with the Pastors of particular flocks He was too well versed in the Writings of the Ancient Fathers as not to know that all the things which he complains of were approved and practiced in the best and happiest times of Christianity as might be otherwise made apparent out of the Writings of Tertullian Cyprian Hierome Chrysostome and indeed who not But Beza has a word for this For first he blames the Ancient Fathers for borrowing many of their Ceremonies from the Jews and Gentiles though done by them out of a good and honest purpose that being all things to all men they might gain the more And thereupon he gives this Rule That all such Rites as had been borrowed either from the Iew or Gentile without express Warrant from Christ or the holy Apostles as also all other significant Ceremonies which had been brought into the Church against right and reason should be immediately removed or otherwise the Church could never be restored to her Native Beauty Which Rule of his if once admitted there must be presently an end of all external Decency and Order in the Worship of God and every man might be left to serve him both for time and place and every particular circumstance in that Sacred action as to him seemed best And what a horrible confusion must needs grow thereby not onely in a whole National Church but in every particular Congregation be it never so small is no hard matter to conceive 25. At the Reforming of this Church not onely the Queens Chappel and all Cathedrals but many Parochial Churches also had preserved their Organs to which they used to sing the appointed Hymns that is to say the Te Deum the Benedictus the Magnificat the Nunc Dimittis c. performed in an Artificial and Melodious manner with the addition of Cornets Sackbuts and the like on the Solemn Festivals For which as they had ground enough from the holy Scripture if the Practice and Authority of David be of any credit so were they warranted thereunto by the godly usage of the primitive times after the Church was once restored to her peace and freedom Certain I am that S. Augustine imputes no small part of his Conversion to that heavenly Melodie which he heard very frequently in the Church of Mâ—llaine professing that it did not onely draw tears from him though against his will but raised his soul unto a sacred Meditation on spiritual matters But Beza having turned so many of the Psalms into metre as had been left undone by Marot gave an example unto Sternhold and Hopkins to attempt the like Whos 's Version being left unfinished but brought unto an end by some of our English Exiles which remained at Geneva there was a purpose for imposing them upon the Church by little and little that they might come as close as might be in all points to their Mother-City At first they sung them onely in their private houses and afterwards as beforesaid adventured to sing them also in the Church as in the way of entertainment to take up the time till the beginning of the Service and afterwards to sing them as a part of the Service it self For so I understand that passage in the Church Historian in which he tells us That Dr. Gervis being then Warden of Merton Colledge had abolished certain Latine superstitious Hymns which had been used on some of the Festivals appointing the Psalms in English to be sung in their place and that as one Leech was ready to begin the Psalm another of the Fellows called Hall snatched the book out of his hands and told him That they could no more dance after his pipe But whatsoever Hall thought of them Beza and his Disciples were perswâ—ded otherwise And that he might the better cry down that Melodious Harmony which was retained in the Church of England and so make way for the Genevian fashion even in that point also he tells us in the same Letter to Bishop Gryndal That the Artificial Musick then retained in the Church of England was fitter to be used in Masks and Dancings then Religious Offices and rather served to please the ear then to move the affections Which censure being pass'd upon it by so great a Rabby most wonderful it was how suddenly some men of good note and quality who otherwise deserved well enough of the Church of England did bend their wits and pens against it and with what earnestness they laboured to have their own Tunes publickly introduced into all the Churches Whâ—ch that they might the better do they procured the Psalms in English metre to be bound in the same Volume with the Publick Liturgie and sometimes with the Bible also setting them forth as being allowed so the Title tells us to be sung in all Churches before and after Morning and Evening Prayer as also before and after Sermons but with what truth and honesty we have heard before 16. In finâ— he tells the Bishops how guilty they would seem to God and his hâ—ly Angels if they chuse rather to deprive the Ministers of their Cures and Benefices then suffer them to go apparelled otherwise then to them seemed good And rather to deprive many hungry souls of their heavenly food then give them leave to receive it otherwise then upon their knees And this being said he questions the Authority of the Supreme Magistrate as contrary to the Word of God and the Ancient Canons for ordaining any new Rites and Ceremonies in a Church established but much more the Authority ascribed to Bishops in ordering any thing which concerned the Church without calling the Presbytery to advise about it and having their approbation in it This was indeed the point most aimed at And to this point his followers take the courage to drive on amain the Copies of this Letter being presently dispersed for their greater comfort if not also printed Some of the brethren in their zeal to the name of Calvin preferred him once before S. Paul and Beza out of question would have took it ill if he had been esteemed of less Authority then any of those who claimed to be Successors to S. Peter And therefore it were worth the while to compare the Epistles of these men with those of Pope Leo and then to enter seriously into consideration whether of the two took more upon him either Pope Leo where he might pretend to some command or Beza where he had no authority to act at all How much more moderate and discreet were the most eminent men for Learning amongst the Zwitzers may appear by the example of Gualter and Bullinger no way inferior unto the other but in Pride and Arrogancy who being desired by some of the English Zealots to give their judgement in the point of the Churches Vestments returned their approbation of them but sent it in a Letter directed to Horn Sandys and Grindal to let them see that they would not intermeddle in the affairs of this Church without their
the Dukes of Bouilâ—on That he was most disgracefully deprived of his Place and Function by those of the Calvinian Party because he had delivered in a Sermon on those words of St. â—ames c. 1. v. 13. God tempteth no man c. That God was not the Author of Sin 7. But possibly it may be said That these Oppressions Tyrannies and Partialities are not to be ascribed to the Sect of Calvin in the capacity of Presbyterians but of Predestinarians and therefore we will now see what they acted in behalf of Presbytery which was as dear to all the Members of that Synod but the English only as any of the Five Points whatsoever it was For in the Hundred forty fifth Session being held on the 20 th of April the Belgick Confession was brought in to be subscribed by the Provincials and publickly approved by the Forreign Divines In which Confession there occurred one Article which tended plainly to the derogation and dishonour of the Church of England For in the Thirty one Article it is said expresly That forasmuch as doth concern the Ministers of the Church of Christ in what place soever they are all of equal Power and Authority with one another as being all of them the Ministers of Iesus Christ who is the only Vniversal Bishop and sole Head of His Church Which Article being as agreeable to Calvin's Judgment in point of Discipline as their Determinations were to his Opinion in point of Doctrine was very cheerfully entertained by the Forreign Divines though found in few of the Confessions of the Forreign Churches But being found directly opposite to the Government of the Church by Arch-bishops and Bishops with which a parity of Ministers can have no consistence was cordially opposed by the Divines of the British Colledg but most especially by Dr. George Carlton then Lord Bishop of Landaff and afterwards translated to the See of Chichester who having too much debased himself beneath his Calling in being present in a Synod or Synodical Meeting in which an ordinary Presbyter was to take the Chair and have precedency before him thought it high time to vindicate himself and the Church of England to enter a Legal Protestation against those proceedings Which though it was admitted and perhaps recorded received no other Answer but neglect if not scorn withall Concerning which he published a Declaration after his return in these words ensuing 8. When we were to yeeld our consent to the Belgick Confession at Dort I made open protestation in the Synod That whereas in the Confession there was inserted a strange conceit of the Parity of Ministers to be instituted by Christ I declared our dissent utterly in that point I showed that by Christ a Parity was never instituted in the Church that he ordained Twelve Apostles as also Seventy Disciples that the Authority of the Twelve was above the other that the Church preserved this Order left by our Saviour And therefore when the extraordinary Power of the Apostles ceased yet this ordinary Authority continued in Bishops who succeeded them who were by the Apostles left in the Government of the Church to ordain Ministers and to see that they who were so ordained should preach no other Doctrine that in an inferior degree the Ministers were governed by Bishops who succeeded the Seventy Disciples that this Order hath been maintained in the Church from the times of the Apostles and herein I appealed to the Iudgment of Antiquity and to the Iudgment of any Learned man now living and craved herein to be satisfied if any man of Learning could speak to the contrary My Lord of Salisbury is my Witness and so are all the rest of our Company who speak also in the Cause To this there was no answer made by any whereupon we conceived that they yeelded to the truth of the Protestation But it was only he and his Associates which conceived so of it and so let it go 9. His Lordship adds that in a Conference which he had with some Divines of that Synod he told them That the cause of all their troubles was because they had no Bishops amongst them who by their Authority might repress turbulent spirits that broached Novelty every man having liberty to speak or write what they list and that as long as there were no Ecclesiastical men in Authority to repress and censure such contentious Spirits their Church could never be without trouble To which they answered That they did much honour and reverence the good Order and Discipline of the Church of England and with all their hearts would be glad to have it established amongst them but that could not be hoped for in their State that their hope was That seeing they could not do what they desired God would be merciful to them if they did what they could This was saith he the sum and substance of their Answer which he conceived to be enough to free that people from aiming at an Anarchy and open-Confusion adding withall that they groaned under the weight of that burden and would be eased of it if they could But by his Lordship's leave I take this to be nothing but a piece of dissimulation of such a sanctified Hypocrisie as some of the Calvinians do affirm to be in Almighty God For certainly they might have Bishops if they would as well as the Popish Cantons of the Switzers or the State of Venice of which the one is subject to an Aristocracy the other to a Government no less popular than that of the Netherlands In which respect it was conceived more lawful by the late Lord Primate for any English Protestant to communicate with the Reformed Churches in France who cannot have Bishops if they would than with the Dutch who will not have Bishops though they may there still remaining in their hands Seven Episcopal Sees with all the Honours and Revenues belonging to them that is to say the Bishoprick of Harlem in Holland of Middlebourgh in Zealand of Lewarden in Friesland of Groining in the Province so called of Deventer in the County of Overyssell and of Ruremond in the Dutchy of Gueldress all of them but the last subordinate to the Church of Vtrect which they keep also in their Power 10. Somewhat was also done in the present Synod in order to the better keeping of the Lord's Day than it had been formerly For till this time they had their Faires and Markets upon this day their Kirk-masses as they commonly called them Which as they constantly kept in most of the great Towns of Holland Zealand c. even in Dort it self so by the constant keeping of them they must needs draw away much people from the Morning-Service to attend the business of their Trades And in the Afternoon as before was noted all Divine Offices were interdicted by a Constitution which received life here Anno 1574 that time being wholly left to be disposed of as the people pleased either upon their profit or their recreation But their
being displaced the Elder turned out of his Office Perine and his Wife clapt up in Prison and all the rest exposed to some open shame So he in his Epistle to his Friend Farellus Anno 1546. Upon this ground Perinus always made himself of the opposite party and thereupon sollicited the relaxation given to Bertilier but in the end was forced together wâ—â—h the rest to submit themselves unto this yoak and the final sentence of the said four Churches was imposed upon them And so we have the true beginning of the Genevian Discipline begotten in Rebellion born in Sedition and nursed up by Faction 10. Thus was the Discipline confirmed and Calvin setled in the jurisdiction which he had aspired to But long he could not be content with so narrow a Diocess as the Town and Territory of Geneva and would have thought himself neglected if all those Churches which embraced the Zuinglian Doctrines had not withal received the Genevian Discipline for the confirming whereof at home and the promoting it in all parts abroad there was no passage in the Scripture which either spake of Elders or Excommunication but he applyed the same for justifying the Authority of his new Presbytery in which the Lay-elders were considered as distinct from those which laboured in the Word and Sacraments but joyned with them in the exercise of a Jurisdiction even that of Ordination also which concerned the Church Assuredly we are as much in love with the Children of our Brains as of our Bodies and do as earnestly desire the preferment of them Calvin had no sooner conceived and brought forth this Discipline but he caused it first to be nourished and brought up at the charge of Geneva and when he found it strong enough to go abroad of it self he afterwards commended it to the entertainment of all other Churches in which he had attained to any credit proceeding finally so far as to impose it upon the world as a matter necessary and not to be refused on pain of Gods high displeasure by means whereof what Jealousies Heart-burnings Jars and Discords have been occasioned in the Protestant Reformed Churches will be made manifest by the course of this present History Which notwithstanding might easily have been prevented if the Orders which he devised for the use of this City had not been first established in themselves then tendered unto others as things everlastingly required by the Law of that Lord of lords against whose Statutes there was no exception to be taken In which respect it could not chuse but come to pass that his Followers might condemn all other Churches which received it not of manifest disobedience to the Will of Christ And being once engaged could not finde a way how to retire again with Honour Whenas the self-same Orders having been established in a Form more wary and suspence and to remain in force no longer then God should give the oportunity of some general Conference the Genevians either never had obtruded this Discipline on the rest of the Churches to their great disquiet or left themselves a fair liberty of giving off when they perceived what trouble they had thereby raised to themselves and others 11. Now for the means by which this Discipline was made acceptable to the many Churches which had no dependance on Geneva nor on Calvin neither they were chiefly these that is to say â—irst The great contentment which it gave the Common people to see themselves intrusted with the weightiest matters in Religion and thereby an equality with if not by reason of their number being two for one superiority above their Ministers Secondly the great Reputation which Calvin had attained unto for his diligence in Writing and Preaching whereby his Dictates came to be as authentick amongst some Divines as ever the Popes Ipse dixit was in the Church of Rome Thirdly his endeavours to promote that Platform in all other Churches which was first calculated for the Meridian of Geneva onely of which we shall speak more particularly in the course of this History Fourthly the like endeavours used by Beza who not content to recommend it as convenient for the use of the Church higher then which Calvin did not go imposed it as a matter necessary upon all the Churches so necessary that it was utterly as unlawful to recede from this as from the most material Points of the Christian Faith of which more hereafter Fifthly the self-ends and ambition of particular Ministers affecting the Supremacy in their several Parishes that themselves might lord it over Gods Inheritance under pretence of setting Christ in his Throne Upon which ground they did not onely prate against the Bishops with malicious words aâ— Dieotrephes did against the Apostles but were resolved to cast them out of the Church neither receiving them amongst themselves nor suffering those that would have done it if they might Sixthly the covetousness of some great persons and Lay-Patrons of which the one intended to raise themselves great Fortunes by the spoil of the Bishopricks and the other to return those Titles to their own proper use to which they onely were to nominate some deserving person For compassing of which three last ends their followers drove on so furiously that rather then their Discipline should not be admitted and the Episcopal Government destroyed in all the Churches they are resolved to depose Kings ruine Kingdoms and subvert the Fundamental Constitutions of all Civil States 12. Thus have we seen the Discipline setled at the last after many struglings but setled onely by the forestalled judgement and determination of four neighbouring Churches which neither then did entertain it nor could be ever since induced to receive the same And we have took a general view of those Arts and Practices by which it hath been practised and imposed upon other Nations as also of those grounds and motives on which it was so eagerly pursued by some and advanced by others We must now therefore cast our eyes back on that Form of Worship which was by him devised at first for the Church of Geneva commended afterwards to all other Churches which were not of the Lutheran Model and finally received if not imposed upon most Churches which imbraced the Discipline Which Form of Worship what it was may best be gathered from the summary or brief view thereof which Beza tendreth to the use of the French and Dutch Churches then established in the City of London and is this that followeth The publick Meetings of the Church to be held constantly on the Lords day to be alike observed both in Towns and Villages but so that in the greater Towns some other day be set apart on which the Word is to be preached unto the people at convenient times Which last I take to be the grounds of those Week-day-Lectures which afterwards were set up in most of the great Towns or Cities of this Realm of England a Prayer to usher in the Sermon and another after it the frame
less of Rome then before it had though nothing was meerly Romane and not Primitive also yet was it still as far off from the Rules of Geneva as it was at that time which gave a new Alarum to Calvin that he should take so much pains and trouble so many of his Friends to so little purpose And long it shall not be before he lets us know his resentment of it The English Protestants being scattered in the Reign of Queen Mary betake themselves to divers places in Germany at Geneva and amongst the Switzers In Germany some of them procure a Church in the City of Frankfort but they were such as had more minde to conform themselves to Calvins Models then to the Liturgie of England and such a deviation thereupon was made from the Rules of this Church as looked little better then an open Schism The business bad enough before but made much worse when Knox that great Incendiary of Scotland took that charge upon him when at his coming he found many not well pleased with those alterations which had been made by others from the Church of England which he resolved not to admit of how much soever the continuance of it had been recommended by such Divines as had retired to Strasburgh Zurick and elsewhere To over-ballance whose Authority which he found much valued he flees for succour unto Calvin sends him a Summary or Abstract of the English Book in the Latine Tongue and earnestly desires his opinion of it not doubting but all opponents would submit to his final sentence What Calvins judgement was in the present Point and what sentence he was like to give in the case before him Knox could not but have good assurance when he wrote that Letter having lived with Calvin at Geneva and published some Seditious Books from thence with his approbation before his coming unto Frankfort and it succeeded answerably to his expectation as may appear by Calvins answer to that Letter which in regard it was the ground of all those troubles which afterwards were raised against the Liturgy by the Puritan Faction I shall here subjoyn 17. It is no small affliction to me and in it self no less inconvenience that a contention should be raised between brethren professing the same Faith and living as banished men or exiles for the same Religion especially for such a Cause which in this time of your dispersion ought to have been the Bond of Peace to bind you the more finally to one another for what ought rather to be aimed at by you in this woful condition then that being torne away from the bowels of your native Country you should put your selves into a Church which might receive you in her bosom conjoyned together like the Children of the same Parent both in hearts and tongues But at this time in my opinion it is very unseasonable that troubles should be raised amongst you about Ceremonies and Forms of Prayer as happens commonly amongst those who live in wantonness and ease by means whereof you have been hindred hitherto from growing into one body I do not blame the constancy of those men who being unwillingly drawn into it do earnestly contend in an honest Cause but rather the stubbornness of those which hitherto hath hindred the holy purpose of forming and establishing a Church amongst you For as I use to shew my self both flexible and facile in things indifferent as all Rites and Ceremonies are yet I cannot always think it profitable to comply with the foolish waywardness of some few men who are resolved to remit nothing of their Ancient Customs I cannot but observe many tolerable fooleries in the English Liturgy such as you have described it to me By which two words those names of tolerable fooleries I mean onely this that there is not such Purity or Perfection as was to be desired in it which imperfections notwithstanding not being to be remedied at the first were to be born with for a time in regard that no manifest impiety was contained in them It was therefore so far lawful to begin with such beggerly Rudiments that the Learned Grave and Godly Ministers of Christ might be thereby encouraged for proceeding farther in setting out somewhat which might prove more pure and perfect If true Religion had flourished till this time in the Church of England it had been necessary that many things in that Book should have been omitted and others altered to the better But now that all such Principles are out of force and that you were to constitute a Church in another place and that you were at liberty to compose such a Form of Worship which might be useful to the Church and more conduce to Edification then the other did I know not what to think of those who are so much delighted in the dregs of Popery But commonly men love those things best to which they have been most accustomed Which though in the first place it may seem a vain and childish folly yeâ— in the next place it may be considered that such a new Model is much different from an alteration Howsoever as I would not have you too stiff and peremptory if the infirmity of some men suffer them not to come up unto your own desires so I must needs admonish others not to be too much pleased with their wants and ignorances nor to retard the course and progess of so good a work by their own perversness nor finally to be transported in the manner by such a foolish Emulation For what other ground have they for this contention but that they think it a disgrace to yeild unto better counsels But possibly I may address my words in vain to those who peradventure may not ascribe so much unto me as to vouchsafe to hearken unto any advice which doth proceed from such a despicable Author If any of them fear that any sinister report will be raised of them in England as if they had forsaken that Religion for which they put themselves into a voluntary exile they are much deceived For this ingenuous and sincere Profession will rather compel those godly men which are left behind seriously to consider what a deep Abyss they are fallen into whose dangerous estate will more grievously wound them when they shall see that you have travailed beyond the middle of that course from which they have been so unhappily retracted or brought back again Farewel my most dear Brethren the faithful servants of Jesus Christ and be you still under the governancce and protection of the Lord your God 18. This Letter bearing date on the fifteenth of the Calends of February and superscribed in general to the English which remained at Frankfort carried so great a stroke with the Knoxian party that there was no more talk of the English Liturgie the Order of Geneva being immediately entertained in the place thereof And when the matter was so handled by Dr. Cox first Tutor and then Almoner to King Edward
Gospel did with Christ our Saviour adorned them in their Royal Robes with their Crowns and Scepters and then exposed them to the scorn of the common Souldiers the insolencies and reproaches of the raskal Rabble 28. Nor do they deal much better with them in reference to their power in Spiritual Matters which they make either none at all or such as is subservient onely to the use of the Church Calvin first leads the way in this as he did in the other and seems exceedingly displeased with King Henry the Eighth for taking to him the title of Supreme Head on Earth of the Church of England Of this he makes complaint in his Commentary on the 7 of Amos not onely telling us what inconsiderate men they were who had conferred upon him any such Supremacie but that himself was very much disquieted and offended at it And though he be content to yeild him so much Authority as may enable him to make use of the Civil Sword to the protecting of the Church and the true Religion yet he condemns all those of the like inconsiderateness who make them more spiritual that is to say of greater power in Sacred Matters then indeed they are The Supreme power according to the Rules of Calvins Platform belongs unto the Consistory Classes or Synodical Meetings to which he hath ascribed the designation of all such as bear publick Office in the Church the appointing and proclaiming of all solemn Fasts the calling of all Councils or Synodical Meetings the censuring of all misdemeanors in the Ministers of holy Church in which last they have made the Supreme Magistrate an incompetent Judge and therefore his Authority and final Judgement in such cases of no force at all Beza treads close upon the heels of his Master Calvin and will allow no other power to the Civil Magistrate then to protect the Church and the Ministry of it in propagating and promoting the True Worship of God It is saith he the Office of the Civil Magistrate to use the Sword in maintenance and defence of Gods holy Church as it is the duty of the Ministers and Preachers of it to implore their aid as well against all such as refuse obedience to the Decrees and Constitutions of the Church as against Hereticks and Tyrants which endeavoured to subvert the same In which particulars if the Magistrate neglects to do his duty and shall not diligently labour in suppressing Heresie and executing the Decrees of the Church against all opponents what can the people do but follow the Example of the Mother-City in taking that power upon themselves though to the total alteration and subversion of the publick Government For from the Principles and practice of these great Reformers it hath ever since been taken up as a Ruled case amongst all their Followers that if Kings and Princes should refuse to reform Religion that then the inferiour Magistrates or the Common people by the direction of their Ministers both may and ought to proceed to a Reformation and that by force of Arms also if need so require 29. That by this Rule the Scots did generally walk in their Reformation under the Regencie of Mary of Lorreign Queen-Dowager to Iames the Fifth and after her decease in the Reign of her Daughter we shall show hereafter And we shall show hereafter also that it was published for good Genevian Doctrine by our English Puritans That if Princes hinder them that travail in the search of this holy Discipline they are Tyrants to the Church and the Ministers of it and being so may be deposed by their subjects Which though it be somewhat more then Calvin taught as to that particular yet the conclusion follows well enough on such faulty Premises which makes it seem the greater wonder in our English Puritans that following him so closely in pursuit of the Discipline their disaffection unto Kings and all Soveraign Princes their manifest contempt of all publick Liturgies and pertinaciously adhering to his Doctrine of Predestination they should so visibly dissent him in the point of the Sabbath For whereas some began to teach about these times that the keeping holy of one day in seven was to be reckoned for the Moral part of the fourth Commandment he could not let it pass without some reproof for what saith he can be intended by those men but in defiance of the Jews to change the day and then to add a greater Sanctity unto it then the Jews ever did First therefore he declares for his own Opinion that he made no such reckoning of a seventh-day-Sabbath as to inthral the Church to a necessity of conforming to it And secondly that he esteemed no otherwise of the Lords-day-Sabbath then of an Ecclesiastical Constitution appointed by our Ancestors in the place of the Jewish Sabbath and therefore alterable from one day to another at the Churches pleasure Followed therein by all the Churches of his party who thereupon permit all lawful Recreations and many works of necessary labour on the day it self provided that the people be not thereby hindred from giving their attendance in the Church at the times appointed Insomuch that in Geneva if self all manlike exercises as running vaulting leaping shooting and many others of that nature are as indifferently indulged on the Lords day as on any other How far the English Puritans departed from their Mother-Church both in Doctrine and Practice with reference to this particular we shall see hereafter when they could finde no other way to advance Presbytery and to decry the Reputation of the ancient Festivals then by erecting their new Sabbath in the hearts of the people 30. It is reportred by Iohn Barkley in his Book called Parenesâ—s ad Scotos that Calvin once held a Consultation at Geneva for transferring the Lords day from Sunday to Thursday Which though perhaps it may be true considering the inclination of the man to new devices yet I conceive that he had greater projects in his Head and could finde other ways to advance his Discipline then by falling upon any such ridiculous and odious Counsel He had many Irons in the fire but took more care in hammering his Discipline then all the rest First by entitling it to some express Warrant from the holy Scripture and afterwards by commending it to all the Churches of the Reformation In reference to the first he lets us know in his Epistle to Farellus Septemb. 16. 1543. that the Church could not otherwise subsist then under such a Form of Government as is prescribed in the Word and observed in old times by the Church And in relation to the other he was resolved to make his best use of that Authority which by his Commentaries on the Scriptures his Book of Institutions and some occasional Discourses against the Papists he had acquired in all the Protestant and reformed Churches Insomuch that Gasper Ligerus a Divine of Witteberge by his Letters bearing date Feb. 27. 1554
