Grammatically comport withal It was then pleaded that they onely were to expound the Article who had contributed their assistance to the making of it and that it did appear by the succession of their Doctrine from the first Reformation that no other method of Predestination had been taught amongst them then as it was maintained by Calvin and his Followers in their publick Writings under which name as those of Beza's judgement which embraced the Supralapsarian way desired to be comprehended so did they severally pretend that the words of the Confession did either countenance their Doctrines or not contradict them But on the other side it was made as plainly to appear that such of their first Reformers as were of the old Lutheran stamp and had precedencie of time before those that followed Calvins judgement imbraced the Melancthonian way of Predestination and looked upon all such as Innovators in the publick Doctrines who taught otherwise of it By them it was declared that in the year 1530 the Reformed Religion was admitted into the Neighbouring Country of East-Friesland under Enno the First upon the Preaching of Harding Bergius a Lutheran Divine of great Fame and Learning and one of the principal Reformers of the Church of Embden a Town of most note in all that Earldom that from him Clemens Martini took those Principles which he afterwards propagated in the Belgick Provinces that the same Doctrine had been publickly maintained in a Book called Odegus Laicorum or the Lay mans Guide published by Anastatius Velluanus Anno 1554 which was ten years before the French Preachers had obtruded on them this Confession that the said Book was much commended by Henricus Antonides Divinity-Reader in the University of Franeka that notwithstanding this Confession the Ministers successively in the whole Province of Vtrecht adhered unto their former Doctrines not looked on for so doing as the less reformed that Gallicus Snecanus a man of great fame for his Parts and Piety in the County of West-Friesland esteemed no otherwise of those which were of Calvins judgement in the points disputed then as of Innovators in the Doctrine which had been first received amongst them that Iohannes Isbrandi one of the old Professors of Rotterdam did openly declare himself to be an Anti-Calvinian and that the like was done by Holmannus Professor of Leiden by Cornelius Meinardi and Cornelius Wiggeri men of principal esteem in their times and places Which I have noted in this place because it must be in and about these times namely before the year 1585 in which most of these men lived and writ who are here remembred What else was done in the pursuance of this controversie between the parties will fall more properly under consideration in the last part of this History and there we shall hear further of it 62. Next look upon them in their Tacticks and we shall finde them as professed Enemies to all publick Liturgies and Forms of Prayer as the rest of their Calvinian Brethren They thought there was no speedier way to destroy the Mass then by abolishing the Missals nor any fitter means to exercise their own gifts in the acts of Prayer then by suppressing all such Forms as seemed to put a restraint upon the Spirit Onely they fell upon the humour of translating Davids Psalms into Dutch Meter and caused them to be sung in their Congregations as the French Psalms of Marrots and Beza's Meter were in most Churches of that people By which it seems that they might sing by the Book though they prayed by the Spirit as if their singing by the Book in set Tunes and Numbers imposed not as great a restraint upon the Spirit in the acts of Praising as reading out of Book in the acts of Praying But they knew well the influence which Musick hath on the souls of Men And therefore though they had suppressed the old manner of singing and all the ancient Hymns which had been formerly received in the Catholick Church yet singing they would have and Hymns in Meter as well to please their Ears as to cheer their Spirits and manifest their alacrity in the Service of God And though they would not sing with Organs for fear there might be somewhat in it of the old superstition yet they retained them still in many of their Churches but whether for civil entertainment when they met together or to compose and settle their affections for Religious Offices or to take up the time till the Church were filled I am not able to determine The like they also did with all the ancient weekly and set-times of Fasting which following the Example of Aerius they devoured at once as contrary to that Christian Liberty or licentiousness rather to which they inured the people when they first trained them up in opposition to the See of Rome No Fast observed but when some publick great occasion doth require it of them and then but half-Fast neither as in other places making amends at night for the days forbearance And if at any time they feed most on fish as sometimes they do it rather is for a variety to please themselves in the use of Gods Creatures or out of State-craft to encourage or maintain a Trade which is so beneficial to them and rather as a civil then Religious Fast. 63. But there is no one thing wherein they more defaced the outward state of the Church then in suppressing all those days of publick Worship which anciently were observed by the name of Festivals together with their Eves or Vigils In which they were so fearful of ascribing any honour to the Saints departed whose names were honoured by those days that they also took away those Anniversary Commemorations of Gods infinite Mercies in the Nativity Passion Resurrection and Ascention of our Savour Christ which though retained amongst the Switzers would not down with Calvin and being disallowed by him were reprobated without more ado in all the Churches of his Platform and in these with others And though they kept the Lords day or rather some part of it for Religious meetings yet either for fear of laying a restraint on their Christian Liberty in Attributing any peculiar holiness to it which might entitle them to some superstition they kept that neither but by halfs it was sufficient to bestow an hour or two of the morning in Gods publick Service the rest of the day should be their own to be imployed as profit should advise or their pleasures tempt them And whereas in some places they still retained those afternoon-Meetings to which they had been bound of Duty by the Rules of the Church of Rome it was decreed in one of their first Synods that namely which was held at Dort 1574 that in such Churches where publick Evening-Prayers had been omitted they should continue as they were and where they had been formerly admitted should be discontinued And if they had no Evening-Prayers there is no question to be made but they had their Evening
Gospel did with Christ our Saviour adorned them in their Royal Robes with their Crowns and Scepters and then exposed them to the scorn of the common Souldiers the insolencies and reproaches of the raskal Rabble 28. Nor do they deal much better with them in reference to their power in Spiritual Matters which they make either none at all or such as is subservient onely to the use of the Church Calvin first leads the way in this as he did in the other and seems exceedingly displeased with King Henry the Eighth for taking to him the title of Supreme Head on Earth of the Church of England Of this he makes complaint in his Commentary on the 7 of Amos not onely telling us what inconsiderate men they were who had conferred upon him any such Supremacie but that himself was very much disquieted and offended at it And though he be content to yeild him so much Authority as may enable him to make use of the Civil Sword to the protecting of the Church and the true Religion yet he condemns all those of the like inconsiderateness who make them more spiritual that is to say of greater power in Sacred Matters then indeed they are The Supreme power according to the Rules of Calvins Platform belongs unto the Consistory Classes or Synodical Meetings to which he hath ascribed the designation of all such as bear publick Office in the Church the appointing and proclaiming of all solemn Fasts the calling of all Councils or Synodical Meetings the censuring of all misdemeanors in the Ministers of holy Church in which last they have made the Supreme Magistrate an incompetent Judge and therefore his Authority and final Judgement in such cases of no force at all Beza treads close upon the heels of his Master Calvin and will allow no other power to the Civil Magistrate then to protect the Church and the Ministry of it in propagating and promoting the True Worship of God It is saith he the Office of the Civil Magistrate to use the Sword in maintenance and defence of Gods holy Church as it is the duty of the Ministers and Preachers of it to implore their aid as well against all such as refuse obedience to the Decrees and Constitutions of the Church as against Hereticks and Tyrants which endeavoured to subvert the same In which particulars if the Magistrate neglects to do his duty and shall not diligently labour in suppressing Heresie and executing the Decrees of the Church against all opponents what can the people do but follow the Example of the Mother-City in taking that power upon themselves though to the total alteration and subversion of the publick Government For from the Principles and practice of these great Reformers it hath ever since been taken up as a Ruled case amongst all their Followers that if Kings and Princes should refuse to reform Religion that then the inferiour Magistrates or the Common people by the direction of their Ministers both may and ought to proceed to a Reformation and that by force of Arms also if need so require 29. That by this Rule the Scots did generally walk in their Reformation under the Regencie of Mary of Lorreign Queen-Dowager to Iames the Fifth and after her decease in the Reign of her Daughter we shall show hereafter And we shall show hereafter also that it was published for good Genevian Doctrine by our English Puritans That if Princes hinder them that travail in the search of this holy Discipline they are Tyrants to the Church and the Ministers of it and being so may be deposed by their subjects Which though it be somewhat more then Calvin taught as to that particular yet the conclusion follows well enough on such faulty Premises which makes it seem the greater wonder in our English Puritans that following him so closely in pursuit of the Discipline their disaffection unto Kings and all Soveraign Princes their manifest contempt of all publick Liturgies and pertinaciously adhering to his Doctrine of Predestination they should so visibly dissent him in the point of the Sabbath For whereas some began to teach about these times that the keeping holy of one day in seven was to be reckoned for the Moral part of the fourth Commandment he could not let it pass without some reproof for what saith he can be intended by those men but in defiance of the Jews to change the day and then to add a greater Sanctity unto it then the Jews ever did First therefore he declares for his own Opinion that he made no such reckoning of a seventh-day-Sabbath as to inthral the Church to a necessity of conforming to it And secondly that he esteemed no otherwise of the Lords-day-Sabbath then of an Ecclesiastical Constitution appointed by our Ancestors in the place of the Jewish Sabbath and therefore alterable from one day to another at the Churches pleasure Followed therein by all the Churches of his party who thereupon permit all lawful Recreations and many works of necessary labour on the day it self provided that the people be not thereby hindred from giving their attendance in the Church at the times appointed Insomuch that in Geneva if self all manlike exercises as running vaulting leaping shooting and many others of that nature are as indifferently indulged on the Lords day as on any other How far the English Puritans departed from their Mother-Church both in Doctrine and Practice with reference to this particular we shall see hereafter when they could finde no other way to advance Presbytery and to decry the Reputation of the ancient Festivals then by erecting their new Sabbath in the hearts of the people 30. It is reportred by Iohn Barkley in his Book called Parenesâ—s ad Scotos that Calvin once held a Consultation at Geneva for transferring the Lords day from Sunday to Thursday Which though perhaps it may be true considering the inclination of the man to new devices yet I conceive that he had greater projects in his Head and could finde other ways to advance his Discipline then by falling upon any such ridiculous and odious Counsel He had many Irons in the fire but took more care in hammering his Discipline then all the rest First by entitling it to some express Warrant from the holy Scripture and afterwards by commending it to all the Churches of the Reformation In reference to the first he lets us know in his Epistle to Farellus Septemb. 16. 1543. that the Church could not otherwise subsist then under such a Form of Government as is prescribed in the Word and observed in old times by the Church And in relation to the other he was resolved to make his best use of that Authority which by his Commentaries on the Scriptures his Book of Institutions and some occasional Discourses against the Papists he had acquired in all the Protestant and reformed Churches Insomuch that Gasper Ligerus a Divine of Witteberge by his Letters bearing date Feb. 27. 1554
had begun to raise their thoughts unto higher matters then Caps and Tippets In order whereunto some of them take upon them in their private Parishes to ordain set Fasts and others to neglect the observation of the Annual Festivals which were appointed by the Church some to remove the holy Table from the place of the Altar and to transpose it to the middle of the Quire or Chancel that it might serve the more conveniently for the posture of sitting and others by the help of some silly Ordinaries to impose Books of Forreign Doctrine on their several Parishes that by such Doctrine they might countenance their Actings in the other particulars All which with many other innovations of the like condition were presently took notice of by the Bishops and the rest of the Queens Commissioners and remedies provided for them in a book of Orders published in the year 1561 or the Advertisements before mentioned about four years after Such as proceeded in their oppositions after these Advertisements had the name of Puritans as men that did profess a greater Purity in the Worship of God a greater detestation of the Ceremonies and Corruptions of the Church of Rome then the rest of their brethren under which name were comprehended not onely those which hitherto had opposed the Churches Vestments but also such as afterwards endeavoured to destroy the Liturgy and subvert the Goverment 18. In all this time they could obtain no countenance from the hands of this State though it was once endeavoured for them by the Earl of Leicester whom they had gained to their Patron But it was onely to make use of them as a counterpoise to the Popish party at such time as the Marriage was in agitation between the Lord Henry Stewart and the Queen of Scots if any thing should be attempted by them to disturb the Kingdom the fears whereof as they were onely taken up upon politick ends so the intended favours to the opposite Faction vanished also wiâ—h them But on the contrary we finde the State severe enough against their proceedings even to the deprivation of Dr. Thomas Sampson Dean of Christ-church To which dignity he had been unhappily preferred in the first year of the Queen and being looked upon as head of this Faction was worthily deprived thereof by the Queens Commissioners They found by this severity what they were to trust to if any thing were practised by them against the Liturgy the Doctrine of the Church or the publick Government It cannot be denyed but Goodman Gilbie Whittingham and the rest of the Genevian Conventicle were very much grieved at their return that they could not bear the like sway here in their several Consistories as did Calvin and Beza at Geneva so that they not onely repined and grudged at the Reformation which was made in this Church because not fitted to their Fancies and to Calvins Plat-form but have laboured to sow those Seeds of Heterodoxy and Disobedience which afterwards brought forth those troubles and disorders which ensued upon it But being too wise to put their own Fingers in the fire they presently fell upon a course which was sure to speed without producing any danger to themselues or their party They could not but remember those many advantages which Iohn Alasco and his Church of strangers afforded to the Zuinglian Gospellers in the time of King Edward and they despaired not of the like nor of greater neither if a French Church were setled upon Calvin's Principles in some part of London 19. For the advancement of this project Calvin directs his Letters unto Bishop Grindal newly preferred unto that See that by his countenance or connivance such of the French Nation as for their Conscience had been forced to flee into England might be permitted the Free Exercise of their Religion whose leave being easily obtained for the great reverence which he bares to the name of Calvin they made the like use of some Friends which they had in the Court. By whose sollicitation they procured the Church of St. Anthony not far from Merchant-taylors-Hall then being of no present use for Religious Offices to be assigned unto the French with liberty to erect the Genevian Discipline for ordering the Affairs of their Congregation and to set up a Form of Prayer which had no manner of conformity with the English Liturgy Which what else was it in effect but a plain giving up of the Cause at the first demand which afterwards was contended for with such opposition what else but a Foundation to that following Anarchy which was designed to be obtruded on the Civil Government For certainly the tolerating of Presbytery in a Church founded and established by the Rules of Episcopacie could end in nothing but the advancing of a Commonwealth in the midst of a Monarchy Calvin perceived this well enough and thereupon gave Grindal thanks for his favour in it of whom they after served themselves upon all occasions a Dutch-Church being after setled on the same Foundation in the Augustine Fryars where Iohn Alasco held his Congregation in the Reign of King Edward The inconveniences whereof were not seen at the first and when they were perceived were not easily remedied For the obtaining of which ends there was no man more like to serve them with the Queen then Sir Francis Knollis who having Married a Daughter of the Lord Cary of Hunsdon the Queens Cosin-German was made Comptroller of the Houshold continuing in good Credit and Authority with her upon that account And being also one of those who had retired from Frankfort to Geneva in the time of the Schism did there contract a great acquaintance with Calvin Beza and the rest of the Consistorians whose cause he managed at the Court upon all occasions though afterwards he gave place to the Earl of Leicester as their Principal Agent 20. But the Genevians will finde work enough to imploy them both and having gained their ends will put on for more The Isles of Guernsey and Iarsey the onely remainder of the Crown of England in the Dukedom of Normandy had entertained the Reformation in the Reign of King Edward by whose command the publick Liturgy had been turned into French that it might serve them in those Islands for their Edifications But the Reformed Religion being suppressed in the time of Queen Mary revived again immediately after her decease by the diligence of such French Ministers as had resorted thither for protection in the day of their troubles In former times these Islands belonged unto the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Constance who had in each of them a Subordinate Officer mixt of a Chancellor and Archâ— Deacon for the dispatch of all such business as concerned the Church which Officers intituled by the name of Deans had a particular Revenue in Tythes and Corn allotted to them besides the Perquisites of their Courts and the best Benefices in the Islands But these French Ministers desiring to have all things modelled by the Rules of Calvin
