name of Jesus not ralling in the Communion-Table not setting it Altarwise not reading the second service at it with many more such things which were brought into practice by Archbishop Laud Bishop Wren and others One great pretence of keeping up many of these things was to avoid the scandal of the Papists and to intice them to our Religion c. We have now seen the effects of this in the experience of an hundred years which have been too sad to particularize it were easie to make a Book of Acts and Monuments twice as big as Mr. Foxes with the sufferings of holy and good men upon these accounts in that time What manner of persons the Dissenters are the experience of twenty years since his Majesties Restauration hath sufficiently informed the world What have the most fiery of their adversaries to object against them except in the matters of their God What kind of friend the Popish party hath been hath been also made sufficiently evident I humbly leave it to the judgment of his Most Excellent Maejesty and his Parliament whether seeing confessedly it may be without offence to the Divine Majesty The taking away of those things which alone make the Partition-wall betwixt Protestants and Protestants be not as politick as pious considering the History of Conformity from the first unto this very day which might possibly have appeared more reasonable if I would have inserted the lamentable stories of the sufferings of good men on this account of which I have a plenty but I had rather they should be forgotten most of the Authors of them before this time have given up their account and know whether they did good or evil and if any be alive I hope all good men will say Father forgive them for they knew not what they did Only let it be the Religious care of our Superiors to prevent any further complaints of this nature in our Streets for the Lord most certainly heareth the crys of the Innocent and oppressed The History of Conformity or a Proof of the Mischief of Impositions from the experience of an Hundred years THE notion of Conformity with us in England hath always signified a compliance with and obedience to such commands of Superiors in matters of Doctrine Worship and Government of the Church as are no where expresly originated in the Word of God but supposed to be there left to liberty and being neither there commanded nor forbidden are presumed to be matter of Superiors just commands The power of Superiors to command in things which the parties commanded do agree indifferent was never yet disputed by the generality of Nonconformists But there being many things which Superiors call indifferent which the Inferiors verily believe to be unlawful the difference hath chiefly been about these and still is so to this day Upon the Reformation of this Nation from Popery in the days of K. Edw. the 6th in the year 1552 which was 6 Edw. 6th there were Articles of Faith agreed on and in the 2. 3 Edw. 6. cap. 1. 5. 6 Edw. 6. cap. 1. two Acts were made referring to two common-prayer-Common-Prayer-Books made in the short Reign of that excellent Prince It must be known that before this time in the time of K. Hen. 8. there were great foundations for Reformation laid in the suppression of Monasteries taking away the Popes Supremacy destruction of Appeals to Rome Printing the Bible in English but there was no Reformation in Doctrine Worship or Discipline For the Doctrine it appeareth to have been Popish by the six Articles the first of which yet was so penned as though it established a corporal presence of Christ in the Supper yet it seemed to leave it indefinite whether in the Popish or Lutheran sense which possibly gave Archbishop Cranmer who as well as Latimer and other good men at that time were Lutherans a latitude to be an agent in Lamberts condemnation The other five articles against giving the Cup to the Laity and for Private Masses and Monkish Vows Auricular Confession and Priests Marriages were perfectly Popish So as in that time no Nonconformist appear'd but as to Doctrine of which Lambert the Martyr was one and so were all those that suffered upon the account of the six Articles together with multitudes who fled into other Countries to avoid that Persecution The Worship of those days was the Mass only some parts of it were in English The Government of the Church was also in the same method for though three Acts had been made to authorize K. H. 8. to call together 32 persons to make a Book of new Canons yet for ought appeareth to us it was not done And possibly a due consideration that several of our greatest Reformers were Lutherans at first may satisfie us as to the first establishment of our Liturgy in the method it was and retaining of some Ceremonies the Saxon Churches having before reformed in that method keeping as much as they could both of the Old Prayers and Ceremonies And it is very likely that when after Queen Maries time the Reformation came to be re-setled some of those who had a great hand in it were possessed of the Lutheran Principles as to the Corporal Presence Forms and Ceremonies or at