leisure to coâ—sult the same or otherwise may make a judgement of them by this small scantling as the wise Mathematician took the just measure of the body of Hercules by the impression which he made in the sand by one of his Feet And therefore I shall look no further then upon such specialities as have relation to the Doctrine Discipline or Forms of Worship which are most proper to the rest Some of the Brethren not fully setled in a Church had laid aside the singing of Psalms either for fear of being discovered or otherwise terrified and discouraged by the threats of the adversary For this he reprehends them in a tedious Letter dated Iuly 19. 1559. imputes it to their fearfulness or pasillanimity accuseth them of plain tergiversation and shutting up all passages against the entrance of the Graces of Almighty God The Brethren of Mont-Pelyard for I think the former lived in Mettz the chief City of Lorrein were required by the Guardians of their Prince that is to say the Palatine of Zuibrook and the Duke of Wirtenberge to hold conformity in some Ceremonies with the Lutheran Church as namely in the Form of their Catechising the manner of Administring the Holy Sacrament the Form of publick Prayers and Solemnizing of Marriages They were required also to imploy themselves in Preaching down the errours and corruptions of the Church of Rome in some small Signiories which were lately fallen unto their Prince and had not formerly been instructed in the Doctrine of the Protestant Churches But absolutely they refused the one and would do nothing in the other without Calvins leave to whose infallible judgement and determination they refer the points whereunto he returns such answer by his Letters bearing date September 25. 1562 as confirmed them in their first refusal excepting more particularly against suffering Midwives to Baptize and against praying for the joyful Resurrection of a man deceased at the time of his Burial But in the other he adviseth them to accept the charge as visibly conducing to the propagation of the true Religion and the inlarging of Christs Kingdom 37. So for the Discipline which seemed to be devised at first upon humane prudence accommodated to the present condition of Geneva onely the use of Excommunication had been discontinued in the Protestant Churches and no such creatures as Lay-Elders heard of in the Primitive times or glanced at in the holy Scriptures So that to trust them with the power of the Churches-censures could not pretend to any ground in the Word of God supposing that the use of Excommunication was to be every where received Calvin himself confesses in his Letter unto those of Zurick that in the judgement of most Learned and Religious men there was no need of Excommunication under Christian Princes Beza acknowledgeth the like in the Life of Calvin and what Ligerus saith for the Church of Saxonie hath been shewed already But by degrees it came to be intituled to Divine Authority at first commended as convenient and at last as necessary With the opinion of the Sacred and Divine Authority of the holy Discipline he had so far possessed Saligniar a man of Eminent power in the City of Paris and one that for thirty years before had declared himself in favour of the Reformation that he acknowledgeth it in the end to be Apostolical For in his Letter written unto Calvin on the Ides of December he lets him know how vehemently he did desire that they might have such a Form of Ecclesiastical Polity as Calvin seemed to breath and could not be denyed to be Apostolical From hence it was that he declared so positively in his Epistle to Poppius February 25. 1559 that the Magistrates were to be sollicited for the Exercise of Excommunication by publick Authority which if it could not be obtained the Ministers were to make this protestation that they durst not give the Sacrament to unworthy receivers for fear of coming under the censure of casting that which was holy before Dogs and Swine More fully in his answer to some questions about the Discipline in which we finde and that goes very high indeed that the safety of the Church cannot otherwise be provided for then by the free use of Excommunication for the purifying of the same from filth the restraint of licentiousness abolishing enormous crimes and the correcting of ill manners the moderate exercise whereof he that will not suffer doth plainly shew himself to be no sheep of our Saviours Pasture 38. And so far Calvin had proceeded but he went no further neither condemning the Estate of Bishops as Antichristian and unlawful nor thinking his Lay-elders so extreamly necessary that no Decree of Excommunication could be past without them But Beza who succeeded in the Chair of Calvin is resolved on both For Calvin having sate eight and twenty years in the Chair of Geneva ended his life in the year 1564. During which time he had attained to such an height of Reputation that even the Churches of the Switzers lost the name of Zuinglians and thought it no small honour to them as well as those of Germany France Pole or Scotland to be called Calvinian Onely the English held it out and neither had imbraced his Doctrines nor received his Discipline And though the Puritan party in it took the name of Calvinists our Divines commonly called Calvinists say the two Informers yet both Saravia stomached it to be so accounted Mountague in answer to the two Informers doth protest against it and all the true sons of the Church of England do as much disclaim it Beza endeavoured what he could to introduce his Discipline and Forms of Worship into all the Churches which did pretend to any Reformation of their ancient Errours In the pursuit whereof he drives on so furiously like Iehu in the holy Scriptures as if no Kings or Princes were to stand before him Scarce was he setled in his Chair when one of his professed Champions for Presbytery puts himself into Heidelberg which had not long before admitted the Calvinian Doctrines but not submitted to the Discipline as extrinsecal to them This Champion therefore challenges the Divines thereof to a disputation publickly holds forth this proposition which he then defended that is to say That to a Minister with his Elders there is power given by express warrant from Gods Word to Excommunicate all offenders even the greatest Prince From hence proceeded that dispute which afterwards Erastus of whom more hereafter maintained with Beza the point being put upon this issue Whether all Churches ought to have their Eldership invested with a power of Excommunication and that Lay-elders were so necessary in every Eldership that nothing could be done without them In which dispute as it is very well observed by judicious Hooker they seemed to divide the whole truth between them Beza most truely holding the necessity of Excommunication in a Church well constituted Erastus no less truely shewing
that there was no necessity of Lay-elders to be Ministers of it 40. But his main business was to settle the Calvinian Forms in the Realms of Britain in which he aimed at the acquiring of as great a name as Calvin had obtained in France or Poland Knox had already so prevailed amongst the Scots that though they once subscribed to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England yet he had brought them to admit such a Form of Worship as came more neer to the Example of Geneva And he had brought the Discipline to so good a forwardness that Beza was rather wanting to confirm then to introduce it as shall appear at large when we come to Scotland But Knox had many opportunities to effect his business during the absence of their Queen the Regencie of Queen Mary of Lorreign and the unsettledness of affairs in the State of that Kingdom which the Brethren could not finde in England where the Fabrick of the State was joyned together with such Ligaments of Power and Wisdom that they were able to act little and effect much less Some opposition they had made after their coming back from Frankfort and Geneva their two chief Retreats against the Vestments of the Church and the distinction of Apparel betwixt Priests and Lay-men In which some of them did proceed with so vain an obstinacie that some of them were for a time suspended and others totally deprived of their Cures and Benefices some of them also had begun to take exception against some parts and Offices of the publick Liturgie refusing thereupon to conform unto it and thereupon likely to incur the very same penalties which were inflicted on the other In both these cases they consult the Oracle resolving to adhere to his determination in them whatsoever it was First therefore he applyes himself to Grindal then Bishop of London and very zealously affected to the name of Calvin to whom he signifies by his Letter of the 26 of Iune 1566 how much he was afflicted with the sad reports out of France and Germany by which he was advertised that many Ministers in England being otherwise unblamable both for Life and Doctrine had been exauctorated or deprived by the Queens Authority the Bishops giving their consent and approbation onely for not subscribing to some Rites and Ceremonies but more particularly that divers of them were deprived not onely for refusing to wear those Vestments which were peculiar to Baals Priests in the times of Popery but for not conforming to some Rites which had degenerated into most shameful superstitions such as the Cross in Baptism kneeling at the Communion and the like to these That Baptism was admitted sometimes by Midwives That power was left unto the Queen to Ordain other Rites and Ceremonies as she saw occasion and finally that the Bishops were invested with the sole Authority for ordering matters in the Church the other Ministers not advised with or consulted in them 41. Such is the substance of his charge against each particular point whereof he bends his forces as if he had a minde to batter down the Bulwarks of the Church of England and lay it open to Geneva I shall not note how much he blames the Ancient Fathers for bringing in so many Ceremonies into use and practice which either had been borrowed from the Iews or derived from the Gentiles or how he magnifieth the nakedness and simplicity of those Forreign Churches which abominate nothing more then such outward trappings But the result of all is this that whatsoever Rite or Ceremony was either brought into the Church from the Iews or Gentiles not warranted by the institution of Christ or by any Examples of the Apostles as also all significant Ceremonies which by no right were at first brought into the Church ought all at once to be prohibited and suppressed there being no hope that the Church would otherwise be restored to her native Beauty I onely note that he compares the Cross in Baptism to the Brazen Serpent abused as much to Superstition and Idolatry and therefore to be abrogated with as great a Zeal in a Church well ordered as that Image was destroyed by King Hezekiah He falls soul also on that manner of singing which was retained in the Queens Chappels all the Cathedrals and some Parish-Churches of this Kingdom because perhaps it was set forth with Organs and such Musical Instruments as made it sitter in his judgement to be used in Dancing then in Sacred actions and tended more to please the ears then to raise the affections Nor seems he better pleased with that Authority which was enjoyed and exercised by the Archbishop of Canterbury in granting Licenses for Pluralities non-Residence contracting Marriages in the Church and eating Flesh on days prohibited with many other things of that nature which he accounts not onely for so many stains and blemishes in the Face of Christendom but for a manifest defection even from Christ himself in which respect they rather were to be commended then condemned and censured that openly opposed themselves against such corruptions 42. Yet notwithstanding these complaints he grants the matters in dispute and the Rites prescribed to be things indifferent not any way impious in themselves nor such as should necessitate any man to forsake his Flock rather then yeild obedience and conformity to them But then he adds that if they do offend who rather chuse to leave their Churches then to conform themselves to those Rites and Vestments against their Consciences a greater guilt must be contracted by those men before God and his Angels who rather chuse to spoil these Flocks of able Pastors then suffer those Pastors to make choice of their own Apparel or rather chuse to rob the people of the Food of their souls then suffer them to receive it otherwise then upon their knees But in his Letter of the next year he adventureth further and makes it his request unto all the Bishops that some fit Medicine be forthwith applyed to the present mischief which did not onely give great scandal to the weak and ignorant but even to many Learned and Religious Persons And this he seems to charge upon them as they will answer for the contrary at the Judgement-Seat of Almighty God to whom an account is to be given of the poorest Sheep which should be forced to wander upon this occasion from the rest of the Flock Between the writing of which Letters some of their brethren had propounded their doubts unto him touching the calling of the Ministers as it was then and still is used in the Church of England the wearing of the Cap and Surplice and other Vestments of the Clergy which was then required the Musick and melodious singing in Cathedral Churches the interrogatories proposed to Infants at the time of their Baptism the signing of them with the sign of the Cross kneeling at the Communion administring the same in unleavened Bread though the
Bishops were the first means to advance the Pope so the pretended Bishops would maintain the Relicks of Popery And then he adds that it concerns all those to avoid that plague by which he meanâ— undoubtedly the Episcopal Order who pretend to any care of the Churches safety And therefore since they had so happily discharged that calling in the Church of Scotland they never should again admit it though it might flatter them with some assurance of peace and unity 46. What followed thereupon in Scotland we shall see hereafter But his desires of propagating the Genevian Forms was not to be restrained to that part of the Island In his first Letter unto Grindal he doth not onely justifie the Genevian Discipline and the whole Order of that Church in Sacred Offices as grounded on the Word of God but findes great fault with the Episcopal Government in the Church of England and the great power which was ascribed unto the Queen in Spiritual Matters How so Because said he he found no warrant for it in the Word of God or any of the ancient Canons by which it might be lawful for the Civil Magistrate of his own Authority either to abrogate old Ceremonies or establish new or for the Bishops onely to ordain and determine any thing without the judgement and consent of their Presbyteries being first obtained And in his answer to the Queries of the English brethren he findes no less fault with the manner of proceedings in the Bishops Courts in regard that Excommunications were not therein passed by the common consent of a Presbytery but decreed onely by some Civil Lawyers or other Officers who faâ—e as Judges in the same But first the man was ignorant of the course of those Courts in which the sentence of Excommunication is never published or pronounced but by the mouth of a Minister ordained according to the Rules of the Church of England And secondly it is to be conceived in Reason that any Batchelor or Doctor of the Civil Law is far more fit to be imployed and trusted in the exercise of that part of Discipline then any Trades-man of Geneva though possibly of the number of the five and twenty For the redress of which great mischief and of many other he applies himself unto the Queen to whom he dedicates his Annotations on the New Testament published in the year 1572. In the Epistle whereunto though he acknowledgeth that she had restored unto this Kingdom the true Worship of God yet he insinuates that there was wanting a full Reformation of Ecclesiastical Discipline that our Temples were not fully purged that some high places still remained not yet abolished and therefore wisheth that those blemishes might be removed and those wants supplyed Finally understanding that a Parliament was then shortly to be held in England and that Cartwright had prepared an Admonition to present unto it he must needs interpose his credit with a Peer of the Realm to advance the service as appears plainly by his Letter of the same year and the Nones of Iuly In which though he approves the Doctrine yet he condemns the Government of the Church as most imperfect not onely destitute of many things which were good and profitable but also of some others which were plainly necessary 47. But here it is to be observed that in his Letter to this great person whosoever he was he seems more cautelous and reserved then in that to Grindal but far more modest then in those to Knox and the English Brethren The Government of England was so well setled as not to be ventured on too rashly And therefore he must first see what effect his counsels had produced in Scotland before he openly assaults the English Hierarchy But finding all things there agreeable to his hopes and wishes he published his Tract De Triplici Episcopatu calculated for the Meridian onely of the Kirk of Scotland as being writ at the desire of the Lord Chancellor Glammis but so that it might generally serve for all Great Britain In which Book he informs his Reader of three sorts of Bishops that is to say the Bishop by Divine Institution being no other then the Minister of a particular Church or Congregation the Bishop by humane appointment being the same onely with the President of a Convocation or the Moderator as they phrase it in some Church-assembly and finally the Devils Bishops such as presume to take upon them the whole charge of a Diocess together with a superiority and jurisdiction over other Ministers Which Book was afterwards translated into English by Feild of Wandsworth for the instruction and content of such of the Brethren as did not understand the Latine To serve as a Preface to which Work the Presbyterian Brethren publish their Seditious Pamphlets in defence of the Discipline some in the English Tongue some in the Latine but all of them Printed at Genâ—va For in the year 1570 comes out The plain and full Declaration of Ecclesiastical Discipline according to the Word of God without the name of any Author to gain credit to it And Traverse a furious Zealot amongst the English had published at Geneva also in the Latine Tongue a discourse of Ecclesiastical Discipline according to the Word of God as it was pretended with the declining of the Church of England from the same Anno 1574 which for the same reason must be turned into English also and Printed at Geneva with Beza's Book Anno 1580. What pains was took by some of the Divines of England but more particularly by Dr. Iohn Bridges Dean of Sarum and Dr. Adrian Saravia preferred upon the merit of this service in the Church of Westminster shall be remembred in a place more proper for it when we shall come to a review of those disturbances which were occasioned in this Church by the Puritan Faction Most of which did proceed from no other Fountain then the pragmaticalness of Beza the Doctrines of Calvin and the Example of Geneva which if they were so influential on the Realms of Britain though lying in a colder climate and so far remote it is to be presumed that they were far more powerful in France and Germany which lay nearer to them and in the last of which the people were of a more active and Mercurial Spirit 48. What influence Calvin had upon some of the Princes Cities and Divines of Germany hath been partly touched upon before and how his Doctrines did prevail in the Palatine Churches and his Discipline in many parts and Provinces of the Germane Empire may be shown hereafter In France he held intelligence with the King of Navar the Brethren of Rouen Aix Mont-Pelier and many leading men of the Hugonot party none of which can be thought to have asked his counsel about purchasing Lands the Marriages of their Children or the payment of Debts And when the Fortune of the Wars and the Kings just anger necessitated many of them to forsake their Country they
found no place so open to them as the Town of Geneva and none more ready to befriend them then Calvin was whose Letters must be sent to all the Churches of the Switzers and the Neighbouring Germany for raising Contributions and Collections toward their relief which so exasperated the French King that he threatned to make War upon the Town as the fomenter of those discords which embroyled his Kingdom the Receptacle of his Rebels the Delphos as it were of that Sacred Oracle which Soveraignly directed all affairs of moment But of these things and how Beza did co-operate to the common troubles which did so miserably distract the peace of France shall be delivered more particularly in the following Book 49. As for the Town and Territory of Geneva it self it had so far submitted unto their Authority that Calvin wanted nothing of a Bishop in it but the name and title The City of Geneva had been anciently an Episcopal See consisting of many Parishes and Country Villages all subject by the Rules of the Discipline unto one Presbytery of which Calvin for the term of his life had the constant Precedency under the style of Moderator without whom nothing could done which concerned the Church And sitting as chief President in the Court or Consistory he had so great an influence on the Common-council as if he had been made perpetual Dictator also for ordering the affairs of the Common-wealth The like Authority was exercised and enjoyed by Beza also for the space of ten years or thereabouts after his decease At what time Lambertus Danaeus one of the Ministers of that City thinking himself inferiour to him in no part of Scholarship procured the Presidency in that Church to go by turns that he and others might be capable of their courses in it By which means the Genevians being freed from those powerful Riders would never suffer themselves to be bridled as they had been formerly For thereupon it was concluded by a Decree of the Senate that the Presbytery should have no power to convent any man before them till the Warrant was first signed by one of the Syndicks Besides which curb as the Elders are named by the lesser Council and confirmed by the greater the Ministers advice being first had in the nomination so do they take an Oath at their admission to keep the Ecclesiastical Ordinances of the Civil Magistrate In which respect their Consistory doth not challenge an exorbitant and unlimited power as the Commissioners of Christ as they did afterwards in Scotland but as Commissioners of the State or Signiory by which they are restrained in the exercise of that Jurisdiction which otherwise they might and would have challenged by their first institution and seemed at first a yoke too insupportable for the necks of the people In reference to their Neighbouring Princes their City was so advantageously seaâ—ed that even their Popish Neighbours were more ready to support and aid them then suffer the Town to fall into the power of the Duke of Savoy And then it is not to be doubted but such States and Kingdoms as were Zealous in the Reformation did liberally contribute their assistance to them The conâ—â—uence of so many of the French as had retired thither in the heat of the Civil Wars had brought a miserable Plague upon them by which their numbers were so lessened and their strength so weakned that the Duke of Savoy took the oppornity to lay Siege unto it In which distress they supplicate by Letters to all their Friends or such as they conceived might wish well unto them in the cause of Religion and amongst others to some Bishops and Noble-men of the Church of England Anno 1582. But Beza having writ to Traverse a most Zealous Puritan to negotiate in it the business sped the worse for the Agents sake no great supply being sent unto them at that time But afterwards when they were distressed by the Savoyard Anno 1589 they were relieved with thirteen thousand Crowns from England twenty four thousand Crowns from the State of Venice from France and Florence with intelligence of the enemies purposes onely the Scots though otherwise most zealous in advancing the Discipline approved themselves to be true Scots or false Brethren to them For having raised great sums of mony under pretence of sending seasonable relief to their friends in Geneva the most part of it was assigned over to the Earl of Bothwel then being in Rebellion against their King and having many ways endeavoured to surprise his person and in fine to take away his life But this prank was not play'd until some years after and therefore falls beyond the time of my design which was and is to draw down the successes of the Presbyterians in their several Countries till the year 1585 and then to take them all together as they related unto England or were co-incident with the Actions and Affairs thereof But we must make our way by France as lying nearest to the practices of the Mother-City though Scotland at a greater distance first took fire upon it and England was as soon attempted as the French themselves The end of the first Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB II. Containing The manifold Seditions Conspiracies and Insurrections in the Realm of France their Libelling against the State and the Wars there raised by their procurement from the year 1559 to 1585. 1. THe Realm of France having long suffered under the corruptions of the Church of Rome was one of the first Western Kingdoms which openly declared against those abuses Beringarius in the Neighbouring Italy had formerly opposed the Gross and Carnal Doctrines of the Papists in the point of the Sacrament Whose opinions passing into France from one hand to another were at last publickly maintained by Peter Waldo one of the Citizens of Lyons who added thereunto many bitter invectives against the Supremacy of the Pope the Adoration of Images the Invocation of Saints and the Doctrine of Purgatory His Followers from the place of his Habitation were at first called in contempt The poor men of Lyons as afterwards from the name of their Leader they were by the Latines called Waldenses by the French Les Vandoise But Lyons proving no safe place for them they retired into the more desert parts of Languedock and spreading on the banks of the River Alby obtained the name of Albigenses in the Latine Writers and of Les Albigeoise in the French supported by Raymond the Fourth Earl of Tholouse they became so insolent that they murthered Trincanel their Viscount in the City Beziers and dasht out the teeth of their Bishop having taken Sanctuary in St. Magdalens Church one of the Churches of that City For which high outrages and many others of like nature which ensued upon them they were warred upon by Lewis the Ninth of France Sirnamed the Saint and many Noble adventurers who sacrificed many of them in the self-same Church wherein they had spilt the
and provocations the King resolved to proceed in his former indifferency hoping thereby to break the Hugonots without blows and bloud-shed and thereby to regain the good opinion of his Popish Subjects To which end he was pleased to grant such priviledges to the Hugonot Faction as they durst not ask and never had aspired unto in their greatest heats which he conceived he had more reason to do in the present pinch then any of his Predecessors had in far less extremities For the Hugonots had not onely brought in a formidable Army of Switz and Germans under the conduct of Prince Casimir one of the younger sons of Frederick the Third then Elector Palatine but had also made a fraction in the Court it self by drawing Francis Duke of Alanzon his youngest Brother to be Head of their Party who brought along with him a great number of Romish Catholicks who then past under the name of the Male-contents To break which blow and free his Kingdom from the danger of so great an Army he first capitulates to pay the Germans their Arrears amounting to a million and two hundred thousand Ducats to gratifie Prince Casimir with the Signory of Chasteau-Thierry in the Province of Champaigne with a Pension of fourteen thousand Crowns and a Command of a hundred Lances To confer the Government of Picardie with the strong Town of Perrone on the Prince of Conde and settle on his Brother the Duke of Alanzon the Provinces of Berry Touraine and Anjou together with one hundred thousand Crowns of yearly Pension and made him also Duke of Anjou foâ— his greater honour And then to pacifie and oblige the Hugonots if such men could be gained or pacified by acts of favour he grants unto them by his Edict of the 14 of May 1576 that they should peaceably enjoy the exercise of their Religion together with full power for erecting Colledges and Schools for holding Synods of Celebrating Matrimony and Administring the Sacraments with the same freedom as was used by his Catholick Subjects that those of the Reformed Religion should be permitted to execute any Places or Offices and enjoy any Dignities of what sort soever without such distinction betwixt them and the rest of that Nation as had been of late times observed that in each Parliament of France a new Court should be presently erected consisting equally of Judges and Officers of both Religions and they to have the Cognizance of all Causes which concerned the Hugonots that all sentences past against the Admiral the Count of Montgomery and the rest of that party should be revoked and made null and the eight cautionary Towns being all places of great strength and consequence should remain with the Hugonots till all these Articles were confirmed and the Peace concluded 38. The passing of this Edict gave great scandal to the Catholick party which thereupon was easily united by the Duke of Guise into a common Bond or League for maintainance and defence of their Religion apparently indangered by those large Indulgences by the first Article whereof they bound themselves for the Establishment of the Law of God in its first Estate to restore and settle his holy Service according to the Form and Manner of the Catholick Apostolick Roman Church and to abjure and renounce all errors contrary thereunto Then followed many other Articles relating to the preservation of the Kings Authority the maintainance of the common liberties and Priviledges of their Country the mutual defence of one another in defence of this League against all persons whatsoever the constancy of their obedience to any one whom they should chuse to be the Head of their Conâ—ederacie and finally the prosecuting of all those without exception who should endeavour to oppose and infringe the same And for the keeping of this League they severally and joyntly bound themselves by this following Oath viz. I swear by God the Creator laying my hand upon the holy Gospel and under pain of Excommunication and eternal Damnation that I enter into this holy Catholick League according to the Form thereof now read unto 〈◊〉 â—nd that I do faithfully and sincerely enter into it with a will either to command or to obey and serve as I shall be appointed â—nd I promise upon my life and honour unto the last drop of my bloud never to depart from it or transgress it for any command preâ—ence excuse or occasion which by any means whatsoever can be represented to me And as the Hugonots had puâ— themselves under the Protection of the Queen of England and called the â—â—â—mans to their aid so they resolved according unto this example to put themselves under the Patronage of the Catholick King and to call in the Forces of the King Pope and the Princes of Itâ—ly if their occasions so required The news of which conâ—edeâ—acy so amazed the King that he proceeded not to the performance of those Indulgences contained in the Eâ—iâ—t of the 14 of May which seemed most odious and offensive in the eyes of the Catholicks so that both sides being thus â—xaâ—perated against one another and each side jealous of the King the old confusions were revived the disorders multiplyed and all things brought into a worse condition then at his first coming to the Crown For though the Catholick King had willingly consented to be head of the League yet to bâ—â—ak â—ff all such dependance as was by that means to be fastned on him by the rest of the Leaguers the French King findes himself necessitated to assume that honour to himself And thereupon in the Assembly held at Blois having in vain tryed many ways to untie this knot he publickly declared himself to be the Principal Head and Protector of it with many specious protestations that he would spend his last breath in a cause so glorious as the reducing of his people unto one Religion which as it raised many jealousies in the mindes of the Hugonots so it begot no confidence of him in the hearts of their opposites 39. Hereupon a new War breaks out and a new Peace followeth by which some Clauses in the former Edict were restrained and moderated though otherwise sufficiently advantagious to all those of the Reformation so as now hoping that all matters were accorded between the parties the King pretends to betake himself wholly to his private Devotions falls on the institution of a new Order of Knighthood called The Order of the Holy Ghost commends his Brother for a Suâ—ter to the Queen of England to keep him out of harms way for the time to come and finally failing of the project procureth his advancement to the Dukedom of Brabant and to be made the General-Governour of the Belgick Provinces which had withdrawn themselves from their Obedience to the King of Spain 40. But in the midst of these devices the Leaders of the Hugonots are again in Arms under colour that the former Edict had not been observed but in plain truth upon a clear and manifest experience that Peace
and safety of the Common-wealth For the French Preachers being more practical and Mercurial then the other were and not well principled in respect of Monarchical Government were looked upon as men more likely to beget commotions and alienate the peoples hearts from their natural Governour And at the first the Prince of Orange enclined most to the Lutheran party whose Forms and Doctrines had been setled by his Father in the County of Nassaw And for the clear manifestation of the good opinion which he harboured of them he Married Anne the Daughter of Maurice Duke Elector of Saxony the greatest of the Lutheran Princes At which when the Dutchess of Parma seemed to be displeased he openly assured her of his Adhesion to the Catholick Cause and caused his Eldest Son which he had of that Marriage to be Baptized according to the Prescript of the Church of Rome but underhand promoted for a time the Lutheran Interest which he had sucked in as it were with his Mothers Milk But it was onely for a time that he so promoted it For finding the Calvinians to be men of another Metal more quick and stirring of themselves more easily exasperated against their Governours and consequently more fit to advance his purposes he made â—imself the great Protector of that faction and spared not to profess himself for such upon all occasions insomuch that being afterwards questioned about his Religion by the Duke of Arescot he discovered to him his bald head and told him plainly thâ—t there was not more Calvism on his head then there was Calvinism in his heart 17. But to make way for these designes there were two obstacles to be removed without which nothing could be done in pursuance of them King Philip at his going for Spain had left three thousand Spanish Souldiers the onely remainder of those great Armies which had served his Father and himself against the French in Garrison upon the Borders under pretence of shutting up the back-door against the French but generally thought to be left of purpose for a curb to the Natives in case of refractoriness or opposition unto his Commands They must be first removed and the Country cleared of all such rubs as otherwise would have made the way less passable unto private ends For though the King had put those Souldiers under the Command of two Lords of the Netherlands that is to say the Prince of Orange himself and the Count Egmont that they might rather seem to be the natural Militia of the Country then a power of strangers yet that device did little edifie amongst them for the two Lords especially the Prince of Orange expressed such contentment in the trust and honour which was therein conferred upon them that they excited the whole Country both to move the King before his going and the Governess after his departure to dismiss those Souldiers which could not be imposed upon them without breach of their Priviledges To this request the King had given a gratious answer and promised to remove them within four months after his going into Spain but secretly gave order to the Lady Regent to retain them longer till the new Bishops and the Inquisition were confirmed amongst them And she conceived her self so bound to those instructions and their â—etaining there so necessary for his Majesties Service that she delayed time as long as possibly she could Which being observed by those which were of greatest power and credit with the common people it was resolved that no more contribution should be raised on the several Provinces toward the payment of their wages and on the other side the Regent was so constant to her resolution that she took up money upon interest for their satisfaction But being wearied in the end by the importunity of all sorts of people counselled by her Husband the Duke of Parma to give way unto it and authorized at last by the King himself to hearken unto their desires she gives order to have them drawn out of their several Garrisons and Shipt at Flushing from thence to be transported into Spain with the first fair winde 18. The easie removing of this rub incouraged those who managed the designe for innovating in the Church and State to make the like attempt against the Cardinal Granvel whose extraordinary parts and power they were more affraid of then of all the Spaniards in the Country This man being of the â—erenots of Granvel in the Country of Burgundy was trained up by a Father of such large abilities that he was by Charles the Fifth made Chancellor of the German Empire and trusted by him in Affairs of the greatest moment And he declared himself to be such a quick proficient in the Schools of Learning that he became the Master of no fewer then seven Languages in all which he was able to express himself with a fluent eloquence and at twenty four years of age was made Bishop of Arras commended by his Father to the Emperour Charles and by him unto King Philip the Second he served them both with great fidelity and courage and had withall such a dexterity of dispatch in all concernments as if he had been rather born then made a States-man And unto these he added such a moderation in his pleasures such abstinence both from food and sleep when the case required it such extraordinary pains in accommodating all the difficulties which came before him and such a diligent observance of his Princes motions that his greatest Adversaries could not chuse but say that he was a Jewel fit to be owned by none but the greatest Kings By means whereof he so prevailed upon the King whilst he staid amongst them that he did nothing eitheâ— at home or abroad made neither Peace nor League with Kings or Nations concluded no Marriage quieted no Seditions acted nothing that related to Religion or the Church in which the counsels of this mâ—n were not influential The like Authority he held with the Dutchess of Parma not onely out of that report which the King made of him but her own election who found his counsel so applyable to all occasions that seldom any private or publick business came in agitation in which his judgement had not been previously required before it was openly delivered And though his previous resolutions in matters of counsel were carried with all imaginable care and closeness from the eyes of the Courtiers yet no man doubted but that all Affairs were tâ—ansacted by him imputing many things unto him as it often happeneth which he had no hand â—n 19. In the first risings of this man he was dâ—spised for an upstart by the Prince of Orange and some other great men of the Country not fearing any thing from him as an alien born unfurnished of dependants and who by reason of his caâ—ling could make no strong Alliance to preserve his Power But when they found that his Authority increased that all things bended to that point at which he aimed and that some of