the same Arts which they brought hither with them Such welcome Guests must needs have some Encouragement to remain here always And what Encouragement could be greater and more welcome to them then to enjoy the liberty of their own Religion according to such Government and Forms of Worship as they had exercised at home King Edward had indulged the like priviledges to Iohn Alasco and Queen Elizabeth to the French neither of which were so considerable as the Flemish Inmates A suit is therefore made by their Friends in Court for granting them the Church of Augustine-Fryers where Iohn Alasco formerly held his Dutch Congregation and granting it with all such Priviledges and Immunitiâ—s as the Dutch enjoyed And that they might proceed in setting up their Presbyteries and new Forms of Worship they obtain not onely a Connivance or Toleration but a plain Approbation of their actings in it For in the Letters which confirmed this new Church unto them it is expresly signified by the Lords of the Council That they knew well that from the first beginning of the Christian Faith different Rites and Ceremonies had been used in some parts thereof which were not practised in the other That whilst some Christians worshipped God upon their knees others erect upon their feet and some again groveling on the ground there was amongst them all but one and the same Religion as long as the whole action tended to the honor of God and that there was no Superstition and Impiety in it That they contemned not the Rites which these Dutch brought with them nor purposed to compel them to the practice of those which were used in England but that they did approve and allow their Ceremonies as sitted and accommodated to the nature of the Countrey from whence they came Which priviledges they enlarged bâ— their Letter of the 29 of Iune in the year next following An. 1574 extending them to all such of the Belgick Provinces as reâ—orted hither and joyned themselves unto that Church thâ—ugh otherwise dispersed in several parts and Sea-Towns for their own conveniences which gave the first beginning to the nâ—w Dutch Churches in Canterbury Sandwich Yarmouth Norwich and some other places in the North to the great animation or the Presbyters and the discomfort of all such who were of judgement to foresee the sad consequents of it 8. With like felicity they drove on their designs in Iersey and Guernsey in the two principal Towns whereof the Discipline had been permitted by an Order of the Lords of the Council as before was said But not content with that allowance which the Lords had given them by His Majesties great grace and favour their Preachers being for the most part natural Frenchmen had introduced it by degrees into all the Villages furthered therein by the Sacrilegious Avarice of the several Governors out of a hope to have the spoil of the poor Deanries to ingross all the Tythes unto themselves and then put off the Ministers with some sorry stipends as in fine they did But first those Islands were to be dissevered by some Act of State from being 〈◊〉 longer Members of the Diocess or subject to the Juriâ—â—iction of the Bishops of Constance And that being easily obtained it was thought fit that Snape and Cartwright the great Supporters of the cause in England should be sent unto them to put their Churches in a posture and settle the Discipline amongst them in such form and manner as it was practised in Geneva and amongst the French Which fell out happily for Cartwright as his case stood who being worsted in the last Encounter betwixt him and Whitgift had now a handsome opportunity to go off with credit not as if worsted in the fight but rather called away to another tryal Upon thâ—s Invitation they set sail for the Islands and take the charge thereof upon them the one of them being made the titular Pastor of the Castle of Mount-Orgueil in the Isle of Iersey and the other of Castle-Cornet in the Rode of Guernsey Thus qualified they convene the Churches of each Island communicate unto them a rude Draught of the Holy Discipline which afterwards was polished and accommodated to the use of those Islands but not agreed upon and exercised until the year next following as appears by the Title of it which is this viz. The Ecclesiastical Discipline observed and practised by the Churches of Jersey and Guernsey after the Reformation of the same by the Ministers Elders and Deacons of the Isles of Guernsey Jersey Sark and Alderney confirmed by the Authority and in the presence of the Governors of the same Isles in a Synod holden in Guernsey the 28 of June 1576 and afterwards revived by the said Ministers and Elders and confirmed by the said Governors in a Synod holden in Jersey the 11 12 13 14 15 and 17 days of October 1577. 9. With worse success but less diligence did Travers labour in the cause who being one of the same spirit published a book in maintenance of the Holy Discipline which he caused to be printed at Geneva and was thus intituled viz. Ecclesiasticae Disciplinae Anglicanae Ecclesiae ab illa aberrationis plena e verbo Dei Dilucida Explicatio that is to say A full and perfect Explication of Ecclesiastical Discipline according to the Word â—f God and of the Church of Englands departing from it In which book he advanced the Discipline to so great a height as made it necessary for all Christian Kings and Princes to submit unto it and lay down their Crowns and Scepters at the Churches feet even to the very licking up of the dust thereof if occasion were But Travers sojourned in Geneva when he wrote this book and was to frame it to the palate of Beza and the rest of that Confistory who had by this time made the Discipline as essenâ—ial to the true being of a Church as either the Preaching of the Word or the Administration of the holy Sacraments Beza had so declared it in a Letter to Knox An. 1572. In which he reckons it as a great and signal blessing from Almighty God that they had introduced in Scotland not onely the true Worship of God but the Discipline also which was the best Preservative of the truth of Doctrine Which therefore he desires him so to keep together as to be sure that if the one be lost that is laid aside the other is not like to continue long And Cartwright leading in the same path also heightned it above all which had gone before or that followed after him Some of the Brethren have extolled it to the very Skies as being the onely Bond of Peace the Bane of Heresie the Punisher of Sin and maintainer of Righteousness A Discipline full of all goodness for the peace and honour of Gods people ordained for the joy and happiness of all the Nations But Cartwright sets them such a leap as they durst not reach at not onely telling us in
the Presbyterians gave themselves good hopes of the new Archbishop and they soon found how plâ—ant he was like to prove to their expectation He entred on this great Charge in the Moneth of February 1575 at which time the Prelates and Clergie were assembled in a Convocation by whom a Book of Articles was agreed upon for the better Reiglement of the Church In the end whereof this Article was superadded by their procurement viz. That the Bishops should take order that it be published and declared in every Parish-Church within their Diocesses before the first day of May then next following That Marriages might be solemnized at all times in the year so that the Banes on their several Sundays or Holidays in the Service-time were openly asked in the Church and no impediment objected and so that also the said Marriages be publickly solemnized in the face of the Church at the aforesaid time of Morning-Prayer But when the Book was offered to the Queens peiusal she disliked this Article and would by no means suffer it to be printed amongst the rest as appears by a Marginal Note in the Publick Regâ—ster of that Convocation Which though it might sufficiently have discouraged them from the like Innovations yet the next year they ventured on a business of a higher nature which was the falsifying and corrupting of the Common-Prayer-Book In which being then published by Richard Iugge the Queens Majesties Printer and published Cum Privilegio Regiae Majestatis as the Title intimates the whole Order of Private Baptism and Confirmation of Children was quite omitted In the first of which it had been declared That Children being born in Original sin were by the Laver of Regeneration in Baptism ascribed unto the number of Gods Children and made the Heirs of Life Eternal and in the other Thâ—t by the Imposition of hands and Prayer they receive strength against sin the world and the Devil Which grand omissions were designed to no other purpose but by degrees to bring the Church of England into some Conformity to the desired Orders of Geneva This I find noted in the Preface of a book writ by William Reynolds a virulent Papist I confess but one that may be credited in a matter of Fact which might so easily have been refuted by the Book it self if he had any way belyed it 15. Nothing being done for punishing of this great abuse they enter upon another Project Which seemed to tend onely to the encrease of Piety in the Professors of the Gospel but was intended really for the furtherance of the Holy Discipline The design was that all the Ministers within such a Circuit should meet upon a day appointed to exercise their gifts and expound the Scriptures one being chosen at each meeting for the Moderator to govern and direct the Action the manner whereof was 〈◊〉 that followeth The Ministers of some certain Precinct did meet 〈◊〉 some week days in some principal Town of which Meeting some ancient grave Minister was President and an Auditory admitteâ— of Gentlemen and other persons of Leisure There every Minister successively the youngest still beginning did handle one and the same piece of Scripture spending severally some quarter of an hour and better but in the whole some two hours And the Exercise being begun and concluded with prayer the President giving them another Theam for the next Meeting which was every Fortnight the said Assembly was dissolved The Exercise they called by the name of Prophecying grounded upon those words of the Apostle 1 Cor. 14.13 viz. For ye may all prophecy one by one that all may learn and all be comforted But finding that the Text was not able to bear it out they added thereunto such pious and prudential Reasons as the best wits amongst them could devise for the present And though this Project was extreamly magnified and doted on with no less passion by some Countrey-Gentlemen who were enamored of the beauty and appearance of it yet was it found upon a diligent enquiry that there was something else intended then their Edification For it was easie to be proved that under colour of those Meetings for Religious Exercises the Brethren met together and consuâ—ted of the common business and furiously declaimed against Church and State 16. These Meetings Grindal first connived at when he sate at York under pretence of training up a preaching Ministery for the Northern parts But afterwards he was so much possessed with the fancy of it that he drew many of the Bishops in the Province of Canterbury to allow them also By means whereof they came to be so frequent in most parts of the Kingdom that they began to look with a face of danger both on Prince and Prelate For having once settled themselves in these new Conventions with some shew of Authority the Leading-Members exercised the Jurisdiction over all the rest intrenching thereby on the power of their several Ordinaries And they incroached so far at last on the Queens Prerogative as to appoint days for solemn Fasts under pretence of Sanctifying those Religious Exercises to the good of the Nation as afterwards in their Classical and Synodical Meetings which took growth from hence Three years these Prophesyings had continued in the Province of Canterbury before the Queen took notice of them But then they were presented to her with so ill a complexion that she began to startle at the first sight of them And having seriously weighed all inconveniences which might thence ensue she sends for Grindal to come to her reproves him for permitting such an Innovation to be obtruded on the Church and gave him charge to see it suddenly suppressed She complained also that the Pulpit was grown too common invaded by unlicensed Preachers and such as preached sedition amongst the people requiring him to take some order that the Homilies might be read more frequently and such Sermons preached more sparingly then of late they had been 〈◊〉 this was hard meat not so easily chewed therefore not like to be digested by so weak a stomach Instead of acting any thing in order to the Queens Commands he writes unto her a most tedious and voluminous Letter In which he first presents her with a sad remembrance of the Discourse which past between them and the great sorrow which he had conceived on the sense thereof Which said he falls into a commendation of Sermonizing of the great benefit thereby redounding unto all her Subjects the manifold advantages which such preachings had above the Homilies of whâ—â— necessary use those Prophesyings were toward the training up of Preachers In fine he also lets her know that by the example of S. Ambrose and his proceedings toward Theodosius and Valentinian two most mighty Emperors he could not satisfie his conscience in the discharge of the great trust committed to him if he should not admonish her upon this occasion not to do any thing which might draw down Gods displeasure upon her and the Nation by stopping the
the coming of the Duke a shot was made at him from a ship with which one of the Watermen was killed but the Ambassador therewith more amazed then hurt The Gunner afterwards was pardoned by the great power the Earl of Leicester had in Court it being pretended that the Piece was discharged upon meer accident and not upon malice or design After this follows a seditious Pamphlet writ by one Stubs of Lincolns Inn who had married one of the Sisters of Thomas Cartwright and therefore may be thought to have done nothing in it without his privity This Book he called The Gaping Gulf in which England was to have been swallowed the wealth thereof consumed and the Gospel irrecoverably drown'd writ with great bitterness of spirit and reproachful language to the disgrace of the French Nation the dishonor of the Dukes own person and not without some vile reflections on the Queen herself as if she had a purpose to betray her Kingdom to the power of Strangers 28. For publishing this book no such excuse could be pretended as was insisted on in defence of the former shot nor could the Queen do less in Justice to her self and her Government as the case then stood then to call the Authors and the Publishers of it to a strict account To which end the said Stubs together with Hugh Singleton and William Page were on the 13 day of October arraigned at Westminster for Writing Printing and dispersing that Seditious Pamphlet and were all then and there condemned to lose their right hands for the said offence Which Sentence was executed on the third of November upon Stubs and Page as the chief offenders but Singleton was pardoned as an Accessary and none of the Principals in the Crime Which execution gave great grief to the Disciplinarians because they saw by that Experiment that there was no dallying with the Queen when either the honor of her Government or the peace of her Dominions seemed to be concerned And they were most afflicted at it in regard of Cartwright whose inability to preserve so near a Friend from the severity and shame of so great a punishment was looked on as a strong presumption that he could be as little able to save himself whensoever it was thought expedient upon reason of State to proceed against him But now they are engaged in the same bottom with him they were resolved to steer their course by no other Compass then that which this grand Pilot had provided for them Not terrified from so doing by the open Schism which was the next year made by one Robert Brown once a Disciple of their own and one who built his Schism upon Cartwrights Principles nor by the hanging of those men who had dispersed his Factious and Schismatical Pamphlets For the better clearing of which matter we must fetch the story of this Brown a little higher and carry it a little lower then this present year 29. This Robert Brown was born at Tolâ—thorp in the County of Rutland the Grand-child of Francis Brown Esquire priviledged in the 18 year of King Henry VIII to wear his Cap in the presence of the King himself or any other Lords Spiritual or Temporal in the Land and not to put it off at any time but onely for his own ease and pleasure He was bred sometimes in Corpus Christi Colledge commonly called Bennet Colledge in the University of Cambridge Where though he was not known to take any degree yet he would many times venture into the Pulpit It was observed that in his preaching he was very vehement which Cartwrights Followers imputed onely to his zeal as being one of their own number But other men suspected him to have worse ends in it Amongst many whom rather curiosity then Devotion had brought to hear him Dr. Iohn Still though possibly not then a Doctor hapned to be one Who being afterwards Master of Trinity-Colledge and finally Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells was used to say That he discerned something extraordinary in him at the very first which he presaged would prove a disturbance to the Church if it were not seasonably prevented Being well verst and conversant in Cartwrights Books and other the like Pamphlets of that time he became more and more estranged from the Church of England Whose Goveâ—â—ment he found to be deâ—amed for Antichristian her Sacraments affirmed to be defiled with Superstition her Liturgie reproached for Popish and in some part Heathenish and finally her Ordination to be made no better then those of Baals Priests amongst the Jews Not able to abide longer in a Church so impure and filthy he puts himself over into Zealand and joyns with Cartwrights new Church in the City of Middleborough But finding there some few remainders of the old impiety he resolves to constitute a new Church of his own Projectment which should have nothing in it but what was most pure and holy The Draught whereof he comprehended in a Book which he printed at Middleborough An. 1582 intituled A Treatise of Reformation and having sent as many of them into England as might serve his turn he followed after in pursuit of his new Plantation 30. The Dutch had then a Church at Norwich as before was said more numerous then any other Church or Congregation within the Precincts of that City Many of which enclining of themselves to the Anabaptists were apt enough to entertain any new Opinions which held Conformity with that Sect. Amongst them he begins and first begins with such amongst them as were most likely to be ruled and governed by him he being of an imperious nature and much offended with the least dissent or contradiction when he had uttered any Paradox in his discourses Having gotten into some Authority amongst the Dutch whose Language he had learned when he lived in Middleborough and grown into a great opinion for his Zeal and Sanctity he began to practise with the English using therein the service and assistance of one Richard Harrison a Country School master whose ignorance made him apt enough to be seduced by so weak a Prophet Of each Nation he began to gather Churches to himself of the last especicially inculcating nothing more to his simple Auditors then that the Church of England had so much of Rome that there was no place left for Christ or his holy Gospel But more particularly he inveighed against the Government of the Bishops the Ordination of Ministers the Offices Rites and Ceremonies of the publick Liturgie according as it had been taught out of Cartwrights Books descending first to this Position That the Church of England was no true and lawful Church And afterwards to this conclusion That all true Christians were obliged to come out of Babylon to separate themselves from those impure and mixt Assemblies in which there was so little of Christs Institution and finally that they should joyn themselves to him and to his Disciples amongst whom there was nothing to be found which savoured not
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
wretched Popish priests and the Convocation-House of Devils and Belzebub of Canterbury the chief of these Devils The like Reproaches they bestow on the Common-Prayer of which they say That it is full of Corruption and that many of the Contents thereof are against the Word of God the Sacraments wickedly mangled and prophaned therein the Lord's Supper not eaten but made a Pageant or Stage-play and that the Form of publick Baptism is full of Childish Superstitious Toys So that we are not to admire if the Brownists please themselves in their separation from a Church so polluted and unreformed from men so wicked and prophane from such a Cinque of Satan such a Den of Devils But much less can we wonder that the Papists should make use of these horrible Slanders not only to confirm but encrease their Party By shewing them from the Pens of their greatest Adversaries what ugly Monsters had the Government of the Church of England from what Impieties they were preserved by not joyning with them One I am sure that is Parsons in his Book of Three Conversions reports these Calumnies and Slanders for undoubted Truths That Martin Mar-Prelate is affirmed by Sir Edwine Sandys to pass in those times for unquestion'd Credit in the Court of Rome his Authority much insisted on to disgrace this Church and finally that Kellison one of later date doth build as much upon the Credit of these Libels to defame the Clergy as if they had been dictated by the same Infallible Spirit which the Pope pretends to Such excellent Advantages did these Saints give unto the Devil that all the Locusts in the Revelation which came out of the Pit never created so much scandal to the Primitive times 28. To still these Clamours or at the least to stop the mouths of these Railing Rabshecha's that so the abused people on all sides might be undeceived as good a course was took by Whitgift and the rest of the Prelates as Human Wisdom could devise For first A grave Discourse is published in the year next following entituled An Admonition to the People of England in answer to the slanderous Untruths of Martin the Libeller But neither this nor any other grave Refutal would ever put them unto silence till they were undertaken by Tom Nash a man of a Sarcastical and jeering Wit who by some Pamphlets written in the like loose way which he called Pasquill and Marsorius The Counter-Scuffle Pappe with a Hatchet and the like stopped their mouths for ever none of them daring to deal further in that Commodity when they saw what Coyn they should be paid in by so frank a Customer Mention was made before of a sorry Pamphlet entituled The Complaint of the Commons for a Preaching-Ministry which Penry seconded by another called by the Name of A Supplication for Preaching in Wales In both which it was intimated to all sorts of people That the Gospel had no free passage amongst us That there was no care taken for Preaching the Word of God for the instruction of the people for want whereof they still remained in darkness and the shadow of death For the decrying of which scandalous and leud suggestions Order was given unto the Bishops to take the Names and Number of the Preachers in their several Diocesses and to present a true and perfect Catalogue of them in the Convocation which was then at hand By which Returns it will appear That at this time when so much noise was made for want of Preaching there were within the Realm of England and the Dominion of Wales no fewer than Seven thousand four hundred sixty three Preachers and Catechisers which last may be accounted the best sort of Preachers for the instruction of the people Of which great Number there were found to be no fewer than One hundred forty five Doctors in Divinity Three hundred forty eight Batchellors of Divinity Thirty one Doctors of both Laws Twenty one Batchelors of the same Eighteen hundred Masters in Arts Nine hundred forty six Batchelors of Arts and Two thousand seven hundred forty six Catechisers So that neither the number of bare Reading-Ministers was so great nor the want of Preaching so deplorable in most parts of the Kingdom as those Pamphlets made it the Authors whereof ought rather to have magnified the Name of God for sending such a large Encrease of Labourers in his Heavenly Husbandry as could not any where be parallel'd in so short a time there passing no more than Thirty years between the first beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign and the rendring of this Account to the Convocation 29. And that the Parliament might receive the same satisfaction a most excellent and judicious Sermon was Preached at St. Paul's Cross on Sunday the ninth of February being the first Sunday after their Assembling by Dr. Richard Bancroft being then Chaplain to the Lord Chancellor Hatton preferred within some few years after to the See of London and from thence to Canterbury In the performance of which Service he selected for the Theam or Subject of his Discourse 1 Iohn 4.1 viz. Dearly beloved believe not every spirit but try the spirits whether they be of God for many false prophets are gone out into the world In canvasing which Text he did so excellently set forth the false Teachers of those times in their proper colours their Railing against Bishops their Ambition their Self-love their Covetousness and all such Motives as had spurred them on to disturb this Church as satisfied the greatest part of that huge Congregation touching the Practises and Hypocrisies of these holy Brethren He also shewed on what a weak Foundation they had built their Discipline of which no tract or footsteps could be found in the Church of Christ from the Apostles days to Calvin and with what Infamy the Aerian Hereticks were reproached in the Primitive times for labouring to introduce that Parity which these men designed He further laid before them the great danger which must needs ensue if private men should take upon them to deny or dispute such matters as had been setled in the Church by so good Authority Against which troublesome Humour many Provisions had been made by the Canons of Councils and the Edicts of Godly and Religious Emperors To which he added the necessity of requiring Subscription in a Church well constituted by all the Ministers of the same which he justified by the example of Geneva and the Churches of Germauy to be the best way to try the spirits whether they be of God or not as his Text required Next he insisted on the excellency of the common-prayer-Common-Prayer-Book applauded by the Divines of Foreign Churches approved by Bucer Fox Alesius the Parliaments and Convocations of this Kingdom and after justified by Arch-bishop Cranmer against the Papists by Bishop Ridley against Knox and by divers others showing withall the many gross Absurdities found in extemporary Prayers to the great dishonour of God and the shame of Religion Hence he proceeds to justifie