least had a very great Reverence for Cranmer Latimer and others who were then dead as Martyrs and chose to fix things according to their sentiments in these matters without so due weighing things as the matter required or having not so early a prospect of the evils which experience hath since let us see following thereupon In the first Parliament of King Edw. 6. the first Statute tells us that before that time in the times of Popery they had several Forms one used at Sarum another at Bangor c. and the whole Ministry of the Nation were just come out of Popery and neither fit to Pray nor Preach which was the reason both of that establishment and also of the Book of Homilies and of the Original cause of that Imposition on the Ministry not to preach without license For the truth is hardly one of an hundred of the Priests newly proselyted from Popery were fit to Preach at all which made our Rulers restrain Preaching only to such as should be licensed Besides that there was just reason to fear that those Priests but for such a Law and such a Book would have returned to their former Mass-service To prevent which the Book was provided 2 3 Edw. 6. and corrected 3 4 Edw. 6. And all Ministers injoin'd by Statute to read those Prayers and all the people to bear them There was before that time no Nonconformist to direct the Act against only Papists But upon the second Edition of the Common-Prayer there appeared a considerable party who opposed themselves to it Three years before Bishop Hooper and Mr. Rogers had declared themselves against some Rites and Ceremonies But the last year of Edw. 6. was the first time we read of any opposition to
themselves by Petition to the Queen and to particular Lords of the Council then to the Queen and the whole Council Particularly Dunmow in Essex sent a Supplication to my Lord Rich. The Parishioners of Aldermary in London to the Earl of Leicester The Ministers of the Diocess of Peterborough to another Lord. Many addressed to the whole Council viz. The Gentlemen of Norfolk the Ministers in Norfolk the Ministers of Essex the Ministers of Lincolnshire Essex Oxfordshire the Isle of Ely and many other Counties and places I have by me all the Copies I shall only transcribe that of the Ministers of Lincolnshire The Supplication of the Ministers of Lincolnshire to the Lords of the Council Forasmuch Right Honourable as the Lord of heaven and earth hath substituted your Honours next under her Majesty to procure passage to his Gospel beauty to his Church and glory to his Kingdom in which business of the Lord to the great joy of all those which pray heartily for the peace of Jerusalem hitherto you have happily proceeded We whose names are underwritten whom the same Lord hath in mercy placed over some of his people here in Lincolnshire as Pastors and Preachers to feed them with the word of truth do humbly beseech your Honours to regard the pitiful and woful estate of our Congregations and people in these parts which being destitute of our Ministry by the means of a Subscription generally and strictly urged now of late by the Bishops Officers do mourn and lament It is well known to all your Lordships that an absolute Subscription is required throughout the whole Province of Canterbury to three Articles The first concerning her Majesties Supreme Authority The second to the Book of Common-prayer with that of consecrating Bishops and ordering Priests and Deacons The third concerning the Book of Articles As touching the first we offer our sevles to a full Subscription as always heretofore we have done as also to the Articles of Religion I presume here must be meant as in the rest generally is exprest so far as they concern matters of Faith and the Doctrine of the Sacraments and cannot be accepted herein without an absolute Subscribing to the other unto which we dare not condescend being as yet many of us not fully acquainted with the Book of confecrating Bishops and ordering Priests and Deacons and all of us unresolved and unsatisfied in our Consciences in many points of the Common-Prayer May it please your Lordships also favourably to consider that in refusing an absolute Subscription we do it not out of any arrogance or singularity but only for that we have no sufficient resolution which we have earnestly desired of some doubts about divers weighty matters and points in the same Book which requests of ours sith we could not obtain we desired that at the least in our Subscription we might make exceptions of the things whereof we doubted which they have utterly denied us for which causes Right Honourable we fearing to Subscribe so absolutely as we were urged we are all suspended from executing the function of our Ministry amongst our people to the great danger of their souls and danger of losing the fruit of our former poor labours which we have by Gods Grace imployed upon them wherefore we humbly crave of your Honours our Cause being as we are perswaded the Lords own Cause and his Churches that it may be considered And that since we can neither be impeached of false Doctrine nor of