the Nobility began to apply themselves unto him and became his Creatures they then conceived it necessary to make head against him for fear of being brought to the like submissions First therefore they began to clash with him at the Councel-Table and to dissent from many things which he appeared in though otherwise of great advantage in themselves to the publick Service But finding that those oppositions did rather serve to strengthen his power thâ—n take any thing from it they misreport him to the King in their several Letters for a turbulent spirit a man of proud thoughts and one that hated the Nobility By whose depressing he aspired to more personal greatness then was consistent either with his Majesties safety or the Belgick Liberties And that being dâ—ne they generally traduce him by their Whisperers amongst the people to be the onâ—ly man that laboured for the bringing in of the Inquisition and for establishing the new Bishops in their several Sees under pretence of stopping the increase of Sects and Heresies And unto these reports of him he gave some fair colour by prosecuting the concernments of the Church with more zeal then caution lying the more open to the practices of the growing party by a seeming neglect of their intendments and a reliance onely on his Masters favour From hence it was that such as did pretend to any licentiousness in Life or Doctrine exclaimed against him as the Author of those severities wherewith the King had formerly proceeded against divers of them as on the other side they cryed up all the Lords which appeared against him as the chief Patriots of the Country the Principal Patrons and Assertors of the publick Liberty 20. The people being thus corrupted it was no hard matter for the Lords to advance the Project in rendring Granvel as unpleasing in the eyes of the King as they had made him odious in the sight of the people In order whereunto some of them shewed themselves less careful of the Cause of Religion by smothering the publication of his Majesties Edicts which concerned the Church in the Provinces under their command Others dealt under-hand with the common people perswading them not to yeild submission to those new Tribunals which onely served for the exercise of superstition and the Popes Authority And some again connived at the growth of Heresie by which name they called it by suffering the maintainers of those new opinions to get ground amongst them encouraged secretly some seditious practices and finally omitted nothing by which the King might understand by a sad experiment how much he had misplaced his favours and to what imminent danger he exposed the Netherlands by putting such Authority over them in the hands of a Forreigner Of all which practices the Cardinal was too intelligent and had too many Friends abroad to be kept in ignorance which made him carry a more vigilant eye upon their designes to cross their Counsels and elude their Artifices when any thing was offered to the prejudice of the publick Peace but in the end the importunity of his Adversaries became so violent and the breach had such a face of danger in the fight of the Governess that she moved the King for his dismission to prevent which he first retired into Burgundy and from thence to Rome preferred not long after to be Vice-Roy of the Realm of Naples and finally made President of the Council for Italy in the Court of Spain 21. In the mean time the Calvinists began to try their Fortunes in those Provinces which lay next to France by setting up two of their Preachers on the same day in two great Cities Valenciennes the chief City of Haynalt and Tournay the chief City of Flanders Gallicant In the first of which the Preacher having finished in the Market-place where he made his Sermon was followed in the Streets by no fewer then one hundred people but in the other by a train of six hundred or thereabouts all of them singing Davids Psalms of Marots Translation according to the custom of the Hugonots amongst the French Some tumults hereupon ensued in either City for the repressing whereof Florence of Momorancy Lord of Montigny being the Governour of that Province rides in post to Tournay hangs up the Preacher seizeth on all such Books as were thought Heretical and thereby put an end to the present Sedition But when the Marquess of Bergen was required to do the like at Valenciennes he told the Governess in plain terms that it was neither agreeable to his place or nature to put an Heretick to death All that he did was the committing of two of their Preachers to the common Prison and that being done he made a journey unto Leige to decline and business Which so incouraged the Calvinian party to proceed in their purposes that they threatned mischief to the Judges if any harm happened to the Prisoners But sentence at the seven months end being past upon them to be burnt and all things being made ready for the execution the Prisoners brought unto the Stake and the sire ready to be kindled there presently arose a tumult so fierce and violent that the Officers were compelled to take back their Prisoners and to provide for their own safety for fear of being stoned to death by the furious multitude But the people having once begun would not so give over for being inflamed by one of their company whom they had set up in the midst of the Market-place to preach an extemporary Sermon two thousand of them ran tumultuously to the common Goal force open the doors knock off the Shackles of the Prisoners restore them to their former Liberty and so disperse themselves to their several dwellings The news of which Sedition being brought to Brussels the Governess dispatcheth certain Companies of Foot and some Troopes of Horse with order to the Marquess of Bergen to appease the disorders in the Town But they found all things there so quiet that there was little need of any other Sword then the Sword of Justice by which some of the chief Ring-leaders of the Tumult and one of their Preachers who had unhappily fallen into their hands were sentenced to that punishment which they had deserved 22. The Calvinists conceiving by this woful experiment that it was not safe jesting with Edged-tools and that they were not of sufficient power for so great a business betook themselves to other courses And finding that some of the principal Lords were much offended at the exorbitant power of Granvel that others shewed no good affection to his Majesties Government and that the rest had no desire to see the new Bishops setled in their several Sees for fear of being over-powered by them in all publick Councils they seriously applyed themselves to foment those discords and make the rupture greater then at first it was The new Bishops being fourteen in number were in themselves so eminent in point of Learning and of a conversation so unblameable in the eyes
desires though the Prince of Orange openly appeared for them they were resolved no longer to expect the lazie temper of Authority but actually took possession of some of the Churches in Brabant Gelderland and Flanders and openly exercised that Religion which till then they had professed in secret nor durst the Estates do any thing in vindication of their own Authority considering what necessary use they might have of them in the present War against Don Iohn and from how great a person they received incouragement But in the midst of this career they received a stop for the Confederates being vanquished by Don Iohn at the battail of Gemblack Brussels and all the Towns of Brabant submitted themselves one after another to the power of the conquerour Philipivil a strong Town of Haynalt Limburg and Dalem with some others not so easily yeilding were either forced by long siege or some violent storming or otherwise surrended upon capitulations During which Sieges and Surrendries the Prince of Orange who had escaped with safety from the battail of Gemblack was busied in establishing his Dominion on the Coast of Holland In which designe he found no opposition but at Amsterdam constant at that time even to miracle both to their old Religion and their old Obedience But being besieged on all sides both by Sea and Land they yeilded on condition of enjoying the free exercise of their former Faith and of the like Freedom from all Garrisons but of Native Citizens But when they had yeilded up the Town they were not onely forced to admit a Garrison but to behold their Churches spoil'd their Priests ejected and such new Teachers thrust upon them as they most abominated But liberty of Religion being first admitted a confused liberty of opinions followed shortly after till in the end that Town became the common Sink of all Sects and Sectaries which hitherto have disturbed the Church and proved the greatest scandal and dishonor of the Reformation 46. Holland had lately been too fruitful of this viperous brood but never more unfortunate then in producing David George of Delfe and Henry Nicholas of Leiden the two great Monsters of that age but the impieties of the first were too gross and horrid to finde any followers the latter was so smoothed over as to gain on many whom the Impostor had seduced The Anabaptists out of Westphalia had found shelter here in the beginning of the Tumults and possibly might contribute both their hearts and hands to the committing of those spoils and outrages before remembred In imitation of whose counterfeit piety and pretended singleness of heart there started up another Sect as dangerous and destructive to humane Society as the former were for by insinuating themselves into the heart of the ignorant multitude under a shew of singular Sanctity and Integrity did afterwards infect their mindes with damnable Heresies openly repugnant to the Christian Faith In ordinary Speech they used new and monstrous kindes of expressions to which the ears of men brought up in the Christian Church had not been accustomed and all men rather wondered at then understood To difference themselves from the rest of mankinde they called their Sect by the name of the Family of Love and laboured to perswade their hearers that those onely were elected unto life Eternal which were by them adopted Children of that Holy Family and that all others were but Reprobates and Damned persons One of their Paradoxes was and a safe one too that it was lawful for them to deny upon oath whatsoever they pleased before any Magistrate or any other whomsoever that was not of the same Family or Society with them Some Books they had in which their dotages were contained and propagated first writ in Dutch and afterwards translated into other Languages as tended most to their advantage that is to say The Gospel of the Kingdom The Lords Sentences The Prophesie of the Spirit of the Lord The publication of peace upon earth by the Author H. N. But who this H. N. was those of the Family could by no fair means be induced or inforced by threatnings to reveal But after it was found to be this Henry Nicholas of Leiden whom before we spake of Who being emulous of the Glories of King Iohn of Leiden that most infamous Botcher had most blasphemously preached unto all his followers that he was partaker of the Divinity of God as God was of his humane nature How afterwards they past over into England and what reception they found there may be told hereafter 50. By giving freedom of Conscience to all Sects and Sectaries and amongst others to these also the Prince of Orange had provided himself of so strong a party in this Province that he was able to maintain a defensive War against all his opposites especially after he had gained the Ports of Brill and Vlushing which opened a fair entrance unto all adventurers out of England and Scotland For on the Rumour of this War the Scots in hope of prey and plunder the English in pursuit of Honour and the use of Arms resorted to the aid of their Belgick Neighbours whose absolute subjugation to the King of Spain was looked on as a thing of dangerous consequence unto either Nation And at the first they went no otherwise then as Voluntiers of their own accord rather connived at then permitted by their several Princes But when the Government was taken into the hands of the States and that the War was ready to break out betwixt them and Don Iohn the Queen of England did not onely furnish them with large sums of money but entred into a League or Confederation by which it was agreed That the Queen should send unto their aid one thousand Horse and five thousand Foot that they should conclude nothing respecting either Peace or War without her consent and approbation that they should not enter into League with any person or persons but with her allowance and she if she thought good to be comprehended in the same that the States should send the like aid unto the Queen if any Prince attempted any act of Hostility against her or her Kingdoms and that they should furnish her with forty Ships of sufficient burthen to serve at her pay under the Lord Admiral of England whensoever she had any necessary occasion to set forth a Navy and finally not to insist upon the rest that if any difference should arise amongst themselves it was to be referred and offered unto her Arbitrament And to this League she was the rather induced to grant her Royal assent because she had been certainly advertised by the Prince of Orange that Don Iohn was then negotiating a marriage with the Queen of Scots that under colour of her Title he might advance himself to the Crown of England And yet she ventured neither men nor money but on very good terms receiving in the way of pawn the greatest part of the rich Jewels and massie Ornaments of Plate which anciently
rest and with the rest released upon the Peace made between France and England at the delivering up of Bulloigne from whence he past over into England where he was first made Preacher at Barwick next at New-castle afterwards to some Church of London and finally in some other places of the South so that removing like our late Itinerants from one Church to another as he could meet with entertainment he kept himself within that Sanctuary till the death of King Edward and then betook himself to Geneva for his private Studies From hence he published his desperate Doctrine of Predestination which he makes not onely to be an impulsive to but the compulsive cause of mens sins and mens wickednesses From hence he published his trayterous and seditious Pamphlet entituled The first blast of the Trumpet in which he writes most bitterly amongst other things against the Regiment of Women aiming therein particularly at the two Mâ—ries Queens of Scotland Queen Mary of England and Mary Qâ—eâ—n Dowager of Hungary Governess of the Low-Countries for Charles the Fifth and finally from hence he published another of the like nature entituled An Admonition to Christians In which he makes the Emperour Charles to be worlâ— then Nero and Mary Queen of England nothing better then Iesabel According to which good beginning he calls her in his History but not published hence that Idolatrous and Mischievous Mary of the Spaniards bloud a cruel persecutrix of Gods people as the Acts of her unhappy Reign did sufficiently witness In which he comes as close to Calvin as could be desired 5. By this means he grew great with Calvin and the most leading men of the Consistorians who looked upon him as a proper Engine to advance their purposes But long he had not stayed amongst them when he received an invitation from some Friends of his of the same temper and affections as it after proved to take charge of the Church of Frankfort to which some learned men and others of the English Nation had retired themselves in the Reign of Queen Mary which call he first communicated unto Calvin by whose encouragement and perswasion he accepted of it and by his coming rather multiplyed then appeased the quarrels which he found amongst them But siding with the inconformable party and knowing so much of Calvins minde touching the Liturgie and Rites of the Church of England he would by no means be perswaded to officiate by it and for that cause was forced by Dr. Cox and others of the Learned men who remained there to forsake the place as hath been shewn at large in another place Outed at Frankfort he returns again to his Friends at Geneva and being furnished with instructions for his future carriage in the cause of his Ministry he prepares for his journey into Scotland passeth to Dieppe form thence to England and at last came a welcome man to his Native Country which he found miserably divided into sides and factions Mary their Infant Queen had been transported into France at six years of age the Regency taken from Iames Earl of Arran given to Mary of â—orraign the Queens Mother not well obeyed by many of the Nâ—bility and great men of the Country but openly opposed and reviled by those who seemed to be inclinable to the Reformation To these men Knox applyed himself with all caâ—e and cunning preaching from place to place and from house to house as opportunity was given him In which he gathered many Churches and set up many Congregations as if he had been the Apâ—stle-General of the Kirk of Scotland in all points holding a conformity unto Calvins Platform even to the singing of Davids Psalms in the English Meter the onely Musick he allowed of in Gods publick Service From Villages and private Houses he ventured into some of the great Towns and more eminent Cities and at the last appeared in Edenborough it self preaching in all and ministring the Communion in many places as he saw occasion This was sufficient to have raised a greater storm against him then he could have been able to indure but he must make it worse by a new provocation For at the perswasion of the Earl of Glencarne and some others of his principal followers he writes a long Letter to the Queen Regent in which he earnestly perswades her to give ear to the Word of God according as it was then preached by himself and others which Letter being communicated by the Queen to the Archbishop of Glasco and dispersed in several Copies by Knox himself gave such a hot Alarm to the Bishops and Clergy that he was cited to appear in Blackfryars Church in Edenborough on the 15 of May and though upon advertisement that he came accompanied with so great a train that it could not be safe for them to proceed against him he was not troubled at that time yet he perceived that having made the Queen his enemy he could not hope to remain longer in that Kingdom but first or last he must needs fall in their hands 6. But so it happened that when he was in the midst of these perplexities he received a Letter from the Schismatical English which repaired to Geneva when they had lost all hope of putting down the English Liturgie in the Church of Frankfort by which he was invited to return to his former charge this Letter he communicated to his principal Friends resolves to entertain the offer and prepares all things for his journey And to say truth it was but time that he should set forwards for the danger followed him so close that within few days after his departure he was condemned for not appearing and burnt in his Effigies at the Cross in Edenborough But first he walks his round visits all his Churches takes a more solemn farewel of his especial Friends and having left sufficient instructions with them for carrying on the Reformation in despite of Authority in the latter end of Iuly he sets sail for France His party was by this time grown strong and numerous resolved to follow such directions as he left behind him To which encouraged by the preaching of one Willock whom Knox had more especially recommended to them in the time of his absence they stole away the Images out of most of their Churches and were so venturous as to take down the great Image of St. Gyles in the chief Church of Edenborough which they drowned first in the Northlake and burnt it afterwards But this was but a Prologue to the following Comedy The Festival of St. Gyles draws near in which the Image of that Saint was to be carryed through the chief Streets of Edenborough in a solemn Procession attended by all the Priests Fryars and other Religious persons about that City another Image is borrowed from the Gray-Fryars to supply the place and for the honour of the day the Queen Regent her self was pleased to make one in the Pageant But no sooner was she retired to her private repose when a
run on till they came to the end of the Race of which in general King Iames hath given us this description in a Declaration of his published not long after the surprising of his person by the Earl of Gowry 15â—2 where we finde it thus The Bishops having imbraced the Gospel it was at first agreed even by the Brethren with the consent of Regent that the Bishops estate should be maintained and authorized This endured for sundry years but then there was no remedy the Calling it self of Bishops was at least become Antichristian and down they must of necessity whereupon they commanded the Bishops by their own Authority to leave their Offices and Iurisdiction They decreed in their Assemblies That Bishops should have no vote in Parliament and that done they desired of the King that such Commissioners as they should send to the Parliament and Council might from thenceforth be authorized in the Bishops places for the Estate They also directed their Commissioners to the Kings Majesty commanding him and the Council under pain of the Censures of the Church Excommunication they meant to appoint no Bishops in time to come because they the Brethren had concluded that State to be unlawful And that it might appear to those of the suffering party that they had not acted all these things without better Authority then what they had given unto themselves they dispatched their Letters unto Beza who had succeeded at Geneva in the Chair of Calvin from whence they were encouraged and perswaded to go on in that course and never re-admit that plague he means thereby the Bishops to have place in that Church although it might flatter them with a shew of retaining unity 17. But all this was not done at once though laid here together to shew how answerable their proceedings were to their first beginnings To cool which heats and put some Water in their Wine the Queen by practising on her Keepers escapes the Prison and puts her self into Hamilton Castle to which not onely the dependants of that powerful Family but many great Lords and divers others did with great cheerfulness repair unto her with their several followers Earl Murray was at Stirling when this news came to him and it concerned him to bestir himself with all celerity before the Queens power was grown too great to be disputed He therefore calls together such of his Friends and their adherents as were near unto him and with them gives battail to the Queen who in this little time had got together a small Army of four thousand men The honour of the day attends the Regent who with the loss of one man onely bought an easie Victory which might have proved more bloudy to the conquered Army for they lost but three hundred in the fight it he had not commanded back his Souldiers from the execution The Queen was placed upon a Hill to behold the battail But when she saw the issue of it she posted with all speed to the Port of Kerbright took Ship for England and landed most unfortunately as it after proved at Wirckington in the County of Cumberland From thence she dispatched her Letters to Queen Elizabeth full of Complaints and passionate bewailings of her wretched fortune desires admittance to her presence and that she might be taken into her protection sending withal a Ring which that Queen had given her to be an everlasting token of that love and amity which was to be maintained between them But she soon found how miserably she had deceived her self in her Expectations Murray was grown too strong for her in the Court of England and others which regarded little what became of him were glad of her misfortunes in relation to their own security which could not better be consulted then by keeping a good Guard upon her now they had her there And so instead of sending for her to the Court the Queen gives order by Sir Francis Knollis whom she sent of purpose to remove the distressed Lady to Carlisle as the safer place until the equity of her cause might be fully known She hath now took possession of the Realm which she had laid claim to but shall pay dearly for the purchase the Crown whereof shall come at last to her Posterity though it did not fall upon her person 18. Now that the equity of her cause might be understood the Regent is required by Letters from the Court of England to desist from any further prosecution of the vanquished party till that Queen were perfectly informed in all particulars touching these Affairs Which notwithstanding he thought fit to make use of his Fortune summoned a Parliament in which some few of each sort noble and ignoble were proscribed for the present by the terrour whereof many of the rest submitted and they which would not were reduced by force of Arms. Elizabeth not well pleased with these proceedings requires that some Commissioners might be sent from Scotland to render an account to her or to her Commissioners of the severity and hard dealing which they had shewed unto their Queen And hereunto he was necessitated to conform as the case then stood The French being totally made against him the Spaniards more displeased then they and no help 〈◊〉 be had from any but the English onely At York Commissioners attend from each part in the end of September From Queen Elizabeth Thomas Duke of Norfolk Thomas Earl of Sussex and Sir Ralph Sadlier Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster For the unfortunate Queen of Scots Iohn Lesly Bishop of Ross the Lords Levington Boyd c. And for the Infant King besides the Regent himself there appeared the Earl of Morton the Lord Lindsay and certain others After such protestations made on both sides as seemed expedient for preserving the Authority of the several Crowns an Oath is took by the Commissioners to proceed in the business according to the Rules of Justice and Equity The Commissioners from the Infant-King present a Declaration of their proceedings in the former troubles to which an answer is returned by those of the other side Elizabeth desiring to be better satisfied in some particulars requires the Commissioners of both sides some of them at the least to repair unto her where after much sending and proving as the saying is there was nothing done which might redound unto the benefit of the Queen of Scots 19. For whilst these matters were in agitation in the Court of England Letters of hers were intercepted written by her to those which continued of her party in the Realm of Scotland In which Letters she complained that the Queen of England had not kept promise with her but yet desired them to be of good heart because she was assured of aid by some other means and hoped to be with them in a short time Which Letters being first sent to Murray and by him shewed to Queen Elizabeth prevailed so much for his advantage that he was not onely dismissed with favour but waited
the See of Rome procures himself to be acknowledged by the Prelates and Clergie in their Convocation for Supream Head on Earth of the Church of England obtained a promise of them in verbo Sacerdotii which was then equal to an Oath neither to make promulge nor execute any Ecclesiastical Constitutions but as they should be authorized thereunto by his Letters-Patents and then proceedâ— unto an Act for extinguishing the usurped Authority of the Bishop of Rome But knowing what a strong party the Pope had in England by reason of that huge multitudes of Monks and Fryers which depended on him he first dissolves all Monasteries and Religious Houses which were not able to dispend Three hundred Marks of yearly Rent and after draws in all the rest upon Surrendries Resignations or some other Practices And having brought the work so far he caused the Bible to be published in the English Tongue indulged the private reading of it to all persons of quality and to such others also as were of known judgement and discretion commanded the Epistles and Gospels the Lords Prayer the Creed and the Ten Commandment to be rehearsed openly to the people on every Sunday and Holy Day in the English Tongue and ordered the Letany also to be read in English upon Wednesdays and Fridays He had caused moreover many rich Shrines and Images to be defaced such as had most notoriously been abused by Oblations Pilgrimages and other the like acts of Idolatrous Worship and was upon the point also to abolish the Mass it self concerning which he had some secret communication with the French Ambassador if Fox speak him rightly 2. But what he did not live to do and perhaps never would have done had he lived much longer was brought to pass in the next Reign of King Edward VI. In the beginning whereof by the Authority of the Lord Protector the diligence of Archbishop Cranmer and the endeavours of many other Learned and Religious men a Book of Homilies was set out to instruct the people Injunctions published for the removing of all Images formerly abused to Superstition or false and counterfeit in themselves A Statute past in Parliament for receiving the Sacrament in both kinds and order given to the Archbishop of Canterbury and Some other Prelates to draw a Form for the Administration of it accordingly to the honor of God and the most Edification of all good people The news whereof no sooner came unto Geneva but Calvin must put in for a share and forthwith writes his Letters to Archbishop Cranmer in which he offereth his assistance to promote the service if he thought it necessary But neither Cranmer Kidley nor any of the rest of the English Bishops could see any such necessity of it but that they might be able to do well without him They knew the temper of the man how busie and pragmatical he had been in all those places in which he had been suffered to intermeddle that in some points of Christian Doctrine he differed from the general current of the Ancient Fathers and had devised such a way of Ecclesiastical Polity as was destructive in it self to the Sacred Hierarchy and never had been heard of in all Antiquity But because they would give him no offence it was resolved to carry on the work by none but English hands till they had perfected the composing of the Publick Liturgie with all the Rites and Ceremonies in the same contained And that being done it was conceived not to be improper if they made use of certain Learned men of the Protestant Churches for reading the Divinity-Lectures and moderating Disputations in both Universities to the end that the younger Students might be trained up in sound Orthodox Doctrine On which account they invited Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr two men of eminent parts and Learning to come over to them the one of which they disposed in Oxon and the other at Cambridge This might have troubled Calvin more then his own repulse but that he thought himself sufficiently assured of Peter Martyr who by reason of his long living amongst the Switzers and his neaâ— Neighborhood to Geneva might possibly be governed by his Directions But because Bucer had no such dependance on him and had withal been very much conversant in the Lutheran Churches keeping himself in all his Reformations in a moderate course he practiseth to gain him also or at least to put him into such a way as might come nearest to his own Upon which grounds he posts away his Letters to him congratulates his invitation into England but above all adviseth him to have a care that he endeavoured not there as in other places either to be the Author or Approver of such moderate counsels by which the parties might be brought to a Reconcilement 3. For the satisfaction of these strangers but the last especially the Liturgie is translated into Latine by Alexander Alesius a right Learned Scot. A Copy of whose Translation or the sum thereof being sent to Calvin administred no small matter of offence unto him not so much because any thing in it could be judged offenâ—ive but because it so much differed from those of his own conception The people of England had received it as an heavenly treasure sent down by Gods great mercy to them all moderate men beyond the Seas applauded the felicity of the Church of England in fashioning such an excellent Form of Gods Publick Worship and by the Act of Parliament which confirmed the same it was declared to have been done by the special aid of the Holy Ghost But Calvin was resolved to think otherwise of it declaring his dislike thereof in a long Letter written to the Lord Protector In which he excepteth more particularly against Commemoration of the dead which he acknowledgeth notwithstanding to be very ancient as also against Chrism or Oyl in Baptism and the Form of Visiting the sick and then adviseth that as well these as all the rest of the Rites and Ceremonies be cut off at once And that this grave advice might not prove unwelcome he gives us such a Rule or Reason as afterwards raised more trouble to the Church of England then his bare advice His Rule is this That in carrying on the work of a Reformation there is not any thing to be exacted which is not warranted and required by the Word of God That in such cases there is no Rule left for worldly wisdom for moderation and compliance but all things to be ordered as they are directed by his will revealed What use his Followers made of their Masters Rule in crying down the Rites and Ceremonies of this Church as Superstitiouâ— Antichristian and what else they pleased because not found expresly and particularly in the Holy Scriptures we shall see hereafter In the mean time we must behold him in his Applications to the King and Council his tampering with Archbishop Canmer his practising on men of all conditions to encrease his party For finding little benefit