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
but not unlawful That therefore they endeavoured to perswade the Ministers rather to conform themselves than to leave their Flocks the people rather to receive the Communion kneeling than not to receive the same at all but that the Authors of that Book and some other Pamphlets pronounced them to be simply unlawful neither to be imposed nor used some of them thinking it a great part of godliness to cast off the Surplice and commanded their Children so to do This made the Bishops far more earnest to reduce them to a present Conformity than otherwise they might have been though by so doing they encreased those discontentments the seeds whereof were sown at the end of the Conference All this the Papists well observed and rejoyced at it intending in the carrying on of the Gun-powder Treason to lay the guilt thereof on the Puritans only But the King and his Council mined with them and undermined them and by so doing blew them up in their own Invention the Traytors being discovered condemned and executed as they most justly had deserved But this Design which was intended for a ruin of the Puritan Faction proved in conclusion very advantagious to their Ends and Purposes For the King being throughly terrified with the apprehension of so great a danger turned all his thoughts upon the Papists and was content to let the Puritans take breath and regain some strength that they might serve him for a counterpoise against the other as afterwards he gave some countenance to the Popish Party when he perceived the opposite Faction to be grown too head-strong Nor were the Puritans wanting to themselves upon this occasion but entertained the Court and Countrey with continual fears of some new dangers from the Papists and by appearance of much zeal for the true Religion and no less care for the preserving of their common Liberty against the encroachments of the Court came by degrees to make a Party in the House of Commons And hereunto K. IAMES unwittingly contributed his assistance also who being intent upon uniting the two Kingdoms by Act of Parliament suffered the Commons to expatiate in Rhetorical Speeches to call in question the extent of his Royal Prerogative to embrue many Church-concernments and to dispute the Power of the High-Commission By means whereof they came at last to such an height that the King was able in the end to do nothing in Parliament but as he courted and applyed himself to this popular Faction 13. Worse fared it with the Brethren of the Separation who had retired themselves unto Amsterdam in the former Reign than with their first Founders and Fore-fathers in the Church of England For having broken in sunder the bond of peace they found no possibility of preserving the spirit of unity one Separation growing continually on the neck of another till they were crumbled into nothing The Brethren of the first Separation had found fault with the Church of England for reading Prayers and Homilies as they lay in the Book and not admitting the Presbytery to take place amongst them But the Brethren of the second Separation take as much distaste against retaining all set-forms of Hymns and Psalms committing their Conceptions both in Praying and Prophesying to the help of Memory and did as much abominate Presbytery as the other liked it For first They pre-suppose for granted as they safely might that there be three kinds of Spiritual Worship Praying Prophesying and Singing of Psalms and then subjoyn this Maxim in which all agreed that is to say That there is the same reason of Helps in all the parts of Spiritual Worship as is to be admitted in any one during the performing of that Worship Upon which ground they charge it home on their fellow-Separatists That as in Prayer the Book is to be laid aside by the confession of the ancient Brethren of the Separation so must it also be in Prophesying and Singing of Psalms and therefore whether we pray or sing or prophesie it is not to be from the Book but out of the heart For Prophesying next they tell us that the Spirit is quenched two manner of ways by Memory as well as Reading And to make known how little use there is of Memory in the Act of Prophesying or Preaching they tell us That the citing of Chapter and Verse as not being used by Christ and his Apostles in their Sermons or Writings is a mark of Antichrist And as for Psalms which make the Third part of Spiritual Worship they propose these Queries 1. Whether in a Psalm a man must be tyed to Meeter Rythme and Tune and Whether Voluntary be not as necessary in Tune and Words as well as Matter And 2. Whether Meeter Rythme and Tune be not quenching the Spirit 14. According to which Resolution of the New Separation every man when the Congregation shall be met together may first conceive his own Matter in the Act of Praising deliver it in Prose or Meeter as he lists himself and in the same instant chant out in what Tune soever that which comes first into his own head Which would be such a horrible confusion of Tongues and Voices that hardly any howling or gnashing of teeth can be like unto it And yet it follows so directly on the former Principles that if we banish all set-forms of Common-Prayer which is but only one part of God's Publick Worship from the use of the Church we cannot but in Justice and in Reason both banish all studied and premeditated Sermons from the House of God and utterly cast out all King David's Psalms whether in Prose or Meeter that comes all to one and all Divine Hymns also into the bargain Finally as to Forms of Government they declared thus or to this purpose at the least if my memory fail not That as they which live under the Tyranny of the Pope and Cardinals worship the very Beast it self and they which live under the Government of Arch-bishops and Bishops do worship the Image of the Beast so they which willingly obey the Reformed Presbytery of Pastors Elders and Deacons worship the shadow of that Image To such ridiculous Follies are men commonly brought when once presuming on some New Light to direct their Actions they suffer themselves to be mis-guided by the Ignis fatuus of their own Inventions And in this posture stood the Brethren of the Separation Anno 1606 when Smith first published his Book of the present differences between the Churches of the Separation as he honestly calls them But afterwards there grew another great dispute between Ainsworth and Broughton Whether the colour of Aaron's Linnen Ephod were of Blew or a Sea-water Green Which did not only trouble all the Dyers in Amsterdam but drew their several Followers into Sides and Factions and made good sport to all the World but themselves alone By reason of which Divisions and Sub-divisions they fell at last into so many Fractions that one of them in the end became a Church of himself and
Vniversities than for simple Auditories Which said Instructions bearing date at Windsor on the 10 th of August 1622 opened the way to the suppression of that heat and fierceness by which the Calvinists had been acted in some years fore-going 29. During which Heats and Agitations between the Parties a Plot was set on foot to subvert the Church in the undoing of the Clergy and there could be no readier way to undo the Clergy than to reduce them unto such a Beggerly Competency for by that name they love to call it as they had brought them to in all the rest of the Calvinian or Genevian Churches This the design of many hands by whom all passages had been scored in Cotton's Library which either did relate to the point of Tythes or the manner of payment But the Collections being brought together and the Work compleated there appeared no other Name before it than that of Selden then of great Credit in the World for his known Abilities in the retired Walks of Learning The History of Tythes writ by such an Author could not but raise much expectation amongst some of the Laity who for a long time had gaped after the Church's Patrimony and now conceived and hoped to swallow it down without any chewing The Author highly magnified the Book held unanswerable and all the Clergy looked on but as Pigmies to that great Goliah who in his Preface had reproached them with Ignorance and Laziness upbraided them with having nothing to keep up their Credit but Beard Title and Habit and that their studies reached no further than the Breviary the Postills and the Polyanthea Provoked wherewith he was so galled by Tillesly so gagged by Mountague and stung by Netles that he never came off in any of his Undertakings with more loss of Credit By which he found that some of the Ignorant and Lazy Clergy were of as retired Studies as himself and could not only match but over-match him too in his own Philology But the chief Governours of the Church went a shorter way and not expecting till the Book was answered by particular men resolved to seek for reparation of the wrong from the Author himself upon an Information to be brought against him in the High Commission Fearing the issue of the business and understanding what displeasures were conceived against him by the King and the Bishops he made his personal appearance in the open Court at Lambeth on the 28 th day of Ianuary 1618 where in a full Court he tendred his submission and acknowledgment all of his own hand-writing in these following words My Lords I most humbly acknowledg my Error which I have committed in publishing The History of Tythes and especially in that I have at all by shewing any Interpretations of Holy Scriptures by medling with Councils Fathers or Canons or by whatsoever occurrs in it offered any occasion of Argument against any Right of Maintenance â—ure Divino of the Ministers of the Gospel beseeching your Lordships to receive this ingenuous and humble acknowledgment together with the unfeigned Protestation of my grief for that through it I have so incurred both His Majesty's and your Lordships Displeasure conceived against me in behalf of the Church of England JOHN SELDEN This for the present was conceived to be the most likely Remedy for the preventing of the Mischief but left such smart Remembrances in the mind of the Author as put him on to act more vigorously for the Presbyterians of which more hereafter by whom he seemed to be engaged in the present Service 30. But it is now high time for us to cross over St. George's Channel and take a short view of the poor and weak Estate of the Church of Ireland where these Designs were carried on with better Fortune A Church which for the most part had been modelled by the Reformation which was made in England But lying at a greater distance and more out of sight it was more easily made a prey to all Invaders the Papists prevailing on the one side and the Puritans on the other getting so much ground that the poor Protestants seemed to be crucified in the midst between them Some Order had been taken for establishing the English Liturgy together with the Bible in the English Tongue in all the Churches of that Kingdom which not being understood by the natural Irish left them as much in Ignorance and Superstition as in the darkest times of the Papal Tyranny And for the Churches of the Pale which very well understood the English Language they suffered themselves to be seduced from the Rules of the Church and yeelded to the prevalency of those zealous Ministers who carried on the Calvinian Project with their utmost power In order whereunto it was held necessary to expose the Patrimony of the Bishops and Cathedral Churches to a publick Port-sale that being as much weakned in their Power as they were in Estate they might be rendred inconsiderable in the eyes of the people Hence-forward such a general devastation of the Lands of the Church that some Episcopal-Sees were never since able to maintain a Bishop but have been added to some others two or three for failing to make up somewhat like a Competency for an Irish Prelate The Bishoprick of Ardagh was thereupon united unto that of Kill more but the Cathedral of the one together with the Bishop's House adjoyning to it had been levelled with the very ground the other in some better repair but neither furnished with Bell Font or Chalice The like union had been also made between the Bishopricks of Clonfert and Killmare Ossery and Kilkenny Down and Connour Waterford and Lismore Cork and Rosse c. and was projected by the late Lord Primate between the See of Kilfanore and that of Killallow not to descend any more particulars of the like Conjunctions 31. Such also were the Fortunes of the Rural Clergy whose Churches in some places lay unrooted in others unrepaired and much out of order The Tythes annexed for the most part to Religions Houses fell by the ruin of those Houses to the Power of the Crown and by the Kings and Queens of England were aliened from the Church and by them became Lay-Fees The Vicaridges generally so ill provided that in the whole Province of Connaught most of the Vicars Pensions came but to forty shillings per annum and in some places but sixteen only And of such Vicaridges as appeared to be better endowed three four or five were many times ingrossed into one man's hands who neither understood the Language nor performed the Service In which respect it was no marvel if the people took up that Religion which came next to hand such as did either serve most fitly to continue them in their former Errors or to secure them in the quiet enjoyment of those Estates which they had ravished from the Church and still possessed by the Title of the first Usurpers In which estate we find the Church of Ireland at the death
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
less of Rome then before it had though nothing was meerly Romane and not Primitive also yet was it still as far off from the Rules of Geneva as it was at that time which gave a new Alarum to Calvin that he should take so much pains and trouble so many of his Friends to so little purpose And long it shall not be before he lets us know his resentment of it The English Protestants being scattered in the Reign of Queen Mary betake themselves to divers places in Germany at Geneva and amongst the Switzers In Germany some of them procure a Church in the City of Frankfort but they were such as had more minde to conform themselves to Calvins Models then to the Liturgie of England and such a deviation thereupon was made from the Rules of this Church as looked little better then an open Schism The business bad enough before but made much worse when Knox that great Incendiary of Scotland took that charge upon him when at his coming he found many not well pleased with those alterations which had been made by others from the Church of England which he resolved not to admit of how much soever the continuance of it had been recommended by such Divines as had retired to Strasburgh Zurick and elsewhere To over-ballance whose Authority which he found much valued he flees for succour unto Calvin sends him a Summary or Abstract of the English Book in the Latine Tongue and earnestly desires his opinion of it not doubting but all opponents would submit to his final sentence What Calvins judgement was in the present Point and what sentence he was like to give in the case before him Knox could not but have good assurance when he wrote that Letter having lived with Calvin at Geneva and published some Seditious Books from thence with his approbation before his coming unto Frankfort and it succeeded answerably to his expectation as may appear by Calvins answer to that Letter which in regard it was the ground of all those troubles which afterwards were raised against the Liturgy by the Puritan Faction I shall here subjoyn 17. It is no small affliction to me and in it self no less inconvenience that a contention should be raised between brethren professing the same Faith and living as banished men or exiles for the same Religion especially for such a Cause which in this time of your dispersion ought to have been the Bond of Peace to bind you the more finally to one another for what ought rather to be aimed at by you in this woful condition then that being torne away from the bowels of your native Country you should put your selves into a Church which might receive you in her bosom conjoyned together like the Children of the same Parent both in hearts and tongues But at this time in my opinion it is very unseasonable that troubles should be raised amongst you about Ceremonies and Forms of Prayer as happens commonly amongst those who live in wantonness and ease by means whereof you have been hindred hitherto from growing into one body I do not blame the constancy of those men who being unwillingly drawn into it do earnestly contend in an honest Cause but rather the stubbornness of those which hitherto hath hindred the holy purpose of forming and establishing a Church amongst you For as I use to shew my self both flexible and facile in things indifferent as all Rites and Ceremonies are yet I cannot always think it profitable to comply with the foolish waywardness of some few men who are resolved to remit nothing of their Ancient Customs I cannot but observe many tolerable fooleries in the English Liturgy such as you have described it to me By which two words those names of tolerable fooleries I mean onely this that there is not such Purity or Perfection as was to be desired in it which imperfections notwithstanding not being to be remedied at the first were to be born with for a time in regard that no manifest impiety was contained in them It was therefore so far lawful to begin with such beggerly Rudiments that the Learned Grave and Godly Ministers of Christ might be thereby encouraged for proceeding farther in setting out somewhat which might prove more pure and perfect If true Religion had flourished till this time in the Church of England it had been necessary that many things in that Book should have been omitted and others altered to the better But now that all such Principles are out of force and that you were to constitute a Church in another place and that you were at liberty to compose such a Form of Worship which might be useful to the Church and more conduce to Edification then the other did I know not what to think of those who are so much delighted in the dregs of Popery But commonly men love those things best to which they have been most accustomed Which though in the first place it may seem a vain and childish folly yeâ— in the next place it may be considered that such a new Model is much different from an alteration Howsoever as I would not have you too stiff and peremptory if the infirmity of some men suffer them not to come up unto your own desires so I must needs admonish others not to be too much pleased with their wants and ignorances nor to retard the course and progess of so good a work by their own perversness nor finally to be transported in the manner by such a foolish Emulation For what other ground have they for this contention but that they think it a disgrace to yeild unto better counsels But possibly I may address my words in vain to those who peradventure may not ascribe so much unto me as to vouchsafe to hearken unto any advice which doth proceed from such a despicable Author If any of them fear that any sinister report will be raised of them in England as if they had forsaken that Religion for which they put themselves into a voluntary exile they are much deceived For this ingenuous and sincere Profession will rather compel those godly men which are left behind seriously to consider what a deep Abyss they are fallen into whose dangerous estate will more grievously wound them when they shall see that you have travailed beyond the middle of that course from which they have been so unhappily retracted or brought back again Farewel my most dear Brethren the faithful servants of Jesus Christ and be you still under the governancce and protection of the Lord your God 18. This Letter bearing date on the fifteenth of the Calends of February and superscribed in general to the English which remained at Frankfort carried so great a stroke with the Knoxian party that there was no more talk of the English Liturgie the Order of Geneva being immediately entertained in the place thereof And when the matter was so handled by Dr. Cox first Tutor and then Almoner to King Edward