contempt of her Majesties Laws nor of refusing of the exercising of the Book of Common-Prayer in our charges nor of breeding contention and sedition in the Church And again that Papists her Majesties enemies with Atheists to the corrupting of Religion in Doctrine and Manners do daily multiply and increase we may be restored to our flocks and people in such sort as with all peace of Conscience we may go forward with the Lords Work in building up his house in several places Thomas Fulkeck Hugh Tuke John Daniel Richard Allen. Anthony Hunt Reinold Grome Thomas Tripler Shepheard Henry Nelson Mat. Tomson Thomas Bradly Joseph Gibson James Worship Charles Bingam John Munning Humfrid Travers John Pryer John Summerscales John Wintle Richard Holdsworth Richard Kellet These are enough for specimens of several sorts of Supplications There were others more particularly directed to the Queen and to some great persons all much to the same sense This last means had some little effect of which the Author of the Book called The unlawful practices of Prelates giveth us this account c. 4. Hence became the subscription to be somewhat more tolerable and further time was granted unto divers in divers Countreys and retaining that which pertained to the Civil State and in the Ecclesiastical that which concerned doctrine with protestation to use the Book of Common-prayer the Archbishop suffered himself to be entreated to require no more of many To this many were drawn the peace of the Church the compassion of their flocks the weariness of turmoils brought many to it that yet did it some with tears some with so great heaviness of conscience long after as they were never quiet till their dying day So great a desire of unity was in sundry men that stood herein Others satisfying themselves with a protestation of an holy and godly resolution by the Archbishop and other of the Bishops in certain points as they supposed by the example of certain learned men in the like case did not refuse to subscribe as the Ministers of Sussex and such like Again some other special men were admitted in divers places with more favour as the Ministers of Leicestershire Buckinghamshire and somt other places and some such others chiefly such whose authority would have brought discredit to their too too severe proceedings without any subscription at all Hence of the multitude that held out at first seemed not so great tho in truth in respect of the men and the times they were too too many and their subscription laid with their sundry exceptions in a manner no subscription at all But with the credit of these shewing only the subscriptions in one paper and retaining their Protestation in another many were drawn also as unawares birds into the net by the chirping of birds first taken From the colour of these last forms of subscriptions sprang bruits as tho all things were well in the Orders and Liturgy of the Church of England all things subscribed unto that all had yielded that whosoever mouths were open had subscribed But how far these differ frow that which was at first tendered I suppose no man is ignorant As again how little difference there is between the latter and that which all men did freely and frankly offer at the first Nothing that did pertain to her Excellent Majesty was struck at nothing that concerned doctrine or the substance of our faith Nothing that in the Statutes was set down touching Subscription The most that was excepted against at first and
THE HISTORY OF Conformity Or a PROOF of the MISCHIEF OF IMPOSITIONS FROM THE EXPERIENCE Of more than One Hundred Years LONDON Printed by A. Maxwell and R. Roberts 1681. To the READER by way of INTRODUCTION Christian Reader WHAT was in a great measure proved before the Committee of Parliament in the year 1666 that London was burned by the treachery of Papists and hath withal been suspected a long time by our wise and discerning Patriots that a Plot was by them laid to subvert the Government of the Nation and introduce the Popish Religion hath been so fully proved by a variety of Evidence before the greatest Courts of Judicature in England since the first discovery of the late Hellish Plot and that with this advantage to convince us of the Villany and danger of that party That they had upon it grafted a design for the hastening of the other to assassinate his most Sacred Majesty and several eminent Peers and by a Popish army to massacre all Protestants as none can deny it with any degree of modesty And if any had any inclinations to it the murther of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey and Assassination of Mr. Arnold the manifold lyes perjuries subornations which have been proved against them the device of the Meal-tub Plot c. to spoil the credit of the manifold proofs against them have been such convictions as none hath been able to outface unless such as have dreamed of a liberty yea and a merit too for and in doing any thing for the reputation of the Catholick Church as they nickname the Synagogue of Rome It is as evident that the design of the Popish faction was