the Learned Godly and Grave Ministers of Christ to set forth something more refinâ—d from Filth and Rustiness Which Letter see at large in the first Book of this History Number 17. This Answer so prevailed upon all his Followers that they who sometimes had approved did now as much dislike the English Liturgie and those who at first had conceived a dislike thereof did afterwards grow into an open detestation of it In which condition of Affairs Dr. Richard Cox Dr. Horne and others of great Note and Quality put themselves also into Frankfort where they found all things contrary to their expectation Cox had been Almoner to King Edward VI Chancellor of the University of Oxon Dean of Westminster one that had a chief hand in composing the English Liturgie which made him very impatient of such Innovations amounting to no less then a total rejection of it as he found amongst them By his Authority and appointment the English Litany is first read and afterwards the whole Book reduced into use and practice Against which when Knox began to rail in a publick Sermon according to his wonted custom he is accused by Cox to the Senate of Frankfort for his defamatory writings against the Emperour and the Queen of England Upon the news whereof Knox forsakes the Town retires himself unto his Sanctuary at Geneva and thither he is followed by a great part of his Congregation who made foul work in England at their coming home 7. But this about the Liturgy though it was the greatest was not the onely quarrel which was raised by the Zuinglian or Calvinian Zealors The Church prescribed the use of Surplices in all Sacred Offices and Coapes in the officiating at the holy Altar It prescribed also a distinct habit in the Clergy from the rest of the people Rocheâ—s and Chimeres for the Bishops Gowns Tippets and Canonical Coats for the rest of the Clergy the square Cap for all Their opposition in the use of the Surplice much confirmed and countenanced as well by the writings as the practice of Peter Martyr who kept a constant intercourse with Calvin at his being here For in his Writings he declared to a Friend of his who required his judgement in the case that such Vestments being in themselves indifferent could make no man godly or ungodly either by forbearance or the use thereof but that he thought it more expedient to the good of the Church that they and all others of that kinde should be taken away when the next convenient opportunity should present it self Which judgement as he grounds upon Calvin's Rule that nothing should be acted in a Reformation which is not warranted expresly by the Word of God so he adds this to it of his own that where there is so much contending for these outward matters there is but little care of the true Religion And he assures us of himself in point of practice that though he were a Canon of Christ-Church and diligent enough in attending Divine Service as the others did yet he could never be perswaded to use that Vestment which must needs animate all the rest of the Genevians to forbear it also The like was done by Iohn Alasco in crying down the Regular habit of the Clergie before describ'd In which prevailing little by his own authority he writes to M. Bucer to declare against it and for the same was most severely reprehended by that moderate and learned man and all his cavils and objections very solidly answered Which being sent unto him in the way of a Letter was afterwards printed and dispersed for keeping down that opposite humour which began then to over-swell the Banks and threatned to bear all before it But that which made the greatest noise was the carriage of Mr. Iohn Hooper Lord Elect of Gloucester who having lived amongst the Switzers in the time of King Henry did rather choose to be denied his Consecration then to receive it in that habit which belonged to his Order At first the Earl of Warwick who after was Duke of Northumberland interceded for him and afterwards drew in the King to make one in the business But Cranmer Ridley and the rest of the Bishops who were most concerned craved leave not to obey His Majestie against his Laws and in the end prevailed so far that Hooper for his contumacy was committed Prisoner and from the Prison writes his Letters to Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr for their opinion in the case From the last of which who had declared himself no Friend to the English Ceremonies he might presume of some encouragement the rather in regard that Calvin had appeared on his behalf who must needs have a hand in this quarrel also For understanding how things went he writes unto the Duke of Sommerset to attone the difference not by perswading Hooper to conform himself to the received Orders of the Church but to lend the man a helping hand by which he might be able to hold out against all Authority 8. But Hooper being deserted by the Earl of Warwick and not daring to relie altogether upon Calvins credit which was unable to support him submits at last unto the pleasure of his Metropolitan and the Rules of the Church So that in fine the business was thus compromised that is to say That he should receive his Consecration attired in his Episcopal Robes That he should be dispensed withal from wearing them at ordinary times as his daily habits but that he should be bound to use them whensoever he preached before the King in his own Cathedral or any other place of like publick nature According to which Agreement being appointed to preach before the King he shewed himself apparelled in his Bishops Robes viz. A long Scarlet Chimere reaching down to the ground for his upper Garment changed in Queen Elizabeths time to one of black Sattin and under that a white linen Rochet with a Square Cap upon his head This Fox reproacheth by the name of a Popish Attire and makes it to be a great cause of shame and contumelie to that godly man But notwithstanding the submission of this Reverend Prelate too many of the inferior Clergie were not found so tractable in their conformity to the Cap and Tippet the Gown and the Canonical Coat the wearing whereof was required of them whensoever they appeared in publick Being decryed also by Alasco and the rest of the Zuinglians or Galvinians as a Superstitions and Popish Attire altogether as unfit for Ministers of the holy Gospel as the Chimere and Rochet were for those who claimed to be the Successors of the Lords Apostles So Tyms replied unto Bishop Gardiner when being asked whether a Coat with stockins of divers colours were a fit apparel for a Deacon He sawcily made answer that his Vesture did not so much vary from a Deacons as his Lordships did from that of an Apostle Which passage as well concerning the debates about the Liturgie as about the Vestments I have here abbreviated
endeavoured by all the Friends they could to advance his Discipline to which they were incouraged by the brothers here and the Governors there The Governours in each Island advanced the project out of a covetous intent to inrich themselves by the spoil of the Deanries the brethren have hereupon a hope to gain ground by little and little for the erecting of the same in most parts of England And in pursuance of this plot both Islands joyn in confederacy to petition the Queen for an allowance of this Discipline Anno 1563. In the year next following the Signiour de St. Owen and Monsieur de Soulemount were delegated to the Court to sollicite in it where they received a gratious answer and full of hopes returned to their several homes In the mean time the Queen being strongly perswaded that this designe would much advance the Reformation in those Islands was contented to give way unto it in the Towns of St. Peters Port and St. Hillaries only but no further To which purpose there were Letters decretory from the Council directed to the Bayliff the Iurates and others of each Island subscribed by Bacon Lord Keeper of the Great Seal the Marquess of Northampton the Earl of Leicester the Lord Clynton afterwards Earl of Lincolne Rogers Knollis and Cecil The Tenour of which Letter in relation to the Isle of Iarsey was this that followeth 21. After our very hearty commendations unto you where the Queens most excellent Majesty understandeth that the Isles of Guernsey and Jarsey have anciently depended on the Diocess of Constance and that there be certain Churches in the same Diocess well reformed agreeable throughout in the Doctrine as is set forth in this Realm knowing therewith that they have a Minister which ever since his arrival in Jarsey hath used the like Order of Preaching and Administration as in the said reformed Churches or as it is used in the French Church of London her Majesty for divers respects and considerations moving her Highness is well pleased to admit the same Order of Preaching and Administration to be continued at St. Hillaries as hath been hitherto accustomed by the said Minister Provided always that the residue of the Parishes in the said Isle shall diligently put aside all superstitions used in the said Diocess and so continue there the Order of Service ordained within this Realm with the Injunctions necessary for that purpose Wherein you may not fail diligently to give your aids and assistance as best may serve for the advancement of Gods Glory And so farewel From Richmond the 7 of August Anno 1565. 22. Where note that the same Letter the names onely of the places being changed and subscribed by the same men was sent also unto those of Guernsey for the permission of the said Discipline in the Port of St. Peters In which though there be no express mention of allowing their Discipline but onely of their Form of Prayer aâ—d Administration of Sacraments yet they presumed so far on the general words as to put it presently in practice In prosecution of which Counsels the Ministers and Elders of both Churches held their first Synod in the Isle of Guernsey on the 2 of September Anno 1567 where they concluded to advance it by degrees in all the rest of the Parishes as opportunity should serve and the condition of Affairs permit to the great joy no question of their great Friends in England who could not but congratulate their own good Fortune in these fair beginnings 23. At home they found not such success as they did abroad not a few of them being deprived of their Benefices and other preferments in the Church for their inconformity exprest in their refusing to officiate by the publick Liturgy or not submitting to the directions of their Ordinaries in some outward matters as Caps and Surplices and the like The news of which severity flies to France and Scotland occasioning Beza in the one and Knox and his Comrades in the other to interpose themselves in behalf of their brethren With what Authority Beza acted in it we shall see anon And we may now take notice that in Knoxes Letter sent from the general Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland the Vestments in dispute are not onely called Trifles and Rags of Rome but are discountenanced and decryed for being such Garments as Idolaters in time of greatest darkness used in their Superstitious and idolatrous service thereupon it is inferred That if Surplice Cap and Tippet have been badges of Idolaters in the very act of their Idolatry that then the Preachers of Christian Liberty and the Rebukers of Superstition were to have nothing to do with the dregs of that Romish beast Which inference is seconded by this Request viz. That the Brethren in England which refused those Romish Rags might finde of them the Bishops who use and urge them such favour as their Head and Master commandeth each one of his Members to shew to another And this they did expect to receive of their courtesie not onely because they hoped that they the said Bishops would not offend God in troubling their Brethren for such Vain trifles but because they hoped that they would not refuse the request of them their Brethren and fellow-Ministers in whom though there appeared no worldly Pomp yet they assured themselves that they were esteemed the servants of God and such as travelled to set forth Gods Glory against the Antichrist of Rome that conjured enemy of true Religion the Pope The days say they are evil iniquity abounds charity alas waxeth cold and therefore that it concerned them all to walk diligently because it was uncertain at what hour the Lord would come to whom they were to render an account of their Administration After which Apostolical Admonition they commit them to the Mighty protection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we conclude their Zealous Letter dated December 27. 1566. 24. With more Authority writes Beza as the greater Patriarch and he writes too concerning things of greater consequence then Caps and Surplices For in a Letter of his to Grindal bearing date Iuly anno 1566 he makes a sad complaint concerning certain Ministers unblameable as he saith both in life and Doctrine suspended from the Ministery by the Queens Authority and the good liking of the Bishops for not subscribing to some new Rites and Ceremonies imposed upon them Amongst which Rites he specifies the wearing of such Vestments as were then worn by Baals Priests in the Church of Rome the Cross in Baptism kneeling at the Communion and such Rites as had degenerated as he tell us into most filthy Superstition But he seems more offended that Women were suffered to baptize in extreme necessities That power was granted to the Queen for ordaining such other Rites and Ceremonies as should seem convenient but most especially which was indeed the point most grieved at that the Bishops were invested with a sole Authority for all matters of the Church without consulting
and Ceremonies being first abolished they should proceed to the Establishment of such a Form of Ministration in the Church of England as might be grounded on some express Authorities of the Word of God Which as he makes to be a work agreeable unto Grindals piety so Grindal after this and this bears date in Iuly 1568 appeared more favourable every day then other to those common Barretters who used their whole endeavours to embroyl the Church 30. Nor were these years less fatal to the Church of England by the defection of the Papists who till this time had kept themselves in her Communion and did in general as punctually attend all Divine Offices in the same as the vulgar Protestants And it is probable enough that they might have held out longer in their due obedience if first the scandal which was given by the other Faction and afterwards the separation which ensued upon it had not took them off The Liturgie of the Church had been exceedingly well fitted to their approbation by leaving out an offensive passage against the Pope restoring the old Form of words accustomably used in the participation of the holy Sacrament the total expunging of a Rubrick which seemed to make a Question of the Real presence the Scituation of the holy-Table in the place of the Altar the Reverend posture of kneeling at it or before it by all Communicants the retaining of so many of the ancient Festivals and finally by the Vestments used by the Priest or Minister in the Ministration And so long as all things continued in so good a posture they saw no causâ— of separating from the rest of their Brethren in the acts of Worship But when all decency and order was turned out of the Church by the heat and indiscretion of these new Reformers the holy-Table brought into the midst of the Church like a common-Table the Communicants in some places sitting at it with as little Reverence as at any ordinary Table the ancient Fasts and Feasts deserted and Church-Vestments thrown aside as the remainders of the Superstition of the Church of Rome they then began visibly to decline from their first conformity And yet they made no general separation nor defection neither till the Genevian brethren had first made the Schism and rather chose to meet in Barns and Woods yea and common Fields then to associate with their brethren as in former times For that they did so is affirmed by very good Authors who much bemoaned the sad condition of the Church in having her bowels torn in pieces by those very Children which she had cherished in her bosom By one of which who must needs be of years and judgement at the time of this Schism we are first told what great contentions had been raised in the first ten years of her Majesties Reign through the peevish frowardness the out-cryes of such as came from Geneva against the Vestments of the Church and such like matters And then he adds That being crossed in their desires touching those particulars they separated from the rest of their Congregations and meeting together in Houses Woods and common Fields kept there their most unlawful and disorderly Conventicles 31. Now at such time as Button Billingham and the rest of the Puritan Faction had first made the Schism Harding and Sanders and some others of the Popish Fugitives imployed themselves as busily in perswading those of that Religion to the like temptation For being licensed by the Pope to exercise Episcopal jurisdiction in the Realm of England they take upon them to absolve all such in the Court of Conscience who should return to the Communion of the Church of Rome as also to dispense in Causes of irregularity except it were incurred by wilful murther and finally from the like irregularities incurred by Heresie if the party who desired the benefit of the Absolution abstain'd from Ministring at the holy Altar for three years together By means whereof and the advantages before mentioned which were given them by the Puritan Faction they drew many to them from the Church both Priests and People their numbers every day increasing as the scandal did And finding how the Sectaries inlarged their numbers by erecting a French Church in London and that they were now upon the point of procuring another for the use and comfort of the Dutch they thought it no ill piece of Wisdom to attempt the like in some convenient place near England where they might train up their Disciples and fit them for imployment upon all occasions Upon which ground a Seminary is established for them at Doway in Flanders Anno 1568 and another not long after at Rhemes a City of Champaigne in the Realm of France Such was the benefit which redounded to the Church of England by the perversness of the Brethren of this first separation that it occasioned the like Schism betwixt her and the Papists who till that time had kept themselves in her Communion as before was said For that the Papists generally did frequent the Church in these first ten years is positively affirmed by Sir Edward Coke in his Speech at the Arraignment of Garnet the Jesuit and afterward at the Charge which was given by him at the general Assizes held in Norwich In both which he speaks on his own certain knowledge not on vulgar hearsay affirming more particularly that â—e had many times seen Bedenfield Cornwallis and some other of the Leading Romanists at the Divine Service of the Church who afterwards were the first that departed from it The like averred by the most Learned Bishop Andrews in his Book called Tortura Torti p. 130. and there asserted undeniably against all opposition And which may serve instead of all we finde the like affirmed also by the Queen her self in her Instructions given to Walsingham then being her Resident with the French King Anno 1570. In which Instructions bearing date on the 11 of August it is affirmed expresly of the Heads of that party and therefore we may judge the like of the Members also that they did ordinarily resort from the beginning of her Reign in all open places to the Churches and to Divine Service in the Church without any contradiction or shew of misliking 32. The parallel goes further yet For as the Puritans were encouraged to this separation by the Missals and Decretory Letters of Theodore Beza whom they beheld as the chief Patriarch of this Church So were the Papists animated to their defection by a Bull of Pope Pius the Fifth whom they acknowledged most undoubtedly for the Head of theirs For the Pope being thrust on by the importunity of the House of Guise in favour of the Queen of Scots whose Title they preferred before that of Elizabeth and by the Court of France in hatred to the Queen her self for aiding the French Hugonots against their King was drawn at last to issue out this Bull against her dated at Rome Feb. 24. 1569. In which Bull he doth not
not able to resist that is to say for so I understand his meaning that they should rather leave their Churches then submit themselves to such conditions But this direction being given toward the end of October Anno 1567 seems to be qualified in his Epistle to the Brethren of the Forreign Churches which were then in England bearing date Iune the fifth in the year next following in which he thus resolves the case proposed unto him That for avoiding all destructive ruptures in the body of Christ by dividing the members thereof from one another it was not lawful for any man of what Rank soever to separate himself upon any occasion from the Church of Christ in which the Doctrine is preserved whereby the people are instructed in the ways of God and the right use of the Sacraments ordained by Christ is maintained inviolable 38. This might I say have stopped the breach in the first beginning had not the English Puritans been resolved to try some conclusions before they hearkned to the Premises But finding that their party was not strong enough to bear them out or rich enough to maintain them on their private purses they thought it not amiss to follow the directions of their great Dictator And hereunto the breaking out of those in Surrey gave some further colour by which they say that nothing but confusion must needs fall upon them and that so many Factions Subdivisions and Schismatical Ruptures as would inevitably ensue on the first separation must in fine crumble them to nothing And on these grounds it was determined to unite themselves to the main body of the Church to reap the profit of the same and for their safer standing in it to take as well their Orders as their Institution from the hands of the Bishops But so that they would neither wear the Surplice oftner then meer necessity compelled them or read more of the Common-prayers then what they thought might save them harmless if they should be questioned and in the mean time by degrees to bring in that Discipline which could not be advanced at once in all parts of the Kingdom Which half Conformity they were brought to on the former grounds and partly by an Act of Parliament which came out this year 13 Eliz. cap. 12. for the reforming of disorders amongst the Ministers of the Church And they were brought unto no more then a half-Conformity by reason of some clashing which appeared unto them between the Canons of the Convocation and that Act of Parliament as also in regard of some interposings which are now made in their behalf by one of a greater Title though of no more power then Calvin Martyr Beza or the rest of the Advocates 39. The danger threatned to the Queen by the late sentence of Excommunication which was past against her occasioned her to call the Lords and Commons to assemble in Parliament the Bishops and Clergy to convene in their Convocation These last accordingly met together in the Church of St. Paul on the 5 of April 1571. At which time Dr. Whitgift Master of Trinity-Colledge in Gambridge preached the Latine Sermon In which he insisted most especially upon the Institution and Authority of Synodical Meetings on the necessary use of Ecclesiastical Vestments and other Ornaments of the Church the opposition made against all Orders formerly Established as well by Puritans as Papists touching in fine on many other particularities in rectifying whereof the care and diligence of the Synod was by him required And as it proved his counsel was not given in vain For the first thing which followed the Conforming of the Prolocutor was a command given by the Archbishop That all such of the lower House of Convocation who not had formerly subscribed unto the Articles of Religion agreed upon Anno 1562 should subscribe them now or on their absolute refusal or procrastinations be expelled the House Which wrought so well that the said Book of Articles being publickly read was universally approved and personally subscribed by every Member of both Houses as appears clearly by the Ratification at the end of those Articles In prosecution of which necessary and prudent course it was further ordered That the Book of Articles so approved should be put into Print by the appointment of the Right Reverend Dr. John Jewel then Bishop of Sarum and that every Bishop should take a competent number of them to be dispersed in their Visitations or Diocesan Synods and to be read four times in every year in all the Parishes of their several and respective Diocesses Which questionless might have settled a more perfect Conformity in all parts of the Kingdom somâ— Câ—nons of the Convocation running much that way if the Parliament had spoke as clearly in it as the Convocation or if some sinister practice had not been excogitated to pervert those Articles in making them to come out imperfect and consequently deprived of life and vigour which otherwise they would have carried 40. The Earl of Leicester at that time was of great Authority and had apparently made himself the head of the Puritan faction They also had the Earl of Huntingdon the Lord North and others in the House of Peers Sir Francis Knollis Walsingham and many more in the House of Commons To which if Zanchy be to be believed as perhaps he may be some of the Bishops may be added who were not willing to tye the Puritans too close to that Subscription by the Act of Parliament which was required of them by the Acts and Canons of the Convocation It had been ordered by the Bishops in their Convocation That all the Clergy then assembled should subscribe the Articles And it was ordered by the unanimous consent of the Bishops and Clergie That none should be admitted from thenceforth unto Holy-Orders till he had first subscribed the same and solemnly obliged himself to defend the things therein contained as consonant in all points to the Word of God Can. 1571. Cap. de Episcop But by the first Branch of the Act of Parliament Subscription seemed to be no otherwise required then to such Articles alone as contained the Confession of the trâ—e Christian Faith and the Doctrine of the holy Sacraments Whereby all Articles relating to the Book of Homilieâ— the Form of Consecrating Archbishops and Bishops the Churches power for the imposing of new Rites and Ceremonies and retaining those already made seemed to be purposely omitted as not within the compass of the said Subscription And although no such Restriction do occur in the following Branches by which Subscription is required indefinitely unto all the Articles yet did the first Branch seem to have such influence upon all the rest that it was made to serve the turn of the Puritan Faction whensoever they were called upon to subscribe to the Episcopal Government the Publick Liturgie of the Church or the Queens Supremacy But nothing did more visibly discover the designs of the Faction and the great power their Patrons had in
the Publick Government then the omitting the first Clause in the Twentieth Article In which it was declared That the Church hâ—d power to Decree Rites and Ceremonies and Authority in Controversies of Faith Which Clause though extant in the Registers oâ— the Convocation as a part of that Article and printed as a part thereof both in Latine and English Anno 1562 was totally left out in this new Impression and was accordingly left out in all the Harmonies of Confessions or other Collections of the same which were either printed at Geneva or any other place where Calvinism was of most predominancy And so it stood with us in England till the death of Leicester After which in the year 1593 the Articles were reprinted and that Clause resumed according as it stands in the Publick Registers By which Clause it was after published in the third year of K. Iames and in the tenth year of the said King Anno 1512 and in all following Impressions from that time to this Once cunningly omitted in a Latine Impression with came out at Oxon An. 1536. but the forgery was soon discovered and the Book call'd in the Printer checked and ordered to reprint the same with the Clause prefixed Which makes it the more strange and almost incredible that the Puritans should either plainly charge it as an Innovation on the late Archbishop or that any other sober or indifferent man should make a question whether the Addition of that Clause were made by the Prelates or the Substraction of it by the Puritans for their several purposes 41. There also past a Book of Canons in this Convocation by which it was required That all such as were admitted unto Holy-Orders should subscribe the Book of Articles as before was said That the Gâ—ay Amice still retained as it seems by some of the old Priests of Queen Maries time should be from thenceforth laid aside and no longer used That the Deans and Residentiaries of Cathedral Churches should admit no other Form of saying or singing Divine Service of the Church or administring the holy Sacraments then that which was prescribed in the Publick Liturgie That if any Preacher in the same should openly maintain any point of Doctrine contrary to any thing contained in the Book of Articles or the Book of Common-Prayer the Bishop should be advertised of it by the Dean and Prebendaries to the end he might proceed therein as to him seemed best That no man be admitted to preach in what Church soever till he be licensed by the Queen or the Archbishop of the Province or the Bishop of the Diocess in which he serveth And that no Preacher beng so licensed should preach or teach any thing for Doctrinal to bâ— believed by the people but what was consonant to the Word of God in Holy Scripture or by the Ancient Fathers or Orthodox Bishops of the Church had been gathered from it That no Parson Vicar or Curate should from thenceforth read the Common Prayers in any Chappel Oratory or Private House unlâ—ss he were licensed by the Bishop under hand and seâ—â— And that none of the persons aforesaid should 〈◊〉 his Ministery or carry himself in his apparel or kind of life like â—o one of the Laity That the said Parsons Vicars and Curates should yearly certifie to their several Ordinaries the names and Sirnames of all persons of fourteen years of age and upwards who had not received the Communion or did refuse to be instructed in the Publick Catechiâ—m or that they should not suffer any such persons to be God-Father or God-Mother to any child or to contract any Marriage either between themselves or with any other It was also ordered in those Canons That every Bishop should cause the Holy Bible in the largest Volume to be set up in some convenâ—ent place of his Hall or Parlour that as well those of his own Family as all such strangers as resorted to him might have recourse to it if they pleased And that all Bishops Deans and Archdeacon should cause the Book called The Acts and Monuments to be disposed of in like sort for the use aforesaid The first of which Injunctions seems to have been made for keeping up the Reputation of the English Bibles publickly Authoâ—ized for the use of this Church The credit and Authority of which Translation was much decryed by those of the Genevian Faction to advance their own By the other there was nothing aimed at but to gain credit to the Book which served so seasonably to create an odium in all sorts of people against the Tyrannies and Superstitions of the Pope of Rome whose plots and practices did so apparently intend the ruine of the Queen and Kingdom No purpose either in the Bishops or Clergie to justifie all or any of the passages in the same contained which have been since made use of by the Disciplinarians either to countenance some strange Doctrine or decry some Ceremony to which he shewed himself a Friend or Enemy as the case might vary 42. Fortified with these Canons and Synodical Acts the Prelates shew themselves more earnest in requiring Subscription more zealous in pressing for Conformity then before they did but found a stiffer opposition in the Puritan Faction then could be rationally expected For whether it were that they relyed upon their Friends in Court or that some Lawyers had informed them that by the Statute no Subscription was to be required of them but only unto points of Doctrine certain it is that they were now more insolent and intractable then they had been formerly For now the bettâ—r to disguise their Projects to wound the Discipline the quarrels about Surplices and other Vestments which seemed to have been banished a while are revived again complaints made of their sufferings in it to the Forreign Churches and the report is spread abroad to gain the greater credit to their own perverseness that many of the Bishops did as much abominate those Popish Vestments as any of the brethren did For so writes Zanchy a Divine of Heidelburg in his Letters unto Queen Elizabeth of September the second and writes so by direction from the Prince Elector whom they had engaged in the cause out of an hope to take her off from giving any further countenance to the Bishops in that point of Conformity To the same purpose he writes also to Bishop Iewel on the 11 of September Where he informs as he had been informed himself That many of the Ecclesiastical Order would rather chuse to quit their station in the Church and resign their Offices then yield to the wearing of those Vestments which had been formerly defiled by such gross Superstition He also signifies what he had writ unto the Queen of whose relenting he could give himself no great assurance and that he had also been advised to write to some of the Clergie to the end that they might be perswaded to a present Conformity rather then deprive the Church of their future Ministery The
prosecution of which work he commends to Iewel that by the interposing of his Authority they might be brought to yield to the points proposed and thereby be continued in the exercise of their Vocation Which last clause could not chuse but be exceeding acceptable to that Reverend Prelate who had shewed himself so earnest for Conformity in a Sermon preached by him at the Cross that he incurred some censure for it amongst the brethren Which put him to this Protestation before his death That his last Sermon at S. Pauls Cross and Conference about the Ceremonies and state of the Church was not to please any man living nor to grieve his brethren of a contrary opinion but onely to this end that neither party might prejudice the other But he was able to act nothing in pursuance of Zanchy's motion by reason of his death within few days after if not some days before he received that Letter For on the 22 of the same Moneth it pleased God to take him to himself and thereby to deprive the Church of the greatest Ornament which she could boast of in that age The end of the sixth Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB VII Containing A Relation of their secret and open Practices the Schism and Faction by them raised for advancing the Genevian Discipline in the Church of England from the year 1572 to the year 1584. 1. THe English Puritans had hitherto maintained their Quarrel by the Authority of Calvin the sawciness of Knox the bold activities of Beza and the more moderate interposings of some Forreign Divines whose name was great in all the Churches of the Reformation But now they are resolved to try it out by their proper valour to fling away their Bulrushes and lay by their Crutches or at the best to make no other use of Out-landish Forces then as Auxiliaries and Reserves if the worst should happen And hitherto they had appeared onely against Caps and Surplices or questioned some Rites and Ceremonies in the publick Liturgie which might be thought to have been borrowed from the Church of Rome But now they are resolved to venture on the Episcopal Government and to endeavour the erecting of the Presbyterian as time and opportunity should make way unto it Amongst which undertakers none more eminent because none more violent then Cartwright formerly remembred Snape of Northampton a great stickler for the holy Discipline and Feild a Lecturer in London as ridiculously zealous to advance Presbytery as the most forward in the pack But Cartwright was the man upon whose Parts and Learning they did most depend and one who both by private Letters and some Printed Pamphlets had gained more credit to the side then all the rest And yet it was amongst his own onely that he gained such credit For when his Papers had been shewn unto Bishop Iewel and that the Judgement of that Reverend and Learned Prelate was demanded of them he is said to have returned this answer That the Arguments therein contained were too slight to build up and too weak to pull down And so it proved in the event when Cartwrights whole discourses against the Forms of Government and Publick Worship here by Law established came to be seriously debated 2. For having been long great with Childe of some new designe the Babe comes forth in the beginning of the Parliament which was held in the year 1572 intituled by the name of an Admonition in which complaint was made of their many grievances together with a Declaration of the onely way to redress the same which they conceived to be no other then the setling of the Genevian Platform in all parts of the Kingdom But the Parliament was so little pleased with the Title and so much displeased with the matter of the Admonition that the Authors and Preferrers of it were imprisoned by them But this imprisonment could lay no Fetters on their spirits which grew the more exasperated because so restrained For towards the end of the Parliament out comes the second Admonition far more importunate then the first and it comes out with such a flash of Lightning and such claps of Thunder as if Heaven and Earth were presently to have met together In the first he had amassed together all those several Arguments which either his reading could afford or his wit suggest or any of that party could excogitate for him against the Government of Bishops the whole body of the English Liturgie and almost all the particular Offices in the same contained And in the second he not onely justified whatsoever had been found in the first but challenged the Parliament for not giving it a more gratious welcome For there he tells them in plain terms That the State did not shew it self upright alledge the Parliament what it will That all honest men should finde lack of equity and all good Consciences condemn that Court That it should be easier for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of Iudgement then for such a Parliament That there is no other thing to be looked for then some speedy vengeance to light upon the whole Land let the Politick Mâ—chiavils of England provide as well as they can though God do his worst And finally that if they of that Assembly would not follow the advice of the first Admonition they would infallibly be thâ—ir own carvers in it the Church being bound to keep Gods Ordeâ— and nothing to be called Gods Order but their present Platform 3. About this time Clark Travers Gardiner Barber Cheston and lastly Crook and Egerton joyned themselves to the Brotherhood Amongst whom the handling of such points as concerned the Discipline became very frequent many motions being made and some conclusions setled in pursuance of it but more particularly it was resolved upon the question That for as much as divers Books had been written and sundry Petitions exhibited to her Majesty the Parliament and their Lordships to little purpose every man should therefore labour by all means possible to bring the Reformation into the Church It was also then and there resolved That for the better bringing in of the said holy Discipline they should not onely as well publickly as privately teach it but by little and little as well as possibly they might draw the same into practice According to which Resolution a Presbytery was erected on the 20 of November at a small Village in Surrey called Wandsworth where Field had the Incumbencie or cure of Souls a place conveniently scituate for the London-Brethren as standing near the bank of the Thames but four miles from the City and more retired and out of sight then any of their own Churches about the Town This first Establishment they indorsed by the name of the Orders of Wandsworth In which the Elders names are agreed on the manner of the Election declared the approvers of them mentioned their Offices agreed on also and described And though the Queen might have no notice of this first