the Sixth brought thither by the noise of so great a Schism that the Liturgie of England was again restored Knox was so far from yeilding to the Gravity and Authority of that Learned man that he inveighed against him in the Pulpit without fear or wit But Cox not able to endure a baffle from so mean a fellow informs against him to the Senate touching some passages in one of his Seditious Pamphlets in which it is affirmed that Queen Mary whom elsewhere he calls by the odious name of Iesabel and a Traytoress to England ought not to joyn her self in Marriage with the Emperours Son because the Emperour himself maintained Idolatry and was a greater Enemy to Christ then ever was Nero. Knox hereupon departs by Moon-light but howsoever quits the Town and retires to Geneva leaving the Liturgie for the present in a better condition then he had found it at hiâ— first coming thither But Cox considering with himself how necessary Calvins favour might be to him salutes him with a civil Letter subscribed by himself and fourteen others all of them being men of Note in their several places In which they excused themselves for having set that Church in order without his advice not without some rejoycing that they had brought the greatest part of those who withstood their doings to be of the same Opinion with them Which how agreeable it was to Calvin may be seen by his return to Cox and his adherents Coxo Gregalibus suis as the Latine hath it bearing date Iune 14. 1555. 19. In which Letter having first craved pardon for not writing sooner he lets them know that he had freely signified to Dr. Sampson a very fit man to be acquainted with his secrets what he conceived of the Disputes which were raised at Frankfort as also that he had been certified by some Friends of his who complained much of it that they did stand so strictly on the English Ceremonies as shewed them to be too much wedded to the Rites of their Country And further certified that he had heard somewhat of those Reasons which they stood on most for not receding any thing from the Form established but they were such as might receive an easie Answer that he had writ to those of the opposite party to carry themselves with moderation in the present business though nothing was therein remitted by Cox and his and howsoever was now glad to hear that the difference was at last composed He speaks next touching their retaining of Crosses Tapers and such other trifles of that nature proceeding at the first from superstition and thereupon infers that they who so earnestly contended for them when it was in their choice not to do it did draw too neer upon the dregs He adds that he could see no Reason why they should charge the Church with frivolous and impertinent Ceremonies which he should no way wrong if he called them dangerous when they were left at liberty to compose an Order for themselves more pure and simple that in his judgement it was done with little Piety and less brotherly Love on any clancular informations to call Knox in question for so I understood him by his letter N and that they had done better to have stay'd at home then to have kindled the coals by such a piece of unjust cruelty in a Forreign Country by which others also were inflamed and finally that he had written howsoever unto some of the adverse party of whose intent to leave that place he had been advertised that they should continue where they were and not violate the League of their Friendship by their separations with other things to that effect But notwithstanding this advice many of the Schismatical party removed from Frankfort and put themselves into Geneva the principal of which were Whittingham Knox Goodman and he which afterwards was able to do more then all the rest Mr. Francis Knollis allyed by Marriage to the Caryes descended from a younger Sister of Queen Anne Bullen and consequently neer of Kin to Queen Elizabeth These men grew very great with Calvin with whose good leave they put themselves into the form of a Congregation chose Knox and Goodman for their Brethren and in all points conformed themselves to the Rules of that Church which afterwards they laboured to promore in England and actually did effect in Scotland to the no small disturbance of either Kingdom By the perswasion of these men he is resolved to try his Fortune once again on the Church of England before the resetling of the Liturgie under Queen Elizabeth might render the design impossible or at least unprosperous To which end he addresseth his desires to the Queen her self at her first coming to the Crown The like he doth to Mr. Secretary Cecil by his Letters bearing date the 17 of Ianuary 1558 in which he makes mention of the other in both he spurs them on to a Reformation complaining that they had not shewed such a forwardness in it as all good men expected and that cause required But above all things he desires that a pure and perfect Worship of God may be fully setled that the Church may be throughly purged of its former filth and that the Children of God in England might be left at liberty to use such purity in all Acts of publick Worship as to them seemed best And what else could he aim at by these expressions comparing them with the Contents of his two last Letters but that the former Liturgie should be abolished or brought unto a neerer conformity to the Rules of Geneva or at the least that liberty might be left to the godly party to use any other Form of Worship which they though more pure But finding no such good return to either Letter as he had promised to himself he leaves the cause to be pursued by such English Zealots as he had trained up at Geneva or otherwise had setled their abode amongst the Switzers where all set Forms of Worship were as much decryed as they were with him And that they might not slacken in the midst of their course he recommends the general Superintendents of the Church of England to the care of Beza who after his decease succeeded both in his place and power of whose pragmaticalness in pursuing this design against the Liturgie condemning all established Orders of this Church his interposing in behalf of such of his Followers as had heen silenced suspended or deprived for their inconformity we shall speak more large at when we come to England 20. There happened another quarrel in the Church of England and he must needs make himself a party in it Mr. Iohn Hooper having well deserved by his pains in preaching and publishing some Books which very much conduced to the peace of the Church is nominated by the King to the See of Glocester Willing enough he was to accept the charge but he had lived so long at Zurick in the Reign of King Henry where there
Bishops were the first means to advance the Pope so the pretended Bishops would maintain the Relicks of Popery And then he adds that it concerns all those to avoid that plague by which he meanâ— undoubtedly the Episcopal Order who pretend to any care of the Churches safety And therefore since they had so happily discharged that calling in the Church of Scotland they never should again admit it though it might flatter them with some assurance of peace and unity 46. What followed thereupon in Scotland we shall see hereafter But his desires of propagating the Genevian Forms was not to be restrained to that part of the Island In his first Letter unto Grindal he doth not onely justifie the Genevian Discipline and the whole Order of that Church in Sacred Offices as grounded on the Word of God but findes great fault with the Episcopal Government in the Church of England and the great power which was ascribed unto the Queen in Spiritual Matters How so Because said he he found no warrant for it in the Word of God or any of the ancient Canons by which it might be lawful for the Civil Magistrate of his own Authority either to abrogate old Ceremonies or establish new or for the Bishops onely to ordain and determine any thing without the judgement and consent of their Presbyteries being first obtained And in his answer to the Queries of the English brethren he findes no less fault with the manner of proceedings in the Bishops Courts in regard that Excommunications were not therein passed by the common consent of a Presbytery but decreed onely by some Civil Lawyers or other Officers who faâ—e as Judges in the same But first the man was ignorant of the course of those Courts in which the sentence of Excommunication is never published or pronounced but by the mouth of a Minister ordained according to the Rules of the Church of England And secondly it is to be conceived in Reason that any Batchelor or Doctor of the Civil Law is far more fit to be imployed and trusted in the exercise of that part of Discipline then any Trades-man of Geneva though possibly of the number of the five and twenty For the redress of which great mischief and of many other he applies himself unto the Queen to whom he dedicates his Annotations on the New Testament published in the year 1572. In the Epistle whereunto though he acknowledgeth that she had restored unto this Kingdom the true Worship of God yet he insinuates that there was wanting a full Reformation of Ecclesiastical Discipline that our Temples were not fully purged that some high places still remained not yet abolished and therefore wisheth that those blemishes might be removed and those wants supplyed Finally understanding that a Parliament was then shortly to be held in England and that Cartwright had prepared an Admonition to present unto it he must needs interpose his credit with a Peer of the Realm to advance the service as appears plainly by his Letter of the same year and the Nones of Iuly In which though he approves the Doctrine yet he condemns the Government of the Church as most imperfect not onely destitute of many things which were good and profitable but also of some others which were plainly necessary 47. But here it is to be observed that in his Letter to this great person whosoever he was he seems more cautelous and reserved then in that to Grindal but far more modest then in those to Knox and the English Brethren The Government of England was so well setled as not to be ventured on too rashly And therefore he must first see what effect his counsels had produced in Scotland before he openly assaults the English Hierarchy But finding all things there agreeable to his hopes and wishes he published his Tract De Triplici Episcopatu calculated for the Meridian onely of the Kirk of Scotland as being writ at the desire of the Lord Chancellor Glammis but so that it might generally serve for all Great Britain In which Book he informs his Reader of three sorts of Bishops that is to say the Bishop by Divine Institution being no other then the Minister of a particular Church or Congregation the Bishop by humane appointment being the same onely with the President of a Convocation or the Moderator as they phrase it in some Church-assembly and finally the Devils Bishops such as presume to take upon them the whole charge of a Diocess together with a superiority and jurisdiction over other Ministers Which Book was afterwards translated into English by Feild of Wandsworth for the instruction and content of such of the Brethren as did not understand the Latine To serve as a Preface to which Work the Presbyterian Brethren publish their Seditious Pamphlets in defence of the Discipline some in the English Tongue some in the Latine but all of them Printed at Genâ—va For in the year 1570 comes out The plain and full Declaration of Ecclesiastical Discipline according to the Word of God without the name of any Author to gain credit to it And Traverse a furious Zealot amongst the English had published at Geneva also in the Latine Tongue a discourse of Ecclesiastical Discipline according to the Word of God as it was pretended with the declining of the Church of England from the same Anno 1574 which for the same reason must be turned into English also and Printed at Geneva with Beza's Book Anno 1580. What pains was took by some of the Divines of England but more particularly by Dr. Iohn Bridges Dean of Sarum and Dr. Adrian Saravia preferred upon the merit of this service in the Church of Westminster shall be remembred in a place more proper for it when we shall come to a review of those disturbances which were occasioned in this Church by the Puritan Faction Most of which did proceed from no other Fountain then the pragmaticalness of Beza the Doctrines of Calvin and the Example of Geneva which if they were so influential on the Realms of Britain though lying in a colder climate and so far remote it is to be presumed that they were far more powerful in France and Germany which lay nearer to them and in the last of which the people were of a more active and Mercurial Spirit 48. What influence Calvin had upon some of the Princes Cities and Divines of Germany hath been partly touched upon before and how his Doctrines did prevail in the Palatine Churches and his Discipline in many parts and Provinces of the Germane Empire may be shown hereafter In France he held intelligence with the King of Navar the Brethren of Rouen Aix Mont-Pelier and many leading men of the Hugonot party none of which can be thought to have asked his counsel about purchasing Lands the Marriages of their Children or the payment of Debts And when the Fortune of the Wars and the Kings just anger necessitated many of them to forsake their Country they
which made him afterwards more cordial to the interest of the Church of Rome notwithstanding all the arguments and insinuations used by his Wife a most zealous Hugonot to withdaaw him from it But the Hugonots gave out on the other side that they had made good their Doctrines convinced the Catholick Doctors confounded the Cardinal of Lorrain and gotten License from the King to Preach Which gave such courage to the rest of that Faction that they began of their own Authority to assemble themselves in such places as they thought most convenient and their Ministers to preach in publick and their Preachings followed and frequented by such infinite multitudes as well of the Nobility as the common People that it was thought impossible to suppress and dangerous to disturb their Meetings For so it was that if either the Magistrates molested them in their Congregations or the Catholicks attemped to drive them out of their Temples without respect to any Authority they put themselves into Arms and in the middle of a full Peace was made a shew of a most terrible and destructive War 15. This being observed by those which sate at the Helme and finding that these tempests were occasioned by the Edict of Iuly it was resolved to stere their course by another winde For the Queen being setled in this Maxime of State That she was not to suffer one Faction to destroy the other for fear she should remain a prey to the Victor not onely gave order for conventing all the Parliaments to a Common-Council but earnestly sollicited for a Pacification which gave beginning to the famous Edict of Ianuary whereby it was granted that the Hugonots should have the Free exercise of their Religion that they might assemble to hearing of Sermons in any open place without their Cities but on condition that they went unarmed and that the Officers of the place were there also present Which Edict so offended the chief Heads of the Catholick party that a strict combination and confederacy was concluded on between the King of Navar the Constable and the Duke of Guise for maintenance of the Religion of the Church of Rome And this reduced the Queen-Regent to the like necessity of making a strict union with the Admiral and the Prince of Conde whereby she was assured of the power of the Hugonots and they became as confident of her Protection In which condition they were able to form their Churches to cast them into Provinces Classes and other subdivisions of a less capacity to settle in them their Presbyteries and Synodical Meetings grounded according to their Rules of Calvins Platform in Doctrine Discipline and Worship The Forms whereof being discribed at large in the former Book may there be found without the trouble of a repetition In so much that it was certified to the Fathers in the Council of Trent that the French Hugonots were at that time distributed into two thousand one hundred and fifty Churches each of them furnished with their proper and peculiar Preachers according to a just computation which was taken of them which computation was then made to satisfie the Queen-Regent in the strength of that party for which she could not otherwise declare her self unless she were first made acquainted with their power and numbers But being satisfied in those points she began to shew her self much inclined to Calvinism gave ear unto the Discourses of the Ministers in her private Chamber conferred familiarly with the Prince the Admiral and many others in matters which concerned their Churches and finally so disguised her self that the Pope was not able to discover at what port she aimed For sometimes she would write unto him for such a Council as by the Calvinians was desired at other times for a national one to be held in France sometimes desiring that the Communion might be administred under both kindes otherwhile requiring a Dispensation for Priests to Marry now solliciting that Divine Service might be said in the vulgar tongue then proposing such other like things as were wished and preached for by the Hugonots By which dissimulations she amused the World but gave withal so many notable advantages to the Reformation that next to God she was the principal promoter and advancer of it though this prosperity proved the cause of those many miseries which afterwards ensued upon it 16. For by this means the Preachers having free access into the Court became exceedingly respected in the City of Paris where in short time their followers did increase to so great a multitude as put the Prince of Conde into such a confidence that he assumed unto himself the managery of all great affairs Which course so visibly tended to the diminution of the King of Navar that he resolved by strong hand to remove him from Paris And to that end directed both his Messages and his Letters to the Duke of Guise to come in to help him The Duke was then at Iainville in the Province of Champaigne and happened in his way upon a Village called Vassey where the Hugonots were assembled in great numbers to hear a Sermon A scuffle unhappily is begun between some of the Dukes Footmen and not a few of the more unadvised and adventurous Hugonots which the Duke coming to part was hit with a blow of a stone upon one of his Cheeks which forced him with the loss of some blood to retire again Provoked with which indignity his Followers being two Companies of Lances charge in upon them with their Fire-looks kill sixty of them in the place and force the rest for preservation of their lives into several houses This accident is by the Hugonots given out to be a matter of design the execution done upon those sixty persons must be called a Massacre and in revenge thereof the Kingdom shall be filled with Blood and Rapine Altars and Images defaced Monasteries ruined and pulled down and Churches bruitishly polluted The Queen had so long juggled between both parties that now it was not safe for her to declare for either Upon which ground she removed the Court to Fountain-bleau and left them to play their own Games as the Dice should run The presence of the King was looked upon as a matter of great importance and either party laboured to get him into their power The City of Orleance more especially was aimed at by the Prince of Conde as lying in the heart of the Kingdom rich large and populous sufficiently inclined to novelty and innovations and therefore thought the fittest Stage for his future Actings Being thus resolved he first sends D' Andelot with some Forces to possess the Town and posts himself towards Fountain-Bleau with three thousand Horse But the Catholick Confederates had been there before him and brought the King off safely to his City of Paris which being signified to the Prince as he was on his way he diverts toward Orleance and came thither in a luckie hour to relieve his Friends which having seized upon one of the