to have cast the Odium of these actions upon the Protestants The Odium of Sir Edmondbury Godfreys death should have been cast upon Debauches of that Religion had it not been unluckily discovered that he was murthered within the Walls of Sommerset House But that of the Kings Death could they have effected it should have been thrown on the Presbyterians a name under which of late they have comprehended all Dissenters This should have engaged our credulous and furious men to have helped them to have destroyed the Dissenters while they should have got their Catholick Army in a capacity at last to have destroyed them also This restless party having had this long in their design no doubt wonderfully influenced some to procure such a settlement of Religion upon his Majesties Restauration as should produce Dissenters enough nor is it reasonable to think that all the latter severe Acts against Dissenters were not the fruits of their counsels considering how conducive they were to make a great number of Protestants willing for their own ease to have had an Vniversal Toleration which though nothing is or can be more contrary to Popish Principles would admirably have served their design giving an undisturbed liberty to their Priests and Jesuits who can never have an abode in any place without contriving the ruin of those they call Hereticks in our own bowels to have contrived our ruin Or if this failed as indeed it did yet they knew that this way they should employ all our Courts of Judicature against Protestants so as they should not look after them and besides raise a mighty odium and prejudice in the hearts of Protestants one against another so as whatever Villany they should have effected it would have been easie to have charged it upon Dissenters and there had been a party of Protestants in name ready prepared to give credit to it It is now evident to all who will not wilfully shut their eyes how near they were to have accomplished their design But God in infinite mercy hath prevented the accomplishment After all this one would reasonably think that there should not be one Protestant in England who should not think it high time for our Superiors to unite all Protestants A thing the more easie and reasonable because it is apparent that it may be done without the least offence to God or scandal to the generality of Reformed Churches and by the abatement only of some things which being abated we shall be much more like all Reformed Churches than we are But against this some make a mighty outcry out of what design God knoweth For it is a little mysterious that those men who all along have been great pleaders for a reconciliation betwixt us and the Church of Rome and the true Disciples of those Bishops who to prevent the offence of that Church took upon them in the time of King Charles the first to expunge passage out of the Common-Prayer-Book and to bring us as near as possible to them erected Altars brought in Tapers and twenty things more should now that they see the effect of those endeavours for and favours to Papists not be willing for the reconciling of all Protestants to abate those things which themselves own no where specially commanded by God and this too at a time when the Popish bloody Knives are at all our Throats Especially considering that the true cause of retaining our Ceremonies at the first and forming our Common-Prayer-Book in the method it is was originally a desire so far to commend our Worship to the Papists whose Religion lyes all in Ceremonies and Set-forms that they might be proselyted to us and the effects we have seen after an hundred years and upwards is but the hardning of Papists and the alienating infinite numbers of Protestants from us I am aware that a late Author in his Book call'd The Vnreasonableness of Separation hath given us an account of three other reasons of the first Imposition of the Ceremonies upon the Reformation 1. A due reverence to Antiquity 2. To manifest the justice and equity of the Reformation by letting the Papists see we did not break communion with them for things meerly indifferent 3. To shew our consent with other Protestant Churches But he had better have said nothing For will some say How have we reverenced Antiquity in retaining three of their ceremonies and leaving out twenty more of greater antiquity if we may believe the Books we have than the Surplice and kneeling at the Sacrament two of the three we have retained can pretend unto Besides that all the account we have of antiquity is from Books Printed within 200 years for Printing is very little older from Manuscripts which if they bear date three hundred years after Christ must be 1100 years old when they were Printed If we stretch antiquity to 600 years after Christ they must be 800 years old and all that time generally kept in the hands of the known depravers of all Books that ever came in their hands where was any thing not for the purposes of their Church Now what reverence is due to any such worm-eaten Records of antiquity let any men of sense judg His second reason is as invalid for what need was there of our keeping two or three Ceremonies to testifie we did not differ from them for meer