the same Arts which they brought hither with them Such welcome Guests must needs have some Encouragement to remain here always And what Encouragement could be greater and more welcome to them then to enjoy the liberty of their own Religion according to such Government and Forms of Worship as they had exercised at home King Edward had indulged the like priviledges to Iohn Alasco and Queen Elizabeth to the French neither of which were so considerable as the Flemish Inmates A suit is therefore made by their Friends in Court for granting them the Church of Augustine-Fryers where Iohn Alasco formerly held his Dutch Congregation and granting it with all such Priviledges and Immunitiâ—s as the Dutch enjoyed And that they might proceed in setting up their Presbyteries and new Forms of Worship they obtain not onely a Connivance or Toleration but a plain Approbation of their actings in it For in the Letters which confirmed this new Church unto them it is expresly signified by the Lords of the Council That they knew well that from the first beginning of the Christian Faith different Rites and Ceremonies had been used in some parts thereof which were not practised in the other That whilst some Christians worshipped God upon their knees others erect upon their feet and some again groveling on the ground there was amongst them all but one and the same Religion as long as the whole action tended to the honor of God and that there was no Superstition and Impiety in it That they contemned not the Rites which these Dutch brought with them nor purposed to compel them to the practice of those which were used in England but that they did approve and allow their Ceremonies as sitted and accommodated to the nature of the Countrey from whence they came Which priviledges they enlarged bâ— their Letter of the 29 of Iune in the year next following An. 1574 extending them to all such of the Belgick Provinces as reâ—orted hither and joyned themselves unto that Church thâ—ugh otherwise dispersed in several parts and Sea-Towns for their own conveniences which gave the first beginning to the nâ—w Dutch Churches in Canterbury Sandwich Yarmouth Norwich and some other places in the North to the great animation or the Presbyters and the discomfort of all such who were of judgement to foresee the sad consequents of it 8. With like felicity they drove on their designs in Iersey and Guernsey in the two principal Towns whereof the Discipline had been permitted by an Order of the Lords of the Council as before was said But not content with that allowance which the Lords had given them by His Majesties great grace and favour their Preachers being for the most part natural Frenchmen had introduced it by degrees into all the Villages furthered therein by the Sacrilegious Avarice of the several Governors out of a hope to have the spoil of the poor Deanries to ingross all the Tythes unto themselves and then put off the Ministers with some sorry stipends as in fine they did But first those Islands were to be dissevered by some Act of State from being 〈◊〉 longer Members of the Diocess or subject to the Juriâ—â—iction of the Bishops of Constance And that being easily obtained it was thought fit that Snape and Cartwright the great Supporters of the cause in England should be sent unto them to put their Churches in a posture and settle the Discipline amongst them in such form and manner as it was practised in Geneva and amongst the French Which fell out happily for Cartwright as his case stood who being worsted in the last Encounter betwixt him and Whitgift had now a handsome opportunity to go off with credit not as if worsted in the fight but rather called away to another tryal Upon thâ—s Invitation they set sail for the Islands and take the charge thereof upon them the one of them being made the titular Pastor of the Castle of Mount-Orgueil in the Isle of Iersey and the other of Castle-Cornet in the Rode of Guernsey Thus qualified they convene the Churches of each Island communicate unto them a rude Draught of the Holy Discipline which afterwards was polished and accommodated to the use of those Islands but not agreed upon and exercised until the year next following as appears by the Title of it which is this viz. The Ecclesiastical Discipline observed and practised by the Churches of Jersey and Guernsey after the Reformation of the same by the Ministers Elders and Deacons of the Isles of Guernsey Jersey Sark and Alderney confirmed by the Authority and in the presence of the Governors of the same Isles in a Synod holden in Guernsey the 28 of June 1576 and afterwards revived by the said Ministers and Elders and confirmed by the said Governors in a Synod holden in Jersey the 11 12 13 14 15 and 17 days of October 1577. 9. With worse success but less diligence did Travers labour in the cause who being one of the same spirit published a book in maintenance of the Holy Discipline which he caused to be printed at Geneva and was thus intituled viz. Ecclesiasticae Disciplinae Anglicanae Ecclesiae ab illa aberrationis plena e verbo Dei Dilucida Explicatio that is to say A full and perfect Explication of Ecclesiastical Discipline according to the Word â—f God and of the Church of Englands departing from it In which book he advanced the Discipline to so great a height as made it necessary for all Christian Kings and Princes to submit unto it and lay down their Crowns and Scepters at the Churches feet even to the very licking up of the dust thereof if occasion were But Travers sojourned in Geneva when he wrote this book and was to frame it to the palate of Beza and the rest of that Confistory who had by this time made the Discipline as essenâ—ial to the true being of a Church as either the Preaching of the Word or the Administration of the holy Sacraments Beza had so declared it in a Letter to Knox An. 1572. In which he reckons it as a great and signal blessing from Almighty God that they had introduced in Scotland not onely the true Worship of God but the Discipline also which was the best Preservative of the truth of Doctrine Which therefore he desires him so to keep together as to be sure that if the one be lost that is laid aside the other is not like to continue long And Cartwright leading in the same path also heightned it above all which had gone before or that followed after him Some of the Brethren have extolled it to the very Skies as being the onely Bond of Peace the Bane of Heresie the Punisher of Sin and maintainer of Righteousness A Discipline full of all goodness for the peace and honour of Gods people ordained for the joy and happiness of all the Nations But Cartwright sets them such a leap as they durst not reach at not onely telling us in
the honor to themselves To which end Heywood Parsons and Campian first set foot in England and both by secret practices and printed Pamphlets endeavoured to withdraw the Subjects from their due obedience Nothing more ordinary in their mouths or upon their pens then that the Crown belonged of right to the Queen of Scots That Elizabeth was to be deprived That if the Pope commanded one thing and the Queen another the Popes commands were to be obeyed and not the Queens And in a word That all the Subjects were absolued from their Allegiance and might declare as much when they found it necessary Which that it might be done with the greater safety Pope Gregory the XIII is desired to make an Explication of the former Bull. By which it should be signified to the English Catholicks that the said former Bull of Pope Pius V should remain obligatory unto none but the Hereticks onely but that the Romish Catholicks should not be bound by it as the case then stood till they should find themselves in a fit capacity to put the same in execution without fear of danger And presently upon their first entrance a Book is published by one Howlet containing many reasons for deterring the Papists from joyning in any Act of Worship with the English Protestants the going or not going to Church being from henceforth made a sign distinctive as they commonly phrased it In this year also Beza published his Schismatical Pamphlet intituled De triplici Episcopatu of which see Lib. 1. numb 47. Lib. 5. numb 40. first written at the request of Knox and other of the Presbyterians of the Kirk of Scotland that they might have the better colour to destroy Episcopacy translated afterwards into English for the self-same reason by Field of Wandsworth Against this Book Dr. Iohn Bridges Dean of Sarum writ a large Discourse intituled A Defence of the Government established in the Church of England not published till the year 1587 when the Authority thereof was most highly stood on The like done afterward by Dr. Hadrian Savavia of which we shall speak more in its proper place 23. And now the waters are so troubled that Cartwright might presume of gainful fishing at his coming home Who having settled the Presbytery in Iersey and Guernsey first sends back Snape to his old Lecture at Northampton there to pursue such Orders and Directions as they had agreed on and afterwards put himself into the Factory of Antwerp and was soon chosen for their Preacher The news whereof brings Travers to him who receives Ordination if I may so call it by the Presbytery of that City and thereupon is made his Partner in that charge It was no hard matter for them to perswade the Merchants to admit that Discipline which in their turns might make them capable of voting in the Publick Consistory And they endeavoured it the rather that by their help they might effect the like in the City of London whensoever they should find the times to be ready for them The like they did also in the English Church at Middleborough the chief Town in Zealand in which many English Merchants had their constant residence To which two places they drew over many of the English Nation to receive admission to the Ministery in a different Form from that which was allowed in the Church of England Some of which following the example of Cartwright himself renounced the Orders which they had from the hands of the Bishops and took a new Vocation from these Presbyters as Fennor Arton c. and others there admitted to the rank of Ministers which never were ordained in England as Hart Guisin c. not to say any thing of such as were elected to be Elders or Deacons in those Forreign Consistories that they might serve the Churches in the same capacity at their coming home And now at last they are for England where Travers puts himself into the service of the Lord Treasurer Burleigh by whose Recommendation he is chosen Lecturer of the Temple Church which gave him opportunity for managing all affairs which concerned the Discipline with the London-Ministers Cartwright applies himself to the Earl of Leicester by whom he is sent down to Warwick and afterwards made Master of an Hospital of his Foundation In the chief Church of which Town he was pleased to preach as often as he could dispense with his other business At his admission to which place he faithfully promised if he might be but tolerated to Preach not to impugne the Laws Orders Policy Government nor Governours in this Church of England but to perswade and procure so much as he could both publickly and privately the estimation and peace of this Church 24. But scarce was he setled in the place when he made it manifest by all his actions how little care he took of his words and promises for so it was when any Minister either in private Conferences or by way of Letters required his advice in any thing which concerned the Church he plainly shewed his mislike of the Ecclesiastical Government then by Law Established and excepted against divers parts of the Publick Liturgie according to the Tenour of the two Admonitions by him formerly published By means whereof he prevailed with many who had before observed the Orders of the Common-prayer-book now plainly to neglect the same and to oppose themselves against the Government of Bishops as far as they might do it safely in relation to the present times And that he might not press those points to others which he durst not practice in himself he many times inveighed against them in his Prayers and Sermons The like he also did against many pâ—ssages in the Publick Liturgie as namely The use of the Surplice the Interrogatories to God-fathers in the name of Infants the Cross in Baptism the Ring in Marriage the Thanksgiving after Child-birth Burials by Ministers the kneeling at Communions some points of the Litany certain Collects and Prayers the reading of Portions of Scripture for the Epistle and Gospel and the manner of singing in Cathedral Churches And for example unto others he procured his Wife not to give thanks for her Delivery from the peril of Childbirth after such Form and in such place and manner as the Church required Which as it drew on many other women to the like contempt so might he have prevailed upon many more if he had not once discoursed upon matters of Childbirth with such in discretion that some of the good Wives of Warwick were almost at the point to stone him as he walked the streets But that he might not seem to pull down more with one hand then he would be thought sufficiently able to build up with both he highly magnified in some of his Sermons the Government of the Church by Elderships in each Congregation and by more Publick Conferences in Classical and Synodical Meetings which he commended for the onely lawful Church-Government as being of Divine Institution and ordained by
Christ. A Form whereof he had drawn up in a little Book Which having past the approbation of some private Friends was afterwards recommended to the use of the rest of the brethren assembled together by his means for such ends and purposes by whom it was allowed of as most fit to be put in practice For being a new nothing and of Cartwrights doing it could not but finde many besides Women and Children to admire the Workmanship 25. This was the sum of Cartwrights Actings in order to the Innovations both in Government and Forms of Worship which heretofore he had projected Not that all this was done at once or in the first year onely after his return but by degrâ—â—s as opportunity was offered to him Yet so far he prevailed in the first year onely that a meeting of sixty Ministers out of the Counties of Essex Cambridge and Norfolk was held at a Village called Corkâ—il where Knewstubs who was one of their number had the cure of Souls Which Meeting was held May 8. Anno 158â— there to coâ—fer about some passages in the Common prayer-book what might be tolerated in the same and what â—eâ—used as namely Apparel Matter Form Holy-days Fastings Injunctions c. The like Meeting held at the Commencement in Cambridge then next ensuing And what they did resolve in both may be gathered partly from a passage in the Preface to a Book published in the year next following by William Reynods before mentioned In which he tells us That it had been appointed by the first Book of Common prayer That the Minister in the time of his Ministration should use such Ornaments in the â—hurch as were in use by Authority of Parliament in the second year of the Reign of King Edward the Sixth And then saith he I appeal to the knowledge of every man how well that Act of Parliament is observed throughout the Realm in how many Cathedrals or Parishâ—Churches those Ornaments are reserved Whether every private Minister by his own Authority in the time of his Ministration disdain not such Ornaments using onely such Apparel as is most vulgar and prophane to omit other particular differences of Facts of Holy-days crossing in Baptism the visitation of the Sick c. In which their alterations are well known saith he by their daily practice and by the differences betwixt some Common prayer books which were last Printed as namely that of Richard Jugg before remembred from those which were first published by Supreme Authority In all which deviations from the Rule of the Church the Brethren walked on more securely because the State was wholly exercised at this time in executing the severity of the late Statute on such Priests and Jesuits as laboured to pervert the Subjects and destroy the Queen thereby to re-advance the Pope to his former Tyranny In which respect it was conceived to be a good Rule in the School of Policy to grant a little more liberty to the Puritan Faction though possibly it were done on no other score then that of their notorious enmity to the Popish party 26. About this time it also was that by the practices of Cartwright and his adherents their Followers began to be distinguished by their names and titles from the rest of the people First in relation to their Titles Thus those of his Faction must be called the Godly the Elect the Righteous all others being looked upon as carnal Gospellers the Prophane the Wicked And next in reference to their names Their Children must not be Baptized by the names of their Ancestors as Richard Robert and the like but by some name occurring in the holy Scriptures but more particularly in the Old Testament because meerly Hebrew and not prophaned with any mixture of the Greek or Roman concerning which there goes a story that an Inhabitant of Northampton called Hodgkingson having a Childe to be Baptized repaired to Snape before mentioned to do it for him and he consented to the motion but with promise that he should give it some name allowed in Scripture The holy action being so far forwards that they were come to the naming of the Infant they named it Richard which was the name of his Grandfather by the Mothers side Upon this a stop was made nor would he be perswaded to Baptize the Childe unless the name of it were altered Which when the God-father refused to do the Childe was carried back unchristened It was agreed by him and Cartwright in the Book of Discipline which they imposed upon the Islands That the Minister in Baptizing Children should not admit of any such names as had been used in the time of Paganism the names of Idols and the like Which Rule though calculated like a common Almanack for the Meridian of those Islands onely was afterwards to be observed on the like occasions in all the Churches of Great Britain Such was their humour at that time but they fell shortly after on another Fancie For taking it for granted because they thought so that the English Tongue might be as proper and significanâ— as the holy Hebrew they gave such names unto their Children as many of them when they came to age were ashamed to own Out of which Forge came their Accepted Ashes Consolation Dust Deliverance Discipline Earth Freegift Fight-the good fight-of-faith From above Ioy-again Kill-sin More-fruit More-tryal Praiseâ—God Reformation Tribunal The-Lord-is-neer Thankful with many others of like nature which onely served to make the Sacrament of Baptism as contemptible as they had made themselves ridiculous by these new inventions 27. Some stop they had in their proceedings which might have terrified them at the present from adventuring further but that they were resolved to break through all difficulties and try the patience of the State to the very utmost The Queen had entertained a treaty of Marriage Anno 1581 with Francis Duke of Anjow the youngest Son of Henry the Second and the onely surviving brother of Henry the Third then Reigning in France For the negotiating whereof Monsieur Simier a most compleat Courtier was sent Ambassador from that King By whom the business was sollicited with such dexterity that the Match was generally conceived to be fully made The Puritans hereupon begin to clamour as if this Maâ—ch did aim at nothing but the reduction of Popery the destruction of Religion here by Law established But fearing more the total ruine of their hopes and projects then any other danger which could happen by it The Queen took care to tye the Duke to such conditions that he could hardly be permitted to hear Mass in his private Closet and had caused Campâ—an to be executed at his being here to let him see how little favour was to be expected by him for the Catholick party Yet all this would not satisfie the zealous Brethren who were resolved to free themselves from their own fears by what means soever First therefore it was so contrived that as Simere passed between Greenwich and London before
their Bishop to whom the planting of so many Dutch Churches in the principal City and other of the chief Towns of his Diocess had given trouble enough To the Petition of the Kentish Ministers which concerned himself he was required to answer at the Council-Table on the Sunday following Instead whereof he lays before them in the Letter That the Petitioners for the most part were ignorant and raw young men few of them licensed Preachers and generally disaffected to the present Government That he had spent the best part of two or three days in labouring to reduce them to a better understanding of the points in question but not being able to prevail he had no otherwise proceeded then the Law required That it was not for him to sit in that place if every Curate in his Diocess might be permitted so to use him nor possible for him to perform the Duty which the Queen expected at his hands if he might not proceed to the execution of that power by her Majesty committed to him without interruption That he could not be perswaded that their Lordships had any purpose to make him a party or to require him to come before them to defend those actions wherein he supposed that he had no other Iudge but the Queen her self and therefore in regard that he was called by God to that place and function wherein he was to be their Pastor he was the rather moved to desire their assistance in matters pertaining to his Office for the quietness of the Church the credit of Religion and the maintainance of the Laws in defence thereof without expecting any such attendance on them as they had required for fear of giving more advantage to those wayward persons then he conceived they did intend And thereunto he added this protestation That the three Articles whereunto they were moved to subscribe were such as he was ready by Learning to defend in manner and form as there set down against all opponents either in England or elsewhere 39. In reference to the paper of the Suffolk Ministers he returns this answer It seemeth something strange to me that the Ministers of Suffolk finding themselves agrieved with the doings of their Diocesans should leave the ordinary course of proceeding by the Law which is to appeal unto me and extraordinarily trouble your Lordships in a matter not so incident as I think to that honourable Board seeing it hath pleased her Majesty her own self in express words to commit these causes Ecclesiastical to me as to one who is to make answer unto God and her Majesty in this behalf my Office also and place requiring the same In answer unto their complaint touching their ordinary proceedings with them I have herewith sent your Lordships a Copy of a Letter lately received from his Lordship wherein I think that part of their Bill to be fully answered Touching the rest I know not what to judge of it but in some points it talketh as I think modestly and charitably They say they are no Iesuits sent from Rome to reconcile c. True it is neither are they charged to be so but notwithstanding they are contentious in the Church of England and by their contentions minister occasion of offence to those which are seduced by Jesuits and give the Sacraments against the form of publick Prayer used in this Church and by Law established and thereby increase the number of them and confirm them in their wilfulness They also make a Schism in the Church and draw many other of her Majesties Subjects to a misliking of her Laws and Government in Causes Ecclesiastical So far are they from perswading them to obedience or at the least if they perswade them to it in the one part of her Authority it is in Causes Civil they disswade them from it as much in the other that iâ— in Causes Ecclesiastical so that indeed they pluck down with the one hand that which they seem to build with the other 40. More of which Letter might be added were not this sufficient as well to shew how perfectly he understood both his place and power as with what courage and discretion he proceeded in the maintenance of it Which being observed by some great men about the Court who had ingaged themselves in the Puritan quarrels but were not willing to incur the Queens displeasure by their opposition it was thought best to stand a while behind the Curtain and set Beal upon him of whose impetuosity and edge against him they were well assured This Beal was in himself a most eager Puritan trained up by Walsingham to draw dry-foot after Priests and Jesuits his extream hatred to those men being looked on as the onely good quality which he could pretend to But being over-blinded by zeal and passion he was never able to distinguish rightly between truth and falshood between true Sanctity and the counterfeit appearance of it This made him first conceive that whatsoever was not Puritan must needs be Popish and that the Bishops were to be esteemed no otherwise then the sons of Antichrist because they were not looked upon as Fathers by the holy Brotherhood And so far was he hurried on by these dis-affections that though he was preferred to be one of the Clerks of the Council yet he preferred the interest of the Faction before that of the Queen Insomuch that he was noted to jeer and gibe at all such Sermons as did most commend Her Majesties Government and move the Auditory to obedience not sparing to accuse the Preachers upon such occasions to have broached false Doctrine and falsly to alledge the Scriptures in defence thereof This man had either writ or countenanced a sharp Discourse against Subscription inscribed to the Archbishop and presented to him and thereupon caused speeches to be cast abroad that the three Articles to which Subscription was required should shortly be revoked by an Act of the Council which much encreased the obstinacy of the self-willed Brethren But after fearing lest the Queen might have a sight of the Papers he resolved to get them out of his hands and thereupon went over to Lambeth where he behaved himself in such a rude and violent manner as forced the Archbishop to give an acconnt thereof by Letter to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh who hitherto had stood fair towards him in these following words 41. I have born saith he with Mr. Beals intemperate speeches unseemly for him to use though not in respect of my self yet in respect of Her Majestie whom he serveth and of the Laws established whereunto he ought to shâ—w some duty Yesterday he came to my house as it seems to demand the Book he delivered unto me I told him That the book was written unto me and therefore no reason why he should require it again especially seeing I was assured that he had a Copy thereof otherwise I would cause it to be written out for him Whereupon he fell into very great passions with me which I think
London-Brethren became forthwith bindiâ—g to the rest none being admitted into any of the aforesaid Classes before he hath promised under his hand That he would submit himself and be obedient unto all such Orders and Decrees as are set down by the Classis to be observed At these Classes they enquired into the Life and Doctrine of all that had subscribed unto them censuring some deposing others as they saw occasion in nothing more severe than in censuring those who had formerly used the Cross in Baptism or otherwise had been conâ—ormable to the Rules of the Church And unto every Classis there belonged a Register who took the Heads of all that passed and saw them carefully entred in a Book for that purpose that they might remain upon Record 22. It may seem strange that in a constituted Church backed by Authority of Law and countenanced by the Favour of the Supreme Magistrate a distinct Government or Discipline should be put in practise in contempt of both but more that they should deal in such weighty matters as were destructive of the Government by Law established Some Questions had before been started at a Meeting in Cambridg the final decision whereof was thought fit to be referred to the Classis of Warwick where Cartwright governed as the perpetual Moderator And they accordingly assembling on the tenth day of the fourth Month for so they phrased it did then and there determine in this manner follow That private Baptism is unlawful That it is not lawful to read Homilies in the Church and that the sign of the Cross is not to be used in Baptism That the Faithful ought not to communicate with unlearned Ministers although they may be present at their Service in case they come of purpose to hear a Sermon the reading of the Service being looked on as a Lay-man's Office That the Calling of Bishops c. is unlawful That as they deal in Causes Ecclesiastical there is no duty belonging to them nor any publickly to be given them That it is not lawful to be ordained by them into the Ministry or to denounce either Suspensions or Excommunications sent by their Authority that it is not lawful for any man to rest in the Bishop's deprivation of him from his Charge except upon consultation it seem good unto his Flock and the Neighbouring-Ministers but that he continue in the same until he be compelled to the contrary by Civil Force That it is not lawful to appear in a Bishop's Court but with a Protestation of their unlawfulness That Bishops are not to be acknowledged either for Doctors Elders or Deacons as having no ordinary Calling in the Church of Christ. That touching the restauration of the Ecclesiastical Discipline it ought to be taught to the people datâ occasione as occasion should serve and that as yet the people are not to be sollicited publickly to practise the Discipline till they be better instructed in the knowledg of it And finally That men of better understanding are to be allured privately to the present allowing the Discipline and the practise of it as far as they shall be well able with the Peace of the Church 23. But here we are to understand That this last Caution was subjoined in the close of all not that they had a care of the Church's Peace but that they were not of sufficient strength to disturb the same without drawing ruine on themselves which some of the more hot-headed Brethren were resolved to hazzard of which they had some loss this year by the Imprisonment of Barrow Greenwood Billet Boudler and Studley who building on their Principles and following the Example of Robert Brown before remembred had brake out into open Schism when their more cunning Brethren kept themselves within the Pale of the Church But these we only touch at now leaving the further prosecution of them to a fitter place Suffice it that their present sufferings did so little moderate the heats of some fiery spirits that they resolved to venture all for the Holy Discipline as appears by Pain 's Letter unto Feild Our zeal to Gods Glory saith he our love to his Church and the due planting of the same in this For-headed Age should be so warm and stirring in us as not to care what adventure we give or what censures we abide c. For otherwise the Diabolical boldness of the Iesuits and Seminaries will cover our faces with shame c. And then he adds It is verily more than time to register the Names of the fittest and hottest Brethren round about our several dwellings whereby to put the godly Counsel of Specanus in execution Note that Specanus was one of the first Presbyterian Ministers in the Belgick Churches that is to say Si quis objiciat c. If any man object That the setting up the lawful practise of the Discipline in the Church be hindred by the Civil Magistrate let the Magistrate be freely and modestly admonished of his duty in it and if he esteem to be accounted either a Godly or Christian Magistrate without doubt he will admit wholesome Counsels but if he do not yet let him be more exactly instructed that he may serve God in fear and lend his Authority in defence of God's Church and his Glory Marry if by this way there happen no good success then let the Ministers of the Church execute their Office according to the appointment of Christ for they must rather obey God than men In which last point saith Pain we have dolefully failed which now or never stands us in hand to prosecute with all celerity without lingring or staying so long for Parliaments But this Counsel of Paine being thought too rash in regard they could not find a sufficient number of Brethren to make good the Action it was thought fit to add the Caution above-mentioned The Hundred thousand Hands which they so much bragged of were not yet in readiness and therefore it was wisely ordered That as yet the whole multitude were not to be allured publickly to the practise of it until men were better instructed in the knowledg of so rare a Mystery Till when it could not be safe for them to advance their Discipline in the way of force 24. Now to prepare the people for the entertainment of so great a Change it was found necessary in the first place to return an Answer to some Books which had been written in defence of Episcopal Government and in the next to make the Bishops seem as odious and contemptible in the eyes of their Profelytes as Wit and Malice could devise Dr. Iohn Bridges Dean of Sarum and afterwards Bishop of Oxford published a Book in the year 1587 entâ—tuled A Defence of the Government of the Church of England intended chiefly against Beza but so that it might serve to satisfie all Doubts and Cavils which had been made against that Government by the English Puritans To which an Answer is returned by some zealous Brethren under the Name of A