confused Rabble of the Knoxian Brethren brake in upon them dismounted the Image brake off his head against the stones scattered all the Company pulled the Priests Surplices over their Ears beat down their Crosses and in a word so discomposed the Order of that mock-Solemnity that happy was the man who could first save himself in some House or other neither their Bag-pipes nor their Banners their Tabrets nor their Trumpets which made a Principal part in that days triumph though free enough from superstition in themselves could escape their fury but ran the same Fortune with the rest And though no diligence was wanting for finding out the principal actors in that Commotion yet as the story hath informed us the Brethren kept themselves together in such Companies singing of Psalms and openly encouraging one another that no body durst lay hands upon them 7. Finding by this experiment that they were strong enough to begin the work it was thought fit to call back Knox to their assistance to which end they dispatched their Letters to him in the March next following to be conveyed by one Iames Sym whom they had throughly instructed in all particulars touching their affairs In May the Letters are delivered the contents whereof he first communicateth to his own Congregation and afterwards to Calvin and the rest of the Brethren of that Consistory by whom it was unanimously declared unto him that he could not refuse that Vocation unless he would shew himself rebellious unto his God and unmerciful to his native Country He returned answer thereupon That he would visit them in Scotland with all convenient expedition and comes accordingly to Dieppe in October following where contrary to expectation he is advertised by Letters from some secret Friends that all affairs there seemed to be at a stand so that his coming to them at that time might be thought unnecessary Highly displeased with such a cooling Card as he did not look for he sends his Letters thence to the Nobility and principal Gentry in which he lets them know how much he was confounded for travailing so far in their Affairs by moving them to the most Godly and most Learned men by which he means Calvin and the Consistorians who at that time did live in Europe whose judgements and grave counsels he conceived expedient as well for the assurance of their own Consciences as of his own that it must needs redound both to his shame and theirs if nothing should succeed in such long consultations that he left his Flock and Family at Geneva to attend their service to whom he should be able to make but a weak account of his leaving them in that condiâ—ion if he were asked at his return concerning the impediment of his purposed Journey that he fore-saw with grief of spirit what grievous plagues what misery and bondage would most inevitably befal that miserable Realm and every Inhabitant thereof if the power of God with the liberty of his Gospel did not deliver them from the same that though his words might seem sharp and to be somewhat undiscreetly spoken yet wise men ought to understand that a true Friend can be no flatterer especially when the question is concerning the Salvation both of body and soul not onely of a few men but of States and Nations that if any perswade them for fear of dangers which might follow to faint in their intended purpose though otherwise he might seem to be wise and friendly yet was he to be accounted foolish and their mortal enemie in labouring to perswade them to prefer their worldly rest to Gods Praise and Glory and the friendship of the wicked before the salvation of their Brethren that they ought to hazard their own lives be it against Kings or Emperours for the deliverance of the people from spiritual bondage for which cause onely they received from their Brethren Tribute Honour and Homage at Gods Commandment Finally having laid before them many strong inducements to quicken them unto the work he ends with this most memorable Aphorism which is indeed the sum and substance of the whole Consistorian Doctrine in the present case that the Reformation of Religion and of publick enormities doth appertain to more then the Clergy or chief Rulers called Kings 8. On the receiving of these Letters they are resolved to proceed in their former purpose and would rather commit themselves and all theirs to the greatest dangers then suffer that Religion which they called Idolatry any longer to remain amongst them or the people to be so defrauded as they had been formerly of that which they esteemed to be the onely true preaching of Christ's Gospel And to this end they entred into a common Bond or Covenant in the name of themselves their Vassals Tenants and dependants dated upon the third of Decemb and subscribed by the Earls of Arguile Glencarne and Morton the Lords Lorne Ereskin of Dun c. the Tenour of which was as followeth viz. 9. We perceiving how Satan in his members the Antichrists of our time cruelly do rage seeking to overâ—hrow and destroy the Gospel of Christ and his Congregation ought according to our bounden duty to strive in our Masters cause even unto the death being certain of the victory in him The which one duty being well considerâ—d we do promise before the Majesty of God and his Congregation that we by his Grace shall with all diligence continualâ—y apply our whole power substance and our very lives to maintain set forward and establish the most blessed Word of God and his Congregation And shall labour according to our power to have faithful Ministers truely and purely to minister Christs Gospel and Sacraments to his people we shall maintain them nourish them and defend them the whole Congregation of Christ and every Member thereof according to our whole powers and waging of our lives against Sathan and all wicked power that doth intend tyranny or trouble against the aforesaid Congregation Vnto the which holy Word and Congregation we do joyn us and so do forsake and renounce the Congregation of Antichrist with all the Superstitious Abomination and Idolatry thereof And moreover shall declare our selves manifest enemies thereto by this our faithful promise before God testified to this Congregation by our subscription of these presents 10. Having subscribed unto this Bond their next care was to issue out these directions following for the promoting of the work which they were in hand with 1. That in all Parishes of that Realm the Common-prayer-book that is to say the Common-prayer book of the Church of England should be read upon the Sundays and Holydays in the Parish-Church together with the Lessons of the Old and New Testament by the same appointed 2. That preaching and interpretation of Scripture be had and used in private Houses without any great convention of the people at them till it should please God to put it into the heart of the Prince to allow thereof in publick Churches And
life at Edenborough on the 10 of Iune and none was nominated to succeed with like Authority The French Forces were imbarked on the 16 of Iuly except some few which were permitted to remain in the Castle of Dunbar and the Isle of Inchkeeth so few that they seemed rather to be left for keeping possession of the Kingdom in the name of the Queen then either to awe the Country or command obedience And that they might be free from the like fears for the times ensuing Francis the Second dyeth on the 5 of December leaving the Queen of Scots a desolate and friendless Widdow assisted onely by her Uncles of the House of Guise who though they were able to do much in France could do little out of it This put the Scots I mean the leading Scots of the Congregation into such a stomack that they resolved to steer their course by another compass and not to Sail onely by such Winds as should blow from England They knew full well that the breach between the two Queens was not reconcileable and that their own Queen would be always kept so low by the power of England that they might trample on her as they pleased now they had her under And though at first they had imbraced the Common-prayer-Book of the Church of England and afterwards confirmed the use of it by a solemn Subscription yet when they found themselves delivered from all fear of the French by the death of their King and the breach growing in that Kingdom upon that occasion they then began to tack about and to discover their affections to the Church of Geneva Knox had before devised a new book of Discipline contrived for the most part after Calvins platform and a new Form of Common-prayer was digested also more consonant to his infallible judgement then the English Liturgie But hitherto they had both lain dormant because they stood in need of such help from England as could not be presumed on with so great a confidence if they had openly declared any dissent or disaffection to the publick Forms which were established in that Church Now their estate is so much bettered by the death of the King the sad condition of their Queen and the assurances which they had from the Court of England from whence the Earls of Morton and Glencarne were returned with comfort that they resolve to perfect what they had begun to prosecute the desolation of Religious Houses and the spoyl of Churches to introduce their new Forms and suspend the old For compassing of which end they summoned a Convention of the Estates to be held in Ianuary 25. Now in this Book of Discipline they take upon them to innovate in most things formerly observed and practised in the Church of Christ and in some things which themselves had setled as the ground-work of the Reformation They take upon them to discharge the accustomed Fasts and abrogate all the ancient Festivals not sparing those which did relate particularly unto Christ our Saviour as his Nativity Passion Resurrection c. They condemned the use of the Cross in Baptism give way to the introduction of the New Order of Geneva for ministring the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and commend sitting for the most proper and convenient gesture to be used at it They require that all Churches not being Parochial should be forthwith demolished declare all Forms of Gods publick Worship which are not prescribed in his Word to be meer Idolatry and that none ought to administer the holy Sacraments but such as are qualified for preaching They appoint the Catechism of Geneva to be taught in their Schools Ordained three Universities to be made and continued in that Kingdom with Salaries proportioned to the Professors in all Arts and Sciences and time assigned for being graduated in the same They decree also in the same that Tythes should be no longer paid to the Romish Clergy but that they shall be taken up by Deacons and Treasurers by them to be imployed for maintainance of the poor the Ministers and the said Universities They complained very sensibly of the Tyranny of Lay-Patrons and Impropriators in exacting their Tythes in which they are said to be more cruel and unmerciful then the Popish Priests and therefore take upon them to determine as in point of Law what Commodities shall be Tythable what not and declare also that all Leases and Alienations which formerly had been made of Tythes should be utterly void 26. Touching the Ministration of the Word and Sacraments and the performance of other Divine Offices it is therein ordered That Common-prayers by which they mean the new Form of their own devising be said every day in the greater Towns except it be upon the days of publick Preaching but then to be forborn that the Preachers own Prayer before and after Sermon may not be despised or disrespected That Baptism be Administred onely upon the Sundays and other days of publick Preaching for the better beating down of that gross Opinion of the Papists so they pleas'd to call it concerning the necessity of it That the first Sundays of March Iune September and December should be from thenceforth set apart for the holy Communion the better to avoid the superstitious receiving of it at the Feast of Easter That all persons exercise themselves in singing Psalms to the end they may the better perform that service in the Congregation That no singing of Psalms no reading of Scriptures should be used at burials That no Funeral-Sermon shall be preached by which any difference may be made between the rich and the poor and that no dead body for the same cause shall be buried in Churches That Prophesyings and Interpreting of the holy Scriptures shall be used at certain times and places according to the custom of the Church of Corinth That in every Church there shall be one Bell to call the people together one Pulpit for the Word and a Bason for Baptism And that the Minister may the better attend these Duties it is ordered that he shall not haunt the Court nor be of the Council nor bear charge in any Civil Affairs except it be to assist the Parliament when the same is called 27. Concerning Ecclesiastical persons their Function Calling Maintainance and Authority it was ordered in the said Book of Discipline That Ministers shall from thenceforth be elected by the Congregation where they are to preach that having made tryal of their Gifts and being approved of by the Church where they are to Preach they shall be admitted to their charge but without any imposition of hands as in other Churches That some convenient pension be assigned to every Minister for the term of life except he deserve to be deprived with some provision to be made after his decease for his Wife and Children That the bounds of the former Diocesses being contracted or enlarged there shall be ten or twelve Superintendents appointed in the place of the former Bishops who are to have the
visitation of all the Ministers and Churches in their several bounds to fix their dwellings in the chief Towns or Cities within the same and to be chosen by the Burgesses of the said Towns or Cities together with the suffrages of the Ministers of their several Circuits and more particularly that the County or Province of Lothaine shall be abstracted from the Diocess of St. Andrews and have a Superintendent of its own who was to keep his Residence in the City of Edenborough which afterwards in the year 1633 was erected by King Charles into a Bishops See and Lothaine assigned him for his Diocess as was here devised That for the better maintainance of the Ministers and Superintendents as also for defraying of all other publick charges which concerned the Churches the lands belonging unto the Bishops as also to all Cathedral and Convenâ—â—al Churches and to the Houses of Monks and Fryars shall be set apart not otherwise to be imployed That in all Churches there be two Elders annually chosen to be associate with the Ministers in the Cognizance of all Ecclesiastical Causes and in the Censures of the Church That the said Elders shall have power not onely to admonish but correct their Ministers if occasion be but not to proceed to deprivation without the allowance and consent of the Superintendent and that the Deacons shall be joyned as Assistants in judgement with the Elders and Ministers That no man presume to eat or drink or otherwise to converse familiarly with excommunicate persons except those of his own Family onely That their Children should not be Baptised till they came unto the years of discretion And that all Murtherers and other Malefactors punishable by death according to the Laws of the Land though they be pardoned for the same by the supreme Magistrates shall notwithstanding be esteemed as excommunicate persons and not received into the Church without such satisfaction and submission as is required of other notorious offenders by the Rules of the Discipline It appears also by this Book that there was one standing Supreme Câ—uncil for ordering the Affairs of the Church and by which all publick grievances were to be redressed but of what persons it consisted and in what place it was held is not mentioned in it 28. This Book being tendered to the consideration of the Convention of Estates was by them rejected whether it were because they could not make such a manifest separation from the Polity of the Church of England or that it concerned them more particularly in their own proper interest in regard of the Church-lands Tythes which they had amongst them or perhaps for both Certain it is that some of them past it over by no better Title then that of some devout Imaginations which could not be reduced to practice This so offended Knox and others who had drawn it up if any other but Knox onely had a hand therein that they spared not bitterly to revile them for their coldness in it taxing them for their carnal liberty their love untâ—â— their worldly Commodities and their corrupt imaginations Some of them are affirmed to have been licentious some greedily to have griped the possessions of the Church and others to be so intent upon the getting of Christs Coat that they would not stay till he was crucified Of the Lord Erskin who refused to subscribe to the Book it is said particularly that he had a very evil woman to his Wife and that if the Schools the poor and the Ministry of the Church had their own his Kiâ—â—hâ—n would have lacked two parts of that which he then possessed Of all of them it was admired that for such a long continuance they could hear the threatnings of God against Thieves and Robbers and that knowing themselves to be guilty of those things which were most rebuked they should never have any remorse of Conscience nor intend the restoring of those things which they had so stolen For so it was if they may be believed that said it that none in all the Realm were more unmerciful to the poor Ministers then they that had invaded and possessed themselves of the greatest Rents of right belonging unto the Church and therein verified as well the old Proverb That the belly hath no ears at all as a new observation of their own devising That nothing would suffice a wretch Such were the discontents and evaporations of these zealous men when they were crossed in any thing which concerned them in their power or profit 30. But in another of their projects they had better Fortune They had sollicited the Convention of Estates for demolishing of all Monuments of Superstition and Idolatry in which number they accounted all Cathedral Churches as well as Monasteries and other Religious Houses which they insisted on the rather because it was perceived and perhaps given out that the â—apists would again erect their old Idolatry and take upon them a command as before they did upon the Consciences of the people that so as well the great men of the Realm as such whom God of his Mercy so they tell us had subjected to them should be compelled to obey their lawless appetites In this some hopes were given them that they should be satisfied but nothing done in execution of the same till the May next following And possibly enough it might have been delayed to a longer time if the noise and expectation of the Queens return had not spurred it on For either fearing or not knowing what might happen to them if she should interpose her power to preserve those places whose demolishing they so much desired they introduce that Discipline by little and little which they could not settle all at once They begin first planting Churches and nominating Superintendents for their several Circuits they superinduce their own Ministers over the heads of the old incumbents establish their Presbyteries divide them into several Classes and hold their general Assemblies without any leave desired of the Queen or Council They proceed next to execute all sorts of Ecclesiastical Censures and arrogate Authority to their selves and their Elders to Excommunicate all such as they found unconformable to their new devices For the first tryal of their power they convent one Sanderson who had been accused to them for Adultery whom they condemned to be carted and publickly exposed unto the scorn of Boys and Children An uproar had been made in Edenborough about the chusing of a Robbinhood or a Whitson-Lord in which some few of the preciser sort opposed all the rest and for this crime they excommunicate the whole multitude wherein they shewed themselves to be very unskilful in the Canon-law in which they might have found that neither the Supreme Magistrate nor any great multitudes of people are to be subject to that Censure They proceed afterwards to the appointing of solemn Fasts and make choice of Sunday for the day which since that time hath been made use of for those Fasts more then any
