be burned by the hands of the common hang
man m Cheapside, and other usual places ; and
all persons having any copies in their hands
were required lo deliver them lo one of the
sheriffs of London to be burned.
Next to the Lord's Day, they had a particular
regard to their monthly fast : April 24, all con
stables, or their deputies, were ordered to re
pair to every house within their respective lib
erties, the day before every public fast, and
charge aU persons strictly to observe it accord
ing to the said ordinances. And upon the day
of the pubUc fast, they were enjoined to walk
through their said liberties, to search for per
sons who, either by foUowing the work of their
calling, or sitting in taverns, victuaUing, or ale
houses, or any other ways, should not duly ob
serve the sarae ; and to return their names to
the committee for examination, that they might
be proceeded against for contempt. The fast
was observed the last Wednesday in every
month, the public devotions continued with lit
tle or no intermission from nine in the morning
lUl four in the afternoon, t and (as has been al
ready observed) with uncommon strictness and
rigour.

? Husband's CoUections, p. 7. t Ibid., p. 159,
X These services were protracted, undoubtedly, to
a tiresome and unreasonable length, and became the
subject of ridicule lo the royal party ; of which this
proposal, in a pamphlet entitled "New Orders New,"
is a proof: vu., " that every year there shall be the
Roundheads' feast celebrated, a well-lunged, long-
brealhed cobbler shall preach a sermon six hours, and
his prayers two hours long, and at every mess in this
feast shall be presented a godly dish of turnips, be
cause It is very agreeable to our natures : fora turnip
hath a round head, and the anagram of a Puritan iaa
turnip." — Dr. Grey, p. 70, note. — Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

455

Besides the stated fasts, it was usual, upon
•extraordinary emergencies, to appoint occasional
•ones ; as when the army was going upon any
¦hazardous enterprise, or were within sight of
:the enemy, or under very disadvantageous cir
cumstances. When the Earl of Essex was shut
¦up in CornwaU, the two houses appointed a day
of fasting and prayer in six churches within
the lines of communication, and in such other
churches where it should be desired ; and the
crowds of serious, attentive hearers on such oc
casions was almost incredible.
The king, apprehending the Parliament's
monthly last was perverted from its original de
sign, and turned into a nursery of rebellion,
was pleased to dissolve it, and appoint another,
for the reasons contained in the following proc
lamation from Oxford, dated October 5, 1643 :
"When a general fast was first propounded to
us in contemplation of the miseries of our king
dom of Ireland, we readily consented to it.
But when we observe what Ul use has been
made of these public meetings, in pulpits, in
prayers, and in the sermons of many seditious
lecturers, to stir up and continue the rebellion
raised against us within this kingdom, we
thought fit to command that such a hypocritical
fast, to the dishonour of God, and slander of
true religion, be no longer continued and coun
tenanced by our authority. And yet we, being
desirous to express our own humiliation and the
humiliation of our people, for our own sins, and
the sins of the nation, are resolved to continue
a monthly fast, but not on the day formerly ap
pointed. We do, therefore, hereby command,
that from henceforth no fast be held on the last
Wednesday in the month, as for many months
it has been ; nor on any other day than is here
by appointed by us. But we do expressly charge
and command, that in all churches and chapels,
&c., there be a solemn fast religiously observed
on the second Friday in every month, with pub
lic prayers and preaching where it may he had,
Ihat as one man we may pour out our prayers
to God, for the continuance of his gracious pres
ence and blessing upon us, and for establishing
a happy peace ; for which purpose we have
caused devout forms of prayer to he coraposed
and printed, and intend to disperse them, that
they may be used in all parts of our kingdom."*
Agreeably to this proclamation, the king's friends
in the counties of Cornwall and Devonshire took
an oath, and entered into an association upon
sundry articles, of which this was one : That if
any minister shall refuse, or wUfully neglect, to
observe the fast appointed by his majesty, or
shaU not read the service and prayers appointed
for that fast, and being carried before a justice
of peace, shaU not proraise and protest for their
future conformity, he shaU be forthwith secured,
and his estates sequestered ; the like course to
be taken with such, ministers as absent them
selves that day, unless upon sickness, or other
cause aUowed by two justices of peace ; and
-with those that wUl not read such books as shall
be appointed to be read by his majesty ; and the
-constables are to certify their defaults to the
next justice of the peace. t This was a new
.hardship upon clergy and people, for the Parlia
ment having enjoined the continuance of the

* Husband's Collections, p. 353.
t Rushworth, vol. u., p. 381, 382.

fast on Wednesday, the Royalists were obliged
to an open separation, by changing it to Friday.
Thus the devotions of the kingdom were divi
ded, and Almighty God caUed into the quarrel
on both sides.
The next thing the Parliament undertook
was the removal of those monuments of super
stition out of churches, &c., which had been
voted down the last year, but without any con
siderable effect, because of the dissent of the
House of Lords. In the beginning of May, Sir
Robert Harlow, by order ofthe two houses, took
down the crosses in Cheapside, Charing Cross,
and St. Paul's Cross,* which was a pulprt of
wood covered with lead in form of a cross, and
mounted on several steps of stone about the
middle of St. Paul's churchyard, where the first
Reformers used to preach frequently to the peo
ple ; and upon a farther representation of the
Assembly of Divines, they passed the following
ordinance : " That before the 1st of November
all altars and tables of stone shall be utterly ta
ken away and demolished ; and all communion
tables removed from the east end of every
church, chapel, or place of public worship, and
be set in somfe other fit and convenient place or
places ofthe body ofthe church or chapel ; and
aU rails whatsoever which, have been erected
near to, or before, or about, any altar or comrau
nion-table, in any of the said churches or chap
els, shaU before the said day be taken away,
and the chancel-ground of every such church,
or chapel, or other place of public prayer, which
has been within these twenty years raised for
any altar or coramunion-table to stand upon,
shall before the said day be laid down and lev
elled as it was before ; and aU tapers, candle
sticks, and basins shall before the said day be
removed and taken away from the coramunion-
table in every church, chapel, or place of pub
lic prayer, and not to be used again afterward.
And all crucifixes, crosses, images, and pictures,
of any one or more persons of the Trinity, or of
the 'Virgin Mary ; and aU other images, and pic
tures of saints, or superstitious inscriptions in
or upon any of the said churches, churchyards,
or other places belonging to the said churches
or churchyards, or in any other open plaee,
shall, before the said 1st of Noveraber, be taken
— ^The zeal showed for pulling down the crosses
gave occasion for the publication of a humorous
piece, entitled " A Dialogue betwixt the Cross m
Cheap and Charing Cross, comforting each other, as
fearing their Fall in these uncertain Times." It was
also blntered in a pamphlet, with this title, "New
Orders New, agreed upon by the Parhament of
Roundheads, confirmed by the Brethren of the new
Separation, assembled at Roundheads' HaU without
Cripplegate, with the great Discretion Of Master
Long-breath, an upright, new inspired Cobbler,
Speaker of the House. Avowed by Ananias Dul-
man aUas Prick Bars." Of the strain of this piece,
the foUowmg passage is a specimen; " That vve have
no crosses, for they are mere popery, and tend tp the
confusion and opposition of Scripture ; especially let
the sifht of Cheapside Cross be a detestation unto
vou aU, and let these streets that are called Crosses,
as Red Cross-street, and White Cross-street, &c.,
be turned otherwise, and caUed after the name of
some of our own family, as Green, Spencer, &c., and
caU it rather Green-street, than Red Cross-street,
&c. That thus, aU profaneness being rooted and ex
tirpated from our conventions, nothing but holiness
may remain among ns."— Dr. Grey, vol. u., p. 80, 81,
note.— Ed.

458

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

away and defaced by the proper officers that
have the care of such churches. And it is far-
llier ordained, that the walls, w indows, grounds,
and other places that shall be broken, impaired,
or altered, by any the means aforesaid, shaU be
made up and repaired in good and sufficient
manner, in all and every the said parish church
es, chapels, or places of public prayer belonging
to the parish, by the church-wardens for the
lime being, and in any cathedral or collegiate
church or chapel by the deans or sub-deans ;
and in tbe inns of court, by the benchers and
readers of the same, at the cost and charge of
all and every such person or persons, bodies
politic, or corporations, to whom the charge of
repair does usuaUy belong, upon penalty of 4s.
to the use of the poor, for the space of twenty
days after such default ; and if default be made
after December 1, the justice of peace of the
county or city shall have power lo perform il.
Provided that this ordinance shall not extend
to any image, picture, or coat of arms, in glass,
stone, or otherwise, in any church, chapel, or
churchyard, set up by, or engraven for a monu
ment of, any king, prince, nobleman, or other
dead person, which has not been coramonly re
puted or taken for a saint."*
This ordinance is of the sarae tenour with the
bill against innovations, presented lo the king
at the treaty of Oxford, and does not much dif
fer from Queen Elizabeth's injunctions at the
Reformation : there were some disorders and
tumults in putting it in execution, and great
neglect of repairs ; but if the reader will look
back to the superstitious decorations and orna
ments of the cathedrals mentioned in the for
mer volume of this work, he wiU see there was
some need of a reformation. December 14, the
comraissioners cleared the Cathedral of Canter
bury of all the images, and paintings in the
-windows. Heylin says the rabble violated the
monuments of the dead, spoiled the organs, took
down the rails, &c., and affronted the statue of
our blessed Saviour.t Deceraber 30, they re
moved the pictures, iraages, and crucifixes in
Henry Vll.'s chapel ; and about Lady Day the
paintings about the walls and windows were
defaced, and the organs taken down in presence
of the committee of the House. The Cathedral
of St. Paul's was stripped about the same time,
the candlesticks, crucifixes, and plate being
sold for the service of the war ; and within a
few months most of the cathedrals throughout
England underwent the same fate.t If the
ParUament, instead of leaving this work to the
officers of every parish, had put it into the hands
of some discreet persons, to give directions
what might remain and what was fit to be re
moved, aU the mischiefs that have been com
plained of might have been prevented ; the
monuments of the dead might have remained
entire, and a great many fine paintings been
preserved. Dr. Heylin charges the officers with
sacrilege, and fixes the Divine vengeance upon
them as a terror to others, one of them being

* Husband's Collections, fol. 307.
t Hist. Presbytery, p. 450.
X Dr. Grey gives various examples ofthe rude vio
lence and indiscriminate destruction wilh which this
was done. His authorilies are. Bishops Hall. Heylin,
Dugdale, and a w-ork entitled Mercurius Rusticus.
—Ed.

killed in pulling down Ihe cross in Cheapside,
and another hanged soon after he had pulled
down Ihe rich cross in Abingdon. But wiihout
remarking on the doctor's prognostications, it
might be very proper to n-move these images
and crosses, because of the superstitious resort
of great numbers of people to ihem ; though it
ought to have been done ina peaceable manner,
without any damage to the truly venerable re
mains of antiquity.
The paper combat between the two parties at
Oxford and London w as carried on with no less
fury than the war itself; numberless pamphlets
were scattered up and down tho kingdom, big,
with disaffection and scandal against the two
houses ; to put a slop to which, the Commons,
by an order of March 6, 1642-3, had empowered
the Committee of Examinations to search for
printing-presses in such places where Ihey had
cause lo suspect they were employed against
the Parliament, and to break thora in pieces,.
and destroy the materials. They were also to
seize the paraphlets, and to commit the printer
and vender to prison. But this order not being
effectual, another was published, June 14, 1643,
the preamble to which sets forth, " that the
former orders of Parliament lo prevent the
printing and dispersing scandalous pamphlets
having been ineffectual, it is ordained that no
person or persons shaU print any book or pam
phlet without license under the hands of such
persons as shaU be appointed by Parliament,.
nor shaU any book be reprinted wiihout the U-
cense and consent ofthe owner, and the printer
to put his name to it ; the Company of Station
ers and the Coraraittee of Examinations are re
quired to raake strict inquiry after private press
es, and to search all suspected shops and ware
houses for unlicensed books and paraphlets, and
to corarait the offenders against this order to.
prison, to be punished as the Parliament shall
direct."* The names ofthe licensers appointed-
by this ordinance were these :
For books of divinity.
The Rev, Mr Thomas Gataker,
The Rev, Mr, J. Downham.
The Rev. Mr. Callicut Downing.
The Rev. Dr. Thomas Temple.
The Rev. Mr Joseph Caryl.
The Rev. Mr. Edmund Calamy.
The Rev. Mr. Carter, of Yorkshire.
The Rev. Mr. Charles Herle.
The Rev. Mr. James Crauford.
The Rev. Mr. Obadiah Sedgwick.
The Rev. Mr. Batchelor.
The Rev. Mr. John ElUs, Jun.
For law-books.
Sir John Brampston. Mr. Serg. Pheaant.
Mr. Serg. Rolls. Mr. Serg. Jermyn.
For physic and surgery. — The president and four
censors of the College of Physicians for the time be
ing. For civil and canon law. — Sir Nath, Brent, or any-
three doctors of the civil law.
For heraldry, titles of honour, and arms. — One of the
three kings at arms.
For philosophy, history, poetry, morality, and arts. —
Sir Nath, Brent, Mr, Langley, and Mr. Famaby,
schoolmasters of St, Paul's.
For small pamphlets, pictures, <^c. — The clerk of thoi
Company ot Stationers for the time being ; and
Fur mathematics, almanacs, and prognostications. —
The reader of. Gresham College for the time being.

* Rushworth, vol. v., p, 335.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

457

But neither this nor any other regulation of
the press could restrain the Oxonians from dis
persing their mercuries and diurnals over the
whole kingdom, as long as the university was
in the king's hands.

CHAPTER II.
FBOH THE OALLINO THE ASSEMBLY OF DIVINES AT
WESTMINSTER TO THE OXFORD PARLIAMENT,
It has been observed, that at the setting
down of this Parliament, the resolution of the
leading members was to remove the grievances
ofthe Church as well as State, and for this pur
pose to address the king to call an assembly of
divines to reform the liturgy and discipline.
To forward this design, the London ministers,
in their petitions in the year 1641, prayed the
houses to be mediators to his majesty for a free
synod, and the Commons accordingly mention
ed it in their grand remonstrance of December
1,1641. "We desire," say they, "that there
may be a general synod of the grave, pious,
learned, and judicious divines of this island, as
sisted with some from foreign parts professing
the same religion with us, who may consider of
aU things necessary for the peace and good gov
ernment of the Church, and to represent the re
sult of their consultations to be aUowed and con
firmed, and to receive the stamp of authority."
In the treaty of Oxford a bill was presented to
the saine purpose, and rejected ; some time af
ter, Dr. Burges, at the head ofthe Puritan cler
gy, applied again to Parliament, but the houses
were unwilling to take this step without the
king's concurrence, till they were reduced to
the necessity of calling in the Scots, who insist
ed that "there should be a uniformity of doc
trine and discipline between the two nations."
To make way for which, the houses turned their
biU into an ordinance, and convened the assem
bly by their own authority.*
"The ordinance bears date June 12, 1643, and
is the very same with the Oxford bill, except in
the point of lay-assessors, and of restraining the
assembly from exercising any jurisdiction or
authority ecclesiastical whatsoever. It is enti
tled, " An ordinance of the Lords and Commons in
Parliament, for the calling of an assembly of
learned and godly divines, and others, to be
consulted with by the Parliament, for settling
the government and liturgy of the Church of
England, and for vindicating and clearing of
the .doctrine of the said Church from false as
persions and interpretations."t
The preamble sets forth,
" That whereas among th? infinite blessings

* It is a just remark of Mr. Palmer, that the As
sembly of Divines at Westminster was not a convo
cation according to the diocesan way of govern
ment, nor was it called by the votes of the ministers
accordmg to the Presbyterian way; but the Parlia
ment chose all the members themselves, merely with
a view to have their opinion and advice for settling
the govemment, Uturgy, and doctrine.of the Church
of England. And they were confined in their de
bates to such things as, the Parliament proposed—
Nonconformists' Memorial, vol. i.. Introduction; p. 7.—
t Rushworth, vOl. u., part ui., or vol. v., p. 337.
Vol. I. — M m m

of Almighty God upon this nation, none is or
can be more dear to us than the parity of our
religion; and forasmuch as many things as yet
remain in the discipline, liturgy, and govern
ment of the Church, which necessarily require
a more perfect reformation. And whereas, it
has been declared and resolved, by the Lords
and Coramons assembled in Parliament, that the
present church governraent by archbishops,
bishops, their chancellors, commissaries, deans,
deans and chapters, archdeacons, and other ec
clesiastical officers depending on the hierarchy,
is evU, and justly offensive and burdensome to
the kingdora, and a great impediraent to refor
mation and growth of religion, and very preju
dicial to the state and governraent of this king
dom, that therefore they are resolved the same
shall be taken away, and that such a govern
raent shall be settled in the Church as may be
agreeable to God's holy Word, and most apt to
procure and preserve the peace of the Church
at home, and nearer agreement with the Church
of Scotland, and other Reformed churches
abroad. And for the better effecting hereof, and
for the vindicating and clearing of the doctrine
of the Church of England from all false calum
nies and aspersions, it is thought fit to call aa
assembly of learned, godly, and judicious di
vines, to consult and advise of such matters
and things touching the premises as shaU be^
proposed to them by both houses of Parliament ;
and to give their advice and counsel therein to-
both, or either of the said houses, when and as^
often as they shall be thereunto required.
" Be it therefore ordained by the Lords and'
Commons in this present Parliament assembled,
that all and every the persons hereafter in this
ordinance named [the ordinance here names
the persons], and such other persons as shall
be nominated by both houses of Parliament, or
so many of thera as shall not be letted by sick
ness or other necessary irapediraent, shall meet,
and assemble, and are hereby required and en
joined, upon sumraons signed by the clerks of
both houses of Parliament, left at their several
respective dwellings, to meet and assemble at
Westminster, in the chapel called King Henry:
the Seventh's Chapel, on the first of July, 1643,
and after the first meeting, being at least ofthe
number of forty, shall from time to time sit, and
be removed from place to place ; and also that
the said assembly shaU be dissolved in sucli>
manner as by both houses of Parliaraent shall
be directed. And the said assembly shaU have
power and authority, and are hereby enjoined,
from time to time, during this present Parlia
ment, or tUl farther order be taken by both the-
said houses, to confer and treat araong them
selves of such raatters and things concerning'
the liturgy, discipline, and government of the
Church of England, or the vindicating and clear
ing of the doctrine of the sarae frora aU false
aspersions and misconstructions, as shall he-
proposed by either or both houses of Parliament, ,
and no other ; and to deliver their advices and
opinions touching the matters aforesaid as shall
be most agreeable to the Word of God, to both
or either houses from time to time, in such
manner as shall be required, and not to divulge
the same hy printing, writing, or otherwise,
without consent of Parliament,"
If any difference of opinion arose, they were'

458

HISTORV OF THE Pl'RITANS.

to represent it to Parliament wiih their reasons,
Ihal the houses might give farther direction.
Four shillings per day were allowed for each
one during his attendance Dr. WilliamTwisse,
of Nrwhury, was appointed prolocutor, and m
cat.c of his sickness or death, the Parliament
reserved tu themselves the choice of another.
The ordinance concludes with the following
proviso ; " Provided, always, that this ordinance
shall not give thera, nor shall they in this as
sembly assume or exercise, any jurisdiction,
power, or authority ecclesiastical whatsoever,
or any other power than is herein particularly
expressed.'* Then follow the names of thirty lay-asses
sors, viz., ten lords and twenty commoners, and
one hundred and twenty-one divines.
N.B. The lay-assessors had an equal Hberty
of debating and voting with the divines, and
were these : Peers.
Algernon, earl of Northumberland.
¦William, earl of Bedford.
William, earl of Pembroke and Montgomery.
William, earl uf Salisbury.
Henry, eurl of HoUand.
Edward, earl of Manchester.
"William, lurd-visoount Say and Seal.
Edward, lord-Tiscount Cnnway.
Philip, lord Wharton.
Edward, lord Uo'ward, of Escrick.
Commoners.
John Seldon, Esq.
Francis Rouse, Esq.
Edmund Pndi'aux, Esq.
Sir Henry \'iLne, knight senior.
Sir Uenry Vane, knight junior.
John Glyiine, Esq., recorder of London.
John White, Esq.
Bulstr-Kle Wliitelocke, Esq.
Humphry Salway, Esq.
Oliver St. John, Esq.
Sir Benjamin Rudyard, knight.
John Pym, Esq.
Sir Juhn Clotworthy, knight.
Sir Thomas Barrington, knight.
William Wheeler, Esq.
"William PierpoiDt, Esq.
bir John Evelyn, knight.
John Mayn.ird, Esq.
Mr. Sergeant Wdd.
Mr. Voung.
Sir Matthew Hale, afterward lord-chief-justice of the
King's Bench [appeared, says Anthony Wood, among
the lay-assessors]. Lay-assesaors from Scotland.
Lord Maitland, afterward Duke Lauderdale.
Eart Lothian.
A. Johnston, caUed Warriston.
The divines were chosen out of such lists as
the knights and burgesses brought in, of per
sons best qualified in their several counties, out
of which the Parliament agreed upon two;
though, according to Dr. Calamy, some counties
had only one.
A list ofthe Assembly of Divines at Westmin
ster, in alphabetical order ;
Those with ** gave constant attendance ; those with *
sat in the Assembly and took the protestation, but with
drew, or seldom appeared : those with no star did not ap
pear at all.
Tu s-tipply the vacancies that happened by death, secea-
siou, or otherwise, the Parliament named others from time
tu time, who were called superadded divines.
" The Reverend Dr, William Twisse, of Newbury,
xf^s appointed by Parliament prolocutwr.
*" The Reverend Dr. Cornelius Burges, of Watford, Mr.
Jo Ml \\ hite, of Dorchester, A M . assessors.
- The Reverend Mr. Henry Roborough, Mr. Adoniram
By <=ld, A.M , scnbes, but had no votes.
*• The Rev. J./bn Arrowsmith, of Lynn, afterward D D ,
%m master of Peterhouse, Cambridge.

** Mr. Simeon Aah, of St. Bride*!, or Da*ing«hfiw
*• ,Mr Theodore Bfcokhurst, of Ovrrton. WRtorvillp.
*• Mr. Thumns Boyty, B.D., of Munnmgford-Brute,
** Mr. Joliu Bund, a aupt-ruddctd divme,
* Mr Buulton, flU|H'raddfnI.
*¦' Mr, Olivrr Bowler, B.U , ..f Sutton.
'* Mr. William Hridt,'.', A.M., of Yarmouth.
The Right Rt'\oriiid Dr. Ralph Brownrigge, btihop of
Exon.
Mr. Richard Buckley.
** Mr. Anthony Burges, A.M., of Sntt<m-ColoAold.
** Mr. .Icromiah Burroujjhs. A.M., of Stepney.
** Mr. Richard Byfield, A.M., superadded.
'• Edmund Ciilamy, B.D., Aldermanbury,
** Mr. Thomas Case, Milk-strect.
Mr. Richard Capel, of PUchcombo, A-M.
** Mr. Joseph Car>'l, A.M , Lincoln's Ion.
** Mr. William Carter, of Lnndon.
•* Mr. Thomas Carter, of Oxon.
¦* Mr. William Carter, of Dynton, Bucks.
** Mr. John Cawdrey, A.M , St. Martin's Fields.
** Humphrey Chambers, D.D., of Clnverton.
** Francis l-lioynel, D.D., of Petworth.
** Mr. Peter Clarke, A.M., of Cnniaby.
** Mr. Richard Clayton, of Showel.
*¦ Mr. Francis Coke, of Vox hall.
** Mr. Thomas Coleman, A.M., of BUton.
"* John Conant, of Lymington, D.D., afterward Archdea
con of Norwich, and Prebendary of Worcester.
** Mr. Edward Corbet, A.M., Merton College, Oxon.
•' Robert Crosse, D.D., afterward Vicar of Chew, Somer*
set
*' Mr. Philip Delme, superadded.
Mr. Thomas Dillingham, of Dean.
* CalibiUe Downing, D.D., of Hackney.
Mr. William Dunning, of Godalston.
** Tlie Reverend Mr. John Drury, superadded.
Mr. Edward Ellis, B.D., Gilfiold.
Mr. John Eric, of Bishopstone.
** Daniel Fcatley, D.D., of Lambeth.
** Mr. Thomas Ford, A.M., superadded.
** Mr. John Foxcroft, of Gotham.
Mr. Hamilton Gammon, A.M., of Cornwall
** Thomas Gataker, B.D., Rotherhithe.
** Mr. Samuel Gibson, of Burleigh.
** Mr. John Gibbon, of Wnltham.
** Mr. George Gippes, of Aylston.
** Thomas Goodwin, D.D., of London, afterward President
of Magdalen College, Oxon.
** Mr. William Goad, superadded.
** Mr. Siiinley Gower, of Brampton-Bryan.
** William Gonge, D.D., of Blackfriars.
** Mr. William Greenhill, of Stepney.
** Mr. Green, of Pentecomb.
John lUcket, D.D., of St. Andrew's, Holbom, after*
ward Bishop of Litchfield.
Henry Hammond, D.D., of Penshurst, Kent.
** Mr. Henry Hall, B.D., Norwich.
** Mr. Humphrey Hnrdwicke, superadded,
* John Harris, D.D., prebendary of Winchester, warden
of Wickham.
** Robert Harris, D.D., of Hanwell, President of Trinity
College, Oxon.
** Mr. Charles Herle, A.M., Winwick, afterward prolocu
tor.
** Mr. Richard HejTick, A.M., of Manchester.
** Thomas Hill, D.D., of Tichmarsh, afterward Master of
Trinity College, Carabridge,
* Samuel Hildersham, B.D., of Felton,
'¦'' Mr. Jasper H ekes, A.M., of Lawrick.
'* Mr. Thomas Hodges, B.D,, of Kensington.
* Richard Holdsworth, D,D,, master of Emanuel College,
Cambridge.
*' Joshua Hoyle, D.D., of Dublin, Ireland. •
Mr. Henry Hutton.
** Mr. John Jackson, A.M., of Queen's College, Cambridge
* Mr. Johnson.
Mr. Lance, Harrow, Middlesex.
** Mr. John Langley, of West Tuderley, prebendary, Glou
cester.
** Mr. John Ley, A.M., Great Bud worth.
** The Reverend John Lightfoot, D.D., of Ashby, master
of Catharine House.
* Richard Love, D.D , of Ekinton.
* Mr. Christopher Love, A.M., superadded.
Mr. William Lyford, A.M., Sherboumo.
^ Mr. John de la March, minister of the French Church.
*" Mr. Stephen Marshal, B.D., of FinchingfiBld.
* Mr. William Massam, superaddeii.
-Mr. John Mayimrd, A.M., superadded.
" Mr. William .M(;w, B.D,, of^Essirigton.
*' Mr. Thomas Micklethwait, Cheriburton.
Gf-.-ri,'-'- Morley, D.D., afterward Bishop of Winchester.
Mr. William Moreton, Newcuhtlo.
* Mr. Moore.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

459

** Mr. Matthew Nowcomen, Dedham.
* Mr. William Newscore, superadded.
William Nicholson, D.D., afterward Bishop of Glouces
ter.
Mr. Henry Nye, of Clapham.
** Mr. Philip Nye, of Kimbolton.
Mr. Herbert Palmer, B.D., Ashwell, afterward asses
sor.
Mr. Henry Painter, of Exeter.
Mr. Christopher Porkly, of Hawiirden.
'** Mr. Edward Peal, of Compton.
** Mr. Andrew Pern, of Wilby, Northampton.
** Mr. John Philips, Wrentham.
** Mr. Benjamin Pickering, East-Hoatly.
** Mr. Samuel de la Place, minister of the French Church.
** Mr. William Price, of St Paul's, Covent Garden.
John Prideaux, D.D., bishop of Worcester.
** Nicholas Proffet, of Marlborough.
Mr. John Pyne, of Bereferrars.
** Mr. William Rathband, of Highgate. •
** Mr. William Reyner, B.D., Egham.
** Edi^ard Reynolds, of Brampton, D.D., afterward Bish
op of Norwich.
** Mr. Arthur Salway, Severn Stoke.
Robert Saunderson, D.D., afterward Bishop of Lincoln.
** Mr. Henry Scudder, of Colingboume.
** Lazarus' Seaman, B.D., of London, Master of Peter
house, Cambridge.
** Mr. Obadiah Sedgwick, B.D., Coggeshall. ,
Mr. Josias Shute, B.D., Lombard-street.
** The Reverend Mr. Sydrach Sympson, London.
** Peter Smith, D.D., of Barkway.
** William Spurstow, D.D., of Hampden.
** Edmund Staunton, D.D. , of Kingston.
** Mr. Peter Starry, London.
** Mr. John Strickland, B.D., New Sarutn, superadded.
** Matthew Styles, D.D., Eastcheap.
** Mr. Strong, Westminster, superadded.
** Mr, Francis Taylor, A.M., Yalding.
** Thomas Temple, D.D., of Battersey.
** Mr. Thomas Thoroughgood, Massingham.
** Mr. Christopher Tisdale, TJphurstboume.
Mr. Henry Tozer, B.D., Oxon.
** Anthony Tnckney, D.D , of Boston, afterward Master
of St. John's CoUege, Oxon, and Regius professor.
** Mr. Thomas Valentine, B.D., Chalfort, Saint Giles's.
** Mr. Richard Vines, A.M., of Calcot, Master of Pem
broke House, Cambridge.
The most Reverend Dr. James Usher, archbishop of Ar
magh.
** Mr. George Walker, B.D., St. John the Evangelist.
Samuel Ward, D.D., master of Sidney College, Cam
bridge.
** Mr. John Wallis, afterward D.D., and scribe.
¦** Mr. John Ward, superadded.
Mr. James Welby, Sylatten.
* Thomas Westfield, D.D., bishop of Bristol.
"** Mr. Jeremiah Whitaker, A.M., Stretton.
Mr. Francis Whiddon, Moreton.
** Henry Wilkinson, Senior, D.D., Waddeson, afterward
, Margaret professor, Oxon.
** Mr. Heniy Wilkinson, Junior, B.D., St. Duiistan's.
** Mr. Thomas Wilson, Otham.
* Thomas Wincop, D.D., Elesworth.
** John Wincop, D.D., St. Martin's in the Fields.
** Mr. Francis Woodcock, proctor of the University of
Cambridge.
** Mr. Thomas Young, Stow Market.
Ministers from Scotland.
** Mr. Alexander Henderson.
** Mr. George Gillespie.
** Mr. Samuel Rutherford.
** Mr. Robert Bayly.
Before the Assembly sat, the king, by his roy
al proclamation of June 22, forbade their meet-
iiig for the purposes therein mentioned, and
¦declared that no act done by them ought to be
received by his subjects ; he also threatened to
probeed against them with the utmost severity
of the law ;* nevertheless, sixty-nine assem
bled in King Henry the Seventh's Chapel the
Urst day, according to summons, not in their
cailonical habits, but chiefly in black coats and
bands, in imitation of the foreign Protestants.t
* Dr. Grey refers to the 25th of Henry VIII., cap.
xix., or the Act of Submission of the Clergy, to prove
ithis assembly illegal. — En.
t The account of the Assembly's order of proce-

Few of the Episcopal divines appeared, and
those who did after some time withdrew, for
the following reasons :
dure, given by Baillie, is so graphic and complete,
that 1 cannot do better than extract the entire pas
sage. " The like of that Assembly I never did see, and,
as we hear say, the hke was never in England, nor
anywhere is shortly like to be. They did sit in
Henry the Vll.'s Chapel, in the place of the Convo
cation ; but, since the weather grew cold, they did
go to the Jerusalem Chamber, a fair room in the
Abbey of Westminster, about the size of the college
front-hall, but wider. At the one end, nearest the
door, and along both sides, are stages of seats, as in
the new Assembly House at Edinburgh, but not so
high ; for there will be room but for five or six score.
At the uppermost end there is a chair set on a frame,
a foot from the earth, for the Mr. Prolocutor, Dr.
Twisse. Before it, on the ground, stand two chairs
for the two Mr. Assessors, Dr. Burgess and Mr.
White. Before these two chairs, through the length
of the room, stands a table, at which sit the two
scribes, Mr. Byfield and Mr. Roborough. The
house is well hung (with tapestry), and has a good
fire, which is some dainties at London. Opposite
the table, upon the prolocutor's right hand, there are
three or four ranks of benches. On the lowest we
five do .=!it. Upon the other, at our backs, the mem
bers of Parliament deputed to the Assembly. Oil
the benches opposite to us, on the prolocutor's left
hand, going from the upper end of the house to the
chimney, and at the other end of the house and back
of the table, till it come about to our seats, are four
or five stages of benches, upon which their divines
sit as they please ; albeit, commonly they keep the
same place. From the chimney to the door there
are no seats, but a void space for passage. The
lords of the Parliament use to sit on chairs, in that
void, about the fire. We meet every day of the
week but Saturday. We sit commonly from nine
till one or two afternoon. The prolocutor, at the
beginning and end, has a short prayer. The man,
as the world knows, is very learned in the questions
he has studied, and very good, Ijeloved of all, and
highly esteemed ; but merely bookish, not much, as
it seems, acquainted with conceived prayer, and
among the unfittest of all the company for any ac
tion ; so after the prayer he sits mute. It was the
canny conveyance (skilful management) of those
who guide most matters for their own interest, to
plant such a man of purpose in the chair. The one
assessor, our good friend Mr. White, has keeped in
of the gout since out coming ; the other. Dr. Bur
gess, a very active and sharp man, supplies, so far
as is decent, the prolocutor's place. Ordinarily
there will be present above threescore of their di
vines. 'These are divided into three committees, in
one of which every man is a member. No man is
excluded who pleases to come to any of the three.
Every committee; as the Parhament gives order in
writing to take any purpose to consideration, takes
a portion, and in their afternoon meeting prepares ¦
matters for the Assembly, sets down their minds in
distinct propositions, backing their propositions with
texts of Scripture. After the prayer, Mr. Byfield,
the scribe, reads the proposition and Scriptures,
whereupon the Assembly debates in a most grave
and orderly way.
" No man is called up to speak ; but whosoever
stands up of his own accord, speaks so long as he
will, without interruption. If two or three stand up
at once, then the divines confusedly call on his
name whom they desire to hear first : on whom the
loudest and maniest voices call, he speaks. No man
speaks to any but to the prolocutor. They harangue
long, and verylearaedhe. They study the questions
well beforehand, and prepare their speeches ; but
withal the men are exceeding prompt and well-spo
ken. I do marvel at the very accurate and extem-
poral replies that many of them usually make.

460

HISTORV OF IHi; rHllirAiNS.

<)bj. 1. " Bci'ausc tho .\ssembly "as prohib
ited by the royal proclamation , whicli Ur
Twisse, in his Mrmon .u the opcninj,' the .Vs-
s.cmbly, lamented, but hoped in due tunc his
iii.ijcsiy's consent might be obtained."
.\ns\v. lo whuli It vvas replied, "That the
Constitution at present was dis.solved ; that
there were two sovereign contending powers
in the nation, and if the war in which the Par
liament was engaged was just and necessary,
they might assume this branch of the prerog
ative, till the nation was settled, as well as any
other." Obj. '- "Because the members of the As
sembly were not chosen by the clergy, and,
therefore, could not appear as their representa
tives." .4nsw. To which it was answered, " That
the Assembly was not designed for a national
synod, or representative body of the clergy, but
only as a commiitoe, or council to the Parlia
ment, to give their opinion touching such church
matters as the houses should lay before them ;
they had no power of themselves to make laws
or canons, or determine controversies in mat
ters of faith. They were to enter upon no busi
ness but what the Parliament appointed, and
when they had done they were to offer it to the
two houses only as their humble advice ; and
surely the Parliament might choose their own
council, without being obliged to depend upon
the nomination of the clergy."
Obj. 3. " But as great an exception as any
was their dislike of the company, and of the

When, ii^ion every proposition by itself, and on every
text of Scripture that is brought to confirm it, every
man who will has said his whole mmd, and the re-
phes, duphes, and triplies are heard, then the most
part call, ' To the question.' Byfield, the scribe, ri
ses from the table, and comes to the prolocutor's
chair, who, from the scribe's book, reads the propo
sition, and says, ' As many as are of opinion that the
question is well stated in the proposition, let them
say. Ay ;' when ay is heard, he says, ' As many as
think otherwise, say. No.' If the difference of
' Ays' and ' Nos' be clear, as usually it is, then the
question is ordered by the scribes, and they go on to
debate the first Scripture alleged for proof of the
proposition. If the sound of Ay and No be near
equal, then says the prolocutor, ' As many as say
Ay, stand up ;' while they stand, the scribe and
others number them in their minds ; when they sit
down, the Nos are bidden stand, and they hkewise
are numbered. This way is clear enough, and saves
a great deal of time, which we spend in reading our
catalogue. When a question is once ordered, there
is no more debate of that matter ; but if a man will
wander from the subject, he is quickly taken up by
Mr. Assessor, or many others, confusedly crying,
' Speak to order, to order.' No man contradicts an
other expressly by name, but most discreetly speaks
to the prolocutor, and, at most, holds to general
terms : ' The reverend brother who lately, or last,
spoke, on this hand, on that side, above, or below.'
I thought meet, once for all, to give you a taste of
the outward form of their Assembly. They follow
the way of their Parhament. Much of their way is
good, and worthy of our imitation ; only their long-
someness is woful at this time, when their Church
and kingdom he under a most lamentably anarchy
and confusion. They see the hurt of their length,
but cannot get it helped : for being to establish a new
platform of worship and disciphne to their nation
for all lime to corne, they think they cannot be an
swerable. If solidly, and at leisure, they do not ex-
loP'^ "<"? point theTeot."—Baillie, vol. li., p 108

business which they had to transiict , there
was d mixture of laiiy with the clergy; tho
divines were, for the most purl, of a Puritanical
stamp, and criemios lo the hierarchy ; and llieir
business (llicy apprehended) was to pull down
that which thoy would uphold."
.'Vnsw ¦¦ This being not designed for a legal
convocation, but for a council tu the Parliament
in the reformation of the Church, they appre
hended they had a power to join some of llieir
own members with such a committee or coun
cil, without intrenching upon tho rights of con-.
vocation. Tho divines, c.vcopt the Scots and
French, were in Episcopal orders, educated in
our own universities, and most of them gradu
ates ; their business was only to advise about
such points of doctrine and church discipline a»
should be laid before them, in which the Kpis-
copal divines might have been of service, if
they had continued with the Assembly, to which
they were most earnestly invited."
I believe no set of clergy, since the begin
ning of Christianity, have suffered so much in
their characters and reputations* as these, for
their advices to the two houses of Parliament.
In his majesty's proclamation of June 22, the
far greater part of them are said to be men of
no learning or reputation. Lord Clarendon ad
mitst " about twenty of them were reverend
and worthy persons, and episcopal in llieir
judgments ; but as to the remainder, they were
but pretenders to divinity ; some were infa
mous in their lives and conversations, and most
of them of very mean parts and learning, if not
of scandalous ignorance, and of no other repu
tation than of malice to the Church of Eng
land." His lordship would insinuate that they
understood not the original text, because the
learned Mr. Selden sometimes corrected the
English translation of their little pocket Bibles,
and put them into confusion by his uncommon
acquaintance with Jewish antiquities ; as if that
great man would have treated a convocation
with more decency and respect.l But Aroh-

* " And no set of clergy," says Dr. Grey, " ever
deserved it more ;" and to show this, he quotes a
virulent invective against them by Gregory Williains,
bishop of Ossory. " You may judge of them by their
compeers, Goodwin, Burroughs, .Arrowsmith, and
the rest of their ignorant, factious, and schismatical
ministers, that, together witn those intruding mechan
ics (who, without any calling from God or man, do
step from their butcher's board, or horse's stable,
into the preacher's pulpit), are the bellows which
blow up this fire, that threatened the destruction o£
our land ; like Sheba's trumpet, to summon the peo
ple to rebelhon, and like the dragon in the Revela
tions, which gave them all his poison, and made
them eloquent to disgorge their malice, and cast forth
floods of slander after tho.se that keep loyally to their
sovereign, belch forth their unsavory reproaches
against those that discovered their affected igno
rance and seditious wickedness in defence of tmth."
— Grey's Exam, of Neal, vol. ii., p. 91.— <!!.
t Clarendon, vol, i., p. 530.
X Bishop Warburton has no doubt but Mr. Sel
den would have treated a convocation with more de
cency and respect. For his lordship adds, " he had.
infinitely more esteem for the learning of the Episco
pal clergy, though, perhaps, no more love for their
persons." In what estunation .Mr .Selden held the
learning of the Episcopal clergy, has been shown voL
li., p. 128, note. With what respect he was likely to
speak of a convocation, the reader will judge from
the following passage in his Table Talk, p. 37, in.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

461

liishop Laud's account is still more extrava
gant, for though it is notorious the Assembly
would not allow a toleration to those whom they
called sectaries, yet his grace says, "The great
est part of them were Brownists or Independ
ents, or New-England ministers, if not worse,
or, at best, enemies to the doctrine and disci
pline of the Church of England ;" whereas, in
'truth, there was not above six Independents in
the Assembly, and not one New-England minis
ter that I know of If the reader will carefully
peruse the list,- he will find in it some of the
most considerable lawyers and ablest divines
of the last age ; and though they might have
inistaken notions of church discipline, and were
no better acquainted with the rights of con
science and private judgment than their prede
cessors the bishops, yet, with aU their faults,
impartial posterity must acknowledge the far
greater number were men of exemplary piety
and devotion, who had a real zeal for the glory
of God and the purity of the Christian faith
and practice. Mr. Echard confesses that Lord
Clarendon had, perhaps, with too much sever
ity, said that some of these divines were infa
mous in their lives and characters ; but ' Mr.
Baxter, who was better acquainted withllhem
than his lordship or any of his followers, af
firms " that they were men of eminent learning,
godhness, ministerial abilities, and fidelity."*
the edition of 1777, under the word Clergy ; " The
clergy and laity together are," says he, "never like
to do well ; it is as if a man were to make an excel
lent feast, and should have his apothecary and his
physician come into the kitchen : the cooks, if they
were let alone, would make excellent meat, but then
comes the apothecary, and he puts rhubarb into one
sauce, and agaric into another sauce. Chain up the
clergy on both sides." That he had no high opinion
of the power and authority of a convocation, may be
concluded from his comparing it to " a court leet,
where they have a power to make by-laws, as they
call them ; as that a man shall put so many cows or
sheep in the common ; but they can make nothing
that is contrary to the laws of the kingdom." — Un
der the word Convocation, p. 45. — Ed.
* *' This synod," he says, " was not a convocation
according to the diocesan way of government, nor
was it called by the votes of the ministers, accord
ing to the Presbyterian way ; but the Parliament,
not intending to call an assembly which should pre
tend a Divine right to make obUging laws or canons
to bind their brethren, but an ecclesiastical council,
to be advisers to themselves, did think that they best
knew who were the fittest to give them advice, and,
therefore, chose them all themselves. Two were to
be chosen out of each county ; but some few coun
ties (1 know not upon what reason) had but one.
* * * And because they would seem impartial, and
have each party to have liberty to speak, they, over
and above the number, chosemany Episcopal divines,
even the learnedest of them in the land, as Arch
bishop Usher, primate of Ireland, Dr. Holdsworth,
Dr. Hammond, Dr. Wincop, Bishop Westford, Bish-
'Op Prideaux, and many more. But they would not
come, because it was not a legal convocation, and
because the king declared himself against it ; Dr.
Van Fealty, and very few mOre of that party, came
(but at last he was charged with sending intelhgence
to the king's quarters, at Oxford, of what was done
in the synod and Parliament, and, was imprisoned,
which much reflected on the Parhament, because,
whatever his facts were, he was so learned a man
as was suflScient to dishonour those he suflered by).
The prolocutor, or moderator, was Dr. WilUarn
Twisse (a man very famous foi his scholastic wit
and writings, in a very smooth, triumphant style) ;

The Assembly was opened on Saturday, July
1, 1643, with a sermon preached by Dr. "J^sse
the divines there congregated were men of eminent
learning, and godliness, and ministerial abilities, and
fidehty, and being not worthy to be one of them my
self, 1 may the more freely speak that truth which I
know, even in the face ot malice and envy, that, as
far as 1 am able to judge by the information of all
history of that kind, and by any other evidences left
us, the Christian world, since the days of the apos
tles, had never a synod of more excellent divines
(taking one thing with another) than this synod and
the Synod of Dort were. ? * *
" For my own part, as highly as 1 honour the men,
I am not of their mind in every point of the govern
inent which they would have set up ; and some
vvords in their catechism I could wish had been more
clear ; and, above all, I could wish that the Parha
ment, and their more skilful hand, had done more
than was done to heal our breaches, and had hit upon
the right way either to unite with the Episcopal and
Independents (which was possible, as distant as they
are), or, at least, had pitched on the terms that are
fit for universal concord, and left all to come in upon
those terms that would. But, for all this dissent, I
must testify my love and hono'jr to the persons of
such great sincerity and eminent ministerial suffi
ciency as were Gataker, Vines, Burgess, White, and
the greater part of that Assembly." — Sylvester's Bax
ter, part i., p. 73.
" 1 disliked," says the honest Puritan, " the course
of some of the more rigid of them that drew too near
the way of prelacy, by grasping at a kind of secular
power ; not using it themselves, but binding the ma
gistrates to confiscate or imprison men, merely be
cause they were excommunicated, and so corrupting
the true discipline of the Church, and turning the
communion of saints into the communion of the m'jl-
titude, that must keep in the Church against their
wills, for fear of being undone in the world ; when,
as a man, whose conscience cannot feel a just ex
communication unless it be backed with confiscation
or imprisonment, is no fitter to be a meinber of a
Christian Church in the communion of saints, than
a corpse is to be a member of a corporation. It's
true, they claim not this power as jure divino (though
some say that the magistrate is bound to execute.
these penalties on men, merely as excommunicate),
nor no more do the prelates, when yet the writ de ex
communicato capiendo is the life of all their censures.
But both parties too much debase the magistrate, by
making him their mere executioner ; whereas he is the
iMdȣ wherever he is the executioner, and is to try
each cause at his own bar before he be obhged to
punish any ; and they corrupt the disciplme of Chnst
by mixing it with secular force, and they reproach
the keys, or ministerial power, as if it were a leaden
sword and not worth a straw, unless the magis
trate's sword enforce it (and what, then, did thfe prma-
itive Church for three hundred years ?). And worst
of all they corrupt the Church by forcing in the rab
ble of the unfit and unwilling, and thereby tempt
many godly Christians to schisms and dangerous
separations. . , , . ^ ^
" In all this I deny not but that the magistrate must
restrain all sorts of vice ; but not as a hangman only,
that executeth the judgment of another, nor eo nomi
ne to punish a man because he is excommunicate
(that is most heavily punished already by others),
till magistrates keep the sword themselves, and learn
to deny it to every angry clergyman that would do
his own work by it, and leave them to their own
weapons, the Word and spiritual keys; valeant quan
tum valere possunt, the Church shall never have umty
and peace."— Sylvester's Baxter, part n„ p. 142.
Dr Price remarks that, " Happily for the interests
of religion, there was another party in the Assembly,
the members of which added to the personal virtues
and ministerial diligence of the Presbyterians, more
expansive views and a more liberal creed. Ihey
were known by the name of Independents, and had

4<2
in King Henr>- VII s Chapel, bolh houses of
Parliament being present. The ordinance for
their convention was then read, and the names
of the raembers called over, after which they
adjournal lo .Monday, and agreed on tho follow
ing rules :
(1.) " That every session begin and end with
a prayer. (2.) " That after the first prayer, the names
ofthe Assembly be called over, and those that
are absent marked ; but if any member comes
in afterward, he shall have liberty to give in his
name to the scribes.
(3.) "That every member, before his admis-
for some time a very arduous and perplexing duty to
perform. Their numbers were at first so limited as
to present but little ground to hope that they would
be able successfully to resist the scheme of the
Presbyterians ; but what they wanted in numerical
strength was supplied by the consummate skill and
first-rate ability ol then leaders They were distin
guished from the Presbyaerians by maintaining the
absolute independence of each church, so far as ju
risdiction and discipline are concerned, and by deny
ing the communication of spiritual power in ordina
tion. They not only rejected the jus dimnum of prel
acy, but discarded, as equally papistical, the theory
which vested ecclesiastical authority in the synodi
cal meetings of church oflicers. The number of In
dependent ministers in the Assembly did not exceed
ten or twelve, of whom Goodwin, Nye, Burroughs,
Sim'pson, and Bridges were the chief These men
had been trametl amid the privations of exile, and
their characters had hence assumed a firmness and
determination, which qualified them fearlessly to re
sist the now dominant Presbyterians. During the
supremacy of Laud, they had sought refuge in Hol
land, where their minds were braced and their scrip
tural views confirmed. It was not, therefore, to be
expected that, in returning to their native country,
they would acquiesce in the tyranny of those breth
ren who had contrived to escape the vigilant and re
morseless usurpations of that primate. They con-
seauently demanded for themselves and others the
rignt of private judgment, and of unrestricted hberty
of worship. Tney were the honest and consistent
expounders ofthe principles of rehgious liberty, when
a large body of the Puritans showed themselves to
be unworthy of their high vocation. The reasonings
of the Independents were broader and more compre
hensive than those of their predecessors. Tney
were founded on the acknowledged principles of hu
man nature, and wei^e equally applicable to all the
diversified cases which could arise. Abandoning the
partial and unsatisfactory ground which had been
taken by the Puntans, they intrenched themselves
behind the nature of man and the character of Chns-
tianity, and would enter into no compromise which
endangered the highest and best interests of the hu
man family. They became, in consequence, the ral-
lying-point of the minor sects, whom the Presbyteri
ans sought to repress. Against many of their dog
mas they protested as strongly as the more power
ful party ; but for then right to form and propagate
their opinions, they honestly contended. Hence
their claims on the gratitude and admiration of pos
terity. The principles for which Locke and suc
ceedmg philosophers triumphantly pleaded were
brought forth to public view, and instilled into the
national mind by the despised sectaries of the West
minster Assembly."
For the other side of this subject at large, 1 refer
the reader to Wethenngton's History of the West
minster Assembly, where he will find the cause of
the Presbyterian party zealously advocated. I have,
in loco, quoted his representation of the characters
of the four Scotch commissioners, and if that volume
had not been reprinted at a cheap price, would very
cheerfully insert his entire view of the subject. — C.

HISTORV OF THE PURITANS.

sion to sit and vote, do take the foUowing vow
or protest,! 11 on :
" I, A. B., do seriously and solemnly, in the
presence of Almighty Uod, declare that, io this
Assembly whereof I am a member, I wiU not
maintain anything in matter of doctrine but
what I believe in my conscience tu be moat
agreeable lo the Word of God ; or in point of
discipline, but what I shall conceive to conduce
most to the glory of God, and the good and
peace of his Church."
And, to refresh their memories, this protesta
tion was read in the Assembly every Monday
morning. (4.) "That the appointed hour of meeting be
ten in the morning ; the afternoon lo be re
served for committees.
(5.) " That three of the members of tbe As
sembly be appointed weekly as chaplains ; one
to the House of Lords, another to the House of
Commons, and a third to the committee of both
kingdoms. The usual method was lo take it
by turns, and every Friday the chaplains were
appointed for the following week.
(6.) " That all the members of the Assembly
have liberty to be covered, except the scribes,"
whoasome time after had also this liberty in
dulged them.
Besides these, the Parliament, on the Thurs
day following, sent them some farther regula
tions. As,
(1.) "That two assessors be appointed with
the prolocutor, to supply his place in case of
absence or sickness, viz.. Dr. Cornelius Burges,
and the Rev. Mr. John White, of Dorchester.
(2 ) "That scribes be appointed, who are not
to vote in the Assembly, viz., the Rev. Mr. Ro
borough and Mr. Byfield.
(3.) "That every member, on his first en
trance into the Assembly, take the fore-men
tioned protestation.
(4.) "That no resolution be given upon any
question the same day wherein it was first pro
posed. (5.) " What any man undertakes to prove as
a necessary truth in religion, he shall make
good from the Holy Scriptures.
(6.) "No man shall proceed in any dispute
after the prolocutor has enjoined him silence,
unless the Assembly desire he may go on.
(7.) " No man shall be denied the liberty of
entering his dissent from the Assembly, with
his reasons for it, after the point has been de
bated ; from whence it shall be transmitted to
Parliament, when either house shall require it.
(8.) "All things agreed upon and prepared
for the Parliaraent shall be openly read, and
allowed in the Assembly, and then offered as
their judgment, if the majority assent ; provi
ded that the opinions of the persons dissenting,
with their reasons, be annexed, if they desire
it, and the solution of those reasons by the .•As
sembly." The proceedings being thus settled, the Par
liament sent the Assembly an order to review
the Thirty-nine Articles ofthe Church ; but be
fore they entered upon business, viz., July 7,
they petitioned the two houses for a fast, on a
day when the Rev. Mr. Bowles and Matthew
Newcomen preached before them. Upon which
petition Bishop Kennet passes the following se
vere censure : " Impartially speaking, it is stuff-

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

463

ed with sohism, sedition, and cruelty." I will,
therefore, set the substance of the petition be
fore the reader in their own language, that he
may form his own judgment upon it, and upon
the state ofthe nation.
"To the Right Honourable the Lords and
Commons assembled in Parliament : The hum
ble petition of divers ministers of Christ, in the
name of themselves, and sundry others, hum
bly showeth,
" That your petitioners, upon serious consid
eration, and deep sense of God's heavy wrath
lying upon us, and hanging over our heads, and
the whole nation, manifested particularly by
the two late sad and unexpected defeats of our
forces in the north and in the west, do appre
hend it to be our duty, as watchmen for the
good ofthe Church and kingdom, to present to
your religious and prudent consideration these
ensuing requests, in the name of Jesus Christ,
your Lord and ours.
First, " That you will be pleased to command
a public and extraordinary dajr of humiliation
this week, throughout the cities of London,
Westminster, the suburbs of both, and places
adjacent within the weekly, bills of mortality,
that every one may bitterly bewail his own
sins, and cry mightily to God, for Christ's sake,
to remove bis wrath, and to heal the land ;
with professedly new resolution of more full
performance ofthe late covenant, for the amend
ment of our ways.
Secondly, "That you would vouchsafe in
stantly to take into your most serious consid
eration how you may more speedily set up
Christ more gloriously in all his ordinances
within this kingdom, and reform all things
amiss throughout the land, wherein God is
more specially and more immediately dishon
oured, among which we humbly lay before you
these particulars :
1. "That the brutish ignorance and palpable
darkness possessing the greatest part of the
people in all places of the kingdom may be
remedied, by a speedy and strict charge to all
ministers constantly to catechise all the youth
and ignorant people within their parishes.
2. i" That the grievous and heinous pollution
ofthe Lord's Supper, by those who are grossly
ignorant and notoriously profane, may be hence
forth, with all Christian care and- due circum
spection, prevented.
3. " That the bold venting of corrupt doc
trines, directly contrary to the sacred law of
God, may be speedily suppressed.
4. " That the profanation of any part of the
Lord's Bay, and the days of solemn fasting,
by buying, selling, working, sporting, travel
ling, or neglecting of God's ordinances, may be
jremedied, by appointing special officers in eve
ry place for the due execution of all good laws
and ordinances against the same.
5 "That there may be a thorough and speedy
proceeding against blind guides and scandalous
ministers ; and that your wisdom would find
out some way to admit into the ministry such
' godly and hopeful men as have prepared them
selves and are willing thereunto, without which
there will suddenly be such a scarcity of ab e
and faithful ministers, that it will be to little
purpose to cast out such as are unable, idle, or
scandalous.

6. " That the laws may be quickened against
swearing and drunkenness, with which the land'
is filled and defiled, and under which it mourns.
7. " That some severe course be taken
against fornication, adultery, and incest, which
do greatly abound.
8. "That all monuments of idolatry and su
perstition, but more especially the whole body
and practice of popery, may be totally abolished.
9. " That justice may be executed on all de
linquents, according to your religious vow and
protestation to that purpose.
10. " That all possible means may be used for
the speedy relief and release of our miserable
and extremely distressed brethren, who are
prisoners in Oxford, York, and elsewhere, whose
heavy sufferings cry aloud in the ears of our
God ; and it would lie very heavy on the king
dom should they miscarry, suffering as they do
for the cause of God.
" That so God, who is now by the sword
avenging the quarrel of his covenant, beholding
your integrity and zeal, may turn from the
fierceness of his wrath, hear our prayers, go
forth with our armies, perfect the work of ref
ormation, forgive our sins, and settle truth and
peace throughout the kingdom.
" And your petitioners shall ever pray," &c.*
Pursuant to this petition, Friday, July 21, t was
appointed for a fast, when the Reverend Mr.
Hill, Mr. Spurstow, and Mr. Vines preached
before both houses of Parliament and the As
sembly together ; and the fast was observed
with great solemnity in all the churches within
the limits above mentioned.
Next day a committee of divines was appoint
ed to consider what amendments wpre proper
to be made in the doctrinal articles of th&
Church of England, and report them to the As
sembly, who were ten weeks in debating upon
the first fifteen, before the arrival of the Scots^
commissioners ; the design was to render their
sense more express and determinate in favour
of Calvinism. It is not necessary to trouble
the reader with the theological debates ; but
the articles, as they were new-modelled, being
rarely to be met with, 1 have placed them in
the Appendix, with the original articles of the
Church in opposite columns, that the reader, by
comparing them, may judge whether the alter
ations are real improvements. t
As the Assembly were for strengthening the
doctrines ofthe Church against Arminianism,
they were equally solicitous to guard against
the opposite extreme of Antinomianism, for
which purpose they appointed a committee to
peruse the writings of Dr. Crisp, Eaton, Salt-
marsh, and others ; who, having draw.n out some
of their most dangerous positions, reported
them to the Assembly, where they were not
only condemned, but confuted in their public-
sermons and writings.
At this time the interest of the Parliament
was so reduced, they were obliged to call in the
assistance of the Scots. The conservators of
the peace of that kingdom had appointeiJ a con
vention of the states June 22, under pretence
of securing their country against the power of
* Rushworth, vol. v., p. 344„
t " July T" !''¦¦ '''¦^y ^"-y^' " '^^^ '^^ ^"'^ °" which
Mr. Bowles and Newcomen preached."— Ed.
X Appendix, No. 7. '

4&I

HISTORV OF THK PURITANS

the royal army in the north,* and a general as
sembly. .August 'J, to consider the slate of reli
gion. His m.ijesty would have prevented their
meeting, but that being impiaclicdble, he gave
orders to limit their cunsultations to tbe con
cerns of their own country ; but the Parliament
of England sent the Eari of Rutland, .Sir Will
iam .\rmyn. Sir H. Vane, Mr Hatcher, Mr.
Darley. and two divines from Westminster,
VIZ, .Mr. .Marshal and .Mr .\ye, wilh letters to
each of these assemblies, desiring their assist
ance in the war, and the assistance of some of
their divines with those at Westminster, to set
tle a uniformity of religion and church govern
raent between the two nations. To enforce
these requests, they delivered a letter from the
Assembly, " setting forth the deplorable condi
tion ofthe kingdom of England, which was upon
the edge of a most desperate precipice, ready
to be swallowed up by Satan and his instru
ments. They represent the cruelty of their
enemies against such as fall into their hands,
being armed against them not only as men, but
as Christians, as Protestants, and as reformers,
and that if they should be given up to their
rage, they fear it will endanger the safety of all
the Protestant churches. In a deeper sense of
this danger," say they, " than we can express,
¦we address you in tbe bowels of Christ for your
most fervent prayers and advice, what farther
to do for the making our own and the king
dom's peace with God, and for the uniting the
Protestant party more firmly, that we may all
serve God with one consent, and stand up
against antichrist 4s one man."t
The commissioners arrived at Edinburgh Au
gust 9, and were favourably received by the
Assembly, who proposed, as a preliminary, that
the two nations should enter into .. perpetual
covenant for themselves and their posterity,
that all things might be done in God's house
according to his will ; and having appointed
some of their number to consult with the Eng
lish commissioners about a proper form, they
chose delegates for the Westminster Assembly,
and unanunously advised the convention of
states to assist the Parliament in the war, for
the following reasons :
1. " Because they apprehend the war was for
religion. 2. Because the Protestant faith was
in danger. 3. Gratitude for former assistances
at the time of the Scots reformation required a
suitable return. 4. Because the Churches of
Scotland and England being embarked in one
bottom, if one be ruined the other cannot sub
sist. 5. The prospect of uniformity between
the two kingdoms in discipline and worship
¦will strengthen the Protestant interest at home
and abroad. 6. The present Parliament had
been friendly to the Scots, and might be so
again. 7. Though the king had so lately estab
lished their religion according to their desires,
yet they could not confide in his royal declara
tions, having so often found facta verbis con-
trana "X

* Vet these conservators issued out, in the king's
name, a proclamation for all persons from sixteen to
sixty years old to appear in arms. " At which," says
Rushworth, " the king was much incensed." — Dr.
Grey. Who will not own that he "had great reason
to resent his name bemg used against himself? — En.
t Rushworth, vol. v., p. 463, 466, 469.
X Ibid., p. 47-2, &c.