the Common Prayer and the contest was quickly at an end by the coming in of Q. Mary The business of Church-Government as to the rules of it was left by King Edward undetermined for he died before he had given his Royal sanction to that Systeme of Ecclesiastical Laws which was drawn up by Archbishop Cranmer and others by vertue of his Commission directed to them in the fifth year of his Reign In all his time no Subscription was required by Statute or Canon that I can find established by his authority under the broad Seal either to the Articles of Faith or to the Book of Common-Prayer c. nor do I read of one Minister silenced or suspended upon any such account or any people vexed for Nonconformity Our prudent Reformers knowing they had to do with a people who were Papists the other day in their first Common Prayer Book varied as little as they could from the Popish Missal and kept as many of the Ceremonies as they conceived were consistent with any degree of Reformation In the second Common-Prayer-Book they varied more but yet we are assured by Dr. Fuller in his Church History Lib. 7. that the party now disaffected to the Liturgy became very considerable This was in the very beginning of the Reformation Anno 1553. Queen Mary succeeding put an end to all these contests in England for the whole time of her Reign which was but five years To avoid her Persecution multitudes fled beyond the Seas fixing some at Basil some at Geneva some at Strasburgh some at Embden some at Francfort and other places We have no account that I know how those governed themselves as to Religious matters who fixed at any of those places save only at Francfort and Geneva those at Geneva followed the Order of that Church so did those at Francfort using the order at Geneva from June 27 1554 to Mar. 13. 1555 when Dr. Cox one of those who had compiled our English Common Prayer Book and was mightily in love with his own labours came over with a new party from England and by his arts got admission into the Church at Francfort and brought in the English Book amongst them nor did this satisfie him but he must also turn out their Pastor Mr. Knox and that not from his charge only but out of Francfort procuring him by some of his party to be accused to the Senate for a Sermon he had two years before Preached in Bucking hamshire here in England in which he had some passages reflecting upon the Emperour of Germany as an Idolater c. which made some of the Senate advise him to leave the City because the Imperial Court was then at Ausburgh and if this malicious party had carried an accusation against him thither and the Emperour should require the City to deliver him as a Traytor to him they could not refuse him Which made Mr. Knox and a considerable party of that Church remove to Geneva This was the first fruits of the conformable mens kindness to poor Dissenters though at that time they were both parties voluntary Exiles in a strange Land for the common Cause of Religion So that Dr. Cox who was afterward Bishop of Ely and Horne who was afterwards made Bishop of Winchester were left in possession of that Church and there performed their Devotions by the English Common-Prayer-Book which at that time had had but the establishment of one year before it was thrown out for the Mass in England Queen Elizabeth came to the Crown Three years after this in the year 1558. Upon which the banished from all parts returned both those who had fled from King Hen 8. persecution for the Six Articles who if any of them returned before were driven back again and those who fled from Queen Maries persecution from 1553. to 1558. These if we may believe Bishop Bancroft and Dr. Fuller having beyond Sea sucked in the Protestant principles for Worship as well as Discipline were the Fathers of Nonconformity in England But these were either many more than I could ever find registred or else under both persecutions multitudes must lye hid in England And indeed some make the cause of the different apprehensions in Protestants at that time to lye here That those most favourable to Conformity and promoters of it were such as had never been abroad but during both those persecutions weathered the storm in England and the Nonconformists such as had been abroad and seen the Worship Order and Discipline of the Churches in Suitzerland and Germany and at Geneva But this is not Universally true for both Dr. Cox and Mr. Horne were at Francfurt yet high en ough for our Conformity both during their abode there and after their return into England In the first year of Queen Elizabeth several Acts passed which revived the Reformation Uniting the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction to the Crown Repealing Queen Maries Act of Repeal and reviving several Statutes for the Reformation made in the time of Hen. 8. and Edw. 6. establishing Vniformity of Prayers And it is to be noted that these Acts passed without the assent of one Bishop there were at