wretched Popish priests and the Convocation-House of Devils and Belzebub of Canterbury the chief of these Devils The like Reproaches they bestow on the Common-Prayer of which they say That it is full of Corruption and that many of the Contents thereof are against the Word of God the Sacraments wickedly mangled and prophaned therein the Lord's Supper not eaten but made a Pageant or Stage-play and that the Form of publick Baptism is full of Childish Superstitious Toys So that we are not to admire if the Brownists please themselves in their separation from a Church so polluted and unreformed from men so wicked and prophane from such a Cinque of Satan such a Den of Devils But much less can we wonder that the Papists should make use of these horrible Slanders not only to confirm but encrease their Party By shewing them from the Pens of their greatest Adversaries what ugly Monsters had the Government of the Church of England from what Impieties they were preserved by not joyning with them One I am sure that is Parsons in his Book of Three Conversions reports these Calumnies and Slanders for undoubted Truths That Martin Mar-Prelate is affirmed by Sir Edwine Sandys to pass in those times for unquestion'd Credit in the Court of Rome his Authority much insisted on to disgrace this Church and finally that Kellison one of later date doth build as much upon the Credit of these Libels to defame the Clergy as if they had been dictated by the same Infallible Spirit which the Pope pretends to Such excellent Advantages did these Saints give unto the Devil that all the Locusts in the Revelation which came out of the Pit never created so much scandal to the Primitive times 28. To still these Clamours or at the least to stop the mouths of these Railing Rabshecha's that so the abused people on all sides might be undeceived as good a course was took by Whitgift and the rest of the Prelates as Human Wisdom could devise For first A grave Discourse is published in the year next following entituled An Admonition to the People of England in answer to the slanderous Untruths of Martin the Libeller But neither this nor any other grave Refutal would ever put them unto silence till they were undertaken by Tom Nash a man of a Sarcastical and jeering Wit who by some Pamphlets written in the like loose way which he called Pasquill and Marsorius The Counter-Scuffle Pappe with a Hatchet and the like stopped their mouths for ever none of them daring to deal further in that Commodity when they saw what Coyn they should be paid in by so frank a Customer Mention was made before of a sorry Pamphlet entituled The Complaint of the Commons for a Preaching-Ministry which Penry seconded by another called by the Name of A Supplication for Preaching in Wales In both which it was intimated to all sorts of people That the Gospel had no free passage amongst us That there was no care taken for Preaching the Word of God for the instruction of the people for want whereof they still remained in darkness and the shadow of death For the decrying of which scandalous and leud suggestions Order was given unto the Bishops to take the Names and Number of the Preachers in their several Diocesses and to present a true and perfect Catalogue of them in the Convocation which was then at hand By which Returns it will appear That at this time when so much noise was made for want of Preaching there were within the Realm of England and the Dominion of Wales no fewer than Seven thousand four hundred sixty three Preachers and Catechisers which last may be accounted the best sort of Preachers for the instruction of the people Of which great Number there were found to be no fewer than One hundred forty five Doctors in Divinity Three hundred forty eight Batchellors of Divinity Thirty one Doctors of both Laws Twenty one Batchelors of the same Eighteen hundred Masters in Arts Nine hundred forty six Batchelors of Arts and Two thousand seven hundred forty six Catechisers So that neither the number of bare Reading-Ministers was so great nor the want of Preaching so deplorable in most parts of the Kingdom as those Pamphlets made it the Authors whereof ought rather to have magnified the Name of God for sending such a large Encrease of Labourers in his Heavenly Husbandry as could not any where be parallel'd in so short a time there passing no more than Thirty years between the first beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign and the rendring of this Account to the Convocation 29. And that the Parliament might receive the same satisfaction a most excellent and judicious Sermon was Preached at St. Paul's Cross on Sunday the ninth of February being the first Sunday after their Assembling by Dr. Richard Bancroft being then Chaplain to the Lord Chancellor Hatton preferred within some few years after to the See of London and from thence to Canterbury In the performance of which Service he selected for the Theam or Subject of his Discourse 1 Iohn 4.1 viz. Dearly beloved believe not every spirit but try the spirits whether they be of God for many false prophets are gone out into the world In canvasing which Text he did so excellently set forth the false Teachers of those times in their proper colours their Railing against Bishops their Ambition their Self-love their Covetousness and all such Motives as had spurred them on to disturb this Church as satisfied the greatest part of that huge Congregation touching the Practises and Hypocrisies of these holy Brethren He also shewed on what a weak Foundation they had built their Discipline of which no tract or footsteps could be found in the Church of Christ from the Apostles days to Calvin and with what Infamy the Aerian Hereticks were reproached in the Primitive times for labouring to introduce that Parity which these men designed He further laid before them the great danger which must needs ensue if private men should take upon them to deny or dispute such matters as had been setled in the Church by so good Authority Against which troublesome Humour many Provisions had been made by the Canons of Councils and the Edicts of Godly and Religious Emperors To which he added the necessity of requiring Subscription in a Church well constituted by all the Ministers of the same which he justified by the example of Geneva and the Churches of Germauy to be the best way to try the spirits whether they be of God or not as his Text required Next he insisted on the excellency of the Common-Prayer-Book applauded by the Divines of Foreign Churches approved by Bucer Fox Alesius the Parliaments and Convocations of this Kingdom and after justified by Arch-bishop Cranmer against the Papists by Bishop Ridley against Knox and by divers others showing withall the many gross Absurdities found in extemporary Prayers to the great dishonour of God and the shame of Religion Hence he proceeds to justifie
the Superiority of Bishops and the Supremacy of the Queen together with the dangerous Practises and Designs of the Disciplinarians exemplified by their Proceedings in Scotland and their Positions in England of which more anon All which particulars with many more upon the by he proved with such evidence of demonstration such great variety of Learning and strength of Arguments that none of all that Party could be found to take Arms against them in defence either of their leud Doctrine or more scandalous Vses And this being done he closed up all with a grave and serious Application in reference to the prevalency and malignity of the present Humours which wrought so much upon his Auditors of both Houses of Parliament that in the passing of a general Pardon at the end of the Sessions there was Exception of Seditious Books Disturbances of Divine Service and Offences against the Act of Vniformity in the Worship of God 30. And yet it is not altogether improbable but that this Exception was made rather at the Queen's Command or by some Caveat interposed by the House of Peers than by the sole Advice or any voluntary Motion of the House of Commons in which the Puritans at that time had a very strong Party By whose Endeavour a smart Petition is presented to the Lords in the Name of the Commons for rectifying of many things which they conceived to be amiss in the state of the Church The whole Petition did consist of Sixteen particulars of which the first Six did relate to a Preaching-Ministry the want of which was much complained of in a Supplication which had been lately Printed and presented to them but such a Supplication as had more in it of a Factious and Seditious Libel than of a Dutiful Remonstrance In the other Ten it was desired 1. That no Oath or Subscription might be tendred to any at their entrance into the Ministry but such as was prescribed by the Statutes of the Realm and the Oath against corrupt Entring 2. That they may not be troubled for omission of some Rites or Offices prescribed in the Book of Common-Prayer 3. That such as had been suspended or deprived for no other offence but only for not subscribing might be restored 4. That they may not be called and urged to answer before the Officials and Commissaries but before the Bishops themselves 5. That they might not be called into the High Commission or Moot of the Diocess where they lived except for some notable Offence 6. That it might be permitted to them in every Arch-Deaconry to have some common Exercises and Conferences amongst themselves to be limited and prescribed by the Ordinaries 7. That the high Censure of Excommunication may not be denounced or executed for small matters 8. Nor by Chancellors Commissioners or Officials but by the Bishops themselves with the assistance of grave persons 9. That Non-residency may be quite removed out of the Church Or 10. That at least according to the Queen's Injunctions Art 44. no Non-resident having already a License or Faculty may enjoy it unless he depute an able Curate that may weekly Preach and Catechise as was required by Her Majesty in the said Injunctions Against the violence of this Torrent Arch-bishop Whitgift interposed both his Power and Reason affirming with a sober confidence in the H. of Peers not only that England flourished more at that time with able Ministers than ever it had done before but that it had more able men of eminent Abilities in all parts of Learning than the rest of Christendom besides But finding that the Lord Gray and others of that House had been made of the Party he drew the rest of the Bishops to joyn with him in an humble Address to Her Sacred Majesty in which they represented to Her the true estate of the Business together with those many Inconveniences which must needs arise to the State present and to come to the Two Universities to all Cathedral Churches and the Queen Her Self if the Commons might have had their will though in no other Point than in that of Pluralities All which they prest with such a Dutiful and Religious Gravity that the Queen put an end to that Dispute not only for the present but all Parliaments following 31. Somewhat there must be in it which might make them so afraid of that Subscription which was required at their hands to the Queen's Supremacy as well as to the Consecration of Arch-bishops and Bishops to the Liturgy and to the Articles of Religion by Law established and therefore it will not be amiss as we have done already in all places else to touch upon the Principles and Positions of our English Puritans that we may see what Harmony and Consent there is betwixt them and their dear Brethren of the Discipline in other Nations For if we look into the Pamphlets which came out this Year we shall find these Doctrines taught for more Sacred Truths viz. That if Princes do hinder them that seek for this Discipline they are Tyrants both to the Church and Ministers and being so may be deposed by their Subjects That no Civil Magistrate hath pre-eminence by ordinary Authority either to determine of Church-Causes or to make Ecclesiastical Orders and Ceremonies That no Civil Magistrate hath such Authority as that without his consent it should not be lawful for Ecclesiastical persons to make and publish Church-Orders That they which are no Elders of the Church have nothing to do with the Government of it That if their Reformation be not hastned forward by the Magistrate the Subjects ought not any longer to tarry for it but must do it themselves That there were many thousands which desired the Discipline And That great Troubles would ensue if it were denied them That their Presbyteries must prevail And That if it be brought about by such ways and means as would make the Bishops hearts to ake let them blame themselves For explication of which last passage Martin Mar-Prelate in his first Book threatens only fists but in the second he adviseth the Parliament then assembled to put down Lord Bishops and bring in the Reformation which they looked for whether Her Majesty would or not 32. But these perhaps were only the Evaporations of some idle Heads the Freaks of Discontent and Passion when they were crossed in their Desires Let us see therefore what is taught by Thomas Cartwright the very Calvin of the English as highly magnified by Martin and the rest of that Faction as the other was amongst the French Dr. Harding in his Answer to Bishop Iewel assures us That the Office of a King is the same in all places not only amongst Christians but amongst the Heathen Upon which Premises he concludes That a Christian Prince hath no more to do in deciding of Church-matters or in making Ceremonies and Orders for the same than hath a Heathen Cartwright affirms himself to be of the same opinion professing seriously his dislike of all such Writers
as put a difference between the Rights of a Prophane and a Christian Magistrate Specanus a stiff Presbyterian in the Belgick Provinces makes a distinction between potestas Facti and potestas Iuris and then infers upon the same That the Authority of determining what is fit to be done belongs of right unto the Ministers of the Church though the execution of the Fact in Civil Causes doth properly appertain to the Supreme Magistrate And more than this the greatest Clerks amongst themselves would not give the Queen If she assume unto Her self the exercise of Her farther Power in ordering Matters of the Church according to the lawful Authority which is inherent in the Crown She shall presently be compared unto all the wicked Kings and others of whom we read in the Scriptures that took upon them unlawfully to intrude themselves into the Priest's Office as unto Saul for his offering of Sacrifice unto Osias for burning Incense upon the Altar unto Gideon for making of an Ephod and finally to Nadab and Abihu for offering with strange fire unto the Lord. 33. According to these Orthodox and sound Resolves they hold a Synod in St. Iohn's Colledg in Cambridg taking the opportunity of Sturbridg-Fayr to cloak their meeting for that purpose At which Synod Cartwright and Perkins being present amongst the rest the whole Book-Discipline reviewed by Traverse and formally approved of by the Brethren in their several Classes received a more Authentick approbation insomuch that first it was decreed amongst them That all which would might subscribe unto it without any necessity imposed upon them so to do But not long after it was made a matter necessary so necessary as it seems that no man could be chosen to any Ecclesiastical Office amongst them nor to be of any of their Assemblies either Classical Provincial or National till he had first subscribed to the Book of Discipline Another Synod was held at Ipswich not long after and the Results of both confirmed in a Provincial and National Synod held in London which gave the Book of Discipline a more sure establishment than an Act of State It is reported that the night before the great Battel in the Fields of Thessaly betwixt Caesar and Pompey the Pompeyan Party was so confident of their good success that they cast Dice amongst themselves for all the great Offices and Magistracies of the City of Rome even to the Office of the Chief-Priest-hood which then Caesar held And the like vanity or infatuation had possessed these men in the opinion which they had of their Strength and Numbers Insomuch that they entred into this consideration how Arch-Bishops Bishops Chancellors Deans Cannons Arch-Deacons Commissaries Registers Apparitors c. all which by their pretended Reformation must have been thrust out of their Livings should be provided for that the Commonwealth might not be thereby pestered with Beggars And this they did upon the confidence of some unlawful Assistance to effect their purposes if neither the Queen nor the Lords of the Council nor the Inferior Magistrates in their several Counties all which they now sollicited with more heat than ever should co-operate with them For about this time it was that Cartwright in his Prayer before his Sermon was noted to have used these words viz. Because they meaning the Bishops which ought to be Pillars in the Church combine themselves against Christ and his Truth therefore O Lord give us Grace and Power all as one man to set our selves against them Which words he used frequently to repeat and to repeat with such an earnestness of spirit as might sufficiently declare that he had a purpose to raise Sedition in the State for the imposing of that Discipline on the Church of England which was not likely to be countenanced by any lawful Authority which put the Queen to a necessity of calling him and all the rest of them to a better account to which they shall be brought in the years next following 33. In the mean time we must pass over into France where we find HENRY the Third the last King of the House of Valoise most miserably deprived of his Life and Kingdom driven out of Paris first by the Guisian Faction and afterwards assassinated by Iaques Clement a Dominican Fryar as he lay at St. Cloud attending the reduction of that stubborn City Upon whose death the Crown descended lineally on HENRY of Bourbon King of Navarre and Duke of Vendosme as the next Heir-male For the excluding of which Prince and the rest of that House the Holy League was first contrived as before is said There was at that time in the late King's Army a very strong Party of French Catholicks who had preferred their Loyalty to their Natural Prince before the private Interest and Designs of the House of Guise and now generally declare in favour of the true Successor By their Assistance and the concurring-Forces of the Hugonot-Faction it had been no hard matter for him to have Mastered the Duke of Maine who then had the Command of the Guisian Leagues But in the last he found himself deceived of his expectation The Hugonots which formerly had served with so much cheerfulness under his Command their King would not now serve him in his just and lawful Warrs against his Enemies Or if they did it shall be done upon Conditions so intolerable that he might better have pawned his Crown to a Forreign Prince than on such terms to buy the favour of his Subjects They looked upon him as reduced to a great necessity most of the Provinces and almost all the Principal Cities having before engaged against HENRY the Third and many others falling off when they heard of his death So that they thought the new King was not able to subsist without them and they resolved to work their own Ends out of that Necessity Instead of leading of their Armies and running cheerfully and couragiously towards his defence who had so oft defended them they sent Commissioners or Delegates to negotiate with him that they may know to what Conditions he would yeeld for their future advantage before they acted any thing in order to his preservation and their Conditions were so high so void of all Respects of Loyalty and even common Honesty that he conceived it safer for him and far more honourable in it self to cast himself upon the Favour of the Queen of England than condescend to their unreasonable and unjust demands So that in fine the Hugonots to a very great number forsook him most disloyally in the open Field drew off their Forces and retired to their several dwellings inforcing him to the necessity of imploring succours from the professed Enemies of his Crown and Nation Nor did he find the Queen unwilling to supply him both with Men and Money on his first desires For which She had better reason now than when She aided him and the rest of the French Hugonots in their former Quarrels And this She did with such a cheerful
to go off with credit he prepares for Ireland But long he had not dwelt on his new Preferment when either he proved too hot for the Place or the Countrey by reason of the following Warrs grew too hot for him Which brought him back again to England where he lived to a very great age in a small Estate more comfortably than before because less troublesome to the Church than he had been formerly 18. Thus have we seen Travers taken off and Beza quieted nor was it long before Cartwright was reduced to a better temper But first it was resolved to try all means for his delivery both at home and abroad Abroad they held intelligence with their Brethren in the Kirk of Scotland by means of Penry here and of Gibson there two men as fit for their Designs as if they had been made of purpose to promote the Mischief Concerning which thus Gibson writes in one of his Letters to Coppinger before remembred whereby it seems that he was privy to his practices also The best of our Ministers saith he are most careful of your estate and had sent for that effect a Preacher of ours the last Summer of purpose to confer with the best affected of your Church to lay down a plot how our Church might best travel for your relief The Lord knows what care we have of you both in our publick and private Prayers c. For as feeling-members of one body we reckon the affliction of your Church to be our own This showed how great they were with child of some good Affections but there wanted strength to be delivered of the Burthen They were not able to raise Factions in the Court of England as Queen ELIZABETH had done frequently on their occasions in the Realm of Scotland All they could do was to engage the King in mediating with the Queen in behalf of Cartwright Vdal and some others of the principal Brethren then kept in Prison for their contumacy in refusing the Oath And they prevailed so far upon Him who was not then in a condition to deny them any thing as to direct some Lines unto Her in this tenour following 19. RIght Excellent High and Mighty Princess Our dearest Sister and Cousin in Our heartiest manner We recommend Us unto You. Hearing of the Apprehension of Master Vdal and Master Cartwright and certain other Ministers of the Evangel within Your Realm of whose good Erudition and Faithful Travels in the Church We hear a very credible commendation however that their diversity from the Bishops and other of Your Clergy in matters touching their Conscience hath been a mean by their delation to work them your misliking at this time We cannot weighing the Duty which We owe to such as are afflicted for their Conscience in that Profession but by Our most effectuous and earnest Letter interpone Us at Your Hands to stay any harder usage of them for that cause Requesting You most earnestly That for Our Cause and Intercession it may please You to let them be relieved of their present Strait and whatsoever further Accusation or Pursuit depending upon that ground respecting both their former Merit in setting forth the Evangel the simplicity of their Conscience in this Defence which cannot well be their Lett by Compulsion and the great slander which would not fail to fall out upon their further straitning for any such occasion Which We assure Us Your Zeal to Religion besides the expectation We have of Your good will to pleasure Us will willingly accord to Our Request having such proofs from time to time of Our like disposition to You in any matter which You recommend unto Us. And thus Right Excellent Right High and Mighty Princess Our dear Sister and Cousin We commit You to God's Protection Edenborough Iune 12. 1591. 20. This Letter was presented to the Queen by the hands of one Iohnson a Merchant of that Nation then remaining in London But it produced not the Effect which the Brethren hoped for For the Queen looked upon it as extorted rather by the importunity of some which were then about Him than as proceeding from Himself who had no reason to be too indulgent unto those of that Faction This Project therefore not succeeding they must try another and the next tryal shall be made on the High Commission by the Authority whereof Cartwright and Snape and divers others were committed Prisoners If this Commission could be weakned and the Power thereof reduced to a narrower compass the Brethren might proceed securely in the Holy Discipline the Prisoners be released and the Cause established And for the questioning thereof they took this occasion One Caudreys Parson of North-Luffengham in the County of Rutland had been informed against about four years since in the High Commission for preaching against the Book of Common-Prayer and refusing to celebrate Divine Service according to the Rules and Rubricks therein prescribed For which upon sufficient proof he was deprived of his Benefice by the Bishop of London and the rest of the Queen's Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes Four years together he lay quiet without acting any thing against the Sentence of the Court But now it was thought by some of those Lawyers whom Travers had gained unto the side to question the Authority of that Commission and consequently the illegality of his Deprivation In Hillary Term Anno 1591 the Cause was argued in the Exchequer Chamber by all the Judges according to the usual custom in all cases of the like importance and it was argued with great Learning as appears by the sum and substance of their several Arguments drawn up by Coke then being the Queen's Sollicitor-General and extant amongst the rest of his Reports both in English and Latin inscribed De Iure Regis Ecclesiastico but known most commonly by the name of Cawdrey's Case In the debating of which Point the Result was â—his That the Statute of 10 of the Queen for restoring to the Crown the ancient Iurisdiction c. was not to be accounted introductory of a new Authority which was not in the Crown before but only declaratory of an old which naturally and originally did belong to all Christian Princes and amongst others also to the Kings of England For proof whereof there wanted not sufficient evidence in our English Histories as well as in some old Records of unquestioned Credit exemplifying the continual practise of the Kings of England before and since the Norman Conquest in ordering and directing matters which concerned the Church In which they ruled sometimes absolutely without any dispute and sometimes relatively in reference to such opposition as they were to make against the Pope and all Authority derived from the See of Rome 21. Against this Case so solidly debated and so judiciously drawn up when none of the Puritan Professors could make any Reply Parsons the Iesuit undertook it but spent more time in searching out some contrary Evidence which might make for the Pope than in disproving that
which had been brought in behalf of the Queen So that the strugling on both sides much confirmed the Power which they endeavoured to destroy the Power of that Commission being better fortified both by Law and Argument than it had been formerly For by the over-ruling of Cawdrey's Case in confirmation of the Sentence which was past against him and the great pains which Parsons took to so little purpose the Power of that Commission was so well established in the Courts of Judicature that it was afterwards never troubled with the like Disputes The Guides of the Faction therefore are resolved on another course To strike directly at the Root to question the Episcopal Power and the Queen's Authority the Jurisdiction of their Courts the exacting of the Oath called the Oath Ex Officio and their other proceedings in the same And to this purpose it was published in Print by some of their Lawyers or by their directions at the least That men were heavily oppressed in the Ecclesiastical Courts against the Laws of the Realm That the Queen could neither delegate that Authority which was vested in it nor the Commissioners to exercise the same by her delegation That the said Courts could not compel the taking of the Oath called the Oath Ex Officio since no man could be bound in Reason to accuse himself That the said Oath did either draw men into wilful Perjury to the destruction of their souls or to be guilty in a manner of their own condemnation to the loss both of their Fame and Fortunes And finally That the ordinary Episcopal Courts were not to meddle in any Causes whatsoever but only Testamentary and Matrimonial by consequence not in matter of Tythes all Mis-behaviours in the Church or punishing of Incontinency or Fornication Adultery Incest or any the like grievous or enormous Crimes but on the contrary it was affirmed by the Professors of the Civil Laws That to impugn the Authority which had been vested in the Queen by Act of Parliament was nothing in effect but a plain Invasion of the Royal Prerogative the opening of a way to the violation of the Oath of Allegiance and consequently to undermine the whole Frame of the present Government It was proved also That the ordinary Episcopal Courts had kept themselves within their bounds that they might lawfully deal in all such Causes as were then handled in those Courts that their proceedings in the same by the Oath Ex Officio was neither against Conscience Reason nor the Laws of the Land and therefore that the Clamours on the other side were unjust and scandalous In which as many both Divines and Civilians deserved exceeding well both of the Queen and the Church so none more eminently than Dr. Richard Cosins Dean of the Arches in a Learned and Laborious Treatise by him writ and published called An Apology for Proceedings in Courts Ecclesiastical c. Printed in the year 1593. 22. But notwithstanding the Legality of these Proceedings the punishing of some Ring-leaders of the Puritan Faction and the Imprisonment of others a Book comes out under the name of A Petition to Her Majesty The scope and drift whereof was this That the Ecclesiastical Government of the Church of England was to be changed That the Eldership or Presbyterial Discipline was to be established as being the Government which was used in the Primitive Church and commanded to be used in all Ages That the Disciplinarian Faction hath not offended against the Statute 23 Eliz. cap. 2. And That Iohn Vdal was unjustly condemned upon it That the Consistorial Patrons are unjustly slandered with desire of Innovation and their Doctrine with Disorder and Disloyalty And this being said the Author of the Pamphlet makes it his chief business by certain Questions and Articles therein propounded to bring the whole Ecclesiastical State into envy and hatred This gave the Queen a full assurance of the restless Spirit wherewith the Faction was possessed and that no quiet was to be expected from them till they were utterly supprest To which end She gives Order for a Parliament to begin in February for the Enacting of some Laws to restrain those Insolencies with which the Patience of the State had been so long exercised The Puritans on the other side are not out of hope to make some good use of it for themselves presuming more upon the strength of their Party by reason of the Pragmaticalness of some Lawyers in the House of Commons than they had any just ground for as it after proved To which end they prepared some Bills sufficiently destructive of the Royal Interest the Jurisdiction of the Bishops and the whole Form of their Proceedings in their several Courts With which the Queen being made acquainted before their meeting or otherwise suspecting by their former practises what they meant to do She thought it best to strangle those Conceptions in the very Womb. And to that purpose She gave Order for the signification of Her Pleasure to the Lords and Commons at the very first opening of the Parliament That they should not pass beyond their bounds That they should keep themselves to the redressing of such Popular Grievances as were complained of to them in their several Countreys but that they should leave all Matters of State to Her self and the Council and all Matters which concerned the Church unto Her and Her Bishops 23. Which Declaration notwithstanding the Factors for the Puritans are resolved to try their Fortune and to encroach upon the Queen and the Church at once The Queen was always sensible of the Inconveniences which might arise upon the nominating of the next Successor and knew particularly how much the Needle of the Puritans Compass pointed toward the North Which made Her more tender in that Point than She had been formerly But Mr. Peter Wentworth whom before we spake of a great Zealot in behalf of the Holy Discipline had brought one Bromley to his lure and they together deliver a Petition to the Lord Keeper Puckering desiring that the Lords would joyn with them of the Lower-House and become Suppliants to the Queen for entailing of the Succession of the Crown according to a Bill which they had prepared At this the Queen was much displeased as being directly contrary to her strict Command and charged the Lords of the Council to call the said Gentlemen before them and to proceed against them for their disobedience Upon which signification of Her Majesty's Pleasure Sir Thomas Hennage then Vice-Chamberlain and one of the Lords of the Privy-Council convents the Parties reprehends them for their Misdemeanor commands them to forbear the Parliament and not to go out of their several Lodgings until further Order Being afterwards called before the Lord Treasurer Burleigh the Lord Buckhurst and the said Sir Thomas Wentworth is sent unto the Tower Bromley committed unto the Fleet and with him Welsh and Stevens two other Members of that House were committed also as being privy to the Projects of