that they received those Articles for an interim onely till a more perfect Order might be attained at the hands of the King the Regent or the States of the Realm And it was well that they admitted them so far For presently upon the rising of this Assembly Mr. Iohn Douglass Provost of the new Colledge in St. Andrews was preferred to the Archbishoprick of that See Mr. Iames Boyd to the Archbishoprick of Glasco Mr. Iames Paton to the Bishoprick of Dunkeld and Mr. Andrew Grahame to the See of Dumblane the rest to be disposed of afterwards as occasion served 28. But long it was not that they held in so good a Posture Morton succeeding in the Regencie to the Earl of Marre entred into a consideration of the injury which was done the King by the invading of his Thirds and giving onely an allowance yearly of five thousand Marks These he brings back unto the Crown upon assurance that the Pensions of the Ministers should be better answered then in former times and to be payable from thenceforth by the Parish in which they served But no sooner had he gained his purpose when to improve the Kings Revenue and to increase the Thirds he appointed to one Minister two or three Churches in which he was to preach by turns and where he did not preach to appoint a Reader Which Reader for the most part was allowed but twenty or forty pounds yearly each pound being valued at no more then one shilling eight pence of our English money And in the payment of these Pensions they found their condition made worse then before it was for whereas they could boldly go to the Superintendents and make their poor Estates known unto them from whom they were sure to receive some relief and comfort they were now forced to dance attendance at the Court for getting warrants for the payment of the sums assigned and supplicating for such augmentations as were seldom granted And when the Kirk desired to be restored unto the Thirds as was also promised in case the assignations were not duly paid it was at last told them in plain terms That since the Surplus of the Thirds belonged to the King it was fitter the Regent and Council should modifie the Stipends of Ministers then that the Kirk should have the appointment and designation of a Surplus Nor did the Superintendents speed much better if not worse when they addressed themselves to any of the Court-Officers for the receiving the Pensions assigned unto them which being greater then the others came more coldly in And if they prest at any time with more importunity then was thought convenient it was told them that the Kirk had now no use of their services in regard that Bishops were restored in some places to their Jurisdictions 29. And now the Discipline begins to alter from a mixed to a plain Preâ—bytery Before the confirming of Episcopacie by the late conclusions the Government of the Kirk had been by Superintendents assisted by Commissioners for the Countries as they called them then The Commissioners changed or new Elected at every general Assembly the Superintendents setled for term of life To them it appertained to approve and admit the Ministers they presided in all Synods and directed all Church-censures within their bounds neither was any Excommunication pronounced without their Warrant To them it also was referred to proportion the Stipends of all Ministers to appoint the Collectors of the Thirds as long as they were chosen by the general Assembly to make payment of them after such form and manner as to them seemed best and to dispose of the Surplusage if any were toward the charges of the State And to this Knox consented with the greater readiness because in an unsetled Church the Ministers were not thought of parts sufficient to be trusted with a power of Jurisdiction and partly because such men as were first designed for Superintendents were for the most part possessed of some fair Estate whereby they were not onely able to support themselves but to afford relief and comfort to the poor Ministers But when these men grew old or dyed and that the entertaining of the Reformed Religion in all parts of the Realm had given incouragement to men of Parts and Learning to enter into the Ministry they then began more universally to put in practice those restrictions with which the Superintendents had been fettered and the power of the Ministers extended by the Book of Discipline according to the Rules whereof the Minister and Elders of every Church with the assistance of their Deacons if occasion were were not alone enabled to exercise most part of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction over their several Congregations but also to joyn themselves with the chief Burgesses of the greater Towns for censuring and deposing their own Superintendents In which respect the Government may be said to be a mixt not a plain Presbytery as before was noted though in effect Presbytery was the more predominant because the Superintendents by the Book of Discipline were to be subject to the Censures of their own Presbyteries 30. But these Presbyteries and the whole power ascribed unto them by the Book of Discipline were in a way to have been crushed by the late conclusions when they flew out again upon occasion of the hard dealing of the Earl of Morton in putting them besides their Thirds And then withal because the putting of some Ministers into Bishops Sees had been used by him for a pretence to defraud the Superintendents of their wonted means the Bishops were inhibited by the general Assembly which next followed from exercising any Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction within the bounds which they had formerly assigned to their Superintendents without their consent and approbation Which opportunity was both espied and taken by Andrew Melvin for making such an innovation in the Form of Government as came most near unto the Pattern of Geneva where he had studied for a time and came back thence more skilful in Tongues and Languages then any other part of Learning And being hot and eager upon any business which he took in hand emulous of Knoxes greatness and hoping to be Chronicled for his equal in the Reformation he entertained all such as resorted to him with the continual commendations of that Discipline which he found at Geneva where the Presbyteries carried all without acknowledging any Bishop or Superintendent in power above them Having by this means much insinuated into divers Ministers he dealt with one Iohn Drury one of the Preachers of Edenborough to propound a question in the general Assembly which was then convened touching the lawfulness of the Episcopal Function and the Authority of Chapters in their Election Which question being put according as he had directed he first commends the Speakers Zeal as if he had been unacquainted with the motion and then proceeds to a long and well-framed discourse touching the flourishing Estate of the Church of Geneva and the opinions of those great and eminent
the cruel counsels of that Roman Beast tending to extermine and rase from the face of all Europe the true light of the blessed Word of Salvation For these causes and that God of his mercy would bless the Kings Highness and his Regiment and make him to have a happy and prosperous Government as also to put in his Highness heart and in the hearts of his Noble Estates of Parliament not onely to make and establish good politick Laws for the Weal and good Government of the Realm but also to set and establish such a Polity and Discipline in the Kirk as is craved in the Word of God and is contained and penned already to be presented to his Highness and Council that in the one and in the other God may have his due praise and the age to come an example of upright and Godly dealing Which Act of the Assembly pass'd on the 24 of April 1578. 34. The Discipline must be of most excellent use which could afford a present remedy to so many mischiefs and yet as excellent as it was it could obtain no Ratification at that time of the King or Parliament which therefore they resolve to put in practise by the strength of their party without insisting any further on the leave of either In which respect it will not be unnecessary to take a brief view of such particulars in which they differ from the Ancient Government of the Church of Christ or the Government of the Church of England then by Law established or finally from the former Book of Discipline which themselves had justified Now by this Book it is declared That none that bear Office in the Church of Christ ought to have Dominion over it or be called Lords That the Civil Magistrates are so far from having any power to Preach administer the Sacraments or execute the Censures of the Church that they ought not to prescribe any Rule how it should be done and that as Ministers are subject to the judgement and punishment of Magistrates in External things if they offend so ought the Magistrates submit themselves to the Discipline of the Church if they transgress in matter of Conscience and Religion That the Ministers of the Church ought to govern the same by mutual consent of Brethren and equality of power according to their several Functions That there are onely four ordinary Office bearers in the Church that is to say The Pastor Minister or Bishop the Doctor the Elder and the Deacon and that no more ought to be received in the Word of God and therefore that all ambitious Titles invented in the Kingdom of Antichrist and his usurped Hierarchy which are not of these four sorts-together with the Offices depending thereupon that is to say Archbishops Patriarchs Chancellours Deans Archdeacons c. ought in one word to be rejected That all which bear Office in the Church are to be elected by the Eldership and consent of the Congregation to whom the person presented is appointed and no otherwise That the Ordination of the person so elected is to be performed with Fasting Prayer and the Imposition of the hands of the Eldership Remember that Imposition of hands was totally rejected in the former Book That all Office-bearers in the Church should have their own particular flocks amongst whom they ought to exercise their charge and keep their residence 35. But more particularly it declares That it is the Office of the Pastor Bishop or Minister to preach the Word of God and to administer the Sacraments in that particular Congregation unto which he is called and it belongs unto them after lawful proceeding of the Eldership to pronounce the sentence of binding and loosing as also to solemnize Marriage between persons contracted being by the said Eldership thereunto required That it is the Office of the Doctor simply to open the mind of the Spirit of God in the Scriptures without making any such application as the Minister useth and that this Doctor being an Elder ought to assist the Pastor in the Government of the Church by reason that the Interpretation of the Word which is the onely Iudge in Ecclesiastical matters is to him committed That it is the Office of the Elder that is to say The Lay-Elder for so they mean both privately and publickly to watch with all diligence over the flock committed to them that no corruptions of Religion or manners grow amongst them as also to assist the Pastor or Minister in examining those that come to the Lords Table in visiting the sick in admonishing all men of their duties according to the Rule of the Word and in holding Assemblies with the Pastors and Doctors for establishing good order in the Church the Acts whereof he is to put in execution That it is the Office of the Deacon to collect and distribute the goods of the Church at the appointment of the Elders amongst which he is to have no voyce in the common Consistory contrary to the Rules of the former Book That all Ecclesiastical Assemblies have a power lawfully to convene together for that effect That it is in the power of the Eldership to appoint Visitors for their Churches within their bounds and that this power belongs not to any single person be he Bishop or otherwise That every three four or more Parishes may have an Eldership to themselves but so that the Elders be chosen out of each in a fit proportion That it is the Office of these Elderships to enquire of naughty and unruly Members and to bring them into the way again either by Admonition and threatning of Gods Iudgements or by Correction even to the very Censure of Excommunication as also to admonish censure and if the case require to depose their Pastor if he be found guilty of any of those grievous crimes among which Dancing goes for one which belongs to their cognizance The Errors committed by the Eldership to be corrected by Provincial Assemblies and those in the Provincials by the General The maintainance and assisting of which Discipline and the inflicting of Civil punishments upon such as do not obey the same without confounding one Iurisdiction with another is made to be the chief Office of Kings and Princes And that this Discipline might be executed without interruption it was required that the Name and Office of Bishops as it then was and had been formerly exercised in the Church of Scotland as also the Names and Offices of Commendators Abbots Priors Deans Deans and Chapters Chancellors Archdeacons c. should from thenceforth be utterly abolished and of no effect Which points and all the rest therein contained being granted to them all right of Patronages destroyed that popular Elections may proceed in all their Churches and finally the whole Patrimony of the Church in Lands Tythes or Houses permitted to the distribution of the Deacons in every Eldership they then conceive that such a right Reformation may be made as God requires 36. This Book of Discipline being presented to
France for demolishing all Religious Houses and other Monuments of Superstition and Idolatry Under which name all the Cathedrals were interpreted to be contained and by that means involved in the general ruine onely the Church at Glasco did escape that storm and remained till this time undefaced in its former glory But now becomes a very great eye-sore to Andrew Melvin by whose practices and sollicitations it was agreed unto by some Zealous Magistrates that it should forthwith be demolished that the materials of it should be used for the building of some lesser Churches in that City for the ease of the people and that such Masons Quarriers and other Workmen whose service was requisite thereunto should be in readiness for that purpose at the day appointed The Arguments which he used to perswade those Magistrates to this Act of Ruine were the resorting of some people to that Church for their private Devotions the huge vastness of the Fabrick which made it incommodious in respect of hearing and especially the removing of that old Idolatrous Monument which only was kept up in despite of the Zeal and Piety of their first Reformers But the business was not carried so closely as not to come unto the knowledge of the Crafts of the City who though they were all sufficiently Zealous in the cause of Religion were not so mad as to deprive their City of so great an Ornament And they agreed so well together that when the Work-men were beginning to assemble themselves to speed the business they made a tumult took up Arms and resolutely swore that whosoever pulled down the first stone should be buried under it The Work-men upon this are discharged by the Magistrates and the people complained of to the King for the insurrections The King upon the hearing of it receives the actors in that business into his protection allows the opposition they had made and layes command upon the Ministers who had appeared most eager in the prosecution not to meddle any more in that business or any other of that nature adding withal that too many Churches in that Kingdom were destroyed already and that he would not tolerate any more abuses of such ill example 40. The King for matter of his Book had been committed to the institution of George Buchanan a most fiery and seditious Calvinist to moderate whose heats was added Mr. Peter Young father of the late Dean of Winchester a more temperate and sober man whom he very much esteemed and honoured with Knighthood and afterwards preferred to the Mastership of St. Cross in England But he received his Principles for maâ—ter of State from such of his Council as were most tender of the pubâ—lick interest of their Native Country By whom but most especially by the Earl of Morton he was so well instructed that he was able to distinguish between the Zeal of some in promoting the Reformed Religion and the madness or sollies of some others who practised to introduce their innovations under that pretence Upon which grounds of State and Prudence he gave order to the general Assembly sitting at this time not to make any alteration in the Polity of the Church as then it stood but to suffer things to continue in the state they were till the following Parliament to the end that the determinations of the three Estates might not be any ways prejudged by their conclusions But they neglecting the command look back upon the late proceedings which were held at Stirling where many of the most material points in the Book of Discipline were demurred upon And thereupon it was ordained that nothing should be altered in Form or Matter which in that Book had been concluded by themselves With which the King was so displeased that from that time he gave less countenance to the Ministers then he had done formerly And to the end that they might see what need they had of their Princes favour he suffered divers sentences to be past at the Council Table for the suspending of their Censures and Excommunications when any matter of complaint was heard against them But they go forwards howsoever confirmed and animated by a Discourse of Theodore Beza which came out this year entituled De Triplici Episcopatu In which he takes notice of three sorts of Bishops the Bishop of Divine Institution which he makes to be no other then the ordinary Minister of a particular Congregation the Bishop of humane Constitution that is to say the President or Moderator in the Church-assemblies and last of all the Devils Bishop such as were then placed in a perpetual Authority over a Diocesâ— or Province in most parts of Christendom under which last capacity they beheld their Bishops in the Kirk of Scotland And in the next Assembly held at Dundee in Iuly following it was concluded That the Office of a Bishop as it was then used and commonly taken in that Realm had neither foundation ground nor warrant in the holy Scriptures And thereupon it was decreed That all persons either called unto that Office or which should hereafter be called unto it should be required to renounce the same as an Office unto which they are not warranted by the Word of God But because some more moderate men in the next Assembly held at Glasgow did raise a scruple touching that part of the Decree in which it was affirmed That the calling of Bishops was not warranted by the Word of God it was first declared by the Assembly that they had no other meaning in that Expression then to condemn the estate of Bishops as they then stood in Scotland With which the said moderate men did not seem contented but desired that the conclusion of the matter might be respited to another time by reason of the inconvenience which might ensue They are cryed down by all the rest with great heat and violence insomuch that it was proposed by one Montgomery Minister of Stirling that some Censure might be laid on those who had spoken in defence of that corrupted estate Nay such was the extream hatred to that Sacred Function in the said Assembly at Dundee that they stayed not here They added to the former a Decree more strange inserting That they should desist and cease from Preaching ministring the Sacraments or using in any sort of Office of a Pastor in the Church of Christ till by some General Assembly they were De Novo Authorized and admitted to it no lower Censure then that of Excommunication if they did the contrary As for the Patrimony of the Church which still remained in their hands it was resolved that the next General Assembly should dispose thereof 49. There hapned at this time an unexpected Revolution in the Court of Scotland which possibly might animate them to these high presumptions It had been the great Master-piece of the Earl of Morton in the time of his Regency to fasten his dependance most specially on the Queen of England without which he saw it was impossible to preserve
to redound unto him by his Letter to the Lord Protector he sets upon the King himself and tells him plainly that there were many things amiss which required Reformation In his Letters unto the King and Council as he writes to Bullinger he had excited them to proceed in the good work which they had begun that is to say that they should so proceed as he had directed With Cranmer he is more particular and tells him in plain terms That in the Liturgie of this Church as then it stood there remained a whole mass of Popery which did not onely blemish but destroy Gods Publick Worship But fearing he might not edifie with the godly King assisted by so wise a Council and such Learned Prelates he hath his Emissaries in the Court and amongst the Clergie his Agents in the City and Countrey his Intelligencers one Monsieur Nicholas amongst the rest in the University All of them active and industrious to advance his purposes but none more mischievously practical then Iohn Alasco a Polonian born but a profest Calvian both in Doctrine and Forms of Worship who coming out of Poland with a mixed Congregation under pretence of being forced to fly their Countrey for professing the Reformed Religion were gratified with the Church of Augustine-Fryers in London for their publick use and therein suffered to enjoy their own way both in Worship and Government though in both exceeding different from the Rules of this Church In many Churches of this Realm the Altars were left standing as in former times and in the rest the holy Table was placed Altar-wiâ—e at the East-end of the Quire But by his party in the Court he procures an Order from the Lords of the Council for causing the said Table to be removed and to be placed in the middle of the Church or Chancel like a common Table It was the usage of this Church to give the holy Sacrament unto none but such as kneeled at the participation according to the pious order of the primitive times But Iohn Alasco coming out of Poland where the Arrians who deny the Divinity of Christ our Saviour had introduced the use of â—itting brought that irreverend custom into England with him And not content with giving scandal to this Church by the use thereof in his own Congregâ—tion he publisheth a Pamphlet in defence of that irreverend and sawey gesture because most proper for a Supper The Liturgie had appointed several Offices for many of the Festivals observed in the most regular times of Christianity Some of the Clergy in the Convocation must be set on work to question the conveniencie if not the lawfulness of those observations considering that all days are alike and therefore to be equally regarded in a Church Reformed And some there were which raised a scruple touching the words which were prescribed to be used in the delivery of the Bread and Wine to the Congregation 5. Not to proceed to more particulars let it suffice that these Emissaries did so ply their work by the continual solliciting of the King the Council and the Convocation that at the last the Book was brought to a review The product or result whereof was the second Liturgie confirmed in Parliament Anno 5 6 Edw. 6. By the tenour of which Act it may appear first that there was nothing contained in the said Book but what was agreeable to the Word of God and the Primitive Church very comfortable to all good people desiring to live in Christian conversation and most profitable to the Estate of this Realm And secondly That such doubts as had been raised in the use and exercise thereof proceeded rather from the curiosity of the Minister and Mistakers then of any other worthy cause And thereupon we may conclude that the first Liturgie was discontinued and the second superinduced upon it after this review to give satisfaction unto Calvins Cavils the curiosities of some and the mistakes of others of his Friends and Followers But yet this would nor serve the turn they must have all things modelled by the Form of Geneva or else no quiet to be had Which since they could not gain in England in the Reign of King Edward who did not long out-live the setling of the second Liturgie they are resolved more eagerly to pursue the project in a Foâ—reign Country during their exile and affliction in the Reign of Queen Mary Such of the English as retired to Embden Strasburg Basil or any other of the Free and Imperial Cities observed no Form of Worship in their Publick Meetings but this second Liturgie In contrary whereof such as approved not of that Liturgy when they were in England united themselves into a Church or Congregation in the City of Frankfort where they set up a mixt Form of their own devising but such as carried some resemblance to the Book of England Whittingham was the first who took upon himself the charge of this Congregation which after he resigned to Knox as the fitter man to carry on the work intended who having retired to Geneva on the death of King Edward and from thence published some tedious Pamphlets against the Regiment of Women and otherwise defamatory of the Emperour and the Queen of England was grown exceeding dear to Calvin and the rest of that Consistory By his indeavours and forwardness of too many of the Congregation that little which was used of the English Liturgie was quite laid aside and all things brought more near the Order which be found at Geneva though so much differing from that also as to intitle Knox for the Author of it 6. The noise of this great Innovation brings Gryndal and Chambers from the Church of Strasburg to set matters right By whom it was purposed that the substance of the English Book being still retained there might be a forbearance of some Ceremonies and Offices in it But Knox and Whittingham were as much bent against the substance of the Book as against any of the Circumstantials and Extrinsecals which belonged unto it So that no good effect following on this interposition the Agents of the Church of Strasburg return back to their brethren who by their Letters of the 13 of December expostulate in vain about it To put an end to these Disputes no better way could be devised by Knox and Whittingham then to require the countenance of Calvin which they thought would carry it To him they send an Abstract of the Book of England that by his positive and determinate Sentence which they presumed would be in favour of his own it might stand or fall And he returns this Answer to them That in the Book of England as by them described he had observed many tolerable Fooleries that though there was no manifest impiety yet it wanted much of that purity which was to be desired in it and that it contained many Relicts of the dregs of Popery and finally that though it was lawful to begin with such beggerly Rudiments yet it behooved