The instructions of tho commissioners sent
lo the .\sseinbly al Wesiininster were, to pro
mote the extirpation of popery, prelacy, heresy,
schism, skepticism, and idolatry, and to en
deavour a union between the two kingdoms in
one confession of faith, one form of church gov
ernment, and one directory ul worship.
The committee for drawing up the solemn
League and Covenant delivered il inlo the As
sembly .August 17, where it was read and high
ly applauded by the ministers and lay.elders,
none opposing it e.\cept the king's commission
ers ; so that it passed both the Assembly and
convention in one day,* and was despatched
next morning to Westminster, with a letter to the
two houses, wishing that it might be confirmed
and solemnly sworn and subscribed in both
kingdoms, as the surest and strictest obligation
to make them stand and fall together in the
cause of religion and liberty.
Mr. Marshal and Nye, in the letter to the As
sembly of August 18, assure their brethren the
Scots clergy were entirelyon the side ofthe Par
liament in this quarrel against the popish and
Episcopal faction ; that there were between
twenty and thirty of the prime nobility present
when the Covenant passed the Convention ; and
that even the king's commissioners confessed
that in their private capacity they were for it,
though as his majesty's commissioners they
were bound to oppose it. So that if the English
Parliament (say they) comply with the form uf
this covenant, we are persuaded the whole body
of the Scots kingdom will live and die with
them, and speedily come to their assistance.
When their commissioners arrived at Lon
don, they presented the Covenant to the two
houses, who referred it to the Assembly of Di
vines, where it met with some little opposition :
Dr. Featly declared he durst not abjure prelacy
absolutely, because he had sworn to obey his
bishop in all things lawful and honest, and,
therefore, proposed to qualify the second article
thus : " I will endeavour the extirpation of po
pery and all antichristian, tyrannical, or inde
pendent prelacy ;" but it was carried against
him. Dr. Burgess objected to several arlicles,
and was not without some difficulty persuaded
to subscribe after he had been suspended. Tbe
prolocutor, Mr. Gataker, and many others, de
clared for primitive episcopacy, or for one sta
ted president, with his presbyters, to govern ev
ery church ; and refused to subscribe till a pa
renthesis was inserted, declaring what sort of
prelacy was to be abjured, viz., " [church gov
ernment by archbishops, bishops, deans and
chapters, archdeacons, and all other officers
depending upon them]."t The Scots, who had
heen introduced into the Assembly September
15, were for abjuring episcopacy as simply un-

* " Wise observers," Bishop Bumet adds, " won
dered to see a matter of that importance carried
through upon so little deliberation or debate It was
thought strange to see all their consciences of such
a size, so exactly to agree as the several wheels
of a clock ; which made all apprehend there was
some first mover that directed all those other mo
tions : this, by the one party, was imputed to God's
extraordinary providence, but, by others, to the pow
er and pohcy of the leaders, and the simphcity and
fear of the rest." — Memoirs of the Duke of Hamilton,
p. a;i.— Ed.
t Calamy's Abridgment, p. 81.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

465

Mawful, but the English divines were generally
against it.
Bishop Burnet says our commissioners press
ed chiefly for a civil league, but the Scots would
have a religious one, to which the English
were obliged to yield, taking care, at the same
time, to leave a door open for a latitude of in
terpretation.* Sir Henry Vane put the word
"league" into the title, as thinking that might
be broken sooner than a covenant ; and in the
first article he inserted that general phrase of
reforming " according to the Word of God," by
which tbe English thought themselves secure
from the inroads of presbytery ; but the Scots
iielied upon the next words, " and according to
the practice ofthe best Reformed churches," in
which they were confident their discipline must
ie included. When Mr. Colman read the Cove
nant before the House of Lords, in order to
their subscribing it, he declared, that by prel
acy all sorts of episcopacy was not intended,
¦hut only the sort therein described. Thus the
wise men on both sides endeavoured to outwit
-each other in wording the articles, and with
4hese slight amendments the Covenant passed
the Assembly and both houses of Parliament ;
and by an order, dated September 21, was
¦printed and published as follows :
" A solemn League and Covenant for Reforma
tion and Defence of Religion, the Honour and
Happiness of the King, and the Peace and Safety
of the three Kingdoms of England, Scotland,
and Ireland.
" We, noblemen, barons, knights, gentlemen,
•citizens, burgesses, ministers ofthe Gospel, and
commons of all sorts, in the kingdoms of Eng
land, Scotland, and Ireland, by the providence
of God living under one king, and being of one
jeformed religion, having before our eyes the
,glory of God, and the advancement ofthe king
dom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the
honour and happiness of the king's majesty,
and his posterity, and the true public liberty,
•safety, and peace of the kingdoms, wherein
every one's private condition is included ; and
calling to mind the treacherous and bloody
plots, conspiracies, attempts, and practices of
the enemies of God against the true religion,
and the professors thereof in all places, espe
cially in these three kingdoms, ever since the
reformation of religion ; and how much their
lage, power, and presumption are of late and
at this time increased and exercised, whereof
the deplorable estate of the Church and king
dom of Ireland, the distressed estate of the
Church and kingdom of England, and the dan
gerous estate of the Church and kingdom of
Scotland, are present and public testimonies ;
we have (now at last), after other means of sup
plication, reraonstrance, protestations, and suf
ferings, for the preservation of our lives and
our religion from utter ruin and destruction,
according to the commendable practice of these
kingdoms in former times, and the example of
God's people in other nations, after mature de-
hberation, resolved and determined to enter,
into a mutual and solemn league and covenant,
wherein we all subscribe, and each one of us
for himself, with our hands lifted up to the most
.high God, do swear,

* Duke of Hamilton's Memoirs, p. 237, 240.
Vol. I.— N n n

I.

" That we shall sincerely, really, and con
stantly, through the grace of God, endeavour, in
oar several places and callings, the preservation
of the Reformed religion in the Church of Scot
land, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and gov
ernment, against our common eneraies ; the
reformation of religion in the kingdoms of
England and Ireland, in doctrine, worship, dis
cipline, and government, according to the Word
of God, and the example of the best Reformed
churches ; and we shall endeavour to bring the
Church of God in the three kingdoms to the
nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion,
confessing of faith, form of church government,
directory for worship, and catechising, that we,
and our posterity after us, may, as brethren,
live in faith and love, and the Lord may delight
to dwell in the midst of us.
II.
" That we shall in like manner, without re
spect of persons, endeavpur the extirpation of
popery, prelacy (that is, church government by
archbishops, bishops, their chancellors and com
missaries, deans, deans and chapters, archdea
cons, and all other ecclesiastical officers de
pending on that hierarchy), superstition, here
sy, schism, profaneness, and whatsoever shall
be found to be contrary to soujid doctrine and
the power of godliness, lest we partake in other
men's sins, and thereby be in danger to receive
of their plagues ; and that the Lord may be
one, and his name one, in the three kingdoms.
III.
"We shall, with the same reality, sincerity,
and constancy, in our several vocations, en
deavour with our estates and lives, mutually to
preserve the rights and privileges ofthe Parlia
ments, and the liberties of the kingdoms, and
to preserve the king's majesty's person and au
thority, in the preservation and defence of the
true religion and liberties ofthe kingdoms, that
the world may bear witness with our conscien
ces of our loyalty, and that we have no thoughts
or intentions to diminish his msjesty's just
power and greatness. IV.
" We shall also, with all faithfulness, endeav
our the discovery of all such as have been or
shall be incendiaries, malignants, or evil instru
ments, by hindering the reformation of religion,
dividing the king from his people, or one of the
kingdoms from another, or making any factions
or parties among the people, contrary to the
league and covenant, that they may be brought
to public trial, and receive condign punishment,
as the degree of their offences shall require or
deserve, or the supreme judicatories of both
kingdoras respectively, or others having power
from them for that effect, shall judge convenient.

"'And whereas the happiness of a blessed
peace between these kingdoms, denied in for
mer times to our progenitors, is, by the good
providence of God, granted utito us, and has
been lately concluded and settled by both Par
liaments, we shall, each one of us according to
our places and interests, endeavour that we

466
may remain conjoined m a
union lo all poslerilv, and that justice may be
done on all llie wilful opposers thereof, in man
ner expressed in tbe preeedent articles
VI.
'- Wc shall also, according to our places and
callings, in this common cause of religion, lib
erty, and peace of the kingdom, assist and de
fend' all those that enter into Ihis league and
covenant, in tbe maintaining and pursuing there
of; and shall not suffer ourselves, directly or in
directly, by whatsoevercombination, persuasion,
or terror, to be divided and withdrawn from this
blessed union and conjunction, whether to make
defection to the contrary part, or give ourselves
to a detestable indifferency or neutrahty in this
cause, which so much concerneth the glory
of God, the good of the kingdoms, and hon
our of the king; but shall all the days of our
lives zealously and constantly continue therein
against all opposition, and proraote the same,
according to our power, against all lets and im
pediments whatsoever ; and what we are not
able ourselves to suppress or overcome, we
shall reveal or make known, that it may be
timely prevented or removed.
" And because these kingdoms are guilty of
many sins and provocations against God, and
his son Jesus Christ, as is too manifest by our
present distresses and dangers, the fruits there
of, we profess and declare, before God and tbe
world, our unfeigned desire to be humbled for
our own sins, and for the sins of these king
doms ; especially that we have not as we ought
valued the inestimable benefit of the Gospel ;
that we have not laboured for the purity and
power thereof; and that we have not endeav
oured to receive Christ in our hearts, nor to
walk worthy of hira in our lives, which are the
cause of other sins and transgressions so much
abounding among us; and our true and unfeign
ed purpose, desire, and endeavour, for ourselves,
and all others under our charge, both in public
and private, in all duties we owe to God and
man, to amend our lives, end each one to go
before another in the example of a real reforraa
tion, that the Lord may turn away his wrath
and heavy indignation, and establish these
churches and kingdoras in truth and peace
And this covenant we make in the presence of
Almighty God, the searcher of all hearts, with
a true intention to perform the same, as we
shall answer at that great day when the secrets
of all hearts shall be disclosed ; most humbly
beseeching the Lord to strengthen us by his
Holy Spirit for this end, and to bless our desires
and proceedings with such success as may be
a deliverance and safety to his people, and en
couragement to the Christian churches, groan
ing under, or in danger of, the yoke of the anti-
Christian tyranny, to join with the same or like
attestation and covenant, to the glory of God,
the enlargement of the kingdom of Jesus Christ,
and the peace and tranquillity of Christian king
doms and commonwealths."*
.Monday, September 25, 1643, was appointed
for subscribing this Covenant, when both hous
es, with the Scots commissioners and Assem
bly of Divines, being met in the Church of St
Margaret's, Westminster, the Rev. Mr. White,

HISTORV OF THE PURIT.\NS.

firm peaee and j of niirchcstcr.opcnedthesolcmnity with prayer;
after him, Mr. Henderson and .Mr .Nye spoke in
justification of taking the Covenant Irom Scrip
ture precedents, and displayed the advantage
lliet'lnireh had received from such sacred com
binations. Mr. Henderson spoke next,* and de-

? Rushworth, vol. v., p. 47

• The four Scoitish divines were, m every rcsfiert,
distinguished men, and would have been so rogardod
in any aye or country. .-Vle.vander Henderson wa.s,
however, cheerfully admitted to be, beyond compar
ison, the most eminent. His learning was extensive
rather than minute, corresponding to the character
of his mind, of which tbe distinguishing elements
were dignity and comprehensiveness. When called
to quit the calm seclusion of the country parish
where he had spent so many years, and to come lo
the rescue of the Church of Scotland in her hour of
need, he at once proved himself able to conduct and
control the complicated movementsof an awakening
empire. Statesmen sought his counsel; but, with
equal propriety and disinterestedness, he refused to
concern himself with anything beyond what belonged
to the Church, although the very reverse has often
been asserted by his prelatic calumniators. Though
long and incessantly engaged in the most stirring
events of a remarkably momentous period, his ac
tions, his writings, his speeches, are all character
ized by calmness and ease, without the slightest ap
pearance of heat or agitation, resulting, unquestion
ably, from that aspect of character generally termed •
greatness of mind but which would, in him, be more
properly characterized by describing it as a rare com
bination of intellectual power, moral dignity, and
spiritual elevation. It was the condition of a mighty
mind, enjoying the peace of God which passeth un
derstanding, a peace which the world had not given, .
and could not take away.
George Gillespie was one of that peculiar class of
men who start, like meteors, into sudden splendour,
shine with dazzling brilliancy, then suddenly set be
hind the tomb, leaving their compeers equally to ad
mire and to deplore. When but in his twenty-fifth.
year, he published a book against what he termed
the "English Popish. Ceremonies," which CharleS'
and Laud were attempting to force upon the Church
of Scotland. This work, though the production of
a youth, displayed an amount and accuracy of learn
ing which would have done honour to any man of
the most mature years and scholarship. In the As
sembly of Divines, though much the youngest mem
ber there, he proved himself one of the most able
and ready debaters, encountering, not only on equal
terms, but often with triumphant success, each with-
his own weapons, the most learned, subtle, and pro
found of his antagonists. He must have been no
common man who was ready, on any emergency, to
meet, and frequently to foil, by their own acknowl
edgment, such men as Selden, Lightfoot, and Cole
man, in the Erastian controversy, and Goodwin and
Nye in their argument for Independency. But the
excessive activity of his ardent and energetic mind
wore out his frame ; and he returned from his labours
in the Westminster Assembly, to see once niore the
Church and the land of his fathers, and to die.
Samuel Rutherford gained, and still holds, an ex
tensive reputation by his religious works; but he
was not less eminent, in his own day, aa an acute
and able controversiaUst. The characteristics of his
mind were clearness of intellect, warmth and ear
nestness of affection, and loftiness and spirituality of
devotional feeling. He could and did write vigor
ously against the Independent system, and, at the
*me tirae, love and esteem the men who held it.
. his celebrated work, " Lex Rex," he not only en
tered the regions of constitutional jurists, but even
produced a treatise unrivalled yet as an exposition
of the true principles of civil and religious liberty.
His " Religious Letters" have been long admired by
all who could understand and feel what true religion
is, though grovelling and impure minds liave striven

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

467

Glared tliat the States of Scotland had resolved
to assist the Parliament of England in carrying
on the ends and designs of this covenant ; then
Mr. Nye, read it frora the pulpit, with an audible
voice, article by article, each person standing
uncovered, with his right hand lifted up bare to
heaven, worshipping the great name of God,
and swearing to the performance of it.-* Dr.
Gouge concluded the solemnity with prayer, after
which the House of Commons went up into the
chancel, and svibscrihed their names in one roll
of parchment, and the Asserably in another, in
both which the Covenant was fairly transcribed.
Lord's Daj following it was tendered to all per
sons within the bills of mortality, being read in
the several churches to their congregations, as
above. October 15, it was taken by the House of
Lords, after a sermon preached by Dr. Temple,
from Nehemiah, x., 29, and an exhortation by
Mr. Colman. October 29, it was ordered bythe
Committee of States in Scotland to be sworn to,
and subscribed all over that kingdom, on pen
alty of the confiscation of goods and rents, and
such other punishment as his majesty and the
Parliament should inflict on the refusers.t All
the lords of the council were summoned to sign
the Covenant November 2, and those who did
not, to appear again the 14th of the same month,
under the severest penalties, when some of the
king's party, not attending, were declared ene
mies to religion, and to their king and country ;
November 18, their goods were ordered to be
seized, and their persons apprehended ; upon
which they fled into England. Such was the
unbounded zeal of that nation ! February 2
following, the Covenant was ordered to be ta
ken throughout the kingdom of England, by all

to bhght their reputation by dwelling on occasional
fonns of expression, not necessarily unseemly in the
homeliness of phrase used in familiar letters, a<nd
conveying nothing offensive according to the lan
guage of the times. His powers of debate were very
considerable, being characterized by clearness of dis
tinction iii stating his opinions, and a close, syllogis
tic style of reasoning, both the result of his remarka
ble precision of thought.
Robert BailUe, so well known by his " Letters and
Journals," was a man of extensive and varied learn
ing, both in languages and- in systematic theology.
He rarely mingled in debate ; but his sagacity was
valuable in deliberation, and his great acquirements,
studious habits, and ready use of his pen, rendered
him an important member of such an assembly. The
singular ease and readiness of Bailli? in composition
enabled him to maintain what seems hke a, universal
correspondence ; and, at the same time, to present
in a vivid, picturesque, and exquisitely natural style,
the very form and impress of the period in which he
lived, and the great events in which he bore a part.
And when it was necessary to refute errors by ex
hibiting them in their real aspect, the vast reading
and retentive memory of Baillie enabled him to pro
duce what was needed with marvellous rapidity and
correctness. Scarcely ever was any man more qual
ified to " catch the manners living as they nse," and,
¦ at the same time, to point out with instinctive saga
city what in them Was wrong and dangerous.
Such were the Scottish commissioners; and it
may easily be beheved that they acted a very im
portant and influential part in the Westminster As
sembly of Divines.— iSsfory ofthe Westminster Assem
bly of Divines, by Rev. W. M.Hethenngton, p. 125-7.
_C. * Rashworth, vol. v., p. 475. ,
t Duke of Hamilton's Memours, p. 240.

persons above the age of eighteen years ; and
the Assembly were commanded to draw up an
exhortation to dispose people to it, which being
approved by both houses, was published, under
the title of
"An Exhortation to the taking of the solemn
League and Covenant for Reformation and De
fence of Religion, the Honour and Happiness of
the King, and the Peace and Safety of the three
Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland,
and for satisfying such Scruples as may arise
in the taking of it ; assented to by the House,
and ordered to be printed."
" Die Veneris, February 9, 1643.
" If the power of religion, or solid reason ; if
loyalty to the king, and piety to their native
country, or love to themselves, and natural af
fection to their posterity ; if the example of
men touched with a deep sense of all these ; or
extraordinary success from God thereupon, can
awaken an embroiled, bleeding remnant to em
brace the sovereign and only means of their
recovery, there can be no doubt but this solemn
League and Covenant will find, wheresoever it
shall be tendered, a people ready to entertain it
with all cheerfulness and duty.
"And were it not commended to the king
dom by the concurrent encouragement of the
honourable houses of Parliament, the Assembly
of Divines, the renowned city of London, multi
tudes of other persons of eminent rank and qual
ity of fhis nation, and the whole body of Scot
land, who have all willingly sworn and sub
scribed it with rejoicing at the oath, so gra
ciously seconded from heaven already, by Mast
ing the counsels, and breaking the power, of the-
enemy more than ever, yet it goeth forth in its .
own strength with such convincing evidence of
eqijity, truth, and righteousness, as may raise in
all (not wilfully ignorant or miserably, seduced)
inflamed affections to join with their brethren
in this happy bond, for putting an end to the
present miseries, and for saving both king and
kingdom from utter ruin, now so strongly and
openly laboured by the popish faction, and such
as have been bewitched by that viperous 'and
bloody generation."*
I It then proceeds to answer objections against
taking the Covenant ; as,
Obj. 1. That it obliges to the extirpation of
prelacy, which stands as yet by the knows
laws of the land.
Answ. The life and soul of the hierarchy is al
ready taken away, nothing of jurisdictioti re
maining ; and since it is but a human constitu
tion, if it be found a grievance, we may certain
ly endeavour its extirpation in a lawful way.
Obj. 2. It is said to be inconsistent with the
oath of canonical obedience.
Answ. If men have sworn obedience to the
laws of the land, may they not endeavour by
lawful means the repealing those laws, if they
are found inconvenient 1 or if any ministers
have taken oaths not warranted by the laws of
God and the land, ought they not to repent of
thera? Obj. 3. But the Covenant crosses the oath of
supremacy and allegiance.
Answ, This is false, for it binds to the pres-

* Rushworth, vol, v., p. 475. Husband's Collec
tions, p. 424.

46.'l

HISTORV OF THE PURITANS

crvation of the king's person and autliority, in
the defence of the religion and liberties of the
Itjngdom. Obj. 1 But it is done without the king's con
sent. .Answ s^o was the proirslation of May 5,
¦which went through the whole kingdom, his
majesty not excepting against it, though he
was then at Whitehall. The same has been
done by the united .Netherlands under King
Philip; and more lately in Scotland, his maj
esty himself declaring, by act of Parliaraent,
that they had done nothing but what became
loyal and obedient subjects.
Dr. Barwick says ' that some persons in the
University of Cambridge published an answer
to this exhortation, which I have not seen ;
but if the reader will look forward to the year
1647, he will find the reasons of the University
of Oxford against it, confirmed in convocation,
the validity of which he will judge of for him
self It is certain most of the religioust part
of the nation, who apprehended the Protestant
religion in danger, and were desirous of redu
cing the hierarchy of the Church, were zealous
for the Covenant. Others took it only in obe
dience of the Parliament, being sensible of the
distressed circumstances of their affairs, and
that the assistance of the Scots was to be ob
tained on no other terms.t But as it was a
test ofa mixed nature, and contained some ob
ligations upon conscience, which wise and hon
est men might reasonably scruple, who were
otherwise well affected to the Protestant reli
gion and the liberties of their country, the im
posing it as a test can never be justified,
though it appears most of the Episcopal di
vines who made the greatest figure in the
Church after the Restoration did not refuse it.
Together with the Exhortation of the Assem
bly, the following orders^ and instructions were
dispersed over the kingdom ;
Ordered, " That copies of the Covenant he
sent to all commanders-in-chief, and governors
of towns, forts, garrisons, and soldiers, that it
may be taken by all soldiers under their com
mand. " That copies be sent to the committees of
Parliament, in the several counties that are
under the power of the Parliament, and that the
committees, within six days, disperse the said
copies, and cause them to be delivered to the
ministers, church-wardens, or constables ofthe
several parishes.
" That the several ministers be required to
read the Covenant to the people the next Lord's
Pay after they have prepared the people to
take it.
" That the committees of Parliament take it
theraselves within seven days after they have
* Life of Barwick, p. 35.
t "That is," says Bishop Warburton, "the Puri
tan : for Puritanism and religion are convertible
terms wilh this historian." This evidently appears
to be remarked with a sneer, and to impeach the im
partiality of Mr. Neal. But, in answer to the remark,
it mav be observed, that it is not candid to mterpret
Mr .Seal's words as if he limited all seriousness of
character to the Puritans; and then the question is,
whether the fact was not as Mr. Neal states it? if it
were, his language is irreprehensible. — Ed.
X Rapin, voL xjL, p. 133.
ij Husband's Collections, p. 420.

received the copies, and then disperse thotn-
selves throughout their counties, so as three or
four of them may be together at the several
places appointed for the people to take it That
they summon all the ministers, church-ward
ens, constables, and other officers to that place,
and after a sermon preached by a minister
whom they shall appoint, they shall cause the
said minister to tender the Covenant to all
such ministers and other officers, to bo lakcn
and subscribed in the presence of the com
mittee. "The said ministers are then to be required
to tender the Covenant to all the rest of their
parishioners next Lord's Day ; and if any min
ister refuse or neglect to appear at the said
summons, or refuse to lake the said Covenant,
the comraittee shall appoint another minister to
do it in his place.
" If any minister refuse to take or tender the
Covenant, or if any other person refuse to lake
it after a second tender, upon two Lord's Days,
their names shall be returned to the commit
tee, and by them to the House of Commons ;
and all persons that absent themselves after no
tice given, shall be returned as refusers."
The English in foreign parts were not ex
empted from this test ; directions were sent to
Mr. Strickland, the Parliament's agent at the
Hague, to tender it to all the English in those
countries, and to certify the names of such as
refused* Here the elector-palatine look il,
and, after some time, came into England, and
condescended to sit in the Assembly of Divines.
December 20, 1643, it was ordered by the Lords
and Commons, that no person should be capa
ble of being elected a coramon councilman of
the city of London, or so much as a voice in
such elections, who has not taken the Cove
nant.! On the 29th of January, 1044, it was
ordered by the Commons, that the solemn
League and Covenant be, upon every day of fast
ing and public humiliation, publicly read in ev
ery church and congregation within the king
dora ; and every congregation is enjoined to
have one fairly printed in a large letter, in a ta
ble fitted to be hung up in a public place of the
church or congregation, to be read by the peo
ple. All young rainisters were required to take
the Covenant at their ordination ; none of the
laity were continued in any office of trust, ei
ther civil or military, who refused it. When the
war was ended, all the noblemen, knights, gen
tlemen, and officers who had opposed the Par
liament, were obliged to submit to it before
they were admitted to composition. Notwith
standing all this severity. Dr. Calamy says, Mr.
Baxter kept his people from taking the Cove
nant, as fearing it might be a snare to their
consciences ; nay, he prevented its being much
taken in the county he lived in, by keeping the
ministers from offering it to their people, ex
cept the city of Worcester, where he had no
great interest.J
The king could not be unacquainted with
these proceedings, for the Covenant lay before
the Parliament and Assembly almost a month,
during which time his majesty took no public

* Whitelocke, p. 79. Parliamentary Chronicle,
p. 172. t Husband's Collections, p. 404.
X Abridgment, p. 104.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

notice of it ; but a fortnight after it had been
subscribed by both houses, and by all the cler
gy and laity within the bills of moriality, he is
sued out the following proclaraation, dated from
Oxford, October 9, in the nineteenth year of
his reign. " By the King
" Whereas there is a printed paper, entitled
' A solemn League and Covenant for Reforma
tion and Defence of Religion,' &c., pretended
to be printed by order of the House of Com
mons, September 21, which Covenant, though it
seems to make specious expressions of piety
and religion, is in truth nothing else but a trai
torous and seditious combination against us
and the established religion and laws of this
kingdom, in pursuance of a traitorous design
and endeavour to bring in foreign force to in
vade this kingdom ; we do, therefore, straitly
charge and command all our loving subjects, of
what degree or quality soever, upon their alle
giance, that they presume not to take the said
seditious and traitorous Covenant. And we do
likewise hereby farther inhibit and forbid all
our subjects to impose, adrainister, or tender
the said Covenant, as they, and every one of
them, will answer the contrary at their utraost
and extremest perils."*
His majesty sent the like declaration into
Scotland, to which the states of that kingdora
paid no farther regard than to send him the
reasons of their conduct, with their advice to
his mlajesty to take the Covenant himself.
Great complaints have been made, and not
without reason, of the execution this test did
upon the king's clergy throughout the kingdora.
It was a new weapon put into the hands of the
committees, which enabled them with more
ease and certainty to detect malignant or dis
affected ministers ; for instead of prodncing a
number of witnesses, as had been the method
hitherto, they now tendered the Covenant,
which the others refusing, gave occasion to
the general report that the clergy were turned
out of their hvings only for refusing the Cove
nant, whereas their sequestration was ground^
ed upon other causes ; or, at least, the articles
of immorality or disaffection to the Parliaraent
were almost always joined with it. W'hen the
Covenant passed through the Parliament quar
ters, in some towns it was neglected, in others
the incumbent avoided it by withdrawing for a
few weeks, and getting another to officiate.
Some who refused were displaced, and the
names of those who absented were returned to
the Parliament, but little or nothing came of
it. The writer of the life of Bishop Saunderson
says that in the associated counties of Cam
bridgeshire, &n., all were ejected who refused
the Covenant, that is, all to whora it was ten
dered ; for though it was pressed pretty closely
in some places notorious for disaffection, in
others that had been quiet it was little regard
ed. The Earl of Manchester had particular in
structions to tender the Covenant to the Cara
bridge scholars, and yet the comraissioners im
posed it only upon such who had adhered to the
king, or of whose disaffection they had suffi
cient evidence, several who behaved peaceably
being permitted to keep their places, who would

¦* .Rushworth, vol. v., p. 482.

469
certainly have refused it. It has been observed
already, that Mr. Baxter prevented its being
much taken in Worcestershire ; and no doubt
there were men of moderation and influence
who did the same in other counties. Those
clergymen who had declared for the king were
usually put to the trial ; but reputed Calvinists,
of sober lives, who had stood neuter, were fre
quently overiooked ; so that'the beneficed cler
gy suffered by the Covenant, rather as parties
in the war, than as friends of the hierarchy.
However, it being a religious test, the imposing
it was, in my opinion, unwarrantable, and a very
great hardship, especially as it was for some
time a door of entrance into ecclesiastical pref-
erraents for such young d-iivines as had lio con
cern in the war. A test bf a civil nature would
have answered all the ends of civil government,
without shacklingthe consciences of men, which
ought always to be left free, and open to con
viction. But if the Puritan powers bore hard
upon the. Loyalists in imposing the Covenant,
the king's clergy were even with them at the
Restoration, when they obliged them publicly
to abjure it, or quit their preferments.
The necessity of the king's affairs having
obliged him to arm the papists, and commission
the Duke of Ormond to agree to a cessation of
arms with the Irish Catholics, in order to draw
off his forces from thence, his raajesty fell un-.
der the suspicion of favouring that religion, es
pecially when it appeared that not only the
Protestant soldiers, but the Irish rebels, were
transported with thera. Mr. Whitelocke* says
several of their officers and soldiers came over
with the king's army ; that a month or two af
ter, eight hundred native Irish rebels landed
at Weymouth, under the Lord Inchequin, and
another party at Beaumaris, which committed
great spoils, destroying with fire what they
could not carry off. Another party landed near
Chester, under the Earl of Cork, and fifteen
hundred were cast away at sea : these wretch
es brought hither the same savage disposition
which they had discovered in their own coun
try ; they plundered and killed people in cold
blood, observing neither the rules of honour
nor the law of arms.f The Scotch forces in
the north of Ireland entered into a confedera
cy to stand by each other against the cessa
tion ; the Parliaraent of England protested
against it, and published a declaration inform
ing the world that his majesty had broke
through his royal promise, of leaving the Irish

* P. 75, 76, 78, 79. Rapin, vol. ii., p. 486, folio.
Clarendon, vol. ii., part i., p. 439.
t Dr. Grey contrasts this charge against the Irish
rebels with instances of the conduct of the English
adherents to the Parliament. He brings forward
with this view the murder of Dr. Walter Raleigh,
dean of Windsor, by the man to whose custody he
Was committed ; and of Colonel Bulkley, by Major
Cheadle : the perpetrators in each case were acquit
ted. The doctor also refers to the petition of the
Irish Catholics to the king in 1642, complaining of
the violences and cruelties of which they were the
objects. It is sufficient to observe, that the cruelty .
o;f one party does not exculpate the other. On which
ever side acts of injustice and cruelty are committed,
htimanity will lament it, and equity will reprobate it.
Such is the nature of war, such is the envenomed
spirit that irritates civil contests, each party is, gen
erally, very gtiilty ; and it may not be often easy to
ascertam the proportion of guilt,— Ed.

470
war to them ; they forbade aU masters of ships
to bring over anv officers or soldiers, on penal
ty of the forfeiture of their vessels, and gave
letters of marque to merchants and others, who
would fit out ships al their own expense, em
powering them to lake to their own proht all
such ships and goods as they should meet com
ing over with soldiers or warlike stores for the
kmg. Next vcar'an ordinance was published,
that no quarters should be given lo any Irish
papist taken in arms against the Pariiament ;
all officers were lo except thera out of their
capitulations, and upon making them prisoners,
were immediately lo put them to death.
This unhappy management ofthe king alien
ated tbe affections of great numbers of his friends
who had tbe Protestant religion at heart ; many
who wished well to his person deserted hira upon
this occasion, and made their peace with the
Pariiament, as the Earls of Holland, Bedford,
Clare, Cariisle, Sir Edward Deering, and others ;
this last gentleman published the reasons of
his conduct to the world, the principal of wliich
were, tbe Irish cessation, bis majesty preferring
popish officers to chief places of trust and hon
our, and the language of the Oxford clergy and
others that the king should come no other way
to his palace but by conquest.* There was
certainly a very malignant spirit among those
gentlemen at tliis time, as appears by their form
of thanksgiving, or, rather, imprecation, for the
taking of Bristol, and the success of the Earl
of Newcastle's array in the north : " 0 Lord,"
say they, " though our sins cry aloud, hear them
not, but look to the righteousness of our cause ;
see the seamless coat of thy son torn ; the
throne of thine anointed trampled upon ; thy
Church invaded by sacrilege, and thy people
miserably deceived by lies ; see it, O God, as
see it thou dost, and vindicate what thou seest
on the heads of those who lead these wretch
es." Many of the Earl of Newcastle's soldiers,
in the north, upon news of the Irish cessation,
threw down their arms and offered a composi
tion ; and, if we may believe the Parliamentary
Chronicle,! this single action lost the king all
the northern counties. To put a stop to the
clamours ofthe people, and prevent any farther
desertions, his majesty resolved to support his
own character as a Protestant, and accordingly
made the following protestation in presence of
the congregation at Christ Church, Oxford, im
mediately before his receiving the sacraraent
from the hands of Archbishop Usher :
" My Lord,
" I espy here many resolved Protestants, who
may declare to the world the declaration I do
now make. I have, to the utmost of ray pow
er, prepared my soul to be a worthy receiver,
and may I so receive comfort from the blessed
sacrament as I do intend the establishment of
the true Reformed Protestant religion, as it
stood in its beauty in the happy days of Queen
Elizabeth, wiihout any connivance at popery.
I bless God that, in the midst of these public
distractions, I have still liberty to communicate.
And may this sacrament be my damnation if
my heart do not join with my lips in this prot
estation. "^

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

* Rushworth, vol. v., p. 383. t Part iii., p. 86.
X Rushworth, p. 346. Rapin, vol. u , p. 490, foho.

How consonant was this with his rnajesty's
actions, when within a lew days he agreed ton
cessation wilh the Irish papists for a year, and
a toleration of their religion I All mon knew
that his majesty not only connived at popery,
but indulged il as far as was in his power; hi»-
lurians, therelore, are at a loss to reconcile this
solemn appeal to Heaven with the king's piety
and sincerity. The Parliament was so appro.
hcnsive of the consequences of bringing over
the Irish papists, that, by an order of November
22, they desired the Assembly of Divines to
write letters to the foreign churches of Holland,
France, and Switzerland, and other places, to
inform them of the artifices of his raajesty's
agents ; of the constant employment of Irish
rebels, and other papists, to bo governors, com
manders, and soldiers in his armies ; of tho
many evidences of their intentions to introduce
popery, to hinder the intended reformation, and
to condemn other Protestant churches as un
sound because not prelatical ; and that the
Scots comraissioners be desired to join with
them. In pursuance of this order, the Assem
bly wrote the following letter, dated November
30, 1643 :
" To the Belgic, French, Helvetian, and other
Reformed Churches.
"Right reverend and dearly beloved in our Lord
Jesus Christ,
" We, the Assembly of Divines, and others,
convened by the authority of both houses of
Parliament, with the commissioners from the
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, do
heartily salute you in the Lord. We doubt not
but the sad reports ofthe raiseries under which
the Church and kingdom of England do bleed,
and wherewith we are ready to be swallowed
up, is long since come to your ears ; and it is
probable the same instruments of Satan and
Antichrist have, by their emissaries, endeavour
ed to represent us as black as may be among
yourselves.* And we sometimes doubt whether
we have not been wanting to our own inno
cence, and your satisfaction, in being thus long
silent ; but pardon us, dear brethren, if this cup
of trembling wherewith our spirits have been
filled to amazement, and our wrestling with ex
treme difficulties ever since our meeting, has
hindered from that which was our duty ; and
give us leave now a little to ease our grief, while
we relate the desolation made by the anti-
Christian faction, who are for hindering the
work of reformation, and for introducing and
cherishing popery ; and are now arrived to that
strength, that if the Lord do not speedily help
us, we shall be altogether laid waste by them.
" How great a hand they [the prelates] have
had in the miseries of other Reformed church
es, in the destruction of the Palatinate, in the
loss of Rochelle, are so fully known and felt by
you all, that we need not speak anything of them.
And we suppose their inveterate hatred against
you all is sufficiently manifest, in that multi
tudes of them have refused to acknowledge any
of you for churches of Christ because you are
ngt prelatical, and thereby, as they conceive,
want a lawful vocation of ministers. Sure we
are, that among ourselves, scarce one thing
can be thought of which may be supposed an

Rushworth, p. 371.

471

largument of their design to advance popery, that
has not been attempted. The laws against po-
.pery have been suspended ; judges forbid to
jjroceed against condemned priests ; Jesuits set
free ; houses of superstition in Ireland and Eng-
Jand have been set up, and not discountenanced ;
notorious papists harboured about the court and
preferred ; many released from legal penalties,
and their prosecutors discountenanced ; agents
have been sent into Italy, and nuncios from
Rorae received, while the most zealous Prot
estants have been persecuted ; many prelates
,and clergymen have pubhcly preached, and en
deavoured to leaven the people with all points
-of popery, except the supremacy, and introdu
ced abundance of corrupt innovations into the
worship of God ; for noncompliance with which
jnany have been forced to fly for refuge to the
remote parts ofthe world.
" They imposed upon the kingdom of Scot
land a new popish service-book and canons, to
which when that nation would not submit, they
:prevailed with his raajesty to proolairn thera
rebels, and raise an army against thera, to which
all the papists, and those who were popishly af-
. fected, contributed ; and had not the Lord, by
his blessing on the Scots' arras, and by the call
ing of Hhis Parliaraent, prevented it, the two
.nations had been imbruing their hands in each
other's blood.
" But though we hoped, through the goodness
¦of God, and his blessing upon this Parliament,
whose hearts were inclined to a more perfect
reformation, that our winter had been passed,
yet, alas ! we find it to be quite otherwise. We
know our sins have deserved all, and if we die
¦ and perish, the Lord is righteous ; to his hand
we submit, and to hira alone we look for healing.
The same anti-Christian faction not being dis
couraged by their want of success in Scotland,
have stirred up a bloody rebellion in Ireland,
wherein above one hundred thousand Protest
ants have been destroyed in one province with
in a few months. They have alienated the heart
-of his majesty from his Parliament, and pre
vailed with him to withdraw and raise an army,
which at first pretended only to be made up of
Protestants, but soon after papists were armed
by commission from the king ; many great pa
pists were put into places of public command,
and the body of all the papists have joined his
majesty with all their might ; they profess and
-exercise their religion publicly in several parts
.of the kingdom, and go up and down plunder
ing, murdering, and spoiling of their goods all
.such as adhere to the Parliament, and to the
cause of religion. Nor has the Pariiaraent been
¦ able, by their petitions and remonstrances, to
recover his majesty out of their hands, or bring
these men to deserved punishment, but the
sword rages almost in every corner of this wo
ful land.
" And to complete our miseries, they have
prevailed with his majesty so far lo own the
rebels in Ireland, as not only to call thera his
Roman Catholic subjects now in arms, hut to
grant them a cessation of arms for a year, and
to hold what they had gotten, with liberty to
'strengthen themselves with men, money, aritis,
ammunition, &c., whereby they are enabled not
only to destroy the remnant of Protestants in
ilreland, but to come over hither (as many of

MISf(5HT^0F THE PURITANS. ^
them are already) to act the same butchery upon

" In the midst of these troublesome times the
two houses of Pariiament have called this As
sembly, to give them our best counsel for the
reforraation ofthe Church, requiring us to make
God's Word only our rule, and to endeavour
the nearest conformity to the best Reformed
churches, and uniformity to all the churches of
the three kingdoras.
" The Churoh and kingdom of Scotland have
made offer of their humble mediation to the king
for a pacification, which being rejected, both
nations have entered into a mutual league and
covenant ; and the Scots have resolved to join
in arms with their brethren in England, for
their mutual preservation frora the coraraon
enemy, and, so far as in thera lieth, for the
safety of their native king. They have also
sent their commissioners hither, for uniformity
of religion in the churches of both kingdoms.
" And we, their commissioners, do exceed
ingly rejoice to behold the foundation of tho
house of God, not only in doctrine, but in church
governraent, laid before our eyes in a reverend
assembly of so wise, learned, and godly divines.
And we find ourselves bound, in all Christian
duty, as well as hy our late Covenant, to join in
representing to the Reformed churches abroad
the true condition of affairs here against all
mistakes and misinformations.
"And now, dear brethren, we beg of you,
first, to judge aright of our innocence and in
tegrity in this our just defence ; if our enemies
say that we are risen up in rebellion to de
prive the king of his just power and greatness,
and to bring anarchy and confusion into the
Church of Christ, we doubt not but our solemn
Covenant (a copy of which we humbly present
you herewith) will sufficiently clear us. Let
the righteous Lord judge between us, whom we
implore to help us no farther than we can plead
these things in sincerity.
" Secondly, That you would sympathize with
us as brethren, who suffer in and for the same
cause wherein yourselves have been oppressed.
"Thirdly, That you would conceive of our
condition as your own comraon cause, which,
if it be lost with us, yourselves are not like
long to escape, the quarrel being not so much
against men's persons as against the power of
godliness and the purity of God's Word. The
way and manner of your owning us we leave to
yourselves, only we importunately crave your
fervent prayers, both public and private, that
God would bring salvation to us ; that the
blessings of truth and peace may rest upon us ;
that these three nations may be joined as one
stick in the hands of the Lord; and that we
ourselves, contemptible builders, called to re
pair the house of God in a troublesome time,
may see the pattern of this house, and com
mend such a platform to our Zerubbabels as
may be most agreeable to his sacred Word,
nearest in conformity to the best Reformed
churches, and to establish uniformity among
ourselves ; that all mountains may beeome
plains before them aiid us, that then all v7ho
now see the plummet in our hands, may also
behold the top-stone set upon the head of the
Lord's house among us, and may help us with
shouting to cry, Grace, grace to it.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

"Thus much we have been commanded to
inform you of, reverend brethren (and by you
all faithful Christians under your eharge), by
the honourable House of Commons, in whose
name, and in our own, we bid you heartily fare
well in the Ixird.
" Your most affectionately devoted brethren
in Christ. William Twisse, Prolocutor.
Cornelius Burges, John White, Assessors.
Henry Roborough, Adoniram Byfield, Scnbes.
John Maitland, .\. Johnston, Alexander
Henderson, Samuel Rutherford, Robert
Bailie, George Gillespie, Commissioners
ofthe Church of Scotland."
The inscription was, " To the reverend and
learned Pastors and Elders of the Classes and
Churches ofthe Province of Zealand, our much-
honoured Brethren."
Letters of the same import were sent to the
several churches of the Seven Provinces ; to
the churches of Geneva ; the Protestant Can
tons of Switzerland ; the churches of Hesse,
Hanau, and Hainault ; and to the Protestant
congregation at Paris ; all which were received
with respect, and answered by the several
classes.* But the churches of Boheraia, Tran
sylvania, Poland, Silesia, and Austria, and other
cities and principalities of Germany, were not
written to. The answer from the French
church at Paris was read in the Asserably the
beginning of March ; from Switzerland June 12,
1644 ; and from Genevat at the same time ;
from the classes of Amsterdam and Guelder-
land June 29 ; and Mr. Whitelocke observes,
that the Netherland divines expressed not only
their approbation of the proceedings of the
Parliament and Assembly touching the Cove
nant, but desired to join with the two kingdoras
therein. The king, apprehending himself misrepre
sented to the foreign churches in that part of
the Assembly's letter which insinuates a design
to introduce popery, and being advised to vin
dicate his character from that imputation, caus
ed a manifesto to be drawn up in Latin and
English, to all foreign Protestants, which,
though not published till the beginning of next
year, may be properly inserted in this plaee.
" Charles, by the special providence of Al
mighty God, King of England, Scotland, France,
and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c., to all
those who profess the true Reformed Protest
ant religion, of what nation, degree, or con
dition soever they be, to ,whom this present
declaration shall come, greeting.
" Whereas we are given to understand that
many false rumours and scandalous letters are
spread up and down among the Reformed
churches in foreign parts by tbe politic, or,
rather, the pernicious industry of some ill-af
fected persons, that we have an inclination to
recede from that orthodox religion which we
were born, baptized, and bred in, and which we
have firmly professed and practised throughout

? History of the Stuarts, p. 232.
+ " Diodati, the prince of divinity there," Bishop
W arburton says, " returned a very temperate answer,
noway inconsistent with the re-establishment of
Episcopacy." — Ed.

the whole course of our life to this moment ;
and that we intend to give way to the introduc
tion and public exercise of popery again into
our dominions, which most detestable calumny,
being groundcii upon no imaginable foundation,
hath raised these horrid tumults, and more than
barbarous wars, throughout this flourishing
island, under pretence ofa kind of reformation
which is incompatible with the fundamental
laws and government of this kingdom ; we de
sire that the whole Christian world should rest
assured that we never entertained the least
thought to attempt such a thins, or to depart a
jot from that holy religion, which, when wo re
ceived the crown and sceptre of this kingdom,
we took a most solemn sacramental oath to
profess and protect. Nor does our constant
practice, and daily presence in the exercise of
this religion, with so many asseverations at the
head of our armies, and the public attestation
of our barons, with the circumspection usedin
the education of our royal offspring, besides
divers other undeniable arguments, only de
monstrate this, but also that happy alliance of
marriage we contracted between our eldest
daughter and the illustrious Prince of Orange
most closely confirms the reality of our inten
tions herein ; by which it appears that our
endeavours are, not only to make a profession
thereof in our own dominions, but to strengthen
it abroad as rauch as lieth in our power.*
" This most holy religion of the Anglican.
Church, ordained by so raany convocations of
learned divines, confirmed by so many acta of
Parliament, and strengthened by so many royal
proclamations, together with the ecclesiastical
discipline and liturgy, which the most eminent
Protestant authors, as well as Germans, French,
Danes and Swedes, Dutch and Bohemians, do
with many eulogies, and not without a kind of
envy, approve and applaud in their public wri
tings, particularly in the transactions of the
Synod of Dort, wherein (besides others of our
divines who were afterward prelates) one of
our bishops assisted, to whose dignity all due
respect and precedency were given ; this reh
gion, we say, which our royal father, of blessed
memory, doth publicly assert in his famous con
fession addressed to all Christian princes, with
the hierarchy and liturgy thereof, we solemnly
protest, that, by the help of God, we will en
deavour, to our utmost power and last period
of our life, to keep entire and inviolable ; and
will be careful, according to our duty to heaven
and the tenour of our oath at our coronation,
that all ecclesiastics, in their several degrees
and incumbencies, shall preach and practise.
Wherefore we coramand all our ministers of
state beyond the seas, as well ambassadors as
residents, agents, and messengers ; and we de
sire all the rest of our loving subjects that so
journ in foreign parts, to communicate and as
sert this our soleran and sincere protestation,
when opportunity of time and place shall be of
fered. " Given in our University and city of Oxford,
" May 14, 1644."
• This declaration did the king little service
among foreign Protestants, for though it as
sured them his majesty would not turn papist,

* Rushworth, vol. v., p. 752-

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

it convinced them that no alteration in the Eng
lish hierarchy was to be expected. His mar
rying his daughter to the Prince of Orange was,
perhaps, the only evidence of his charity for the
Dutch reformation ; but his appeal to the edu
cation of his children was trifling, when all the
worid knew they were under popish instructers,
in pursuance of a marriage contract, till twelve
or fourteen years of age, and had received im
pressions not to be easily eflhced. His insinu
ating to the foreign churches that their most
learned divines preferred the English hierarchy
to the government of their own countries, con
vinced them they ought to be more sparing of
their compliments for the future to persons
who would draw such conclusions from them.
As to the Synod of Dort, no precedency was
given to the bishop on account of his Episcopal
character, but as a baron of the English Parlia
ment.* Nor is there anything in the declara
tion that might encourage the foreign clergy to
hope his majesty would own their churches,
ministers, or sacraments, or unite witlu thera
against the common enemyof the Reformation,
any more than before these unhappy troubles
began. All the Episcopal divines left the Assembly
before the bringing in of the Covenant, except
Dr. Featly, who was expelled for holding cor
respondence ¦with Archbishop Usher at Oxford,
and for- revealing their proceedings, contrary to
the express words ofthe ordinance, which obli
ges them " not to divulge, by printing, or wri
ting, or otherwise, their opinions or advices,
touching the matters proposed to thera by Par
liament, without the consent of both or either
house." The doctor was a learned man, and
a Calvinist, upon which account the Assembly
paid him a high regard, and indulged him in all
his speeches in favour of Episcopacy, and
against the Covenant, sorae of which were af
terward published to the world. They appoint
ed him to answer to a popish pamphlet, called
the Safeguard ; and he bore a part in the anno
tations on the Bible, which go under the name
of the Assembly. Lord Clarendon says the
king sent him a letter forbidding him to sit any
longer, but that the doctor excused it in a letter
to Archbishop Usher, which, being intercepted,
he was committed prlsonert to Lord Peter's
* Dr. Grey will have it that the contrary was the
fact, and quotes Bishop Carleton. But the quota
tion goes to prove no more than that the foreign di
vines at the synod, in their conversations with him,
¦expressed their approbation ofthe Episcopal govern
ment of the English Church, and their wishes to
have the same order established among themselves.
But Mr. Neal's representation does not seem to be
accurate. The case of precedency, according to
Brandt, appears to have stood thus: when the synod
met, the two commissioners of the States took place
near the chimney, on the right hand. The Enghsh
divines sSt on the left. An empty seat was kept for
•the French. The third place was appointed Tor the
deputies of the Palatinate, and so on. Next to the
commissioners on the right the professors of divinity
•took place, and then the ministers and elders of the
country, according to the rank of each province. So
¦that the precedency which the English bishop ban
naturally arose from his rank among the EngUsh di
vines ; to whom, in general. Was assigned the first
seat on the left hand.— History of ihe Reformation,
abridged, vol. ii., p. 397.— Ed.
i The unprisonment of Dr. Featly, Mr. Baxter ob-
VoL. I.— O o o

473
house, in Aldersgate-street, as a spy : the arch
bishop, at the same time, being declared incapa
ble of sitting in the Assembly for the like rea
son. , And here was an end of all the public-
concern the Episcopal party had in the govern
ment ofthe Church till the Restoration.
From the time of taking the Covenant, we
may date the entire dissolution of the hierarchy,
though it was not as yet abolished by an ordi
nance of Pariiament. There were no ecclesi
astical courts, no visitations, no wearing the
habits, no regard paid to the canons or cere
monies, or even to the common prayer itself.
The Arehbishop of Canterbury, by an ordinance
of May 16, had heen forbid to collate any bene
fices in his gift but to persons nominated by
Parhament ; for disobedience to which he was,.
by another ordinance of June 10, "suspended
ab officio et beneficio, and frora all archiepiscopal
jurisdiction, till he should be acquitted or con
victed of the high treason of which he was ira
peached ; and as to such livings, dignities, pro
motions, &c., in the said, archbishop's gift or
collation, as are, or shall hereafter, become void,
institution or induction shall henceforward be
given hy the archbishop's vicar- general, or any
other having authority on his behalf, upon the
nomination and recommendation of both houses
of Pariiament." By this extraordinary method
the Rev. Mr. Corbet was inducted into the liv
ing of Chatham, "ratione suspensionis dom.
Guil. ArchiepiscopiCant. et sequestrationis tem-
poraliura archiepiscopatus in manibus supremae
curiae Parliamenti, jam existentis," " by reason
of the suspension of the Archbishop of Canter
bury, and the sequestration of the temporalities
of his archbishopric into the hands of the pres
ent high court of Parliament, the same belong
ing to their, gift." But this ordinance was of
no long continuance, for upon the sitting of the
Asserably of Divines, church business went
through their hands ; the parishes elected their
ministers, the Assembly examined and appro
ved of them, and the Parliament confirmed them
in their benefices without any regard to the
archbishop or his vicar. Thus the Earl of Man
chester filled the vacant pulpits in the associa
ted comities ; and when Lord Fairfax was au
thorized to supply those iri the porth, by an or
dinance of February 27, the preamble says,.
" The houses being credibly informed that
many ministers in the county of York were not
only of a scandalous life, but, having left their
churches and cures, had withdrawn themselves
wilfully from the same, and joined such forces ^
as had been raised against the Parliament, and
assisted thera with raen, raoney, horses, and
arms ; therefore it is ordained that Lord Fair
fax be authorized to fill up their places with
such learned and godly divines as he shall think
fit, with advice of tbe Assenibly."*
This created a great deal of business ; for
though the Assembly had not a parliamentary
authority to ordain, yet the examination and
approbation of such clergymen already in orders
as petitioned for sequestered livings, heing by
express order of the two houses referred, to

serves, " much reflected on the Pariiament ; because,.
whatever the facts were, he was so teamed a man, ,
as was sufficient to dishonour those he suffered by," ¦
— Baxter's Life and Times, p. 75. — Ed.
* Parliamentary Chronicle, part iv., p.- 128.

HISTORV OK THE PURITANS

them, they were obliged to choose a select com
mittee for this work , their names were.
Rev Dr (iougc. Kev. Mr. Conant.
Dr.

Or Lightfoot.
Dr. Smith.
Dr. Temple.
Dr. Tuckiicy
Dr. Hoyle.
Dr. Burges.
Dr. Spurstow
Mr. Ley.
Mr. Reynolds.

.Mr. Gower.
Mr. t'olman.
Mr Hill.
Mr. Corbet.
Mr. Gataker.
Mr. HeHe.
Mr Hall.
Mr. Whitaker.
Mr. Bathurst.
Mr. Cheynel.

The method of examination was this : the
names of the ministers who petitioned for liv
ings, or were recommended by either house of
Parliament, being published in the .¦Assembly two
or three days before the examination, liberty was
given in that tirae to make exceptions to their
characters ; if nothing was objected, they were
exarained by the coraraittee, or any five of
them, ivho reported their qualifications to the
House, upon which each candidate received a
certificate frora the Assembly to the following
effect :
"According to an order bearing date  ,
from tbe committee of the House of Commons
for plundered ministers, to the comraittee of di
vines for the e.xarainatian of A. B., concerning
his fitness to be adinitted to the benefit of the
sequestration ofthe Church of  , in the coun
ty of  , and so to officiate in the cure there
of, these are to certify the said committee of
plundered ministers, that, upon examination of
tbe said .¦V. B., and some trial of his gifts and
abilities, we conceive hira fit to officiate in the
cure of  , in the county aforesaid. In wit
ness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our
names." The scribes of the Assembly \vere ordered to
keep a record of all orders and certificates con
cerning ministers recommended to sequestra
tors, and to enter them in a register-book. This
continued for about a year, till the new direc
tory and form of church governraent took place.
'Towards the latter end of this year died Will
iam Chillingworth, A.M., whora I raention, not
as a Puritan, but as a witness against some of
those hardships the present Dissenters complain
of; he was born at Oxford, 1602, and educated
in Magdalen College, of which he became fellow
in June, 1628. He afterward turned Roman
Catholic, and went to the Jesuits' College at
St. Omer's, where not being thoroughly satis
fied in some of their principles, he returned to
England in 1631, and having erabraced the reli
gion of the Church of England, published an
excellent treatise, entitled "The Religion of
Protestants a safe Way to Salvation," for which
he was preferred to the chancellorship of the
Church of Sarum, and made master of Wyg-
ston Hospital, in Leicester. He was inserted
in the list with other Loyalists to be created
D.D. in the year 1642, but came not thither to
receive that honour. It was the general opinion
of tbe times that he was a Socinian, but in his
last letter, at the end of his works, he appears
an .\rian. It is very certain he refused to sub
scribe the Thirty-nine Articles, for some years
after his conversion, (1.) Because he did not be
lieve the morality of the fourth commandment.
(2.) Because he did not agree to the damnatory
clauses m the Athanasian creed, and, therefore,

could not read the common prayer. He objeolcd
also to the twentieth arliele, "of the Church's
power to decree rites and ceremonies ;" tu the
nineteenth article, " that works done before the
grace of Christ, Ac., are nol pleasing lo (Iod ;"
and, indeed, says the writer of his life, to the
articles in gener.il, as an imposition on inon'g
consciences, much like the authority which the
Church of Rome assumes.*
Mr. Chillingworth blesses God, that when he
had entertained some thoughts of subscription, '
two unexpected impediments diverted him from
it; "for," says he, "1 profess since I enter
tained it I never enjoyed quiot, day nor night,
till now that I have rid myself of it again ; and
I plainly perceive, that if I had swallowed this
pill, howsoever gilded over with glosses and
reservations, ifud wrapped up in conserves of
good intentions and purposes, yet it would nev-
er have agreed nor stayed with me ; but I
should have cast it up again, and with it what
soever preferment I should have gained as the
wages of unrighteousness ; but now, I thank
God, I am resolved that 1 will never do that
while I ara living and in health, which I would
not do if 1 was dying; and this I am sure I
would not do, and, therefore, whenever I mako
such a preposterous choice, I will give you
leave to believe that I am out of my wits, or do
not believe in God."t Notwithstanding these
resolutions, he was prevailed with to subscribe
by his godfather, Archbishop Laud, to quaUfy
him for the above-mentioned preferments. How
the pill was gilded over, is not certain ; the
writer of his life says he subscribed as articles
of peace, not of belief Mr. Chillingworth was
a quick disputant, and of very high principles,
for in one of his sermons before the king he
says, that " the most unjust and tyrannical vio
lence of princes may not be rejected ; this be
ing unlawful, even though princes be most im
pious, tyrannical, and idolatrous." But though
his political principles were high, he was low
enough with regard to the authority of councils,
fathers, and convocations in matters of faith:
adhering steadfastly to that celebrated declara
tion, " that the Bible alone is the religion of a
Protestant." He was an excellent mathemati
cian, and served as engineer in Arundel Castle,
in Sussex, in which he -was taken prisoner, and
when indisposed, had the favour of being lodged
in the bishop's house at Chichester, where he
died, January 20, 1643-4. It is surprising that
Lord Clarendon should say, "The Parliament
clergy prosecuted him with all the inhumanity
imaginable, so that by their barbarous usage
he died within a few days,"t when, as he him
self acknowledged, he wanted for nothing, and
by the interest of Dr. Cheynel, who attended
hira in his siokness, was courteously used.^

? ChUhngworth's Life, p. 273. t lUd., p. 79.
X Ibid., p. 314, 325.
^ Dr. Cheynel's kindness extended to the procu
ring a commodious lodging for Mr. Chilhngworth, to
engaging the physician, as his symptoms grew worse,
to renew his visits, and to securing for him the rites
of burial, which some would have denied him. Yet
he held the opinions of Mr. Chillingworth in the
greatest detestation, and treated his name and mem
ory with virulence and asperity, as appears from the
above speech at the interment of this great man, and
by a pamphlet he published, entitled " Chilling-
worthi Novissima ; or, the Sickness, Heresy, DeatD,

HISTORV OF THE PURITANS.