History OF THE PRESBYTERIANS LIB X. Containing A Relation of their Plots and Practises in the Realm of England Their horrible Insolencies Treasons and Seditions in the Kingdom of Scotland from the Year 1595 to the Year 1603. THE English Puritans having sped so ill in a course of violence were grown so wise as to endeavour the subverting of that Fort by an undermining which they had no hope to take by storm or battery And the first course they fell upon besides the Artifices lately mentioned for altering the posture of the Preacher in the Spittle-Sermons and that which was intended as a consequent to it was the Design of Dr. Bound though rather carried under his Name than of his devising for lessening by degrees the Reputation of the ancient Festivals The Brethren had tryed many ways to suppress them formerly as having too much in them of the Superstitions of the Church of Rome but they had found no way succesful till they fell on this which was To set on foot some new Sabbath-Doctrine and by advancing the Authority of the Lord's-Day Sabbath to cry down the rest Some had been hammering on this Anvil ten years before and had procured the Mayor and Aldermen of London to present a Petition to the Queen for the suppressing of all Plays and Interludes on the Sabbath-day as they pleased to call it within the Liberties of their City The gaining of which point made them hope for more and secretly to retail those Speculations which afterward Bound sold in gross by publishing his Treatise of the Sabbath which came out this year 1595. And as this Book was published for other Reasons so more particularly for decrying the yearly-Festivals as appears by this passage in the same viz. That he seeth not where the Lord hath given any Authority to his Church ordinarily and perpetually to sanctifie any day except that which he hath sanctified himself And makes it an especial Argument Argument against the goodness of Religion in the Church of Rome That to the Seventh-day they had joyned so many other days and made them equal with the Seventh if not superior thereunto as well in the solemnity of Divine Offices as restraint from labour So that we may perceive by this what their intent was from the very beginning To cry down the Holy-days as superstitious Popish Ordinances that so their new-found Sabbath being left alone and Sabbath now it must be called might become more eminent Some other Ends they might have in it as The compelling of all persons of what rank soever to submit themselves unto the yoak of their Sabbath-rigors whom they despaired of bringing under their Presbyteries Of which more hereafter 2. Now for the Doctrine it was marshalled in these Positions that is to say That the Commandment of sanctifying every Seventh day as in the Mosaical Decalogue is Natural Moral and Perpetual That when all other things in the Jewish Church were so changed that they were clean taken away this stands the observation of the Sabbath And though Jewish and Rabinical this Doctrine was it carried a fair shew of Piety at the least in the opinion of the common people and such as did not stand to examine the true grounds thereof but took it up on the appearance such as did judg thereof not by the workmanship of the Stuff but the gloss and colour In which it is not strange to see how suddenly men were induced not only to give way unto it but without more 〈…〉 the same till in the end and that in very little time it grew the most bewitching error the most popular infatuation that ever wa◠infused into the people of England For what did follow hereupon but such monstrous Paradoxes and those delivered in the Pulpit as would make every good man tremble at the hearing of them It being preached at a Market-Town as my Author tells me That to do any servile work or business on the Lord's day was as great a sin as to kill a man or commit Adultery In Somersetshire That to throw a Bowl on the Lord's day was as great a sin as to kill a man In Norfolk That to make a Feast or dress a Wedding-Dinner on the same was as great a sin as for a Father to take a Knife and cut his Child's throat And in Suffolk That to ring more Bells than one on the Lord's day was as great a sin as to commit a Murther Some of which Preachers being complained of occasioned a more strict enquiry into all the rest and not into their Persons only but their Books and Pamphlets insomuch that both Arch-bishop Whitgift and Chief Justice Popham commanded these Books to be called in and neither to be Printed nor made common for the time to come Which strict proceedings notwithstanding this Doctrine became more dispersed than can be imagined and possibly might encrease the more for the opposition no System of Divinity no Book of Catechetical Doctrine from thenceforth published in which these Sabbath-Speculations were not pressed on the People's Consciences 3. Endearing of which Doctrines as formerly to advance their Elderships they spared no place or Text of Scripture where the Word Elder did occurre and without going to the Heralds had framed a Pedigree thereof from Iethro from Noah's Ark and from Adam finally So did these men proceed in their new Devices publishing out of Holy Writ both the Antiquity and the Authority of their Sabbath-day No passage of God's Book unransacked where there was mention of a Sabbath whether the Legal Sabbath charged upon the Iews or the Spiritual Sabbath of the Soul from sin which was not fitted and applied to the present purpose though if examined as it ought with no lesse reason than Paveant illi non paveam Ego was by an ignorant Priest alledged from Scripture to prove that his Parishioners ought to pave the Chancel And on the confidence of those Proofs they did presume exceedingly of their success by reason of the general entertainment which those Doctrines found with the common people who looked upon them with as much regard and no less reverence than if they had been sent immediately from the Heavens themselves for encrease of Piety Possest with which they greedily swallowed down the Hook which was baited for them 4. A Hook indeed which had so fastned them to those men who love to fish in troubled waters that by this Artifice there was no small hope conceived amongst them to fortifie their Side and make good that Cause which till this trim Device was so thought of was almost grown desperate By means whereof they btought so great a bondage on all sorts of people that a greater never was imposed on the Iews themselves though they had pinned their Consciences on the Sleeves of the Scribes and Pharises But then withall by bringing all sorts of people into such a bondage they did so much improve their Power and encrease their Party that they were able at the last to oppose
Edctis of the two next Kings for tolerating lawful sports upon that Day and to confirm some of their Sabbatarian Rigors by Act of Parliament 5. From this Design let us proceed to the next which was briefly this When the Genevian-English resolved to erect their Discipline it was thought requisite to prepare the way unto it by introducing the Calvinian Doctrines of Predestinationn that so men's Judgments being formed and possessed by the one they might the more easily be enclined to embrace the other so long connived at by the Supream Governours of the Church and State to which they were exceeding serviceable against the Pope that in the end those Doctrines which at first were counted Aliens came by degrees to be received as Denizens and at last as Natives For being supposed to contain nothing in them contrary to Faith and Manners they were first commended to the Church as probable next imposed as necessary and finally obtruded on the people as her Natural Doctrines And possibly they might in time have found a general entertainment beyond all exception if the Calvinian-spirit being impatient of the least opposition could have permitted other men to enjoy that liberty which they had took unto themselves and not compelled them to Apologize in their own defences and thereby shew the Reasons of dissenting from them One of the first Examples whereof for I pass by the branglings between Champney and Crowley as long since forgotten was the complaint of Travers to the Lords of the Council against incomparable Hooker In whom he faulteth this amongst other things That he had taught another Doctrine of Predestination than what was laid down in the Word of God as it was understood by all the Churches which professed the Gospel To which it was replyed by that learned man That the matter was not uttered by him in a blind Alley where there was none to hear it who either had Judgment or Authority to comptrole the same or covertly insinuated by some gliding sentence but that it was publickly delivered at St. Paul's Cross not hudled in amongst other matters to the end it might pass without observation but that it was opened proved and for some reasonable time insisted on And therefore that he could not see how the Lord Bishop of London that was present at it could either excuse so great a fault or patiently hear without rebuke then and controlement afterwards that any man should preach doctrine contrary to the Word of God especially if the word of God be so understood not by the private interpretation of some as two or three men or by a special construction received in some few Books but as it is understood by all Churches professing the Gospel and therefore even by our own Church amongst the rest 6. This hapned in the year 1591 or thereabouts somewhat before the breakings out of the stirrs at Cambridg occasioned by a a Treatise published by William Perkins a well-known Divine but withall a professed Presbyterian entituled Armilla Aurea or The Golden Chain containing the Order of the Causes of Salvation and Damnation according to the Word of God Maintaining in this Book the Dostrine of the Supra-lapsarians and countenanced therein by Dr. Whitacres the Queen's Professor some opposition was soon made by Dr. Baroe Professor for the Lady Margaret in the same University Which Baroe being by birth a French-man but being very well studied in the Writings of the Ancient Fathers had constantly for the space of more than twenty years maintained a different Doctrine of Predestination from that which had been taught by Calvin and his Disciples but he was never quarrelled for it till the year 1595 and then not quarrelled for it but in the person of one Barret who in a Sermon at St. Maries Church had preached such Doctrines as were not pleasing unto Perkins Whitacre and the rest of that Party For which being questioned and condemned to a Recantation he rather chose to quit his place in the University than to betray his own Judgment and the Church of England by a Retractation The rest of Baroe's Followers not well pleased with these Haâ—sh proceedings begin to show themselves more publickly than before they did which made Baroe think himself obliged to appear more visibly in the head of his Company and to encounter openly with Dr. Whitacre whom he beheld as the Chief Leader of the opposite Forces And the Heats grew so high at last that the Calvinians thought it necessary in point of Prudence to effect that by Power and Favour which they could not obtain by force of Argument To which end they first addressed themselves to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh then being their Chancellor with the disturbances made by Barret thereby preparing him to hearken to such further motions as should be made by them in pursuit of that Quarrel 7. But finding little comfort there they resolved to steer their course by another Compass And having pre-possest the most Reverend Arch-bishop Whitgift with the turbulent carriage of those men the Affionts given to Dr. Whitacre whom for his learned and laborious Writings against Cardinal Bellarmine he most highly favoured and the great Inconveniences like to grow by that publick Discord they gave themselves good hope of composing those differences not by way of an Accommodation but an absolute Conquest And to this end they dispatched to him certain of their number in the name of the rest such as were interested in the Quarrels Dr. Whitacre himself for one and therefore like to stirr hard for obtaining their Ends The Articles to which they had reduced the whole state of the business being ready drawn and there wanting nothing to them but the Face of Authority wherewith as with Medusa's Head to confound their Enemies and turn their Adversaries into stones And that they might be sent back with the Face of Authority the most Reverend Arch-bishop calling unto him Dr. Flecher Bishop of Bristol then newly elected unto London and Dr. Richard Vaughan Lord Elect of Bangor together with Dr. Trindal Dean of Ely Dr. Whitacre and the rest of the Divines which came from Cambridg proposed the said Articles to their consideration at his House in Lambeth on the tenth of November by whom these Articles from thenceforth called the Nine Articles of Lambeth were presently agreed upon and sent down to Cambridg not as the Doctrines of the Church but as a necessary Expedient to compose those differences which had been raised amongst the Students of that University And so much was acknowledged by the Arch-bishop himself when he was questioned by the Queen for his actings in it For so it was that the Queen being made acquainted with all that passed became exceedingly offended at the Innovation and was upon the point of causing all of them to be attainted in a Praemunire but by the mediation of some Friends of Whitgift's and the high opinion which she had of his Parts and Person she was willing to admit him to
Redemption by the death and blood-shedding â—f Christ Jesus the Son of God and his descending into Hell This he accordingly performed in several Sermons upon the words of the Apostle viz. God forbid that I should glory in any thing but in the Cross of our Lord Iesus Christ whereby the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world Gal. 6.14 In prosecuting of which Text he discoursed at large as well concerning the contents as the effects of Christ's Cross and brought the point unto this issue that is to say That no Scripture did teach 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 And because the proofs pretended for this point might be three Predictions that Christ should suffer those pains Causes why he must suffer them and Signs that he did suffer them He likewise insisted on all three and shewed there were no such Predictions Causes or Signs of the true pains of Hell to be suffered in the Soul of Christ before he could save us And next as touching Christ's descent into Hell it was declared That by the course of the Creed it ought not to be referred to Christ living but to Christ being dead showing thereby the Conquest which Christ's Manhood had after death over all the powers of darkness declared by his Resurrection when he arose Lord over all his Enemies in his own Person Death Hell and Satan not excepted and had the keys that is all Power of Death and Hell delivered to him by God that those in Heaven Earth and Hell should stoop unto him and be subject to the Strength and Glory of his Kingdom And this he proved to be the true and genuine meaning of that Article both from the Scriptures and the Fathers and justified it for the Doctrine of the Church of England by the Book of Homilies 18. But let the Scriptures and the Fathers and the Book of Homilies teach us what they please Calvin was otherwise resolved and his Determination must be valued above all the rest For no sooner were these Sermons Printed but they were presently impugned by a Humorous Treatise the Author whereof is said to have writ so loosly as if he neither had remembred what the Bishop uttered or cared much what he was to prove In answer whereunto the Bishop adds a short Conclusion to his Sermons and so lets him pass The Presbyterian Brethren take a new Alarum Muster their Forces compare their Notes and send them to the Author of the former Treatise that he might publish his Defence Which he did accordingly the Author being named Henry Iacob a well-known Separatist Which Controversie coming to the Queen's knowledg being then at Farnham a Castle belonging to the Bishop she signified Her Pleasure to him That he should neither desert the Doctrine nor suffer the Function which he exercised in the Church of England to be trodden and trampled under-foot by unquiet men who both abhorred the Truth and despised Authority On which Command the Bishop sets himself upon the writing of that Learned Treatise entituled A Survey of Christ's Sufferings c. although by reason of a sickness of two years continuance it was not published till the year 1604. The Controversie after this was plyed more hotly in both Universities where the Bishop's Doctrine was maintained but publickly opposed by many of our Zealots both at home and abroad At home opposed by Gabriel Powel a stiff Presbyterian Abroad by Broughton Parker and some other Brethren of the Separation After this justified and defended by Dr. Hill whom Aumes replyed unto in his Rejoynder as also by another Parker and many more till in the end the Brethren willingly surceased from the prosecution of their former Doctrines which they were not able to maintain And though the Church received some trouble upon this occasion yet by this means the Article of Christ's Descent became more rightly understood and more truly stated according to the Doctrine of the Church of England than either by the Church of Rome or any of the Protestant or Reformed Churches of what Name soever 19. But while the Prelates of the Church were busied upon these and the like Disputes the Presbyterians found themselves some better work in making Friends and fastning on some eminent Patron to support their Cause None fitter for their purpose than the Earl of Essex gracious amongst the Military men popular beyond measure and as ambitious of Command as he was of Applause He had his Education in the House of the Earl of Leicester and took to Wife a Daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham as before is said who fitted and prepared him for those Applications which hitherto he had neglected upon a just fear of incurring the Queen's Displeasure But the Queen being now grown old the King of Scots not much regarded by the English and very ill obeyed by his natural Subjects he began to look up towards the Crown to which a Title was drawn for him as the direct Heir of Thomas of Woodstock Duke of Glocester one of the younger Sons of K. EDWARD the third This man the Puritans cry up with most infinite Praises both in their Pulpits and in their Pamphlets telling him That he was not only great in Honour and the love of the people but temporis expectationâ— major far greater in the expectation which his Friends had of him And he accordingly applies himself to those of the Puritan Faction admits them to Places of most Trust and Credit about his Person keeps open House for men of those Opinions to resort unto under pretence of hearing Sermons and hearing no Sermons with more zeal and edification than those which seemed to attribute a Power to Inferior Magistrates for curbing and controlling their undoubted Soveraigns Which questionless must needs have ended in great disturbance to the Church and State if he had not been outwitted by Sir Robert Cicil Sir Walter Rawleigh and the rest of their Party in the Court by whom he was first shifted over into Ireland and at last brought upon the Scaffold not to receive a Crown but to lose his Head Which hapned very opportunely for K. IAMES of Scotland whose Entrance might have been opposed and his Title questioned if this Ambitious man had prospered in his undertakings which he conducted generally with more Heat than Judgment 20. This brings me back again to Scotland In which we left the King intent upon the expectation of a better Crown and to that end resolved upon the Restitution of the banished Lords who being advertised of his purpose returned as secretly as might be offering to give good Security to live conformable to the Laws in all peace and quietness The King seems willing to accept it and is confirmed by a Convention of Estates in those good Intentions The News whereof gave such offence to those of the Kirk that presently they assembled themselves at Edenborough
wave the Declinatour or if they would declare at the least That it was not a general but a particular Declinatour used in the case of Mr. Blake as being in a case of Slander and therefore appertaining to the Church's Cognizance But these proud men either upon some confidence of another Bothwell or else presuming that the King was not of a Spirit to hold out against them or otherwise infatuated to their own destruction resolved That both their Pulpits and their Preachers too should be exempted totally from the King's Authority In which brave humour they return this Answer to his Proposition That they resolved to stand to their Declinatour unless the King would pass from the Summons and remitting the pursuit to the Ecclesiastical Judg That no Minister should be charged for his Preaching at least before the meeting of the next general Assembly which should be in their Power to call as they saw occasion Which Answer so displeased the King that he charged the Commissioners of the Kirk to depart the Town and by a new Summons citeth Blake to appear on the last of November This fills the Pulpit with Invectives against the King and that too on the day of the Princess's Christning at what time many Noble men were called to Edenborough to attend that Solemnity With whose consent it was declared at Blake's next appearance That the Crimes and Accusations charged in the Bill were Treasonable and Seditious and that his Majesty his Council and all other Judges substitute by his Authority were competent Judges in all matters either Criminal or Civil as well to Ministers as to other Subjects Yet still the King was willing to give over the Chase makes them another gracious Offer treats privately with some Chiefs amongst them and seems contented to revoke his two Proclamations if Blake would only come before the Lords of the Council and there acknowledg his offence against the Queen But when this would not be accepted the Court proceeds unto the Examination of Witnesses And upon proof of all the Articles objected Sentence was given against him to this effect That he should be confined beyond the North water enter into Ward within six days and there remain till his Majesty's pleasure should be further signified Some Overtures were made after this for an Accommodation But the King not being able to gain any reason from them sends their Commissioners out of the Town and presently commands That Twenty four of the most Seditious persons in Edenborough should forsake the City hoping to find the rest more cool and tractable when these Incendiaries were dismissed 23. The Preachers of the City notwithstanding take fire up on it and the next day excite the Noble-men assembled at the Sermon upon Sunday the fifteenth of December to joyn with them in a Petition to the King To preserve Religion Which being presented in a rude and disorderly manner the King demands by what Authoririty they durst convene together without his leave We dare do more than this said the Lord of Lindsey and will not suffer our Religion to be overthrown Which said he returns unto the Church stirrs up the people to a tumult and makes himself the Head of a Factious Rabble who crying out The Sword of the Lord and Gideon thronged in great numbers to the place in which the King had locked himself for his greater safety the doors whereof they questionless had forced open and done some out-rage to his Person if a few honest men had not stopt their Fury The Lord-Provost of the City notwithstanding he was then sick and kept his Bed applied his best endeavours to appease the Tumult and with some difficulty brought the people to lay down their Arms which gave the King an opportunity to retire to his Palace where with great fear he passed over all the rest of that day The next morning he removes with his Court and Council to the Town of Lintithgoe and from thence publisheth a Proclamation to this effect viz. That the Lords of the Session the Sheriffs Commissioners and Justices with their several Members and Deputies should remove themselves forth of the Town of Edenborough and be in readiness to go to any such place as should be appointed and that all Noble-men and Barons should return unto their Houses and not presume to convene in that or in any other place without License under pain of his Majesty's Displeasure The Preachers on the contrary are resolved to keep up the Cause to call their Friends together and unite their Party and were upon the point of Excommunicating certain Lords of the Council if some more sober than the rest had not held their hands 24. In which confusion of Affairs they indict a Fast For a preparatory whereunto a Sermon is preached by one Welch in the chief Church of that City Who taking for his Theam the Epistle sent to the Angel oâ— the Church of Ephesus did pitifully rail against the King saying That he was possessed with a Devil and that one Devil being put out seven worse were entred in the place and that the Subjects might lawfully rise and take the Sword out of his hands Which last he confirmed by the Example of a Father that falling into a Phrensie might be taken by the Children and Servants of the Family and tyed hand and foot from doing violence Which brings into my mind an usual saying of that King to this effect viz. That for the twelve last years of his living in Scotland he used to pray upon his knees before every Sermon That he might hear nothing from the Preacher which might justly grieve him and that the case was so well altered when he was in England that he was used to pray that he might profit by what he heard But all exorbitancy of Power is of short continuance especially if abused to Pride and Arrogance The madness of the Presbyterians was now come to the height and therefore in the course of Nature was to have a fall and this the King resolves to give them or to lose his Crown He had before been so afflicted with continual Baffles that he was many times upon the point of leaving Scotland putting himself into the Seignury of Venice and living there in the capacity of a Gentleman so they call the Patricians of that Noble City And questionless he had put that purpose in execution if the hopes of coming one day to the Crown of England had not been some temptation to him to ride out the storm But now a Sword is put into his hands by the Preachers themselves wherewith he is enabled to cut the Gordian-knot of their Plots and Practises which he was not able to untye For not contented to have raised the former Tumults they keep the Noble-men together invite the people to their aid and write their Letters to the Lord of Hamilton to repair unto them and make himself the Head of their Association A Copy of which Letter being showed unto the King by that
v. 28. The second was Dr. Buckeridg then Master of St. Iohn's Colledg in Oxon and afterwards preferred to the See of Rochester who no less learnedly evinced the King's Supremacy in all Concernments of the Church selecting for his Text the words of same Apostle Rom. 13. v. 1. Next followed Dr. Andrews then Bishop of Chichester who taking for his Text those words of Moses viz. Make thee two Trumpets of silver c. Numb 10. v. 2. convincingly demonstrated out of all Antiquity That the calling of all General and National Councils had appertained unto the Supreme Christian Magistrate Dr. King then Dean of Christ-Church brings up the Rear and taking for his Text those words of the Canticles Cap. 8. v. 11. disproved the calling of Lay-Elders as men that had no Power in governing the Church of Christ nor were so much as heard of in the Primitive times But neither the Learned Discourses of these Four Prelates nor the Arguments of the Scottish Bishops nor the Authority and Elocution of the King could gain at all on these deaf Adders who came resolved not to hear the voice of those Charmers charmed they never so wisely Thus have we seen them in their Crimes and now we are to look upon them in their several Punishments And first the Ministers which had been summoned into England were there commanded to remain until further The six which were condemned for Treason were sentenced by the King to perpetual banishment and never to return to their Native Countrey upon pain of death And as for those which had acknowledged their offence and submitted to mercy they were confined unto the Isles and out-parts of the Kingdom where they may possibly work some good but could do no harm After which Andrew Melvin having made a Seditious Libel against the Altar and the Furniture thereof in His Majesty's Chappel was brought into the Starr-Chamber by an Ore tenus where he behaved himself so malepertly toward all the Lords and more particularly towards the Arch-bishop of Canterbury that he was sentenced to imprisonment in the Tower of London and there remained till he was begged by the Duke of Bouillon and by him made Professor of Divinity in the School of Sedan 21. During the time that all men's Eyes were fastned on the issue of this great Dispute the King thought fit to call a Parliament in Scotland which he managed by Sir George Hume his right trusty Servant not long before created Earl of Dunbar and made Lord Treasurer of that Kingdom His chief Work was to settle the Authority of the King and the Calling of Bishops that they might mutually support each other in the Government of the Church and Stateâ—punc It was supposed that no small opposition would be made against him by some Puritan Ministers who repaired in great numbers to the Town as on their parts it was resolved on But he applyed himself unto them with such Art and Prudence that having taken off their edg the Acts passed easily enough with the Lords and Commons By the first Act the King's Prerogative was confirmed over all Persons and in all Causes whatsoever Which made Him much more Absolute in all Affairs which had relation to the Church than he had been formerly And by the next entituled An Act for Restitution of the Estate of Bishops the Name of Bishops was conferred upon such of the Ministers as by the King were nominated unto any of the Bishop-Sees and thereby authorized to have place in Parliament A course was also taken by it to repossess the Bishops of the Lands of their several Churches as well as their Titles and Degree not that a Plenary re-possession of their Lands was then given unto them but that by a Repeal of the late Act of Annexation the King was put into a capacity of restoring so much of the Rents as remained in the Crown and otherwise providing for them out of his Revenues And that the like distraction might not be made of their Estates for the time to come an Act was passed for restraining such Dilapidations as had impoverish'd all the Bishopricks since the Reformation After which and the dooming of the greater Zealots to their several Punishments he indicts a general Assembly at Linlithgow in December following at which convened One hundred thirty six Ministers and about Thirty three of the Nobility and principal Gentry In this Assembly it was offered in behalf of his Majesty That all Presbyteries should have their constant Moderators for whose encouragement his Majesty would assign to each of them a yearly stipend amounting to One hundred pounds or Two hundred Marks in the Scots account That the Bishops should be Moderators of all Presbyteries in the Towns and Cities where they made their residence as also in Provincial and Diocesan Synods and that the Bishops should assume upon themselves the charge of prosecuting Papists till they returned to their obedience to the King and the Church In the obtaining of which Acts there was no small difficulty but he obtained them at the last though not without some limitations and restrictions super-added to them under pretence of keeping the Commissioners hereafter to be called Bishops within their bounds 22. The Presbyterians notwithstanding were not willing to forgo their Power but strugling like half-dying men betwixt life and death laid hold on all advantages which were offered to them in opposition to the Acts before agreed on Gladstanes Arch-bishop of St. Andrews taking upon him to preside as Moderator in the Synod of Fife being within his proper Diocese and Jurisdiction was for a while opposed by some of the Ministers who would have gone to an Election as at other times The Presbyteries also in some places refused to admit the Bishops for their Moderators according to the Acts and Constitutions of the said Assembly Which though it put the Church into some disorder yet the Bishops carried it at the last the stoutest of the Ministers suâ—mitting in the end unto that Authority which they were not able to contend with In which conjuncture the King gives order for a Parliament to be held in Iune in which He passed some severe Laws against the Papists prohibiting the sending of their Children to be educated beyond the Seas and giving order for the choice of Pedagogues or Tutors to instruct them there as also against Jesuits and the Sayers and Hearers of Mass. The cognizance of several Causes which anciently belonged to the Bishops Courts had of late times been setled in the Sessions or Colledg of Justice But by an Act of this Parliament they are severed from it and the Episcopal Jurisdiction restored as formerly the Lords of the Session being in lieu thereof rewarded with Ten thousand pounds yearly which must be understood according to the Scottish account out of the Customs of that Kingdom It was enacted also That the King from thenceforth might appoint such Habit as to him seemed best to Judges Magistrates and Church-men Which
Acts being past Patterns were sent from London in a short time after for the Apparel of the Lords of the Session the Justice and other inferior Judges for the Advocates the Lawyers the Commissairs and all that lived by practise of the Law with a command given to every one whom the Statutes concerned to provide themselves of the Habits prescribed within a certain space under the pain of Rebellion But for the habit of the Bishops and other Church-men it was thought fit to respite the like appointment of them till the new Bishops had received their Consecration to which now we hasten 23. But by the way we must take notice of such preparations as were made towards it in the next General Assembly held at Glasgow Anno 1610 and managed by the Earl of Dunbar as the former was in which it was concluded That the King should have the indiction of all General Assemblies That the Bishops or their Deputies should be perpetual Moderators of the Diocesan Synods That no Excommunication or Absolution should be pronounced without their approbation That all presentations of Benefices should be made by them and that the deprivation or suspension of Ministers should belong to them That every Minister at his admission to a Benefice should take the Oath of Supremacy and Canonical Obedience That the Visitation of the Diocese shall be performed by the Bishop or his Deputy only And finally That the Bishop should be Moderator of all Conventions for Exercisings or Prophesyings call them which you will which should be held within their bounds All which Conclusions were confirmed by Act of Parliament in the year 1612 in which the Earl of Dumferling then being Lord Chancellor of that Kingdom sate as chief Commissioner who in the same Session also procured a Repeal of all such former Acts more patticularly of that which passed in favour of the Discipline 1592. as were supposed to be derogatory to the said Conclusions In the mean time the King being advertised of all which had been done at Glasgow calls to the Court by special Letters under his Sign-Manual Mr. Iohn Spotswood the designed Arch-bishop of Glasgow Mr. Gawen Hamilton nominated to the See of Galloway and Mr. Andrew Lamb appointed to the Church of Brechin to the intent that being consecrated Bishops in due Form and Order they might at their return give consecration to the rest of their Brethren They had before been authorized to vote in Parliament commended by the King unto their several Sees made the perpetual Moderators of Presbyteries and Diocesan Synods and finally by the Conclusions made at Glasgow they were restored to all considerable Acts of their Jurisdiction The Character was only wanting to compleat the Work which could not be imprinted but by Consecration according to the Rules and Canons of the Primitive times 24. And that this Character might be indelibly imprinted on them His Majesty issues a Commission under the Great Seal of England to the Bishops of London Ely Wells and Rochester whereby they were required to proceed to the Consecration of the said three Bishops according to the Rules of the English Ordination which was by them performed with all due solemnity in the Chappel of the Bishop of London's House near the Church of St. Pauls Octob. 21 1610. But first a scruple had been moved by the Bishop of Ely concerning the capacity of the persons nominated for receiving the Episcopal Consecration in regard that none of them had formally been ordained Priests which scruple was removed by Arch-bishop Bancroft alledging that there was no such necessity of receiving the Order of Priesthood but that Episcopal Consecrations might be given without it as might have been exemplified in the Cases of Ambrose and Nectarius of whichâ— the first was made Arch-bishop of Millain and the other Patriarch of Constantinople without receiving any intermediate Orders whether of Priest Deacon or any other if there were any other at that time in the Church And on the other side the Prelates of Scotland also had their Doubts and Scruples fearing lest by receiving Consecration of the English Bishops they might be brought to an acknowledgment of that Superiority which had been exercised and enjoyed by the Primates of England before the first breaking out of the Civil Warrs betwixt York and Lancaster Against which fear the King sufficiently provided by excluding the two Arch-bishops of Canterbury and York who only could pretend to that Superiority out of His Commission which Bancroft very cheerfully condescended to though he had chiefly laid the plot and brought on the work not caring who participated in the Honour of it as long as the Churches of both Kingdoms might receive the Benefit 25. This great Work being thus past over the King erects a Court of High Commission in the Realm of Scotland for ordering all matters which concerned that Church and could not safely be redressed in the Bishops Courts He also gave them some Directions for the better exercise of their Authority by them to be communicated to the Bishops and some principal Church-men whom he appointed to be called to Edenborough in the following February where they were generally well approved But as all general Rules have some Exceptions so some Exceptions were found out against these Commissions and the proceedings thereupon Not very pleasing to those great Persons who then sate at the Helm and looked upon it as a diminution to their own Authority and could not brook that any of the Clergy should be raised to so great a Power much more displeasing to the principal sticklers in the Cause of Presbytery who now beheld the downfall of their glorious Throne which they had erected for themselves in the Name of Christ. One thing perhaps might comfort them in the midst of their sorrows that is to say the death of the most Reverend Arch-bishop Bancroft who left this life upon the second of November not living above thirteen days after the Scottish Bishops had received Consecration For which great blessing to the Church he had scarce time to render his just acknowledgments unto God and the King when he is called on to prepare for his Nunc Dimittis And having seen so great a work accomplished for the glory of God the honour of his Majesty and the good of both Kingdoms beseecheth God to give him leave to depart in peace that with his eyes he might behold that great Salvation which was ordained to be a Light unto the Gentiles and to be the Glory of his people Israel 26. Bancroft being dead some Bishops of the Court held a Consultation touching the fittest Person to succeed him in that eminent Dignity The great Abilities and most exemplary Piety of Dr. Lancelot Andrews then Bishop of Ely pointed him out to be the man as one sufficiently able to discharge a Trust of such main importance and rather looked on as a Preferment to that See than preferred unto it Him they commended to King IAMES who had him in a high
