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
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
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
following and there received the Sentence of death in due form of Law But such was the exceeding Lenity of the good Arch-bishop that he looked more upon the Parts of the man than upon his Passions upon his Learning and Abilities though too much abused than the ill use that he made of them in those stirring-times And so far he engaged himself with his Royal Mistress who used to call him Her Black Husband that she gave way to a Reprieve though she could not easily be induced to grant a Pardon Which notwithstanding the Arch-bishop could not scape the lash of some virulent Tongues by whom he stood more accused for the Condemnation than he was magnified for the Reprieve of the man condemned And therefore it was after pleaded in his justification That Vdal's Book was clearly within the compass of the Statute 23 Eliz. cap. 2. for punishing Seditious words against the Queen according to the Resolution of the Judges before laid down That divers Seditious Sermons might have been objected against him as well as the making of that Book which would have rendred him more culpable in the sight of his Judges and that whereas one Catsfield could have spoken more materially against him than any of the rest of the Witnesses he was never called unto the Barr to give in his Evidence the Jurors being fully satisfied in the former Proofs So that the whole Indictment being rightly grounded the Prosecution favourable and the Evidence full the man remained a living-Monument of the Arch-bishop's extraordinary Goodness to him in the preserving of that Life which by the Law he had forfeited But how long he remained alive I am not able to say and therefore shall add only this That he left a Son behind called Ephraim who afterwards was Beneficed at the Church of St. Augustines near St. Paul's Church-yard and proved as great a Zealot for Conformity in the time of King CHARLES as his Father was reputed for his Non-conformity in the times we write of And he paid almost as deer for it as his Father did being sequestred about the year 1643 not submitting to some Oaths and Covenants then required of him his bed-rid Wife turned out of doors and left most unmercifully in the open Streets 13. Now whilst the State was taken up in these Criminal Processes the Learned men and others interessed on each side were no less busied in defence of their own Concernments Adrian Saravia born in the Lower-Germany but better studied in the Fathers than the most of his Rank had found by search into their Writings of what Antiquity and Necessity the Calling of Bishops had been reckoned in the Primitive times even in the days of the Apostles but finding no encouragement to maintain any such opinion in his Native Countrey where the Presbyteries governed all and Parity of Ministers was received as an Article of their publike Confession he put himself upon the Favour and Protection of the Church of England He had before fashioned his Reply to Beza's Book entituled De Triplici Episcopatu as before was said But the first Piece published by him on his coming hither was a right learned Work entituled De diversis gradibus Ministrorum Evangelii In which he proved by undeniable Arguments That Bishops were a different Order as well as by Degrees superior to all other Presbyters This Book he dedicates to the Ministers of the Belgick Churches as appears by his Epistle dated March 26 Anno 1590. Amongst whom though he could not hope for much approbation yet he received but little or no opposition But so it prov'd not at Geneva where Beza governed backed by Danaeus and the rest of the Consistorians who looked upon it as destructive to their whole Contrivements Beza had other Work in hand and therefore leaves him for the present to the lash of Danaeus who falls upon him with Reproaches instead of Arguments as Saravia complained in his Reply reckoning his Corpulency for a Crime calling him Swineherd Hog a man born only for the stuffing of a filthy paunch with many the like scurrilous strains of Genevian Rhetorick Beza comes slowly on but he comes at last not publishing his Answer to it till the third year after to which Saravia replies in the year next following Anno 1594. In which he made an exact parallel amongst other things betwixt the practises of Hacket and the Puritan Faction on the one side and those of Iohn of Leyden and the Anabaptists when they reigned in Munster In the end Beza gave him over which raised him to such eminent note with the English Prelates that he was made a Prebendary of the Church of Westminster and otherwise well provided for to his full contentment 14. In the mean time the Minister of the Italian Church in the City of London could not rest satisfied with the enjoying the same Priviledges which the French and Dutch Churches had before procured but published a Book in maintenance and commendation of the Holy Discipline which gave a just occasion to Dr. Matthew Suttliff then Dean of Exon to set out a judicious Work in Latin touching the nature of the truly Catholick and Christian Church wherein he grated somewhat hard on the point of Presbytery and was the first English man that did so in the Latin Tongue And though he named Beza only and no more than named him yet Beza thought his Name so sacred or himself so high that he conceived himself to be much dishonoured reproaches him by the name of a petulant Railer and complains of the affront in an Epistle to the Arch-bishop of Canterbury But he got nothing by the Bargain For as he was handsomely shaked up for it by Saravia in his Replication so the Arch-bishop in an Answer to the said Epistle dated in Ianuary 1593 severely reprehends him for his intermedling with the Church of England and plainly lays before him all those disturbances which by his means had been occasioned in the same so that being learnedly refuted by Saravia on the one side and gravely reprehended on the other by that Reverend Prelate he grows wise at last leaving the English Puritans to their own defences And more than so in his Reply to his last Letter he gives him his due Titles of the most Reverend Father in Christ and his honoured Lord assuring him That in all his writings touching Church-Government he impugned only the Romish Hierarchy but never intended to touch the Ecclesiastical Polity of this Church of England nor to exact of us to frame our selves or our Church to the pattern of their Presbyterian Discipline And thereunto he added this safe Conclusion That as long as the substance of Doctrine was uniform in the Church of Christ they may lawfully vary in other matters as the circumstance of time place and persons requires and as prescription of Antiquity may warrant And to that end he wished and hoped that the Sacred and Holy Colledges of Bishops for so he calls them would