The doctor would have reasoned him out of
some of his principles, but could not prevail
and, therefore, at his interment, after a reflect-
mg speech upon his character, threw his book,
entitled '"The Religion of Protestants a safe
Way to Salvation," into the grave, saying " Get
thee gone, thou cursed book, vvhich has seduced
so many precious souls ; earth to earth, dust to
dust ; get thee into the place of rottenness, that
thou mayest rot with thy author, and see cor-
rupUon." A raost unchristian and uncharita
ble imprecation !
Among the considerable statesmen who died
¦this year raay be justly reckoned John Hamp-
¦den, Esq., of Buckinghamshire, a gentleman of
;good extraction, and one ofthe greatest patri
ots of his age, as appears by his standing trial
with the king in the case of ship-money, which
raised his reputation to a very great height
¦throughout the kingdom. He was not a man
oi many words, hut a very weighty speaker ;
'his reputation for integrity universal, and his
affections so publicly guided, that no corrupt or
private ends could bias thera. He was, indeed,
a very wise raan, of great parts and modesty!
and possessed of the most absolute spirit of
popularity, says Lord Clarendon, I ever knew.
He was one of the impeached members of the
House of Commons, and, in the beginning of
the war, took the coraraand of a regiment, and
performed the duty of a colonel on all occasions
:punctually, being a man of great personal cour
tage, not to be tired out by the most laborious,
and of parts not to be imposed upon by the
most subtle, bnt because he fought against the
-court. Lord Clarendon says (if this be not an in
terpolation of the editors) that he had a head to
contrive, a tongue to persuade, and a hand to
execute any mischief:* which is very unac.

475
countable in one whom his lordship had com
mended as a person not only of cheerfulness
and affability, but of extraordinary sobriety and
strictness of life. Mr. Hampden was certainly
in all respects, one of the greatest and best meri
of his age, and the Pariiaraent sustained an ir
reparable loss in his death, which happened
June 24, about a week after his shoulder-bone
had been broken by a rausket-ball, in a skirmish
with Prince Rupert's forces in Calgrave Field.*

and Burial of William Chillingworth," &c., which
Bishop Warburton calls " a-villanous book ;" and tells
us that " Mr. Locke speaks of it in the harshest terms,
but not more severely than it deserves." The fact
is, as Bishop Hoadley states it, " Dr. Cheynel was a
rigid, zealous Presbyterian ; exactly orthodox ; very
UDwilUng that any should be supposed to go to heav-
-en but in the right way. And this was that one way
in which he himself was settled ; and in which he
iseems to be as sincere, as honest, and charitable as
his bigotry and his cramped notions of God's peculi-
nm could permit him to , be." Years after this. Dr.
¦Snape, a clergyman of name in the Church of Eng
land, displayed the like temper and spirit to Dr.
Cheynel, in the Bangorian controversy, which I men
tion to introduce Bishop Hoadley's excellent conclu
sion from both these instances of bigotry, namely,
*' that an intemperate heat scorches upcharity in one
church as well as in another, and everywhere equal
ly lays waste the most amiable duties of Chris
tianity.; and that men of the most opposite persua
sions, agreeing in the same narrowness of principles
and notions of zeal, though differing from one anoth-
¦er in many particulars, even to a degree of mutual
¦destruction, can kindly and lovingly unite in con
demning the best principles of all religion as subtle
atheisni, or indifference, or infidelity, and in declaring
them to be the principles of all irreligion when their
¦several schemes and systems are Ukely lo suffer from
them." So the sentiments on toleration, charity,
and free inquiry, as they were defended by Chilling
worth and by Hoadley's friend, were condemned by
Cheynel and Snape.— Hoadley's Works, vol. ii., p.
622, folio ; and Palmer's Nonconformists' Memorial,
vol. ii., p. 466.— En.
* .Oldmixon's History ofthe Stuarts, p. 227.
Dr. Grey endeavours to establish the authenticity

of this passage by a large quotation from the Week
ly Miscellany, by Richard Hooker, of the Temple,
3'., ° ^'¦' '^^"^'^ account of Hampden it may be
added, that he was born in the year 1594, and died
the,.24th of June, 1643, leaving ten children behind
him. The Pariiament, as a testimony of his service
to the public, ordered the sum of £5000 to be paid
to his assignees out of the excise. Mr. Baxter has
placed him with the saints in heaven (Everiasting
Rest, p. 82, 83) ; and Lord Cobham with the wor
thies in his elysium at Stow. Under his bust is this
inscription : "JOHN HAMPDEN,
" Who, with great spirit and consummate abilities, be
gan an opposition to an arbitrary court, in defence of
the liberties of his country ; supported them in Par.
liament, and died for them in the field."
He argued the case of ship-money with the judges
for twelve days together, in the Exchequer Cham
ber ; and " had more reason to triumph," says Mr.
Granger, " from his superiority in the argument, than
the crown had for its victory in the cause." — Bio
graphical History of England, vol. ii., p. 212, Svo, and
Mrs. Macaulay's History, Svo, vol. iii., p. 432, 433,
note, in which work the character of this great man
is fully delineated. — Ed.
* The dying language of Hampden was, " O Lord,
save my bleeding country. Have these realms in
thy special keeping. Confound and level in the
dust those who would rob the people of their liberty
and lawful prerogative. Let the king see his error,
and turn the hearts of his wicked counsellors from
the mahce and wickedness of their designs. Lord
Jesus, receive my soul!" Again, recurring to his
native land, he prayed, " O Lord, save my country !
O Lord, be merciful to — " here his speech failed him,
and, falling back on his bed, he expired. — Lord Nu-
gent's Hampden, vol. ii,, p. 438. Little need be said
respecting the character of John Hampden. It is
sufficiently apparent throughout his history, and has
uniformly commanded the respect and admiration
of impartial men. His fearless resistance of the
tyranny of Charles, when that tyranny was both pow
erful and merciless ; the calm and dignified tone in
which he ruled the early deliberations of the Long
Parliament ; and the energy and decision with which
he sought to bring the struggle to an issue when an
appeal to arms was inevitable, all prove him to have
been as consummate a states.man as he was an in
flexibly upright man. Even Clarendon, while en
deavouring to injure his reputation, is compelled tc
do homage to his transcendent abilities and surpass
ing prudence of addres?. " He was, indeed," remarks
the party historian, " a very wise man, and of great
parts, and possessed with the most absolute spirit
of popularity, and the most absolute faculties to gov
ern the people, of any man 1 ever knew." To a re
markably equable temj)er he united a self-control and
clearness of perception, which rendered him an emi
nently successful parliamentary speaker, yhile his
¦unspotted integrity and firm adherence to principle
constituted him the most formidable opponent of the
court. With the eye of a skilful tactician he sur
veyed the forces arrayed against him ; allowed them
to expend theft- strength, to pour forth the vials of
their wrath, or lo justify themselves behind the pre
cedents of a former age ; and then, when their vic
tory was supposed to be won, and tokens of exulta
tion were displayed, the matchless power of Hamp
den's eloquence was felt. " He had so subtle a way

476

HISTORV OF THE PURITANS.

John Pym, Esq , member for Tavistock in
all the Pariiaments of King Charies 1 , was a
man ofthe greatest experience in pariiamenta
ry affairs of anv man of his time. He was an
admirable spci'ker, and by the gravity of his
countenance and graceful behaviour, could turn
the House which way he pleased ; he was a
man of business and for moderate measures,
according to Lord Clarendon, till the king im
peached hira of high treason. In his private
life he was erainent for true piety and exactness
of manners ; and though inclined to the Puri
tan party, not averse to the hierarchy with some
emendations. He was one ofthe lay- members
of the .\ssemhly of Divines, and at the head of
all public business, tbe fatigue of which wore
out his constitution, and put an end lo his life,
December 8, 1643, in the sixtieth year of his
age. The news of no man's death was more
welcome to the Royalists than his, who spread
a report that he died of the morbus pediculosus ;^
to confute which aspersion, his body was expo
sed to public view for many days, and at last
interred, in the most honourable manner, in
Westrainster Abbey. A little before his death,
he published his own vindication to the world
against the many slanders that went abroad
concerning him, wherein " he declares himself
a faithful son ofthe Protestant religion, and of
the orthodox doctnne of the Church of Eng
land. He confesses he had been for reforming
abuses in the government ofthe Church, when
the bishops, instead of taking care of men's

of interrogating, and, under the notion of doubts, in
sinuating his objections, that he infused his own opin
ions into those Irom whom he pretended to learn and
receive them. A nd even with them who were able to
presen'e themselves from his infusions, and discern
ed those opmions to be fixed in him with which they
could not comply, he always left the character of an
ingenious and conscientious person."
To his profound sagacity as a statesman, and his
skill as a parliamentary leader, he added an enlighten
ed patriotism, and the sterling virtues of Christianity.
On the whole, it may be pronounced with safety,
that English history records no purer or brighter ex
ample of public virtue and of private excellence than
was exhibited in the career of John Hampden. Con
sistent from the first, that career was happily termi
nated before its lustre had been dimmed, or its beau
ty impaired by tbe mists of human passion ; and he
now shines forth the idol and the pattern of all suc
ceeding worthies. — Dr. Price's History of Noncon
formity, vol. u., p. 303-4. — C.
* Dr. Grey has the candour to discredit this re
port ; and says, from the funeral sermon for Mr. Pym
by Mr. Marshal, that it was confuted by the testimo
ny of near a thousand people who saw the corps,
and of eight physicians who were present at the
opening of the body. Yet the doctor repeats, from
Clarendon, the calumnies of those who accused him
of raising considerable sums by dishonest practices,
of corrupting witnesses, and selling his protection
for bribes ; though he was exculpated before the tri
bunal of Pariiament, vindicated his conductby his
own pen, and left his private fortune at so low an
ebb, that the ParUament expended a considerable
sum in the payment of his debts ; an evidence suffi
cient of itself to confute his enemies. Mr. Pym was
called, m early life, Phcebi delicia, lepos pucllcs. He
vvas commonly called " King Pym ;'; and from his
experience in the forms of Parliament'his knowledge
ofthe law and Constitution, his powers of argument
and elocution, and his known honesty and integrity,
he enjoyed an unrivalled authority in the Lower
House.— Jfrj. Macaiday, vol. iv., p. 92, 94; and
Granger's Biographical History, vol. li., p. 211. — Ed.

souls, were banishing their bodies into the most
desolate places ; bringing in new canons, Ar
minian and Pelagian errors, and such a number
of rites and ceremonies as the people were not
able to bear. When since that time they had,
as much as in them lav, fomented the civil dif
ferences between the king and his Parliament,
abetting and encouraging malignants with large
supplies of men and money, and stirring up the
people to tumults by their seditious sermons.
For these reasons," says he, " I gave my opin>^
ion for abolishing their functions, which I con
ceive may as well be done as the dissolution of
monasteries, monks, and friars was in King
Henry the Eighth's time. He concludes with
declaring that he was not the author of tbe
present distractions ; with acknowledging the
king for his lawful sovereign, but thinks, when
he was proscribed for a traitor, merely for the
service of his country, no man can blame him
for taking care of his own safety, by flying for
refuge to the protection of Parliaraent, who
were pleased to make his case their own."*

CHAPTER III.
THE OXFORD PARLIAMENT.  PROGRESS OF THI
WAR,  VISITATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAM
BRIDGE BY THE EARL OF MANCHESTER. — COIJ-
.MITTEES FOR PLUNDERED, SEQUESTERED, AND
SCANDALOUS MINISTERS.
The campaign being ended without any pros
pects of peace, both parties endeavoured to
strengthen theraselves by new and sovereign
acts of power. The Parliament experiencing
tbe want of a great seal, for many purposes,
gave orders that one should be raade.f They
continued to list soldiers, to levy taxes, and to
use every method to support their cause,{

? John Pym, who died in December of the same
year, was cast in a different mould from Hampden.
He was more moderate in his ecclesiastical views,
and would probably have preferred a reduced epis
copacy, such as Usher advocated, to any other form.
of church govemment. But the efforts of the bishr
ops to widen the misunderstanding between the king
and his Parliament, and their zeal in aiding the amu
of the former, induced him to concur in the aboUtion
of their functions.
His intimate acquaintance with the forms of par
liamentary procedure, combined with unwearied
diligence, extensive researches, matchless skill in
the arrangement of public business, and an unspot
ted integrity, secured him great influence in the
House. His style of oratory was masculine and
nervous, and effected its purpose by a straightfor
wardness and honesty, rather than by any brilliancy
of conception or loftiness of intellectual range. " He
had a very comely and grave way of expressing him
self," says Clarendon, " with great volubdily of
words, natural and proper ; and understood the tem
per and alfections of the kingdom aa well as any
man ; and had observed the errors and mistakes in
govemment, and knew well how to make them ap
pear greater than they were." — Dr. Price's Hist, of
Nonconformity, vol. ii., p. 305, 306. — C.
t Rushworth, vol. v., p. 560.
X "What was all this," says Dr. Grey, " but high
treason ?" To confirm his opinion, he refers to Dr.
Wood's Institute of the Laws of England, and to the
25th of Edward III., cap. ii., as authorilies to show
that the acts of Parliament were acts of treason.
As if laws formed to preserve the allegiance of the
subjects to a king actmg constitutionally, and fulfill-

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

477

¦which their policy suggested and their necessi
ty urged. On the other hand, the king raised
<!Dntributions without forra of law ;* ordered
the removal of the courts of justice from West
minster ; and that he might seera to act in a
parliaraentary way, summoned the members
who had been expelled the houses, and all oth
ers willing to withdraw from the rebellious city
of London, to meet him at Oxford, t January 22,
1643-4, which was, in effect, disannulling the
act for continuing of the present Parliament.
In obedience to the proclamation, there appear
ed forty-nine peers, and one hundred and forty-
one of the House of Coraraons, not reckoning
those employed in his majesty's service, or ab
sent with leave. Lord Clarendon says| the ap
pearance of both houses with the king was su
perior in number, as well as quality, to those
at Westminster; which must be a mistake;
for though the majority of peers were on that
side, Mr. Whitelocke^ assures us, that upon a
¦call of the House of Commons, the very day
the others were to meet at Oxford, there were
jpresent two hundred and eighty members, not
reckoning one hundred more, who were enga
ged in their service in the several counties.
This, is a very considerable majority ; though
if there had been only forty, the king could not
have prorogued or dissolved thera without
their own consent. However, the Oxford
members styled themselves the Parliaraent,
Lord Littleton being speaker for the peers, and
Sergeant Evers for the Coramons. II Their
first step was to satisfy the world they desired
peaee, such a peace, to use the king's own
wordSjIT " wherein God's true religion may be
secured from the danger of popery, sectaries,
and innovations : the crown may possess those
just prerogatives, which may enable me to gov
ern my people according to law, and the sub
jects be confirmed in those rights which I have
granted them in Parliaraent, to which I shall
be ready to add such new graces as I shall find
may most conduce to their happiness." They
s laid an excise upon tobacco, wine, strong wa
ters, ale, cider, grocery and mercery wares,
soap, salt, and butcher's meat, and subscribed
ing faithfully his part of the political contract, appli
ed to extraordinary emergencies, and to a sovereign
who had violated the Constitution. As if laws made
to restrain individuals bound the majority of the rep
resentative body of the nation.— See also Rapm, vol.
ii, p. 495, folio.— Ed.
* " And pray," asks Dr. Grey, " what form of law
¦had the' rebels for raising contributions?" That
form of law, our readers will probably reply, and
that spirit ofthe Constitution, which invest the rep-
lesentatives ofthe people with the power and nght
of appointing the taxes.— Ed.
+ The impolicy of this step is forcibly, though
-somewhat jocularly, represented by Mr. Selden :
"The kin" calling his friends from the Pariiament,
said this great man, "because he had use of them at
Oxford, is as if a man should have use of a. little
piece of wood, and he runs down into the cellar, and
¦takes the spigot : in the mean time al the beer runs
atout the house : when his friends ^re absent the
¦kmg wm be lost."- Table- Talk on the Word King.-
Enf . X Clarendon's Remams, p. 165.
6 Memoirs, p. 76. _„
I Rushworth, p. 567, 688 Rapm, p, 496, 502,
'folio. Oldmixon's History of the Stuarts p. 240.
•S On another occasion, in his speech to the in
habitants of Somersetshire, July 13, 1644.— J:.d.

considerable sums of money for support of the
war ; they declared the Soots then entering
England with an army traitors ; and the Lords
and Commons at Westminster, guilty, of high
treason for inviting thera, as well as for coun
terfeiting the great seal. On the other hand,
the Parliament at Westrainster would not ac
knowledge the Oxford members,, or receive a
message frora them under the character of a
Parliaraent, but expelled them their house, ex
cept they returned to their seats within a lim
ited time.* April 16, 1644, the king prorogued
his Oxford merabers to Noveraber following,
when they fell under his displeasure, for advi
sing to pacific measures at the treaty of Ux
bridge, which was then upon the carpet, and in
a fair way of producing an accommodation.
This was so disagreeable to the queen and her
Roman Catholio counsellors, that they never
left off teazing the unhappy king, till he had
dismissed them, and broke off the treaty ; an
account of which he sent her in the following
letter, which seems to breathe an air of too
great satisfaction.
" Dear heart,
" What I told thee last week concerning a
good parting with our Lords and Commons
here, was on Monday last handsomely perforra
ed : now if I do anything unhandsome, or dis
advantageous to myself or friends, in order to a
treaty, it will be merely ray own fault. Now I
promise thee, if the treaty be renewed (which
1 believe it will not) without sorae eminent good
success on my side, it shall be to my honour
and advantage, I being now as well free from
the place of base and rautinous motiont (that
is to say, our raungrel Parliament here) as of
the chief causers, for whom I may justly ex
pect to be children by thee, for having suffered
thee to be vexed by them."t
Mr. Whitelocke says this Assembly sat again
at Oxford in the year 1645, and voted against
the directory, and for the common prayer ; but
the king's cause being grown desperate, they
soon after shifted for themselves, and made
their peace at Westminster, upon the best terms
they could obtain.
On the 19th of January, 1643-4, the Scots
array, consisting of twenty-one thousand men,
under the command of General Leven, crossed
the Tweed at Berwick, and entered England.
The two houses sent a committee to meet
them, which being joined by another of that
nation, was called the Committee of both King
doms,^ and were a sort of camp Pariiament, to
direct the motions of the army, which after
some time united with the Lord Fairfax's for
ces, and with those under the command of the
Earl of Manchester and Lieutenant-general
Crorawell, from the associated counties. Tbe
united armies laid siege to the city of York,

* Rushworth, vol. v., p. 383. Rapin, vol. ii., p.
497, 506, folio.
f "There is no circumstance," observes Bishop
Warburton, " that bears harder on the king's con
duct than this. It is not to be conceived that these
men, who hazarded all to support the king's right,
could advise him to anything base in a mutinous
manner. I doubt that this is too strong a proof that
nothing less than arbitrary government would heart
ily satisfy him."— Ed. X Rapm, p. 512, foUo.
ij Rushworth, vol. -vi., p. 603.

¦17H

*TOUY OF THE PURITANS.

which Prinre Rupert having relieved, occasion
ed the battle of Marston Moor, wherein the
prince was routed, wuli the loss of three thou
sand meii and his whole train of artillery ; and
thereupon the .Marquis of Newcastle, leaving
the royal army, embarked wilh divers lords and
gentlemen for Hamburgh, Prince Rupert reti
ring towards- Chester, and deserting all the
northern garrisons to the mercy of the enemy,
which, falling inlo their hands next summer,
concluded the war in those parts.
His majesty, however, had better success in
the west, where, being strengthened by Prince
Maurice, he followed the Earl of Essex, and
shut up his army within the narrow parts of
Cornwall, so that he could neither engage nor
retreat.* Here the king invited the earl to
make his peace, but he choosing rather to re
tire in a boat to Plymouth, left his men to the
fortune of war. As soon as the general was
gone, the horse, under the coraraand of Sir
William Balfour, bravely forced their way
through the royal quarters by night ; but the
foot, under the command of Major-general
Skippon, were obliged to surrender their arms,
artillery, ammunition, and baggage, consisting
of forty brass cannon, two hundred barrels of
powder, match and ball proportionable, seven
hundred carriages, and between eight and nine
hundred arms, and to swear not to bear arms
against the king till they came into Hampshire.
This was the greatest disgrace the Pariiament's
forces underwent in the course of the war, the
foot being forced to travel in a naked and starv
ing condition to Portsmouth, where they were
supplied with new clothes and arms. And now,
again, the king made offers of such a peace as,
he says, he had been labouring for, that is, to
be restored to his prerogatives as before the
war, but the houses would not submit
Upon the defeat of the Earl of Essex, his
majesty resolved to march directly for London,
and upon the road issued a proclaraation, Sep
teraber 30, 1644, requiring all his loving sub
jects to appear in arms, and accompany him
in his present expedition. t This gave rise to
a combination of men, distinguished by the
name of Clubmen, who associated in Worces
tershire and Dorsetshire, agreeing to defend
themselves against the orders both of king and
Parliament. Their increase was owing to the
prodigious ravages of the king's forces in their
march. Prince Rupert was a fiery youth, and,
with his flying squadrons of horse, burned
towns and villages, destro)Mng the countries
where he carae, and indulging his soldiers in
plunder and blood. In Wales, he drove away
the people's cattle, rifled their houses, and
spoiled their standing corn. Aged and unarm
ed people were stripped naked, some murdered
in cool blood, and others half hanged, and burn
ed, and yet suffered to live.t " Lord Goring,
* Rushworth, voL v„ p. 691, 701, 705, 710.
t Rapin, vol. ii., p. 504, folio.
X Whitelocke, p. 62, 87, 103.
'i'he reference here, in the former editions of Mr.
Neal, is to p. 87 of Whitelocke's Memoirs, where all
that is said concerning Prince Rupert is, " that he
took in Liverpool a garrison of the Parliament's in
Lancashire, but they first shipped all their arms,
ammunition, and portable goods, and most of the of
ficers and soldiers went on ship-board, while a few
made good the fort, which ihey rendered to the

the king's general of the horse, was one of the-
most finished debauehees ofthe at;e, and want
ed nothing but industry to make liim a-! emi
nent and successful in the highest altenipis of
wickedness as ever any man was. Wilmot,
the lieutenant-general, was as groat a debau
chee as the other, and had no more regard lo
his promises, or any rules of honour and integ
rity"* Sir Richard Grcnville, who eommand
ed the army before Plymouth, is represented
by the noble historian as having been exceed
ing barbarous and cruel in Ireland, hanging up
old men and women of quality, even though
they were bed-rid, if he did not find the plunder
he expected ; when he came into the west, he
exercised all kinds of cruelly, and would some
times make one of the company Jiang all the
rest, contrary to the Jaw of arms, t
The licentiousness ofthe king's soldiers was.
not inferior to that of their officers : for having
no regular pay, they committed rapines and
plunders, without distinction of friends or foes ;
and were infamous for the most execrable
oaths, and all kinds of impiety. " Lord Goring's
horse," says the noble historian, " committed
horrid outrages and barbarities jn Hampshire,
and infested the borders of Dorsetshire, Somer-

prince upon quarter, yet were all put to the sword."
" This, indeed," says Dr. Grey, " was bad enough, but
not quite so bad as Mr. Neal has represented it. Not
one word of stripping aged and unanned people na
ked, or murdering people in cold blood, or of half
hanging or burning others. A dismal character of
Prince Rupert this, indeed, had we not reason to
call the truth of it in question." The references
which we have now supplied will show that the
trwth of tills character ought not to have been quej-
tioned, and that it was drawn from facts stated by
Mr. Whitelocke ; from whom we will give another
instance of the severity with which Prince Rupert, .
at the commencement of his military career, pursued
his conquests, and of the craelty of the royal paily
from the beginning, before mutual provocations had
inflamed their passions, or they had been familiarized
to scenes of blood. When the prince had taken the
magazine of the county, at Cirencester, and one
thousand one hundred prisoners, he sent these cap
tives, tied together with cords, almost naked, beaten
and driven along like dogs, in triumph to Oxfoid,
where the king and the lords looked on them, and
too many smiled at their misery. — Memoirs, p. 64.—
Ed.
* The reader will be surprised when he is told
that Dr. Grey discredits this character of the Lieuten
ant-general Wilmot, though it is given from Lord
Clarendon, and opposes to it a narrative of his lord
ship,* in which he relates, that Wilmot, when he
was before Marlborough, gave, not only his life, but
his liberty, to a spy whom he had apprehended.
This Dr. Grey extols as a generous act, when, ac
cording to the statement he himself gives of it from
Clarendon, it was to be ascribed to Wilmol'e policy
and generalship. For, before he dismissed the spy,
he ordered his forces to be drawn up before him m
the most convenient place, and bid the fellow to look
well upon them, and observe, and return to the town
and report what he had seen, with a threat to the
magistrates if the garrison did not surrender, and a
promise of security if it submitted. The represent
ations which the man made were of some advantage
to the views of the royal party. Yet this conduct
of Wilmot, which seems to have been a manoeuvre
only, in order to disparage Mr. Neal's delineation of
his general character, is pompously represented by
Dr. Grey as a singular instance of honour and gener
osity. — Ed. t Clarendon, vol. ii., p. 534.

* Clarendon, vol li., p. 537, 555.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

479

setshire, and Devon with unheard-of rapines,
so that the people, who were well devoted to the
king, wished for the accession of any force to
redeem them."* They raised vast contribu
tions in several counties, without any other
pretence but the king's sovereign pleasure. In
Cornwall they levied .£700 a week ; in Devon
shire £2200 a week, and proportionably in other
parts.t As the army marched along the coun
try they seized the farmers' horses, and carried
them away without any consideration. At
Barnstable they plundered the town and hang
ed the mayor, though it was surrendered upon
articles. At Evesham, the king sent the mayor
and aldermen prisoners to Oxford. At Wood
house, in Devonshire, they seized fourteen sub
stantial west-country clothiers, who were not
in arms, and hanged thera, by way of reprisal
for sorae Irish rebels that had been executed
according to the ordinance of Parliament. In
short, wherever they came they lived at free
quarter, and took but everything they could,
and, therefore, no wonder the Clubmen united
in their own defence.
The king thought to have reached London
before the Parliament could recruit their army,
bnt the two houses sent immediately six thou
sand arms and a train of artillery to Ports
mouth, with new clothing for the Cornish sol
diers. They ordered Sir William Waller and
the Earl of Manchestoi- to join thera, and de
spatched thither five thousand of the city train
bands, under the command of Sir Jams Har
rington, by which accession they were enabled
to face his majesty's army at Newbury, Octo
ber 27 ; and having forced the town, which the
king had fortified, after a smart engagement,
they took nine of his cannon and several col
ours ; hut, under covert of the night, his maj
esty secured the rest of his artillery in Den-
nington Castle, and retreated with his broken
army to Oxford, The Pariiaraent generals left
a body of troops to block up the castle, being
assured it must surrender in the winter for
want of provisions, when, on a sudden, a party
ofthe king's horse raised the blockade and car
ried off the artillery to Oxford. This occasion
ed great murmuring at London, and quarrels
among the generals, Essex, Manchester, and
Cromwell, which ended in the new-modelling
of the army, as will be seen under the next
year. While the royal army was little better than
a company of banditti, or public robbers, the
Parliament's were kept under the strictest dis
cipline, and grew up, for the most part, into
great diligence and sobriety, which, says Lord
Clarendon-, begot courage and resolution in
them, and notable dexterity in achievements
and exercises.t Most of their officers were

* Clarendon, vol. ii., p. 631. t Ibid^ V- 643.
X Clarendon, vol. ii., p. 348. This, Dr Grey ar
gues, does not agree with what Lord Clarendon
says in another place, viz., in his History, vol. u., p.
46 and 55, and he insmuates that it is not true. As
if what Mr. Neal advances must be false, even when
he, quotes Lord Clarendon for his assertions, because
it is apparentiy repugnant to the representations else
where given by his lordship's pen ; as if it were in
cumbent on Mr. Neal to reconcile this^noble writer
to hnnself. But the veracity of .Mr. Neal and he
consistency of Lord Clarendon with hnnself, would
¦not have been impeached by Dr. Grey had he exam-

men of religion ;* their soldiers possessed with'
a belief that their cause was the cause of God,t
and that they fought for the Protestant religion
and Magna Charta ; however, there were among
them raen of dissolute lives, who fought only
for pay and plunder ; strange complaints being
sent up from Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire,
and Sussex, of the disorders of the common
soldiers, the Parliament appointed a committee
to inquire into the facts, and make examples of
the offenders, which put an effectual stop to
the growing mischief And as the P.arliament
was enabled, by the inexhaustible, treasure of
the city of London, to give their soldiers regu
lar pay, they had thera under such strict gov
ernraent that they were little or no burden to ¦
the towns and villages where they were quar
tered.!: Upon the whole, the Pariiaraent affairs were
low at the end of this year, and their counsels
divided by reason ofthe length ofthe war, and
the king's were much worse; for though he-
had triumphed over the Earl of Essex in Corn
wall, and was master of the open country in
the west, he had no accession of real strength,
nor had taken any considerable garrisons ; the-
entrance of the Scots_ broke his array in the
north, and lost him that part of the kingdom,.
whereby the Parliament were enabled to draw
off their forces to the west ; and the worst cir-
curastance of all was, that his majesty, having
exhausted his treasure, had no way of raising
a supply, which obliged him to connive at his-
soldiers' living at free quarter ; his officers, be
ing poor, quarrelled in the royal presence, and
carried their resentments to such a height that
the king himself could not reconcile them.

ined the passage to which. Mr. Neal refers ; by which
it appears that both the king's and the ParUament's
army, at different periods, were of different charac
ters ; and the description which they deserved at one
time did not apply to another. The passage which
Mr. Neal now quotes referred to a later, and the
passage below, to which Dr. Grey directs his reader,
refers to a former period. His lordship says, " Those
uiwler the king's commanders grew insensibly into
all the license, disorder, and impiety with which
they had reproached the rebels ; and they into great
discipline, diligence, and sobriety." — Ed.
* "Of pretended sanctitv," says Dr. Grey, "in
which none could exceed them. They were praying
and preaching when the enemy was at a distance,
and literally made long prayers to devour widows'
houses." He refers, then, to his own appendix for
an instance of their fanatical humour ; but the au
thorities which he- here produces relate to the Scot
tish, not the English army.— Ed.
t This representation. Dr. Grey thinks, is contra
ry to Mr. Neal's character of them m chap, vii., from
Mr. Baxter, who says, "that the greatest part ofthe
common soldiers were ignorant men, of little reli
gion." But the doctor neither reverts to the time
when this was said, namely, in 1646, after the army
had been new-modelled, nor observes what follows
in Mr. Baxter, which shows that these ignorant, irre
ligious men were many of them such as had belonged
to the royal corps ; " abundance of them such," says
he, " as had been taken prisoners, or turned out of
garrisons under the king, and had been soldiers in
his army."— Baxter's Life, p. 53.— Ed.
X Dr. Grey, to confute these assertions ot Mr.
Neal, refers to papers which he has given in the ap
pendix to his second volume; but the complamts
brought forward in these papers are made of the
Scottish army, and to transactions of the' following
year, viz., 1645. — Ed.

480

HI.sTORV OK THE PURITANS.

which had a very ill aspect on the succeeding
campaign.* The . I'.nli.iiiient generals, also.
Were censuring each other's conduct in the
House, on occasion of the escape of the king's
artillery from Deniiington Castle. The Karl of
Kssci',^ parly was charged with a design of
prolraclint the war, in order lo an aceommo-
d,iiion, wliile others, being weary, were for put-
t iig It lo a decisive issue. In short, bolh par
ties were in confusion and distress ; they were
divided araong themselves, some being for
peaee. and others for carrying on the war to
the last extremity. .\11 properly was in a man
ner lost, the farmers paying no rent to their
landlords ; nor eould any man be secure of
what he possessed, except he buried it under
ground. The spirits of the contending parties
were as rauch exasperated as ever, and there
¦was no seeing the end of their troubles.
To return to the Church. The state of the
controversy about ecclesiastical discipline was
now changed ; for whereas before the entrance
of the Scots the Parliament insisted only upon
a reformation of the hierarchy, now they were
engaged to attempt the total extirpation of it,
and to establish another scherae for both king
doms in its room ; though it was a considerable
time before this could be perfected. In the
mean while, they resolved lo purge the Univer
sity of Cambridge, which was the headquarters
of their forces, that they might have a succes
sion of cleri;ymen training up in the principles
they had espoused.
The town of Cambridge was in the interest
of the Parliament, but Ihe colleges were so
many little garrisons for the king, and sanctua
ries of disaffection ; the university press was at
his majestys disposal, and their sermons filled
with inveelives against the two houses. Fre
quent quarrels happened between the townsmen
and scholars, which would have ended m the
rum of the university, had not the Parliament
forbid the offering any violence to the colleges,
chapels, libraries, and schools, under severe
penalties. t Indeed, tbe committee enjoined the
proper officers of the parish to put in exeeution
the ordinance for destroying the relics of super
stition, whereby the paintings in windows, im
ages of the Deity, and a great deal of carved
work, were demolished ; at which the masters
and fellows were so incensed, that when they
Were ordered to repair the damages, they per
emptorily refused, and were fined 40*. a college,
as the ordinance directed.):
The heads of the university raised a great
clamour at this pretended invasion of their
rights, as if the Parliament intended to seize all
their revenues, and destroy the very fountains of
learning; whereupon the houses published the
following ordinance, January 6, 1643-4, decla
ring " that none of the estates, renls, and reve
nues of the university, or of the colleges and
halls respectively, shall be sequestered or seized
upon, or in any wise disposed of, by virtue of
the ordinance for sequestering the estdtes, rents,
and revenues of delinquenU, but shall remain
to the university, and the respeotive halls and
colleges, lo all intents and purposes as if the
said ordinance had not been made ; and the
* Clarendon, vol. iL, 389-391.
t Sjfier.ngs ofthe Clergy, p. 168.
; laid, p IU; and Dr. Grey, vol u., p. 141.

rents and revenues, ic, are ordered lo he ap
proved of by the Earl of .Manchc.-^ter, and to be
applied lo their proper uses as heretofore But
if any of the heads, fellows, scholars, or other
olhecrs were convicted of delinquency, the n>-
eeuer was lo pay their dividend inlo the bunds
111 the committee of sequestrations."*
This committee was founded upon an ordi
nance of January 22, for regulating the Univer
sity of Cambridge, and for removing scandalous
ministers in the seven associated eouiiiies : the
preamble sets forth, " that the service of the
Parliament was rciarded, the people's souls
starved, hy the idle, ill-affected, and scandalous
clergy of the University of Canihridge, and the
associated counties ; and that many who were
willing to give evidence against them, not be
ing able to bear the charges of a journey lo
London, the Earl of Manchester was therefore
empowered to appoint committees in all the as
sociated counties, to consist of ten persons, be
ing deputy-ljeutenants, or such as had been
nominated to coramittees by some former ordi
nance of Parliament ; five of these were a quo
rum, and they were empowered to call before
them all provosts, masters, and fellows of col
leges, all students and members of the univer
sity, all ministers in any of the counties of the
association, all schoolmasters that vvere scan
dalous in their lives, or ill affected lo the Par
liament, or fomenters of this unnatural war, or
that shall wilfully refuse obedience lo the orders
of Parliaraent, or that have deserted their ordi
nary places of residence, not heing employed in
Ihe service of the king and Parliament. The
said coramillee was also empowered to send
for witnesses, and to examine any complaints
against tho forementioned delinquents upon
oath, and lo certify the names of the persons
accused to the Earl of Manchester, with charge
and proof, who shall have power to eject such
as he shall judge unfit for their places ; to se
quester their estates, means, and revenues, and
to dispose of thera as he shall think lit. and
place others in their room, being first approved
by the Asserably of Divines silting at West
minster. He had also power to order the Cov
enant to be administered where he thought fit,
and to assign the fifths of sequestered estates
for the benefit of their wives and children "t
The ordinance makes no mention of the doc
trine or discipline ofthe Church, seeming to be
levelled only against those who took part with
the king in the war.
The Earl of .Manchester, who was at the head
of these sequestrations, was styled, in the life
time of his father. Lord Kimbolton, and was
one ofthe impeached raembers ofthe House ol
Commons: Lord Clarendon observes, t that "he
was of a genteel and generous nature ; that his
natural civility and good manners flowed to all
men, and that he was never guilty of any rude
ness, even to those whom he was oblii;ed lo
oppress ; that he longed and heartily wished for
the restoration, and never forfeited that grace
and favour to which his majesty received hira
after his return." The earl repaired in person
to Cambridge, about the middle of February,
with his two chaplains, Mr. Ashe and Mr. Good,
and by his warrant ofthe 24th instant, required

? Husband's Collections, p. 409. t Ibid., p. 415
X Clarendon, voL i., p. 183; vol. ii., p. 211, 212.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

481.

the heads of the several colleges and halls to
send him their statutes, with the names of all
their merabers, and to certify who were present
and who absent, with the express tirae of their
discontinuance.* Two days after, the officers
of each college and hall were ordered to give
speedy advertiseraent to the masters, fellows,
scholars, &o., fo repair to Cambridge by the 10th
of March, in order to answer such inquiries as
should be made by hiraself or his commission
ers. But the earl being informed that this no
tice was too short, the tirae was prolonged to
the 3d of April, when the earl suramoned Mr.
Tunstal and Mr. Palgrave, fellows of Corpus-
Christi College, to appear before the commis
sioners at the Bear Inn, in Carabridge, on pen-
.alty of ejectment. Warrants of the same na
ture were sent to several of the fellows of
Caius, St. John's, Queen's, Peterhouse, Sidney,
Trinity, Christ's, Magdalen, and Jesus CoUeges ;
and to Pembroke and Clare Hall ; who, not ap
pearing according to the sumraons, were, by a
•warrant of April 8, ejected, to the number of
sixty-five. The reasons assigned for their ex
pulsion were, nonresidence, and not returning
upon due summons, and several other political
misdemeanors.! If the parties ejected return
ed after this, they were required not to continue
in the university above three days, on pain of
imprisonraent, and confiscation of their goods ;
their names were put out of the butteries, and
the profits of their places reserved for their suc
cessors. Not one fellow or sttident in Trinity
Hall or Katherine Hall was turned out, but all
Queen's College was evacuated.
The Covenant, which was read March 18,
1644, in the churches and chapels of the town
and university, and tendered to the inhabitants
and soldiers, was not offered to the whole unin
versify,. but only to such of whose disaffection

they had sufficient evidence. Archbishop Til
lotson says, the greatest part of the fellows of
King's College were exempted, by the interest
of Dr. Whichcote ; and no doubt others who
had behaved peaceably obtained the same fa
vour.* Dr. Berwick, authoi' of the Querela
Cantabrigiensis, a faraous loyalist, mentions an
oath of discovery for the university, like that of
the oath ex officio; but Mr. Fuller, the historian,
about the year 1653, having requested an ac
count of this oath from Mr. Ashe, the earl's
chaplain, he returned for answer, that he re
membered no such thing. Mr. Fuller adds, that
he is upon just grounds daily confirraed in his
confidence, that neither the Earl of Manchester,
nor any other under hira, hy his coramand or
consent, enforced such an oath.t
The whole number of graduates expelled the
university in this and the following years, by
the Earl of Manchester and his commissioners,
including raasters and fellows of colleges, were,
according to Dr. Walker, near two hundred, be
sides inferior scholars, which were something
more than one half ;t for the same author tells
us in another place,i$ there were about three
hundred and seventy-five fellowships in the
several houses of the univers4ty ; above one
hundred and fifty kept their places, and far the
greatest part of the rest had deserted their sta
tions, and fled to the king. There were six
heads of colleges out of sixteen that complied,
viz.. Dr. Bainbrigge, of Christ's College; Dr.
Eden, of Trinity Hall ; Dr. Richard Love, of
Ben'et College ; Dr. Brownrigge, of Katherine
Hall, ejected in the year 1645 ; Dr. Bachcroft,
of Caius College ; and Dr. Rainbow, of Magda
len College. The ten who were ejected by the
Earl of Manchester, March 13, or some little
tirae after, with the names of their successors,
are contained in the following table :

Masters turned out.
Dr. John Cosins, from
Dr. Thomas Pask,
Dr. Benjamin Laney,
Dr. Samuel Collins,
Dr. Edward Martin,
Dr. Richard Stem,
Dr. William Beale,
Dr. Thomas Comber,
Dr. R. Holdsworth,
Dr. Samuel Ward,
Anno 1645.
Dr. Ralph Brownrigge,

Colleges.
Peter House,
Clare Hall,
Pembroke Hall,
King's College,
Queen's College,
Jesus College,
St. John's CoUege,
Trinity Hall,
Emanuel College,
Sidney College,
Katherme Hall,

Succeeded by
Dr. Lazarus Seaman.
Dr. Ralph Cudworth.
Mr. Richard Vines.
Dr. Benjamm Whichcote.
Mr. Herb. Palmer.
¦ Dr. T. Young.
Dr. J. Arrowsmith.
Dr. Thomas Hill.
Dr. Ant. Tuckney.
Dr. Richard MinshuU.
( Dr. W. Spurstow. and afterward
\ Dr. Lightfoot.||

It has been objected to the proceedings of the
commissioners, that they were not according to
the statutes of the university ; to which he re
plied, that the nation was in a state of war ; that
these gentleraen were declared enemies to the
proceedings of Parliament ; that they instilled
into their pupils the unlawfulness of resisting
the king upon any pretence whatsoever, and
preached upon these subjects to the people. It
was therefore necessary to take the education
ofthe youth out of their hands, which could, not
be done any other way at present ; but in all
future elections they returned to the statutes.
It has been said, farther, that it was s, gr^at
loss to learning, because those who succeeded
were not equal to those who were ejected. +
* Sufferings of the Clergy, p. 112.
+ Ibid., p. 131, ,160. ... ^
X Walker's Attempt, p. 114
Vol. I.— P p p

Had this been true, it is no sufficient reason for
keeping them in their places, in a time of war,
if they were eneraies to the Constitution and
liberties of their country. But the best way of
deterraining the question as to their learning is
by comparing their respective characters.
Dr. Cosins had been sequestered by the Par
liament in the year 1640, for his high principles,
and was retired to France, where he continued
till the Restoration, and was then preferred to

¦* Introduction to the Sufferings of the Clergy, p.
113. . t Appeal, p. 72.
} Introduction to the Sufferings of the Clergy, p.
114. Ij Sufferings of the Clergy, p. 163.
II Dr. Barwick, in the life of his brother, com
plains, that when the niost learned men were.dis'
placed frohi their professorships, they "put block
heads, for the most part, and senseless scoundrelsin their
places." Let the reader examine ¦this list, and esti
mate the justness oi this allegation.— Xi/e, p. 32.— C.

<*: HISTORY OF THE PURIT VNS
Uie rich bishopric of Durham : he was a learn- | largement he retted to Oxford, nnd wa-i one nf
ed man, nf an open, frank, and i.'rneriiiis leiiipir. the pre.icheis before the eourt, hut upon the
and Well versed in the canons, euuiieils. and j deelimng of the k.ng's cause he reined lo .\l,i-
falhl•^^ • I ''''"'• where lie died, about the vear lii.il He
Dr. Pa>ke lived peaceably and cheerfully un- I was a iiiin ol vin liii,'li prinei|ile«, though, 1 1
der the Parliament, and was reinstated in all | wc may believe the Queril.i, a pi rsim of sueh

his livini.'-! at the Iteslurali.
tership of his eoUeije, wlm
son. The Queula Canlal)
nent for learning ; but 1 d

111, e\ee|it the iiias-
¦li he quitted to his
says he was enii-
not remember that

he has given any specimens of it to the
world, t
Dr Laney was first chaplain to Dr. Neil, and
afterw ard Prebendary of Westminster ; he was
one of tbe king's divines at the treaty of I'.x-
bridge, and attended upon King Charles II. in
his exile : after the Restoration he was suc
cessively Bishop of Peterborough, Lincoln, and
Ely, and was more favourable to the .Noiieoii-
formists than most of his brethren He has
some sermons extant, and a small treatise
against Hobbes.
Dr. Collins was regius professor. Provost of
King's College, and Rector of Fenny Dilton ;
of which last he was deprived by the Earl of
Manchester, for his steady adherence lo the
royal c.iuse. I^e kepi lus provostship till the
year 1645, and his professorship much longer.
He died in the year 1651, and had the reputa
tion of a great scholar, says Dr. Barwick, and
his name was famous in foreign universities,
though he has transmitted very little down lo
po.slerity t
Dr. M.irtin was one of Archbishop Laud's
chaplains, and one of Mr White's scandalous
ministers ; he was accused not only of prac-
tisini; the late innovations, and of being in the
scheme ol reconciling Ihe Church of England
Willi Rome, but of stealing wheaislieaves out
ofthe field in harvest, on the Sabbath day. and
in laying them lo his tithe stock. He was very
high in his principles, and was imprisoned for
sending the university plate to the king .\ftcr
his enlargement he retired to Franee, and at
the Restoration was preferred to the deanery
of Ely. Lloyd s:iys he was a godl^ man, and
excellently well skilled in the canon, eivil, and
common law ; but Mr. Prynne gives hun a
very indifferent character, and Bishop Kennet
acknowledges his principles were rigid, and his
teraper sour.^
Dr. .stern was another of .\rchbishop Laud's
chaplains, and imprisoned for the same reason
as the former. He afterward assisted the arch
bishop on the scaffold, and lived retired till the
Restoration, when he was made Bishop of Car
lisle, and, in 1664, .\rchbishop of Vurk h He had
a sober, honest, mortified aspect, but was of
very arbitrary principles' and a very unchari
table temper ; for when Mr. Baxter, at the Sa
voy conference, was entreating the bishops not
to cast out so many ministers in the nation, be
made this mean remark to his brethren, that
Mr. Baxter would not use the word kingdom
lest he should own a king.?
Dr. Beale was also imprisoned for sending
the university plate to the king ; after his en-

* S'..itYerings of the Cler.'v, p. 6S.
t Ibid., p. 153. Caijrijy^s Abridgment, p. 173.
t --'.itreruigs ofthe Clergy, p. 150.
ij Kennel's Chronicle, p. C70.
li smf.-niiL'sof theClergy.p. 146. f Ibid.,p. 113.

Ith as rendered him above the n .leh uf cuin-
iiiind.itinn *
Dr. Comber was another of the king's chap
lains, though imprisoned and depriveil, for send
ing the university plato to the king ; after his
enlargement he lived privately till llie year
l(i54, when ho died ; he was a learned mm,
and of great piety and eli.inty.
Dr Holdsworth bad been a celebrated preach
er in the city ol London, and divinity professor
in tlresliam Ciilli'i,'e ; lie was afterward olinsen
master of Emanuel College, ("ambrulge, and
was a zealous advocate for the kins;, for which
he w,is some time imder confinement. He at
tended lus m.ijesty at Ilainpton I'ourt and tbe
Isle of Wight, and soon after died with grief
He was a pious and eh.iritablo man, but liij;li in
his principles, nnd of a liasly, passionate tem
per. He published one sermon in his lifeiinie,
and after his death his friends published his
I'relecliones and a volume of sermons
Dr. Ward was one of the English divines at
the Synod of Dort, and nouunated of the com
mittee of divines that sat in the Jerusalem
Chamber, and of the .\sseinbly at Wesiinin
ster, thouyli he never sat ; he was a very learn
ed man, and died soon after lus ejectment.
Dr. Brownri^jge was installed liislmp of Exe
ter 1G12. and deprived of his in.istersliip in the
year 1U15, for some e.V|iressiuns in lus sermon
upon the king's inauguration. He was an ex
eellent man, and of a peaceable and quiet dis
position ; after the war In; was allowed the
liberty uf the pulpit, and w:is chosen master
uf the Temple, where he died about the year
16')<i *
Far be it from me to detract from the [ler-
sonal merit of any of these sufferers, or IViiiu
their rank in tho commonwealth of learning;
but their political principles, like those of .\rcli-
bishop Laud, were certainly inconsistent with
the Constitution and hberties of England, and
exposed thera, very naturally, to tlie resent
raents of the Parliaraent in these boistcrou.i
times. Those who succeeded the ejected masters,
having been first examined and approved by
the Assembly of Divines at Wisiiuinster, were
these: Dr Lazarus Seaman, a very considerable di
vine, according to .Mr Wood, a compleK" mas
ter of the Oriental languages, an excellent casu
ist, and a judicious, moving preacher. He was
well versed in the controversy of church gov
ernment, w hich made the Parliament send bim
with their commissioners to the Isle of Wight,
where his majesty was pleased lo lake particu
lar notice of his abilities.! He was ejeited out
of his mastership of Peterhouse in IWrz, am!

* Bishop Brownrigge was one ofthe ablest preach
ers in the kingdom. His Sermons, in two \o!umeit,
foho, 1G74, are exceedingly valuable; they are euii-
nenlly suggestive to a thinking mind, and iherc arc
few richer storehouses lu which a young minister
can repair for fine illustration of Gospel truth. — C
+ Calamy's Abridgment, vol. ii., p. 18.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

483

died in 1675.* He printed several serraons,_
and " A Vindication of the Judgraent of the Re-'
formed Churches concerning Ordination."
Dr. Ralph Cudworth is so universally known
in the learned world for his great learning,
which he discovered in his Intellectual System,t
that I shall only observe, he conformed at the
Restoration, and a little before resigned his
mastership of Clare Hall into the hands of Dr.
Dillingham, who continued in it to his death.
Mr. Richard Vines was a very learned and
excellent divine, a popular and laborious preach
er, one of the Parliament divines at the treaty
ofthe Isle of Wight, and a most industrious and
useful man in his college. He was turned out
of his mastership for refusing the engageraent,
and died before the Restoration.
Dr. Benjarain Whichcote was fellow of Eman
uel College, and, upon the ejectment of Dr.
Collins, preferred to the mastership of King's
College, in which he continued till the Restora
tion, and then conformed. The account Arch
bishop Tillotson gives of him is this : " that he
was an excellent tutor and instructer of youth,
and bred up many persons of quality and oth
ers, Who afterward proved useful and eminent ;
that he contributed more to the forming the
students to a sober sense of religion than any
man of that age. He never took the Covenant ;
and, by his particular fi-iendship apd interest
with some of the chief visiters, prevailed to
have the greatest part of the fellows of his col
lege exempted from that imposition."t
Mr. Herbert Palmer, B.D.,.was one of the uni
versity preachers in 1632, and clerk in convo
cation for the diocess of Lincoln at the begin
ning of this Parliament ; he was one of the as
sessors of the Assembly of Divines at West
minster, and on April 11, 1644, constituted raas
ter of Queen's College by the Earl of Manches-
* He always carried about with him A Small Plan-
tin Hebrew Bible without points. He had a deep
and piercing judgment in all points of controversial
divinity : nor was he less able to defend than find
out the truth. Upon the ifiidtation of an honourable
lady, who was the head d( a noble family, and was
often solicited by Romish priests to change her
religion, he engaged two of the most able priests
they could pick out, i^n a dispute, in the presence of
the lord and lady, for their satisfaction ; and, by si
lencing them upon the head of transubstantiation,
was instrumental to preserve that whole family stead
fast in the Protestant religion. Dr. Grey acknowl
edges, on Mr. Wood's authority, that he was a learn
ed man, and died much lamented by the brethren.—
Palme's Nonconformists' Memorial, vol. i., p. 77. — Ed.
t "This work, distinguished by the excellence of its
iieasoning and the variety of its learning,. was pub
lished to stem the torrent of irreligion and atheism
ftat prevailed in the reign of Charles II. The au
thor who was superior to all his contemporanes m
metaphysics, was father to the learned and accom-'
plished Lady Masham, of Gates, in Essex, m whose
house Mr. Locke spent the last fourteen years of his
hie.— Granger's History of England, vol. iii., p. 283,
Svo. — Ed. ,., . , . ... „
. t " His notions of religion were, like his charity,
says Mr. Granger, "exalted and diffusive, and never
limited by the narrow prejudices of sects and _par-
¦ties He was disgusted with the dryness and tool-
ishness of preaohing that prevailed m his time, and
encouraged the young students of his college to form
themselves after the best models of Greece and
name."— History of England, vol. ui., p. 283, 284,
8vo.

ter.* He was very careful to appoint such per
sons for tutors of youth as wore eminent the
learning and piety ; and, hejng possessed of a
good paternal estate, was unbounded in his lib
erality. He was a polite gentleman, a com
plete master of the French language, in which
he could preach as ¦well as in English ; but his
constitution being infirm, he died in the year
1647, when he was only forty-seven years of
age.t Dr. T. Young was an eminent member of the
Assembly of Divines, says Mr. Clarke,t a man
of great learning, of much prudence and piety,
aind of great ability and fidelity in the work of
the ministry. He was a preacher at Duke's
Pl^ce, in London, frora whence he was prefer
red to the mastership of Jesus College, where
he behaved with great prudence and piety, till
he was turned out for refusing the engagement.
He was one of the authors of the pamphlet
called Smectymnuus.
Dr. John Arrowsmith was fellow of Kathe
rine Hall, and of an unexceptionable character
for learning and piety. He was an acute dispu
tant, and a judicious divine, as appears by his
Taotica Sacra, a book of great reputation in
those times. He died before the Restoration.
Dr. Thomas Hill was fellow of Emanuel Col
lege, and one of the Assembly of Divines at
Westminster. He was first constituted raaster
of Eraanuel, and afterward reraoved to Trinity
College, where he employed all his zeal in the
advancement of knowledge ahd virtue, and in
keeping'up the college exercises. He was twice
vice-chancellor, and as solicitous to preserve
the lionour and privilege of the university as
any of his predecessors. He was a zealous
Calvinist, and, after about ten years' govern
ment of his college, died in the year 1653.1^
Dr. Anthony Tuckney had been vicar of Bos
ton, in Lincolnshire, from whence he was call
ed up to sit ih the Assembly of Divines at
Westminster. In the year 1645, he was con
stituted master of Emanuel College. II In 1653,
he was chosen mastqr of St. John's, and upon .
the death of Dr. Arrowsmith, regius professor
of Oxford, which place he enjoyed till the Res
toration, when King Charies II., by letter un
der the hand of Secretary Nicholas, ordered him
to resign, proraising him, in consideration of his
great pains and diligence in discharge of his
duty, £100 per annum, which was p^id by his
successor till his death, in the year 1671. He
left behind him the character of a pious and
learned man, an indefatigable student, a candid
disputant, and a zealous promoter of truth and
piety. He published sorae practical treatises
in his life ; and his Prelectidnes Theiilogioae,
with a volurae of sermons, were printed after
his death.ir

* Clarke's Lives, p. 183,. annexed to his General
Martyrology. . ,
t 'What Archbishop Laud urged in his defence
at his trial, as an instance of his impartiality, ought
to be mentioned here to his credit, namely, that he
presented Mr. Palmer, though professedly of Puritan
principles, on account of his excellent cliaracter, to
the vicarage of Ashwell, in Hertfordshire, in 1632.—
Granger's History of England, vol. ii., p. 183, 8vo.—
Ed. t Clarke's Lives, p. 194.
^ Ibid., p. 130, ut ante. •.
II Calamy's Abridgment, p. 77.
IT Dr. Tuckney was also -vice-chancellor of the

4SI

III.STORV OF THE PURITANS.