this time but Fourteen present and they were all Papists and notorious Dissenters from all Acts of this nature This by the way may let my Reader understand the Popish design of a party amongst us for whom it is not enough that the Clergy be owned as one of the Three Estates of the Realm of which the King is the Head but they will also have them to be one of the Three States in Parliament which if they be no Law can be of force that wants the consent of some of them So that if that notion were yeilded all our Acts for Reformation must be concluded Nullities It was the second year of the Queen before we had a set of Protestant Bishops It was her Majesties interest at that time so to govern her self as to caray an equal hand to all Protestants accordingly she fill'd up the Bishopricks partly with men that during the late persecutions had staid in England partly of such as had fled beyond the Seas 1. Mathew Parker Archbishop of Canterbury he had lived a private life in England These if no more had been Exiles 2. Edward Grindall Bishop of London 3. Robert Horne Bishop of Winchester 4. Richard Cox Bishop of Ely 5. Edward Sands Bishop of Worcester 6. John Jewel Bishop of Salisbury 7. Tho. Beatham B of Coventry and Litchfield 8. John Parkhurst Bishop of Norwish Whether these had been beyond Sea during the persecution I cannot tell 9. Rowland Mecreek Bishop of Bangor 10. Nicholas Bullingham Bishop of Lincoln 11. Thomas Young Bishop of St. Davids 12. Richard Davyes Bishop of Asaph 13. Gilbert Barclay Bishop of Bath and Wells 14. Edmond Guest Bishop of Rochester 15. William Alley Bishop of Exeter 16. Edmond Seamler Bishop of Peterborough 17. Richard Cheyney Bishop of Glocester 18. Thomas Young Archbishop of York 19. James Pilkington Bishop
that generally were the Ceremonies The reading the Apocryphal Books The ill translation of the Scriptures used The Rubricks Very many things in the Book of ordaining Bishops Priests and Deacons and several passages in the prayers The number was not many who refused to use a set-form of prayer to be constantly used in their Ministry It was but twenty five years since the whole Nation came out of Popery where they knew nothing else and it could not be expected that in that time should be a discovery of all that was truly blameable in Worship or Government of the Church Yet there were some that in those days refused this Bishop Bancroft in his Dangerous Positions p. 84 tells us that Mr. Field in a Letter to Mr. Asker 14. Ap. 1585. tells him I preach every Sabbath-day if no other that cometh by chance doth supply the place having nothing to do at all with the former Book of Common-prayer c. This was the first division of godly Ministers into such as were purely Nonconformists 2. Conforming Nonconformists The latter were the greater number who had subscribed to use the Common-prayer but not to read it fully and in all parts and this with protestations that their subscriptions should not oblige them to do any thing contrary to the word of God c. there were several forms of it Twenty Ministers of the Diocess of Chichester thus subscribed with exception to all the Rubricks the Book of Ordination and I know not how many limitations Here the great and infinite wisdom of God was seen governing the failers of his servants to his own wise ends and glory By this means a preaching Ministry was preserved in England which had the Bishop kept to his first severity and all the Ministers that at first refused absolutely persisted in their refusal had before the Reformation was 28. years old been destroyed throughout England at least the greatest part of it But saith our Saviour He that will save his life shall lose it Very many of these good men were afterwards suspended deprived indited imprisoned wearied out of their lives by troubles in the High Commission though not for not subscribing for which was no Law yet for not wearing the Surplice not using the Cross in Baptism not keeping Holydays not reading all the Prayers or some such like things Thus was our state from 1583. till 1603. when King James came to the Crown Hitherto I have shewed my Reader the first Impositions in England and the woful mischief wrought by them not only to multitudes of particular Families but to the interest of the Gospel and Reformation in general I shall now proceed to a second period which will take up the whole time of King James his Reign from 1603. to 1625. Whitgift was in the beginning Archbishop and Bancroft Bishop of London Their Writings sufficiently testifie how zealous both of them were against Nonconformists The Convocation this year established the three Articles which 20 years before had made such a confusion by a Canon it is their 36 Canon which Canons were confirmed by King James but never since brought to a Parliament or confirmed by them I am not concerned to enquire how valid they are as Laws obligatory to the subject till confirmed by Parliament that belongeth to Lawyers to argue and dependeth upon the Kings Prerogative and the terms used in the Act of 25 Hen. 8. I am only concerned to