of the Queen not much improved in case it were not made more miserable In the time of K. IAMES some Propositions had been offered by Him in the Conference at Hampton-Court about sending Preachers into Ireland of which he was but half King as himself complained their Bodies being subject unto his Authority but their Souls and Consciences to the Pope But I find nothing done in pursuance of it till after the year 1607 where the Earl of Ter-ownen Ter-connel Sir Iohn Odaghartie and other great Lords of the North together with their Wives and Families took their flight from Ireland and left their whole Estates to the King 's disposing Hereupon followed the Plantation of Vlster first undertaken by the City of London who fortified Colraine and built London-Derrie and purchased many thousand Acres of Lands in the parts adjoyning But it was carried on more vigorously as more unfortunately withall by some Adventurers of the Scottish Nation who poured themselves into this Countrey as the richer Soil And though they were sufficiently industrious in improving their own Fortunes there and set up Preaching in all Churches whersoever they fixed yet whether it happened for the better or for the worse the event hath showed For they brought with them hither such a stock of Puritanism such a contempt of Bishops such a neglect of the publick Liturgy and other Divine Offices of this Church that there was nothing less to be found amongst them than the Government and Forms of Worship established in the Church of England 32. Nor did the Doctrine speed much better if it sped not worse For Calvinism by degrees had taken such deep root amongst them that at the last it was received and countenanced as the only Doctrine which was to be defended in the Church of Ireland For not contented with the Articles of the Church of England they were resolved to frame a Confession of their own the drawing up whereof was referred to Dr. Iames Vsher then Provost of the Colledg of Dublin and afterwards Arce-bishop of Armagh and Lord Primate of Ireland By whom the Book was so contrived that all the Sabbatarian and Calvinian Rigors were declared therein to be the Doctrines of that Church For first the Articles of Lambeth rejected at the Conference at Hampton-Court must be inserted into this Confession as the chief parts of it And secondly An Article must be made of purpose to justifie the Morality of the Lord's-day-Sabbath and to require the spending of it wholly in Religious Exercises Besides which deviations from the Doctrine of the Church of England most grievous Torments immediately in His Soul are there affirmed to be endured by Christ our Saviour which Calvin makes to be the same with his descent into Hell The Abstinencies from eating Flesh upon certain days declared not to be Religious Fasts but to be grounded upon Politick Ends and Considerations All Ministers adjudged to be lawfully called who are called unto the work of the Ministry by those that have publick Authority given them in the Church but whether they be Bishops or not it makes no matter so they be authorized unto it by their several Churches The Sacerdotal Power of Absolution made declarative only and consequently quite subverted No Power ascribed to the Church in making Canons or Censuring any of those who either carelesly or maliciously do infringe the same The Pope made Antichrist according to the like determination of the French Hugonots at Gappe in Daulphine And finally Such a silence concerning the Consecration of Arch-bishops and Bishops expresly justified and avowed in the English Book as if they were not a distinct Order from the common Presbyters All which being Vsher's own private Opinions were dispersed in several places of the Articles for the Church of Ireland approved of in the Convocation of the year 1615 and finally confirmed by the Lord Deputy Chichester in the Name of King IAMES 33. What might induce King IAMES to confirm these Articles differing in so many points from his own Opinion is not clearly known but it is probable that he might be drawn to it on these following grounds For first He was much governed at that time in all Church-concernments by Dr. George Abbot Arch-bishop of Canterbury and Dr. Iames Mountague Bishop of Bath and Wells who having formerly engaged in maintenance of some or most of those Opinions as before is said might find it no hard matter to perswade the King to a like approbation of them And secondly The King had so far declared himself in the Cause against Vorstius and so affectionately had espoused the Quarrel of the Prince of Orange against those of the Remonstrant Party in the Belgick Churches that he could not handsomely refuse to confirm those Doctrines in the Church of Ireland which he had countenanced in Holland Thirdly The Irish Nation at that time were most tenaciously addicted to the Errors and Corruptions of the Church of Rome and therefore must be bended to the other Extream before they could be straight and Orthodox in these points of Doctrine Fourthly and finally It was an usual practise with that King in the whole course of His Government to balance one Extream by the other countenancing the Papists against the Puritans and the Puritans against the Papists that betwixt both the true Religion and Professors of it might be kept in safety But whether I hit right or not certain it is that it proved a matter of sad consequence to the Church of England there being nothing more ordinary amongst those of the Puritan Party when they were pressed in any of the points aforesaid then to appeal unto the Articles of Ireland and the infallible Judgment of K. IAMES who confirmed the same And so it stood until the year 1634 when by the Power of the Lord Deputy Wentworth and the Dexterity of Dr. Iohn Bramhall then Lord Bishop of Derry the Irish Articles were repealed in a full Convocation and those of England authorised in the place thereof 34. Pass we next over to the Isles of Iersey and Guernsey where the Genevian Discipline had been setled under Queen ELIZABETH and being so setled by that Queen was confirmed by K. IAMES at his first coming to this Crown though at the same time he endeavoured a subversion of it in the Kirk of Scotland But being to do it by degrees and so to practise the restoring of the old Episcopacy as not to threaten a destruction to their new Presbyteries it was thought fit to tolerate that Form of Government in those petit Islands which could have no great influence upon either Kingdom Upon which ground he sends his Letter to them of the 8 th of August first writ in French and thus translated into English that is to say 35. JAMES by the Grace of God King of England Scotland France and Ireland c. Vnto all those whom these Presents shall concern greeting Whereas We Our selves and the Lords of Our Council have been given to understand that