Dr. Richard Minshull was fellow of Sidney
< ollege, and, upon the death of Dr. \Vard, cho
sen regularly, according to the statutes, into
the vacant masti rslup, and continued therein
till the Restoration, when he conformed, and
was confirmed in his pl.iee, wliich he filled wilh
reputation till his death.
Dr. A\'illiara .'spursiiiw. one of the .'\ssembly
of Divines, and one of the commissioners at
the ."'iavoy in the year 1662,* was a person of
good learning, ofa peaceable and quiet disposi
tion, and of great humility and charity. He
was turned out of his mastership of Katherine
Hall for refusing the engagement, and was suc
ceeded by the famous
Dr Lightfoot, the most complete master, of
Oriental learning of his age ; the doctor enjoyed
this mastership,' with the sequestered living of
Muchinunden, given him by the Assembly of
Divines, till the Restoration, when he would
have resigned it back into the hands of Dr.
Spurstow, but he declining it, Lightfoot con
formed, and, upon his application to the king,
was confirmed in both his preferments till his
death. His works were published by Mr Strype,
in Iwo volumes, folio.
If it should be granted that the new profes
sors were not al first so expert in the learning
of the schools as their predecessors, that defect
was abundantly supplied by their application
and diliyenee in their places, and by tlieir ob
serving a very sUiel and severe discipline ; the
tutors were constant in reading lectures, not
only in term-time, but out of it ; the proctors
and other officers had a strict eye over the stu
dents to keep them within bounds, and oblige
thein to be jMesent at morning and evening
pra\er The Lord's Day was observed with
uiiruiuiniin rigour ; there were sermons and
prayers in all the churches and chapels both
morning and afternoon. Vice and profaneness
ivere banished, insomuch that an oath was not
to be heard within the walls ofthe University ;
and, if it may be said w ithout offence, tho col
leges never appeared more like nurseries of re
ligion and virtue than at this period.! The no
ble historian confesses the University of Ox
ford flourished as much in learning and learned
men at the Restoration as before the civil wars,
which is equally true of Cambridge. And it
ought to be remembered, that most of the con
siderable divines and philosophers who flour
ished in the reigns of King Charles II. and
King William HI., owed their education to the
tutors of those times, for whom th^ always re
tained a great veneration.
Though tbe form of inducting the new mas
ters was not according to the statutes (as has
been observed), because of the distraction of
the limes, it is evident this was not designed

University of Cambridge, and, after the He.storation,
was appoibted one of the commissioners at the con
ference at the .Savoy His modesty was as distin
guished as his learning. He presided o\ er his col
lege, which never lluunshed more than under his
goyenunent, with great prudence and abihty, and is
said to have shown more courage in inaintamins the
righls and privdeges of the university in the lawless
tune in a Inch he livefl, than any of the heads of hou
ses at lAtubridge.— i/raneir's History,,) England,
vol 111,., ;;r.,5, 306. bvo — L'o

* Caijiiiy (, .\[j.'-i,Jj:ment, vol. ii., p. 41
t Itjiil . vol 111 . p 74.

to be a precedent for their successors, os ap
pears by the manner of their investiture, which
was tills : Mr L.izarus .'^eaman having been
examined and approved by the .\ssembly of Hi
vines al Westminster, the Earl of .\Liiiehesier
came in person into the Chapel of Peterhouse,
April 11, and did there declare and publish Mr.
Lazarus .Seaman to lie constituted master of
the said Peterliuuse. in the room ol Dr. Cosins,
late master, who had been justly and lawfully
ejected ; requiring Mr. Seaman to take upon
him that office, putting him inlo the master's
seat, and delivering to him the statutes of the
college in token of his investiture, straitly
charging the fellows, lic, to acknowledge and
yield obedience to him, " notwithstanding bo
was not elected, nor admitted according lo the
ordinary course preseribed by the said statutes
in this time of distraction and war, there being
a necessity of reforming, as well the statutes
themselves as the members ul the said hou3e."t
The earl then gave him an iiislrumont under
his hand and seal to the same elleet, and ad
ministered hun an oath or protestation, which
he took, in the following words :
" I do solemnly and seriously promise, in the
presence of Alraighty God, the searcher of all
hearts, that, during the tirae of my continuance
in this chiuge, I shall faithfully labour to pro
mote learning and piety in myself, the fellows,
scholars, and students that do or shall belong
to the said college, agreeably to the late solemn
national League and Covenant, by ine sworn
and subscribed, with respect to all the good
and wholesome statutes of the said college and
of the university, correspondent to the said
Covenant ; and, by all means, to procure the
good, welfare, and perfeet reforraation, both of
the college and university, so far as to me ap-
pertainetli." The other raasters were introduced into their
several chairs after the same solemn manner,
their warrants bearing date the Uth, 12th, or
13th of April, 1644 ; but the clause of the Cov
enant was omitted by those who did not take
it, as in the case of Dr. Whichcote, and others.
The vacant fellowships being more numerous,
were not so quickly filled, though the carl took
the raost prudent raethod in that affair ; .\pril
10, he directed a paper to the several colleges,
declaring that " his purpose was forthwith to
supply the vacant fellowships, and desiring that
if there were any in the respective colleges
who, in regard of degree, learning, and piety,
should be found fit for such preferment, they
would, upon receipt of that paper, return him
their names, in order to their being e.xamined
by the Assembly, and invested in tbem." I'he
persons thus examined and presented were
constituted fellows by warrant under tho hand
and seal of the Earl of Manchester, tu the
heads of the several colleges, in the following
form :
" Wliereas A B. has been ejected out of his
fellowship in this college ; and whereas C. D.
has been exarained and approved by the As
sembly of Divines, these are, therefore, to re
quire you to receive the said C. D. as fellow m
the room of A. B , and to give him place ac
cording to his seniority in the university, in

* :>uirenng8 ofthe Clerg\, p. 114, 115.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

preference to all those that are, or shall here
after be, put in by rae."*
I have before me the names of fifty-five per-
soiis,t who, after they had been examined by
the Assembly, were presented to the vacant
fellowships, in the compass of the year 1644 ;
and within six months more all the vacancies
were in a manner supplied, with men of appro
ved learning and piety.
From this time the University of Carabridge
enjoyed a happy tranquillity ; learning flourish
ed, religion and good raanners were proraoted,
at a time when the rest of the nation was in
blood and confusion. And though this altera
tion was effected by a mixture of the civil and
raihtary power, yet in a little tirae things re
verted to their former channel, and the stat
utes ofthe university were as regularly observ
ed as ever. Let the reader now judge the can
dour and impartiality of the famous Dr. Bar
wick, author of the Querela Cantabrigiensis,
whose words are these : " Thus the knipperdo-
lings of the age reduced a glorious and renown
ed university alraost to a mere Munster, and
did more in less than three years than the
apostate Julian could effect in his reign, viz.,
broke the heartstrings of learning and all learn
ed men, and thereby luxated all the joints
of Christianity in this kingdom. We are not
afraid to appeal to any impartial judge, whether
if the Goths and Vandals, or even the Turks
themselves, had overrun this nation, they would
have more inhumanly abused a flourishing uni
versity, than these pretended advancers of re
hgion have done 1 Having thrust out one of
the eyes of this kingdom, made eloquence dumb,
philosophy sottish ; widowed the arts, drove
the muses from their ancient habitation, pluck
ed the reverend and orthodox professors out of
the chairs, and silenced them in prison or their
graves ; turned religion into rebellion ; chan
ged the apostolical chair into a desk for blas
phemy ; tore the garland from off the head of
learning to place it on the dull brows of disloyal
ignorance, and unhived those nuraerous swarms
of labouring bees, which used to drop honey-
dews over all this kingdom, to place in their
room swarms of senseless drones."t Such was
the rant of this reverenij clergyraan ; and such
the language and the spirit of the ejected Loy
alists <
While the earl was securing the university
to the Parliament, he appointed commissioners
for removing scandalous ministers in the seven
associated counties, empowering them to act
by the following warrant : " March 15, 1644.
" By virtue of an ordinance of both houses
of Parliaraent, bearing date January 22, 1643-4,
I do authorize and appoint you,  , or any
five of you, to call before you all rainisters or
schoolmasters within the counties of  , that
are scandalous in their lives, or ill-affected to
the Parliaraent, or foraenters of this unnatural
war ; or that shall wilfully refuse obedience to
the ordinances of Pariiament ; or that have de
serted their ordinary places of residence, not,
being employed in the service of the king and

* Sufferings ofthe Clergy, p. 114, 115.
[MS. penes me. ¦
X Querela, Pref, p. 2, 26, 27. Walker's Attempt,
p. 115.

485
Parliament, with ftill power and liberty to send
for any witnesses, and to examine complaints
upon oath. And you are to certify the names
of ministers, with the charge and proof against
thera, to rae."*
It is to be observed, that the warrant is point
ed only against those who are immoral, or dis
affected to the Pariiament, or had deserted
their cures ; and was accompanied with instruc
tions, and a letter, exhorting thera to the faith
ful and effectual (lischarge of the trust. The
instructions were to this effect :
First, " That they should be speedy and ef
fectual in executing the ordinances, and sit in
such places within the county that all parties,
by the easiness of access, raay be encouraged
to address themselves to them with their com
plaints. Secondly, " That they should issue their war
rants, to summon before them such ministers
and witnesses as the articles preferred against
thera should require.
Thirdly, " That the party accused should not
be present at the taking the depositions, be
cause of discountenancing the witnesses, and
disturbing the service ;t but when the deposi
tions were taken upon oath, the party accused
should have a copy, and have a day given him
to return his answer in writing, and to raake
his defence within fourteen days, or thereabout.
Fourthly, " They were to return both the ac
cusation and 'defence to Mr. Good and Mr.
Ashe, the earl's chaplains, and upon such re
ceipts they should have farther directions.
Fifthly, " If the party accu,sed would not
appear to raake his defence, they were to cer
tify the cause of his absence, because, if i,hey
were nonresidents, or in arms against the Par
liaraent, the earl would proceed against thera.t
Sixthly, " tt being found, by experience, that
parishioners were not forward to' coraplain of
their rainisters, though very scandalous — some
being eneraies to the intended reformation, and
others sparing their ministers, because" they fa
voured them in their tithes, and were therefore
esteemed quiet men — therefore they were re
quired to call unto them sorae well-affected men
within every hundred, who, having no private
engagements, were to be encouraged by the
committees to inquire after the doctrines, lives,
and conversations of all ministers and schodl-
masters, and to give information what could
be deposed, and who could depose the same.
Seventhly, " Each commissioner shall have
five shillings for every day he sits; and the
clerk to receive some pay, that he might not
have occasion to demand fees for every war
rant or copy, unless the writings were very
large. Eighthly, " Upon the ejecting of any scanda
lous or malignant ministers, they were to re
quire the parishioners to make choice of some
fit and able person to succeed, who was to have
a testimonial frora the well-afieoted gentry and

* Suffermgs ofthe Clergy, p. 117.
t This was owing to the insolent and unmanner
ly behaviour of some of the clergy before the com
missioners ; for the ordinance of September 6, 1643,
appoints that the witnesses shall be examined in their
presence, and that sufficient wamuig shall be given
of the time and place where the charge agamst them
should be proved.
f Husband's Collections, p. 311.

HISTORV OF THE PURITA.N.S.

ministry, and m take pariieul.ir care that no
Anabapl:st or .Antmomian be recommended
.Ninthly, '• They were to certify the true value
of each livin:; . as also Ihe estate, livelihood,
and charge of chiWren, whieh the accused per
son had. for his lordship's direction in the as
signment of the fifths .\ud,
L.i.-ily, "They were to use all other proper
ways and methods for speeding the serviee"
\\rth these instructions the earl sent an ex
hortation by letter, in the following words :
" Gentlemen,
" I send you, by this bearer, a coraraission,
wilh instructions for executing the ordinance,
&c , within your county. I neither doubt of
your abilities nor affections to further this ser
vice, yet, according to the great trust reposed
in me herein by the Parliament, I raust be ear
nest with you to be diligent therein. Vou know
how much the people of this kingdom have
formerly suffered in their persons, souls, and
estates, under an idle, ill-affected, scandalous,
and insolent clergy, upheld by the bishops; and
you cannot but foresee that their pressures and
burdens wdl still continue, though the form of
government be altered, unless great care be ta-
lien to displace such ministers, and to place or
thodox and holy men in every parish ; for, let
the government be what it will for the form
thereof, yet it will never he good unless the
parties eraployed therein be good themselves.
By the providence of God, it now lies in your
power to reform the former abuses, and to re
move these offenders. Vour power is great,
and so is your trust. If a general reformation
follows not within your county, assuredly the
blame will be laid upon you, and you must ex
pect lo be called to an account for it both here
and hereafter. For my part. 1 am resolved to
employ the-ulmost of ray power given to me by
the ordinance for procuring a general reforma
tion in all the associated counties, expecting
your forwardness, and heartily joining with me
herein* " I rest," &c.
\\'hen a clergyman was convicted according
to the instructions above mentioned, report was
made to the earl, who directed a warrant lo the
church-wardens of the parish to eject him out
of his parsonage, and all the profits thereof;
and another to receive the tithes and all the
benefits into their own hands, and to keep them
in safe custody till they should receive farther
orders from hiraself ¦! At the same time he di
rected the parishioners to choose a proper min
ister for the vacant place, and, upon their pre-
sentaliooj his lordship sent him to the Assem
bly of Divines at Westminster, with an account
of his character, for their trial and examination.
And upon a certificate frora the Asserably that
they approved of hira as an orthodox divine,
and qualified to officiate in the pastoral func
tion, his lordship issued out his last warrant,
setting forth that "such a one having been ap
proved by the Assembly, &.C., he did therefore
authorize and appoint bim, the said  , lo
officiate as minister, to preach, teach, and cate
chise in such a parish during his (the earl's)
pleasure, and then empower him to take pos
sess, m of the church, parsonage-houses, glebe-
lands, and to receive tiie tithes' and profits, and
enjuy llie- same until his lordship should take

SuCeruiija of the Clergy, p. 118. f Ibid., p. lla.

I farther order concerning the same, requiring all
I officers lo aid and assist him for that purpo.se "
' If the committees observed these articles
Ihere could be no rrasunahle ground uf com-
I plaint, except of the sixth, which may he eun-
i strued as giving too much eneourageinent lu
informers; but the methods of eonvictiim were
unexceptionable The persons to be called be
fore the commissiuners were scandaluus, or en
emies to the Parliament ; the depositions were
upon oath ; a copy of them was allowed the de
fendant, with time to give in his answer in wri
ting ; then a day appointed to make his defence
in presence of the witnesses, to whora he inrght
take exceptions; and, after all, the final judg
raent not left with the commissioners, but with
the earl. The filling the vacant benefice was
no less prudent ; the parishioners were lo choose
their own minister, who was lo produce testi
monials of his sobriety and virtue ; the Assem
bly were then to examine into his learning and
ministerial qualifications ; and, after all, the new
incumbent to hold his living only during pleas
ure ; the Parliament being w illing to leave open
a door, at the conclusion of a peace, for resto
ring such Royalists as were displaced merely
for adhering to the king, without prejudice to
the present possessor. One cannot answer for
particulars under such uncommon distractions
and violence of parties ; but the orders were, in
my opinion, not only reasonable, but expedient
for the support of the cause in which the Par
hament was engaged.
The committees for the associated counties
acted, I apprehend, no longer than the year
1644, the last warrant of ejectment mentioned
hy Dr. Nalson, bearing date March 17, 1644-5,
in which time affairs were brought lo such a
settlement in those parts, that the Royalists
could give them no disturbance.* The associ
ated counties, says Mr. Fuller, escaped the best
of all parts in this civil war, the smoke thereof
only offending them, while the fire was fell in
other places. The chief ejectments by the
coramissioners in other parts of England were
in the years 1644, 1645, and till the change of
government in the year 1649, when the Cove
nant itself was set aside, and changed inlo an
engagement to the new commonwealth.
It is hard to compute the nuraber of clergy
men that might lose their livings by the several
comraittees during the war, nor is it of any
great importance, for the law is the same
whether more or few^ suffer by it ; and the
not putting it in execution might be owing to
want of power or opportunity. Dr. Nalson
says that in five ofthe associated counties one
hundred and fifty-six clergymen were ejected
in little more than a year; namely, in Norfidk
fifty-one, Suffolk thirty-seven, Cambridgeshire
thirty-one, Essex twenty-one, Lincolnshire six
teen ; and if we allow a proportionable num
ber for the other two, the whole will amount
to two hundred and eighteen ; and if in seven
counties there were two hundred and eighteen
sufferers, tbe fifty-two counties of England, by a
like proportion, will produce upward of sixteen
hundred. Dr. Walker has fallaciously increased
the number of suffering clergymen to eight thou
sand, even though Ihe list at the end of his book
makes out little iiior^ than a fifth part. Among
* suUermgs ol the Clergy, p. 119.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

487

his cathedral clergy he reckons up several pre-
"bends and canonries, in which he supposes suf
ferers without any evidence. Of this sort Dr.
Calaray has reckoned about two hundred.* If
one clergyraan was possessed of three or four
dignities, there appear to be as many sufferers.
The like is observable in the case of pluralists ;
for example, Richard Stuart, LL.D., is set down
as a sufferer in the deanery of St. Paul's, as
prebendary of St. Pancras, and residentiary ;
in the deanery and prebend of the third stall in
Westminster ; in the deanery of tbe royal chap
el ; in the provostship of Eton College, and pre
bend of Norshalton in the Church of Salisbury ;
all which 'preferments he enjoyed, says Dr.
Walker, or was entitled to, together, and his
name is repeated in the several places. By
such a calculation it is easy to deceive the
reader, and swell the account beyond measure.
The Reverend Mr. Withers,t a late Noncon
formist minister at Exeter, has taken care to
make an exact computation in the associated
counties of Suffolk, Norfolk, and Cambridge
shire, in which are one thousand three hundred
and ninety-eight parishes, and two hundred and
fifty-three sequestrations ; so that if these may
be reckoned as a standard for the whole king
dom, the whole number wiU be reduced consid
erably under two thousand. He has also raade
another coraputation frora the county of Devon,
in which are three hundred and ninety-four par
ishes, and one hundred and thirty-nine seques
trations, out of which thirty-nine are deducted
for pluralities, &c. ; and then by coraparing this
county, in which both Dr. Walker and Mr.
Withers hved, with the rest of the kingdom,
the amount of sufferers, according to him, is
one thousand seven hundred and twenty-six ;
but admitting they should arise to the number
of the doctor's names in his index, which are
about two thousand four hundred, yet when
such were deducted as were fairly convicted,
upon oath, of immoralities of life, &c. (which
were a fourth in the associated counties), and
all such as took part with the king in the war,
or disowned the authority of the Pariiaraent ;
preaching up doctrines inconsistent with the
cause for which they had taken arms, and ex
citing the people to an abs.olute subraission to
the authority ofthe crown, the reraainder that
were displaced only for refusing the Covenant
must be very inconsiderable. Mr. Baxter says
they cast out the grosser sort of insufficient
and scandalous clergy, and some few civil men
that had acted in the wars for the king, and set
up tbe late innovations, but left in near one
half of those that were but barely tolerable.
He adds, farther, " that in all the counties in
¦which he was acquainted six to one at least,
if not more, that were sequestered by the com
mittees, were bythe oaths of witnesses proved
insufficient, or scandalous, or both."t
But admitting their numbers to be equal to
those Puritan ministers ejected at the Restora
tion, yet the cause of their ejectment, and the
circumstances of the times, being very differ
ent, the sufferings of the former ought not to
he compared to the latter; though Dr. Walker
is pleased to say in his preface, that " if the
» Church and Dissenters compared, p. 52.
t Appendix to his Reply to Mr. Agate, p. 27, 28.
4 History of life and Times, p. 74.

sufferings of the Dissenters hear any tolera
ble proportion to those of the ejected Loyal
ists, in nuraber, degrees, or circurastances, he
will be gladly deeraed not only to have lost all
his labour' but to have revived a great and un
answerable scandal on the cause he has under
taken to defend." I shall leave the reader to
pass his own judgment upon this declaration,
after 1 have produced the testimony of one or
two divines of the Churoh of England. " Who
can answer," says one, "for the violence and
injustice of actions in a civil war 1 Those suf
ferings were in a tirae of general calaraity, but
these [in 1662] were ejected not only in a time
of peace, but a time of joy to all the land, and
after an act of oblivion, to which comraon re
joicing these suffering ministers had contribu
ted their earnest prayers and great endeav
ours."* " I must own," says another of the
doctor's correspondents, " that though both
sides have been excessively to blame, yet that
the severities used by the Church to the Dis
senters are less excusable than those used by
the Dissenters to the Church ; my reason is,
that the forraer were used in time of peace
and a settled government, whereas the latter
were inflicted in a time of tumult and confusion,
so that the plundering and ravaging endured by
the church ministers were owing, many of them
at least, to the rudeness ofthe soldiers and the
chances of war ; they were plundered not be
cause they were Conformists, but cavaliers, and
of the king's party."+ The case of those who
were sober and virtuous seems to be much the
same with the nonjurors at the late revolution
ofKing William III. ; and I readily agree with
Mr. Fuller, that " raoderate men bemoaned
these severities, for, as much corruption was
let out by these ejectments (many scandalous
rainisters being deservedly punished),so at the
same time the veins of the English Church
were also emptied of much good blood. "J
We have already observed, that a fifth part
of the revenues of these ejected clergymen was
reserved for the maintenance of their poor fam
ilies, " which was a Christian act, and which I
should have been glad," says the divine above
mentioned, " to have seen iraitatgd at the Res
toration."^ Upon this, the cavaliers sent their
wives and children to be maintained by the Par
liament ministers, while themselves were fight
ing for their king. The houses, therefore, or
dained, September 8, 1645, that the fifths should
not be paid to the wives and children of those
who came into the Parliament quarters without
their husbands or fathers, or who were not bred
in the Protestant religion.ll Yet, when the war
was over, all were allowed their fifths, though
in some places they were ill paid, the incum
bent being hardly able to allow them, by reason
ofthe smallness of his hving, and the devasta
tion ofthe war. When some pretended to ex
cuse themselves on the forementionfed excep
tions, the two houses published the following
explanation, November 11, 1647, viz., " that the
wives and children of all such persons whose
estates and livings are, have been, or shall be.

* Conform. First Plea, p. 12, 13.
t Calamy's Church and Dissenters compared, p.
23, 24. } Church History, p. 207.
ij Calamy's Ch. and Diss, comp., p. 24.
II Husband's CoUections, p. 726.

488

HISTORY OF THE P f R 11 .\ .N S.

sequestered bj order of either house of Parlia
ment, shall be eomprebemled within the ordi
nance v*hich allows a fifth part lor wives and
children, and shall have their fifth part allowed
them; and the coramillee of Lords -and Com
mons for sequestrations, and the committees
for plundered ministers, and all other ministers,
are "required to take notice hereof, and yield
obedience hereimlo."* Afterward, when H was
questioned whether the fifths should pay their
proportion'of the pubUc taxes, it was ordained
that tRe incumbent only should pay thera. Un
der the government of the Protector Cromwell,
it was ordained that, if the ejected minister left
the quiet possession of his house and glebe to
his successor within a certain time, he should
receive his fifths, and all his arrears, provided
he had not a real estate of his own of £30 per
annum, or £500 in raoney.
After all, it was a hard case on both sides ;
the incumbents thought it hard to be obliged to
all the duties of their place, and another to go
away with a fifth of the profit, at a tirae when
the value of church lands was considerably les
sened by the neglect of tillage, and exorbitant
taxes laid upon all the necessaries of life To
which raay be added, an opinion that began to
prevail among the farmers, of the unlawfulness
of paying tithes : Mr. Selden had led the way
to this in his Book of Tithes, whereupon the Par
liament, by an ordinance of November 8, 1644,
" strictly enjoined all persons fully, truly, and
effeclually, to set out, yield, and pay respective
ly, all and singular tithes, offerings, oblations,
obventions, rates for tithes, and all other duties
coraraonly known by the narae of tithes." Oth
ers, who had no scruple about the payraent of
tithes, refused to pay thera to the new incum
bent, because the ejected minister had the legal
right ; insomuch that the Presbyterian minis
ters were obliged in raany places to sue their
parishioners, which created disturbances and
divisions, and at length gave rise to several
petitions frora the counties of Buckingham, Ox
ford, Hertford, <fec., praying that their ministers
raight be provided for some other way. The
Parliament referred them to a committee, which'
produced no redress, because they could not fix
upon another fund, nor provide for the lay-im-
propriations.

CHAPTER IV.
or THE SEVERAL PARTIES IN THE ASSEMBLY OF DI
VINES  PRESBYTERIANS, ERASTIANS, INDEPEND
ENTS. THEIR PROCEEDINGS ABOUT ORDINATION,
AND THE DIRECTORY FOR DIVINE WORSHIP. THE
RISE, PEOORESS, AND SUFFERINGS OF THE ENG
LISH ANTIP.EDOBAPTISTS.
Before we proceed to the debates ofthe As
sembly of Divines, it will be proper to distin
guish the several partiest of which it was con-
* Sufferings ofthe Clergy, p. 100.
t That the reader may enjoy the amplest oppor
tunity to form an enlarged and impartial view of this
matter, 1 shall insert the entire account of the par
ties which composed the Assembly, as it is given by
the Presbuenan historian Hetherington, in his His-
tor) of Ihe \V'e»tiiji[ister Assembly. This is dune
that I may escape the charge of having withheld any

stituted.* The Episcopal clergv had entirely
deserted it beforo the bringing in ol the i\i\^t-
light of hisMry, :illhoui;h the entire work la u preiiy-
clu^e abridgment of Neal, allowuig for the neidctf
additions. Helore proceeding to relate the discus.sionx of Uie
Westminster .\s>enibly of Divines, thus finally con
stituted and prepared lor its duties, it may !»¦ oip«-
dient to givo a brief view ol the parlies, by the com
bination of which it was from the lirsl coinpoMtl, by
whose jarring contentions its progress was reUinlod,
and by whose divisions and mutual liostUities its la
bours were at length frustrated and prcvcntod from
obtaining their due result.
When Ihe Parliament issued tlu' ordinance for
calling totiether an .¦Assembly of Ilivines" lor consult
ation and advice, there was, it will be ri'iiiembeml,
actually no legalized form of church government iii
England, so far as depended on the Legislature.
Even Charles himself had consented to the bill re
moving the prelates from the House of Lords ; and
though the bill abolishing the hierarchy had not ob
tained the royal samlioii, yet tho gre:iter part of the
kingdom reganled it as eonclusive on that point.
The chief object of the Parliament, therrlure, was
to determine what lurm of chureh government was
to be established by law, in the room of that which
had been abolished. .¦Viid as their desire was to se
cure a form which should both lie generally accept
able, and should also hear, at least, a close resem
blance to the form most*prevalent iu other ReluriiKiI
churches, they attempteu to act impartially, and, iii
their ordinance, they selected some of each denomi
nation, appointing bishops, untitle.l Episcopalians,
Puritans, and Independents. SeviT.il Episcoiialians,
and al least one bishop, were present iii the first
meeting of the Assembly. But when the Solemn
League and Covenant was proposed and taken, and
when the king issued his condemnation of it, all the
decided Episcopalians left, with the exreptiuii of
Dr. Featly. He remained a meinher of the .Assem
bly for some time ; till, being detectetl corresponding
with Archbishop Usher, and revealing the proceed
ings of the Assembly, he was cut off from tnat ven-
eralile body and cuiiiiiiillrd to prison.* From that
tune forward there were no direct supporters of prel
acy in the Assembly, and the protracted controver
sial discussions wliich arose were on other subjects,
on which account we have nothing to do with the
Episcopalian controversy, beyond whiit has been al
ready stated in our prehminary pages.
There can be no doubt that tlie close alliance
which the English Parliament sought with Scotland,
and the ground taken by the Scoitish Convention of
Estates and General Assembly, in requiring not only
an international league, but also a religious covenant,
tended greatly to direct the mind of the English
statesmen and divines towards the Presbyterian forn»
of church govemment, and exercised a powerful in
fluence in the deliberations of the Westminster As
sembly. But let it be also remembered, that in ev
ery one ofthe Refonned Continental churches, either
the Presbyterian form, or one very closely resem
bling it, had been adopted ; and that the Puritan*
had already formed themselves into presbyteries,
held presbyterial meetings, and endeavoured to ex
ercise Presbyterian discipline in the reception, eus
pension, and rejection of members. Both the exam
pie of other churches, therefore, and their own al
ready begun practice, had led them so far onward to
the Presbyterian model, that they would almost in
evitably have assumed it altogether apart from tha
influence of Scotland. In truth, that mfluence was

* The name of Puritans is from this time to be
sunk ; and they are for the future to he spoken of un
der the distinction of PrevhvtiTuuis, Erastians, and
Independents, who had all theirdiflerent views.— 7>r.
Warner's Ecclesiastical History, vol. li., p. 561. — Ed.
.N'tal, vol. li., p. 234, 235.

HISTORY OF THF PURITANS.

nant, so that the establishment was left with
out a single advocate. All who remained were

489

exerted and felt almost solely in the way of instruc
tion from a church already formed to one in the pro
cess of formation ; and none would have been more
ready than the Scottish commissioners themselves
to have repudiated the very idea of any other kind of
influence. It may be said, therefore, with the most
strict propriety, that the native aim and tendency of
the Westminster Assembly was to establish the
Presbyterian form of church government in England,
the great body of English Puritans having gradually
become Presbyterians. There is reason to believe
that both Pym and Hampden favoured the Presby
terian system ; but their early and lamented death
deprived that cause of their powerful support, and
the House of Commons of their able and steady gui
dance. The chief promoters of presbytery in the
House of Commons were. Sir William Waller, Sir
Phihp Stapleton, Sir John Clotworthy, Sir Benja
min Rudyard, Colonel Massey, Colonel Harley, Ser
geant Maynard, Denzil Hollis, John Glynn, and a
few more of less influential character.
The Independents, or Congregationalists, formed
another party, few in point of number, but men of
considerable talent and learning, of undoubted piety,
of great pertinacity in adhering to their own opin
ions, and, we are constrained to say, well skilled in
the artifices of intriguing policy. Independency was,
according to the statement of its adherents, a me
dium between the Brownist and the Presbyterian
systems. They did not, with the Brownists, con
demn every other church as too corrupt and anti
christian for intercommunion, for they professed to
agree in doctrine both with the Church of England
in its articles, and with the other Reformed churches ;
but they held the entire power of government to be
long to each separate congregation ; and they prac
tically admitted no church censure but admonition,
for that cannot properly be called excommunication
which consisted not in expelling from their body an
obstinate and impenitent offender, but in withdraw
ing themselves from him. With regard to their
boast bf being the first advocates of toleration and
liberty of conscience, that will come to be examined
hereafter; this only need be said at present, that
toleration is naturally the plea of the weaker party ;
that the term was then, has been since, and stdl is,
much misunderstood and misused ; and that, wher-,
ever the Independents possessed power, as in New-
England, they showed themselves to be as intolerant
as any of their opponents.
The leading Independents in the Westminster As
sembly were. Dr. Thomas Goodwin, Philip Nye, Jer
emiah Burroughs, William Bridge, and Sidrach Simp
son. These men had at first been silenced by the
violent persecutions of Laud and Wren, and had
then retired to Holland, where they continued ex
ercising their ministry among their expatriated coun
trymen for several years. .¦ Goodwin and Nye resided
at Arnheim, where they were highly esteemed for
their piety and talents. Bridge went to Rotterdam,
where he became pastor of an English congrega
tion, previously formed by the. notorious Hugh Pe
ters. Burroughs went also to Rotterdam, and be
came connected with a congregation then under the
pastoral calre of Bridge, in what was termed the dif
ferent but co-ordinate oflice of teacher. Simpson
subsequently joined himself to the two preceding
brethren, having, according to their system, given an
account of his faith. But, though at first highly ap
proving the order of the churph under the care of
Mr. Bridge, he subsequently proposed some altera
tions, which would, as he thought, promote its welfare
—particularly the revival of the prophesyings used
by the old Puritans. This Mr. Bridge opposed, and
Mr. Simpson withdrew from, communion with him,
and formed a church for himself* The quarrel,
however, did not so terminate. Mr. Ward, another
* Brook's Lives of the Puritans, vol. iii., p. 312.
Vol. I. — Q q q

for taking down the main pillars of the hierar
chy, before they had agreed what sort of build
ing to erect in its room.

ejected Puritan, having about the same time retired
'° Holland, came to Rotterdam, and having joined
Mr. Bridge's church, was appointed his colleague in
the pastoral ofiice. He, too, wished for additional
improvements ; and as he did not retire, like Simp
son, but continued the struggle. Bridge thought it
necessary to depose him from the ministry, which
his superior influence in the congregation enabled
him to accomplish. To prevent the evil cons'equen-
ces which might have resulted from these unhappy
divisions, Goodwin and Nye came from Arnheim,
instituted an investigation of the whole matter, and
induced the two contending brethren and their adhe
rents to acknowledge their mutual faults, and to be
reconciled.* The reconcihation, however, appears
to have been but superficial, and to have required the-
interposition of the magistracy ere it could be even
plausibly effected. Such divisions might have caused
these divines to entertain some suspicion that the-
model of church government which theyhad adopt
ed was not altogether so perfect as they wished it
to be thought ; but so far as their subsequent con
duct, as members' of the Westminster Assembly, is
concerned, this does not seem to have been the case
in even the slightest degree. When the contest be
tween theking and the Parhament had become so ex- -
treme that the Parliament declared its own continu
ation as permanent as it might itself think necessary,
and began to threaten the abolition of the whole pre- -
latical hierarchy, the above-named five Independent
divines returned to England, prepared to assist in the
long-sought reformaJ;ion of rehgion, and to avaU them
selves of every opportunity which might occur to
promote their favourite system. And admitting them
to be conscientiously convinced of its superior excel
lence, they deserve no censure for desiring to see it
universally received. In every such case, all that
can be wished is, that each party should prosecute
its purpose honourably and openly, in the fair field of
frank and manly argument, with Christian candour
and integrity, and not by factious opposition, or with
the dark and insidious craft too characteristic of
worldly politicians.
Of these five leading Independents, often termed
" The Five Dissenting Brethren," Goodwin appears
to have been the deepest theologian, and perhaps alto
gether the ablest man ; Nye, the most acute and sub
tle, and the best skilled in holding intercourse with
worldly politicians ; Burroughs, the most gentle and
pacific in temper and character ; Bridge is said to have
been a man of considerable attainments, and a very la
borious student ; and Simpson bears also a respectable
character as a preacher, though not peculiarly dis
tinguished in public debate. To these Baillie adds,
as Independents, Joseph Caryl, William Carter, oi
London, John PhiUps, and Peter Sterry — naming
nine, but saying that there were " some ten or elev-
en."t Neal adds ¦Anthony Burges and William
Greenhill.l Some of the views of the Independents
were occasionally supported by Herle, Marshall, and
Vines, and some few others ; but none of these men
are to be included in the number of the decided In
dependents. The third party in the Assembly were the Eras
tians ; so called from Erastus, a physician at Heidel
berg, who wrote on the subject of church g:overn-
raent, especially in respect of excommunication, in,
the year 1568. His theory was. That the pasto
ral oflice is only persuasive, like that of a professor
over his students, without any direct power ; that
baptism, the Lord's Supper, and all other Gospel or
dinances, were free and open to all ; and that the^
minister might state and explain what were the prop
er qualifications, and might dissuade the vicious and

* 'Brook, vol. ii., p. 454 ; Edwards's Autopologia, p. 115-
117 ; BaiUie's Dissuasive, p. 75-77.
t Baillie, vol. ii., p. 110. + Neal, vol. ii., p. 275, 36a>-

490

HISTORY OF THI-: PUUIT-WS.

The majority at lir.-^t intmdrd only ihn redii-
cmiET cprscoparv in the standard of ihr rir^l m
unqualitietl from the conununion, hul had no pow.T
to reluso il, or lo infhcl any knid of censure Tin'
punishtuenl of allotlencr^, \\helh('rol aciMl or areii-
gious nature, belonged, accordjng tu this theory, t .\-
ciusively to the civil magistrate The tendency of
IhJs theor\ wa-i, to ile^troy entirely all ei-ele^iaslical
and >i>intual jurisdiclion, to deprive the Church of
all power ot government, and to make it CMiujtletely
the mere "creature of the :!!^iate." The pretended
advantage of this theory wa--^. that it prevented the
existence of an imperiiun in imperw, or one govern
ment within another, of a distinct and independent
nature. But the real disadvantage, in the most mit
igated view that can be taken,' was, that it reprodu
ced what may be lermeil a civil popery, by combining
civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and giving both
into the possession of one irresponsible power, there
by destroying both civil and religious liberty, and
subjectmg men lo an absolute and irremediable des
potism. In another point of view, the Erastian the
ory assumes a siiU aarker and more formidable as
pect. Jt necessarily denies the ine<lialorial sover
eignty of the Lord Jesus t'hiist over his Church;
takes the power of the keys from- his office-bearers
and g:ives them to tlie civU magistrate ; destroys lib-
-erty of conscience, by making spiritual matters sub
ject to the same coercive power as temporal affairs
naturally and properly are; and thus mvolves both
t^tate and Church in reciprocal and mutually de-
strucuve sin : the State, in usurping a power which
Gotl has not given, and the (_'luirch, in yielding
\\ hat she is not at liberty to \ leid — the sacred crown-
rights of the Divine Redeemer, her only Head and
Kmg. But ay the Erastian controversy will come fully
before us in the debates of the As.ieinbly, it is unne
cessary to enter upon it here. There were only two
divines in the Assembly who advocated the Kra^^iian
theory ; and ol thc^e, one alone was decidedly and
thoroughly Krasiian. The divme to whom this un
enviable pre-eminence must he assigned was Thom
as Coleman, minister at Bliton, in Lincolnshire. He
¦was aided ^'enerally, but not always, by Lightfoot, in
the various disci4?'>ions that arose invulving Erastian
opinion-' Bolh of these divines were eminently dis
tinguished hy their attainments in Oriental literature,
particularly in rabbinical lore; and their attachment
to the study of Hebrew hterature and customs led
them to the conclusion that the Christian Church
was to he in every respect constituted accordmg to
the model of the Jewish Church ; and having formed
the opinion that there was but one jurisdiction in Is
rael, combining both civil and ecclesiastical, and that
this was held by the Hebrew monarchs, they con
cluded that ihc same blended government ought to
prevail under the Christian dispensation. Of the
la\-a.-sessijrs in the Assembly the chief Erastians
were the learned Seldpii, Mr. Whitelocke, and Mr
St John ; but though Selden was the only one of
them whose arguments were influential in the As-
eernbly Itself, yet nearly all the Parliaraent held senti
ments decidedly Erastian, and having seized the pow
er nf church government, were not disposed to yield it
up. be the opinion of the assembled divines what it
miL'ht Hence, though the Erastian divines were
only twd, yet their opinions, supported by the whole
civil authority in the kingdom, were almost sure to
triumph in the end. This, in one point of view, was
not sti.inge. The kingdom had suffered so much se
vere and protracted injury from the usurped authori-
1} and powpT of the prelates, that the asserters of
civil liberty almost mstinctively shrunk frora even
the shaduw of any kind of power in the hands of ec-
clesinsML-4. A little less passion and fear, and a lit
tle more ludgment and discrimination, mi^ht have
rt'scued them from this groundless apprehension ;
anri thev might have perceived that freedom, bolh
civil nn.j ecclesiastical, would be best secured by the
lull and aulhontaUve recognition of their respective

srcoml ai:e. but, for lUr s;iko of the Srols olli-
juuc. ihi y Were prevaded with to lay aside the

juriS},llctlo!i<.. se|)aruto and independent, but, indeed,
this isa iiuth wluch has \et to Im' teapit\l i>\ cimI
governmeni; — a Irulh unknnwn to ancient lnne», m
wliieh relii,'ion wa^ either an engine ut ihe ."^i.iie or
the object of persecution— u IriiOi unknown durih-K'
the periot) ol papal a.scendeni'Y, in which Ihe Uomihh
priMsthotHl usurpcti dominion over ci\il tioviriiMients,
and exercised its tyranny alike o\er ihe persons and
the conscience of mankind — a truth first bruughl to
light m the great religious reforinatum of the t»ix-
tecnth century — but not then, nor e\en yti, fully
developed, rightly understootl, and permitted to *-x-
ercise its free and sacred supremacy. That it will
¦tinally assume its due dominion over the nundtt and
actions of all bodies of men, both cnil and eeclesiaa-
tical, we cannot doubt; and then, but not till then,
will the two dread counterpart elements of human
degradation, tyranny and slavery, become ahko im
possible. Into these three great parties, Presbyterian, hido-
pendent, and Erastian. was the W eslmnkster' As
sembly of Divines divided, even when lir.si it met ;
and It was inevitable that a contest should he waged
among them for the useemlency, ending most proba
bly either in increased hostility and absolute clisrup-
tion. or in some mutual compromise, lo which all
might assent, though perhaps with the cordial appro
bation of none. The strength of these porties was
more evenly balanced at iirst than might have been
expected. The Puritans, though all of them had re
ceived Episcopal ordination, and had been exercising
their ministry in the Chureh of England nn-ler the
hierarchy, were nearly all Pre.sbyteriana, or at least
quite willing to adopt that form of church govern
ment, though iiiaiiv of them would have consented
to a modified Ispiscopacy on the Usscrian model.
Their influence in the city of London was paramount,
and throughout the country was very consiilerable ;
and as they formed the most natural connecting link
with Scotlaiul. they occupied a position o| very groat
importance. Alihough tne Independents were but a
small minority m tho Assembly, yet various circum
stances combined to render them by no means a weak
or insignificant party. They were supported in the
House of Peers by Lords Say and Sele, aVid frequent
ly, also, by Lords Brooks and Kimbolton, tho latter
of whom is better known by his subsequent title of
'Lord Manchester. Philip Nye, one of the leading
Independents, had been appointed to Kimbolton by
the influence of Lord Kimbolton, and continued to
maintain a constant intercourse with him, both while
he was acting as a legislator, and when leading the
armies of the Parliament. It is even asserted by
Palmer, in his "Nonconformists* Memorial," that
Nye's advice was sought and followed in the nomina
tion of the divines who were called iu the Asserably. ''
And when, farther, it is borne in mind that Oliver
CromweU was an Independent, and acted as lieuten
ant-general under Lord Manchester, it will easily be
perceived that Nye's intercourse with the army was
direct and influential, and that thus the Five Dis
senting Brethren were able to employ a mighty po
litical influence. Nor can the Erastian party be just
ly termed feeble, though formed by not more than
two divines, and a few of the lay-assessors, who were
not always pre.sent ; for both Coleman and Lightfoot
were influential men, on account of their reputation
for learning, in which they were scarcely inferior to
Sclrlen himself in the department of Hebrew litera-
tufe. So high was Selden's fame, that any cause
might be deemed strong which he supported ; and
Whitelocke and St, John possessed so much politi
cal influence in Parliament that they could not fail
to exercise great power in every matter which they
promoted or opposed. But the main strength of the
Erastian theory consisted in the combination of three
potent elements — the natural love of holding and ex

* Palmer's NoDCoofurnustc' Memorial, vol. i., p. 00.

HISTORY OF THE PURITAXS. 49I
name and function of bishops, and attempt the ' now. nor can. nor ought to be observed ei her
es-.abbslur.gaPre.sbytcr,alK.nn,vvhJchatlenr,U touching persons -r function^. The charge of
they a.ranced into., « Ar,„.„, or a Divme in- : this ,s left to the magistrate, so that nothing be
s.uulion, der.ved espresslv irom CI,r:S! and b:s contrarv to the AVorf of GckI The "o?frn
aposUes 1 u-s engaged them in so many con- ment of the Church must be according' to the
tiovers:<s as prevemed their laying the top form of ^-ovemment in the commonwealtt -
sMie of ...e buUdxg so that it fe.l to p.eces The chief patrons of this scheme in the Assem-
before it w..i perlected Tbe chief patrons of bly were Dr. Lightfoot, Mr. Colman Mr ¦^el-
S^n'S^H^^ii?" t' "^^%°'" Co°i?^onf. 'xrere den. Mr \fhhekxke : and in the Honseof Com-
Denul HoiU^. E.q • 5-;r M OUam Waller, br mons, besides Selden and MTiitelocfce, Oliver
Phihp ^japleton, ^ir John Clotworthy. Sir Ben- St John. Esq . Sir Thomas Widdrington, John
Masst} . Colonel Harley. John Glynn, Esq.. and greaies: names.
* ^ "'•"^'^i r J , "^^ Independents, or Congregational bretb-
The L.-astians formed another branch of the ren, eomposeJ a third partv. and made a bold
Assembly, so called from Erastus. a German stand aca rst the proceeding ofthe High Pres-
Atim of the sisteenth century. The pastor- byterians ; their numbeis ¦si-ere smaU at first
al offi-^, according to him, was only persna- j though they increased prodigiously in a few
s.ve. like a professor of the sciences over his years, and gre-v to a considerable figure under
stucenis. without any power of the keys an- tbe proieci.Tship of Oliver CromweU*
nexed.* The Lords S-apper, and other ordi- We hare aire adv related their original, and
nances ofthe i-m^spel. were to be free and open . carried on their historv iffl ihcv appeared in
to all. The min ster might dissuade the vi- , public, about the latter end of the year 1640.
cious and uiiqja.ided from the communion, bnt Che divines who passed under this denomina-
might not refuse it, or inflict any kind of een- : tion in the Assembly had liol tbeir country in
s .tre ; the punishnient of all offences, either of ! the late tim^. and formed societies according to
a eiTil or religiocs nature, being reserved to tbe ! their own model in Holland, cron the States'' al-
magistrate. The pretended acvaniage of this ' lowing them the use of their eh crohes. after their
scheme was, that it avoided the erecting •ntpc- j own service was ended, with libenv of ringing
•ina a imperio. or two different powers in the I a bell to pobhc worship. Here, as they decfar^
saaie civil government ; it effectnaHy destroyed ; they set themselves to consult the Holy Sonp-
aH that spiritual jurisdiction and coereive pow- tures as impartially as thev conld, in order to
er over the consciences of men, which had been tnd ont tbe discipline that the apostles them-
challenged by popes, prelate presbyteries, di!?.. selves practised in the very nrsi age of the
and made the government of the Church a ' Chureh : tbe condition they were in, and the
<3Eatnre ofthe State Most of our first Re??rm- • melancholy prospect of their afiairs affordins no
ers were so far m these sentiments as to mam- temptation to any particular bias. The rest of
tain that no one form of church governmeni :s their history, with their distintmishin? op:n-
prescribed in S-.Tipinre as an invariable rule for i ions. I shall draw from their -\f oloTetieal Nar-
fotme ages, as Cranmer, Redmayn, Cos, ic ; ration, published in 1643, and presented to the
and Arehb.shop Whitgift, in his conttDversy House of Commons
with Cartwright, detirers the same opinion: i "As to the Chureh of England," say they,
'I deny." says he, 'thai the Scr pture has set ¦ we prot'ess. before God and the world, that
down any one certain form of cbnrch govern- ! we do apprehend a great deal of defilemeni in-
ment to be perpetuaL"" -Again : " It is well i their way of worship, and a great deal of un
known that the manner and form of gove.-c- ] warranted po*ver eiertnsed hy their church
ment expressed in the Scripfjres neither is governors, yet we allow multitudes of their pa-
~. rrr 7 ti - , rochial churches to be tme chnrehes. and their
eitianr rower, winch J commrn to 2^ men aaa par- 1 . ,„ ,„„ „ -_,, t ,.„ . ,„ .. 
ti«. tei-lnz to ra«to the Fariiainait reluctant :., tometers ti^e imn-iers In the late tunes,
r€ltr;^h tias eccle^astical supremacv whteh they 1 ""-'^n ^e had no hopes ol reinmirg to our own
to- if;th siicb cimc-jlrr wrested fiom tfie srvereign; ' country, we held communion with them, and
thf It want (rf ac-'jaintiiice with the trze nstnre of ' ofered to receive to Ihe Lord's Scpp^er some
Prv^.^-T---^-" rhnn-h government, which led them to that came to visit tis in our exile, w"bom we
c.-esi thai, if allowed free scf^ie. it might prove as j knew to be godlv. upon that relation and mem-
opAesslve as evai tbe pielaiical. beneath ivh.-se bership they held in theff parish churches in
^"^^Si^JliE?^- I?f.,?^"^™"'^tir "^"^ 'England. ther professirffinemselvesiobe mem-
athv which falen human natnie- feels arsHis: tie '»f-^'l>f'«'f¦ and beiongmg thereto. The same
s;irraalitv aini the poorer of Tital goolizess. it is 1 chantaWe disp.iisiiion we mamtamed towartls
easv t? perceive that" the iiecrv which was s-;.r.rrt- 1 the Dutch chnrehes among whom we lived.
ed ov these three elements in tho-onrii and viprrrns We mntnaliy gave and received the right hand
tnjiDo. WIS oae which it would be no easy matier to j of fellowship, holding a brotherly correspond-
encounter and defeat : or, rather, wils neeover which 1 gjjjg ^ith their diTines. and admiuins some of
Bcsiinr bot Divme powa coolti posiMy gain the 1  '2 
lictorr. The 57"-T^-. r, — '^¦s-'— .e-^rp^r-." with rrrtrieTv *-Tbelndet>ei:iet:i5.~retttir£.5Dr.LittgiLrd, *^were
be rer^ided is -'--Tn-r- a jwrfe m the 'W'e-iiiEristeT few. and tsyzli orhv .rc-mr-ensate the ?o^;ciry of that
Assenblv. as ihey and the Esrlish Pres"rv:eni::= nomi^:^ 'rv iLe enerrr 2-d talent oi their leadws.
were in all imrorrint matters c«nplet=> liertiied. ] They never es.reeieC a cozen m the Assembly; but
SrZ.il may be 'eii!?ed!en5 to dve av? rrirlef aoroant , these were vetemn Gisrrtszts. esrer. feaiiess, and
d men who ccc-jried a r^fsltion so nnDO.-^ant. and jr^erseverisj. whose ^..scnreti: 10 their lavonriledoc-
eierei^d Sot a iinie so sjeat an influeDti (M the af- times nad 'oeen nrete-i rv pe.-sr<:rti«i and enle, ar-l
feir« :•¦ t»th kinEdcms. ' Their names have berai al- who had not escaped fiom the intoleiance <rf one
leadT meatJODedT— Sdfeiisg'Mh p. 116-124.— C j church to sofcsnit lameiy to the ccnrfDl of ancJier."'
* Baite-5 Life, t>. 139. f— ffisfoni^&ffaiid, voL i. p. r4.— C.

iOZ

HISTORY OF TIIE ri'UITANS.

Ihe members of their churches lo communion
in the sacrament, and other ordinances, hy vir
tue of their relation to thoso churchrs "•
The scheme they embraoid was a middle
way between Iltownism and Presbytery, viz ,
that "every particular congregation of Chris
tians has an entire and complete power of ju
risdiction over Us members, lo be exorcised by
the elders thereof, within itself. This, they are
sure, must have been the form of government
in the primitive Church, before the numbers of
Christians in any city were mulliphed so far as
to divide inlo many congregations, which it is
dubious whether it was the fact in the apostles'
times t
•• Not that they claim an entire independency
with regard to other churches, for they agree
that, in all cases of offence, the offending church
is to submit lo an open examination by other
neighbouring churches, and, on their persisting
in their error of miscarriage, they then are lo
renounce all Christian coimnunion wilh them
till they repent, which is all the authority or
ecclesiastical power that one church may exer
cise over another, unless they call in the civil
magistrate, for which they find no authority in
Scripture t
" Their method of public worship in Holland
was the same with other Protestants : they
read the Scriptures of the Old and New Testa
ment in their asserablies, and expounded them
on proper occasions ; they offered up public and
solemn prayers for kings, and all in authority ;
and though they did not approve of a prescribed
form, they adraitted that public prayer in their
assemblies ought to be framed by the medita
tion and study of their ministers, as well as
their sermons ; the Word of God was constant
ly preaehed; the two sacraments, of baptism
lo infants and the Lord's Supper, were frequent
ly administered ; to which was added singing
of psalms, and a collection for the poor every
Lord's Day.
"They profess their agreement in doctrine
with the articles ofthe Church of England and
other Reformed churches.
" Their officers and public riders in the
Church were pastors, teachers, ruling elders
(not lay, but ecclesiastical persons, separated
to that service), and deacons.
" They practised no church censures but ad
monition, and excommunication upon obstinate
and impenitent offenders ; which latter, they
apprehended, should not be pronounced but for
crimes ofthe last importance, and which may
be reasonably supposed to be committed con
trary to the light and conviction of the person's
conscience. "In conclusion, they call God and man to
witness that, out of a regard to the public
peace, they had forbore to publish their peculiar
opinions, either from the pulpit or press, or to
improve the present disposition ofthe people to
the increase of their party ; nor should they
have published that apology to the worid, had
not their silence been interpreted as an ac
knowledgment of those reproaches and calum
nies that have been cast upon thera by their
adversaries, but should have waited for a free
and open debate of their sentiments in the pres-

* Apologet. Nar. of the Independents, p. 78
+ Ibid., n 19 IS ^. iV:j .

p. 12, 15

X Ibid., p. 18.

ent .Assembly of Divines, though Ihcy arc sen
sible thev shall have the disadvantage niih re
gard lo numbers, learning, and the slrrani of
public interest ; however, Ihey are determined,
in all debates, to yield lo tho utmost latitude of
their conscieiiees, professing it to be as high a
point of religion to acknowledge their iiiiMakes
when they are convinoeil of Ihein, as to hold
fast the truth ; and when matter.s arc brought
to the nearest a^'reelllenl, to promote such a.
temper as may tend to union as well as truth •
" They therefore heseeeli the honourable
houses of Parliament not to look upon them as
disturbers of Ihe public peace, but to consider
them as persons that differ but little from their
brethren, yea, far less than they do frora what
theraselves practised three years ago They
beseech lliciii likewise to have sorae regard lo
their past e.vile and present sufferings, and upon
these accounts to allow iheni to continue in
their native country, with the enjoyiiient ofthe
ordinances of Christ, and an indulgence in some
lesser differences, as long as they continue
peaceable subjects.
" Signed by
" Thos. Goodwin, Sydrach Simpson, Philip
Nye, Jer. Burroughs, Williara Bridge"t
The Reverend Mr Herle, afterward prolocu
tor of the Asserably, in his imprimatur to this
.Apology, calls it a perforraance full of peaoe-
ableness, raodesty, and candour ; and, though
he wrote against it, yet. in his preface to his
book, entitled "The Independency upon Scrip
ture of the Independency of Churches," says,
" The difference between us and our brethren
who are for independency is nothing so great
as some may conceive ; at raost, it does but
ruffle the fringe, not any way rend the garraent
of Christ ; it is so far frora being a fundamental,
Ihat it is scarce a material difference." The
more rigid Presbyterians attacked the Apology
with greater severity ; swarms of pamphlets
« ere published against it in a few months, sorae
reflecting on the persons of the apologists, and
others on their principles, as tending to break
the uniformity ofthe Church under the pretence
of liberty of conscience. The most furious ad
versaries were Dr. Bastwick, old Mr. Vicars,
and .\lr. Edwards, minister of Christ Church,
London, who printed an Anlapologia of three
hundred pages in quarto, full of such bitter in
vectives, that the pacific Mr. Burroughs said,
" he questioned whether any good man ever
vented so much malice against others, whpnv
he acknowledged to be pious and religious per
sons." But we shall have occasion to remem
ber this gentleman hereafter.
Lord Clarendon and Mr. Echard represent
the Independents as ignorant and illiterate en
thusiasts ; and though Mr. Rapin confesses^ he
knew nothing of tlieir rise and progress, he has
painted thera out in the most disadvantageous
colours, affirraing " that their principles were
exceeding proper to put the kingdom into a
flame ; that they abhoned monarchy, and ap
proved of none but a Republican government,
and that, as to religion, their principles were
contrary to all the rest of the world ; that they
would not endure ordinary ministers in the
Church, but every one araong thera prayed.

* Apologet. Narr. of the Independents, p. 24, lio, 27.
t Ibid., p. 30. 1 Vol. u., p. 514. folio.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

•493

(preached, admonished, jyid interpreted Scrip
ture, without any other call than what himself
drew from his supposed gifts and the approba
tion of his hearers."
It is surprising so accurate an historian
should take such liberties with men whose
principles he was so little acquainted with as
to say the Independents abhorred monarchy,
and approved of none but a Republican govern
ment ; whereas they assure the world, in their
Apology, that they prayed publicly for kings,
and all in authority. This was no point of
controversy between them and the Presbyte
rians, for when they had the king in their cus
tody they served hira on the knee, and, in all
probability, would have restored him to the
honours of his crown, if he had complied with
•their proposals. . M'hen they were reproached
with being enemies to magistracy, a declara
tion was published by the Congregational socie
ties in and about London, in the year 1647,
wherein they declare, " that as magistracy and
government in general are the ordinance of
God, they do not disapprove of any form of
civil government, but do freely acknowledge
that a kingly government, bounded by just and
wholesome laws, is both allowed by God, and
a good accommodation unto men."* And if
we may believe Dr. Welwood, t when the array
¦resolved to set aside the present king, the gov-
¦erning party would have advanced the Duke of
•Gloucester to the throne, if they could have done
it with safety. With regard to religion, Rapin
adds, their principles were contrary to all the
rest of the world ; and yet they gave their con
sent to all the doctrinal articles of the Assem
bly's Confession of Faith, and declared, in their
Apology, their agreement with the doctrinal
¦articles of the Church of England, and with all
the Protestant Reformed churches in their Har
mony of Confessions, differing only about the
jurisdiction of classes, synods, and convoca
tions, and the point of liberty of conscience.
Our historian adds, that " they were not only
.averse to Episcopacy, but would not endure so
much as ordinary ministers in the Church.
They raaintained that every man might pray in
public, exhort his brethern, and interpret Scrip
ture, without any other call than what himself
drew from his zeal and supposed gifts, and
¦without any other authority than the approba
tion of his hearers." Here his annotator, Mr.
Tindal, rightly observes, that he has mistaken
the Independents for the Brownists ; the Inde-
•pendents had their stated officers in the Church
for public prayer, preaching, and administering
the sacraments, as pastors, teachers, and el
ders (who were ecclesiastics), and deacons to
take care of the poor ; nor did they admit of
persons unordained to any office to exercise
their gifts publicly, except as probationers, in
order to their devoting themselves to the minis
try. The words of their confession are, " The
work of preaching is not so peculiarly confined
to pastors and teachers, but that others also
gifted, and fitted by the Holy Ghost for it, and
approved'(being by lawful ways and means, by
the providence of God, called thereunto), may
publicly, ordinarily, and Constantly perform it,
so that they give themselves up thereunto. "i

* Page 8. t Memoirs, p. 90, 1718.
X Savoy Conference, 4to, p. 24, art. 14.