them without Rule or Order To give a check to whose forwardness the Queen sets out her Proclamation in the end of December but which she gave command That no Innovation should be made in the State of Religion and that all persons should conform themselves for the present to the practices of Her Majesties Chappel till it was otherwise appointed Another Proclamation was also issued by which all preaching was prohibited but by such onely as were licensed by her Authority which was not like to countenance any men of such turbulent spirits The news whereof much hastned the return of those Zealous Brethren who knew they might have better fishing in a troubled water then in a quiet and composed Calvin makes use also of the opportunity directs his Letters to the Queen and Mr. Secretary Cecil in hope that nothing should be done but by his advice The contrary whereof gave matter of cold comfort both to him and them when they were given to understand that the Liturgie had been revised and agreed upon That it was made more passable then before with the Roman Catholicks and that not any of their number was permitted to act any thing in it except Whitehead onely who was but half theirs neither and perhaps not that All they could do in that Conjuncture was to find fault with the Translation of the Bible which was then in use in hope that their Genevian Edition of it might be entertained and to except against the paucity of fit men to serve the Church and fill the vacant places of it on the like hopes that they themselves might be preferred to supply the same 13. And it is possible enough that either by the mediation of Calvin or by the intercession of Peter Martyr who wrote unto the Queen at the same time also the memory of their former Errors might have been obliterated if Knox had not pulled more back with one hand then Calvin Martyr and the rest could advance with both For in a Letter of his to Sir William Cecil dated April the 24 1559 he first upbraids him with consenting to the suppressing of Christs true Evangel to the erecting of Idolatry and to the shedding of the blood of Gods most dear children during the Reign of Mischievous Mary that professed Enemy of God as he plainly calls her Then he proceeds to justifie his treasonable and seditious book against the Regiment of Women Of the truth whereof he positively affirmeth that he no more doubteth then that he doubted that was the voyce of God which pronounced this sentence upon that Sex That in dolour they should bear their children Next he declares in reference to the Person of Queen Elizabeth That he could willingly acknowledge her to be raised by God for the manifestation of his glory although not Nature onely but Gods own Ordinance did oppugn such Regiment And thereupon he doth infer That if Queen Elizabeth would confess that the extraordinary Dispensations of Gods great mercy did make that lawful in her which both Nature and Gods Laws did deny in all women besides none in England should be more ready to maintain her lawful Authority then himself But on the other side he pronounceth this Sentence on her That if she built her Title upon Custom Laws and Ordinances of men such foolish presumption would grievously offend Gods Supreme Majestie and that her ingratitude in that kind should not long lack punishment To the same purpose he writes also to the Queen Herself reproaching her withal That for fear of her life she had declined from God bowed to Idolatry and gone to Mass during the persecution of Gods Saints in the time of her Sister In both his Letters he complains of some ill offices which had been done him by means whereof he was denyed the liberty of Preaching in England And in both Letters he endeavoured to excuse his flock of late assembled in the most godly Reformed Church and City of Geneva from being guilty of any offence by his publishing of the book the blame whereof he wholly takes upon himself But this was not the way to deal with Queens and their Privy Counsellors and did effect so little in relation to himself and his flock that he caused a more watchfull eye to be kept upon them then possibly might have been otherwise had he scribled less 14. Yet such was the necessity which the Church was under that it was hardly possible to supply all the vacant places in it but by admitting some of the Genevian Zealots to the Publick Ministery The Realm had been extreamly visited in the year foregoing with a dangerous and Contagious Sickness which took away almost half the Bishops and occasioned such Mortality amongst the rest of the Clergy that a great part of the Parochial Churches were without Incumbents The rest of the Bishops twelve Deans as many Archdeacons Fifteen Masters of Colledges and Halls Fifty Prebendaries of Cathedral Churches and about Eighty Beneficed-men were deprived at once for refusing to subâ—â—â—â— to the Queens Supremacy For the filling of which vacant places though as much care was taken as could be imagined to stock the Church with moderate and conformable men yet many â—ast amongst the rest who either had not hitherto discovered their dis-affections or were connived at in regard of their parts and learning Private opinions not regarded nothing was more considered in them then their zeal against Popery and their abilities in Divine and Humane studies to make good that zeal On which account we find the Queens-Professor in Oxford to pass amongst the Non-Conformists though somewhat more moderate then the rest and Cartwright the Lady Margarets in Cambridge to prove an unextinguished fire-brand to the Church of England Wittingham the chief Ring-leader of the Frankfort-Schismaticks preferred unto the Deanry of Durham from thence encouraging Knox and Goodman in setting up Presbyterie and sedition in the Kirk of Scotland Sampson advanced unto the Deanry of Christ-Church and not long after turn'd out again for an incorrigible Non-Conformist Hardiman one of the first twelve Prebends of Westminster deprived soon after for throwing down the Altar and defacing the Vestments of the Church And if so many of them were advanced to places of note and eminence there is no question to be made but that some numbers of them were admitted unto Countrey-Cures by means whereof they had as great an opportunity as they could desire not onely to dispute their Genevian Doctrines but to prepare the people committed to them for receiving of such Innovations both in Worship and Government as were resolved in time convenient to be put upon them 15. For a preparative whereunto they brought along with them the Genevian Bible with their Notes upon it together with Davids Psalms in English metre that by the one they might effect an Innovation in the points of Doctrine and by the other bring this Church more neer to the Rules of Geneva in some chief acts of Publick Worship For to
omit the incongruities of the Translation which King Iames judged to be the worst that he had ever seen in the English Tongue the Notes upon the same in many places savour of Sedition and in some of Faction destructive of the Persons and Powers of Kings and of all civil intercourse and humane society That Learned King hath told us in the Conference at Hampton-Court that the Notes on the Genevian Bible were partial untrue seditious and savouring too much of dangerous and trayterous conceits For proof whereof he instanced in the Note of Exod. 1. v. 19. where they allow of disobedience unto Kings and Soveraign Princes And secondly in that on 2 Chron. 8.15 16. where Asa is taxed for not putting his Mother to death but deposing her onely from the Regency which before she executed Of which last note the Scotish Presbyterians made especial use not onely in deposing Mary their lawful Queen but prosecuting her openly and under-hand till they had took away her life And to this too he might have added that on Matth. 2.12 where it is said that Promise ought not be kept where Gods honor and preaching of his truth is hindred or else it ought not to be broken Which opens a wide gap to the breach of all Oaths Covenants Contracts and Agreements not onely between man and man but between Kings and their Subjects For what man can be safe or King secure what Promise can oblige or what Contract bind or what Oath tye a man to his Faith and duty if on pretence of Gods honor or the propagating of his truth he may lawfully break it And yet this Doctrine passed so currantly amongst the French that it was positively affirmed by Eusebius Philadelphus whosoever he was That Queen Elizabeth was no more bound to keep the League which she had made and sworn with Charles IX because forsooth the preaching of the Gospel might be hindred by it then Herod was obliged to keep the Oath which he had sworn to the Dancing-Harlot Follow them to Rev. 9. and they will tell us in their Notes upon that Chapter that by the Locusts which came out of the smoak are meant false Teachers Hereticks and worldly subtile Prelates with Monks Fryers Cardinals Patriarchs Archbishops Bishops Doctors Batchelors and Masters To which though they subjoyn these words viz. Which forsake Christ to maintain false Doctrine yet lays it a disgrace on all Archbishops and Bishops and on all such as take Academical degrees by bringing them under the name of Locusts and joyning them with Monks and Friers whom they beheld no otherwise then as Limbs of Antichrist Which being the design of their Annotations agreeable to Calvins Doctrine in reference to Civil Ecclesiastical Government there is no doubt but that they come up roundly to him in reference to Predestination and the points appendant for which I shall refer the Reader to the Notes themselves observing onely in this place that they exclude Christ and all his sufferings from being any way considerable in mans Election which they found onely on the absolute will and pleasure of Almighty God but are content to make him an inferiour cause and onely an inferiour cause of a mans salvation For which consult them on Rom 9.15 16. Now with this Bible and these Notes which proved so advantagious to them in their main projectments they also brought in Davids Psalms in English metre of which they served themselves to some tune in the time succeeding Which device being first taken up by Clement Marot and continued afterwards by Beza as before is said was followed here in England by Thomas Sternhold in the Reign of King Edward and afterwards by Iohn Hopkins and some others who had retired unto Geneva in the time of Queen Mary Being there finished and printed at the end of their Bibles they were first recommended to the use of private Families next brought into the Church for an entertainment before the beginning of the Morning and Evening Service And finally published by themselves or at the end of the Psalter with this Declaration that they were set forth and allowed to be sung in all Churches before and after Morning and Evening Prayer as also before and after Sermons But first no such allowance can be found as is there pretended nor could be found when this allowance was disputed in the High Commission by such as have been most industrious and concerned in the search thereof And then whereas it is pretended that the said Psalms should be sung before and after Morning and Evening Prayer as also before and after Sermons which shews they were not to be intermingled with the Publick Liturgie in very little time they prevailed so far in most Parish-Churches as to thrust out the Te Deum and the Benedicite the Benedictus the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis quite out of the Church And thirdly by the practices and endeavours of the Puritan party who had an eye upon the usage of Geneva they came to be esteemed the most Divine part of Gods publick service the reading Psalms together with the first and second Lessons being heard in many places with a covered head but all men sitting bare-headed when the Psalm is sung And to that end the Parish-Clerk must be taught to call upon the people to sing it to the Praise and Glory God no such preparatory Exhortation being used at the naming of the Chapters or the daily Psalms 17. By these preparatives they hoped in time to bring in the whole body of Calvinism as well in reference to Government and forms of Worship as to points of Doctrine But then they were to stay their time and not to shew too much at once of the main designe but rather to divert on some other counsels The Liturgy was so well fortified by the Law and the Bishops so setled in their jurisdictions that it had been a madness to attempt on either till they should finde themselves increased both in power and number and that they had some Friend in Court not onely to excuse but defend their actions In which respect nothing seemed more expedient to them then to revive the Quarrels of King Edwards time about Caps and Tippets and other Vestments of the Clergy which had not the like Countenance from the Laws of the Land In which as they assured themselves of all help from the hands of Peter Martyr so they despaired not of obtaining the like from Calvin and Beza whensoever it should be required But as one Wave thrusts another forwards so this dispute brings in some others in which the judgement of Peter Martyr was demanded also that is to say concerning the Episcopal Habit the Patrimony of the Church the manner of proceedings to be held against Papists the Perambulation used in the Rogation-Week with many other points of the like condition Which Quarrels they pursued for five years together till the setling of that business by the Book of Advertisements Anno 1565. They also
and Ceremonies being first abolished they should proceed to the Establishment of such a Form of Ministration in the Church of England as might be grounded on some express Authorities of the Word of God Which as he makes to be a work agreeable unto Grindals piety so Grindal after this and this bears date in Iuly 1568 appeared more favourable every day then other to those common Barretters who used their whole endeavours to embroyl the Church 30. Nor were these years less fatal to the Church of England by the defection of the Papists who till this time had kept themselves in her Communion and did in general as punctually attend all Divine Offices in the same as the vulgar Protestants And it is probable enough that they might have held out longer in their due obedience if first the scandal which was given by the other Faction and afterwards the separation which ensued upon it had not took them off The Liturgie of the Church had been exceedingly well fitted to their approbation by leaving out an offensive passage against the Pope restoring the old Form of words accustomably used in the participation of the holy Sacrament the total expunging of a Rubrick which seemed to make a Question of the Real presence the Scituation of the holy-Table in the place of the Altar the Reverend posture of kneeling at it or before it by all Communicants the retaining of so many of the ancient Festivals and finally by the Vestments used by the Priest or Minister in the Ministration And so long as all things continued in so good a posture they saw no causâ— of separating from the rest of their Brethren in the acts of Worship But when all decency and order was turned out of the Church by the heat and indiscretion of these new Reformers the holy-Table brought into the midst of the Church like a common-Table the Communicants in some places sitting at it with as little Reverence as at any ordinary Table the ancient Fasts and Feasts deserted and Church-Vestments thrown aside as the remainders of the Superstition of the Church of Rome they then began visibly to decline from their first conformity And yet they made no general separation nor defection neither till the Genevian brethren had first made the Schism and rather chose to meet in Barns and Woods yea and common Fields then to associate with their brethren as in former times For that they did so is affirmed by very good Authors who much bemoaned the sad condition of the Church in having her bowels torn in pieces by those very Children which she had cherished in her bosom By one of which who must needs be of years and judgement at the time of this Schism we are first told what great contentions had been raised in the first ten years of her Majesties Reign through the peevish frowardness the out-cryes of such as came from Geneva against the Vestments of the Church and such like matters And then he adds That being crossed in their desires touching those particulars they separated from the rest of their Congregations and meeting together in Houses Woods and common Fields kept there their most unlawful and disorderly Conventicles 31. Now at such time as Button Billingham and the rest of the Puritan Faction had first made the Schism Harding and Sanders and some others of the Popish Fugitives imployed themselves as busily in perswading those of that Religion to the like temptation For being licensed by the Pope to exercise Episcopal jurisdiction in the Realm of England they take upon them to absolve all such in the Court of Conscience who should return to the Communion of the Church of Rome as also to dispense in Causes of irregularity except it were incurred by wilful murther and finally from the like irregularities incurred by Heresie if the party who desired the benefit of the Absolution abstain'd from Ministring at the holy Altar for three years together By means whereof and the advantages before mentioned which were given them by the Puritan Faction they drew many to them from the Church both Priests and People their numbers every day increasing as the scandal did And finding how the Sectaries inlarged their numbers by erecting a French Church in London and that they were now upon the point of procuring another for the use and comfort of the Dutch they thought it no ill piece of Wisdom to attempt the like in some convenient place near England where they might train up their Disciples and fit them for imployment upon all occasions Upon which ground a Seminary is established for them at Doway in Flanders Anno 1568 and another not long after at Rhemes a City of Champaigne in the Realm of France Such was the benefit which redounded to the Church of England by the perversness of the Brethren of this first separation that it occasioned the like Schism betwixt her and the Papists who till that time had kept themselves in her Communion as before was said For that the Papists generally did frequent the Church in these first ten years is positively affirmed by Sir Edward Coke in his Speech at the Arraignment of Garnet the Jesuit and afterward at the Charge which was given by him at the general Assizes held in Norwich In both which he speaks on his own certain knowledge not on vulgar hearsay affirming more particularly that â—e had many times seen Bedenfield Cornwallis and some other of the Leading Romanists at the Divine Service of the Church who afterwards were the first that departed from it The like averred by the most Learned Bishop Andrews in his Book called Tortura Torti p. 130. and there asserted undeniably against all opposition And which may serve instead of all we finde the like affirmed also by the Queen her self in her Instructions given to Walsingham then being her Resident with the French King Anno 1570. In which Instructions bearing date on the 11 of August it is affirmed expresly of the Heads of that party and therefore we may judge the like of the Members also that they did ordinarily resort from the beginning of her Reign in all open places to the Churches and to Divine Service in the Church without any contradiction or shew of misliking 32. The parallel goes further yet For as the Puritans were encouraged to this separation by the Missals and Decretory Letters of Theodore Beza whom they beheld as the chief Patriarch of this Church So were the Papists animated to their defection by a Bull of Pope Pius the Fifth whom they acknowledged most undoubtedly for the Head of theirs For the Pope being thrust on by the importunity of the House of Guise in favour of the Queen of Scots whose Title they preferred before that of Elizabeth and by the Court of France in hatred to the Queen her self for aiding the French Hugonots against their King was drawn at last to issue out this Bull against her dated at Rome Feb. 24. 1569. In which Bull he doth not