out into open Warr. But finding no occasion they resolve to make one and to begin their first Embroilments upon the sending of the new Liturgy and Book of Canons to the Kirk of Scotland For though the Scots in a general Assembly held at Aberdeen had given consent unto the making of a Liturgy for the use of that Kirk and for drawing up a Book of Canons out of the Acts of their Assemblies and some Acts of Parliament yet when those Books were finished by the Care of King CHARLES and by his Piety recommended unto use and practise it must be looked on as a violation of their Rights and Liberties And though in another of their Assemblies which was held at Perth they had past five Articles for introducing private Baptism communicating of the sick kneeling at the Communion Episcopal Confirmation and the observing of such ancient Festivals as belonged immediately unto Christ yet when those Articles were incorporated in the common-prayer-Common-prayer-Book they were beheld as Innovations in the Worship of God and therefore not to be admitted in so pure and Reformed a Church as that of Scotland These were the Hooks by which they drew the people to them who never look on their Superiors with a greater reverence than when they see them active in the Cause of Religion and willing in appearance to lose all which was dear unto them whereby they might preserve the Gospel in its native purity But it was rather Gain than Godliness which brought the great men of the Realm to espouse this Quarrel who by the Commission of Surrendries of which more elsewhere began to fear the losing of their Tithes and Superiorities to which they could pretend no other title than plain Usurpation And on the other side it was Ambition and not Zeal which enflamed the Presbyters who had no other way to invade that Power which was conferred upon the Bishops by Divine Institution and countenanced by many Acts of Parliament in the Reign of K. IAMES than by embracing that occasion to incense the people to put the whole Nation into tumult and thereby to compel the Bishops and the Regular Clergy to forsake the Kingdom So the Genevians dealt before with their Bishop and Clergy when the Reforming-Humour came first upon them And what could they do less in Scotland than follow the Example of their Mother-City 3. These breakings-out in Scotland smoothed the way to the like in England from which they had received encouragement and presumed on Succours The English Puritaus had begun with Libelling against the Bishops as the Scots did against the King For which the Authors and Abettors had received some punishment but such as did rather reserve them for ensuing Mischiefs than make them sensible of their Crimes or reclaim them from it So that upon the coming of the Liturgy and Book of Canons the Scots were put into such heat that they disturbed the execution of the one by an open Tumult and refused obedience to the other by a wilful obstinacy The King had then a Fleet at Sea sufficiently powerful to have blockt up all the Havens of Scotland and by destroying that small Trade which they had amongst them to have reduced them absolutely to His Will and Pleasure But they had so many of their Party in the Council of Scotland and had so great a confidence in the Marquess of Hamilton and many Friends of both Nations in the Court of England that they feared nothing less than the Power of the King or to be enforced to their obedience in the way of Arms. In confidence whereof they despise all His Proclamations with which Weapons only He encountred them in their first Seditions and publickly protested against all Declarations which He sent unto them in the Streets of Edenborough Nothing else being done against them in the first year of their Tumults they cast themselves into four Tables for dispatch of business but chiefly for the cementing of their Combination For which they could not easily bethink themselves of a speedier course than to unite the people to them by a League or Covenant Which to effect it was thought necessary to renew the old Confession excogitated in the year 1580 for the abjuring of the Tyranny and Superstitions of the Church of Rome subscribed first by the King and His Houshold-Servants and the next year by all the Natives of the Kingdom as was said before And it was also said before that unto this Confession they adjoined a Band Anno 1592 for standing unto one another in defence thereof against all Papists and other professed Adversaries of their Religion This is now made to serve their turn against the King For by a strange interpretation which was put upon it it was declared That both the Government of the Church by Bishops and the Five Articles of Perth the Liturgy and the Book of Canons were all abjured by that Confession and the Band annexed though the three last had no existency or being in the Kirk of Scotland when that Confession was first formed or the Band subjoined 4. These Insolencies might have given the King a just cause to arm when they were utterly unprovided of all such necessaries as might enable them to make the least show of a weak resistance But the King deals more gently with them negotiates for some fair accord of the present differences and sends the Marquess of Hamilton as his chief Commissioner for the transacting of the same By whose sollicitation he revokes the Liturgy and the Book of Canons suspends the Articles of Perth and then rescinds all Acts of Parliament which confirmed the same submits the Bishops to the next General Assembly as their competent Judges and thereupon gives intimation of a General Assembly to be held at Glasgow in which the point of Church-Government was to be debated and all his Condescentions enrolled and registred And which made most to their advantage he caused the Solemn League or Covenant to he imposed on all the Subjects and subscribed by them Which in effect was to legitimate the Rebellion and countenance the Combination with the face of Authority But all this would not do his business though it might do theirs For they had so contrived the matter that none were chosen to have voices in that Assembly but such as were sure unto the side such as had formerly been under the Censures of the Church for their Inconformity and had refused to acknowledg the King's Supremacy or had declared their disaffections to Episcopal Government And that the Bishops might have no encouragement to sit amongst them they cite them to appear as Criminal persons Libel against them in a scandalous and unchristian manner and finally make choice of Henderson a Seditious Presbyter to sit as Moderator or chief President in it And though upon the sense of their disobedience the Assembly was again dissolved by the King's Proclamation yet they continued as before in contempt thereof In which Session they