It is necessary the reader should make these
remarks, to rectify a train of mistakes which
runs through this part of Mr. Rapin's history,
and to convince him that the king's death was
not owing to the distinguishing tenets of any
sect or party of Christians. There were, in
deed, some Republicans and Levellers in the
army, whose numbers increased after they de
spaired of bringing the king into their measures,
and it is well known that at their first appear
ance Cromwell, by his personal valour, sup
pressed thera with the hazard of his life. These
were chiefly Anabaptists, and proved as great
enemies to the protector as they had been to.
the king. But there is nothing in the principles
of the Presbyterians, Independents, or Anabap
tists, as far as I can learn, inconsistent with
monarchy, or that had a natural tendency to
put the kingdom into a flame.
Mr. Baxter, who was no friend to the Inde
pendents, and knew them much better than the
above-mentioned writers, admits " that most
of them were zealous, and very many learned,
discreet, and pious, capable of being very ser
viceable to the Church, and searchers into
Scripture and antiquity ;"* though he blames
them, on other occasions, for making too light
of ordination ; for their too great strictness in
the qualification of church members ; for their
popular form of church government, and their
too much exploding of synods and councils ; and
then adds, " I saw commendable care of seri
ous holiness and discipline in most of the Inde
pendent churches ; and I found that some Epis
copal men, of whom Archbishop Usher was one,
agreed with them in this, that every bishop was
independent, and that synods and councils were
not so much for government as concord." And
I may venture to declare that these are the
sentiments of almost all the Protestant Non
conformists in England at this day.
There was not one professed Antipaedobap-
tist in the Assembly, though their sentiments
began to spread wonderfully without doors.
Their teachers were for the most part Uliterate,
yet Mr. Baxter says.t "he found many of them
sober, godly, and zealous, not differing from their
brethren but as io infant baptism." These join
ing with the Independents in the points of dis
cipline and toleration, made them the more
considerable, and encouraged their opposition
to the Presbyterians, who were for establishing
their own discipline, without regard to .such as
differed from them.
It is not to be wondered that so raany par
ties with different views should entangle the
proceedings of this venerable body, and protract
the intended union witli the Scots ; though, as
soon as the Covenant was taken, they entered
upon that aft'air, the Parliament having sent
them the following order, dated October 12,
1643. "Upon serious consideration ofthe present
state of affairs, the Lords and Commons assem
bled in this present Parliament do order, that
the Assembly of Divines and others do forth
with confer, and treat among themselves, of
such a discipline and government as may he
most agreeable to God's hcJy Word, and most
apt to procure and preserve the peace of the
Church at home, and a nearer agreement with
* Baiter's Life, p. 140, 143. t Life. ?¦ 40.

494

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS

the Church of Scotland, i.^:r, to he settled in
this Churoh in^iead of ilio present church gov
ernment hy archbishops, bishops. &r . which il
is resolved to take auay ; and to deliver iheir
advice touching the same to both houses of Par
liament Willi all convenient speed."
Hereupon the .Vsseinliiy set themselves to
inquire into the conslilution of the primitive
Chureh, in the days of the apostles, which, be
ing founded upon the model of the Jewish syn-
aL'ojiues, gave the Lightfoots, the .Siiihns, the
Colnians, and other masters of Jewish antiqui-
ties. an opportunity of displaying their superior
learning, by new and unheard-of interpretations
of Scripture, whereby they frequently discon
certed the warmer Presbyterians, whose plan
of discipline ihey had no mind should reeeive
the stamp of an apostolic sanction in the Church
of England *
It was undoubtedly a capital mistake in the
proceedings of Parliament to destroy one build
ing belore they were agreed upon another. The
ancient order of worship and discipline in the
Church of England was set aside above twelve
months before any other form was appointed ;
during which time, no wonder sects and divis
ions arrived to such a pitch, that it was not in
their power alterward to destroy thera. Com
mittees, indeed, were appointed to prepare ma
terials for the debate of the Assembly, some for
discipline, and others for worship, which were de-
baled in order, and then laid aside without being
perfected, or sent up lo Parliament lo be framed
into a law. .Nothing can be alloj^ed in excuse
of this, but their backwardness to unite with
the Scots, or the prospect the Parliament might
yet have of an agreement with the king.
The first point that came upon the carpet was
the ordination of ministers ; which was the more
necessary, because the bishops refused to ordain
any who were nott in the interest ofthe crown :
this gave occasion to inquire into the ancient
right of presbyters to ordain without a bishop,
which meeting with sorae opposition, the com
mittee proposed a temporary provision till the
matter should be settled, and offered these two
queries ;
First, " Whether, in extraordinary cases,
something extraordinary raay not be admitted,
till a settled order can he fixed, yet keeping as
near to the rule as possible 1"
Secondly, " Whether certain ministers of this
city may not be appointed to ordain ministers
in Ihe city and neighbourhood, for a certain
time, jure fraternitalis .''
To the last of which the Independents enter
ed their dissent, unless the ordination was at
tended with the previous election of some
church. New difficulties being continually start
ed, upon this and sorae other heads, the Scots
coramissioners were out of all patience, and ap
plied to the city ministers to petition the Parlia
ment to call for the advice of the Assembly.
The petition was presented September 18, 1644,
in which, having reminded the Commons of
their remonstrance, wherein they declare it was
- Lightfoot's Remains, in Pref, p. 8.
+ Bishop Hall complained that he was violently
ri^trumed in his power of ordination. On this sin-
g.e instance iir Grey grounds a general as-ertion,
Ihal • !<¦ bL-hopa were prevented from ordaininr by
the rJLjle. — Ed

not their intention lojet loose the golden reins
of discipline ; and ol their nalional Covenaiii.
wherein they had cnf;.iyed m the most high God
to settle a unlforniitv in the Church , ihey add,
" Give us leave, wc lusccch you, in purituaiicc
of our nalional Covenant, to sigh out our sor
rows at the fool nf this honourable senate
Through many erroneous opinions, ruinating
scliisiiis, and duuinable hensies, unhappily fo
mented in thi> ciiy and coiinlry, tho ortliodoi
iniiiislry is lu ^Iccinl. the people are seduced,
congrei;.ilions lorn asunder, families distracted,
rights and duties of relations, national, civil,
and spiritual, scandalously violated, llie power
of godliness decayed, parliament. iry aulhority
undermined, fearful confusions introduced, im
minent destruction threatened, and in pari in
flicted upon us lately in the wc:,!. .May it there
fore please your wisdoms, as a sovereign rem
edy for the removal of our present niiscnes, and
prevenlini; their farther progress, to expedite a
directory for public worslnp, to accelerate the
establishraent of a pure discipline and govern
raent, ac ¦oulmg to the Word of God and tho
example ofthe best Reformed churches, and to
take away all ohstructions that may impede and
retard our humble desires."" Upon this the
.Vssembly were ordered lo send up their humble
advice upon this head: which was lo the fol-
lowins effect [September T2], viz., that in this
present exigency, while there were no Presby-
leiians, yet it being necessary Ihat ministers
should be ordained for the army and navy, and
for the serviee of many destitute congregations,
by some who, having been ordained Iheinselves,
have power to join in the setting apart of oth
ers : they advise,
(1.) That an association of sorae godly mIn
isters In and about tho city of London be ap
pointed hy public authority, to ordain ininisters
for the city and the neighbouring parts, keeping
as near to the rule as may be.
('2.) That the like associations be raade by
the same authority in great towns and neigh
bouring parishes in the several counties, which
are at present quiet and undisturbed.
(3 ) That such as are chosen, or appointed
for the service of tho army or navy, being well
recommended, be ordained as aforesaid, by tho
associated ministers of London, or some others
in the country, and the like for any other con
gregations that want a minister.t
According to this advice, the two houses
passed an ordinance, October 2, for the ordina
tion of ministers pro <em/)orc, which appoints Ihe
following ten persons, being presbyters, and
members of the Assembly, to examine and or
dain, by imposition of hands, all those whom
they shall judge qualified to be admitted into
the sacred ministry, viz.,
Dr. Cornelius Burgess, .Mr Edmund Calamy.
assessor .Mr. Humphrey Chamber.-!.
Mr. George Walker. !\Ir. John Ley.
.Mr. John Conant. Mr Starkey Gower
.Mr. Daniel Cawdry. .Mr. Honry Roborough.
Dr. William Gouge.
And the following thirteen, being presbyters
of the city of London, hut not members of the
Asserably, viz.,

* Rushworth, vol. v., p. 7sO.
t Vol. Pamp., penes mr. No. 0'

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

495

Rev. Mr. John Downham. Rev. Mr. Sam. Clarke.
Mr. Tim. Dodd. Mr. Fulk Billers.
Mr. Tho. Clendon. Mr. Leon. Cooke.
Mr. Em. Bourne. Mr. Richard Lee.
Mr. Fr. Roberts. Mr. Tho. Horton.
Mr. Cha. Offspring. Mr. Arthur Jackson.
Mr. James Cranford.
Arid seven or more to be a quorum, and all
persons so ordained to be reputed ministers of
the Churoh of England, sufficiently authorized
for any office or employment therein, and capa
ble of all advantages appertaining to the same.
Their rules for examination and trial of candi
dates will be seen the next year, when this af
fair was fully settled. In the raean time an
other ordinance passed the houses for the hefi-,
efit of the county of Lancaster, whereby the
Rev. Mr. Charles Herie, Mr. Richard Herrick,
Mr. Hyet, Mr. Bradshaw, Mr. Isaac Ambrose,
and others, to the number of twenty-one, had
full power given them to ordain pro tempore in
the county of Lancaster. And to obviate the
reproaches of the O.xford divines,, the following
clause was added : " That if any person do pub
licly preach, or otherwise exercise any minis
terial office, who shall not be ordained, or there
unto allowed by seven of the- said ministers,
their names shall he returned to both houses of
Parliaraent, to be dealt with as they in their
wisdom shall think fit." It was voted farther,
that " no minister be allowed to preach unless
he has a certificate of his ordination, or at least
of his heing examined and approved by the As
sembly."* And February 16, at a conference
between the two houses, it was agreed that the
Assembly of Divines be desired to admit none
into their pulpits except such whose doctrine
they would be answerable for. Such was the
concern of the Parliament in these distracted
times, to have a sober and well-regulated clergy.
Next to the providing for a succession of
ministers by ordination, the Assembly. consult
ed about a form of devotion. The old liturgy
being laid aside, there were no public officers
in the Church : a committee was therefore ap
pointed, October 17, 1643, to agree upon cer
tain general heads for the direction of the min
ister in the discharge of his office, which, hav
ing passed through the Assembly, were sent into
Scotland for the approbation of the General As
sembly, and then established by an ordinance
of Parliament bearing date January 3, 1644-5,
under the title of " A Directory for Public Wor
ship." The reasons which induced the Parliament
to discard the old liturgy, and form a new plan
for the devotion of the Church, I shall tran
scribe from their own preface. " It is evident,"
say they, " after long and sad experience, that
the liturgy used in the Church of England, not
withstanding all the pains and religious inten
tions ofthe compilers, has proved an offence to
many of the godly at home, and to the Reform
ed churches abroad. The enjoining the reading
all the prayers heightened the grievances, and
the many unprofitable and burdensome ceremo
nies have occasioned much mischief, by disqui
eting the consciences of many who could not
yield to them. Sundry good people have by
this means been kept frora the Lord's table,
and many faithful ministers debarred from .the
* Parliamentary Chronicle, p. 152.

exercise of their ministry, to the ruin of them
and their families. The prelates and their fac
tion have raised their estimation of it lo such a
height, as if God could be worshipped no other
way but hy the service-hook; in consequence
of which the preaching of the Word has been
depreciated, and in some places entirely neg
lected. " In the mean time, the papists have made
their advantage this way, boasting that the
Common Prayer Book came up to a compliance
with a great part of their service, by which
means they were not a little confirmed in their
idolatry and superstition, especially of late,
when now ceremonies were daily obtruded upon
the Church.
" Besides, the liturgy has given great encour
agement to an idle and unedifying ministry,
who choose rather to confine tliemselves to
forms made to their hands than to exert them
selves in the exercise ofthe gift of prayer, with
which our Saviour furnishes all those whom he
calls to that office.
" For, these and many other weighty consid
erations, relating to the book in general, be
sides divers particulars which are a just ground
of offence, it is thought advisable to set aside
the former liturgy, with the many rites and cer
emonies formerly used in the worship of God,,
not out of any affectation of novelty, nor with
an intention to disparage our first Reformers,.
but that we may answer, in some measure, the
gracious providence of God which now calls
upon us for a farther reformation ; that we may
satisfy our own consciences, answer the ex
pectations of other Reformed churches, ease
the consciences of many godly persons among
ourselves, and give a public testimony of our
endeavours after a uniformity in Divine wor
ship, pursuant to wljat we had promised in our
solemn League and Covenant."
It has been observed that the Directory is
not an absolute form of devotion, but, agreeably
to its title, contains only some general direc
tions, taken partly from the Word of God, and
partly from rules of Christian prudence ; it
points out the heads of public prayer, of preach
ing, and other parts of the pastoral function,
leaving the ministers a discretionary latitude to
fill up the vacancies according to his abilities.
It is divided into several chapters, and being a
book ofa public nature, comprehending all the
peculiarities of the Presbyterian reformation, I
have given it a place in the Appendix.* Mr.
Fuller observes,! that the Independents in the
Assembly were hardly persuaded to consent to
it, for fear of infringing the liberty of prayer,
yet being adraitted to qualify some things in the
preface, they complied. The committee who
composed the preface were Mr. Nye, Mr. Bridg
es, Mr. Burges, Mr. Thomas Goodwin, all Inde
pendents ; Mr. Vines, Mr. Reynolds, Mr. Mar
shal, and Dr. Temple, with the Scots commis
sioners. '
The Diri3ctory passed the Assembly with
great unanimity ; those who were for set forms
' of prayer resolving to confine themselves to the
very words of the Directory, while others made
use of them only as heads for their enlarge
ment^  * Appendix, No. 8. '
t Church History, b. xi., p. 222.

496 It may not be Improper in this pl.ace to ad
vise the reader of the following variations intro
duced into the service ofthe Church upon this
occasion. Instead of one prescribed form of
prayer, the Directory only points out certain
topics on which the minister might enlarge.
The whole .\pocrypha is rejected ; private and
lay baptism, wilh the use of godfathers and god
mothers, and the sign of the cross, are discon
tinued.* In the sacrament of the Lord's Sup
per no mention is made of private communion,
or administering it to the sick. The altar with
rails is changed into a communion-table, to be
placed in the body of the church, about which
the people might stand or sit, kneeling not be
ing thought so proper a posture. The Presby
terians were for giving the power of the keys
into the hands of the ministers and elders, as
the Independents were to the whole brother
hood ; but Lightfoot, Selden, Colman, and oth
ers were for an open communion, to whom the
Parliament were most inclinable, for all they
¦would yield was, that " the minister, immedi
ately before the coramunion, should warn, in the
name of Christ, all such as are ignorant, scan
dalous, profane, or that live in any sin or of
fence against their knowledge or conscience,
that they presume not to come to that holy
table, showing them that he that eateth and
drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judg
ment to himself "> "The prohibition of marriage
in Lent, and the use ofthe ring, are laid aside.
In the visitation ofthe sick, no mention is raade
of private confession, or authoritative absolu
tion. No service is appointed for the burial of
the dead. All particular vestments for priests
or ministers, and all saints' days, are discarded.
It has been reckoned a considerable omission,
that the Directory does not enjoin reading the
Apostles' Creed and the Ten Commandraents ;
Lord Clarendon reports! that, when this was
observed in private conversation at the treaty
of Uxbridge, the Earl of Perabroke said he was
sorry for the oraission, but that, upon a debate
in the House of Commons, it was carried in the
negative by eight or nine voices. Which raade
many smile, says his lordship ; but the jest will
be lost, when the reader is informed that the
question in the House was not whether the
Creed should be received or rejected, but wheth
er it shovdd be printed with the Directory for

HISTORY OF THE Pl'RlTANS.

*" Another variation, not noticed by Mr. Neal, was
the exclusion of dipping, and declaring sprinkling to
be sufficient. This was owing to Dr. Lightfoot.
When the Assemby came to the vote whether the
Directory should run thus, " The minister shall
take water, and sprinkle or pour it with his hand
upon the face or forehead of the child," some were
unwilling to have dipping excluded, so that the vote
came to an equably within one ; for the one side there
being twenty-four, and for the other twenty-five. Next
day the aflair was resumed, when the doctor insisted
on hearing the reasons of those who were for dip
ping. At length it was proposed that it should be
expressed thus : that " pouring qn of water, or sprink
ling, in the administration of baptism, is lawful and
sufficient." Lightfoot excepted against the word
"lawful," it being the same as if it should be deter
mined lawful to use bread and wine in the Lord's
Supper ; and he moved that it might be expressed
thus: "It is not only lawful, but also sufficient;"
and it was put down so accordingly. — Robinson's
History of Baptism, p. 450, 451. — Ed. {Toulmin).
t Clarendon, voL ii, p. 588.

worship, il being apprehended more proper for
a confession of faith ; and accordingly the Creed
and Ten Commandments were added lo tho
.Assembly's confession, published a year or two
forward. The ordinance for ejlablishlng the
Dircclory repeals and makes void the acts of
Edviard \'I. and Queen Elizabeth, by which llic
old liturgy was estatilished, and forbids ilie uso
of it within any church, chapel, or piece of puB-
lic worship in England or Wales, appointini;
the use of the Directory in its room ; and thus
it continued till the restoration of King Charles
II., when the Constitution being restored, tho
old liturgy took plaoe again, the ordinance for
its repeal having never obtained the royal as-
*sent. It was a considerable time before this great
revolution in the form of public worship took
place over the whole kingdom. In some parts
of the country the church-wardens could not
procure a Directory, and in others they despi
sed it, and continued the old Common Prayer
Book ; some would read no form, and others
would use one of their own. In order, there
fore, to give life to the Directory, the Parlia
ment next summer called in all Common Pray
er Books, and imposed a fine upon those minis
ters who should read any other form than that
contained in the Directory.* The ordinance is
dated August 23, 1645, and enacts that "the
knights and burgesses of tho several counties
of England and Wales shall send printed books
of the Directory, fairly bound, to the compiittee
of Parliament in their several counties, who
shall deliver them to the officers of the several
parishes in England and Wales, hy whom Ihey
shall be delivered to the several ministers of
each parish. It ordains farther, that the sever
al ministers, next Lord's Day after receiving
the Book of Directory, shall read it openly in
their respective churches before raorning ser
mon. It then forbids the use of the Common
Prayer Book in any church, chapel, or place of
public worship, or in any private place or fami
ly, under penalty of £5 for the first offence, £10
for the second, and for the third a year's im
prisonment. Such ministers as do not observe
the Directory in all exercises of public worship
shall forfeit 40s. ; and they who, with a design
to hring the Directory into contempt, or to raise
opposition to it, shall preach, write, or print
anything in derogation of it, shall forfeit a sum
of money not under £5, nor more than X50, to
be given to the poor. All Coramon Prayer
Books remaining in parish churches or chapels
are ordered within a month to be carried to the
committee ofthe several counties, to be dispo
sed of as the Parliament shall direct."t
These were the first-fruits of Presbyterian
uniformity, and are equally to be condemned
with the severities and oppressions of the late
times ; for though it should be admitted that
the Pariiament or Legislature had a right to
abrogate the use of the Comraon Prayer Book
in churches, was it not highly unreasonable to
forbid the reading it in private families or clos
ets ? Surely the devotion of a private family

» 'Who does not see the spuit of persecution
which invariably accompanies all attempts of a
church or nation at uniformity ? Independency has
not this sin to answer for. — C.
t Rushworth, part iv., vol. i., p. 205.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

497

could be no disturbance to the public ; nor is it
any excuse to say that very few suffered by it,
because the law is still the same, and equally
injurious to the natural rights of mankind.
Though his majesty's affairs were very des
perate after the battle of Naseby, yet he had
the courage to forbid the use of the new Direct
ory, and enjoin the continuance of the Common
Prayer, by a proclamation from Oxford, dated
TJovember 13, 1645, in which his majesty takes
notice, that " the Book of Comraon Prayer, be
ing a most excellent form of worship, grounded
on the Holy Scriptures, is a great help to devo
tion, and tends to preserve a uniformity in the
Church of England ; whereas the Directory
gives liberty to ignorant, factious, and evil men
to broach their own fancies and conceits, and
utter those things in their long prayers which
no conscientious man can assent to ; and be
the minister never so pious, it breaks in upon
the uniformity of public service. And whereas
this alteration is introduced by an ordinance
of Parliament, inflicting penalties on offenders,
which was never pretended to be in their pow
er without our consent : now, lest our silence
should be interpreted as a connivance in a'mat-
ter so highly concerning the worship of God,
and the established laws of the kingdom, we do
therefore require and command all ministers in
all cathedral and parish churches, and all other
places of public worship, that the said Book of
¦Common Prayer be kept and used in all church
es, chapels, &c., according to the statute prima
Eliz., and that the Directory be in no sort ad
mitted, received, or used ; and whensoever it
shall please God to restore us to peace, and the
laws to their due course, we shall require a strict
account, and prosecution against the breakers
-ofthe said law. And, in the mean time, in such
places where we shall come and find the Book
of Common Prayer suppressed and laid aside,
and the Directory introduced, we shall account
all those that are aidfrs, actors, or contrivers
therein, to be persons disaffected to the religion
and laws established."*
His majesty likewise issued out warrants
under his own hand, to the heads ofthe univer-
¦sity, commanding them to read Divine service
as usual, morning and evening ; and assured
his peers at Oxford that he was still determin
ed to live and die for the privileges of his crown,
"his friends, and church government.
About this time the Anabaptists [or, more
properly, Antipaedobaptists] began to make a
considerable figure, and spread themselves into
several separate congregations. We have al
ready distinguished the German Anabaptists
from the English, who differed only from their
Protestant brethren about the subject and mode
of baptism ; these were divided into general
and particular, from their different sentiments
upon the Arminian controversy ; the former ap
peared in Holland, where Mr. Smith, their lead
er, published a confession of faith, in the year
1611 which Mr. Robinson, the minister of the
Independent congregation at Leyden, answered
in 1614 ; but the severity of those times would
iiot admit them to venture into England. The
particular Baptists were strict Calvinists, and
were so called from their belief of the doctrines

of particular election, redemption, &c. They
separated from the Independent congregation
about the year 1638, and set up for themselves,
under the pastoral care of Mr. Jesse, as has heen
related ; and having renounced their former
baptism, they sent over one of their number
[Mr. Blunt] to be immersed by one of the Dutch
Anabaptists of Amsterdam, that he might be
qualified to baptize his friends in England after
the same manner.* A strange and unaccount
able conduct! for, unless the Dutch Anabap
tists could derive their pedigree in an uninter
rupted line from the apostles, the first reviver
of this usage must have heen unbaptized, and,
consequently, not capable of comraunicating the
ordinance to others. Upon Mr. Blunt's return
he baptized Mr. Blacklock, a teacher, and Mr.
Blacklock dipped the rest of the society, to the
number bf fifty-three, in this present year, 1644.
"Presuming upon the patience of the state,"
says Dr. Featly, " they have rebaptized one hun
dred men and women together, in the twilight,
in rivulets, and some arms ofthe Thames, and
elsewhere, dipping Ihem over head and ears.
They have printed divers pamphlets in defence
of their heresy," says the same author, " and
challenged some of our preachers to a disputa
tion. "+ Nay, so wonderfully did this opinion
prevail, that there were no less than forty-seven
congregations in the country ; and seven in
London at this time, who published a confes
sion of their faith, signed iij the name of their
congregations, hy William Kiffin, Thomas Pa
tience, George Tipping, John Spilsbury, Thomas
Sheppard, Thomas Munden, Thomas Gun, John
Mabbet, John Webb, Thomas Kilcop, Paul Hob-
son, Thomas Gore, John Philips, and Edward
Heath. In the year 1646 it was reprinted, with
the additional names of Dennis le Barhier and
Christopher Durell, minister of the French con
gregation in London, ofthe same judgment.
Their confession consisted of fifty-two arti
cles, and is strictly Calvinistical in the doctri
nal part, and according to the Independent dis
cipline ; it confines the subject of baptism to
grown Christians, and the mode to immersion ;
it admits of gifted lay-preachers, and acknowl
edges a due subjection to the civU magistrate
in all things lawful, and concludes thus : " We
desire to live quietly and peaceably, as becomes
saints, endeavouring, in all things, to keep a
good conscience, and to do to every man, of
what judgment soever, as we would they should
do to us ; that, as our practice is, so it may
prove us to be a conseionable, quiet, and harm
less people (no way dangerous or troublesome
to human society), and to labour to work with

¦* Rushworth, part iv., vol. i.,
Vol. I. — R k b

.207.

* MS. penes.
t Dr. Fea,tly was the author of the famous pam
phlet entitled " The Dippers Dipped." Its tone and
temper are none of the mildest, as may be judged from
this extract. Rarely has more gall and malice been
concentrated than in this now obsolete production.
In wonderful contrast is the spirit of " the Confession
of Faith" referred to. The superscription is, " To all
that desire the lifting up of the name of the Lord
Jesus in sincerity, the poor despised churches of
God in London send greeting with prayers for their
farther increase in the knowledge of Christ Jesus."
This Confession is an admirable compend of sound
doctrine, and appeared in 1644. A fac-simile edition
is now in the press of W. D. Ticknor & Co., Boa-
ton.— C.

iO^

HISTORY OF THE PI RITANS.

our hands, thai ne may not be chargeable to
any. but lo give lo him that necdetli, both friend
anil cnem>. accounting it more c\ccllciit to
give than to receive. .\lso we confess that vve
knovi^ but in part : to show us from the Word
of God that which we see not, we shall have
cause to be thankful lo God and thera. But if
any man shall Impose upon us anything that wc
see not lo be commanded by our Lord Jesus
Christ, we should, in his strength, rather em
brace all reproaches and tortures of men ; to be
stripped of all our outward coraforts, and, if it
were possible, to die a thousand deaths, rather
than lo do anything against the truth of God,
or against the light of our own consciences.
And if any shall call what we have said heresv,
then do we wilh the apostle acknowledge, that
after the way they call heresy so worship wc
the God of our fathers ; disclairaing all heresies
(rightly so called) because they are against
Christ ; and In desiring to be steadfast and im
movable, always abounding in obedience to
Christ, as knuvving our labour shall not be in
vain in the Lord."
When Dr. Featly had read this confession,
he owned they were neither heretics nor schis
matics, but tender-hearted Christians, upon
whom, through false suggestions, the hand of
authority had fallen heavy while the hierarchv
stood. The advocates ^f this doctrine were, for the
most part, of the meanest of the people ; their
preachers were generally illiterate, and went
about the country raaking proselytes of all who
would submit to immersion, wiihout a due re
gard to their acquaintance with the principles
of religion, or their moral characters. The wri
ters of these times represent them as tinctured
with a kind of enthusiastic fury against all that
opposed them. .Mr. Baxter says,* "There were
but few of thera that had not been the opposers
and troublers of faithful ministers ; that in this
they strengthened tho hands ofthe profane, and
that, in general, reproach of ministers, faction,
pride, and scandalous practices, were fomented
in their way."t But still there were among
them some learned, and a great raany sober and
devout Christians, who disallowed of the ira-
prudence of their country friends. The two
most learned divines that espoused their cause
were .Mr. Francis Cornwall, .M..\ , of Emanuel
College, and .Mr. John Tombes, B.D., educated
in the University of Oxford, a person of incora-

? Baxter's Life, p. 102, 144.
t We refer the reader, for a more full account of
the Baptists of this perioil, to the Supplement m vol.
ill., where their history will be given in greater de-
tjil, and continued without interruption. Suffice it
lo say here, that .Mr. Baxter, great and excellent as
he WLis. had his weaknesses and prejudices, for which
much allowance must be made. Severe as is what
he says above of the Baptists, he speaks of them, at
other tunes, with more cjiidour and respect. As p.
140 of his Lde ; " For the Anabaptists themselves
(thoiish 1 have written and said so much against
them), us I found most of them were persons of zeal
in religion, so many of them were sober, godly peo
ple, and dilfered from others but in the point of in-
liiit baptism ; or, at most, m the points of predesti
nation, and freewill, and perseverance." It is to be
tefretled, on the ground of the justice due to thio
people, and even to .Mr. Baxter, that Mr. Neal should
have overlooked or omitted this testimony, so hon-
O'jrable to both —Ed. ( Toulmin)

parable parts, well versed in the Greek and
IIcImcw laiigua!,'cs, and u nio«t excellent diapu-
l.int lie wrote sever. il letiers to Mr .Selden
agamst infant baptism, and publi.^hcd a l„itiit
cxercitation upon the same siihjcot, containing
several arguments, which lie rcpri-?.ciilcd to Iho
coiunullce appointed by the .ysscinbly lo pul a
stop to the progress of lliis o|iiiiion. The cx
ercitation being translated into English, brought
upon him a whole army ol adversaries, among
whom were the Reverend Ih Ilaminond, Dr.
Holmes, Mr. .Mar.-.hal, Fuller, Gcicc, Baxter, and
others. The people of this persuasion were more
exposed lo the public rcsentiiiciils, because Ihcy
would hold communion with none but such as
had been dipped. .\11 must |Kias under this
cloud before they could he received into their
churches ; and the same narrow spirit prevails
too generally among them even at this day,'
Besides the above-raontioncd writers, tho
most eminent divines in the (ity of London, lis
Mr \'iiies, Calaray, and others, preached vigor
ously against these doctrines, which they had a
right to do, though it was raost unjustiliable lo
hght them at the same liiue with the sword of
the civil iuagistrale,t and shut tliciu up iii pris
on, as was the case of sever, il In this and the
following year, among whom are reckoned the
Reverend .Mr. Henry Denii, forraeriy ordaiiietl
by the Bishop of St. David's, and possessed of
the living of Pyeton, in Hertfordshire; .Mr.
Coppe, minister in Warwickshire, and some
lime preacher to the garrison in Compton
House ; Mr. Hanserd Knollys, who was several
limes before the committee for preaching .\nii-
nomianism and Antipaidobaptism ; and being
forbid to preach in the public churches, he open
ed a separate meeting in Great St. Helen's,
from whence ho was quickly dislodged and his
followers dispersed. Mr. Andrew Wyke, in the
county of Suffolk, was iraprisoned on the same
account, and Mr. Oates^in Essex, tried for his
life, in Chelmsford Ass&es, for tho murder of
Anne Martin, because she died a few days after
her immersion, of a cold that seized her at that
time. Lawrence Clarkson was imprisoned by
the committee of Suffolk, and having lain in jail
SLX months, signed a recantation, and was re
leased. The recantation.t as entered in the
committee's books, was in these words i

? On this opinion the editor would say nothing,
though he could say much ; he would refer his read
ers to the Acts ofthe Apostle-:. — C.
+ .Nothing, it is justly observed by Mr. Crosby, is
more evident than that the most distinguished of the
Presbyterian divines preached and wrote against tol
eration, and were strenuous advocates for the inter
ference of the civil power to suppress what they
deemed error. Mr. Baxter always freely avowed
that " he abhorred unlimited liberty, or toleration of
all." Dr. Lightfoot informed the House of Commons,
in a sermon at St. Margaret's, Weslniirisicr, that
though " he would not go about to determme wheth
er conscience might be bound or not, yet, certainly,
the devil in the conscience might be, yea, must be
bound by the ci-vil magistrate."— Croji6j('« History of
the English Baptists, vol. i., p. 17ti, ITH Robinson's
History of Baptism, p. 151. — Ed. {T'nibnm).
X Every instance of a recantation which ecclesi
astical history furnishes moves our pity arul excises
our indignation ; our pity of the weakness and timid
ity from which it flows, and our indignation al the
spirit of intoler.mce which can demand the sacrifice
of prmciple and integrity. " .Mr. Clarkson had not

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

499

"July 15, 1645.
» This day Lawrence Clarkson, formerly com-
tnitted. for an Anabaptist, and for dipping, does
now, before the committee, disclaim hia errors.
And whereas formerly he said he durst not leave
his dipping, if he raight gain all the committee's
estates, now he says that he by the Holy Scrip
tures is convinced that his said opinions were
erroneous, and that he will not, nor dares not
practice it again, if he might gain all the com-
niittee's estates by doing it. And that he makes
this recantation not for fear, or to gain his lib
erty, but raerely out of a sense of his error,
wherein he will endeavour to reform others."
It must he granted that the imprudent behav
iour of the Baptist lay-preachers, who declaim
ed against human literature and hireling priests,
crying down magistracy and a regular ministry,
and talking in the most exalted strains of a fifth
monarchy, and King Jesus, prejudiced the minds
of many sober people against thera ; but still
the imprisoning men merely on account of reli
gious principles, not inconsistent ¦with the pub
lic peace, nor propagated in a riotous and tu
multuous manner, is not to be justified on any
pretence whatsoever ; and it was the more in
excusable in this case, because Mr. Baxter
admits* that the Presbyterian zeal was in a
great measure the occasion of it.
Before we leave the Assembly for this year,
it will be proper to take notice, that it was hon
oured with the presence of Charles Lewis, elec
tor palatine of the Rhine, eldest son of Fred
eric, &e., king of Boheraia, who married King
Jaraes's daughter, and lost his territories by the
fatal battle of Prague in 1619. The unhap
py Frederic died in 1632, and left behind him
six sons and five daughters, among whom were
Prince Rupert, Prince Maurice, and the Prin
cess Sophia. The young elector and his moth
er often solicited the English court for assist
ance to recover their dominions, and were as
often corapliraented with erapty promises. All
the Parliaments of this reign mention with con
cern the calamitous condition of the Queen of
Bohemia and her children, and offer to venture
their lives and fortunes for the recovery of the
Palatinate ; but King Charles I. did not approve
his sister's principles, who, being a resolved
Protestant, had been heard to say, if vi^e may
believe L'Estrange, that rather than have her
son bred up in idolatry at the emperor's court,
she had rather be his executioner. And Mr.
Echard adds.t that the birth of King Charles
IL, in the year 1630, gave no great joy to the
Puritans, because, as one of them declared,
" God had already provided for them in the fam
ily of the Queen of Bohemia, who were bred up
in the Protestant religion, while it was uncer
tain what religion King Charles's children would
follow, being to be brought up by a mother de
voted to the Church of Rome." When the war
broke out between the king and Parliament, the
elector's younger brothers, Rupert and Maurice,

served the king in his army, but the elector
himself being in Holland, took the Covenailt,
and by a letter to the Parliament testified his
approbation of the cause in which they were
engaged. This summer he made a tour to Eng
land, and was welcomed hy a comraittee ofthe
two houses. Who promised him their best ad
vice and assistance ; to whom the prince made
the following reply i
" I hold myself much obliged to the Parlia
ment for their favours, and my coming is to ex
press in person what I have often done hy let
ter, my sincere affections to them, and to take
off such jealousies as either the actions of some
of my relations, or the ill effects of what my en
emies might by my absence cast upon me. My
wishes* are constant for the good success of
the great work you have undertaken, for a thor
ough reforraation ; and my desires are to be
ruled and governed by your grave counsels."t
The Parliament ordei;^ed an apartment to be
fitted up for the prince at Whitehall, and voted
hira £8000t a year for his maintenance, and
£10,000 for his royal mother, till he should be
restored to his electorate, ij While he stayed
here, he frequently attended the Asserably in
their debates, and after some time had a pass
for himself en's forty horse into the Low Coun
tries. His sister, Princess Sophia, afterward
married the Duke of Brunswick and Hanover,
whose son, upon the decease of Queen Anne,
succeeded to the crown of Great Britain, by the
name of George I. ; the numerous posterity of
King Charles I. being set aside as papists, and
thus the descendants of the Queen of Bohemia,
eleotress-palatine, and daughter of King James
I., came to inherit the imperial crown of these
kingdoms, as a reward for their firmness to the
Protestant religion ; and may the same illus
trious family continue to be the guardians of
our liberties, both sacred and civil, to the end of
time !
Religion was the fashion ofthe age : the As
sembly was often turned into a house of prayer,
and hardly a week passed without solemn fast
ing and humiliation in several of the churches
of London and Westminster ; the laws against
profaneness were carefully executed ; and be
cause the former ordinances for the observation
of the Lord's Day had proved ineffectual, it was
ordained, April 6, that all persons should apply
themselves to the exercise of piety and religion
on the Lord's Day, " that no wares, frdits, herbs,
or goods of any sort be exposed to sale, or cried
about the streets, upon penalty of forfeiting tha
goods. That no person without cause shalV
travel, or carry a burden, or do any worldly la
bour, upon penalty of ten shillings for the trav
eller, and five shillings for every burden.il That
no person shall on the Lord's Day use, or be
present at, any wrestling, shooting, fowling, ring
ing of bells for pleasure, markets, wakes, church

only been iniprisoned six months, but all the inter
cession of his friends, though he had several, could
not procure his release. The committee were tinre-
lenting. Nay, though an order came down, either
¦from a committee of Pariiament or the chairman of
it, to discharge him, yet they refused to obey it."-^
Crosby's History of English Baptists, vol. 1., preface,
p. 16.— Ed. ( Toulmin).
¦* Baxter's Life, p. 103. t History, p. 449.

* Bishop Warburton thinks it apparent, from many
circumstances, that the elector had his eye on the
crown, matters being gone too far for the king and
Parliament ever to agree.— Ed.
t Oldmixon's History of the Stuarts, p. 268.
t It was ordered October, 1645, but Dr. Grey quotes
authority to prove that it was ill paid. — Vol il., Ap
pendix, No. 50. — Ed.
§ Oldmixon's History of the Stuarts, p. 279.
11 " And for every offence in doing any worldly la
bour or work." — Ed.

500

HISTORY OF THE PV RITANS.

ales, dancing, games, or sports whatsoever, upon
penally of five shillings to every one above four
teen years of age. And if children are found
offending in the premises, their parents or guar
dians to forfeit twelvepence for every offence
That all M.iy-poles be pulled down, and none
others erected. That if the sevieral fines above
menticmod cannot be levied, the offending party
shall be set in the slocks for the space of three
hours. That the king's declaration concerning
lawful sports on the Lord's Day be called in,
suppressed, and burned.
"This ordinance shall not extend to prohibit
dressing meat in private families, or selling vic
tuals in a moderate way in inns or victualling
houses, for the use of such who cannot other
wise be provided for; nor lo the crying of milk
before nine in the morning, or after four in the
afternoon."* The solemn League and Covenant was in such
high repute at this time,t that by an orde^ of
the House of Coramons, January 'J9, l^^it
was appointed " that, on every fasl-day and
day of public humiliation, the Covenant should
be publicly read In every church and congrega
tion within the kingdom ; and that every con
gregation be enjoined to have one of the said
Covenants fairly printed, in a Tair letter, in a
table fitted to hang up in some public place of
the church to be read," A\'hich was done ac
cordingly, and they continued there till the Res
toration. t
But that which occasioned the greatest dis
turbance over the whole nation, was an order
of both houses relating lo ( Christmas Day Pr
Lightfoot s.ays, the London ministers met to
gether last year lo consult whether they should
preach on that day ; and one of considerable
name and authonty opposed it, and was near
prevailing with the rest, when the doctor con
vinced them so far of the lawfulness and expe
diency of It, that the question being put, it was
can led in Ihe affirmative, with only four or five
dissenting voices. But this year it happening
to fall on the monthly fast, so that either the
fast or the festival raust be oraitted, the Par
liaraent, after some debate, thought it most
agreeable to the present circumstances of the
nation to go on wiih fasting and prayer ; and,
therefore, published the following order ;
" Die Jovis, 19 Dec, 1644.
" Whereas some doubts have been raised
whether the next fast shall be celebrated, be
cause it falls on the day which heretofore was
usually called the feast of the nativity of our
Saviour ; the lords and commons, in Parlia
ment assembled, do order and ordain that pub
lic notice be given, that the fast appointed to be
kept the last Wednesday in every month ought
to be observed, tUl it be otherwise ordered by
both houses ; and that this day in particular
is to be kept with the raore soleran humil
iation, because it may call to remembrance our
sins and the sins of our forefathers, who have
turned this feast, pretending the meraory of
Christ, into an extreme forgetfulness of him,
* Sf.bell's Colleci., p. Uf
t Dr. Grey gives various passages from the ser
mons of the day lo prove in what extravagant esti
mation it was held, and lo show what high encomi
ums «ere pa-»ed upon it.— Ed.
t Lond. Mm. Te^i to the Trath of Jesus, p. 26

I by giving liberty to carnal and sensual delights,
being contrary lo the life which Christ led hero
on earth, and to Ihc spiritual life of Christ in
our souls, fur the sanctifying and saving where
of Christ was pleased bolh to take a human
life, and to lay it down again"*
The Royalists raised loud clamours on account
ofthe supposed impiely and profaneness of ihis
transaction, as what had never belore been heard
of in the Christian world, though they could not
but know that this, as well as other festivals,
is of cci-lesiastical appointment ;t that tin re is
no mention of the observation of (Minslmas in
the first or second age of Christianity ; that the
Kirk of Scotland never observed it since the
Reformation, except during the short reign of
the bishops, and do not regard it at this day.
Some of the raost learned divines among the
Presbyterians, as well as Independents, were in
this sentiment. Mr. Edmund Calamy, in his
sermon before the House of Lords on this day,
has these expressions : " This day Is coniiiionly
called Christmas Day, a day that has hereto
fore been rauch abused to superstition and pro
faneness. It is not easy lo say whether the
superstition has been greater, or the profane
ness. I have known some that have prelerred
Christmas Day before the Lord's Day ; some
that would be sure lo receive the sacrament on
Christmas Day, though they did not receive all
the year after Some' thought though they did
not play at cards all the year long, yet they
must play at Christmas, thcrdiy, it seems, to
keep in memory the birth of Christ, Tins, and
much more, hath been the profanation of this
feast ; and truly, I think the superstition and
profaneness of this day are so rooted into it,
that there is no way lo reform it hut by dciling
with It as llczekiah did with the brazen serpent.
This year God, by his providence, has buried
this feast In a fast, and 1 hope it will never rise
again. You have set out, right honourable, a
strict order for keeping of it, and you are here
this day to observe your own order, and 1 hope
you will do it strictly. The neces.silic.s of the
tiraes are great, never raore need of prayer and
fasting. 'The Lord give us grace to be hurabled
in this day of humiliation, for all our own and
England's sins, and especially for the old super
stition and profaneness of this feast."
About midsuramer this year died Dr. Thoraas
Westfield,. bishop of Bristol, born in the Isle of
Ely, 1573, educated in Jesus College, Cara
bridge, and afterward Rector of Hornsey, and of
St. Bartholomew the Great, London, and Arch
deacon of St. Alban's. In the year 1641 he was
advanced to the see of Bristol, which he ac
cepted, though he had refused it, as is said,
twenty-five years before. t He was a gentle
man of great modesty, a good preacher, an ex
cellent orator. The Parliament had such an
esteem for hira that they naraed him one ofthe
Assembly of Divines, and he had the goodness
lo appear araong them for sorae tirae. Upim
the bishop's complaint that the profits of his
bishopric were detained, the coramillee ordered
them lo be restored, and gave him a pass to go to

* Rushworth, vol. v., p. Hl7.
t Dr. Grey says that the observation of Christmas
was appointed by statute 5 and 0 Edward \ I., c. m.
—Ed.
X Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, p. 3.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

Bristol to receive them, ¦wherein they style hira
a person of great learning and merit. He died
in possession of his bishopric, June 25, 1644,
aged sevenly-one, and composed his own epi
taph, one line of which was,
Senio et moerore confectus.
Worn out with age and grief
And another,
Episcoporum infimus, peccatorum primus.
The least of bishops, the greatest of sinners.
Dr. Calibute Downing was born of an ancient
family in Gloucestershire, about 1616 ; he was
educated in Oriel College, Oxford, and at length
became Vicar of Hackney, near London, hy the
^ procurement of Archbishop Laud, which is very
strange, if, as Mr. Wood says, he always looked
awry on the Church. In his sermon before the
Artillery Corapany, September 1, 1640, hemain-
taihed that, for the defence of religion and ref
ormation of the Church, it was lawful to take
up arms against the king, if it could be obtained
no other way. For this he was forced to ab
scond till the beginning of the present Parlia
ment. He was afterward chaplain in the Earl
of Essex's army, and a raeraber of the Assem
bly of Divines, but died before he was forty
years of age, having the character of a pious
man, a warm preacher, and very zealous in the
interest of his country.

CHAPTER V.
ABSTEACT OF THE TKIAL OF AECHBISHOP LAUD,
AND OF THE TREATY OF UXBRIDGE.
Next day, after the establishment of the Di
rectory, Dr. William Laud, archbishop of Can
terbury, received sentence of death. He had
been a prisoner in the Tower almost three
years,* upon an impeachraent of high treason
by the House of Commons, without once peti
tioning for a trial, or so much as putting in his
answer to the articles ; however, as soon as
the Parliament had united with the Scots, it
was resolved to gratify that nation by bringing
him to the bar ; accordingly. Sergeant Wild
was sent up to the House of Lords, October 23,
with ten additional articles of high treason, and
other crimes and misdemeanors, and to pray
that his grace might be brought to a speedy
trial. We have already recited the fourteen
original articles, under the year 1640. The ad
ditional ones were to the following purpose :
1. "That the archbishop had endeavoured
to destroy the use of Parliaments, and to intro
duce an arbitrary government.
2. "That for ten years before the present
Parliaraent, he had endeavoured to advance the
council-table, the canons of the Church, and
the king's prerogative, above law.
3. " That he had stopped writs of prohibition
to stay proceedings in the ecclesiastical courts,
when 'the same ought to have been granted.
4. " That he had caused Sir John Corbet to
be committed to the Fleet for six months, only
for causing the petition of right to be read at
the sessions.

+ Laud had become almost unthought of, and it
would have been wise in the Long Parliament to
have left him' in seclusion. — C.

501
5. " That judgment having been given in the
Court of King's Bench against Mr. Buriey, a
clergyraan of a bad character, for nonresidence,
he had caused the judgment to he stayed, say
ing he would never suffer judgment to pass
upon any clergyman hy nihil dicit.
6. " That large sums of monpy having been
contributed for buying in impropriations, the
archbishop had caused the feoffments to be
overthrown into his majesty's exchequer, and
by that means suppressed the design.
7. "That he had harboured and relieved di-
ve-rs popish priests, contrary to law.
8. " That he had said at Westminster there!
raust be a blow given to the Church, such as
had not heen given, before it could be brought
to conformity, declaring thereby his intention
to alter the true Protestant religion established
in it.
9. "That after the dissolution of the last
Parliament, he had caused a convocation to be
Held, in which sundry canons were raade con
trary to the rights and privileges of Parliament,
and an illegal oath imposed upon the clergy,
with certain penalties, commonly known by the
et ccetera oath.
10. " That upon the abrupt dissolving of the
Short Parliament, 1640, he had told the king he
was now absdlved from all rules of government,
and at liberty to make use of extraordinary
methods for supply."*
I omit the charge of the Scots commission
ers, because the archbishop pleaded the Act of
Oblivion. The Lords ordered the archbishop to deliver
in his answer in writing to the above-mentioned
article in three weeks, which he did, taking no
notice of the original ones.t The trial was put
off from time to time, at the request of the pris
oner, till Septeraber 16, when the archbishop
appearing at the bar, and having kneeled some
time, was ordered to stand, and one ofthe man
agers for the Commons moved the Lords that
their articles of impeachment, with the arch
bishop's answer, might he read ; but when the
clerk of the House had read the articles, there
was no answer to the original ones. Upon
which Sergeant Maynard rose up and observed,
" how unjust the archbishop's complaints of his
long imprisonment, and of the delay of his hear
ing must be, when in all this time he had not
put in his answer to their original articles,
though he had long since counsel assigned him
for that purpose. That it would be absurd in
them to proceed on the additional articles, when
there was no issue joined on the original ones ;
he therefore prayed that the archbishop might
forthwith put in his answer to all their articles,
and then they should be ready to confirm their
charge whenever their lordships should ap
point." The archbishop says the Lords looked hard
one upon another, as if they would ask where
the mistake was, he himself saying nothing, but
that his answer had not been called for.t His
grace would have embarrassed them farther,
by desiring them to hear his counsel, whether
the articles were certain and particular enough

* Prynne's Complete History of the Trial of Arch
bishop Laud, p. 38. t Ibid., p. 45.
X Wharton's History of Archbishop Laud's Troub
les, p. 214, 215.

502

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

to reeeive an answer Ho moved, likewise,
that if he must put in a new answer, his former
might be taken off the hie ; and that they would
please to distinguish which articles were trea
son, and which misdemeanor. But the Lords
rejected all his inouons, and ordered him lo put
in his peremptory answer lo the original articles
of the Commons by the Z'Zd Instant, which he
did accordingly, to this effect i
" .\s to the 13th article, concerning the troub
les in Scotland, and all actions, attempts, as
sistance, counsel, or device relating thereto,
this defendant pleadeth the late .\ct of Oblivion,
he being none of the persons excepted by the
said act, nor are any of the offences charged
upon this defendant excepted by the said act.
"And as to all the other articles, both origi
nal and additional, this defendant, saving to
himself all advantages of exception to the said
articles, humbly saith that he is not guilty of
all or any the matters, by the said articles
charged, in such manner and form as the same
are by the said articles charged against him."
The trial was deferred all the month oi Feb
ruary, as the archbishop insinuates, because
Mr. Prynne was nol ready with his witnesses.
When it carae on, Lord <.ircy, of Werk, speaker
ofthe House of Lords, was appoiryed president ;
but the archbishop coraplains that there were
seldom more than sixteen or eighteen peers
. at a time. The managers for the Coraraons
were Mr Sergeant "Wild, and Mr. Maynard, Mr.
Brown, .Mr. Nicolas, and .Mr. Hill, whora the
archbishop calls consul bibulus, because he said
nothing ; their solicitor was Mr Prynne, the
archbishop's grand enemy. His grace's coun-
sul were Mr. Hern, Mr. Hales, Mr. Chute, Mr.
Gerard ; and his sohcitor was his own secreta
ry, Mr. Dell. The trial was depending alraost
five months, in which tirae the archbishop was
heard twenty days, with as much liberty and
freedom of speech as could be reasonably desi
red. When he complained of the seizure of his
papers,* the Lords ordered him a copy of all
such as were necessary for his defence ; and
¦when he acquainted them that, by reason of the
sequestration of his estate, he was incapable
of feeing his counsel, they moved the commit
tee of sequestrations in his favour, who ordered
him £200. His counsel had free access to hira
at all times, and stood by to advise him during
the whole of his trial.
The method of proceeding was this : the
archbishop had three or four days' notice of the
day of his appearance, and of the articles they
designed to proceed on ; he was brought to the
bar about ten in the morning, and the managers
were tdl one making good their charge ; the
House then adjourned till four, when the arch
bishop made his defence, after which one of the
* Laud, on his first committal, had sent the key of
his cabinet to Warner, bishop of Rochester, desiring
him to bum or conceal such papers as might be prej
udicial to his own interest or those of his friends.
Warner was engaged for three hours at the task, and
had only just completed it, when a messenger from
the House of Lords came to seal up the cabinet.
Among the documents carried off by Wamer was
the ongmal .Magna Charta. This valuable reUc of
antiquity was found among \^'arae^'^ papers at his
death. It was afterward presented to Bishop Bur
net, and IS now in the Bntish Museara.— Jesse's
House of Stuart, vol. IL, p. 3tl9. — C.

managers replied, and the archbishop relurnod
to the Tower between seven and eight of tho
clock in the evening.
Il is unhappy that this remarkable trial, which
contains the chief heads of controversy hetwetu
the Puritans and the hierarchy, was not pub
lished by order of the House of Peers, that tho
world might have seen the arguments on bolh
sides in their full strength. Mr Prynne, by or
der of the House of Commons, has given us
their evidence to that branch of the charge
which relates to religion, and the archbishop
has left behind hira his own defence on every
day's hearing, mi.xed with keen and satirical
reflections on his adversaries -, but these being
detached performances, I have endeavoured to
reduce the most material passages into a prop
er method, without .confining myself to the ex
act order of time in which the arlicles were de
bated. All the articles may be reduced to these three
general heads.
First, " That the archbishop had traitorously
.^rtempted and endeavoured to subvert the
rights of Parliament, and lo exalt the king's
power above law.
Secondly, "That he had traitorously endeav
oured to subvert the fundamental temporal laws
and government of the realm of England, and
to introduce an arbitrary government against
law and the liberties of the subject.
Thirdly, "That he had traitorously endeav
oured and practised, to alter and subvert God's
true religion by law established in this realm,
and instead thereof, to set up popish supersti
tion and idolatry, and to reconcile us to the
Church of Rome."
The trial began March 12, 1643-4, when Mr.
Sergeant Wild,. one of the manager* of the
House of Coramons, opened the impeachraent
with a sraart speech, in which he stated and
aggravated the several criraes charged upon
the archbishop, and concluded wilh coraparing
hira to Naaman the Syrian, who was a great
man, but a leper.
The archbishop, in_his reply, endeavours to
wipe. off the aspersions that were cast upon
him, in a laboured speech which he held in his
hand. He says, " It was no less than a tor
ment to him to appear in that place, and plead
for himself on that occasion, because he was
not only a Christian, but a clergyman, and, by
God's grace, advanced to the greatest place
this Church affords. He blessed God that he
was neither ashamed to live nor afraid to die ;
that he had been as strict an observer of the
laws of his country, both in public and private,
as any man whatsoever; and as for religion,
that he had been a steady member of the Church
of England as established by law, which he had
endeavoured to reduce to decency, uniformity,
and beauty in the outward face of it ; but he
had been as far from attempting any alterations
in favour of popery as when his mother first
bore him into the world ; and let nothing be
spoken but truth," says he, "and I do here
challenge whatsoever is between heaven and
hell, that can be said against rae in point of my
religion, in which I have ever haled dissimula
tion."* He then concludes with a list of twcn-

? Wharton's History of Archbishop Laud'a Troub.
les, p. 223.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

503

ty-one persons whom he had converted from
popery to the Protfestant religion.
It was observed by some, that if the passion
ate expressions in this speech had' been a lit-
¦tle qualified, they would have obtained more
credit with his grace's judges ;* but, as they
were pronounced, were thought hardly fit for
the mouth of one who lay under the weight of
so many accusations from the representative
body of the nation.!
The next day [March 13] the managers for
the Commons began to make good the first
branch of their charge, to the following purpose,
viz. :
"That the archbishop had traitorously at
tempted to subvert the rights of Parliament,
and to exalt the king's power above the laws."
In support of which they produced, (1.) a
passage out of his own diary, December 5, 1639.
"A resolution was voted at the board to assist
the king in extraordinary ways, if," says he,
¦"the Parliament should prove peevish and re
fuse." The archbishop replied, that this was the
vote of the whole council-table, of which he
was only a single member, and therefore could
not be called his counsel. Besides, the words
ihad relation to the troubles of Scotland, and are
therefore included in the Act of Obliv;on.
2. "They produced another expression, in one
ofthe archbishop's papers under his own hand,
in the beginning of which he says that Magna
Charta had an obscure birth, and was fostered
by an ill nurse, "t
The archbishop replied, that it was no dis-
,graoe to Magna Charta to say it had an obscure
birth ; our histories confirra the truth of it, and
some of our law-books of good account use al
most the same expressions ; and shall the same
words be history and law in them, and treason
in mel^
3. They averred, " That he had said in coun
cil, that the king's proelamation was of as great
force as an act of Parliament ¦; and that he had
compared the king to the stone spoken of in
the Gospel, that whosoever falls upon it shall
be broken, but upon whomsoever it falls it will
grind him to powder."
The archbishop replied, that this was in the
<!ase of the soap business, twelve years ago,
and thinks it impossible those words should be
spoken by him ; nor does he apprehend the gen
tlemen who press this evidence can believe it
themselves, considering they are accusing him
as a cunning delinquent. " So God forgive these

* Di^ Grey thuiks that the severest expressions
vvere justifiable in answer to so foul-mouthed an im-
peacher as Sergeant Wild, and that there was no
thing in the bishop's speech unbecoming that great
prelate to speak, or that assembly to hear. — Ed.
¦ t " To give him his due," says Prynne,." he made
-as full, as gallant, &s pithy a defence of so bad a
-cause, and spoke as much for liimself as was possi
ble for the wit of man to invent, and that with so
much art, sophistry, vivacity, oratory, audacity, and
confidence, without the least blush or acknowledg
ment of guilt in anything (animated by his sealed
pardon lying by him), as argued him rather obstinate
than innocent, impudent than penitent, a far better
orator, sophister, than Protestant or Christian, yea,
truer son of the Church of Rome than of the Church
..of England." — Canterbury's Doom, p. 462.— C.
- X Laud's History, p. 229-231. ^ Ibid, p. 409.

raen the falsehood and raalice of their oaths,"
says he ; "but as to the allusion to the stone
in the Scripture, if I did apply it to the king, it
was far enough from treason ; and let them and
their like take care, lest it ¦prove true upon
thernselves, for Solomon says, ' The anger of a
king is death.' "*
4. In farther maintenance of this part of
their charge, the managers produced " two
speeches which his grace fraraed for the king
to be spoken to the Parliament ; and his raajes
ty's answer to the remonstrance of the House
of Coramons in the year 1628, which was all
written with the archbishop's own hand, and
these words endorsed by hiraself, ' My answer
to the Parliaraent's reraonstrance^' In which
papers were sundry passages tending to set up
an absolute power in the king, and to make the
calling of Parliaments in a manner useless.
The king is made to say that his power is only
from God, and to hira only he is accountable
for his actions ; that never king was more jeal
ous of his honour, or more sensible ofthe neg
lect and contempt of his royal rights. His
raajesty bids the Commons remember, that Par
liaments are altogether in his power, for their
calling, sitting, and dissolution ; and that, ac
cording as they behaved theniselves, they should
continue, o^not be. When some ofthe mem
bers of Parliament had spoken freely against
the Duke of Buckinghara, they were by the
king's coraraand sent to the Tower ; and his
majesty coming to the House of Peers, tells
them that he had thought fit to punish some
insolent speeches lately spoken against the
duke, for I am so sensible of all your honours,
(says he), that he that touches any of you,
touches me in a very great measure. Farther,
when the Parliament was dissolved in the year
1628, a proclamation was published, together
with the above-mentioned remonstrance, in
which his majesty declares, that since his Par
liament was not so dutiful as they ought to be,
he was resolved to live without them, till those
who had interrupted his proceedings should re
ceive condign punishment, and his people come
to a better temper ; and that in the mean time,
he would exact the duties that were received
by his father, ¦which his now majesty neither
could nor would dispense with."t
The archbishop replied, that he did indeed
make the above-mentioned speeches, being com
manded to the service, and followed his in
structions as close as he could. As for the
smart passages complained of, he hopes thej
will not tu thought such when it is considered
whose mouth was to utter them, gjid upon what
occasion. However, if they be, he is heartily
sorry for them, and humbly desires they may
be passed by. The answer tb the remonstrance
was drawn by his majesty's command, as ap
pears by the endorsement ; and the severe pas
sages objected to were ig his instructions.
When a Parliament errs, may not their king
tell them of it 1 Or must every passage in his
answer be sour that pleases not ?t
The managers proceeded to produce some
other passages tending more immediately to

* Laud's History, p. 234.
t King's Speeches, March 27, .29, and May 11.
X Laud's Hist., p. 230, 403, 404, 406.