acquaintance with the English brought them to more sense of Piety And now they took the opportunity to train the people to the Church in the Afternoon by the Authority and Reputation of the present Synod For having entertained the Palatine Catechism in their publick Schools it was resolved that it should be taught in all their Churches on Sunday in the After-noon That the Ministers should be bound to read and expound that Catechism though none were present at the Exercises but those of their own Families only in hope that others might be drawn after their example and that the Civil Magistrate should be employed by the Synod to restrain all Servile Works and other Prophanations of that day wherewith the Afternoons had commonly been spent that so the people might repair to the Catechisings And though some Reformation did ensue upon it in the greater Towns yet in their lesser Villages where men are more intent on their Worldly businesses it remains as formerly 11. As little of the Sabbatarian had the Palatine Churches which in all points adhered tenaciously unto Calvin's Doctrine For in those Churches it was ordinary for the Gentlemen to betake themselves in the After-noon of the Lord's Day unto Hawking and Hunting as the season of the year was fit for either or otherwise in taking the Air visiting their Friends or whatsoever else shall seem pleasing unto them As usual it was also with the Husband-man to spend the greatest part of the After-noon in looking over his Grounds ordering his Cattel and following of such Recreations as are most agreeable to his Nature and Education no publick Divine Offices being prescribed for any part of that Day but the Morning only And so it stood in the year 1612 At what time the Lady ELIZABETH Daughter to K. Iames and Wife to Frederick the fifth Prince Elector Palatine came first into that Countrey whose having Divine Service every After-noon in her Chappel or Closet officiated by her own Chaplains according to the Liturgy of the Church of England gave the first hint unto that Prince to cause the like Religious Offices to be celebrated in his part of the Family afterwards by degrees in all the Churches of Heldenbourgh and finally in most other Cities and Towns of his Dominions Had he adventured no further on the confidence of that Power and Greatness which accrued to him by contracting an Alliance with so great a Monarch it had been happy for himself and the Peace of Christendom But being tempted by Scultetus and some other of the Divines about him Not to neglect the opportunity of advancing the Gospel and making himself the principal Patton of it he fell on some Designs destructive to himself and his Who though he were a Prince of a Flegmatick nature and of small Activity yet being prest by the continual sollicitation of some eager Spirits he drew all the Provinces and Princes which profest the Calvinian Doctrines to enter into a strict League or Union amongst themselves under pretence of looking to the Peace and Happiness of the true Religion 12. It much advantaged the Design that the Calvinians in all parts of Germany had began to stir as men resolved to keep the Saddle or to lose the Horse In Aix the Latins call it Aquisgranum an Imperial City they first appeared considerable for their Power and Numbers Anno 1605 at what time they shrewdly shaked the Estate thereof But being thereupon debarred the exercise of their Religion and punished for the Misdemeanor they kept themselves quiet till the year 1614 when in a popular Tumult they surprise the City secure the principal Magistrates of it and eject the Jesuits And though by the Mediation of the French Agents and those of Iulier's a Peace was for the present clapt up between them yet neither Party was resolved to stand longer to it than might serve their turns But whosoever made the reckoning the Calvinists were at last compelled to pay the shot For the Town being proscribed by Matthias the Emperor and the execution of the Ban committed to Arch-Duke Albert he sends the Marquess of Spinola with an Army thither by whom the Town is brought to a surrender the ancient Magistrates restored and the Calvinians either forced to forsake the place or to submit themselves unto Fine and Ransome if they kept their dwellings Nor did they speed much better in the City of Colen where their Party was not strong enough to suppress the Catholicks and therefore they forsook the City and retired to Mulleime which they began to build and fortifie for their habitation But those of Colen fearing that this new Town might in short time overtop that City both in Wealth and Power addrest themselves unto the Emperor Matthias By whose Command the Duke of Newbourgh falls upon it destroys the greatest part thereof and leaves the finishing of that Work to the Marquess Spinola 13. In Hassia their Affairs succeeded with more prosperous Fortune where Lodowick of the second House of the Lantgraves who had the City of Marperge for his Seat and Residence declared himself in favour of their Forms and Doctrines at such time as the Calvinists of Aix before remembred first began to stirr followed therein by George his Brother commonly called the Lantgrave of Darmstad from the place of his dwelling half of which Town belonging to the Patrimony of the Prince Elector had easily made way for Calvinism into all the rest And though this Lodowick was disturbed in his Government or Possession by his Cousin Maurice commonly called the Lantgrave of Cassells from his principal City who seized upon the Town of Marperge Anno 1612 yet was he shortly after restored to his whole Estate by the Palatine-League which for the time carried a great sway in those parts of Germany But of greater consequence were the agitations about Cleve and Gulick occasioned by a difference between the Marquess of Brandenbourgh and the Duke of Newbourgh about the partage of the Patrimony and Estates of the Duke of Cleve For Iohn-William the last Duke of Cleve deceasing without Issue in the year 1610 left his Estates between the Children of his Sisters of which the eldest called Maria Leonora was married to Albert of Brandenbourgh Duke of Prussia whose Daughter Ann being married to Iohn Sigismund the Elector of Brandenbough was Mother of George-William the young Marquess of Brandenbourgh who in her Right pretended to the whole Estate The like pretence was made by Wolfgangus Guilielmus Duke of Newbourgh descended from the Electoral Family of the Princes Palatine whose Mother Magdalen was the second Sister of the said Iohn-William The first of these Pretenders was wholly of a Lutheran Stock and the other as inclinable to the Sect of Calvin though afterwards for the better carrying on of their Affairs they forsook their Parties 14. For so it hapned that the Duke of Newbourgh finding himself too weak for the House of Brandenbourgh put himself under the protection of the Catholick King who
brake down the Rails before the Table and burnt them in the very place in the heats of Iuly but wretchedly prophaned the very Table it self by setting about it with their Tobacco and Ale before them and not without the company of some of their zealous Lecturers to grace the Action What else they did in imitation of the Brethren of Exon in laying their filth and execrements about it also I abhor to mention And now I must crave leave to step into the Colledg the Government whereof was taken from the Dean and Prebendaries and given to a select Committee of fifty persons some Lords but Members for the most part of the Lower-House who found there a sufficient quantity of Plate and some other good Houshold-stuff to a very good value which was so Husbanded amongst them that it was either stoln or sold or otherwise imbezilled and inverted to the use of some private persons who best knew how to benefit themselves by the Church's Patrimony 35. But the main business of this year and the three next following was the calling sitting and proceedings of the new Assembly called the Assembly of Divines but made up also of so many of the Lords and Commons as might both serve as well to keep them under and comptroll their Actions as to add some countenance unto them in the eye of the people A Convocation had been appointed by the King when he called the Parliament the Members whereof being lawfvlly chosen and returned were so discountenanced and discouraged by the Votes of the Lower-House the frequent Tumults raised in Westminster by the Rascal Rabble and the preparatives for a Warr against the King that they retired unto their Houses but still continued undissolved and were in a capacity of acting as a Convocation whensoever they should be thereunto required and might do it with safety But being for the most part well affected to the Church of England they were not to be trusted by the Houses of Parliament who then designed the hammering of such a Reformation both in Doctrine and Discipline as might unite them in a perpetual Bond and Confederation with their Scottish Brethren And that they might be furnished with such men the Knights of every Shire must make choice of two to serve as Members for that County most of them Presbyterians some few Royallists four of the Independent Faction and two or three to represent the Kirk of Scotland Which ploughing with an Ox and an Ass as it was no other was anciently prohibited by the Law of Moses And yet these men associated with some Members of either House as before is said no ways impow'red or authorised by the rest of the Clergy must take upon them all the Powers and Priviledges of a Convocation to which they were invited by an Ordinance of the Lords and Commons bearing date Iune the 12 th His Majesty makes a start at this encroachment on His Royal Prerogative and countermands the same by His Proclamation of the 22 d. In which He takes notice amongst other things That the far greatest part of those who had been nominated to the present Service were men of neither Learning or Reputation eminently disaffected to the Government of the Church of England and such as had openly preached Rebellion by their exciting of the people to take Arms against Him and therefore were not like to be proper Instruments of Peace and Happiness either unto the Church or State For maintenance whereof and for the preservation of His own Authority he inhibits them from meeting at the time appointed declares their Acts to be illegal and threatens them with the punishments which they had incurred by the Laws of the Land 36. But they go forwards howsoever hold their first Meeting on the first of Iuly and elect Dr. Twisse of Newberry a rigid Sabbatarian but a professed Calvinian in all other points for their Prolocutor called to this Iourney-work by the Houses they were dispensed with for Non-residence upon their Livings against the Laws preferred to the best Benefices of the Sequestred Clergy some of them three or four together and had withall four shillings a man for their daily wages besides the honour of assisting in so great an action as the ruin of the Church and the subversion of the present Government of the Realm of England In reference whereunto they were to be employed from time to time as occasion was to stir up the people of the Counties for which they served to rise and arm themselves against the King under colour of their own defence as appears plainly by the Order of the tenth of August And that they might be looked upon with the greater reverence they maintain a constant intercourse by Letters with their Brethren of Scotland the Churches of the Netherlands the French and Switzers but chiefly with Geneva it self In which they laid such vile Reproaches on His Majesty and the Church of England the one for having a design to bring in Popery the other for a readiness to receive the same that His Majesty was necessitated to set out a Manifest in the Latin Tongue for laying open the Imposture to the Churches of all Forreign Nations Amongst the rest of this Assembly Dr. Dan. Featly not long before made Chaplain in Ordinary to the King must needs sit for one whether to shew his Parts or to head a Party or out of his old love to Calvinism may best be gathered from some Speeches which he made and printed But he was theirs in heart before and therefore might afford them his body now though possibly he may be excused from taking the Covenant as the others did An Exhortation whereunto was the first great work which was performed by these Masters in Israel after their assembling the Covenant taken by them in most solemn manner at St. Margarets in Westminster on the 25th of September the Exhortation voted to be published on the 9th of February 37. Now to begin the blessed Reformation which they had in hand the Houses were resolved upon exterminating all external Pomp and comely Order out of the Worship of Almighty God And to this end upon the humble motion of these Divines of the Assembly and the sollicitation of some zealous Lecturers who were grown very powerful with them or to ingratiate themselves with the Scottish Covenanters whose help they began to stand in need of or finally out of the perversness of their own cross humours they published an Ordinance on the 28 th of August For the utter demolishing removing and taking away all Monuments of Superstition and Idolatry Under which notion it was ordered That before the last of November then next following all Altars and Tables of stone as if any such were then erected should be demolished in all Churches and Chappels throughout the Kingdom That the Communion-Tables should in all such places be removed from the East end of the Chancel unto some other part of the Church or Chappel That all such Rails as had been
49. Such being the issue of the Warr let us next look upon the Presbyterians in the acts of Peace in which they threatned more destruction to the Church than the Warr it self As soon as they had setled the strict keeping of the Lord's-day-Sabbath suppressed the publick Liturgy and imposed the Directory they gave command to their Divines of the Assembly to set themselves upon the making a new Confession The Nine and thirty Articles of the Church of England were either thought to have too much of the ancient Fathers or too little of Calvin and therefore fit to be reviewed or else laid aside And at the first their Journey-men began with a Review and fitted Fourteen of the Articles to their own conceptions but in the end despairing of the like success in all the rest they gave over that impertinent labour and found it a more easie task to conceive a new than to accommodate the old Confession to their private Fancies And in this new Confession they establish the Morality of their Lord's-day-Sabbath declare the Pope to be the Antichrist the Son of Perdition and the Man of Sin And therein also interweave the Calvinian Rigours in reference to the absolute Decree of Predestination Grace Free-will c. But knowing that they served such Masters as were resolved to part with no one Branch of their own Authority they attribute a Power to the Civil Magistrate not only of calling Synods and Church-Assemblies but also of being present at them and to provide that whatsoever is therein contracted be done agreebly to the Mind and Will of God But as to the matter of Church-Government the Divine Right of their Presbyteries the setting of Christ upon his Throne the Parity or Imparity of Ministers in the Church of Christ not a word delivered Their mighty Masters were not then resolved upon those particulars and it was fit the Holy Ghost should stay their leisure and not inspire their Journey-men with any other Instruction than what was sent them from the Houses 50. But this Confession though imperfect and performed by halves was offered in the way of an Humble Advice to the Lords and Commons that by the omnipotency of an Ordinance it might pass for currant and be received for the established Doctrine of the Church of England The like was done also in the tendry of their Larger Catechism which seems to be nothing in a manner but the setting out of their Confession in another dress and putting it into the form of Questions and Answers that so it might appear to be somewhat else than indeed it was But being somewhat of the largest to be taught in Schools and somewhat of the hardest to be learned by Children it was brought afterwards into an Epitome commonly called The lesser Catechism and by the Authors recommended to the use of the Church as far more Orthodox than Nowel's more clear than that contained in the Common-Prayer-Book and not inferior to the Palatine or Genevian Forms But in all three they held forth such a Doctrine touching God's Decrees that they gave occasion of reviving the old Blastian Heresie in making God to be the Author of Sin Which Doctrine being new published in a Pamphlet entituled Comfort for Believers in their Sins and Troubles gave such a hot Alarm to all the Calvinists in the new Assembly that they procured it to be burnt by the hands of the Hangman But first they thought it necessary to prepare the way to that execution by publishing in print their detestation of that abominable and blasphemous Opinion That God hath a hand in and is the Author of the sinfulness of his people as the Title tells us So that now Calvin's Followers may sleep supinely without regard to the reproaches of uncivil men who had upbraided them with maintaining such blasphemous Doctrine The Reverend Divines of the Assembly have absolved them from it and showed their Detestation of it and who dares charge it on them for the time to come 51. But these things possibly were acted as they were Calvinians and perhaps Sabbatarians also and no more than so And therefore we must next see what they do on the score of Presbytery for setting up whereof they had took the Covenant called in the Scots and more insisted on the abolition of the Episcopal Function than any other of the Propositions which more concern them To this they made their way in those Demands which they sent to Oxon the Ordinance for Ordination of Ministers and their advancing of the Directory in the fall of the Liturgy They had also voted down the Calling of Bishops in the House of Commons on Septemb. 8. 1642 and caused the passing of that Vote to be solemnized with Bells and Bonfires in the streets of London as if the whole City was as much concerned in it as some Factious Citizens But knowing that little was to be effected by the Propositions and much less by their Votes they put them both into a Bill which past the House of Peers on the third of February some two days after they had tendred their Proposals to the King at Oxon. And by that Bill it was desired to be Enacted That from the Fifth of November the day designed for the blowing up the Parliament by the Gun-powder-Traytors which should be in the year of our Lord 1643 there should be no Archbishops Bishops Commissaries c. with all their Train recited in the Oxon Article Numb 21. in the Church of England That from thenceforth the Name Title and Function of Arch-Bishops Bishops Chancellors c. or likewise the having using or exercising any Iurisdiction Office and Authority by reason or colour of any such Name Dignity or Function in the Realm of England should utterly and for ever cease And that the King might yeeld the sooner to the Alteration they tempt him to it with a Clause therein contained for putting him into the actual possession of all the Castles Mannors Lands Tenements and Hereditaments belonging to the said Arch-bishops or Bishops or to any of them And for the Lands of Deans and Chapters the Brethren had a hope to parcel them amongst themselves under the colour of encouraging and maintaining of a Preaching-Ministry some sorry pittance being allowed to the old Proprietaries and some short Pension during life to the several Bishops 52. Such was the tenour of the Bill which found no better entertainment than their Propositions So that despairing of obtaining the King's consent to advance Presbytery they resolved to do it of themselves but not till they had broken the King's Forces at the Battel of Naisby For on the nineteenth of August then next following they publish Directions in the name of the Lords and Commons after advice with their Divines of the Assembly for the chusing of RVLING-ELDERS in all the Congregations and in the Classical Assemblies for the Cities of London and Westminster and the several Counties of the Kingdom in order to the speedy setling of Presbyterial
Government Amongst which no small care was taken for making twelve Classes of the Ministers of London only and after for dividing each particular County into several Classes with reference to the largeness and extent thereof Which Orders and Directions were after seconded by the Ordinance of October the twentieth containing certain Rules for the suspension of scandalous and ignorant persons from the holy Supper and giving power to certain persons therein named to sit as Judges and Tryers as well concerning the Election as the Integrity and Ability of all such men as are elected Elders within any of the Twelve Classes of the Province of London It is not to be thought but that the London-Elderships made sufficient haste to put themselves into the actual possession of their new Authority But in the Countrey most men were so cold and backward that the Lower-House was fain to quicken them with some fresh Resolves by which it was required on the twentieth of February That choice be forthwith made of Elders thoroughout the Kingdom according to such former Directions as had past both Houses and that all Classes and Parochial Congregations should be thereby authorised effectually to proceed therein And that the Church might be supplied with able Ministers in all times succeeding the Power of Ordination formerly restrained to certain persons residing in and about the City of London according to the Ordinance of the second of October 1644. is now communicated to the Ministers of each several Classes as men most like to know the wants of the parish-Parish-Churches under their Authority 53. But here it is to be observed that in the setling of the Presbyterian Government in the Realm of England as the Presbyteries were to be subordinate to the Classical Provincial and National Assemblies of the Church so were they all to be subordinate to the Power of the Parliament as appears plainly by the Ordinance of the fourteenth of March which makes it quite another thing from the Scottish Presbyteries and other Assemblies of that Kirk which held themselves to be supream and unaccountable in their actings without respect unto the King the Parliament and the Courts of Justice But the truth is that as the English generally were not willing to receive that yoak so neither did the Houses really intend to impose it on them though for a while to hold fair quarter with the Scots they seemed forward in it And this appears sufficiently by a Declaration of the House of Commons published on the seventeenth of April 1646 in which they signifie That they were not able to consent to the granting of an Arbitrary and unlimited Power and Iurisdiction to near Ten thousand Iudicatories to be erected in the Kingdom which could not be consistent with the Fundamental Laws and Government of it and which by necessary consequence did exclude the Parliament from having any thing to do in that Iurisdiction On such a doubtful bottom did Presbytery stand till the King had put himself into the Power of the Scots and that the Scots had posted him in all haste to the Town of Newcastle Which caused the Lords and Commons no less hastily to speed their Ordinance of the fifth of Iune For the present setling of the Presbyterial Government without further delay as in the Title is exprest And though it was declared in the end of that Ordinance That it was to be in force for three years only except the Houses should think fit to continue it longer yet were the London-Ministers so intent upon them that they resolve to live no longer in suspence but to proceed couragiously in the execution of those several Powers which both by Votes and Ordinances were intrusted to them And to make known to all the World what they meant to do they published a Paper with this Title that is to say Certain Considerations and Cautions agreed upon by the Ministers of London and Westminster and within the Lines of Communication Iune the nineteenth 1646. According to which they resolve to put the Presbyterial Government into execution upon the Ordinances of Parliament before published 54. In which conjuncture it was thought expedient by the Houses of Parliament to send Commissioners to Newcastle and by them to present such Propositions to his Sacred Majesty as they conceived to be agreeable to his present condition In the second of which it was desired That according to the laudable Example of his Royal Father of happy memory he would be pleased to swear and sign the Solemn League and Covenant and cause it to be taken by Acts of Parliament in all his Kingdoms and Estates And in the third it was proposed That a Bill should pass for the utter abolishing and taking away of Arch-Bishops Bishops Chancellors Commissaries Deans c. as they occur before in the Oxon Articles Num. 21. That the Assembly of Divines and Reformation of Religion according to the said Covenant should be forthwith setled and confirmed by Act of Parliament and that such unity and uniformity between the Churches of both Kingdoms should in like manner be confirmed by Act of Parliament as by the said Covenant was required after Advice first had with the Divines of the said Assembly It was required also in the said Propositions That he should utterly divest himself of all power to protect his people by putting the Militia into the hands of the Houses and that he should betray the greatest part of the Lords and Gentry which had adhered unto him in the course of the Warr to a certain ruin some of which were to be excluded from all hope of Pardon as to the saving of their Lives others to forfeit their Estates and to lose their Liberties the Clergy to remain under sequestration the Lawyers of both sorts to be disabled from the use of their Callings Demands of such unreasonable and horrid nature as would have rendred him inglorious and contemptible both at home and abroad if they had been granted 55. These Propositions were presented to him on the eleventh day of Iuly at Newcastle by the Earls of Pembroke and Suffolk of the House of Peers Erle Hipisly Robinson and Goodwin from the House of Commons Of whom his Majesty demanded Whether they came impowred to treat with him or not And when they answered That they had no Authority so to do He presently replied That then the Houses might as well have sent their Propositions by an honest Trumpeter and so parted with them for the present His Majesty had spent the greatest part of his time since he came to Newcastle in managing a dispute about Church-Government with Mr. Alexander Henderson the most considerable Champion for Presbytery in the Kirk of Scotland Henderson was possest of all advantages of Books and Helps which might enable him to carry on such a Disputation But His Majesty had the better Cause and the stronger Arguments Furnished with which though destitute of all other Helps than what he had within himself he prest his Adversary so hard
propositions as were made to him at the first by Count Lodowick his Ministers and alter by the Agent of the Prince himself He had sent some aid not long before to support the Hugonots But now his Souldiers being returned from France and grown burdensome to him are drawn together into a body and with the help of some others out of France and Germany compound an Army of seven thousand Foot and four thousand Horse with which he sends Prince Christopher a younger son under the conduct of Count Lodowick and his Brother Henry But they had scarce entred within the Borders of Gelderland where they expected an addition of fresh Forces from the Prince of Orange when they were set upon by Sanchio d' Avila before mentioned and routed with so great a slaughter that almost all the whole Army were either taken prisoners remedilesly wounded or slain outright and as for their three Generals Lodowick of Nassaw Grave Henry and the young Prince Christopher they were either slain fighting in the battail or trampled under the Horses Feet or finally stisled in the flight as they crossed the Fens the last more probable because their bodies were not to be found on the strictest search 43. But not withstanding this misfortune neither the Prince Elector nor the Prince of Orange could be moved to desert the Cause which by the temptation of revenge was grown dearer to them For after this we finde Prince Casimir another of the Palatine Princes in the Head of an Army raised for assisting the Confederates in the Belgick Provinces by which name they began to be commonly called after the death of Requesenes who had succeeded Alva in the publick Government but wanting time before his death to settle the command in some trusty hands till some Supreme Officer might be sent unto them from the Court of Spain the Government devolved for the present on the Council of State and was invaded afterwards by the States themselves whose Deputies assembling in the Council-house or Court of Brussels made up the body of that Council which governed all Affairs both of Peace and War But great contentions growing betwixt them and the Souldiers and those contentions followed on either side with great animosities the Prince of Orange had a most excellent opportunity for the establishing of his new Dictatorship over Holland and Zealand and some of the adjoyning Provinces of less name and note But being weary at the last of their own confusions and more impatient of the insupportable insolencies of the Spanish Souldiers an Association is first made in the Provinces of Brabant Flanders Artois and Haynalt By which it was agreed in Writing and confirmed by Oath that they should mutually assist each other against the Spaniards till they had cleared the Country of them And with these Provinces consisting for the most part of such as were counted Catholicks Holland and Zealand with the rest though esteemed heretical did associate also which Union is called commonly the Pacification of Gaunt because agreed on in that City and was so much insisted on by the Heads of the Leaguers that it was counselled by the Prince not to admit of Don Iohn for their Supreme Governour till he had ratified and confirmed that Association 44. But because there was no mention of maintaining the Kings Authority or preserving the Catholick Religion in the Originals of the League it was found necessary to provide for both by some explication to take away the envy and suspition of that great disloyalty which otherwise must have fallen upon them And by that explication it was thus declared viz. that they would faithfully from thenceforth maintain the League for the conservation of their most Sacred Faith and the Roman Catholick Religion for preserving the Pacification made at Gaunt for the expulsion of the Spaniards and their adherents their due obedience to the Kings most excellent Majesty being always tendered According to which explication it was confirmed by Don Iohn under the name of the perpetual Edict with the Kings consent who thought his own Authority and the Roman Religion to be thereby sufficiently provided for but he found the contrary For when the Prince of Orange was required to subscribe to the Pacification with the addition of two Clauses for constancie in this Religion and the Kings obedience he refused it absolutely assuring such as moved it to him that the Provinces under his command or consederacie with him were barred in Conscience from subscribing to the preservation of the Romish Faith And at this time it was that he merrily told the Duke of Arescot who was one of the Delegates that there was not more Calvism on his head then there was Calvinism in his heart He well foresaw that the agreement betwixt Don Iohn and the Estates of the Country would not long continue and he resolved to make some advantage of the breach whensoever it hapned Nor was he any thing mistaken in the one or the other for discontents and jealousies encreasing mutually between the parties Don Iohn leaves Brussels and betakes himself to the Castle of Namure for fear of an Assassinate as it was given out which was intended on his person which so incensed the Estates that by a general consent a Dictatorian or Soveraign power was put into the hands of the Prince of Orange by the name Ruart according to the priviledge and practice of the Brabanters in extreme necessities Invested with which power he instituteth a new face of Government both in Brussels it self and many of the Towns adjoyning modelled after the Example of Holland and Zealand He demolished also the great Fort at Antwerp which had been raised with so great Pride and Ostentation by the Duke of Alva The like done also in demolishing the Castles of Gant Vtrecht Lisle Valenciennes and some other places performed by such alacrity by them that did it as if they had shaken off the Yoke of some Forreign servitude An Oath was also framed for renouncing all obedience to Don Iohn their Governour and people of all sorts compelled to take it for the refusal whereof by the Iesuits of Antwerp a Rabble of Calvinian Zealots on the day of Pentecost forced open the doors of that Society plundred their houses of all things Sacred and Prophane and set the Father on board a Ship of the Hollanders with great scorn and insolencie to be landed in some other Country 45. The like done also to the Fathers of Tournay Bruges and Maestricht banished on the same account from their several Cities with whom were also exiled in some places Franciscan Fryars in others many secular Priests who would not easily be perswaded to abjure their Loyalty By whose departure divers Churches were left destitute and unprovided of incumbents to instruct the people which so increased the confidence and hopes of the Calvinians that they not onely petitioned the Estates for liberty of Conscience but for the publick use of Churches in their several Territories but being refused in their