of which two Prayers both for Words and Matter wholly left unto the building of the Preacher but the whole action to be sanctified by the singing of Psalms At all such Prayers the people to kneel reverently upon their knees In the Administration of Baptism a Declaration to be made in a certain Form not onely of the promises of the Grace of God but also of the Mysteries of that holy Sacrament Sureties or Witnesses to be required at the Baptizing of Infants The Lords Supper to be Ministred on the Lords day at the Morning-Sermon and that in sitting at the Table for no other gesture is allowed of the men sit first and the women after or below them which though it might pass well in the Gallick Churches would hardly down without much chewing by the Wives of England The publication of intended Marriages which we call the bidding of the Bains to be made openly in the Church and the said Marriages to be solemnized with Exhortation and Prayer No Holy-days at all allowed of nothing directed in relation unto Christian Burials or the visiting of the Sick or to the Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth all which were pretermitted as either superstitious or impertinent Actions 14. That naked Form of Worship which Calvin had devised for the Church of Geneva not beautified with any of those outward Ornaments which make Religion estimable in the sight of the people and by the which the mindes of men are raised to a contemplation of the glorious Majesty which they come together to adore All ancient Forms and Ceremonies which had been recommended to the use of the Church even from the times of the Apostles rejected totally as contracting some filth and rubbish in the times of Popery without being called to answer for themselves or defend their innocencie And as for the habit of the Ministry whether Sacred or Civil as there was no course taken by the Rules of their Discipline or by the Rubricks of the book of their publick Offices so did they by themselves and their Emissaries endeavour to discountenance and discredit all other Churches in which distinct Vestures were retained Whence came those manifold quarrels against Coaps and Surplices as also against the Caps Gowns and Tippets of the lower Clergie the Rochets and Chimeres of the Bishops wherewith for more then twenty years they exercised the patience of the Church of England But naked as it was and utterly void of all outward Ornaments this Form of Worship looked so lovely in the eyes of Calvin that he endeavoured to obtrude it on all Churches else Having first setled his new Discipline in the Town of Geneva Anno 1541 and crusht Perinus and the rest in the dancing business about five years after he thought himself to be of such confidence that no Church was to be reformed but by his advice Upon which ground of self-opinion he makes an offer of himself to Archbishop Cranmer as soon as he had heard of the Reformation which was here intended but Cranmer knew the man and refused the offer Which though it was enough to have kept him from venturing any further in the business and affairs of England yet he resoved to be of counsel in all matters whether called or not And therefore having taken Order with Martin Bucer on his first coming into England to give him some account of the English Liturgie he had no sooner satisfied himself in the sight thereof but he makes presently his exceptions and demurs upon it which afterwards became the sole ground of those many troubles those horrible disorders and confusions wherewith his Faction have involved the Church of England from that time to this 15. For presently on the account which he received of the English Liturgy he writes back to Bucer whom he requireth to be instant with the Lord Protector that all such Rites as savoured of superstition might be taken away and how far that might reach we may easily guess Next he dispatched a long Letter to the Protector himself in which he makes many exceptions against the Liturgie as namely against Commemoration of the dead which he acknowledgeth notwithstanding to be ancient also against Chrisme or Oyl in Baptism and the Apostolical Rite of Extream Vnction though the last be rather permitted then required by the Rules of that Book which said he wisheth that all these Ceremonies should be abrogated and that withal he should go forward to reform the Church without fear or wit without regard of peace at home or correspondencie abroad such considerations being onely to be had in Civil matters but not in matters of the Church wherein not any thing is to be exacted which is not warranted by the Word and in the managing whereof saith he there is not any thing more distasteful in the eyes of God then worldly Wisdom either in moderating cutting off or going backward but meerly as we are directed by his will revealed In the next place he toucheth on the Book of Homilies which very faintly he permits for a season onely but not allows of and thereby gave the hint to many others who ever since almost have declaimed against them But finding nothing to be done by the Lord Protector he tryes his Fortune with the King and with the Lords of the Council and is resolved to venture once again on Archbishop Cranmer In his Letter to the King he lets him know that in the State of the Kingdom there were many things which required a present Reformation in that to the most Reverend Cranmer that in the Service of this Church there was remaining a whole Mass of Popery which seemed not onely to deface but in a manner to destroy Gods publick Worship and finally in those to the Lords of the Council that they needed some excitements to go forwards with the Work in hand in reference to the Alteration for that I take to be his aim of the publick Liturgie 16. But not content to tamper by his Letters with those Eminent Persons he had his Agents in the Court the City the Uversities the Country and the Convocation all of them practising in their distinct and proper Circuits to bring the people to dislike that Form of Worship which at the first was looked on by them as an Heavenly Treasure composed by the especial aid of the Holy Ghost Their Actings of this kinde for bringing down the Communion-Table decrying the Reverent use of Kneeling at the Participation inveighing against the sign of the Cross abolishing all distinction of days and times into Fasts and Festivals with many others of that nature I purposely omit till I come to England Let it suffice that by the eagerness of their sollicitations more then for any thing which could be faulted in the book it self it was brought under a review and thereby altered to a further distance then it had before from the Rituals of the Church of Rome But though it had much