504

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS

subvert the righls of Parliament ; and among
others, they insisted on these three :
1. "That the archbishop had said al the
council-table, after the ending of the late Par
liamenl, that 'now the king might make use of
his own power.' This was attested by Sir Har
ry Vane the elder, who was a privy councillor,
and then present."
The archbishop replied, that he did not re
meraber the words ; that if he did speak thera,
they w ere not treasonable ; or if they were, he
ought to have been tried within six months,
according to the statute 1 Eliz., cap. vi. That
Sir Henry Vane was only a single witness,
whereas the law requires two witnesses for
treason : besides, he conceived that this advice
relating to the Scottish troubles was within the
.\ct of Oblivion, which he had pleaded. But
last of all, let it be remembered, says the arch
bishop, for Sir Harry's honour, that he being a
raan in years, has so good a meraory, that he
alone can remember words spoken at a full
council-table, which no person of honour re
members save himself; but I would not have
him brag of it, for I have read in St. Austin,
that some, even the worst of raen, have great
memories, and so much the worse for having
thera. God bless Su: Henry !*
2. The archbishop had affirraed, " that the
Parliament might not raeddle with religion,
wiihout the assent of the clergy in convocation.
Now if this were so, say the managers, we
should have had no reformation, for the bishops
and clergy dissented."
The archbishop in his reply cited the statute
1 Eliz,, cap. i., which says, that "what is her
esy shall be deterrained by the Parliaraent, with
the assent of the clergy in convocation," from
whence he concluded, the Parliaraent could not
by law determine the truth of doctrine without
the assent of the clergy ; and lo this the man
agers agreed, as to the point of heresy, but no
farther. The archbishop added, that, iu his
opinion, it was the prerogative of the Church
alone to determine truth and falsehood, though
the power of making laws for the punishraent
of erroneous persons was in the Parliaraent,
with the assent of the clergy. t Indeed, the
king and Parliament may, by their absolute
power, change Christianity into Turkism if
they please, and the subjects that cannot obey
must fly, or endure the penalty ofthe law ; but
of right they cannot do this without the Church.
Thus the Parliament, in the beginning of Queen
Elizabeth's reign, by absolute poweiLabolished
Popish superstition ; but when the Srergy were
settled, and af form of doctrine was to be agreed
on, a synod was called, 1562, and the articles
of religion were confirmed by Parliament, with
the assent of the clergy, which gave all parties
their just right, as is so evident, that the hea
thens could see the justice of it, for Lucullus
says in TuUy, that the priests were judges of
religion, and the Senate of the law.
3. " At a reference between Dr. Gill, school
master of St. Paul's, and the Mercers' Corapany,
the archbishop had said, that the corapany could
not turn hira out of the school without consent
of his ordinary ; and that, upon mention ol an
act of Pariiament, he replied, ' I see nothing
will down with you but acts of Pariiament, no
* Laud's History, p. 231. + Ibid., p. 401.

regard at all lo the canons of the Church ; bnl
I will rescind all acts that are against the can
ons, and I hope shortly to see tho canons and
tho king's 'prerogative of equal force with an
act of Parliaraent.' "
The archbishop was so provoked with Iho
oath of the witness who gave this in evidence
[Mr Samuel Blood], that he was going to bin J
his sin on his soul, nol to be forgiven him till
he should ask him forgiveness;' but he con
quered his passion, and replied, that since, by
a canon, t no person is allowed lo teach school
without the bishop's license, and that. In case
of offence, he is liable to admonition and sus
pension. It stands good, that he may not bo
turned out without the said bishop's knowledge
and approbation. .\s for the words, " that ho
saw nothing would down with ihein but an act
of Parliaraent, and that no regard was had to
the canons," he conceived them lo be no of
fence ; for though the superiority belongs to
acts of Parliament in this kingdom, yd certain
ly some regard is due to the canons ; and
therefore he says again, that " if nothing will
down with men but acts of Parliament, the gov
ernment, in many particulars, cannot subsist.
.\s to the last words, of his rescinding thoso
acts that were against the canons, he is moral
ly certain he could not utter them ; nor does
he believe any man that knows him will believe
him such a fool as to say he hoped to sec the
canons and the king's prerogative of equal force
with an act of Parliaraent, since he has lived
to see sundry canons rejected, and the king's
prerogative discussed by law, neither ol whicli
can be done by any judges to an ad of Parlia
ment. However, if such words should have
escaped him, he observes there is only one wit
ness to the charge ; and if they be within the
danger of the statute, then to that statute which
re'qulres his trial within si.x months he refers
himself" The managers went on to the second charge
against the archbishop, which was his design
" to subvert the fundamental temporal laws of
the kingdom, and to introduce an arbitrary gov
ernraent against law and the liberty of the sub
ject." In raaintenance whereof, they alleged
" his illegal pressures of tonnage and poundage
without act of Parliaraent, ship-raoney, coat
and conduct money, soap-money, &c., and his
commitment of divers persons to priso^n for
nonpayment ; for a proof of which there ap
peared, among others, three aldermen, viz.. Al
dermen Atkins, Chambers, and Adams."
The archbishop confessed that, as to the bu--
siness of ship-money, he was zealous in that
affair, yet not with an intent to violate the law,
for though this was before judgraent given for
the king, it was after the judges had declared
the legality of it under their hands, and he
thought he raight safely follow such guides.
He was likewise of opinion thai tonnage and
poundage, coat and conduct raoney, were lawful
on the king's part ; that he was led into this
opinion by the express judgment of some lords
present, and by the silence of others, none of
the great lawyers at the table contradicting it;
however, that it was the common act of tha
council-table, and, therefore, all were as culpa
ble as himself; and he was sure this could n .t
? Laud's History, p. 230, 937. ' + Can., 77, 70..

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

amount to treason, except it were against the
three aldermen, Atkins, Chambers, and Adams.*
They objected, farther, " sundry depopula
tions and pulling down houses ; that, for the re
pair of St. Paul's, above sixty dwelling-houses
had been pulled down, by order of council, with
out any satisfaction to the tenants, because
they did not accept of the committee's compo
sition. That he had obliged a brewer near the
court not to burn sea-coal, under penalty of
having his brewhouse pulled down ; and that,
by a like order of council, many shopkeepers
were forcibly turned out of their houses in
Cheapside, to make way for goldsmiths, who
were forbid to open shop in any other places of
the city. When a commission was issued un
der the broad seal to himself, to compound with
delinquents of this kind, Mr. Talboys was fined
£50 for noncomphance ; and when he pleaded
the statute ofthe 39th of Elizabeth, the archbish
op replied, 'Do you plead law herel either abide
the order, or take your trial .at the Star Cham
ber.' When Mr. Wakern had £100 allowed him
for the pulling down his house, he was soon af
ter fined £100 in the High Coraraission Court
for profanation, of which he paid thirty. "t
This the archbishop admitted, and replied to
the rest, that he hurably and heartily thanked
God that he was counted worthy to suffer for
the repair of St. Paul's, which had cost him out
of his own purse above £1200. As to the
grievances complained of, there was a compo
sition allotted for the sufferers, by a committee
named by the Lords, not by him, which amount
ed to 8 or £9000 before they could come at the
church to repair it ; so that, if anything was
amiss, it must be imputed to the lords of the
council, who are one body, and whatsoever is
done by the major part is the act ofthe whole ;
that, however, here was some recompense
made them, whereas, in King James's time,
when a commission was issued for demolishing
these very houses, no care was taken for satis
faction of any private man's interest ; and I
cannot forbear to add, says the archbishop, that
the bishop, and dean, and chapter did ill in
giving way to these buildings, to increase their
rents by a sacrilegious revenue, there being no
law to build on consecrated ground. When it
was replied to this, " that the king's commis
sion was no legal warrant for pulling down
houses without authority of Parliaraent," he
answered, that houses more remote from the
Church of St. Paul's had been pulled down by
the king's commission, only in King Edward
III.'s tirae. As to the brewhouse, the arch
bishop owned that he had said to the proprietor
that he must seal a bond of £3000 to brew no
more with sea-coal ; but it was at the council-
table, when he was delivering the sense of the
hoard, which office was usually put upon him if
present ; so that this, or any other hardship he
might suffer, ought not to be imputed to him,
hut to the whole council ; and he was very sure
it could not amount to treason, except it were
treason against a brewhouse. The like answer
he made°to the charge about the goldsmiths'
shops, namely, that it was the order of council,
and it was thought to be for the beauty and
grandeur of the city, and he did apprehend the
* Laud's History, p. 232-234.
t Ibid., p. 235, 244, 246, 265.
Vol. I.— S s s

505
council had a right to command in things of de-*
cency, and for the safety of the subject, and
where there was no law to the contrary. As
to the words which he spoke to Mr. Talboys,
they were not designed to derogate from the
law, but to show that we sat not there as judges
of the law, but to offer his majesty's grace by
way of composition to them who would accept
it, and, therefore, he had his option whether ho
would agree to the fine we imposed upon him,
or take his trial elsewhere. The Commons re
plied, with great reason, that no coraraission
frora the king could justify the pulling down
men's houses, or oblige thera to part with their
estates without act of Parliament.
The managers objected farther to the arch
bishop, "several illegal commitments, and ex
orbitant fines and censures in the Star Chamber
and High Commission Court, as in the cases ol
Prynne, Burton, Bastwick, Huntley, and others ;
and that when the persons aggrieved brought
prohibitions, he threatened to lay them by the
heels, saying, ' Does the king grant us power,
and are we then prohibited"! Let us go and
complain : I will break the hack of prohibitions, .
or they shall break mine.' Accordingly, sever
al persons were actually imprisoned for deliver
ing prohibitions, as was testified by many wit
nesses ; nay, Mr. Wheeler swore he heard the
archbishop in a sermon say, that they which
granted prohibitions to the disturbance of the
Church's right, God will prohibit their entrance
into the kingdora of heaven."
The archbishop replied, that the fines, impris
onments, and other censures complained of,
were the acts of the several courts that direct
ed them, and not his. That the reason why
several persons were imprisoned for prohibi
tions, was because they delivered them in court
in an unmannerly way, throwing them on the
table, or handing them over the heads of others
on a stick, to the affront of the court ; notwith
standing which, as many prohibitions had been
admitted in his time as in his predecessors' ;
and after all, he apprehended these prohibitions
were a very great grievance to the Church ; nor
was there the same reason for them now as be
fore the Reformation, while the bishops' courts
were kept under a foreign power, whereas now
all power exercised in spiritual courts, as well
as in temporal, is for the king. As to the words
in his serraon, though he did riot reraemheir
them, yet he saw no great harm in thera. And
here the archbishop put the lords in raind that
nothing had been done of late in the Star Chara
ber or councU-table, more than had been done
in King James and Queen Elizabeth's tiraes.
Nor is there any one witness that says what
he did was with a design to overthrow the laws,
or introduce arbitrary governraent ; no, that is
only the construction of the managers, "for
which, and something else in their proceedings,
I am confident," says he, " they shall answer
at another bar."*
The managers objected farther, "the arch
bishop's taking undue gifts, and, among others,
his receiving two butts of sack, in a cause of
some Chester men, whom it was in his power
to relieve, by mitigating the fine set on them in
the High Commission, and taking several large
sums of money by way of composition for fines

* Laud's History, p. 270, 271, 273, 274.

506

HISTORY OF THE PURITA.NS

in the High Commission Court, making use of
the method of commulalion, by virtue of a pat
ent obtained frora the king, which look away
all opportunity from his majesty of doing justice
and showing mercy to his poor subjects, and in
vested the archbishop with the final determina
tion." His grace heardthis part of his charge with
great resentment and impatience. "If I would
have had anything to do in the base, dirly busi
ness of bribery," says he, "I needed ilot be in
such want as I am now." As lo the sack,* he
protested, as he should answer it lo God, that
he knew nothing of it, and offered to confirm it
by his oath, if it might be admitted. He de
clared that, when his steward told him of Mr.
Stone's design, he absolutely forbade his receiv
ing it, or anything from any man who had busi
ness before him ; but Mr. Stone watching a time
when his steward was out of town, and the
archbishop at court, brought the sack, tell
ing the yeoman of the wine-cellar thai he had
leave to lay it in. Afterward, when his steward
acquainted him that the sack was brought in,
he comraanded it should be carried back ; but
Mr. Stone entreated that he might not be so dis
graced, and protested he did not do It on the
account of the Chester business, though after
this he went home and pul it on their account ;
for which they complained to the House of
Coramons, and produced Mr. Stone for their
¦witness. The archbishop observes, that Mr.
Browne, in summing up his charge, did him jus
tice in this particular, for neither to the Lords
nor Commons did he so much as mention it.
As to the other sums of money which he re
ceived, by way of composition or otherwise, for
fines in the High Coraraission, he said that he
had the broad seal frora the king for applying
them lo the repairing the west end of St. Paul's,
for the space of ten years, which broad seal
was then in the hands of Mr. Holford, and was
on record to be seen. -And all fines in the
High Commission belonging to the crown, his
majesty had a right to give them to what use
he pleased ; that as for himself, he thought it
his duty to get as rauch money for so good a
¦work as he coidd, even hy way of commutation
for certain crimes ; which method of pecuniary
commutations was according to law, and the
ancient custom and practice of this kingdom,
especially where men of quality were offenders,
and he had applied no part of them to his own
benefit or advantage.
It was next objected, " that he had made di-
.vers alterations in the king's coronation oath,
and introduced several unwarrantable innova
tions with relation to that august ceremony ; as
particularly, that he had inserted those words
into the oath, ' agreeable to the king's preroga
tive,' wrilh about twenty other alterations of
less moment, which they apprehended to be a
matter of most dangerous consequence. That
he had revived certain old popish ceremonies,
disused sinee the Reformation, as the placing
a crucifix on the altar, the consecrating the holy
oil, the anointing the king in form of a cross,
' Dr. Grey charges .Mr. Neal with not giving the
whole truth here, and with being cautious not to pro
duce too many things in favour of the archbishop.
The editor, not baring Laud's History, cannot ascer
tain the truth or candour of this charge.— Ed, 1

the offering up Ihe regalia on the altar, without
any rubric or direction for these things, and in
serting the following charge, taken verbatim out
ofthe Roraan pontifical . ' Siand, and hold fast,
from henceforth, the place lo which you have
been heir by the succession of your lordathers,
being now delivered to you by the authority of
Almighty God, and by the hands of us, and all
the bishops and servants of God ; and as you
see the clergy come nearer the altar than oth
ers, so remember, that in place convenient you
give them greater honour, that ihe .Mediator of
God and man raay establish you in the kingly
throne, to be the mediator between the clergy
and the laity, and that you may reign forever
with Jesus Christ, the King of kings, and Lord
of lords, who, with the Father and the Holy
Ghost, liveth and reigneth forever. Amen.' "
The archbishop replied, that he did not insert
the words above mentioned into the coronation
oath, they being first added in King Edward
VI. or Queen Elizabeth's time, and had no re
lation to Ihe laws of the kingdom, mentioned
before in the beginning of the oath, but to the
profession of the Gospel, whereby Ihe king
swears to maintain his prerogative against all
foreign jurisdictions ; and if this be not the
meaning, yet he avers, that the clause was in
the coronation oath of King Jaraes. As to tho
other alterations, they were adraitted not to be
raaterial ; but his grace confesses, that when Ihey
raet in the committee, they were forced to mend
many slips of the pen in some places, and to
make sense and good English in others ; and
the hook being intrusted with liira, he did it
with his own hand, openly in the coraraittee,
and with their approbation. As to the ceremo
nies ofthe coronation, they are nothing to hira,
since his predecessor crowned and anointed the
king ; indeed, he supphed the place ofthe Dean
of Westminster, and was obliged to look after
the regalia, and conceives the offering thera at
the altar could be no offence. He does not re
member the crucifix was brought out [though
Heylin says it was] ; and as to the prayer, it
was not taken from the pontifical by him, for it
was used at King James's coronation, and being
a good one, it is no raatter whence it was taken.
To all which the raanagers replied, that it ap
peared by his own Diary that he had the chief
direction of all these innovations.*
The raanagers went on, and charged the
archbishop " with endeavouring to set up an
independent power in the Church, by atterapt
ing to exerapt the clergy from the jurisdiction
of the civil magistrate ; of which they produced
several examples ; one was, the archbishop's
forbidding the lord-mayor of the city of London
to carry the sword upright in the Church, and
then obtaining an order of council for submit
ting it in time and place of Divine service. An
other was taken out of the archbishop's Diary :
upon making the Bishop of London lord-treas
urer, he says, ' No churchman had it since Hen
ry VII., and now, if the Church will not hold
up theraselves, under God, I can do no more.'
A third was, his saying in the High Commis
sion that no constable should raeddle with men
in holy orders. A fourth was, his calling some
justices of peace into the High Commission, for
holding the sessions at Tewkesbury in the
* Laud's Hist., p. 318. Prynne, p. 475.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

churchyard, being consecrated ground, though
they had license from the bishop, and though
the eighty-eighth canon of the Church of Eng
land gives leave that temporal courts or leets
may be kept in the churoh or churchyard. And
a fifth was, that he had caused certain church
wardens to be prosecuted for executing the
¦warrant of a justice of peace upon an alehouse-
keeper."* The archbishop replied in general, that he
never attempted to bring the temporal power
«nder the clergy, nor to free the clergy from
being under it ; but this he confessed, that he
had laboured to preserve the clergy from sorae
laymen's oppressions, for vis laica has been an
old and a just complaint ; and this I took to be
my duty, says he, assuring myself that God did
not raise me to that place of eminence to sit
still, and see his ministers discountenanced and
trampled upon. To the first particular he re
plied, that it was an order of council, and there
fore not his : but it was a reasonable one, for
the sword was not submitted to any foreign or
home power, but to God only, and that in the
place and at the performance of his holy wor
ship, at which time and place kings submit
theraselves, and therefore cannot insist upon
the emblems of their power. To the second
and third examples he replied, that he saw no
treason or crime in them. To the fourth he re
plied, that no temporal courts ought to be kept
upon consecrated ground ; and that though some
such might, upon urgent occasions, be kept in
the Church, with leave, yet that is no warrant
for a sessions, where there might be a trial for
blood ; and certainly it can be no crime to
keep off profanation from churches : but be it
never so criminal, it was the act of the High
Commission, and not his : nor is there anything
in it that looks towards treason. To the pros
ecuting the church-wardens he answered, that
those statutes concerned alehouse-keepers only,
andthe reason why they were prosecuted was,
because, being church-officers, they did not
complain of it to the chancellor of the diocess ;
for certainly, standing in such a relation to the
Church, they ought to have been as ready to
inform the bishop as to obey the justice of the
peace. Lastly, The managers objected to the arch
bishop, "the convocation's sitting after the Par
liament was dissolved, contrary to law ; their
imposing an oath on the subject, and their ma
king sundry canons, which had since been voted
by both houses of Parliament contrary to the
Jfing's prerogative, to the fundamental laws of
the realm, to the rights of Parliament, to the
property and liberty of the subject, and contain
ing matters tending to sedition, and of danger
ous consequence."!
The archbishop replied, that the sitting of the
convocation after the dissolution of the Parlia
ment was, in the opinion both of judges and
other lawyers, according to law ; that, as they
were called to sit in convocation by a different
writ from that which called them as bishops to
sit in Parliament, so they could not rise till
they had a writ to discharge them. As for the
oath so much complained of, it was according
to law, or else they were misled by such prece-
-dents as were never excepted against ; for in

* Laud's Hist., p. 293.

t Ibid., p. 287, 292.

307
the canons made in King James's tirae, there
was an oath against siraony, and an oath for li
censes for marriages, and an oath forjudges in
eoclesiastical courts, and all these established
by no other authority than the late one. As to
the vote of both houses, which condemned the
canons, since their lordships would not suffer
him to debate the justice and equity of it, he
could only reply, that all these canons were
made in open and full convocations, and are
acts of that body, and cannot be ascribed to hira,
though president of that synod, so by me (says
the archbishop) they were not made.*
These were the principal evidences produced
by the Coramons, in maintenance of the first
branch of their charge, viz., his grace's endeav
ours to subvert the rights of Pariiament, and
the fundaraental temporal laws ofthe kingdom.
From whence it is easy to observe that, besides
the sharpness of the archbishop's temper, there
are three capital mistakes which run through
this part of his defence.
1. A groundless supposition, that where the
law is silent, the prerogative takes place ; and
that, in all such oases, a proclaraation, or order
of council, or a decree of the Star Charaber, &o.,
is binding upon the subject ; and that disobedi
ence to such proclamations or orders might be
punished at discretion. This gave rise to most
of the unwarrantable orders by which the sub
ject was insufferably oppressed in the former
part of this reign, and to the exorbitant fines
that were levied for disobedience, in which the
.archbishop himself was notoriously active.
2. The false conclusions drawn from his be
ing but a single member of the council or High
Commission, viz., that therefore he was not an
swerable for their votes or orders, even though
he had set his hand to them ; because what is
carried by a majority i§ supposed to be the act
of the whole body, and not of any particular
member.t According to whieh way of reason
ing, the Constitution might be destroyed, with
out a possibility of punishing the authors.
3. His wilful misconstruction of the mana
gers' reasonings ; as when he replies with an air
of satisfaction and triumph, he hopes this or the
other particular will not be construed treason,
unless it be against a brewhouse or an alder
man, or the like ; though he was told over and
over, by the managers for the Commons, that
they did not object these things to him as so
many treasonable acts, but as proofs and evi
dences of one general charge, which was, a
traitorous attempt and endeavour to subvert
the fundaraental temporal laws, government,
and liberties of the realm; and how far they
have made good this part of their charge must
be left with the reader.
The Commons proceeded next to the third
general charge, relating to religion, in which
our history requires us to be more particular ;
and here they aver, " that the archbishop had
traitorously endeavoured and practised to alter
and subvert God's true religion by law estab
lished in this realra, and, instead thereof, to set
up popish superstition and idolatry, and to rec
oncile us to the Church of Rome."
This was divided into two branches ;
1st. " His introducing and practising certain
popish innovations and superstitious ceremo-

Laud's History, p. 282.

t Ibid., p. 437.

5oe

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

nies, not ¦warranted by law, nor agreeable to
the practice of the Church of England since the
Reformation. 2dly. "His countenancing and encouraging
sundry doctrinal errors in favour of Arminian
ism and popery."
The managers began with popish innovations
and ceremonies, in maintenance of which, they
insisted on the following proofs :
(1.) "His countenancing the seUing up of
images in churches, church-windows, and other
places of religions worship. That, in his own
chapel at Lambeth, he had repaired the popish
paintings on the windows, that had been de
stroyed at the Reformation, and made up the
history of Christ crucified between two thieves ;
of his rising out of the grave ; of his ascension
into heaven ; of the Holy Ghost descending in
form of a dove ; of Christ raising Lazarus out
ofthe grave ; and of God hiraself raining down
manna from heaven ; of God's giving the Law
to Moses on Mount Sinai ; of fire descending
from heaven at the prayer of Elisha ; of the
Holy Ghost overshadowing the Virgin, &c , all
taken frora the Roman missal, with several su
perstitious mottoes and inscriptions. That he
had caused divers crucifixes to be set up in
churclies over the communion-table, in his
chapel at Lambeth, at Whitehall, and at the
University at Oxford, of which he was chancel
lor. That in the parish of St. Mary's there was,
since his tirae, erected a statue of the Virgin
Mary cut in stone, with a child in her arras, to
which divers people bowed and did reverence
as they went along the streets, which could
not be done witliout his allowance ; nay, so
zealous was this prelate," say the managers,
" in defence of images, that he procured Mr.
Sherfield to be sentenced in the Star Chamber,
for defacing a church-window in or near Salis
bury, because there was an image in it of God
the Father ; all of which is contrary to the stat
ute of the 3d and 4th of Edward VI., and the in
junctions of Queen illizabeth, which enjoin all
pictures, paintings, images, and other monu
ments of idolatry and superstition to be de
stroyed, so as that there remain no memory of
them in walls, glass windows, or elsewhere,
within any church or house."*
The archbishop answered in general, that
crucifixes and iraages in churches were not
simply unlawful ; that they were in use in Con-
stantine's time, and long before, and therefore
there could be no popery in them. TertuUian
says they had the picture of Christ engraven
on their chalice in form of a shepherd carrying
home a lost sheep ; and even Mr. Calvin al
lows an historical use of images. Instil., lib. i.,
cap. xi., sect. xii. " Neque tamen ea supersti-
tione teneor ut nuUas prorsus iraagines ferandas
censeara, sed quia sculptura et pictura, Dei dona
sunt, purum et legitimura utriusque usum re
quire." The archbishop appealed likewise to
the HomUies, p. 64, 65, for an historical use of
iraages ; hut if it should be granted, says he,
that they are condemned by the homUies, yet
certainly one may subscribe to the homUies as
containing a godly and wholesome doctrine, ne
cessary for those times, without approving ev
ery passage or sentence, or supposing it neces-
sary for all times. 1 do not approve of images
• ¦• Pr>nne's Cant. Doom, p. 157, 462, &c.

of God the Father, though some will justify
them from Dan., vii., 22 ; but as for the images
of things visible, Ihey are of use, not only lor
the beautifying and adorning Ihe places of Di
vine worship, but lor admonition and instruc
tion, and can be an offence to none but such
as would have God served slovenly and meanly,
under a pretence of avoiding superstition.*
As to the particulars, the archbishop allowed
his repairing the windows of his chapel at Lam
beth, and making out the history as well as he
could, but not from the Roraan raissal, since he
did not know the particulars were in it, but
frora the fragments of what remained in the
windows since the Reformation ; but if they
had been originally painted by his order, as in
the ease of the new chapel of Westrainster, he
knows no crime in itt The image of the Vir
gin Mary, in Oxford, was set up by Bishop
Owen, and there is no evidence that I counte
nanced the setting it up, nor that any com
plaint was made to me of any abuse of it.t As
lo Mr. Sherfield's case, one of the witnesses
says it was the picture of an old man with a
budget by his side, puUing out .Adam and Eve ;
it is nol, therefore, certain that it was the ira
age of God the Father ; but if it was, yet Mr.
Sherfield ought not lo have defaced it but by
comraand of authority, though it had been an
idol of Jupiter ; the orders of the vestry, which
Mr. Sherfield pleads, being nothing at aU with
out the bishop of the diocess.^ The statute of
Edward VI. has nothing to do wilh iraages in
glass windows ; the words of the statute are,
" Any images of stone, timber, alabaster, or
earth, graven, carved, or painted, taken out of
any church, &.C., shall be destroyed." So hero
is not a word of glass windows, nor images in
them. The managers for the Commons replied, that
it was notoriously false that the primitive Chris
tians approved of iraages, for Justin Martyr,
Cleraens Alexandrinus, Irenseus, and all the an
cient fathers agree that they had none in their
churches. II Lactanlius says there can be no
religion in a place where any iraage is. Epi
phanius rent in pieces an image painted on
cloth, which he found in a church, out of holy
indignation. All the ancient councils are against
images in churches ; and many godly emperors
cast them out after they began to be in use in
latter times, as our own homilies expressly de
clare. Peril of Idolatry, part ii., p. 38. As for
TertuUian, all that can he proved from him is,
that those heretics against whom he wrote had
such a chalice, not that the orthodox Chris
tians allowed of it. Calvin only says that
he is not so superstitious as to think it alto
gether unlawful to make images of men or
beasts for a civil use, because painting is the
gift of God. But he affirms, in the very next
section, that there were no iraages in churches
for five hundred years after Christ ; and says
expressly, that they were not in use till the
Christian religion was corrupted and depraved.
He then adds, that he accounts it unlawful and
wicked to paint the image of God, because ho
has forbidden it. But the homilies are so ex
press that they wonder the archbishop can men-

* Laud's Hist., p. 311. Prynne, p. 462, 463, 479.
¦t Prynne, p. 462. X Laud's History, p. 329.
ij Ibid., p. 434. II Prynne, p. 463-465.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

609

lion them without blushihg ; as well as his not
knowing that the paintings were according to the
mass-book, when his own mass-book is marked
in those places with his own hand* The im-
¦ages in those windows were broken and demol
ished at the Reformation, by virtue of our stat
utes, homUies, and injunctions, and remained as
monuments of our indignation against Romish
idolatry, tUI the archbishop repaired them. The
managers observed farther, that the archbishop
had confessed the particulars of this part of
their charge, and had only excused himself as
to the University of Oxford, though they con
ceive it impossible he could be ignorant of
those innovations, being chancellor and visiter,
and having entertained the king, queen, and
elector-palatine there for many days. As for
Mr. Sherfield's case, they apprehend the author
ity of the vestry was sufficient in a place ex
empt from the jurisdiction of the bishop, as St.
Edmund's Church was. And the managers are
.still of opinion that the statute of Edward VI.
extends to images in glass windows ; and that
which confirms thera in it is, that the injunc
tions of Queen Elizabeth, raade in pursuance of
this law, extend in direct terms to images in
glass windows ; and the practice of those times
in defacing them infallibly proves it.
(2.) Another popish innovation charged on
the archbishop was " hia superstitious manner
of consecrating chapels, churches, and church
yards ; they instanced in Creed Church, of
which the reader has had an account before ;
and in St. Giles's in the Fields, which, being
fallen to decay, was in part re-edified and fin
ished in Bishop Mountaine's tirae. Divine ser
vice and administration of sacraments having
been performed in it three or four years before
his death ; but no sooner was the archbishop
translated to the See of London, than he inter-
^iicted the church, and shut up the doors for
several weeks, tiU he had reconsecrated it, after
the manner of Creed Church, to the very great
cost and charge of the parish, and contrary to
the judgment of Bishop Parker and our first
Reformers. "t
" They objected, farther, his consecrating of
altars with all their furniture, as pattens, chali
ces, altar-cloths, &c., even to the knife that
was to cut the sacramental bread ; and his ded
icating the churches to certain saints, together
with his proraoting annual revels, or feasts
¦of dedication, on the Lord's Day, in several
.parts ofthe country, whereby that holyday was
profaned, and the people encouraged in super
stition and ignorance."
The archbishop answered to the consecra
tion of churches, that the practice was as an
cient as Moses, who consecrated the tabernacle,
with aU its vessels and ornaments ; that the
.temple was afterward consecrated by King
Solomon ; that as soon as Christian churches
began to be built, in the reign of Constantine
the Great, they were consecrated, as Eusebius
testifies concerning the Chureh of Tyre, in his
Ecclesiastical History, lib. x., cap. in., and so it
has continued down to the present time. Be
sides, if churches were not consecrated, they
would not be holy; nor does Archbishop Par-
ker speak against consecrations m general, but
? PerUofldol., p. 41-43.
t Prynne, p. 113, 114, 497.

against popish consecrations, which mine were
not, says the archbishop, for I bad thera from
Bishop Andrews.*
As to the manner of consecrating Creed
Church, St.' Giles's, &c., his grace confessed
that when he came to the church door, that
passage in the Psalms was read, "Lift up your
heads, 0 ye gates, even lift thera up, ye ever
lasting doors, that the King of glory raay come
in ;"t that he kneeled and bowed at his entrance
into^ the church, as Moses and Aaron did at the
door of the tabernacle; that he declared the
place holy, and made use of a prayer like one
in the Roman pontifical ; that afterward he pro
nounced divers curses on such as should pro
fane it, but denied his throwing dust into the
air, in which he said the witnesses had for
sworn themselves, for the Roman pontifical
does not prescribe throwing dust into the air,
but ashes ; and he conceives there is no harm,
rauch less treason, in it.t The practice of giv
ing the names of angels and saints to churches
at their dedication, for distinction's sake, and
for the honour of their memories, says his grace,
has been very ancient, as appears in St. Austin^
and divers others ofthe fathers ; but the dedi
cation, strictly speaking, is only to God ; nor is
the observing the annual feasts of dedication
less ancient ; the feast of the dedication of
the temple was observed in our Saviour's time,
and though, no doubt, it was abused by some
among the Jews, yet our Saviour honoured it
with his preseuce. Judge Richardson, indeed,
had made an order in his circuit for putting
down these wakes, but he was obliged to re
voke it hy authority ; and, under favour, says
the archbishop, I am of opinion that the feasts
ought not to be put down for sorae abuses, any
more than all vines ought to be rooted up he-
cause some wiU be drunk with the juice of
them.^ The feasts are convenient for keeping
up hospitality and good neighbourhood ; nor
can there be a more proper time for observing
them than on Sundays, after Divine service is
ended. And as the consecrating bf churches, and
dedicating them to God, has been of ancient
usage, so has the consecration of altars and
their furniture, and such consecrations are ne
cessary, for else the Lord's Table could not be
called holy, nor the vessels belonging to it holy,
as they usually are ; yea, there is a holiness in
the altar which sanctifies the gift, which it
could not do, except itself were holy ; if there
be no dedication of these things to God, no sep
aration of them from common use, then there
can be no such thing as sacrilege, or difference
between a holy table and a common one.jl And
as to the form of consecrating these things, I
had them not from the Roman pontifical, but
from Bishop Andrews.
The managers for the Commons replied, that
if the temple was consecrated, it was by the
king himself, and not by the high-priest ; and
if the tabernacle was consecrated, it was by
Moses the civU magistrate, and not hy Aaron

* Laud's Historv, p. 339, 340. Prynne, p. 115.
t The archbishop alleged that this place of Scrip
ture had been anciently used in consecrations, and
that it referred not to the bishop, but to the true
King of glory.- Dr. Grey.— En. X Prynne, p. 498.
I, Laud's Hist., p. 269. II Laud's Hist., p. 313.

510
the 1ilgh-priest ; but we read of no other conse
crating the tabernacle and its utensils, but
anointing them with oil, for which Moses had
an express command ; nor of any other conse
crating the teraple, but of Soloraon's raaking an
excellent prayer in the outward court, not in
the teraple itsclt. and of his hallowing the mid
dle court by offerings and peace-offerings ; and
it is observable Ihat the cloud and glory of the
Lord filled the teraple, so as the priests could
not stand to minister before Solomon made his
prayer, which some caU his consecration. But
if It should be allowed that the temple was con
secrated in an extraordinary raanner, we have
no mention, either in Scripture or Jewish wri
ters, of the consecration of their synagogues,
to which our churches properly succeed.* .Vnd
after all, it is no conclusive way of arguing, to
derive a Christian institution from the practice
of the Jewish Church, because many of their
ordinances were temporary, ceremonial, and
abolished by the coming of (Christ.
From the beginning of Christianity we have
no credible authority for consecrating churches
for three hundred years.t Eusebius, in his life
of Constantine the Great, indeed mentions his
consecrating a temple that he buUt over our
Saviour's sepulchre at Jerusalem ; but how 1
with prayers, disputations, preaching, and expo
sition of Scripture, as he expressly defines it,
cap. xlv. Here were no processions, no knock
ing at the doors hy the bishop, crying " Open,
ye everlasting doors ;" nor casting dust or ashes
into the air, and pronouncing the ground holy ;
no reverencing towards the altar, nor a great
many other inventions of latter ages : no, these
were nol known in the Christian Church till
the very darkest tiraes of popery ; nay, in those
very dark times, we are told by Olho, the pope's
legate, in his Ecclesiastical Constitutions, that
in the reign of King Henry 111. there were not
only divers parish churches, but some cathedrals
in England, which had been used for many
years, and yet never consecrated by a bishop.
But it is plain to a demonstration, that the
archbishop's method of consecrating churches
IS a modern popish invention ; for it is agreed
by Gratian, Platina, the centuriators, and oth
ers, that Pope Hyginus, Gelasius, Sylvester,
Felix, and Gregory, were the first inventors and
promoters of it ; and it is nowhere to be found
but in the Roman pontifical, published hy com
mand of Pope Clement VIII., De Ecclesiie Ded-
icatione, p. 209, 280 ; for which reasons it was
exploded and condemned hy our first Reformers,
and particularly by Bishop PUkington, in his
comment upon Haggai, chap, i., ver. 7, 8, and
Archbishop Parker, who, in his Antiq. Britan.,
expressly condemns the archbishop's method of
consecration as popish and superstitious, p. 85
But tte archbishop says, if churches are not
consecrated they cannot be holy, whereas many
places that were never consecrated are styled
holy, as "the most holy place," and the " holy
city Jerusalem ;" and our homUies say, that the
Church is caUed holy, not of itself, but because
God's people resorting thither are holy, and ex
ercise themselves in holy things ; and it is evi-
dent that sanctification, when applied to places.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS

? Prynne, p. 115, 499, &c.
X Ibid., p. 115-117.

t Ibid., p. 501.

IS nothing else but a Separating them from com
mon use to a religious and sacred one, which
may be done without the superstitious method
above mentioned ; and though the arehbishop
avers he had not his form of consecration Irom
the Roman pontifical, he acknowledges he had it
from Bishop .\ndrews, who could have it no
where else.*
As for con.seciating altars, pattens, chalices,
altar cloths, and other altar furniture, llicir ori
ginal is no higher than the Roraan missal and pon
tifical, in both which there are particular chapters
and set forras of prayer for this purpose ; but lo
imagine that these vessels may not be reputed
holy, though separated to a holy use, unless thus
consecrated, is wiihout any foundation in rea
son or Scripture, and contrary to the practice
of the Church of England, and the opinion of our
first Reformers. ¦!
To the archbishop's account of feasts of dedi
cation we answer, as before, that an example
out of the Jewish law is no rule for the Chris
tian Church. Ezra kept a feast al the dedica
tion of the temple, when it was rebuilt, and of
fered a great many burnt-offerings (IJzra, vi.,
16, 17), but it was not made an annual solem
nity ; for the feast of dedication, mentioned John,
X., 2'J;, was not of the dedication of the temple,
but ofthe altars, instituted by Judas Maccabeus,
to be .kept annually by the space of eight days
(1 Mace, iv., 56, 59), which being of no Divine
institution, but kept only hy the superstitious
Jews, not by Christ or his apostles (who are
only said lo be at Jerusalem at that tirae),
can he no precedent for our raodern consecra-
tions.t Pope Felix and Gregory are the first that de
creed the annual observation of the dedication
of churches since our Saviour's tirae, which
were observed in England under the naraes of
wakes or revels, but were the occasion of so ¦
rauch idleness and debauchery, that King Hen
ry VIIL, anno 1.536, restrained them aU to the
first Sunday in October, not to be kept on any
other day ; and afterward, by the statute 5 and
6 Edward VI., cap. iii., of holydays, they were
totally abolished. But these feasts being revived
again by degrees, in sundry places of tins realm,
and particularly in Somersetshire, Judge Rich
ardson, when he was on the circuit, at the re
quest of the justices of the peace for the coun
ty, published an order for suppressing them ;
hut was obliged the next year as publicly to re
voke it, and to declare such recreations to he
lawful ; and as a farther punishment on the
judge, the archbishop obtained his removal from
that circuit. It is very certain that at these
revels there were a great many disorders, as
drunkenness, quarrelling, fornication, and mur
der ; it is therefore very unlikely they should an
swer any good purpose, and how fit they were
to succeed the public devotions of the Lord's
Day, we shall leave to your lordships' consid
eration. (3.) The raanagers charged the archbishop
farther "with giving orders to Sir Nath. Brent,
his vicar-general, to enjoin the church-wardens
of aU parish churches within his diocess, that
they should remove the communion-table from
the middle ofthe chapel to the upper end, and

* Prynne, p. 502.
X Ibid., p. i-:*.

t Ibid., p. 65, &c., 467, 470.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

fill

place it in form of an altar, close to the wall,
with the (snds north and south, and encompass
it with rails, according to the model of cathe
drals. They objected likewise to his furnish
ing the altar in his own chapel, and the king's
at Whitehall, with basins, candlesticks, tapers,
and other silver vessels, not used in his prede
cessor's time ; and to the credentia, or side-table,
in conformity to the Roman ceremonial, on
which the elements were to be placed on a
clean linen cloth before they were brought to
the altar to be consecrated ; and to the hang
ing over the altar a piece of arras with a large
crucifix."* The archbishop answered, that the placing
the communion-table at the east end of the
chancel was commanded hy Queen Elizabeth's
injunctions, which say, that the holy table shall
be set in the place where the altar stood, which
all who are acquainted with antiquity know
was at the east end of the chancel, with the
ends north and south, close to the wall, and
thus they were usually placed both in this and
other churches of Christendom ; the innovation,
therefore, was theirs who departed from the
injunctions, and not mine, who have kept to
I them. Besides, altars, both name and thing,
were in use in the primitive churches long be
fore popery began ; yea, they are to he found-
both in the Old and New Testament ; and that
there can be no popery in railing thera in, I
have proved in my speech in the Star Chamber.
However, I aver that I gave no orders nor di
rections to Sir Nath. Brent, my vicar-general,
neither by letter nor otherwise, to reraove or
raU in communion-tables in all parish church
es ; and I desire Sir Nath. may be called to
testify the truth upon his oath. Sir Nath. be
ing sworn, the archbishop asked him upon his
oath, whether he had ever given hira such or
ders. To which he replied, " My lords, upon
the oath I have taken, I received an express di-
lection-and command from the archbishop him
self to do what I did of this kind, otherwise I
durst never have done it."^l The archbishop
insisting that he never gave him such orders,
and wondering he should be so unworthy as to
affirra it upon oath, Sir Nath. produced the fol
lowing letter, under the archbishop's own hand,
directed to himself at Maidstone :
" Sir,
" I require you to command the communion
table at Maidstone to be placed at the east or
upper end of the chancel, and there railed in,
and that the communicants there come up to
the raU to receive the blessed sacrament ; and
the like you are required to do in all. churches,
aiid in all other places where you visit metro-
politioally.
" W. Cant."
To which, the archbishop, being out of coun
tenance, made no other reply but that he had
forgot it.t
As to the furniture upon the altar, he added,
that it was no other than was used in the king's
chapel at Whitehall before his time, and was
both necessary and decent ; as is likewise the
credentia, or side-table, the form of which he took
from Bishop Andrews's model ; and the piece

* Prynne, p. 62, 91, &c.
X Prynne, p. 89.

t Laud's Hist., p. 310.

of arras that was hung up over the altar in
Passion-week he apprehended was very prop
er for the plaoe and occasion, such representa
tions being approved by the Lutherans, and
even by Calvin himself, as had heen already
shown. The managers replied to the antiquity of al
tars, that though the name is often mentioned
in Scripture, yet it is never applied to the Lord's
Table ; but altars and priests are put in opposi
tion to the Lord's Table and ministers of the
New Testament, 1 Cor., ix., 13, 14. Christ
himself celebrated the sacrament at a table, not
at an altar, and he caUs it a supper, not a sac
rifice ; nor can it be pretended by any law or
canon of the Church of England, that it is call
ed an altar more than once, stat. 1, Edw. VI.,
cap. i., which statute was repealed within three
years, and another made, in which the word
altar is changed into table. ¦ It is evident from
the unanimous suffrage of most of the fathers
that lived within three hundred years after
Christ, and by our most learned reformers,
that for above two hundred and fifty years after
Christ, there were no altars in churches, hut
only tables. Pope Sixtus.II. being the first that
introduced thenj ;* and the canons of the popish
Council of Aix, 1583, being the only ones that
can be produced for railing them in ; one of
which prescribes thus, " Unumquodque altare
sepiatur omnino septo ferreo, vel lapideo, vel
ligneo."t " Let every altar be encompassed
with a raU of iron, stone, or wood." The text,
Heb., xiii., 10, "We have an altar whereof
they have no right to eat which serve the tab
ernacle," is certainly meant of Christ hiraself,
and not of the altar of wood or stone, as our
Protestant writers have proved at large ; agree
ably to ¦which EtU altars in churches were com
manded to be taken Sway and removed, as su
perstitious and popish, hy public laws and in
junctions at the Reformation, and tables were
set up in their stead, which continued till the
archbishop was pleased to turn them again into
altars. But the archbishop is pleased to raaintain
that the queen's injunctions prescribe the com
munion-table to be set in the place where the
altar stood, and that this was anciently at the
east end of the choir ; whereas, we affirm that
he is not able to. produce one precedent or au
thority in aU antiquity for this assertion ; on the
contrary, we are able to demonstrate to your
lordships, that altars and Lord's tables, among
Jews and Christians, stood anciently in the
raidst of their churches or choirs,t where the
people might sit, stand, and go conveniently
round them. So it was certainly in the Jewish
Church, as every one allows ; and it was so in
the Christian Church tUl the very darkest times
of popery, when private masses Were introdu
ced.^ Eusebius, Dionysius Areopagita, Chry
sostom, Athanasius, Augustine, &c., affirm that

* Prynne, p. 480, 481. t Ibid., p. 62.
X Choir or chorus has its -denomination from the
multitude standing round about the altar [in modum
corona] in the form of a ring or circle. In the ancient
liturgies they prayed for all those that stood round
about the, altar. The priest and deacons stood round
about the altar when they officiated, and so did the
bishops when they consecrated it.
^ Prynne, p. 482, 484. Vide Bishop WiUiaras'a
Life, p. 109.

(12

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

the table of the Lord stood in the raiddle of the
chancel, so that they raight compass it about ;
nay, Durandus, a popish writer, informs us, that
¦when a bishop consecrates a new altar, he raust
go round about it seven times ; by which it is
evident it could not stand against a waU ; hut
our most eminent writers against popery, as
Bucer, Bishop Jewel, Bishop Babington, Bishop
Morton, and ."Archbishop Williams, have proved
this so evidently, that there is no room to call
it in question ; and we are able to produce sev
eral authorities from Venerable Bede, St. Austin,
the first .Archbishop of Canterbury, and others,
that they stood thus in England in their times.
Nor do Queen Elizabeth's injunctions in the
least favour the archbishop's practice of fixing
the communion-table to the east wall with rails
about it, for they order the table to be removed
when the sacraraent is to be distributed, and
placed in such sort within the chancel, as where
by the minister may be more conveniently heard
of the comraunioants, and the coraraunicants
may more conveniently, and in greater num
bers, communicate with him. Now, if it be to
be removed at the time of coramunion, it is ab
surd to suppose it to be fixed to the waU, and
encompassed with rails. Besides, the rubric of
the Common Prayer Book, and the eighty-sec
ond canon of 1603, appoint the coramunion-ta
ble to be placed in the body of Ihecdurch, where
the chancel is too small, or near the raiddle of
the chancel, where it is large enough ; and thus
they generally stood in aU churches, chapels,
and in Lambeth Chapel itself, tUl the archbish
op's time, which puts the matter out of ques
tion.* And if it be remembered that the say
ing of private masses brought in this situation
of altars into the Church of Rome, contrary to
aU antiquity, the archbishops imitating them in
that particular must certainly be a popish inno
vation. The furniture upon the altar, which the arch
bishop pleads for, is exactly copied from the
Koraan pontifical and the popish (!louncil of Aix,
and is conderaned by our homUies and Queen
Elizabeth's injunctions, which censure, con
demn, and abolish, as superstitious, ethnical,
and popish, aU candlesticks, trindals, rolls of
wax, and setting up of tapers, as lending to
idolatry and superstition, injunct. 2, 23, 25.
Therefore, instead of conforming to the chapel
at WhitehaU, he ought, as dean of that chapel,
to have reformed it to our laws, homilies, and
injunctions. The like maybe said ofthe credentia [or side-
table], which is taken expressly out of the Ro
man Ceremoniale and Pontifical, and is used
among the papists only in their most soleran
masses. It was never heard of in any Protest
ant church, or in the Church of England, tUl
the archbishop's time ; and as for the stale pre
text of his having it from Bishop Andrews, if it
be true, we are certain that bishop could have
•it nowhere else but from the Roman missal. t
The arras hangings, with the picture of Christ
at his last supper, with a crucifix, are no less
popish than the former, being enjoined by the
Koman Ceremoniale, edit. Par.. 1633, lib. i.,
cap. xii, p. 69, 70, in these words : " Quod si
altare parieti adhaereat, applicari poterit ipsi pa-
rieti supra altare pannus aliquls caeteris nohilior
* Prynne, p. 467, 481. f Prynne, p. 63, 468.

et speciosior, ubi intexle sint D.N. Jesu Chrisli,
aut gloriosae Virgin is, vel sanctorum imagines."
"If the altar be fixed to the wall, let there he
hangings more noble and beautiful than the rest
fastened upon the wall over the altar, in which
are wrought the iraages of Christ, the blessed
Virgin, or the saints." Besides, these things
being conderaned by our statutes, homilies, and
injunctions, as we have already proved, onght
not certainly to have been introduced by a prel
ate, who challenges all that is between heaven
and heU justly to tax him in anyone particular
of favouring popish superstition or idolatry.
" Another innovation charged on the arch
bishop was his introducing divers superstUions
into Divine worship, as bowing towards the al
tar, bowing at the narae of Jesus, enjoining peo
ple to do reverence at their entrance into church,
leading the sacred service at the coramunion-
table, standing up at tbe Gloria Patri,* and in
troducing the use of copes .and church music.
They objected, farther, his repairing old cruci
fixes, his new statutes ofthe University of Ox
ford, araong which sorae were arbitrary, and
others were superstitious: of the forraer sort are
the imposing new oaths ; the statute of hanni-
tion ; referring some misdemeanors to arbitrary
penalties, and obliging students to go to prison
on the vice-chancellor's or proctor's coramand.
Ofthe latter sort, are bowing to the altar, sing
ing the litany, and reading Latin prayers in
Lent ; together with the above-mentioned su
perstitions in the manner of Divine worship."!
The archbishop answered, that bowing in
Divine worship was practised among the Jews
(2 Chron., xxix , 29) ; and the Psalmist says,
" O come, let us worship and bow down ; let
us kneel before the Lord our Maker" (Psalm
xcv., 6) : that it was usual in Queen Elizabeth's
time ; and that the knights of the garter were
obliged to this practice by the orders of their
chapter. Besides, the altar is the chief place
of God's residence on earth, for there it is,
" This is my body ;" whereas in the pulpit it
is only, This is ray word. And shall I bow to
raen in each house of Parliaraent, and not bow
to God in his house, whither I come to worship
him 1 Surely I must worship God and bow to
him, though neither altar nor coraraunion-table
be in the church.t
Bowing at the name of Jesus is prescribed in
direct terms by Queen Elizabeth's injunctions.
No. 12, and by the eighteenth canon of our
Church ; and, though standing up at the Gloria
Patri is not prescribed by any canon of the
Church, it is nevertheless of great antiquity ;
nor is the reading the second service at the
communion-table an innovation, it being the
constant practice in cathedrals, and warranted
by the rubric.
The use of copes is prescribed by the twen
ty-fourth canon of 1603, which says, " that in
aU cathedrals and collegiate churches, the com-
* ¦" It is observable," remarks Mrs. Macaulay,
" that the most obnoxious of those ceremonies whicli
L^ud so childishly insisted on were established at
the Restoration, and have been ever since regularly
practised in the Church ; and that many of his most
offensive measures have been adopted hy revolution
ministers, such as the nominating clergymen to be
justices of peace, with restraints laid on marriage."
—History of England, vol. iv., p. 135, the no(e.— Ed.
t Prynne, p. 72, &c. X Laud's Hist., p. 313, 361.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

513

munion shall be administered on principal feast
4ays, soraetiraes by the bishop, if present,
soraetiraes by the dean, and sometimes by the
canon or prebendary, the principal minister
using a decent cope ;" so that here is no inno
vation, any more than in the use of organs,
which our Church has generally approved and
use of
As to the statutes of the University of Ox
ford, it is honour, more than enough for me,
that I have finished and settled them ; nor did
I anything in them but by the consent of the
convocation ; and as to the particulars, there
is nothing but what is agreeable to their char
ters, aiid the ancient custom and usage of the
imiversity.* The managers replied, that bowing to the al
tar is popish, superstitious, and idolatrous, be
ing prescribed only by popish canons, and in
troduced on purpose to support the doctrine of
transubstantiation, which the archbishop's prac
tice seems very much to countenance, when,
at his coming up to the altar to consecrate the
bread, he makes three low bows, and at his go
ing away three more, giving this reason for it,
"Quia hoc est corpus meum," " Because this is
my body ;" whereas he does not bow to the
pulpit, because a greater reverence' is due to the
hody than to the Word of the Lord.t Besides,
it has no foundation in antiquity, nor has it been
approved by any Protestant writers, except the
archbishop's creatures, such as Dr. Heylin,
Pocklington, &c., and has been condemned by
the best writers, as popish and superstitious.
The black book of the knights of the garter, at
Windsor, is a sorry precedent for a Protestant
archbishop to foUow, being made in the darkest
times of popery, viz., in the reign of Henry V. ;
and if they bow, Deo et altari, to God and to his
altar, as the archbishop in the Star Chamber is
of opinion Christians ought to do, we cannot
but think it both popish and idolatrous. His
passages of Scripture are nothing to the pur
pose, for kneeling before the Lord our .maker
has no relation to bowing to the altar ; nor is
there any canon or injunction of the Church to
support the practice.
The archbishop confesses that there is nei
ther canon nor injunction for standing up at the
Gloria Patri, which raust therefore be an inno
vation, and is of no greater antiquity than the
office of the mass, for it is derived from the
Ordo Romanus, as appears from the works of
Cassander, p. 98.t And, though bowing at the
name of Jesus be mentioned in the canons; yet
these canons are not binding, not being con
firmed hy Pariiament,^ especially since the
homilies, the Common Prayer Book, the Arti
cles of Religion, and the Book of Ordination,
which are the only authentic rules ofthe Church,
make no mention of it ; nor was it ever intro
duced before the time of Pope Gregory X., who
first prescribed it ; and from the Councils of
Basil, Sennes, and Augusta, it was afterward
inserted in the Roman Ceremoniale ; besides,

our best Protestant writers have condemned
the practice.
Reading the second service at the altar, when
there is no communion, is contrary to the can
ons of 1571 and 1603, contrary to the queen's
injunctions, the horaUies, the rubric in the Cora
raon Prayer Book, and was never practised in
parish churches till of late, though used in some
cathedrals, where the rubric enjoins the com
munion to be administered every Sunday in the
year, which, being omitted, the second service
at the table was left to supply it. The Lord's
Table was ordained only to administer the sac
rament, but the Epistle and Gospel, which are
the cliief parts of the second service, are ap
pointed to be read with the two lessons in the
reading pew.*
As for copes, neither the Coraraon Prayer
Book, nor Book of Ordination, nor horaUies con
firmed by Parliament, nor Queen Elizabeth's
injunctions in her first year, make any mention
of them, though they are evidently derived from
the -popish wardrobe, and the last Common
Prayer Book of King Edward VI. expressly pro
hibits them.t The twenty-fourth canon of
1603 enjoins only the chief minister to wear a
cope at the adrainistration of the sacrament,
whereas the archbishop prescribed them to be
worn by others besides the chief minister, and
as well when the sacrament was not adminis
tered as when it was. But, as we observed
before, those canons not being confirmed by
Parliaraent, expired with King James, and there
can be no warrant for their present use. Nor
is the use of music in churches, or chanting of
prayers, of any great antiquity, being first intro
duced by Pope Vitalian, A.D. 666, and encour
aged only by popish prelates.t
And though the archbishop pleads that the
statutes of Oxford are agreeable to ancient cus
tom and usage, we affirm they contain sundry
innovations, not only with regard to the liberty
of the subject, but with regard to religion, for
Latin prayers were forraeriy said only on Ash-
Wednesdays before the bachelors of arts,
whereas now none others are to be said
throughout all Lent ; the statute for singing in
solemn processions was made in time of popery,
and renewed in these statutes to keep up the
practice of such superstitious perarahulations ;
and though the archbishop with his wonted as
surance wonders what these things have to do
with treason, we apprehend that if they appear
so. many proofs of a design to subvert^ the es-

* Laud's History, p. 304. __„,_, „ . , „.
t Prynne, p. 63, 64, 474, 477, 487. X Ibid., p. 64.
6 Dr Grey contends here, that the canons of a
convocation duly licensed by the kmg when con
firmed by royal authority, are property the ecclesias
tical lavvs of the Church ,of England, and are as
bmding as the statutes of Parliament.— Ed.
Vol. L— T t t

* Prynne, p. 492. t Ibid., p. 64, 479, 480.
X Ibid., p. 65.
^ Mrs. Macaulay thinks that to the charge of en
deavouring to subvert the established rehgion, and
to set up popish superstition and idolatry, the arch
bishop was particularly strong in his defence, and
the aUegations to support the charge were particu
larly vague and trifling. "The truth is," as that au
thor observes, " those superstitious ceremonies which
he with so much Wind zeal had endeavoured to re
vive, and which were so justly ridiculed and abhor
red by the more enUghtened Protestants, were the
disciphne of the first Reformers in this country, and
had the sanction both of the civil and ecclesiastical
power : reformation had begun in England at the
wrong end ; it was first adopted and modelled by
oovernment, instead of being forced upon govem
ment by the general sense of the people ; and thus,
to further the ambitious views of the monarch, and
to gratify the pride of the prelacy, a great part of the

514

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

tablished religion of the Church of England,
they will be judged so in the highest degree."*
Farther, they charged the archbishop wilh
advising the king "to publish his declaration
for the use of sports on the Lord's Day, in or
der to suppress afternoon sermons ; with obli
ging the clergy of his diocess to read il in their
pulpits, and punishing those that refused."!
The archbishop answered, that he had the
king's warrant for printing the Book of Sports ;
that there is no proof thai it was by his pro
curement, nor that it was done on purpose lo
take away afternoon sermons, since these rec
reations are not allowed till they are over ; be
sides, the declaration allows only lawful recre
ations, which is no more than is practised at
Geneva, though, for his own part, he always
observed strictly the Lord's Day. What he en
joined about reading the declaration was by his
majesty's comraand, and he did not punish
above three or four for not reading it.|
The Commons replied, that it was evident,
hy the archbishop's letter to the Bishop of Bath
and Wells, that the declaration was printed by
his procurement, the warrant for printing it be
ing written all with his own hand, and without
date, and, therefore, raight probably be obtained
afterward ;^ moreover, some of the recreations
mentioned in it are unlawful on the Lord's Day,
according lo the opinion of the fathers, coun
cils, and imperial laws; and though Calvin dif
fers from our Protestant writers about the mo
rality of the Sabbath, yet he expressly condemns
dancing and pastimes on that day. As for his
grace's own strict observation of the Lord's Day,
it is an averment without truth, for he sat con
stantly at Ihe council-table on that day ; and it
was his ordinary practice to go to bowls in the
sumraer-time, and use other recreations upon
it; nor is it probable that the archbishop would
have punished conscientious ministers for not
reading the Book of Sports, if the thing had been
disagreeable to his practice, especially when
there is no warrant at aU in the declaration
that ministers should publish it, or be punished
for refusing it ; and that he punished no raore,
was not owing to his cleraency who gave cora
mand to suspend all that refused, but the cler
gy's compliance : for so zealous was this arch
bishop and some of his brethren in this affair,
that it was inserted as an article of inquiry in
their visitations, whether the king's declaration
for sports has been read and published by the
minister ; and defaulters were to be presented
upon oath. Now we appeal to the whole Chris
tian world, whether ever it has been known
that any who have been called fathers of the
Church have taken so much pains to have the
Lord's Day profaned, as first to advise the king
to publish a declaration to warrant it, then to
enjoin the clergy to read it in their pulpits, and
to suspend, sequester, and deprive all whose
consciences would not allow them to comply,
and this not only contrary to the laws of God,
but to the laws of the land.
The reader wUl, no doubt, remark upon this

mystery of popery was retained in the doctrine, and
a great part of the puppet-shows of the papists in the
discipline, of the Church of England."— History of
England, vol. iv., p. 135. — Ed.
* Prynne, p. 478. f Ibid., p. 128, 154, 382.
X Laud's Hist., p. 343, 344. Ij Prynne, p. 5y5.

part of the archbishop's trial, that those riles
and ceremonies which have bred such Ul blood,
and been contended for with so much fierceness
as to disturb the peace of the Church and di
vide its communion, have no foundation in
Scripture or primitive antiquity, taking their
rise, for the raost part. In the darkest and most
corrupt times of the papacy. I speak not here
of such rites as are established by law, as tho
cross in baptism, and kneeling at the commu
nion, &c., because the Commons could not
charge these on the archbishop as criminal.
And it will be observed farther, that when men
claim a right to introduce ceremonies for de
cency of worship, and Irapose thera upon the
people, there can be no bounds to a fruitful In
vention. Archbishop Laud would, no doubt,
by degrees, have introduced all the follies ofthe
Roman Church ; and admitting his aulhority to
Impose rites and ceremonies not raentioned in
Scripture, it is nol easy to give a reason why
fifty should not be enjoined as weU as five.
¦The managers went on next to the second
branch of their charge, to prove the archbishop's
design to subvert the 'Protestant religion by
countenancing and encouraging sundry doctrinal
errors in favour of Arrainianisra* and popery.
And here they charged him,, first, " with be
ing the great patron of that part of the clergy
who had declared theraselves in favour of these
errors, and with procuring their advanceraent
to the highest stations in Ihe Church, even
though they were under censure of Parliaraent,
as Dr. Manw^aring, Montague, &c. They aver
red that the best preferments in his majesty's
gift, ever since the archbishop's administration
in 1627, had, by his advice, been bestowed on
persons of the sarae principles ; and that he had
advised the king to publish a declaration, prohib
iting the clergy to preach on the five controvert
ed points, by virtue of which the raoulhs ofthe
orthodox preachers were stopped, and sorae
that ventured to transgress the king's declara
tion vvere punished in the High Commission,
when their adversaries were left at large to
spread their opinions at their pleasure."
I'he archbishop answered, that he had not

* The reader has seen, in the preceding part of this
reign, and in that of James 1., how Arminianism be
came connected with Ihe pohtics of the time. There
is no natural or necessary union between Arminian
ism and despotism. And at the same lime that thje
court in England protected and patronised Ihe Ar
minians, and in return received from them a sanction
to its arbitrary views, the reverse took place in Hol
land : where the Arminians, favoured by the magis
trates of the States, opposed the aspiring designs ot
the Stadtholder Maurice ; and the Calvinists, on the
contrary, who were there called Gomarists, espoused
his interest, and seconded his ambitious and arbitra
ry measures against the liberty of their country.
These have continued the dominant parly to this day •
and the most violent of them have not only the sway
in the Church, but their favour is courted by the
prince, who finds his interest advanced by a connex
ion with them. In this instance the Dutch Calvin
ists, while they mamtain all the rigour of his theo
logical system, have greatly and ignominiously devi
ated from the political principles of their illustrious
founder; whose character as a legislator, more than
as a divine, displayed the strength of his genius; and
whose wise edicts were dictated by genuine patriot
ism and the spint of liberty. — Appendux to the 12lh
vol. of the Monthly Review, enlarged, p. 523 ; and
Rousseau's Social Compact, p. 1 12, note. — Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

515

defended any points of Arminianisra, though he
heartily wished, for the peace of Chrislendora,
that these differences were not pursued with
such heat and aniraosity.* He confessed that
he had been taxed in a declaration of the House
of Coramons as a favourer of Arminians, but
without proof, and he took it as a very great
slander. Nor had he, to the best of his remem
brance, advanced any such to ecclesiastical liv
ings ; if they proved so alterward, it was more
than he could foresee ; but he had preferred di
vers orthodox rainisters, against whom there
was no e.xception. He denied that he had any
hand in the preferment of Dr. Manwaring or
Montague, who were under censure of Parlia
ment, nor is the Pocket-book a sufficient proof
of it; he was of opinion that Neal, Lindsey,
Wren, Bancroft, Curie, and others raentioned
in the charge, were worthy men, and every way
qualified for their preferments, though it does
not appear he had any hand in bestowing them.
As for the king's declaration prohibiting the
clergy to. preach the five points, it was his maj
esty's own, and not his ; and since the publish
ing of it he had endeavoured to carry it with an
equal hand, and to punish the transgressors of
it on one side as well as the other, t
The Commons replied, that they wondered
at the archbishop's assurance in denying his
endeavours to promote .Arminianism in the
Chureh; that the remonstrance of the Com
mons was a sufficient evidence of his guilt, be
ing confirmed by many proofs, though his an
swer to it proved so fuU of bitterness and sauci-
ness, as throwing scandal on the whole repre
sentative body of.the nation. t
As to the particulars, they say that his pre
ferring Mr. Downham and Taylor, orthodox
men, to some benefices, was only a blind to
cover his advancing so many popishly-affected
clergymen. It is known to all the world th^t
Montague and Manwaring were his creatures ;
the Pocket-book says that his majesty's royal
assent to their preferment was signed by order
of this prelate (when only Bishop of London),
and himself was the person that consecrated
them. It would be too long to go into particu
lars, but everybody knows that the disposal of
aU or most of the bishoprics, deaneries, and
considerable benefices since the year 1627, have
been under the direction of this archbishop ;
and what sort of persons have been preferred
is apparent to all men, by the present distract
ed condition ofthe Church and universities.
The king's declaration for prohibiting preach
ing on the five controverted points was an ar
tifice of the archbishop's to introduce- the Ar
minian errors, by preventing orthodox minis
ters frora awakening the minds of people against
them. And whereas he avers that he has car
ried it with an even hand, and could hring wit
nesses from Oxford to prove it, we challenge
him to name one scholar or rainister that was
ever imprisoned, deprived, silenced, prosecuted
in the High Commission, or cast out of favour
on this account ; there was, indeed, one Rains-
ford, an Arminian, Who, in the year 1632, was
obliged publicly to confess his error in disobey
ing his majesty's declaration, and that was aU
his punishraent ; whereas great numbers ofthe

* Laud's Hist., p. 352.
t Prynne, p. 508.