note how Conformity improved upon these Canons and also what the effect of these new Impositions was For the first let the Canons themselves speak Subscription to the three Articles was now enjoined by Canon 36. Bowing at the name of Jesus was enjoined Can 18. Bidding of prayer by another Canon with a multitude of other things too long to be here recited for which I refer my Reader to the Book of Canons The first fruit of this was a Petition with a thousand Ministers hands presentad to the King 1603 4. saith Dr. Fuller Indeed Dr. Fuller saith the hands were but 750. I believe he taketh his intelligence from the abridgment of that Book which the Ministers of Lincoln Diocess delivered to his Majesty 5. December 1604. I find them there mentioned to be 752. out of 23. Counties Dr. Fuller saith 25. which are but half the Counties of England and Wales hardly so much Their numbers are thus countd Oxfordshire 9. Stafordshire 14. Dorsetshire 17. Nottinghamshire 20. Surry 21. Norfolk 28. Wiltshire 31. Buckinghamshire 33. Sussex 47. Leicestershire 57. Essex 57. Cheshire 12. Bedsordshire 16. Somersetshire 17. Darbyshire 20. Lancashire 21. Kent 23. London 30. Lincolnshire 33. Warwickshire 44. Devon and Cornwall 51. Northampton 57. Suffolk 72. These make 752 Here are none reckoned of any County in Wales nor any of Yorkshire Barkshire and many others I know no reason any hath to doubt but that there were a 1000. hands to this Petition the Petitioners in the body of their Petition say they were more than a thousand and they would not have told a Lye to a King which so little labour as counting them would have proved to be such But the matter of the Petition is very considerable to let my Reader know both to what height Impositions were grown 77. years since and what Oppositions they met with from our fore-fathers Dr. Fuller in his Church-History assures us he has got the true Copy I will therefore transcribe it from him as I find it in the 10th Book p. 22. Most Gracious and Dread Soveraign Seeing it hath pleased the Divine Majesty to the great comfort of all good Christians to advance your Highness according to your just Title to the peaceable Government of this Church and Common-wealth of England We the Ministers of the Gospel in this Land neither as factious men affecting a popular parity in the Church nor as Schismaticks aiming at the dissolution of the State Ecclesiastical but as the faithful Servants of Christ and loyal Subjects to your Majesty desiring and longing for a Redress of divers abuses of the Church could do no less in our obedience to God service to your Majesty love to his Church than acquaint your Majesty with our particular griefs for as your Princely Pen writeth tâ— The King as a good Physician must first know what peccant humours his Patient naturally is most subject unto before he can begin his Cure And although divers of us that sâ—â— for Reformation Subscribe to the Book some upon Protestation some upon Exposition given them some with Condition rather than the Church should have been deprived of their labour and Ministry yet now we to the number of more than a thousand of your Majesties Subjects and Ministers all groaning as under a common burden of humane Rites and Ceremonies do with one joint consent humble our selves at your Majesties feet to be cased and relieved in this behalf Our humble suit then unto your Majesty is that these offences following some of them may be removed some amended some
people rooting out all private Meetings enforcing people to come to hear the Common-Prayer and to conform to the Ceremonies and hear their Parish-Ministers and receive the Sacrament with them 2. The Second is by taking off these Impositione which all agree to be of things not in their own nature necessary but such as the Magistrate may if he pleaseth relax For the first method to unite us it is a strange one it aims only at uniting by destroying and purchases such a Church-Vnity as the Papists boast of who by destroying of hundred thousands of righteous men at last made all of one mind in appearance The experience of more then 100 years hath taught us that multitudes are neither to be argued nor cudgelled into their conformity The multitude of Nonconformists hath increased all a long in stead of abateing even from the first beginning of the difference at Francfurt to this day and he is very ignorant that knoweth not that since the fire of London they have been almost doubled to what they were before Nor hath the warmth of many Clergymen of late in decrying the Plot or lessening it and indeavouring to make people believe it was a Nonconformist Plot a little contributed to let the world know what they are and would be at Would any have these impositions still inforced what can they pursue but the old design of Reconciling us and the Church of Rome in which the Papists will listen to them till they have ripen'd a design to cut their throats as well as other mens but those are mightily ignorant of Popish principles that can so much as fancy a possibility of reconciliation with them so long