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
for their assistance in that case not without some complaints of a dis-respect which he had found to some of his late Addresses he concludes it thus viz. Farewel my dear Brother the Lord Iesus every day more and more bless thee and all that earnestly desire his glory 33. This Letter dated in the beginning of October 1582. came very seasonably both to comfort Cartwright who could not but be much afflicted with his late misfortunes and encouraged him to proceed in pursuit of that business in which they had took such pains This was enough to make them hasten in the work who wanted no such Spurs to set them forwards Till this time they had no particular Form either of Discipline or Worship which generally was allowed of for the use of their Churches But every man gathered some directions out of Cartwrights books as seemed most proper for that purpose But Cartwright having now drawn up his form of Discipline mentioned before amongst the rest of his practices 1580 that book of his was looked on as the onely Rule by which they were to regulate their Churches in all publick duties But in regard of the great scandal given by Brown the execution done at Bury upon Thacker and Copping and the severity of the Laws in that behalf it was thought fit to look before them and so to carry on the business as to make no rupture in the Church and to create no eminent danger to themselves In reference to which ends they held a General Assembly wherein they agreed upon some order for putting the said Discipline in execution but with as little violation of the peace of the Church as they could possibly devise And therefore that they might proceed with the greater safety it was advised and resolved on 1. That such as are called unto the Ministery of any Church should be first approved by the Classis or some greater Assembly and then commended to the Bishop by their special Letters to receive their Ordination at his hands 2. That those Ceremonies in the Book of Common-Prayer which seemed to have been used in the times of Popery were totally to be omitted if it might be done without being deprived of their Ministery or otherwise the matter to be left to the consideration of the Classis or other greater Assembly that by the judgement thereof it might be determined what was most fitting to be done 3. That if Subscription to the Articles of Religion and the Book of Common-prayer should be urged again that they might be then subscribed unto according to the Statute of 13 Eliz. that is to say to such of them onely as contain the sum of Christian Faith and the Doctrine of the Sacraments But 4. That for many weighty causes neither the rest of the said Articles nor the Book of Common-Prayer were to be subscribed no though a man should be deprived of his Ministery upon such refusal 34. A Consultation was held also in the said Assembly That without changing of the names or any sensible alteration in the state of the Church the Church-Wardens and Collectors of every Parish might serve in the place of Elders and Deacons and to that end that notice might be given of their election about the space of 15 days before the times appointed for it by the Law of the Land To the intent that the Church might joyn in prayer to God to be so directed as to make choice of fit men to supply those Ministeries It was advised also That before the ordinary times of the said Elections the Ordinance of Christ should be publickly intimated to the Congregation concerning the appointment of Watchmen and Overseers in the Church it being their duty to foresee that no offence or scandal arise in the Church and that if any such offence or scandal should happen it might be seasonably remedied and abolished by them as also that the names of the parties chosen be published on the next Lords Day their duties toward the Church and the Churches duty toward them being then declared and then the said Officers to be admitted to their several Ministeries with the general Prayers of the whole Church Orders were also made for a division of the Churches into Classical and Synodical Meetings according to the tenor of the Book of Discipline for keeping a Registry of the Acts of the Classis and Synods for dealing with Patrons to present fit men when any Church fell void belonging to their Presentations for making Collections at the General Assemblies which were then held for the most part at the Act in Oxon or the Commencement in â—ambridge towards the relief of the poor but most especially of those who had been deprived of their Benefices for their not subscribing as also of such Ministers of the Kirk of Scotland as for their factiousness and disobedience had been forced to abandon that Kingdom and finally for nominating some set-time at the end of each Provincial Synod in which the said Provincial Synod was to sit again as also for the sending of fit men to the General Synods which were to be held either in times of Parliament or at such other times as seemed most convenient 35. By these disguisings it was thought that they might breed up their Presbytery under the Wing of Episcopacie till they should finde it strong enough to subsist of it self and bid defiance to that power which had given it shelter It was resolved also that instead of Prophesying which now began to be supprest in every place Lectures should be set up in some chief Towns in every County to which the Ministers and Lay-brethren might resort securely and thereby prosecute their designe with the like indempnity But no disguise could fit them in their alterations of the Forms of Worship of which nothing was to be retained by Cartwrights Rules but that which held conformity with the Church of Geneva According to the Rules whereof the Minister had no more to do on the days of Worship but to Preach his Sermon with a long Prayer before it and another after it of his own devising the people being entertained both before and after with a Psalm in Meter according to such Tune or Tunes as the Clerk should bid For having distributed the whole Worship of God into these three parts that is to say Prayers Praises and Prophesyings the singing of the Psalms which they conceived to be the onely way of giving praise became in fine as necessary as the Prayers or Preachings Their other aberrations from the publick Liturgie in Sacraments and Sacramentals may best be found in Cartwrights practice as before laid down it being not to be supposed that he would practise one thing and prescribe another or that his own practice might not be a sufficent Canon to direct all the Churches of this Platform But these alterations being so gross that no Cloak could cover them another expedient was devised somewhat more chargeable then the other but of greater safety For neither daring