Prynne, p. 529.
X Ibid.,

p. 529.

other side have been persecuted, so as to be
forced to abandon their native country at a time
when the most notorious and declared Armini
ans were advanced to the best preferments in
the Church, as Montague made a bishop, Hars
net an archbishop, Lindsey promoted to two
bishoprics, Potter to a deanery, and Duppa to
a deanery and bishopric, and made tutor to
the prince, &c.*
The managers objected farther to the arch
bishop, " that having obtained the sole licensing
of the press, by a declaration of the Star Chara
ber in the year 1637, he had prohibited the re
printing sundry orihodox books formerly print
ed and sold by authority ; as the Geneva Bible
with notes, GeUibrand's Protestant Almanac,
in which the popish saints were left out of the
calendar and Protestant raartyrs put in their
places ; that his chaplains had refused to license
the Confession of Faith ofthe Palatine church
es, Fox's Book of Martyrs, Bishop Jewel's
Works, sorae part of Dr. Willet's, and the His
tory of the Gunpowder Treason, as was attest
ed by the clerks of Stationers' Hall ; and this
reason given for the refusal, that we were not
now so angry with the papists as formerly, and
therefore it was not proper to exasperate them,
there heing a design on foot to win them by
mildness. That the archbishop had suppressed
sundry new books written against Arrainianisra
and popery, and had castrated others, expunging
such passages as reflected upon the superstition
and idolatry of that Church,"t a large catalogue
of which the Coraraons produced ; many au
thors appeared in maintenance of this part of
the charge, and araong others, Dr. Featly, Dr.
Clarke, Dr. Jones, Mr. Ward, &c.t It was
said in particular, " that he had expunged di
vers passages, which bore hard upon the pa
pists, out of the collection of public prayers for
a general fast against the plague ; and that in
the prayer-hook appointed by authority for the
5th of November, instead of ' Root out that
Babylonish and antichristian sect, whose reli
gion is rebeUion, whose faith is faction, and
whose practice is murdering of soul and body,'
he had altered that passage, arid artfully turned
it against the Puritans, thus : ' Root out the an
tichristian sect of them, who turn religion into
rebellion, and faith into faction.'
" And as the archbishop had castrated some
books, because they refuted the doctrines he
would countenance, so he gave full license to
others, wherein the grossest points of Armini
anisra and popery were openly asserted ; as
Cosins's Hours of Prayer, Sale's Introduction to
a Devout Life, Christ's Epistle to a Devout
Soul, and others, in which the foUojving doc
trines were raaintained: (1.) The necessity of
auricular confession, and the power of priests
to forgive sins. (2.) Tbe lawfulness and bene
fit of popish penance, as wearing hair-cloth, and
other corporeal punishments. (3.) Absolute sub
mission to the commands of priests as directors
of conscience. (4.) That in the sacrament, the
body and blood of Christ is a true and proper
sacrifice ; that' the natural body and blood of
Christ is really and substantially present in the
eucharist ; and that there can be no true sac
rament or consecration of it where there is no

» Prynne, p. 172, 511. f Ibid., p. 179, 180, 182, <&c.
X Ibid., p. 254, 265, 257, 258, &c.

516

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

altar. (5.) That crucifixes, iraages, and pictures
may be lawfully set up in churches, and ought
not to be removed. (6.) That the pope is not
antichrist. (7.) That there are venial sins. (8.)
That there is a purgatory, or limbus palrum. (9.)
That the relics of saints are to be preserved and
reverenced. (10.) That the Virgin Mary and
saints are to be invoked and prayed to. (11.)
That the Church of Rome is the mother-church,
and never erred in fundamentals. (12.) That
there were written traditions of equal authority
with the Word of God."* To which were add
ed, sundry articles of Arrainian doctrine, as of
free-will, total and final apostacy from grace ;
exaraples of which the managers produced from
the several authors.
And as a farther encouragement to popery,
they objected his grace's " conniving at the ira-
portation of popish books, and restoring tbem to
the owners When seized by the searchers, con
trary to the statute of 3 Jacob. I., by which
means many thousands of thera were dispersed
over the whole kingdom ; whereas he gave
the strictest commands to his officers to seize
all imported Bibles with notes, and aU books
against Arminian and popish innovations. AU
¦which put together araounted to no less than a
deraonstration of the archbishop's design to sub
vert our established religion, by introducing doc
trinal Arminianisra and popery."t
The archbishop answered, that the decree of
the Star Chamber for regulating the press was
the act ofthe whole court, and not his ; and he
is StiU of opinion that it was both a necessary
and useful act, being designed to suppress sedi
tious, schismatical, and mutinous hooks. t As
to the particulars, he replied that the Geneva
Bible was only tolerated, not allowed by author
ity, and deserved to be suppressed for the mar
ginal note on Exod., i., 17, which allows diso
bedience to the king's command. GeUibrand's
Almanac had left out all the saints and apos
tles, and put in those named by Mr. Fox, and,
therefore, deserved to be censured. As to the
Book of Martyrs, it was an abridgraent of that
book I opposed (says his grace), lest the book
itself should be brought into disuse, and lest
anything raaterial should be left out. But the
licensing of books was left in general to ray
chaplains, for an archbishop had better grind,
than take that work into his own hands ; and
whereas it had been inferred that what is done
by my chaplain must be taken as ray act, I con
ceive no man can by law be punished crirainaUy
for his servant's act, unless it be proved that
he had a hand in it.
The like answer the archbishop gave to the
castrating and licensing books — his chaplains
did it ; a^d since it was not proved they did it
by his express command, they must answer for
it. He adraits that he altered the prayers for
the 5th of November, and for the general fast,
by his majesty's command ; and he is of opinion
the expressions were too harsh, and therefore
ought to be changed.
He denied that he ever connived at the im
portation of popish hooks ; and if any such were
restored to the owners, it was by order of the
High Coraraission, and therefore he is not an
swerable for it.

* Prynne, p. 188, 202.
X Laud's History, p. 350.

t Ibid,, p. 349.

The Coramons replied, that the decree for
regulating the press was procured by him with
a design lo enlarge his jurisdiction ; and though
sorae things in it might deserve the thanks of
the stationers, they complain loudly that books
forraeriy printed by authority might not be re
printed without a new license from himself*
.As to particulars, they affirm that the Geneva
Bible was printed by authority of Queen Eliza
beth and King Jaraes, cum privilegio ; and in
the 15th Jacob, there was an irapression by
the king's own. printer, notwithstanding the
note upon Exodus, which is warranted bolh by
fathers and canonists. GeUibrand's Almanac
was certainly no offence, and therefore did not
deserve that the author should be tried before
the High Coraraission ; and if the queen and
the papists were offended at it, it was to be liked
never the worse by all good Protestants. The
archbishop is pleased, indeed, to cast the whole
blarae of the press on his chaplains ; but we
are of opinion (say the raanagers) that the
archbishop is answerable for what his chap
lains do in this case ; the trust of licensing
hooks being originally invested in him, his chap
lains being his deputies, he must answer for
them at his peril. When the Archbishop of
York, in the reign of Edward I., was questioned
in Parliaraent for excommunicating two ser
vants of the Bishop of Durham, employed in
the king's service, the archbishop threw the
blame on his comraissary, who was the person
that excomraunicated them ; but it was then
resolved in Parliament that the commissary's
act was his own, and he was fined four thou
sand marks to the king. Now the coramissary
was an officer established by law ; but the
archbishop's chaplains are not officers by lavy,
and, therefore, dare not license anything with
out his privity and command.
Besides, it is apparent these books were cas
trated by the archbishop's approbation, for oth
erwise he would have punished the licensers,
printers, arid publishers, as he always did when
information was given of any new books pub
lished against the late innovations. His grace
has forgot his refusing to license the Palatine
Con/ession of Faith, which is his peculiar hap
piness when he can make no answer ; and it
looks a little undutiful in him to cast the altera
tion of the prayers for Noveraber 5 on the king,
when everybody knows by whom the king's
conscience was directed.!
And whereas the archbishop denies his con
niving at the iraportation of popish books, he
does not so much as allege that he ordered
such books to be seized, as he ought to have
done ; he confesses that such books as were
seized had been restored by order of the High
Commission, whereas it has been sworn to be
done by his own order ; hut if it had not, yet
he, being president of that court, ought to liave
crossed those orders, that court not daring to
have made any such restitutions without his
consent ; so that we cannot but be of opinion
that the whole of this charge, which shows a
raanifest partiality on the side of Arrainianisra
and popery, and the strongest and most artifi
cial attempts to propagate these errors in the
nation, stiU remains in its fuU strength.
The managers went on to charge the arch-
* Prynne, p. 515. f Ibid., p. 522.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

517

bishop with his severe prosecution of those
clergymen who had dared to preach against
the dangerous increase of Arminianisra and po
pery, or the late innovations ; they instanced
in Mr. Chaunoy, Mr. Workraan, Mr. Davenport,
and others, some of whom were punished in
the High Commission for not railing in the
communion-table, and for preaohing against
images ; and when Mr. Davenport fled to New-
England to avoid the storra, the archbishop said
his arm should reach him there. They object
ed, farther, " his suppressing afternoon sermons
on the Lord's Day, and the laudable design of
buying in impropriations, which was designed
for the encouraging such lecturers."*
The archbishop answered, that the censures
passed on the ministers above mentioned was
the act of the High Commission, and not his ;
and he confesses their sentences appeared just
and reasonable, inasmuch as the passages that
occasioned them were against the laudable cer
emonies of the Churoh, against the king's dec
laration, tending to infuse into the minds ofthe
people groundless fears and jealousies of po
pery, and to cast aspersions on the governors
ofthe Church ; that therefore, if he did say his
arm should reach Mr. Davenport in New-Eng
land, he sees no harm in it, for there is no rea
son that the plantations should secure offenders
against, the Church of England from the edge
of the law ; and he raeddled with none except
such as were Puritanical, factious, schismatical,
and enemies to the good orders ofthe Church.t
As to the suppressing afternoon sermons, the
instructions for turning thera into catechising
was before his tirae, and he could not but ap
prove of the design, as a proper expedient for
preserving peace between ministers and people,
the lecturers being for the most part factious,
and the occasion of great contentions in the
parishes where they preached.t
He confessed that he overthrew the design
of buying up impropriations, ^nd thanked God
he had destroyed it, because he conceived it a
plot against the Churoh, for if it had succeed
ed, more clergymen would have depended on
these feoffees than on the king, and on aU the
peers and bishops besides ; but he proceeded
against them according to law, and if the sen
tence was not just, it must be the judges' fault,
and not his.
The Commons replied, that it was notorious
to aU raen how cruel he had been towards all
those who had dared to make a stand against
his proceedings. They put hira in mind of
Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick, and of great
numbers whom he had forced into Holland and
into the plantations of America, to avoid the
ruin of theraselves and families ; yea, so im
placable was this prelate, that he would neither
suffer them to live in the land or out of it, an
embargo being laid on all ministers going to
New-England ; and if any such got over clan
destinely, he threatened his arm should reach
them there. In vain does he shelter his severe
proceedings under the authority of the court,
for if this plea be admitted, no corrupt judges
or counsellors can be brought to justice for the
most arbitrary proceedings ; but, in reality, the
act of the court is the act of every particular

¦» Prynne, p. 361, 362, &c.
t Laud's Hist., p. 332, 348.

X Prynne, p. 537.

person that gives his vote for it, and every in
dividual member is accountable. Many instan
ces of this might be produced ; but there has
been one very lately, in the case of ship-money,
which is fresh in the memory of all men ; and
we do aver, that the serraons or books for which
the above-mentioned persons suffered so severe
ly, were neither factious nor seditious, but ne
cessary for these times, wherein the Protestant
religion runs so very low, and superstition and
popery are coming in like a flood.*
As to the instructions for suppressing after
noon sermons, whensoever they were drawn
up, it is evident he was the man that put them
in execution, and levelled them against those
conscientious persons who scrupled reading the
prayers in their surplice and hood, or taking a
living with cure of souls ; all such persons, how
orthodox soever in doctrine, how dUigent soev
er in their callings and pious in their lives, be
ing reputed factious, schismatical, and unwor
thy ofthe least eraployraent in the Church.t
As to the impropriations, there was no design
in the feoffees to render the clergy independent
on the bishops, for none were presented but
conformable men, nor did any preach but such
as were licensed by the bishop ; indeed, the de
sign being to encourage the preaching of the
Word of God, the feoffees were careful to em
ploy such persons as would not be idle ; and
when they perceived the archbishop was bent
on their ruin, Mr. White went to his grace, aiid
promised to rectify anything that was amiss, if
the thing itself might stand. But he was de
termined to destroy it, and by his mighty influ
ence obtained a decree that the money should
be paid into the king's exchequer, by which au
end was put to one of the most charitable de
signs for the good of the Church that has been
formed these many years.t
The last charge of the managers was, " his
grace's open attempts to reconcile the Church
of England with the Church of Rome, as ap
pears, first, by the papal titles he suffered the
universities to give him in their letters, as
' sanctitas vestra,' your holiness ; ' sanctissime
pater,' most holy father ; ' Spiritus Sancti, effu-
sissime plenus,' full of the Holy Ghost ; ' sum-,
raus pontifex, optimus maximusque interris,'
&c. Agreeably to this, he assuraed to hiraself
the title of patriarch, or Pope of Great Britain,
' alterius orbus papa ;' which gave the Roraan-
ists such an opinion of hira, that they offered
him twice a cardinal's hat ; though, as things
then stood, he did not think it prudent to re
ceive it.ij But Sir H. Mildmay and Sir N. Brent
swore that, both at Rome and elsewhere, he
was reputed a papist in his heart ;ll which opin
ion was not a little confirmed, (1.) By his for-;
bidding the clergy to pray for the conversion
of the queen to the PVotestant faith. (2.) By
his owning the Church of Rome to be a true
church ; by denying the pope to be antichrist,
and wishing a reooncUiation with her ; and af
firraing that she never erred in fundamentals,
no, not in the worst of times. (3.) By his sow
ing discord between the Church of England and
foreign -Protestants, not only by taking away
the privileges andimraunities of the French and
" t Ibid., p. 370, 537, 538.
^ Ibid., p. 441.

* Prynne, p. 335, &c.
X Ibid., p. 637.
II Ibid., p. 409, &c.

518

HISTORY OF TH'E PURITANS.

Dutch churches in these kingdoms, but by de
nying their ministers to be true rainisters, and
their churches true churches. (4.) By main
taining an intimate correspondence wilh the
pope's nuncio and with divers priests and Jesu
its, conniving at the liberties they took in the
Clink and elsewhere, and threatening those
pursuivants who were dUigent in apprehending
them; to an which they added, the influence
the archbishop had in marrying the king to a
papist, and his concealment of a lale plot to re
duce these kingdoras to popery and slavery."*
To this long charge the archbishop gave
sorae general answers, in satirical and provo
king language ; My lords (says he), I ara char
ged with an endeavour to reconcile the Church
of England to the Church of Rome; I shaU re
cite the sura of the evidence, and of the argu-
ments to prove it. (1.) I have reduced several
persons frora popery, whora I have naraed in
my speech ; ergo, I have endeavoured to bring
in popery. (2.) I have made a canon against
popery, and an oath to abjure it ; ergo, I have
endeavoured to introduce it. (3.) I have been
twice offered a cardinalship and refused it, be
cause I would not be subject to the pope ; ergo,
I have endeavoured to subject tbe Church of
England to him. (4.) I wrote a book against
popery ; ergo, I ara inclinable to it. (5.) I have
been in danger of my life from a popish plot ;
ergo, I cherished it, and endeavoured to accora
plish it. (6.) I endeavoured to reconcile the
Lutherans and Calvinists ; ergo, I laboured to
bring in popery, t
To the particulars he replied, that whatever
papal power he had assumed, he had assumed
it not in his own right, as the popes did, but
frora the king. That the style of holiness was
given to St. Augustine and others, and there
fore not peculiar to the pope ; why, then, should
so grave a raan as Mr. Brown (says he) dispar
age his own nation, as if it were impossible for
an English bishop to deserve as good a title as
another 1 As for the other titles, they must be
taken as compliments for my having deserved
well of the university ; but, after all, it is one
thing to assume papal titles, and another to as
sume papal power. As to the title of patriarch or
pope of the other world, it is the title that An
selm says belongs to the Archbishop of Canter
bury, and not so great a one as St. Jerome gave
St. Augustine, when he wrote to hira with this
title, Beatissirao papae Augustine. I confess I
have been offered a cardinal's hat, but refused
it, saying, I could not accept it till Rorae was
otherwise than it now is. If, after this, others
wUl repute me a papist, I cannot help it.t I
* Prynne, p. 539.
t Laud's Hist., p. 285, 286, 325, &c. Prynne, p.
543. Laud's Hist., p. 418, 419.
t It may be pertment to observe here, Ihat, though
Laud did not approve the doctrinal articles of the
Church of Rome, " it is possible that one who dis.
hkes many points of the Romish faith may yet be
very fond of introducing her tyrannical government,
and, m order to it, of amusing the poor laity with
the long train of her gaudy and mysterious ceremo
nies ; that while they stand fondly gazing at this
lure and are busied about impertinences, they may
the more easily be circumvented in irrecoverable
bondage, by men of deeper but more mischievous de-
ragns. —Memoirs of Hollis, vol. ii., p. 578.— Ed.
There are just such prelates at the present moment.

hope I shall not be answerable for their unchar
itableness. Sir Henry Mildmay wiU witness
how much I ara hated and spoken against at
Rome. It does nut appear that I forbade min
isters praying for the queen's conversion ; but
when I was lold the queen was prayed for in
a factious and seditious manner, I referred the
matter to my visiters, and do acknowledge
that Mr. Jones was punished in the High Com
mission on this account.*
To the objection of the Church of Rome's
being a true church, I confess myself of that
opinion, and do still believe that she never erred
in fundamentals, for the foundations of the
Christian religion are in the articles of the
creed, and she denies none of them ; and it
would be sad if she should, for "it is through
her that the bishops ofthe Church of England,
who have the honour to be capable of deriving
their calling from St. Peter, raust deduce their
succession. "t She is therefore a true church,
though not an orthodox one ; our religion and
theirs is one in essentials, and people raay be
saved in either. It has not been proved that I
deny the pope to be antichrist, though many
learned men have denied it ; nor do I conceive
that our homilies affirra it ; and if they did, I
do not conceive myself bound to believe every
phrase that is in thera. I confess I have often
wished a reconciliation between the Churches
of England and Rome in a just and Christian
way, and was in hopes in due time to effect it ;
but a reconcilialion without truth and piety I
never desired, t
To the objection of the foreign Protestant
churches, I deny that I have endeavoured to
sow discord belween thera, but I have endeav
oured to unite the Calvinists and Lutherans ; nor
have I absolutely unchurched thera. I say, in
deed, in my book against Fisher, according to
St. Jerome, No bishop, no church; and that
none but a bishop can ordain, except in cases
of inevitable necessity ; and whether that be
the case with the foreign churches, the world
must judge.^ The judgment of the Church of
England is, that church governraent by bishops
is unalterable, for the preface to the Book of
Ordination says, that from the apostle's time
there have been three orders of ministers in the
Church, bishops, priests, and deacons ; now, if
bishops are the apostles' successors, and have
continued in the (Dhurch above sixteen hundred
years, what authority have any Christian states
to deprive thera of that right which Christ has
given them? As to the French and Dutch
churches in this kingdora, I did not question
thera for their ancient privileges, but for their
new encroachments, for it was not the design
of the queen [Elizabeth] to harbour them, un
less they conformed to the English liturgy ; now
I insisted on this only with respect to those
who were of the second descent, and born in
England ; and if aU such had been obliged to
go to their parish churches as they ought, they
would not have done the Church of England so
much harm as they have since done.il
To the fourth objection, I answer that I had

only they are inferior to Laud in talent and energy of
character.— C. * Laud's History, p. 383.
t Ibid., p. 392. X Prynne, p. 556.
^ Laud's Hist., p. 374. Prynne, p. 540.
II Ibid., p. 378..

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

no intimate correspondence with priests or Jes
uits, nor entertained them at ray table, know
ing thera to be such. I never put my hand to
the releasing any priest out of prison, nor have
I connived at the liberties they assuraed ; the
witnesses who pretended to prove this are
•either mean persons, a<- strongly prejudiced ;
and to most of the facts there is hut one wit
ness. .\s to the nuncios from Rome, it was
not in my power to hinder their coming, the
-king having condescended to it, at the earnest
request of the queen ; nor had I any particular
intimacy with them while they were here ; nor
do I remeraber my checking the pursuivants
in doing their duty. But if it could be supposed
that I said I wiU have nothing to do with any
priest-catching knaves, I hope the words are
not treason ; nor is it any offence not to be a
persecutor, or not to give ill language to Jesuits ;
and I do affirm that I never persecuted any
•orthodox ministers or Puritans, though I may
have persecuted some for their schisms and
misdemeanors.* As to the king's marrying, it is not proved
that I had any hand in it, though I acknowledge
ihe Duke of Buckingham did me the honour to
make me his confessor. Nor di3 I conceal the
late plot to bring in popery, but discovered it
¦to the king as soon as I had intelligence of it ;
for the truth of which I appeal not only to my
'letters, hut to the Earl of Northumberiand here
--present ; who stood up and said he remember-
no such thing.
The Commons replied to the archbishop's
general defence, that he had been fighting with
his own shadow, for they never objected those
things to him for the purposes which he men
tions ; they never objected his reducing any
-from popery, but that many were hardened in
it by his means. Nor did they object the can
ons or oath to prove him guilty of introducing
popery, but to quite different purposes. So
ithat the archbishop in these, arid the other par
ticulars above mentioned, has given us a speci
men of his sophistry and Jesuitism, transform
ing his own defence into our charge and evi-
-dence, and making our objections stand as
proofs of a fact which they were not in the
least intended to support.t
To the particulars they replied, that the titles
be had assumed were peculiar to the papacy ;
'that they were never assumed by any Protest
ant archbishop before himself; nay, that in the
times of popery there are hardly any examples
-of their being given to English bishops, and that
it is blasphemy to give the title of holiness in
the abstract to any but God himself: the arch
bishop, therefore, ought, in his answers to the
•letters of the university, to have checked them,
¦whereas he does not so much as mention these
-exorbitances, nor find the least fault with them.
And though there be a difference between pa
lpal title and papal power, yet certainly his
claiming the title of " alterius orbis papa," pope
of the other world, is a demonstration that he
was grasping at the same power in Great Brit
ain as the pope had in Italy ; and though, for
-Tprudent reasons, he refused the cardinal's hat
when it was offered, yet when he had raade his
terms, and accomplished that reconciliation be
tween the two churches that he was contriving.

• Laud's Hist., p. 394. _

t Prynne, p. 543.

519
no doubt he would have had his reward. Sir
Henry Mildmay being summoned, at the arch
bishop's request, to give in evidence how much
he was hated and spoken against at Rome, swore
that when he was at Rome some ofthe Jesuitical
faction spoke against the archbishop, because
they apprehended he aimed at too great an ec
clesiastical jurisdiction for himself; but the sec
ulars commended and applauded hini, because
ofthe near approaches he made to thfi^urch,
and showed himself favourable to therPparty.
The like evidence was given by Mr. ChaUoner
and others.*
And whereas the archbishop had said that it
was not proved that he forbid ministers to pray
for the queen's conversion, the raanagers pro
duced Mr. Hugh Radcliffe, of St. Martin's, Lud
gate, who swore that Sir Nathaniel Brent, his
vicar-general, at a visitation at Bow Church,
gave in charge to the clergy, in his hearing,
these words : " Whereas divers of you, in your
prayers before sermon, used to pray for the
queen's conversion, you are to do so no more,
for the queen does not ddubt of her conver
sion. "t And both before and after, the arch
bishop himself caused Mr. Bernard, Mr. Peters,
and Mr. Jones, to be prosecuted in the High
Commission on this account, t The archbishop
having said that he never put his hand to the
releasing any priest out of prison, the managers
produced a warrant under his own hand, dated
January 31, 1633, for the release of WiUiam
Walgrave, deposed to be a dangerous, seducing
priest, in these words :
" These are to wiU and command you to set
at full liberty the person of William Walgrave,
formerly committed to your custody, and for
your so doing this shall be your sufficient war
rant. W. Cant. R. Ebor."
But the archbishop's memory frequently faU-
ed him on such occasions.
His grace confesses the Church of Rome to
be a true church, whereas we aver her to be a
false and anti-Christian one, for she has no
sure foundation, no true head, no ordinances,
sacraments, or worship, no true rainistry, nor
governraent of Christ's institution ; she yields^
no true subjection to Christ's laws, word, or
spirit, but is overspread with damnable • errors
in doctrine, and corruptions in manners and
worship, and is therefore defined by our homi^
lies to be a false church. Must she not err in
fundamentals, when she affirms the Church to
be built on Peter, not upon Christ, and resolves
our faith into the Church, and not into the
Scriptures 1 When she deifies the Virgin Mary
and other saints by giving thera Divine worship,
and obliges us to adore the consecrated bread
in the sacrament as the very body and blood of
Christ ; when she denies the cup to the laity,
obliges people to pray in an unknown tongue,
and sets up a new head of the Church instead of
Christ, with the keys ofthe kingdom of heaven
at his girdle 1 What are these but fundamental
errors, which nullify the Church that maintains
thera 1 The religion of the Church of Rorae and
ours is not one and the sarae, for theirs is no
Christian religion, but a heap of superstition and
idolatry; and his affirraing salvation may be
* Prynne, p. 413. + Ibid., p. 418.
X Ibid., p. 444.

520

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

had in that churijh is contrary to the opinion
of our best Protestant writers, who make her
damnable errors the foundation of our separation
from her. And though the archbishop makes
light of his not believing the pope to be anti
christ, we do aver that our statutes and homi
lies do either in direct or equivalent expressions
define hira to be antichrist, and particularly in
the Subsidy Act, 3 Jac, penned by the convoca
tion. A ,
Bu"an anything raore fully deraonstrate the
archbishop's design to reconcile the Church of
England with Rorae than his own confession 1
He says he has laboured this raatter with a
faithful and single heart (Reply to Fisher, p.
388), though not to the prejudice of truth and
piety. But it raust be observed, that the arch
bishop's design was not to bring over the Church
of Rome to us, but to carry us over to them ;
and what large advances he has made that way
appears by his setting up altars, crucifixes, im
ages, and other innovations. What advance
has the Church of Rome made towards usi
why, none al all ; nor is it possible she should,
till she lays aside her infallibility. The pretence,
therefore, of the Church of Rome's meeting us
halfway, was a mere blind to deceive the people
of England, till he had carried thera wholly over
into her territories*
The archbishop has denied his endeavours to
sow discord araong foreign Protestants, and as
serted his endeavours to reconcile the Luther
ans and Calvinists, though he has produced no
evidence of it ; but his late behaviour towards
the Scots, on the account of their having no
hishops, and to the foreign settleraents among
ourselves, is a sufficient proof of the contrary.
The maxim that he cites from St. Jerorae, No
bishop, no church, is a plain perverting of his
sense, for his words are, " Ubi non est sacer-
dos, non est ecclesia ;" but it is well known
that, according to St. Jerorae, bishops and pres
byters are one and the sarae in jurisdiction and
office, and presbyters have the power of ordina
tion as weU as bishops ; and therefore this is a
conclusion of the archbishop's framing, which,
if it be true, must necessarily unchurch all the
foreign Reformed churches, and render all the
ordinations of their ministers invalid, which is
a sufficient evidence of his enmity to them.t
As to the French and Dutch churches, who
were settled by charter in the reign of King Ed
ward VL, Mr. Bulteel's book, of the manifold
troubles of those churches by this archbishop's
prosecutions, evidently proves that he invaded
and diminished their ancient immunities and
privUeges in all parts ; and that he was so far
from being their friend, that they accounted hira
their greatest enemy.
To the fourth objection, relating to the arch
bishop's correspondence with popish priests, we
reply, that the archbishop's intimacy with Sir
Toby Mathew, the most active Jesuit in the
kingdora, has been fully proved ; that he was
sometimes with him in his barge, sometimes in
his coach, sometimes in private with hira in his
garden, and frequently at his tablet The like
has been proved of Sancta Clara, St. Giles Le-
ander, Sraith, and Price, and we cannot but
wonder at his denying that he knew thera to be
* Prynne, p. 552, &c. t Ibid., p. 541
t Ibid., p. 448, 456, 559, 561.

priests, when the evidence of his knowledge of
some of them has been produced under his own
hand ; and the witnesses for the others were no
meaner persons than the lords of the council
and the high commissioners (araong which was
hiraself), employed to apprehend priests and de
linquents ; from whence we conclude, that all
the archbishop's predecessors, since the Refor
mation, had not half the Intiraacy with popish
priests and Jesuits as himself, and his harbour
ing some of thera that were native Englishraen
is within the statutes of 23 Eliz., cap. i., and 27
Eliz., cap. li. It is very certain that the liberty
the Jesuits have enjoyed in prison and else
where was owing to his connivance ; and though
the archbishop is so happy as not to remember
his checking the officers for their diligence in
apprehending popish priests, yet his distinction
between not persecuting papists and prosecu
ting Puritans, besides the quibble, is an unan
swerable argument of his affection to the one
beyond the other.*
The managers produced six or eight witness
es to prove the archbishop's discounlenancing
and threatening such as were active in appre
hending priests and Jesuits. And though he
would wash hlfe hands of the affair of the pope's
nuncio residing here in character, and holding
an intimate correspondence with the court, be
cause hiraself did not appear in it, yet it is evi
dent that Secretary Windebank, who was the
archbishop's creature and confidant, held an
avowed correspondence with them. If he had
no concern in this affair, should he not, out of
regard to the Protestant religion and Church
of England, even lo the hazard of his archbish
opric, have raade sorae open protestation, when
Gregorio Panzani resided here in character two
years ; Gregory Con, a Scot, for three years and
two raonths ; and, last of all. Count Rosetti, till
driven away by the present Parliaraent ?t
It has been sufficiently proved that the arch
bishop was concerned in the Spanish and French
raatches, and in the instructions given to the
prince at his going to Spain, to satisfy the
pope's nuncio about King Jaraes having decla
red the pope to be antichrist ; for the Duke of
Buckingham was the prince's director, and him
self acknowledged that he was the duke's con
fessor. And as to the late plot of Habernfield, we
have owned, in our evidences, that at first he
discovered it to the king, because he imagined
it to be a plot of the Puritans ; but when he
found the parties engaged in it to be papists, and,
among others. Secretary Windebeck and Sir To
by Mathew, his own creatures, he then concealed
his papers, called it a sham plot, and browbeat
the inforraers, whereas he ought at least to havfe
laid it before the Parliament, that they might
have sifted it to the bran. But that it was a
real plot, his own Diary, together with our lat
ter discoveries, fully prove ; and his conceal
ment of it we conceive to be a high and trea
sonable offence, tending to subvert the Protest
ant religion, and subject us to the Church of
Rorae.t Thus, we humbly conceive, we have m^e a
satisfactory reply to aU the archbishop's an
swers, and have fully made good the whole of

* Prynne, p. 448, 458.
t Ibid., p. 664, &c.

t Ibid., p. 446.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

our charge, namely, that the archbishop has
traitorously endeavoured to destroy our civil
liberties, and to introduce tyranny and arbitrary
power ; and, secondly, that ho has endeavoured
to subvert the Protestant religion established
by law in these kingdoras, and to subject us to
the Church of Rome ; wherefore we do, in the
narae of all the commons of England, pray
judgment against him as a traitor.
Before the archbishop withdrew from the bar,
he moved the Lords that, considering the length
of his trial,* and the distance of tirae between
the several days of hearing, they would allow
hira a day that he might set before their lord
ships in one view the whole of the Commons'
charge, and his defence ; to which they conde
scended, and appointed September 2, which was
five weeks from the last day of his trial, t When
the archbishop appeared at the bar, he began
with a moving address, beseeching their lord-'
ships to consider his calling, his age, his long
imprisonment, his sufferings, his patience, and
the sfequestration of his estate. He then com
plained, (1.) Of the uncertainty and generaUty
of the (Commons' charge. (2.) Of the short tirae
that was allowed him for his answer. (3. ) That
he had been sifted to the bran, and had his pa
pers taken from hira. (4.) That the things he
had taken most pains in were for the public
good, and done at his own great expense, as the
repair of St. Paul's, and the statutes of Oxford.
(5.) That many of the witrfesses were sectaries
and schismatics, whereas, by the canon law, no
schismatic should be heard against his bishop.
He complained, also, of the nuraber of witnesses
produced against him, which were above one
hundred and fifty ; whereas the civil law says
that the judges should moderate things so as
no man should be oppressed with the multitude
of witnesses. (6.) 'That he had been charged
with passionate and hasty words, which he hopes
their lordships will pardon as human frailties.
(7.) That other men's actions had been laid to
his charge, as those of his 'chaplains, and the
actions ofthe High Commission and Star Cham
ber, which, he insists, cannot by any law be put
upon him, it being a known rule, " Refertur ad
universes quod publico fit per majorem partera."
He then went over the particular charges above
mentioned, and concluded with a request, that
,when the Coraraons had replied to the facts, his
counsel might be heard as to raatters of law.
The Coramons replied to the archbishop's
speech, September 11, and the same day his
counsel delivered in these two queries; "(1.)
Whether, in all or any of the articles charged
against the archbishop, there be contained any
treason by the estabUshed laws of the kingdom 1
(3.) Whether the impeachraent and articles did
contain such certainties and particularities as
are required by law in cases of treason V'X The
* It had been drawn out through more than three
months, and he had been often, when summoned be
fore the Lords, sent back unheard. This had, need
lessly, exposed him to the scorns and revilings of the
people, and to an expense which he could iU bear ;
for he never appeared but it cost him £6 or £7 per day.
His estate and goods had been sequestered ; and.it
was not until towards Ihe end of his trial, and after
repeated solicitations, that the Commons allovved
him 1)200 to support his necessary expenses.— JMuc-
aulay's History of England, vol. iv., p. 138, note.— En.
t Laud's History, p. 412, 419. t Ibid., p. 422.
Vol. L— U u u

521
Lords sent down the queries to the Commons,
who, after they had referred thera to a corarait
tee of lawyers, agreed that the archbishop's
counsel might be heard to the first query, but
not to the second. Accordingly, October 11,
the archbishop being present at the bar, Mr.
Hearn proposed to argue these two general
questions :*
(1.) " Whether there be, at this day, any oth
er treason than what is enacted by the statute
"25 Edward III., cap. ii., or enacted by some
other subsequent statute V
(2.) " Whether any of the matters, in any of
the articles charged against the archbishop,
contain any of the treasons declared by that
law, or enacted hy any subsequent law 1"
And for the clearing of both these he humbly
insisted that an "endeavour to subvert the
laws, the Protestant religion, and the rights of
Parliaraent, which are the three general char
ges to which aU the particulars alleged against
the archbishop raay 'be reduced, is not treason
within the statute of 25 Edward III., nor any
other particular statute."t
In maintenance of this proposition, he con
tended, first, "That the particulars alleged
against the archbishop were not within the let
ter of the statute of the 25th Edward III., and
then argued that the statutes of this land ought
not to be construed by equity or inference, be
cause they are declarative laws, and were de
signed for the security ofthe subject in his life,
liberty, and estate ; and because since the time
of Henry IV.. no judgment has been given in
Parliament for any treason not expressly con
tained or declared in that or some other stat
ute, but by bill ; frora whence it wiU follow,
that the particulars charged against the arch
bishop, being only an endeavour to subvert fun
damental laws, are of so great latitude and un
certainty, that every action not warranted by
law may he extended to treason, though there
is no particular statute to make it so. If it be
replied that the statute of 25 Edward III. takes
notice of compassing or imagining, we answer,
it confines it to the death of the king ; but an
endeavour to subvert the laws of the realm is
no determinate crirae by the laws of England,
but has been esteemed an aggravation of a
crime, and has been usually joined as the re
sult of some other offence below treason. "t
" The like may be observed to the second
charge, of endeavouring to subvert religion ; it
is not treason by the letter of any law estab
lished in this kingdom, for the statute of 1 Ed
ward VI., cap. xii., makes it but felony to at
tempt an alteration of religion by force, which
is the worst kind of attempt.^
" As to the third charge, of endeavouring to
subvert the rights of Parliament. We insist on
the same reply that was made under the first
head. We aUow that, by the statute of 5 Jac,
cap. iv., it is provided that if any raan shall
put in practice to reconcile any of his majesty's
subjects to the Pope or See of Rome, it shall be
deemed treason ; but we conceive this does not
reach the archbishop, because, (1.) He is char
ged only with an endeavour, whereas in the
statute it is putting in practice. (2.) Because
the archbishop is charged with reconciling the

* Laud's History, p. 423.
X Ibid., p. 427.

t Ibid., p. 424, 425
^ Ibid., p. 429.

522
Church of England with the Church of Rorae,
whereas in the statute it is reconciling any of
his majesty's subjects lo the See of Rome ; now
reconciling with may as weU be construed a
reducing Rome to England, as England to
Rome. " Thus," says Mr. Hearn, " we have endeav
oured to make it appear that none of the mat
ters, in any of the articles charged, are treason
within the letter ofthe law ; indeed, the crimes,
as they are laid in the charge, are many and
great, but their number cannot make them ex
ceed their nature ; and if they be but crimes
and misdemeanors apart, below treason, they
cannot be made treason by putting them togeth
er."* These arguraents of the archbishop's counsel
staggered the House of Lords, nor could the
managers for the Commons satisfy them in
their reply ; they had no doubts about the truth
of the lacts, but whether any of thera were
treason by the laws of the land It this the
judges very much questioned, and, therefore,
the Lords deferred giving judgment till the
Commons thought fil to lake another raethod to
obtain il.
Various are the accounts of the archbishop's
behaviour on his trial ; his friends and admi
rers flatter hira beyond measure, and said he
perfectly triumphed over his accusers ; and his
grace seeras to be of the same mind, when he
tells us that all men magnified his answer to
the House of Commons, but he forbore lo set
down in what language, because it was bight
Mr. Prynne aUows that " he made as full, as
gaUant, and pithy a defence, and spoke as rauch
for hiraself, as was possible for the wit of man
to invent : and that with so much art, sophis
try, vivacity, oratory, audacity, and confidence,
without the least blush, or acknowledgraent of
guilt in anything, as argued hira rather obsti
nate than innocent, impudent than penitent, and
a far better orator and sophister than Protest
ant or Christian."^ But then he imputes his

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

* Laud's Hist., p. 430.
t We cannot allow ourselves to withhold here
from our reader the just and important remarks of a
late biographer of the archbishop. " It appears a
great defect in the laws of a free and limited govern
ment, that an attempt lo subvert the Constitution and
mode of govemment should not be judicially deemed
a capital offence, punishable as such. For, in a just
and political sense, the man who endeavours to en-
Slave bis countrymen, to deprive them of their nat
ural and legal rights and privileges, and instead of a
free constitution of government, to introduce one
that is arbitrary and despotic ; such a man is, un
doubtedly, guilty of as high a crime, and is as much
a traitor lo his country, as he who attempts to de
prive the prince of the crown, and ought to be pun
ished with equal severity." — British Biography, vol.
iv., p. 286. Nay, it may be added, that the severity
of the punishment ought to be regulated by the more
heinous guUt, which attaches itself rather to the
former than tothe latter conduct : by the latter con
duct, the blow is aimed at the rights and prosperity
of one person, or, at most, of one family only ; but
the former conduct robs millions of their rights, and
involves, in its effects, generations to come. Nor
does it lessen the guUt, if men, instead of being the
agents of prerogative, are the tools of influence ; if,
instead of being awed into a subserviency to the
views of despotism, they are brought over to meas
ures inimical to the liberties of the people. — Ed.
t Laud's Hist., p. 441. i, Prynne, p. 462.

boldness to the king's pardon, which he had in
his pocket.
Bishop Burnet is of opinion that " in most of
the particulars the archbishop made but frivo
lous excuses ; as, that he was but one of many,*
who, either in council. Star Chamber, or High
Commission, voted illegal things. Now, though
this was true, yet a chief minister, and one in
high favour, determines the rest so much, that
they are little better than machines acted by
him. On other occasions he says, the thing
was proved but by one witness. Now, how
strong soever this defence may be in law, it is
of no force in an appeal to the world ; for if a
thing be true, it is no matter how fuU or defect
ive the proof is."t
The archbishop himself has informed us of
his great patience under the hard usage he met
with at his trial; but his Diary furnishes too
many examples to the contrary, for it appears
frora thence that he sometimes gave the wit
nesses very rude language at the bar, insinua
ting to the court that many of them were per
jured ; that their evidence was the effect of
malice, envy, and a thirst after his blood.
Sometimes he threatened Ihem with the judg
ments of God, and once he was going to bind
his sin upon one of them, not to be forgiven till
he asked pardon ; but he recovered himself
He is pleased sometimes to observe that his
crimes were proved only by one witness ;t and
yet, at last, he complains that he was oppress
ed with numbers, no less than one hundred and
fifty,^ and calls them "a pack of such witness
es as were never produced against any man of
his place and caUing ; pursuivants, messengers,
pUlory-men, bawds, and such as had. shifted
their religion- to and again. "II .And yet there
were among thera men of the best fashion and
quality in the kingdom, as Sir H. Vane, Sen.,
Sir H. Mildmay, Sir Wm. Balfore, Sir Nath.
Brent, vicar-general; sundry aldermen of the
city of London, and many excellent divines, as
Dr. Featly, Dr. Haywood, the archbishop's
chaplain, Mr. DeU, his secretary, Mr. Osbaldes
ton, and others of an equal, if not superior char
acter. When his grace was checked at the bar
for reflecting upon tbe witnesses, and put in
mind by the managers that some of thera were
aldermen, some gentlemen, and some men ol
quality, he replied, smartly, " That is nothing ;
there is not an active separatist in England but
his hand is against me : both gentlemen, alder
men, and raen of all conditions, are separated

* To what Bishop Burnet observes on this plea,
it is pertinent to add the remarks of a late writer :
" that if it were admitted, it would always bo im
practicable to bring a wicked minister of state to jus
tice, for any proceedings in the privy council, to
which the rest concurred ; and that it would not be
thought a proper justification of criminals of an infe
rior order, in any court of justice, if they were to al
lege that there were other persons accomplices in
the crimes with which theiy were accused." — British
Biography, vol. iv., p. 285. — Ed.
t History of his Life, p. 50, or p. 68, edition in
12mo, at Edinburgh.
t Laud's History, p. 237.
^ He also charged Prynne with keeping a school
of instruction for the witnesses, and tampering with
them in a most shameful manner. — Macaulay's His
tory of England, vol. iv., p. 137, note. — Ed.
II Laud's Hist., p. .417.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

from the Church of England, and I would to
God sorae of my judges were not."*
After this, it can hardly be expected that the
managers for the Commons should escape his
.grace's censure ; it raust be admitted that, in the
.course of their arguments, they made use of sorae
narsh expressions, which nothing but the charac-
iter they sustained could excuse ;t but it was no
argument of the archbishop's patience and dis-
•cretion to fight them at their own weapons. The
managers were. Sergeant Maynard, one of the
.ablest lawyers of his age ; he lived to be the
father of his profession ; and when the Prince
of Orange [afterward King William III.] com-
.plimented him upon his having outlived all his
brethren ofthe law, he made this, handsome re-
j)ly, that, if it had not been for the wonderful
revolution that his highness had brought about,
-he should have outlived the law itself He
managed the first part of the evidence March
13, 16, 18, and 28. " This gentleman," says
the archbishop, "pleaded, though strongly, yet
fairly, against me."t
Sergeant Wild was the son of Sergeant George
Wild, of Droitwich, in Worcestershire ; he was
afterward reader of the Inner Teraple, a great
lawyer, of unblemished morals. After the res
toration of King Charles II. he was made lord-
chief-baron, and esteemed a grave and venera
ble judge.ij He managed that part of the evi-

* Laud's Hist., p. 434.
t " Like true lawyers," says Mrs. Macaulay, " they
played their parts in baiting the unhappy prisoner
with the most acrimonious and insulting language ;
like true lawyers, they took all the unfair advantages
which their offices and other opportunities procured
them; and, like true lawyers, they put a forced and
unwarrantable construction on all the facts which
they cited against hun." — History of England, vol.
iv., p. 137, Svo. — Ed. t Laud's History, p. 330.
Ij The character of Sergeant Wild is impeached,
and the above account of his preferment is shown to
be inaccurate by Dr. Grey. He was made lord-
¦chief-baron of the exchequer (see Whitelocke's Me
morials, p. 337), 12th October, 1648. In the protec
torate of Cromwell he retired, and did not act. Du
ring the Rump Parhament, he was restored to the
exchequer. After King Charles II. returned, he lived
nine years in a retired condition. — Wood's Athence
¦Oxon.,vol. i., p. 803. On the authority of Wood, Dr.
Grey charges hun with having received £1000 out of
the privy purse at Derby House, for the condemna
tion of Captain Buriey, at Winchester, for causing a
drum to beat up for God and King Charles, in the
Isle of Wight, in order to rescue his captive king.
The reader will judge what credit is due to this
charge, when he is informed that Captain Buriey
was convicted, sentenced, and executed, according
both to Wood and 'Whitelocke [Memorials, p. 290],
in 1647, some months before Sergeant Wild was made
a judge. Another charge brought against him, from
Lord Clarendon and Wood, is, that he received an
other £1000 for the acquittance of Major Rolfe, who
had a design to murder or poison the king. That
the reader may form his judgment on this charge,
we wUl state the proceedings on the affair of Major
Rolfe, as they are chronologically given by White
locke.— 1648, June 23. 'A charge by Osborne against
Colonel Hammond and Captain Rolfe was ordered
to he printed. July 1 1. A letter vvas received from Col
onel Hammond, desiring that Osborne's charge agamst
Mr. Rolfe may come to a speedy heanng, it reflect
ing so highly upon the army and upon him; and be
ing a horrid scandal, whereof he clears his own in
nocency, and the officers of the army, and Mr. Kolte.
Accommodations were ordered for Mr. Rolte. Au
gust 1. Major Rolfe was baUed. August 12. At a

523
dence which concerned religion. May 20, 27 ;
June 6, U, 17, 20, and 27 ; July 20 and 24 ; but
" this gentleman," says the archbishop, " though
he had language good enough sometimes, he
had little or no sense. I had a character given
me before of him, which I forbear to express,
but, by his proceedings with me, I found it
exactly true."*
Samuel Browne, Esq., was an able and grave
lawyer. In the reign of King Charies II. he was
knighted, and made Lord-chief-justice of -^ho
Common Pleas ; he summed up the whole evi
dence at the Lords' bar. " His behaviour to
wards the archbishop was decent and civU, but
his pleadings (according to his grace) very un-
fair."t Robert Nicolas, Esq., pressed the archbishop
very hard, and, therefore, no wonder that he
was displeased with hira. The archbishop al
lows that he had sorae sense, but extrerae viru
lent and foul language. He managed the sec
ond and fourth branches of the evidence, AprU
16, May 14, July 29. This gentleman happen
ing to call the archbishop pander to the whore
of Babylon, the archbishop bids him remember,
" that one of his zealous witnesses against the
whore of Babylon got all his means by being a
pander to other lewd women, and was, not long
since, taken in bed with one of his wife's maids.
Good Mr. Nicolas," says he, "do not dispense
with aU whores but the whore of Babylon !"t
As for Mr. HiU, the other manager, he i? call
ed Consul Bibulus, because he said nothing.
Upon the whole, the archbishop is of opinion
that the managers for the Coraraons sought his
blood, " and made false constructions ; for
which," says he, " I am confident they shall
answer at another bar, and for something else
in these proceedings."^
Such was the unhappy spirit of this prelate,
who, " though he had seen the violent effects
of his iU counsels, and had been so long shut up,
and so much at leisure to reflect upon what had
passed in the hurry of passion, and in the ex
altation of his prosperity, yet," as Bishop Bur
net observes, " he does not, in any one point of
his Diary, acknowledge his own errors, nor mix
any wise or pious reflections upon the unhappy
steps he had made." It was, no doubt, a great
mortification to his spirit to be exposed to the
people, and to wait sometimes an hour or two
before he was called to the bar ; but as for his

conference with the lords about Mr. Rolfe, the Com
mons alleged that Mr. Rolfe was committed by their
lordships without any cause in the warrant, and they
found reason to clear him. August 31. The grand
jury, at Southampton, found the bail against Major
Rolfe ignoramus. September 9. There was an order
for £150 for Mr. Rolfe for his unjust imprisonment.
— Memoirs, p. 310. AU these transactions appear to
have taken place independently of Sergeant Wild,
and before he was preferred to be a judge. To these
particulars it maybe added, that. the king himself
acquitted Colonel Hammond, involved in the same
accusation with Rolfe, and professed a perfect con
fidence in him as a man of honour and trust. — Me
moirs, p. 315. The stress which Lord Clarendon, and
after him Mr. Echard and Dr. Grey, have laid on this
charge against Sergeant WUd, will apologize for so
minute an investigation of a matter not essentiaUy
connected with the general truth of Mr. Neal's his
tory. — ^Ed.
* Laud's History, p. 320, 330. t Ibid., p. 390.
X Ibid. 1) Ibid., p. 291.