as we maintain the Kings Supremacy or a married Clergy so that in truth a reconciliation to the Church of Rome is a thing not to be thought on by a married Clergyman unless he be weary of his wife and children nor by a Loyal Subject that understands sense The Vnion must therefore be effected by taking off these impositions which now for an hundred years have produced so ill effects in this Nation It is easy to see how great the good of this would be We should all then be known by the single name of Protestants and be hearty as one man in opposition to all Popish designs Our Civil and Ecolesiastical Courts might possibly then be at leisure to execute the power with which they are betrusted against Papists and profane persons Sober and industrious men would be encouraged to push out in trading to their utmost There would be no complaining in our streets for want of the Ordinances of God so administred as that concientious people might freely partake of them without so much as a fancy that might make them call out Death is in the pot and sit at the Lords feasts without so much as a jealousy of a Divine Sword hanging over their heads spoiling their Spiritual appetite In short it would restore us to one of the greatest pieces of Christian liberty To serve the Lord without fear either of offending God whom they know in matters of Worship to be a jealous God or of being undone in their temporal concerns for the exercise of a tender conscience towards God All good men should rejoice under the shadow of the King and Parliament and unite their Prayers with chearfulness for both What would be the Evil of it The foundations of Archbishop Whitgift and Archbishop Laud and my Lord Chancellor Hide the buildings upon which hath hitherto been kept up with no less guard than the trouble of all the Courts of Judicature in England would be something shaken and our foundations laid upon the word of God which surely is far better the credit of some men who have laid all the stress of Religion upon a common-prayer-Common-prayer-book and some Ceremonies would be thought a little impaired the Magistrate should do nothing displeasing to God who never required the imposition of these things at his hands and doubtless hath been highly displeased at a great deal of force used which hath not been good for the enforcing of them It is as I have said before more than an hundred years since these impositions have been the cause of so much evil in these Nations and that not only to particular families and persons but even to the whole Nation Though our Civil Wars were bottomed upon Questions and Grievances of a Civil Nature yet it is hardly imaginable the common people should have been so inflamed had they not before been wounded in so tender a part as that of their Consciences towards God By reason of these contests Papists have been connived at and gained a great deal of Reputation so much that till within these 2 years it was dangerous for Protestants to vie with them for Loyalty or Religion We see the issue while they have been thus neglected yea credited they have been hatching the most hellish Plot that was ever heard of hardly to be parallel'd by any story The Plot hath in the bowels of it been discovered so full of Blood and Cruelty and Ingratude to his most Sacred Majesty and in the defence of themselves from the imputation of it they have been found guilty of so many Lies so much Perjury and Subornation so much ungodliness and unrighteousness that they cannot but see their Catholick Cause is wounded under the fifth rib and their pretended Religion not like to recover its reputation until there be none left of this Geration They have nothing to do but to wait a time when they may fight out their way with some probable hope of prevailing It is certainly now high time to restore all Protestants be their persuasions what they will to a just liberty in the things of God than the want of which nothing can more dispirit good men in their duty as to a common watchfulness and defence for what spirit can be in them who know they shall be ruin'd by one hand or another I surther offer it to the consideration of our grave Senators who come up from the several parts of the Nation and must best know the complexion of it Whether those who are most against the taking of these Impositions be not I do not say all but forty for one the persons whom several Proclamations of his Majesty and several votes of two Parliaments declaring it and the several judgments upon some of the Traytors given by our Courts of Justice have not been able to convince That there is any Popish Plot but in all their converse they have made it their business to deny or lessen the Plot to defame and vilify the Kings Evidence to impose upon people that it was a Plot of the Nonconformists to make the dying words of the Jesuits creditable In short by all manner of ways to turn the whole Popish Plot into Ridicule I do know some few very few others zealous for these Impositions have born a Testimony against the Papists and freely declare their Judgments about the