remembrances if the Honour of the Church of England were not some way vindicated as well by the one as by the other Thus as before we brought the Presbyterians in Scotland to their greatest height in seeing their Discipline established by Laws and confirmed by Leagues so have we brought the English Puritans to their lowest fall by divers sharp Laws made against them some severe Executions done upon them for their transgressing of those Laws their principal Leaders humbled or cut off by the Sword of Justice and the whole Mackina of their Devices brought to utter ruine not the less active for all this to advance the Cause though after a more peaceful and more cunning way so much the more dangerous to this Church because less suspected but not so closely carried as to scape discovery And the first practise which they fell upon was this that followeth 36. It hath been an ancient Custom in the City of London to have three solemn Sermons preached on Monday Tuesday and Wednesday in the Easter-week at the place commonly called the Spittle being a dissolved Hospital not far from Bishops-Gate at which the Lord Mayor and Aldermen used to be present in their Robes besides a great concourse of Divines Gentlemen and other Citizens For the performance of which Work a decent Pulpit was erected in an open place which had been part of the Church-yard the ordinary Hearers sitting upon Forms before the Pulpit the Lord Mayor Aldermen and their Wives with other Persons of Quality in two handsome Galleries to which was added in the year 1594 a fair large House for the reception of the Governours and Children of the Hospital founded in the Grey-Fryers who from thenceforth were tyed to attend those Sermons At what time also the old Pulpit was taken down and a new set up with the Preachers face turned toward the South which had before been towards the West for so in former times the Pulpits were generally placed in all Churches of England to the end that the peoples faces in all acts of Worship might look toward the East according to the Custom of the Primitive times Which alteration seemed to be made upon design that without noise or any notice taken of it they might by little and little change the posture of Adoration from the East to the West or any other point of the Compass as their humour served In which first they were showed the way by Sir Walter Mildmay in his Foundation of the Chappel of Emmanuel Colledg 1585. Who being a great favourer of the Puritan Faction gave order for this Chappel to stand North and South and thereby gave example unto others to affect the like Which brings into my mind a Project of Tiberius Gracchus one of the most Seditious of the Roman Tribunes for transferring the Supreme Power of the Commonwealth from the Lords of the Senate to the People For whereas formerly all Orators in the Publick Assemblies used to address their Speeches to the Lords of the Senate as the Supreme Magistrates this Gracchus turned his face to the common people and by that Artifice saith Plutarch transferred unto them the Supreme Majesty of the Roman Empire without Noise or Tumult 37. But it is now time to look back towards Scotland where we left them at their highest and the poor King so fettered or intangled by his own Concessions that he was not able to act any thing in the Kirk and very little in the State He had not very well digested their Refusal to subscribe to His Articles mentioned in the close of the former Book when he held an Assembly at Dundee in the end of April 1593 at what time the King being well informed of the low condition of the English Puritans sent Sir Iames Melvin to them with these two Articles amongst many others In the first of which it was declared That He would not suffer the Priviledg and Honour of his Crown to be diminished and Assemblies to be made when and where they pleased therefore willed them before the dissolution of the present Assembly to send two or three of their number by whom they should know His mind touching the time and place of the next Meeting And in the second it was required That an Act should be made inhibiting Ministers to declaim in the Pulpit against the proceedings of His Majesty and the Lords of His Council which He conceived He had good reason to desire in regard that His Majesty's good intentions were well known to themselves for maintaining Religion and Justice and of the easie access that divers of the Ministry had unto Him by whom they might signifie their Complaints and Grievances To the first of which two Articles they returned this Answer That in their Meetings they would follow the Act of Parliament made by Him in the year preceding And to the second they replyed That they had made an Act prohibiting all Ministers to utter in the Pulpit any rash or irreverent speeches against His Majesty or His Council but to give their Admonitions upon just and necessary Causes in fear love and reverence Which seeming to the King to serve then rather for a colour to excuse their Factiousness than to lay any just restraint upon it He turned a deaf Ear to their Petitions as well concerning his proceeding with the Popish Lords as against the erecting of Tythes into Temporall Lordships In this Assembly also they passed an Act prohibiting all such as professed Religion to traffick in any part of the Dominions of the King of Spain where the Inquisition was in force And this to be observed under the pain of Excommunication till His Majesty could obtain a free Trade for them without fear of any danger to their Goods or Consciences Which being complained of to the King and by Him looked upon as an Intrenchment upon the Royal Prerogative the Merchants were encouraged to proceed as formerly In opposition whereunto the Ministers fulminate their Censures till the Merchants generally made offer to forbear that Trade as soon as their Accounts were made and that their Creditors in those parts had discharged their Debts They pass'd another Order also in the said Assembly for putting down the Monday's Market in the City of Edenborough under pretence that the Sabbath was thereby prophaned Which so displeased the Shoo-makers and other Artificers that they came tumultuously to the Ministers Houses and threatned to turn them out of the City without more ado if ever that Act were put into execution For fear whereof that Project was dashed for ever after and thereby an occasion given unto the Court to affirm this of them That Rascals and Sowters could obtain that at the Ministers hands which the King was not able to do in matters far more just and reasonable To such audaciousness were they grown upon the filly confidence of their own establishment as to put limits upon Trade dispose of Markets and prostitute both King and Council to the lust of their Preachers