524

HISTORV OF THE PURITANS.

charity and patience under his sufferings, I must
leave it with the reader lo form his own judg
ment. While the proeeedings against the archbishop
were at a stand by reason of the Lords being
dissatisfied whether the facts proved against
him were treason by statute law, the citizens
of London assembled, and presented a petition
to the House of Coraraons, October 28th, signed
wilh a great number of hands, praying for
speedy justice against delinquents, and particu
larly against the archbishop ; which was no
doubt an artful contrivance of his enemies. The
Commons, to prevent all farther delays, deter
mined not to press the Lords for judgraent upon
the trial, but ordered a bill of attainder lo be
brought in ; and when it had been twice read
the archbishop was brought to the bar of the
House of Commons, to hear the evidence on
which it proceeded, and to raake what farther
defence he thought proper. Mr. Browne sura-
med up the charge, November 2, and the arch
bishop had nine days given him to prepare his
defence. Noveraber 11 he spoke for hiraself
some hours at the bar of the House of Com
mons, and Mr. Browne replied before the arch
bishop withdrew ; after which the bUl of attain
der passed the House the very same day with
but one dissenting voice, and that not upon the
substance of the charge, but upon the manner
of proceeding.* The bill being sent up to the
Lords, they made an order, December 4, " that
all books, writings, &c., concerning the arch
bishop's trial should be brought in to the clerk
of the Parliament," which being done, they ex
arained over again all the heads and principal
parts ofthe evidence, and voted each particular
as they went forward ; so tender were they of
the life of this prelate, and so careful to main
tain the honour and justice of their proceedings.
When they had gone through the whole, they
voted him guilty of all facts charged against
him, in three branches, namely, " guilty of en
deavouring to subvert the laws ; of endeavour
ing to overthrow the Protestant religion, and
the rights of Parliaments." After this they sent
a raessage to the Commons, to desire them to
answer the argument of the archbishop's coun
sel as to the point of law, which they according
ly did at a conference, January 2, when Sergeant
Wild, Mr. Browne, and Mr. Nicolas, having
given the reasons of the Coraraons for their at
tainder, the Lords were satisfied, and January
4 passed the bill,t whereby it was ordained that
he should suffer death as in cases of high trea
son. To stop the consequence of this attainder,
the archbishop produced the king's pardon un
der the great seal, signed April 19, 12lh Car.,
but it was overruled by both houses. 1. Be
cause it was granted before conviction. And,
2. If it had been subsequent, yet, in the present

* It was greatly against the archbishop that the
management of the trial was assigned to Prynne, a
man of sour and austere principles ; whom Laud had
made his enemy by the severe sentence of the Star
Chamber ; and who, by his behaviour on this occa
sion, showed that he remembered and resented the
share Laud had in infhcting his past sufferings. — Ed.
t Dr. Grey will not aUow the decree of the Com
mons to be called " a bill." It was, in his opinion,
an ordinance only, and that an imperfect one ; be
cause it was not supported by the royal assent, and,
therefore, he says, had no legal force at aU.— Ed.

case of treason, they argued that the king could
not pardon a judgment of Parliament, especial
ly as the nation was in a state of war ; for if
the king's pardon was a protection, nol a de
serter, nor a spy, nor an incendiary of any kind
against the Parliaraent, would have suffered in
his life or liberty.*
All the favour, therefore, the archbishop could
obtain was, upon his petition, to have his sen
tence altered frora hanging to being beheaded
on Tower Hill, which was appointed to be on
Friday, January 10, when the archbishop being
conducted to the scaffold, attended by his chap
lain, Dr. Stern, and Mr. Marshal and Palmer,
sent by the Parliaraent,t read his last speech to
the people,t which was a sort of serraon from
Heb., xU., 2 : "Let us run with patience the
race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus
the author and finisher of our faith, who, for
the joy that was set before hira, endured the
cross, despising the sharae, and is set down at
the right hand of the throne of God." In which
he acknowledges hiraself to have been a great
sinner ; but, having ransacked every corner of
his heart, he thanks God that he has not found
any of his sins deserving death by any of the
known laws of the kingdom, though he does
not charge his judges, because they are to pro
ceed according to evidence. He thanks God
that he is as quiet within as ever he was in his
life, and hopes that his cause in heaven will
look of another colour than it does here. " It
is clamoured against me," says he, " that I de
signed to bring in popery, but I pray God that
the pope do not come in by raeans of these
sectaries which clamour so much against me."
As for the king, he assured the world that he
was as sound a Protestant as any man in the
kingdora, and would venture as freely for it.
He complains of the citizens for gathering hands
to petitions, and particularly against himself,
whereby they were bringing the guilt of inno
cent blood upon theraselves and their city. He
laraents the ruin of the hierarchy, and concludes
with declaring himself a true Protestant, ac
cording to the Church of England established
by law, and lakes it upon his death, that " he
never endeavoured the subversion of the laws
of the realm, nor any change of the Protestant
religion into popish superstition ; nor was he
an enemy to Parliaments."
In his last prayer he desires that God would
give him patience to die for his honour, for the
king's happiness, and the Church of England.
He then prays for the preservation of the king

?•WTiitelocke's Memoirs, p. 117.
t It marks a virulent and bitter spirit in the con
duct of this execution, that of the three clergymen.
whose consolatory attendance and service at his exit
Laud petitioned for, but one was allowed him ; and
this under the restraint of the inspection of two min
isters appointed by ParUament. — Macaulay's History,
vol. iv., p. 144. — Ed.
t " In this very performance," observes Mrs. Mac
aulay, " which was executed with great art of com
position, and likewise in his remarks on the charge
which the Scots brought against him, he plainly
shows that his adversity had not altered his opinions,
nor corrected any one of his most mischievous prej
udices ; and that, had accident re-established him in
his former plenitude of power, he would heme run, to
the end of his days, the same persecuting course for
which he now suffered." — History of England, vol. iv.,
p. 140.— Ed.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

525

an his just rights ; for the Pariiament in their
ancient and just power ; for the Church, that it
may be settled in truth and peace, and in its
patrimony ; and for the people, that they may
enjoy their ancient laws, and other liberties ;
and then, having forgiven his enemies, he con
cluded with the Lord's Prayer. After which he
gave his paper to Dr. Stern, saying, " Doctor, I
give you this, to show your fellow-chaplains
that they may see how 1 am gone out of the
world, and God's blessing and his mercy be
upon them." When the scaffold was cleared,
he pulled off his doublet, and said, " God's wUl
be done : I am willing to go out of the world ;
no man can be more wUling to send me out."
Then, turning to the executioner, he gave him
some money, and bid hira do his office in mer
cy ; he then kneeled down, and after a short
prayer, laid his head on the block, and said,
"Lord Jesus, receive my spirit ;" which being
the sign, the executioner did his office at one
blow.* The archbishop's corpse was put into

* Mrs. Macaulay's reflections on this event appear
to carry weight and pertinence with them. " As the
justice of the country had been something satisfied
"by the death of the criminal Strafford, it would have
done honour to the ParUament to have left this aged
prelate the example of their mercy, rather than to
have made him the monument of their justice. Per
petual imprisonment, with no more than a decent
maintenance, and the deprivation of his archiepis
copal function (which, of course, foUovTed the abol
ishment of that kind of church govemment), would
have taken away his abilities of doing farther mis
chief; and the present prosperous state of the Par
liament affairs rendered his death a circumstance
of no importance to the public. It is plain that he
feU a sacrifice to the intolerant principle of the Pres
byterians, a sect who breathed as fiery a spirit of
persecution as himself. It is farther to be observed
¦of this prelate, that he is the only individual of that
high office in the Church of England (Cranmer, the
martyr, excepted) who ever suffered death by the
hands of the executioner ; though the turbulent am
bition of his order has disturbed the peace of society
from the first period of the Church power to the pres
ent day." — History of England, vol. iv., p. 143, 144. —
Ed. (Toulmin). — No enlightened friend of civU and
religious liberty will allow his sympathy with the
sufferer to blind his judgment to the obliquities of
his administration. A medium course between the
absurd eulogies of Heylen and the fierce denuncia
tions of Prynne is best accordant with the facts of
his history and the claims of trath. He met with
the same harsh and cruel treatment which he had
dealt out to others, and is mainly indebted to this
fact for the interest with which he has subsequent
ly been regarded. Utterly estranged from the spirit
of the EngUsh Constitution, he sought to level all
the safeguards of freedom, and to expose its citadel
to the occupation of a despotic monarch. Amid the
slavish minions ofthe court of Charles, he shone un
rivalled—exulting in the severity of his measures,
and deri^ving from past defeat fresh hostUity against
the liberties of his country. His dark and scheming
spirit disburdened itself only to the listened ear of
Strafford, from whose loftier genius and tnore ex
pansive ¦views Laud anticipated the accomplishment
of his designs. In the Church, he ruled with a rod
of iron. Inaccessible aUke to pity and remorse, he
sought to crush the spirit of the Puritans, and to
restore the departed glories of his Church. Incapa
ble of infusing into it the vigour of a healthful piety,
it was his aim to increase the splendour and to mul
tiply the ceremonies of the Church. He was too
proud and despotic to be a subordinate of Rome, yet
he would gladly have assimilated his Church to the
external form of the papacy. Personal ambition was

a coffin, and, by the permission of Parliament,
buried in Barking Church, with the service of
the Church rejrd over him. The inscription
upon the coffin was this: "In hac cistula con-
duntur exuvias Gulielrai Laud, archiepVjcopi
Cantuariensis, qui sccuri percussus immortali-
tatera adiit, die x° Januarii, ajtatis sua; 72,
archiepiscopatus xii." But after the Restora
tion his hody was reraoved to Oxford, and de
posited with great soleranity in a brick vault,
according to his last wUl and testament, near
the altar of the chapel of St. John the Baptist
CoUege, July 24, 1663.
Thus died Dr. WUIiam Laud, archbishop of
Canterbury, primate of aU England, and metro
politan ; some time chancellor of the Universi
ties of Oxford and Dublin, one of the coramis
sioners of his majesty's exchequer, and privy
counsellor to the king, in the seventy-second
year of his age, and twelfth of his archiepisco
pal translation. He was of low stature, and a
ruddy countenance ; his natural temper was
severe and uncourtiy, his spirit active and rest
less, which pushed him on to the most hazard
ous enterprises. His conduct was rash and
precipitate, for, according to Dr. Heylin, he at
tempted more alterations in the Church in one
year than a prudent raan would have done in
a great many. His counsels in state affairs
were high and arbitrary, for he was at the head
of all the Ulegal projects, of ship-money, loans,
monopolies. Star Chamber fines, &c., which
were the ruin ofthe king and Constitution.
His maxims in the Church were no less se
vere, for he sharpened the spiritual sword, and
drew it against aU sorts of offenders, intending,
as Lord Clarendon expresses it, that the disci
pline of the Church should be felt as weU as
spoken of There had not been such a crowd
of business in the High Commission Court
since the Reformation, nor so many large fines
imposed, as under this prelate's administration,
with little or no abatement, .because they were
assigned to the repair of St. Paul's, which gave
occasion to an unlucky proverb, that the church
was repaired with the sins of the people.
As to the archbishop's religion, he declared
himself, upon the scaffold, a Protestant, ac
cording to the constitution of the Church of
England, but with more charily to the Church of

united with ecclesiastical pride, and political servi
tude was promoted as a means to clerical domina
tion. Had he been brought to trial when first ar
rested, it would have been difficult to establish any
material distinction between his case and that of
Strafford. They had been co-workers in the service
of an unprincipled tyranny ; and if the lord-lieuten
ant deserved his doom, no less a penalty might justly
have been inflicted on the primate. ]3ut the state
necessity, which was pleadSd in the case of Straf
ford, was wholly absent from that of Laud. He had
sunk into contempt, and was, therefore, incapable of
mischief Perpetual imprisonment might have been
inflicted, but to take away his hfe was a gratuitous
violation of the letter and forms of the Constitution.
It savoured more of private vengeance than of pubhc
justice, and betokened the departure of those mas
ter-spirits who had presided over tbe earlier deliber
ations of Parliament. Laud's patronage of hterature
and learned men constitutes the only redeeming fea
ture of his administration. It is the solitary virtue
which sheds a partial lustre over an otherwise un
broken course of misrule. — Dr. Price's Hist. Non
conformity, vol. U., p. 301. — C.

526

HISTORY OF THE PUJIITANS.

Some than to Ihc foreign Protestants ;* and
though he was an avowed eneray to sectaries
and Idnalics of all sorts, yet he had a great deal
of superstition in his make, as appears frora
those passages in his Diary in which he takes
notice of his dreams, of the falling down of pic
tures, ofthe bleeding of his nose, of auspicious
and inausplcums days of the year, and of the
position of the stars; a variety of which may
be collected out of that performance.
His grace must be allowed to have had a con
siderable share of knowledge, and to have been
a learned man, though he was more a man of
business than of letters.t He was a great ben
efactor to the college in which he was educated,
enriching it with a variety of valuable man
uscripts, t besides £500 in money. (J He gave
£800 to the repair of the Cathedral of St. Paul's,
and sundry other legacies of the like nature.
But, with all his accomplishments, he was a
cruel persecutor as long as he was in power, and '
the chief incendiary in the war between the
king and Parliament, the calaraities of which
are, in a great measure, chargeable upon hira.
" That which gave me the strongest prejudices
against him," says Bishop Burnet, "is, that in
his Diary, after he had seen the ill effects of his
violent counsels, and had been so long shut up,
and so long at leisure to reflect on what had
passed in the hurry of passion, in the e.'ialta-
tion of his prosperity, he does not, in any one part
of tliat great work, acknowledge his own errors,
nor mix any wise or serious reflections on the ill
usage he met wilh, or Ihe unhappy steps he had
made." The bishop adds, wiihal,l| " that he was
a learned, sincere, and zealous man, regular in

* One of the daughters of William, earl of Devon
shire, having turned Catholic, she was questioned
by Laud upon the subject of her conversion, and the
motives by which she h'ad been actuated. She re
plied, that her principal reason was a dislike to
travel in a crowd. The meaning being obscure, the
archbishop asked her what she meant. " 1 perceive,"
she said, " your grace and many others are making
haste to Rome, and, therefore, to prevent being
crowded, 1 have gone before you." — C.
t " Just the contrary," says Bishop Warburton :
"he did not understand business at all, as fully ap
pears from the historian's account of his civil admin
istration, and was a great master of rehgious contro-
versy." Mr. Hume, speaking of Laud's learning and
morals, expresses himself in the following manner :
"This man was virtuous, if severity of manners
alone, and abstinence from pleasure, could deserve
that name. He was learned, if polemical knowledge
could entitle him to that praise." — History of Great
Britain, vol. v., p. 193.— En.
t These manuscripts, which he had purchased at
a prodigious expense, were in Hebrew, Syriac, Chal-
dee, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Arminian, Arabic, Persian,
Turkish, Russian, Chiflese, Japanese, Greek, Latin,
Italian, French, Saxon, Enghsh, and Irish. The
archbishop also founded an Arabic lecture in the
Universityof Oxford, which began to be read inl636.
He obtained the advowson of the living of St. Law
rence, in Reading, for St. John's College. He pro
cured a charter for Reading, and founded, and en
dowed with £200 per annum, an hospital in that town.
Oxford owed also to his influence a large charter,
confirming its ancient, and investing it with new
privileges. It is but justice due to his memory to re
cord, to the honour of Laud, these acts of munifi
cence and public utility. — British Biography, vol. iv.,
p. 289,290— En. ^Diary, p. 56.
II History of his Life, vol. i., p. 49, 50 ; or Scotch
edit., p. 68.

his own life, and humble in his private dc
portmenl, but hot and indiscreet, eagerly pur
suing such matters as vvere either very incon
siderable or mischievous ; such as setting the
communion table by the east wall of the church,
bowing to jt, and calling it an altar, suppressing
the \\alloon privileges, breaking of lectures,
and encouraging of sports on the Lord's Day,
&c. His severity in the Star Chamber, and in
the High Coraraission Court ; but, above all,
his violent, and, indeed, inexcusable injustice,
in the prosecution of Bishop Williaras, were
such visible blemishes, that nothing but the
putting hira to death in so unjust a raanner
could have raised his character. His Diary
represents hira as an abject fawner upon the
Duke of Buckingham, and as a superstitious re^
garder of dreams;* his defence of himself,
written with so much care when he was in the
Tower, is a very mean perforraance ; and his
friends have really lessened hira — Heylin by
writing his life, and Wharton by publishing his
vindication of himself" Mr. Rapin adds, "Let
the archbishop's favourers say what they please,
he was one of the chief authors of the troubles
that afflicted England : 1. By supporting with
all his raight the principles of that arbitrary
power which the court strove for several years
to establish. 2. By using too much strictness
and rigidness in the observance of trifles in Di
vine service, and in compelling everybody to-
conforra themselves thereto."t To which I,
would beg leave to add, that since nothing re
lating to the doctrine or discipline of the Church
of England established by law was objected to-
him at his trial, but only certain innovations in
the Church, without or contrary tb law, I can
not conceive with what propriety of language
his friends and admirers have canonized him.
as the blessed martyr of the Church of Eng-
land."t

* " His superstitions," says Mrs. Macaulay, "were
as contemptible as those that belonged to the weak
est of women." His Diary fell into the hands of
Prynne, in the search of the archbishop's papers, and
was published by him during his trial. This his
grace complained of, as done to abash and disgrace
him. The publication of it certainly did not tend to
soften the prejudices against him, or to raise him in
the opinion of the public. It was done by an order
of a committee of the House of Commons. — Ed.
t Rapin, vol. i., p. 507, foUo.
t Dr. Grey calls Mr. Neal's delineation of Arch
bishop Laud's character " a long invective," and op
poses to it Lord Clarendon's character of this prelate.
Facts will show who has drawn it with truth; and
by facts we may decide concerning a more recent de
lineation of it by the pen of Mrs. Macaulay. " Laud,
a superstitious churchman, who had studied little
else than canon law and the doting opinions of the
fathers, was entirely ignorant of the utility, equity,
and beauty of civil and religious liberty, was himself
imposed on before he endeavoured to impose on oth
ers ; and became a zealous instrument of tyranny,
even for conscience' sake. The principles of religion
on which he uniformly acted were as noxious to the
peace of society as were the principles of the pa
pists ; the same want of charity, the same exercise
of cruelty, the same arrogance of dominion, were
common to both. Utterly unacquainted with the
simplicity, charity, and meekness of the Gospel, his
character was void of humility and forgiveness ; nor
had he other rules to judge of men's deservings, but
as they were more or less attached to the power of
the Church. Upon the whole, his character serves

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

The last and most memorable transaction of
this year was the treaty of Uxbridge. His
majesty had sent the two houses sundry propo
sitions for peace last summer, which look them
upa^great deal of time to form into propositions
for his majesty's assent. The commissioners
were, two lords, four commoners, and those of
the Scots commissioners ; they arrived at Ox
ford November 26, but though the king had
given thera a safe-conduct, Mr. Whitelocke ob^
serves, they raet with very rude treatment from
the populace, who saluted thera as they passed
along the streets with the names of traitors,
rogues, and rebels, throwing stones and dirt into
their coaches ; when they came to their inn, they
were insulted by the soldiers, so that they were
obliged to shut up the doors till the king order
ed them a guard. When they delivered their
propositions, his majesty received them coldly ;*
and because they were only to receive his an
swer, told them a letter carrier might have
done as well.t Next day his majesty gave
them his answer in writing sealed up ; and
when they desired to see it, he replied, with a
frown, " What is it to you, who are but to car
ry what I send 1 If I wiU send the song of Rob
in Hood, or Little John, you raust carry it."
But at length they obtained a copy, which was
only to desire a safe-conduct for the Duke of
Lenox and Earl of Southaraplon to corae to
London with his majesty's answer ; but the let
ter not being directed to the Parliament of Eng
land, the houses would not consent but upon
that condition. The king's councU advised hira
to yield, which did not prevail tiU his majesty
had found out an evasion, and entered it upon
record in the council-books, as appears by his

as an eminent example, to show that extensive learn
ing and abiUties are not incompatible with a narrow
judgment ; and that, in aU the catalogue of human
frailties, there are none which more corrupt the
heart, or deprave the understanding, than the follies
of religion." — History of England, vol. iv., p. 134, 142,
143. Were it necessary for the editor of Mr. Neal to
subjoin his idea of Laud's character, he would be in
clined to give it in three words ; as formed of super
stition, tyranny, and intolerance. — Ed. His old
friend, Judge Whitelocke, described his character in
a few words : " He was too full of fire, though a
just and good inan. His want of experience in state
matters, and his too much heat and zeal for the
Churcbj had he proceeded in the way he was then
in, would have set the nation on fire." — C.
* This, as Dr. Grev observes, is not expressly said
by Whitelocke ; whose words are, " The next day
they," i. e.,\he commissioners, "had access to his
majesty, who used them civilly, and gave to every
one of them his hand to kiss ; but he seemed to show
more disdain to the Scots commissioners than to any
others of their company.'' On the evening of the
same day, as Hollis and Whitelocke were paying a
visit to the Earl of Lindsey, the king came into the
chamber, and treated those gentlemen with extraor
dinary respect, entered into a free conversation with
them, and asked their advice as friends. — Memorials,
p. 108. Rushworth says that "the king received
the commissioners very obligingly, but seemed more
to slight the Scots commissioners than any of tire
rest."— Vol. v., p. 841. Even here, though the lan
guage of Rushworth is more descriptive of a courte
ous and complaisant reception than is that of 'White
locke, there is yet an intimation of something in the
king's manner to all the commissioners that indicated
coldness and indUference, and it justifies Mr. Neal's
representation of it. — Ed.
t Whitelocke, p. 106, 107, 109, UO.

527
letter to the queen, dated January 2, in which
he says, " that his calling thera a Pariiaraent
did not iraplyhis acknowledging them as such ;
upon which construction, and no other," says
he,* " I called them as it is registered in the
council-books; and if there had been but two of
ray opinion," says the king, " I would not havo
done it."t In another intercepted letter to the
queen, he tells her, " he eould not prevail -with
his Pariiament at Oxford to vote those at West
minster no Pariiament, but assures ber he would
not raake peace without her approbation, nor go
one jot beyond the paper she sent him."t In
another, the king informs the queen, " that the
Parliament were sending him propositiqns for
peace, which, if she likes, he thinks may he the
best way for settlement as things stand ;" so
that the fate of England was to be determined
by the queen and her popish council. Besides,
his majesty was, unhappUy, elevated at this time
hy the divisions at Westminster, which produ
ced the new modelling the army ; and with a
false and romantic account of the successes of
the Marquis of Montrose in Scotland, which
were so magnified that it was expected the
Scots must iraraediately raarch back into their
own country ; whereas, in reality, they were
not so considerable as to oblige thera to draw
off a single regiraent.
In this situation of affairs, it was agreed, ac
cording to the proposals of the king's corarais-
sioners, that there should be a treaty of peace
at Uxbridge, to commence January 30, 1645, and
to continue twenty days.
There were sixteen commissioners for the
king, viz., nine lords, six commoners, and one
divine ; twelve for the Parliaraent, and ten for
the Scots, and one divine, viz., Mr. Henderson ;
the king's divine was Dr. Steward, who was
assisted by Dr. Sheldop, Laney, Fern, Potter,
and Hammond. Assistant divines for the Par
liament were, Mr. Vines, Marshal, Cheynel. and
Chiesly. These, with their retinue, to the num
ber of one hundred and eight persons, were in
cluded in the safe-conduct.
The propositions to be treated of were, reli-

* Whitelocke, p. 277.
t Dr. Grey aims here to impeach, not the accura
cy only, but the veracity of Mr. Neal, whose account
of the matter does, indeed, seem to imply that the
king was at length prevailed on to direct his answer
to the Parliament at Westminster ; whereas Dr. Grey
shows, from Rapin and Rushworth, that bis majesty
put no direction at all on it, and the commissioners
accepted it without a direction ; and that, therefore,
the charge of evasion against the king was without
ground. But Dr. Grey contents himself with a par
tial account and view of this matter, and does not ap
prize his reader that Rapin also mentions the expe
dient by which the king reconciled to himself a com
pliance with the requisition of the Parliament i the
fact, in its full extent, was, that the coramissioners,
though they objected to the form and the want of di
rection to the king's message, yet did dehver it to
the Parliament at Westminster, and were thanked
for their services. But, then, the like exceptions were
made by both houses, and it was resolved not to grant
the safe-conduct it asked, nor to receive his majesty's
answer, unless he should send to the Parliament of
England assembled at Westminster. The trumpeter
went away with the letter to this effect Decembers,
and returned on the 7th with an answer from the.
king, acknowledging those at Westminster to be the
ParUamentj— iJasAMiorfA, vol. v., p. 843, 844.
X Rushworth, vol. v., p. 943.

528

HISTORY UF THE PURITANS.

gion, the militia, and Ireland; each of which
was to be debated three days successively, tUl
the twenty days were expired.
The treaty was preceded by a day of fasting
and prayer on both sides for a blessing, but was
interrupled the very first day by a sermon
preached occasionally in the church of Uxbridge
by Mr. Love, then preacher to the garrison of
Windsor, wherein he had said that they [his
majesty's commissioners] came thither with
hearts full of blood, and that there was as great
a distance between this treaty and peace as be
tween heaven and heU. The coramissioners
having complained of him next day, the Parlia
ment commissioners laid it before the two hous
es, who sent for him to London, where he gave
this account of the affair : that the people being
under a disappointment at their lecture, he was
desired unexpectedly to give them a sermon,
which was the same he had preached at Wind
sor the day before.* He adraits that he cau
tioned the people not to have too great a de
pendance upon the treaty, because, " whUe our
enemies," says he, " go on in their wicked
practices, and \^-e keep to our principles, we
may as soon make fire and water to agree ; and,
I had almost said, reconcile heaven and hell, as
their spirits and ours. They must grow better,
or vfe must grow worse, before it is possible for
us to agree." He added, farther, " that there
was a generation of men that carried blood and
revenge in their hearts against the weU-affected
in the nation, who hated not only their bodies,
but their souls, and in their cups would drink
a health to their damnation." Though there
might be some truth in what the preacher said,
yet these expressions were unbecoming any
private man in so nice a conjuncture ; he was
therefore confined to his house duringthe treaty,
and then discharged. t
It was too evident that neither party carae to
the treaty with a healing spirit. The king's
commissioners were under such restraints, that
little good w£is to be expected from thera ; and
the Parliament comraissioners would place no

* Dugdale's Treaty of Uxbridge, p. 764.
t Dr. Grey opposes to the account which Mr. Neal
gives of the proceedings against Mr. Love, Lord
Clarendon's representation, which states only, that
the commissioners seemed troubled at the charge
against him, promised to examine it, and engaged
that he should be severely punished ; but afterward
confessed that they had no authority to punish him,
but that they had caused him to be sharply repre
hended and sent out of town : " This," his lordship
adds, " was all that could be obtained, so unwilling
were they to discountenance any man who was wUl
ing to serve them." — History ofthe Rebellion, vol. iL,
p. 579. Dr. Grey remarks here, "This is Lord Clar
endon's account, who himself was a commissioner of
that treaty." The remark is evidently made to inti
mate that .Mr. Neal's account is not true. It is to be
regretted that he has not, in this instance, referred
to his authority. But it is certain that Lord Claren
don does not relate the whole of the commissioners'
answer or conduct The former, according to Rush-
worth, vol. v., p. 865, and Dugdale, p. 765, was a
promise "to represent the complaint against Mr.
Love to the Parliament, who would proceed therein
according to justice ;" and the latter, it appears by
Whitelocke, was correspondent to this engagement :
" For the Parliament, having notice of Mr. Love's
sermon from the comraissioners, sent for him, and re
ferred the business to an examination."— Jtfnnoriais,
p. 123.— Ed. •

manner of confidence in his majesty's promises,
nor abate a tittle of the fuUest security for them
selves and the Constitution* The king, there
fore, in his letter to the queen of January 22,
assures her of the utter improbability that this
present treaty should produce a peace, " consid-
eringthe great and strange difference, ifnot con
trariety, of grounds that was between the rebels'
propositions and his ; and that I cannot alter
mine, nor wiU they ever theirs, but by force."t
We shall only just raention the propositions
relating to the railitia and Ireland, our principal
view being to religion. The king's comrais
sioners proposed to put the militia into tbe
hands of trustees for three years, half to be
named by the king, and half by the Parliaraent,
and then to revert absolutely to the crown, on
pain of high treason. But the Parliaraent cora
missioners replied, that by the king's naming
half the commissioners, the militia would be
rendered inactive, and that after three years
they should be in a worse condition than before
the war; they therefore proposed that "the
Parliament should narae the coramissioners for
seven years, and then to be settled as the king
and Parliament should agree, or else to Umit
their nomination to three years after the king
and Parliament should declare the kingdora to
be in a settled peace."t It had been easy to
form this proposition, so as both parties raight
have coraplied with honour and safety, if they
had been in earnest for an accoramodation ; but
his raajesty's coramissioners could yield no far
ther. As to Ireland, the king's commissioners jus
tified his majesty's proceedings in the cessation,
and In sending for the rebels over to fill up his
arraies ; and when the coraraissioners on the
other side put thera in mind of his raajesty's
soleran proraises lo leave that affair to the Par
liaraent, and to have those rebels punished ac
cording to law, the others replied, " they wished
it was in his majesty's power to punish all re
beUion according as it deserved ; but since it
was otherwise, he must condescend to treaties,
and to all other expedients necessary to reduce
his rebeUious subjects to their duty and obe
dience."^ Admirable arguments to heal divis
ions, and induce the Parliament to put the sword
into the king's hands III

* Rapin, vol. U., p. 510, folio.
t The quotation from Rapin, as Dr. Grey intimates,
is not exact or full. The passage stands thus : "I
cannot alter mine, nor will they ever theirs, till they
be out of hope to prevail with force, which a little
assistance, by thy means, will soon make them be;
for I am confident, if ever I could put them to a de
fensive (which a reasonable sum of money would
do), they would be easily brought to reason." — Rush-
worth, vol. vii., p. 944. As the passage now appears
at its full length, though the reader should judge Mr.
Neal's manner of quoting it inaccurate, he will per
ceive that he has truly given the idea and meaning
of the king, who thought of nothing but of putting
the Parliament out of hope of prevailing by force, by
carrying against them a superior force. — Ed.
t Rapin, p. 513. ^ Clarendon, vol. ii., p. 592.
II Bishop Warburton treats this with contempt, -
calling it " a foolish declamation. The subject here
was Ireland, not the miUtia." So Mr. Neal repre
sents it : but the force of his remark turns on the
propriety of putting the sword into the king's hands ;
and whether the sword was worn by the English mi
litia or the Irish rebels, in either case it was an ob
ject of fear and jealousy to the Parliament. The

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

529

The article of religion was, in the opinion of
I/)rd Clarendon, of less consequence with raany
in the Parliamenl house, for if they could have
obtained a security for their lives and fortunes,
he apprehends this raight h.ive been accommo
dated, though, considering the influence of the
Scots, and the growing strength of the Presbv-
terian and Independent parties, il is very much
to be doubled. However, this being the first
point debated in the treaty, and a Church con
troversy, it wUl be proper, to represent the in
structions on both sides. While this was upon
the carpet. Dr. Steward, clerk ofthe closet, and
a commissioner for the king, sat covered with
out the bar, behind the coramissioners. as did
Mr. Henderson behind those ofthe Parliament.
The assistant divines were present in places
appointed for them, opposite to each other.
His majesty's instructions to his comraission
ers on the head of religion w ere these : •¦ Here,"
says the king, " the governmeni of the Church
wiU be the chief question, wherein two things
are lo be considered, conscience and policy ;
for the first, I must declare, that I cannot yield
to the change of the government by bishops, not
only because I fully concur, wilh the most gen
eral opinion of Christians in all ages, in Episco
pacy's being the best government, but likewise
I hold myself particularly bound, by the oath I
took at my coronation, not to alter the govern
ment of this Church from what I found it ; and
as for the churoh patrimony, I cannot suffer any
dimioution or alienation of it, it being, without
peradventure, sacrUege. and hkewise contrary
to my coronation oath ; but whatsoever shaU be
offered for rectifying abuses, if any have crept
in, or for the ease of tender consciences (provi
ded the foundation be not damaged), I am con
tent to hear, and wiUing to return a gracious
answer. Touching the second, that is. the point
of policy, as it is the king's duty to protect the
Church, so the Church is reciprocaUy bound to
assist the king in the maintenance of his just
authorUy. Upon these views my predecessors
have been always careful (especially since the
Reformation) to keep the dependance of the
clergy entirely upon the crown, withont which
it wm scarce set fast on the king's head; there
fore, you must do nothing to change or lessen
this natural dependance.'*
The commissioners from the two houses of
ParUament at Westminster, instead of being in
structed to treat about a reformation of the hie
rarchv. were ordered to demand the passing of
a bill "for abolishing and taking away Episcopal
govemment ; for confirming the ordinance for
the calling and sitting of the .Assembly of Di
vines; that the Directory for public worship.

and the propositions concerning church govern
ment, hereunto annexed, be confirmed as a part
of reformation of religion and uniformity ; that
his majesty take the solemn League and Cove
nant ; and that an act of Pariiament be passed,
enjoining the taking it by aU the subjects ofthe
three kingdoms*
The propositions annexed to these demands
were these, viz. " That the ordinary way of
dividing Christians into distinct congregations,
as most expedient for edification, be by the re
spective bounds of their dweUings.
" That the ministers and other church offi
cers, in each particular congregation, shaU join
in the government of the Church iu such man
ner as shall be established by ParUament.
" That many congregations shaU be under
one presbyterial government.
" That ihe Chureh be governed by congrega
tional, classical, and synodical assemblies, in
such manner as shaU be estabhshed by Parlia
ment. "That synodical assemblies shaU consist
both of provincial and nalional assemblies."
One may easily observe the distance belween
the instructions of the two parties, one being
I determined to maintain Episcopacy, and the
; other no less resolute for establishing Presby
tery. .\fter several papers had passed between
the commissioners about the biU for taking
away Episcopacy, it was debated by the divines
for two days together.
Mr. Henderson, in a laboured speech, endeav
oured to show the necessity of changing the
government of the Church for the preservation
of the Slate. "That now the question was
not whether the government of the Church by
bishops was lawful, but whether it was so ne
cessary that Christianity could not subsist with
out it. That this latter position coiUd not be
maintained in the affirmative without condemn
ing aU other Reformed churches in Europe.
That the ParUament of England, had found
Episcopacy a very inconvenient and corrupt
government ; that the hierarchy had been a
public grievance from the Reformation down
ward ; that the bishops had always abetted po
pery, had retained many superstitious rites and
customs in their worship and government ; and,
over and above, had lately brought in a great
many novelties into the Church, and made a
nearer approach to the Roman communion, to
the great scandal of the Protestant chinches of
Germany. France. Scotland, and Holland. That
the prelates had embroiled the British island,
and made the two nations of England and Scot
land fall foul upon each other. That the re-
belUon in Ireland, and the civU ¦war in England,
may be charged upon them ; that for these rea-
reader will not be displeased to see how the bishop sons the Parliament had resolved to change
becomes advocate for the king on the charge here j this inconvenient, mischievous govemment. and

alleged, of breakins his promise to leave the Irish (
war" to the Parliament. His answer. •. e.. the kmg-s.
savs his Eiace. is to this effect and 1 ttank it very
penineot": " It is true 1 madethis promise, but it was
when the Pariiamen! was mv friend, not my enemy.
Thev might be then intrustei with my quarrel ; bnt
it w6uld be madness to think ihey now can. 1 o pie-
vent, therefore, their making a treaty ivub "le Insh.
and m their distresses bringmg ov^r theu- troo?>  ^  ^ 
against me, I have tiealed with, them. Mid nave ^ ^,g(^nse he had already done it in Scotland : nor
brought over the troops against niem._ This was j ^^^^^ j^^ believe that Episcopaev was absolutely
'JT^J*^^^'^'? and able pimce.-En.  . Dugdale. u. 766.  "
* Rushworth, voL v., p. S»o. i =
ToL. J.—X I I

set up another in the room of it, more naturaUy
formed for the advancement of piety ; that this
alteration was the best expedient to unite all
Protestant churches, and extinguish the remains
of pojtery ; he hoped, therefore, the king would
concur in so commendable and godly an under-
takiQS ; and conceived his majesty's conscience
could not be urged against such a compUance,

530

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

necessary to the support of the Christian reli
gion."* Dr. Steward, clerk*of the king's closet, ad
dressing himself to the commissioners, replied,
"he knew their lord.ships were too weU ac
quainted with the conslilution ofthe Church of
England, and the basis upon which it stood, to
imagine it could be shaken by the force of Mr.
Henderson's rhetoric ; that he was firmly of
opinion that a government which, frora the
planting of Christianity in England, had contin
ued without interruption, that a governraent
under which Christianity had spread and flour
ished to a remjirkable degree, could have no
thing vicious or antichristian in its frame ; that
he expected that those who had sworn thera
selves to an abolition of this primitive constitu
tion, and came hither to persuade their lord
ships and his majesty to a concurrence, would
have endeavoured to prove the unlawfulness of
that government they pressed so strongly to
remove ; but though in their sermons and prints
they gave Episcopacy an antichristian addition,
Mr. Henderson had prudently declined pharging
so deep, and only argued frora the inconveni
ences of that governraent, and the advantages
which would be consequent on an alteration.
Forasrauch as a union with the Protestant
churches abroad was the chief reason for his
change, the doctor desired to know what for
eign church they designed for a pattern ; that
he was sure the raodel in the Directory had no
great reserablance to any foreign Reformed
church ; and though he would not enter upon
"a censure of those comraunions, yet it was
weU known that the most learned men of those
churches had lamented a defect in their reforra
ation, and that the want of Episcopacy was an
unhappy circumstance ; . that they had always
paid a particular reverence to the Church of
England, and looked upon it as the raost per
fect constitution, upon the score of its having
retained all that was venerable in antiquity.
From hence he proceeded to enlarge upon the
apostolical institution of Episcopacy, and en
deavoured to prove, that without bishops the
sacerdotal character could not be conveyed,
nor tbe sacraments administered to any signifi-
cancy. " .As to his majesty's consenting to put down
episcopacy in Scotland, he would say nothing,
though he knew his majesty's present thoughts
upon that subject. But he observed that the
king was farther obliged in this kingdora than
in the other ; that in England he was tied by
his coronation oath to maintain the rights of
the Church, and that this single engagement
was a restraint upon his majesty's conscience,
not to consent to the abolition of Episcopacy, or.
the alienation of church-lands."
Mr. Henderson and Mr. Marshal declared it
to be false in fact, and a downright imposition
upon the comraissioners, that the foreign Prot
estants laraented the want of Episcopacy, and
esteemed our constitution more perfect than
their own.t They then ran out into a high
? Clarendon, vol. U., p. 584.
t These assertions of Mr. Henderson and Mr. Mac-
shal are nol to be found, as Dr. Grey remarks, in the
place to which Mr. Neal refers. Rushworth says
there only in general, "that Mr. Henderson and Mr.
Marshal answered the doctor, commending the Pres-

comraendation of Presbyterial government, as
that which had the only claira to a Divine right.*
Upon which the Marquis of Hertfordt spoko to
this effect :
" My Lords,
" Here is rauch said concerning church gov
ernment in the general ; the reverend doctors
on the king's part affirm that Episcopacy is jure
divino; the reverend ministers on the other
part affirra that presbytery is jure divino ; for
ray part, I think neither the one nor the other.t
nor any governraent whatsoever to be jure divi
no ; and I desire we may leave this argument,
and proceed to debate on the particular propo
sals."^ Dr. Steward desired they might dispute syl-
logistically, as became scholars, to which Mr.
Henderson readily agreed ; in that way they
proceeded about two days ; the points urged
by the king's doctors were strongly opposed by
Mr. Henderson, Mr. Marshal, and Mr. Vines,
and very learnedly replied to by his raajesty's
divines, who severally declared their judgments
upon the apostolical institution of Episcopacy ;
but neither party were convinced or satisfied.
When the debate concerning religion carae
on a second time, his majesty's comraissioners
delivered in their answer to the Parljament's
deraands in writing, with their reasons why
they could not consent to the bill for abolishing
Episcopacy, and establishing the Directory in
the roora ofthe Comraon Prayer, nor advise his
majesty to take the Covenant : but for the uni
ting and reconciling all differences in matters of
religion, and procuring a blessed peace, they
were wiUing to consent,
(1.) "Thatfreedom be left to aU persons, of
what opinion soever, in matters of ceremony ;
and that all the penalties of the laws and cus
toms which enjoin these ceremonies be sus
pended. ||
(2.) "That the bishop shaU exercise no act
of jurisdiction or ordination without the con
sent of the presbyters, who shall be chosen by
the clergy of each diocess, out of the most
learned and grave rainisters of the diocess. T
(3.) " That the bishop keep his constant resi
dence in his diocess, except when he shall be
required by his majesty to attend him on any
occasion, and that (if he be not hindered by the
infirmities of old age or sickness) he preach
every Sunday in some church within his dio
cess. (4.) " That the ordination of ministers shall

byterian way of govemment, and that Episcopacy
was not so suitable to the Word of God as Presby
tery, which they argued to be jure divino." See also
Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 123. Dr. Grey fills sev-
ral pages with quotations from Calvin, Beza, and
other foreign divines, in favour of Episcopacy. — En.
* Rushworth, p. 848.
t Rushworth and 'Whitelocke add, that the Ear-
of Pembroke and many of the commissioners, be
sides these two lords, were of the same judgment,
and wished, passing over this point, to cortie to the
particulars. — Rushworth's Collection, vol v,, p. 849.
Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 123. — Ed.
t " The Marquis of Hertford," says Bishop War
burton, "seems to have read Hooker to more advan
tage than the king his master, who fancied that great
men contended Br the jus divinum of Episcopacy in
his E. P., in which he has been foUowed by many
divines since."- Ed. ij Whitelocke, p. 123.
II Rushworth, p. 872. 1 Dugdale, p. 780.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

\>e always in a public and solemn manner, and
very strict rules observed concerning the suffi-
<>iency and other qualifications of those men
who shall be received into holy onlers ; and the
bishops shall not receive anv into holy orders
without the approbation and consent of the
presbyters, or the major part of thera.
(6.) "That a competent maintenance and pro
vision be established, hy act of Parliament, to
, such vicarages as belong to bishops, deans, and
chapters, out of the irapropriations, and accord
ing to the value of those impiopriations ol the
several parishes.
(6.) •• That for tirae to corae no man shaU be
capable of two parsonages or vicarages, with
cure of souls.
(7.) " That, towards settling the public peace,
£100,000 shall be raised by act of Parliament,
out of the estates of bishops, deans, and chap
ters, in such manner as shall he thought fit by
the king and two houses of Parliament, with
out the alienation of any of the said lands.
(8.) "That the jurisdiction in causes testa
mentary, decimal, matrimonial, be settled in
such manner as shjiU seem most convenient by
the king and two houses of Parliament.
(9.) "That one or more acts of Parliament
be passed for regulating of visitations, and
against immoderate fees in ecclesiastical courts,
and abuses by frivolous excommunication, and
all other abuses in the eixercise of ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, in such manner as shall be agreed
upon by the king and both houses of Parlia
ment. " And if your lordships shall insist upon any
other thing which your lordships shaU think ne
cessary for reformation, we shall very willingly
apply ourselves to the consideration thereof"
But they absolutely refused their consent to the
main points, viz., the aboUshing Episcopacy, es
tablishing the Directory, confirming the Assem
bly of Divines, and taking the Covenant.
Mr. Rapin observes, upon the first of these
concessions, that since the penal laws were
not to be abolished, but only suspended, it
would be in the king's power to take off the
suspension whensoever he pleased. Upon the
third, fourth, and fifth, that they were so rea
sonable and necessary, that it was not for the
king's honour to let them be considered as a
condescension to promdte the peace ; and the
remainder, depending upon the joint consent of
king and Parliament, after a peace, it would
always be in the king's breast lo give or with
hold his assent, as he thought fit.*
The commissioners for the Parliament repli
ed to these concessions, that they were so many
new propositions, whoUy different from what
they had proposed ; that they contained little or
nothing but whjit they were already in posses
sion of by the laws of the land ; that they were
noway satisfactory lo their desires, nor consist
ing with that reformation to which both na
tions are obliged by the solemn League and
Covenant ; therefore they can give no other
answer to them, but insist to desire their lord
ships that the bUI may be passed, and their
other demands concerning religion granted, t
The ParUament commissioners, in their last
papers, say, that aU objections in favour of the
? History, vol. u., p. 512, 513.
t Dugdale, p. 783.

531
present hierarchy, arising frora conscience, law,
or reason, being fully answered, they must now
press for a determinate ajiswer to their proposi
tion concerning religion.
The king's commissioners deny that their ob
jections against passing the bill for abolishing
Episcopacy have been answered, or that they
had received any satisfaction in those particu
lars, and therefore cannot consent to it.
The Parliament commissioners add, that
after so many days' debate, and their making
it appear how great a hinderance Episcopal gov
ernment is and has been to a perfect reforma
tion, and to the growth of religion, and how
prejudicial it has been to the stale, they hoped
their lordships would have been ready to an
swer their expect.itions.*
The king's commissioners replied, "It is evi
dent, and we conceive consented to on aU sides,
that Episcopacy has continued from the apos
tles' time, by a continued succession, in the
Church of Christ, without intermission or in
terruption, and is therefore ;uro divino."
The Parliament commissioners answer, " So
far were we from consenting that Episcopacy
has continued from the apostles' tirae, by a con
tinued succession, that the contrary was made
evident to your lordships, and the unlawfulness
of it fully proved.''t
The king's commissioners replied, that they
conceived the succession of Episcopacy from
the apostles was consented to on all sides, and
did not remember that the unlawfulness of it
had been asserted and proved.! However,
they apprehend all the inconveniences of that
government are remedied by the alterations
which they had offered. Nor had the Parlia
ment commissioners given them a view in par
ticular of the government they would substitute
in place of the present ; if, therefore, the alter
ations proposed do not satisfy, they desire the
matter raay be suspended till after the disband
ing the arraies, and both king and Parliament
can agree in calling a National Synod.
The above-mentioned concessions ¦would
surely have been a sufficient foundation for
peace, if they had been made twelve months
sooner, before the Scots had been caUed in
with their soleran League and Covenant, and
sufficient security had been given for their per
forraance ; but the commissioners' hands were
now tied, the Parliament apprehending them
selves obliged by the Covenant to abolish the
hierarchy ; and yet, if the commissioners could
have agreed about the militia, and the punish
ment of evU counsellors, the affair of religion
would not, in tlie opinion of Lord Clarendon,
have hindered the success of the treaty ; his
words are these ; " The Parliament took none
of the points of controversy less to heart, or
were less united in anything, than in what con
cerned the Church;^ the Scots would have
given up everything into the hands of the king
for their beloved Presbytery ; but raany of the
Parliament were for peace, provided they might
have indemnity for what was passed, and secu
rity for time to come. "II And were nol these
reasonable requests'! Why, then, did not the
coramissioners prevail wilh the king to give

* Dugdale, p. 787.
X Ibid., p. 790, 873.
II Ibid., p. 594.

t Ibid., p. 788.
^ Clarendon, vol. n., p. 581.

532

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

them security, and divide the Parliament, or
put an end to the war '
The last day ofthe treaty the Pariiaraent
continued silting till nine of the clock at night,
in hopes of hearing something from their com
missioners that might encourage thera to pro
long the treaty ; hut when an express brought
word that the king's commissioners would not
yield to one of their propositions, they broke
up without doing anything in the business.
Each party laid the blarae upon the other ;
the king's comraissioners complained Ihat the
Parliament would not consent to prolong the
treaty ;* and the others, that after twenty days'
conference not one proposition had been yield
ed. All sober men, and even some of the
king's commissioners, were troubled at the
event ; but, considering the slate of the king's
affairs, and his servile attachment to tho coun
sels of a popish queen, it was easy to foresee
it could not be otherwise.
Bishop Burnet, in the History of his Life
and Times,t says that Lord Hollis, who was
one of the commissioners, told him " that the
king's affairs wore now at a crisis, for the treaty
of IJxbridge gave him an opportunity of making
peace with the Ptirliaraent, but all was undone
by the unhappy success of the Marquis of Mont
rose at this tirae in Scotland, which being raag-
nified to Hie king far beyond what it really was,
prevaUed with his raajesty to put such limita
tions on his comraissioners as raade tho whole
design raiscarry."
Most of the king's comraissioners, who were
not excepted out of the Article of Inderanity,
¦were for accoraraodaling matters before they
left Uxbridge. The Earl of Southampton rode
post from Uxbridge to Oxford, to entreat the
king to yield something to the necessity of the
times ; several of his council pressed hira to it
on their knees ; and it is said his majesty was
at length prevaUed with, and appointed next
morning to sign a warrant to that purpose, but
that Montrose's romantic letter, of his conquest
in Scotland, coraing in the raean time, made the
unhappy king alter his resolution. t
* See a proof of this in Dr. Grey. — Ed.
t Vol. i., p. 51, Edinburgh edition.
t Dr. Grey attempts to convict Mr. Neal of false
hood in each part of this paragraph. For the first
part, the doctor says, " That, as far as he could learn,
there was not so much as the shadow of an au
thority." In reply, it may be observed, that though
Mr. Neal has not, as it is to bo wished he had, re
ferred to his authority, yet the doctor's assertion ia
not well supported, for Whitelocke informs us, that
" on the 19th of February the Earl of Southamp
ton and others of the king's commissioners wont
from Uxbridge to Oxford, to the king, about the busi
ness of the treaty, to receive some farther directions
from his majesty therein." — Memorials, p. 127, As
the treaty closed on the 22d, the reader will judge
whether Mr. Neal, speaking of the object and expe
dition of his journey, had not so much as the shadow
of an authority. Wilh respect to the latter part of
the paragraph concerning Montrose, Dr. Grey will
have it, that Bishop Burnet's authority makes direct
ly against Mr. Neal ; and then be quotes from him
as follows: " Montrose wrote to the king that he
had gone over the land from Dan to Beersheba, and
that he prayed the king to come down in these
words, Come thou and take the city, lest I take it,
and it bo called by my name." This letter was
written, but never sent, for he was routed, and his
papers taken before he had despatched the courier.

But thero was something more in the affair
than this : Lord (^larendoii* is of opinion, that
if the king had yielded some things lo the de
raands of the Pariiament relating lo religion,
the railitia, and Ireland, there were still other
articles in reserve that would have broken off
the treaty ; in which I cannot but agree with
his lordship ; for, not to mention the giving up
delinquents to the justice of Parliament, of
which himself was one, there had been as yet
no debate about the Roman Catholics, whom
the Parliament would not tolerate, and Iho king
was determined not to give up, ns appears from
the correspondence between himself and the
queen at this time. In the queen's letter, Jan
uary fi, 1644-.'), she desires his raajesty " lo
have a care of his honour, and not to abandon
those who had served hira ; for if you agree
upon strictness against Roman Catholics, it
will discourage thera from serving you ; nor
can you expi^ct relief from any Roman Catholic
prlnce."t In her letter of January 27, she
adds, " Above all, have a care not to abandon
those who have served you, as well the bishops
as the poor Catholics." In answer to whicli
the king writes, January 30, " I desire thee to>
be confident that I shaU never make peaiui by
abandoning my friends." And, February 15,
" Be confident that, in making peace, I shall'
ever show my confidence In adhering to the
hishops, and all our friends." March 5, " I give
thee power, in my name, to declare lo whom
thou thinkest fit, that I will take away aU the
penal laws against the Roman Catholics in.
England as soon as God shall mako mo able to-
do it, so as by their moans I may havo so pow
erful assistance as may deserve so great a
favour, and finable mo to do it."t As for Ire
land, his majesty had already coraraanded the-
Duke of Orraond, by his letter of February 87,
to make peace with the papists, cost what it
would. " If the suspending Poynings's act v/iit
do it," says he, "and taking away the penal
laws, I shall not think it a hard bargain. When-
the Irish give me that assistance they have
promised, I will consent to tho repeal by law."ij
It appears from hence that the peace which
the king seemed so much to desire was an-
empty sound. The queen was afraid ho might
be prevaUed with to yield too far ; but his ¦maj
esty bids her be confident of tho contrary, for
" his coramissioners would not bo disputed'
frora their ground, which was according to the
note she remembers, and which he would not.
alter." When the treaty was ended, he writes
thus to the queen, March 13: "Now is como
to pass what I foresaw, the fruitless end of Ihls
treaty. Now if I do anything unhandsome to
myself or my friends, it will be my own fault ;
I was afraid of being pressed- to make sorae
Of course the doctor means to conclude that the
king could not he influenced to obstruct tho opera
tion of the treaty by a letter which was iicvit re
ceived. But it escaped Dr. Grey's nttontion, that
the letter which he quotes was written more than a
year after the treaty was broken off; and Mr. Noal
speaks, on the iiutnority of Bishop Burnet, of an
other letter, or expresses received, while the treaty
was pending : so that there is no contradiction in the-
casc — Ed. * Vol. n., p. 594.
t Rapin, vol. U., p. 511, 5i;2, folio edition.
t Rushworth, vol. v., p. 942, 944, 040, 947.
ij Ibid., p. 978, U79.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

533

nfan overtures to renew the treaty, but now if |
it be renewed, it shaU be to my honour and ad
vantage."* Such was the queen's ascendant
over the king, and his majesty's servile submis
sion to her imperious dictates ;t the fate of
three kingdoras was at her disposal ; no place
at court or in the array raust be disposed of
without her approbation ; no peace raust be
made but upon her terms ; the Oxford mongrel
ParUament, as his majesty calls it, must be
dismissed with disgrace, because they voted for
peace ; the Irish Protestants must be abemdon-
ed to destruction ; and a civil war permitted lo
continue its ravages throughout England and
Scotland, that a popish reUgion and arbitrary
govemment might be encouraged and upheld t
As a farther demonstration of this melancholy
remark, his majesty authorized the Earl of Gla
morgan, by a warrant under his royal signet,
dated March 12, 1644, tb conclude privately a
peace with the Irish papists upon the best terms
he could, though they were such as his Ueuten
ant, the Duke of Ormond, might not weU be
seen in, nor his majesty himself think fit to own
publicly at present, engaging, upon the word of
a king and a Christian, to ratify and perform
whatsoever he should grant tmder his hand and
seal, on condition they would send over into Eng
land a body of ten thousand' men, under the
command of the said earl.^ The date of this

.¦* Rapin, voL iL, p. 512, foUo edition.
t We wiU leave with our readers Bishop Warbur
ton's remarks on this reflection of Mr. NeaL "Never
was the observation of the king's unhappy attach
ment made in a worse place. His honour required
him BOt to give up his friends ; and his rehgion, viz.,
the true principles of Christianity, to take off the
penal laws irotn peaceable papists ; and common
humauity called upon him to ^vour those who had
served hun at the hazard of their Uves and fortunes."
It maybe properly added, that rehgion, in the liberal
sense in which his lonlship explains the term, re-
qujied the king to take off the penal laws from peace
able Puritans as weU as papists. But in his majes
ty's dictionary tbe word does not appear to have
brane so generoos and just a meaning. — Ed.
t Clarraidon, voL iL, p. 364.
^ Dr. Grey treats this accoimt of the Earl of Gla
morgan's commission as a fine piece of slander, fiir-
nished by a tribe of RepubUcan writers : and to con
fine it,he produces a letter from the king to the lord-
lieutenant and council of Ireland, one from Colonel
King, in Ireland, and another from Secretary Nich
olas to the Marquis of Onnond. There is no occa
sion here to enter into a discussion of tbe question
concerning the authority under which the Earl of
Glamorgan acted ; for, since Mr. Neal and Dr. Grey
wrote, the point has been most carefuUy and ably in
vestigated by Dr. Birch, in "An Inqojry into the
Share which King Charles L had in the Transactions
of the Earl of Glamorgan," jpubUshed in 1747. And
Uie {act has been put out of^ aU doubt by a letter of
that nobleman to the Lord-chanceUor Hyde, written
a few days after Eng Charles II. 's restoration, which
has appeared in the Clarendon State Papers, voL iL,
p. 20-203, and has been republished in the second
edition of the Biographia Britannica, voL iL, p. 320,
under the life of Dr. Birch. The general fact having
been ascertained beyond aU contradiction, the ques
tion which offers is, how far the king acted crimi
nally in this transaction. Mis. Macaulay represents
him as violating every principle of honour and con
science. Mr. Hume, on the contrary, speaks of it as
a very innocent transaction, in which the king was
engaged by the most violent necessity. Dr. Birch
considers it with temper, though he appears to thmk
it not easily reconcilable to the idea of a good jnan.

warrant is reraarkable, as it w«is at a time when
his majesty's affairs were far from being des
perate; when he Ihought the divisions in the
Parliament house would quickly be their ruin,
and that he bad little more to do than to sit
StiU and be restored upon his own forms, for
which reason he was so unyielding at the treaty
of Uxbridge ; and yet the earl, by his majesty's
commission, granted everything to the Irish,
even to the establishing the Roman Catholic
religion, and putting it on a level wilh the
Protestant : he gave them aU the churches and
revenues ahey were possessed of since the Re
beUion, and not only exempted thera from the
jurisdiction of the Protestant clergy, but allow
ed thera jurisdiction over their several flocks, so
that the Reformed religion in that kingdom was
in a manner sold for ten thousand Irish papists,
to be transported into England and maintained
for three years. Let the reader now judge what
prospect there could be of a weU-grounded peace
by the treaty of Uxbridge ! What security there
was for the Protestant religion ! How little
ground of reUance on the king's promises ! and,
consequently, to whose account the calamities
ofthe war, and the misery and confusions which
foUowed after this period, ought to be placed.
The day before the commencement of the
treaty of IJxbridge, the merabers of the House
of Commons attended the funeral of Mr. John
White, chairman' ofthe grand committee of re
ligion, and publisher of the " Century of Scan
dalous Ministers ;" he was a grave lawyer, says
Lord Clarendon, and made a considerable figure
in his profession. He had been one ofthe feoffees
for buying in impropriations, for which he was
censured in the Star Chamber. He was repre
sentative in Parliament for theborough of South
wark ; having been a Puritan from his youth,
and, in the opiiiion of Mr. Whitelocke,* an hon
est, learned, and faithful servant of the pubUc,
though somewhat severe at the committee for
plundered ministers. He died January 29, and
was buried in the Temple Church with great
fiueral solemnity, t

a good prince, or a good Protestant. Mr. Walpole
has some candid and Uvely reflections on it : " It re
quires," he observes, " very primitive resignation in
a monarch to sacrifice his crown and his life, when
persecuted by subjects of his own sect, rather than
preserve both by the assistance of others of his sub
jects who differ &om him in ceremonials or articles
of belief His fault was not in proposing lo bring
over tbe Irish, but in having made them necessary to
his afiairs. Everybody knew that he wanted to do
without them aU that he could have done with them."
 Biographia Britannica, second edition, voL iL, p. 321,
iwJe. — Ed. See Rushworth, voL vL, p. 239, &c.
Rapin, p. 330. Hist. Stuarts, p. 305.
* Memorials, p. 122.
t Dr. Grey, on the authority of Walker, " charge
Mr. White with corrupt practices by the way of bri
bery ; says that Dr. Bruno Ryves caUed him a for
nicating Brownist, and that the author of Persec.
Undec. suggests much worse against him ; and, on
the testimony of an anonymous author, represents
him as dying distracted, crying out how many cler
gymen, tlieir wives and children, he had undone ;
raving and condemning himself at his dying hour
for his undoing so many guUtless mmisters." Such
representations carry little weight with them against
the testimony of Clarendon and Whitelocke, especi
aUy when it is considered that the obnoxious part
which Mr. White acted would necessarily create
many enemies ; some of whcsn would invent, and

534

HISTORV OF THE PURITANS.

others easily credit, the most reproachful calumnies
against him. Dr. Calamy and Mr. Withers, whom
Dr. Grey never notices, having sufficiently exposed
the partiaUty and credulity of Dr. Walker to render
his assertions suspicious. And it should not be over

looked, as a strong presumption at least of the purity
of Mr. White's character and the integrity of bis pro
ceedings, that be appealed to the public by hie Cen
tury of Scandalous Ministers. — Ed.

END OF VOL. I.

t ¦;