he did sends him to see the Boy and Burton that he might learn him to behave himself on the like occasions And finding him at last grown perfect sends him to Nottingham with intimation that he should make mention of him in his Fits Darrel is hereupon made Lecturer of the Town of Nottingham that being the Fish for which he angled as being thought a marvellous Bug to scare the Devil And though he had no lawful Calling in that behalf yet was this given out to be so comfortable a Vocation and so warrantable in the sight of God that very few Ministers have had the like there being no Preacher setled there as he gave it out since her Majesty's Reign as if neither Parsons nor Vicars nor any that bear such Popish Names might pass for Preachers 14. After this he pretends occasion for a journey to Lancashire where he finds seven women possest with Devils and out of every one of them was affirmed to have cast as many as had entred into Mary Magdalen Of this he published a Book Anno 1600 though the Exploit was done in this present year Anno 1597. These things being noised abroad by his Consederates this extraordinary Faculty of casting out Devils was most highly magnified and cryed up both in Sermons and Printed Pamphlets as a Candle lighted by God upon a Candlestick in the heart and Center of the Land And no small hopes were built upon it that it would prove a matter of as great consequence as ever did any such Work that the Lord gave extraordinarily since the time that he restored the Gospel and as profitable to all that profess the knowledg of Jesus Christ. Now what this Plot was may appear by this which is deposed by Mr. More one of Mr. Darrel's great Admirers and Companions viz. That when a Prayer was read out of the Common-Prayer-Book in the hearing of those which were possessed in Lancashire the Devils in them were little moved with it but afterwards when Mr. Darrel and one Mr. Dicon did severally use such Prayers as for the present occasion they had conceived then saith he the wicked Spirits were much more troubled or rather the wicked Spirits did much more torment the Parties So little do premeditated Prayers which are read out of a Book and so extreamly do extemporary and conceived Prayers torment the Devil 15. But Summers at the last grown weary of his frequent Counterfeitings tired out with his possessings dispossessings and repossessings and in that Fit discovers all to be but Forgeries and to have been acted by Confederacy Darrell deals with him to revoke his said Confession seeks to avoid it by some shifts discredits it by false Reports and finally procures a Commission from the Arch-bishop of York to whose Province Nottingham belongeth to examine the business A Commission is thereupon directed to Iohn Thorald Esq Sheriff of the County Sir Iohn Byron Knight Iohn Stanhop c. most of them being Darrell's Friends the Commission executed March 20 no fewer than seventeen Witnesses examined by it and the Return is made That he was no Counterfeit But the Boy stands to it for all that and on the last of the same Month confesseth before the Mayor of Nottingham and certain Justices of the Peace the whole contrivement of the Plot and within three days after acts all his Tricks before the Lord Chief Justice at the publick Assizes Upon this news the Boy of Burton also makes the like Confession Darrell thereupon is convented by the High Commissioners at Lambeth and by them committed his Friends and Partizens upon that Commitment are in no small Fury which notwithstanding he and one of his Associates receive their Censure little or nothing eased by the Exclamations of his Friends and Followers who bitterly inveighed against the Judgment and the Judges too To stiâ—â— whose Clamours so maliciously and unjustly raised the story of these leud Impostors is writ by Harsnet then being the Domestick Chaplain of Arch-bishop Whitgift by whom collected faithfully out of the Depositions of the Parties and Witnesses and published in the year next following Anno. 1599. 16. In the same year brake out the Controversie touching Christ's Descent maintained by the Church of England in the litteral sense that is to say That the Soul of Christ being separated from his Body did locally descend into the nethermost Hell to the end that he might manifest the clear light of his Power and Glory to the Kingdom of Darkness triumphing over Satan as before he did over Death and Sin For which consult the Book of Articles Art 4. the Homily of the Resurrection fol. 195. and Nowel's Paraphrase on that Article as it stands in the Creed published in his Authorized Catechism Anno 1572. But Calvin puts another sense upon that Article and the Genevian-English must do the same For Calvin understands by Christ's descending into Hell that he suffered in his Soul both in the Garden of Gethsemanie and upon the Cross all the Torments of Hell even to abjection from God's Presence and Despair it self Which horrid Blasphemy though balked by many of his Followers in the Forreign Churches was taken up and very zealously promoted by the English Puritans By these men generally it was taught in Catechisms and preached in Pulpits That true it was that the death of Christ Jesus on the Cross and his bloodshedding for the remission of our sins were the first cause of our Redemption But then it was as true withall That he must and did suffer the death of the Soul and those very pains which the damned do in Hell before we could be ransomed from the Wrath of God and that this only was the descent of Christ into Hell which we are taught by Christ to believe But more particularly it was taught by Banister That Christ being dead descended into the place of everlasting Torments where in his Soul he endured for a time the very Torments which the damned Spirits without intermission did abide By Paget in his Latin Catechism That Christ alive upon the Cross humbled himself usque ad Inferni tremenda tormenta even to the most dreadful Torments of Hell By Gifford and the Houshold-Catechism That Christ suffered the Torments of Hell the second death abjection from God and was made a Curse i. e. had the bitter anguish of God's Wrath in his Soul and Body which is the fire that shall never be quenched Carlisle more honestly not daring to avouch this Doctrine nor to run cross against the Dictates of his Master affirmed That Christ descended not into Hell at all and therefore that this Article might be thought no otherwise than as an Error and a Fable 17. The Doctrine of the Church being thus openly rejected upon some Conference that passed between Arch-bishop Whitgift and Dr. Thomas Bilson then Bishop of Winchester it was resolved That Bishop Bilson in some Sermons at St. Paul's Cross and other places should publickly deliver what the Scriptures teach touching our
condemned the Calling of Bishops the Articles of Perth the Liturgy and the Book of Canons as inconsistent with the Scripture and the Kirk of Scotland They proceed next to the rejecting of the five controverted points which they called Arminianism and finally decreed a general subscription to be made to these Constitutions For not conforming whereunto the Bishops and a great part of the Regular Clergy are expelled the Countrey although they had been animated unto that Refusal as well by the Conscience of their duty as by his Majesty's Proclamation which required it of them 5. They could not hope that the King's Lenity so abused might not turn to Fury and therefore thought it was high time to put themselves into Arms to call back most of their old Soldiers from the Warrs in Germany and almost all their Officers from such Commands in the Netherlands whom to maintain they intercept the King's Revenue and the Rents of the Bishops and lay great Taxes on the people taking up Arms and Ammunition from the States Vnited with whom they went on Ticket and long days of payment for want of ready money for their satisfaction But all this had not served their turn if the King could have been perswaded to have given them battel or suffered any part of that great Army which he brought against them to lay waste their Countrey Whose tenderness when they once perceived and knew withall how many friends they had about him they thought it would be no hard matter to obtain such a Pacification as might secure them for the present from an absolute Conquest and give them opportunity to provide better for themselves in the time to come upon the reputation of being able to divert or break such a puissant Army And so it proved in the event For the King had no sooner retired his Forces both by Sea and Land and given his Soldiers a License to return to their several Houses but the Scots presently protest against all the Articles of the Pacification put harder pressures on the King's Party than before they suffered keep all their Officers in pay by their Messengers and Letters apply themselves to the French King for support and succours By whom encouraged under-hand and openly countenanced by some Agents of the Cardinal Richelieu who then governed all Affairs in France they enter into England with a puissant Army making their way to that Invasion by some Printed Pamphlets which they dispersed into all parts thereby to colour their Rebellions and bewitch the people 6. And now the English Presbyterians take the courage to appear more publickly in the defence of the Scots and their proceedings than they had done hitherto A Parliament had been called on the 13 th of April for granting Moneys to maintain the Warr against the Scots But the Commons were so backward in complying with the King's Desires that he found himself under the necessity of dissolving the Parliament which else had blasted his Design and openly declared in favour of the publick Enemies This puts the discontented Rabble into such a fury that they violently assaulted Lambeth-House but were as valiantly repulsed and the next day break open all the Prisons in Southwark and release all the Prisoners whom they found committed for their Inconformities Benstead the Ring-leader in these Tumults is apprehended and arraigned condemned and executed the whole proceeding being grounded on the Statute of the 25 th of K. EDWARD the 3 d for punishing all Treasons and Rebellions against the King But that which threatned greater danger to the King and the Church than either the Arms of the Scots or the Tumults in Southwark was a Petition sent unto the King who was then at York subscribed by sundry Noble-men of the Popular Faction concluded on the 28 th of August carried by the Lord Mandevil and the Lord Howard of Escrigg and finally presented on the third of September In which it was petitioned amongst other things That the present War might be composed without loss of blood That a Parliament should be forthwith called for redress of Grievances amongst which some pretended Innovations in Religion must be none of the least and that the Authors and Counsellors of such Grievances as are there complained of might be there brought to such a Legal Tryal and receive such condign punishment as their Crimes required This hastned the assembling of the great Council of the Peers at York and put the King upon the calling of a Parliament of His own accord which otherwise might be thought extorted by their importunity 7. The Scots in the mean time had put by such English Forces as lay on the South-side of the Tine at the passage of Newborn make themselves Masters of Newcastle deface the goodly Church of Durham bring all the Countreys on the North-side of the Tees under contribution and tax the people to all payments at their only pleasure The Council of Peers and a Petition from the Scots prepare the King to entertain a Treaty with them the managing whereof was chiefly left unto those Lords who had subscribed the Petition before remembred But the third day of November coming on a-pace and the Commissioners seeming desirous to attend in Parliament which was to begin on that day the Treaty is adjourned to London which gave the Scots a more dangerous opportunity to infect that City than all their Emissaries had obtained in the times fore-going Nor was it long before it openly appeared what great power they had upon their Party in that City which animated Pennington attended with some hundreds of inferior note to tender a Petition to the House of Commons against the Government of Bishops here by Law established It was affirmed that this Petition was subscribed by many thousands and it was probable enough to be so indeed But whether it were so or not he gave thereby such an occasion to the House of Commons that they voted down the Canons which had passed in the late Convocation condemned the Bishops and Clergy in great sums of Money which had subscribed to the same decry the Power of all Provincial or National Synods for making any Canons or Constitutions which could bind the Subject until they were confirmed by an Act of Parliament And having brought this general terror on the Bishops and Clergy they impeach the Arch-bishop of High Treason cause him to be committed to the Black Rod and from thence to the Tower Which being done some other of the Bishops and Clergy must be singled out informed against by scandalous Articles and those Articles printed without any consideration either true or false 8. And though a Convocation were at that time sitting yet to encrease the Miseries of a falling-Church it is permitted that a private Meeting should be held in the Deanry of Westminster to which some Orthodox and Conformable Divines were called as a foil to the rest which generally were of Presbyterian or Puritan Principles By them it was proposed That many passages