the Publick Government then the omitting the first Clause in the Twentieth Article In which it was declared That the Church hâ—d power to Decree Rites and Ceremonies and Authority in Controversies of Faith Which Clause though extant in the Registers oâ— the Convocation as a part of that Article and printed as a part thereof both in Latine and English Anno 1562 was totally left out in this new Impression and was accordingly left out in all the Harmonies of Confessions or other Collections of the same which were either printed at Geneva or any other place where Calvinism was of most predominancy And so it stood with us in England till the death of Leicester After which in the year 1593 the Articles were reprinted and that Clause resumed according as it stands in the Publick Registers By which Clause it was after published in the third year of K. Iames and in the tenth year of the said King Anno 1512 and in all following Impressions from that time to this Once cunningly omitted in a Latine Impression with came out at Oxon An. 1536. but the forgery was soon discovered and the Book call'd in the Printer checked and ordered to reprint the same with the Clause prefixed Which makes it the more strange and almost incredible that the Puritans should either plainly charge it as an Innovation on the late Archbishop or that any other sober or indifferent man should make a question whether the Addition of that Clause were made by the Prelates or the Substraction of it by the Puritans for their several purposes 41. There also past a Book of Canons in this Convocation by which it was required That all such as were admitted unto Holy-Orders should subscribe the Book of Articles as before was said That the Gâ—ay Amice still retained as it seems by some of the old Priests of Queen Maries time should be from thenceforth laid aside and no longer used That the Deans and Residentiaries of Cathedral Churches should admit no other Form of saying or singing Divine Service of the Church or administring the holy Sacraments then that which was prescribed in the Publick Liturgie That if any Preacher in the same should openly maintain any point of Doctrine contrary to any thing contained in the Book of Articles or the Book of Common-Prayer the Bishop should be advertised of it by the Dean and Prebendaries to the end he might proceed therein as to him seemed best That no man be admitted to preach in what Church soever till he be licensed by the Queen or the Archbishop of the Province or the Bishop of the Diocess in which he serveth And that no Preacher beng so licensed should preach or teach any thing for Doctrinal to bâ— believed by the people but what was consonant to the Word of God in Holy Scripture or by the Ancient Fathers or Orthodox Bishops of the Church had been gathered from it That no Parson Vicar or Curate should from thenceforth read the Common Prayers in any Chappel Oratory or Private House unlâ—ss he were licensed by the Bishop under hand and seâ—â— And that none of the persons aforesaid should 〈◊〉 his Ministery or carry himself in his apparel or kind of life like â—o one of the Laity That the said Parsons Vicars and Curates should yearly certifie to their several Ordinaries the names and Sirnames of all persons of fourteen years of age and upwards who had not received the Communion or did refuse to be instructed in the Publick Catechiâ—m or that they should not suffer any such persons to be God-Father or God-Mother to any child or to contract any Marriage either between themselves or with any other It was also ordered in those Canons That every Bishop should cause the Holy Bible in the largest Volume to be set up in some convenâ—ent place of his Hall or Parlour that as well those of his own Family as all such strangers as resorted to him might have recourse to it if they pleased And that all Bishops Deans and Archdeacon should cause the Book called The Acts and Monuments to be disposed of in like sort for the use aforesaid The first of which Injunctions seems to have been made for keeping up the Reputation of the English Bibles publickly Authoâ—ized for the use of this Church The credit and Authority of which Translation was much decryed by those of the Genevian Faction to advance their own By the other there was nothing aimed at but to gain credit to the Book which served so seasonably to create an odium in all sorts of people against the Tyrannies and Superstitions of the Pope of Rome whose plots and practices did so apparently intend the ruine of the Queen and Kingdom No purpose either in the Bishops or Clergie to justifie all or any of the passages in the same contained which have been since made use of by the Disciplinarians either to countenance some strange Doctrine or decry some Ceremony to which he shewed himself a Friend or Enemy as the case might vary 42. Fortified with these Canons and Synodical Acts the Prelates shew themselves more earnest in requiring Subscription more zealous in pressing for Conformity then before they did but found a stiffer opposition in the Puritan Faction then could be rationally expected For whether it were that they relyed upon their Friends in Court or that some Lawyers had informed them that by the Statute no Subscription was to be required of them but only unto points of Doctrine certain it is that they were now more insolent and intractable then they had been formerly For now the bettâ—r to disguise their Projects to wound the Discipline the quarrels about Surplices and other Vestments which seemed to have been banished a while are revived again complaints made of their sufferings in it to the Forreign Churches and the report is spread abroad to gain the greater credit to their own perverseness that many of the Bishops did as much abominate those Popish Vestments as any of the brethren did For so writes Zanchy a Divine of Heidelburg in his Letters unto Queen Elizabeth of September the second and writes so by direction from the Prince Elector whom they had engaged in the cause out of an hope to take her off from giving any further countenance to the Bishops in that point of Conformity To the same purpose he writes also to Bishop Iewel on the 11 of September Where he informs as he had been informed himself That many of the Ecclesiastical Order would rather chuse to quit their station in the Church and resign their Offices then yield to the wearing of those Vestments which had been formerly defiled by such gross Superstition He also signifies what he had writ unto the Queen of whose relenting he could give himself no great assurance and that he had also been advised to write to some of the Clergie to the end that they might be perswaded to a present Conformity rather then deprive the Church of their future Ministery The
prosecution of which work he commends to Iewel that by the interposing of his Authority they might be brought to yield to the points proposed and thereby be continued in the exercise of their Vocation Which last clause could not chuse but be exceeding acceptable to that Reverend Prelate who had shewed himself so earnest for Conformity in a Sermon preached by him at the Cross that he incurred some censure for it amongst the brethren Which put him to this Protestation before his death That his last Sermon at S. Pauls Cross and Conference about the Ceremonies and state of the Church was not to please any man living nor to grieve his brethren of a contrary opinion but onely to this end that neither party might prejudice the other But he was able to act nothing in pursuance of Zanchy's motion by reason of his death within few days after if not some days before he received that Letter For on the 22 of the same Moneth it pleased God to take him to himself and thereby to deprive the Church of the greatest Ornament which she could boast of in that age The end of the sixth Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB VII Containing A Relation of their secret and open Practices the Schism and Faction by them raised for advancing the Genevian Discipline in the Church of England from the year 1572 to the year 1584. 1. THe English Puritans had hitherto maintained their Quarrel by the Authority of Calvin the sawciness of Knox the bold activities of Beza and the more moderate interposings of some Forreign Divines whose name was great in all the Churches of the Reformation But now they are resolved to try it out by their proper valour to fling away their Bulrushes and lay by their Crutches or at the best to make no other use of Out-landish Forces then as Auxiliaries and Reserves if the worst should happen And hitherto they had appeared onely against Caps and Surplices or questioned some Rites and Ceremonies in the publick Liturgie which might be thought to have been borrowed from the Church of Rome But now they are resolved to venture on the Episcopal Government and to endeavour the erecting of the Presbyterian as time and opportunity should make way unto it Amongst which undertakers none more eminent because none more violent then Cartwright formerly remembred Snape of Northampton a great stickler for the holy Discipline and Feild a Lecturer in London as ridiculously zealous to advance Presbytery as the most forward in the pack But Cartwright was the man upon whose Parts and Learning they did most depend and one who both by private Letters and some Printed Pamphlets had gained more credit to the side then all the rest And yet it was amongst his own onely that he gained such credit For when his Papers had been shewn unto Bishop Iewel and that the Judgement of that Reverend and Learned Prelate was demanded of them he is said to have returned this answer That the Arguments therein contained were too slight to build up and too weak to pull down And so it proved in the event when Cartwrights whole discourses against the Forms of Government and Publick Worship here by Law established came to be seriously debated 2. For having been long great with Childe of some new designe the Babe comes forth in the beginning of the Parliament which was held in the year 1572 intituled by the name of an Admonition in which complaint was made of their many grievances together with a Declaration of the onely way to redress the same which they conceived to be no other then the setling of the Genevian Platform in all parts of the Kingdom But the Parliament was so little pleased with the Title and so much displeased with the matter of the Admonition that the Authors and Preferrers of it were imprisoned by them But this imprisonment could lay no Fetters on their spirits which grew the more exasperated because so restrained For towards the end of the Parliament out comes the second Admonition far more importunate then the first and it comes out with such a flash of Lightning and such claps of Thunder as if Heaven and Earth were presently to have met together In the first he had amassed together all those several Arguments which either his reading could afford or his wit suggest or any of that party could excogitate for him against the Government of Bishops the whole body of the English Liturgie and almost all the particular Offices in the same contained And in the second he not onely justified whatsoever had been found in the first but challenged the Parliament for not giving it a more gratious welcome For there he tells them in plain terms That the State did not shew it self upright alledge the Parliament what it will That all honest men should finde lack of equity and all good Consciences condemn that Court That it should be easier for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of Iudgement then for such a Parliament That there is no other thing to be looked for then some speedy vengeance to light upon the whole Land let the Politick Mâ—chiavils of England provide as well as they can though God do his worst And finally that if they of that Assembly would not follow the advice of the first Admonition they would infallibly be thâ—ir own carvers in it the Church being bound to keep Gods Ordeâ— and nothing to be called Gods Order but their present Platform 3. About this time Clark Travers Gardiner Barber Cheston and lastly Crook and Egerton joyned themselves to the Brotherhood Amongst whom the handling of such points as concerned the Discipline became very frequent many motions being made and some conclusions setled in pursuance of it but more particularly it was resolved upon the question That for as much as divers Books had been written and sundry Petitions exhibited to her Majesty the Parliament and their Lordships to little purpose every man should therefore labour by all means possible to bring the Reformation into the Church It was also then and there resolved That for the better bringing in of the said holy Discipline they should not onely as well publickly as privately teach it but by little and little as well as possibly they might draw the same into practice According to which Resolution a Presbytery was erected on the 20 of November at a small Village in Surrey called Wandsworth where Field had the Incumbencie or cure of Souls a place conveniently scituate for the London-Brethren as standing near the bank of the Thames but four miles from the City and more retired and out of sight then any of their own Churches about the Town This first Establishment they indorsed by the name of the Orders of Wandsworth In which the Elders names are agreed on the manner of the Election declared the approvers of them mentioned their Offices agreed on also and described And though the Queen might have no notice of this first
the honor to themselves To which end Heywood Parsons and Campian first set foot in England and both by secret practices and printed Pamphlets endeavoured to withdraw the Subjects from their due obedience Nothing more ordinary in their mouths or upon their pens then that the Crown belonged of right to the Queen of Scots That Elizabeth was to be deprived That if the Pope commanded one thing and the Queen another the Popes commands were to be obeyed and not the Queens And in a word That all the Subjects were absolued from their Allegiance and might declare as much when they found it necessary Which that it might be done with the greater safety Pope Gregory the XIII is desired to make an Explication of the former Bull. By which it should be signified to the English Catholicks that the said former Bull of Pope Pius V should remain obligatory unto none but the Hereticks onely but that the Romish Catholicks should not be bound by it as the case then stood till they should find themselves in a fit capacity to put the same in execution without fear of danger And presently upon their first entrance a Book is published by one Howlet containing many reasons for deterring the Papists from joyning in any Act of Worship with the English Protestants the going or not going to Church being from henceforth made a sign distinctive as they commonly phrased it In this year also Beza published his Schismatical Pamphlet intituled De triplici Episcopatu of which see Lib. 1. numb 47. Lib. 5. numb 40. first written at the request of Knox and other of the Presbyterians of the Kirk of Scotland that they might have the better colour to destroy Episcopacy translated afterwards into English for the self-same reason by Field of Wandsworth Against this Book Dr. Iohn Bridges Dean of Sarum writ a large Discourse intituled A Defence of the Government established in the Church of England not published till the year 1587 when the Authority thereof was most highly stood on The like done afterward by Dr. Hadrian Savavia of which we shall speak more in its proper place 23. And now the waters are so troubled that Cartwright might presume of gainful fishing at his coming home Who having settled the Presbytery in Iersey and Guernsey first sends back Snape to his old Lecture at Northampton there to pursue such Orders and Directions as they had agreed on and afterwards put himself into the Factory of Antwerp and was soon chosen for their Preacher The news whereof brings Travers to him who receives Ordination if I may so call it by the Presbytery of that City and thereupon is made his Partner in that charge It was no hard matter for them to perswade the Merchants to admit that Discipline which in their turns might make them capable of voting in the Publick Consistory And they endeavoured it the rather that by their help they might effect the like in the City of London whensoever they should find the times to be ready for them The like they did also in the English Church at Middleborough the chief Town in Zealand in which many English Merchants had their constant residence To which two places they drew over many of the English Nation to receive admission to the Ministery in a different Form from that which was allowed in the Church of England Some of which following the example of Cartwright himself renounced the Orders which they had from the hands of the Bishops and took a new Vocation from these Presbyters as Fennor Arton c. and others there admitted to the rank of Ministers which never were ordained in England as Hart Guisin c. not to say any thing of such as were elected to be Elders or Deacons in those Forreign Consistories that they might serve the Churches in the same capacity at their coming home And now at last they are for England where Travers puts himself into the service of the Lord Treasurer Burleigh by whose Recommendation he is chosen Lecturer of the Temple Church which gave him opportunity for managing all affairs which concerned the Discipline with the London-Ministers Cartwright applies himself to the Earl of Leicester by whom he is sent down to Warwick and afterwards made Master of an Hospital of his Foundation In the chief Church of which Town he was pleased to preach as often as he could dispense with his other business At his admission to which place he faithfully promised if he might be but tolerated to Preach not to impugne the Laws Orders Policy Government nor Governours in this Church of England but to perswade and procure so much as he could both publickly and privately the estimation and peace of this Church 24. But scarce was he setled in the place when he made it manifest by all his actions how little care he took of his words and promises for so it was when any Minister either in private Conferences or by way of Letters required his advice in any thing which concerned the Church he plainly shewed his mislike of the Ecclesiastical Government then by Law Established and excepted against divers parts of the Publick Liturgie according to the Tenour of the two Admonitions by him formerly published By means whereof he prevailed with many who had before observed the Orders of the common-prayer-Common-prayer-book now plainly to neglect the same and to oppose themselves against the Government of Bishops as far as they might do it safely in relation to the present times And that he might not press those points to others which he durst not practice in himself he many times inveighed against them in his Prayers and Sermons The like he also did against many pâ—ssages in the Publick Liturgie as namely The use of the Surplice the Interrogatories to God-fathers in the name of Infants the Cross in Baptism the Ring in Marriage the Thanksgiving after Child-birth Burials by Ministers the kneeling at Communions some points of the Litany certain Collects and Prayers the reading of Portions of Scripture for the Epistle and Gospel and the manner of singing in Cathedral Churches And for example unto others he procured his Wife not to give thanks for her Delivery from the peril of Childbirth after such Form and in such place and manner as the Church required Which as it drew on many other women to the like contempt so might he have prevailed upon many more if he had not once discoursed upon matters of Childbirth with such in discretion that some of the good Wives of Warwick were almost at the point to stone him as he walked the streets But that he might not seem to pull down more with one hand then he would be thought sufficiently able to build up with both he highly magnified in some of his Sermons the Government of the Church by Elderships in each Congregation and by more Publick Conferences in Classical and Synodical Meetings which he commended for the onely lawful Church-Government as being of Divine Institution and ordained by
directly of the Spirit of God nothing of those impurities and prophanations of the Church of England Hereupon followed a defection from the Church it self not as before amongst the Presbyterians from some Offices in it Browns Followers which from him took the name of Brownists refusing obstinately to joyn with any Congregation with the rest of the people for hearing the Word preached the Sacraments administred and any publick act of Religious Worship This was the first gathering of Churches which I finde in England and for the justifying hereof he caused his Books to be dispersed in most parts of the Realm Which tending as apparently to Sedition brought both the Dispersers of them within the compass of the Statute 23 Eliz. cap. 2. Of which we are informed by Stow that Elias Thasker was hanged at Bury on the fourth of Iune and Iohn Copping on the sixth of the same Month for spreading certain Books seditiously penned by Robert Brown against the Book of Common-prayer established by the Laws of this Realm as many of their Books as could be found being burnt before them 31. As for the Writer of the Books and the first Author of the Schism he was more favourably dealt with then these wretched instruments and many other of his Followers in the times succeeding Being convented before Dr. Edmond Freak then Bishop of Norwich and others of the Queens Commissioners in conjunction with him he was by them upon his refractory carriage committed to the custody of the Sheriff of Norwich But being a near kinsman by his Mother to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh he was at his request released from his imprisonment and sent to London where some course was taken to reclaim him if it might be possible totally or in part at least as God pleased to bless it Whitgift by this time had attained to the See of Canterbury a man of excellent patience and dexterity in dealing with such men as were so affected By whose fair usage powerful Reasons and exemplary piety he was prevailed upon so far as to be brought unto a tolerable compliance with the Church of England In which good humour he was favourably dismist by the Arch-bishop and by the Lord-Treasurer Burleigh to the care of his Father to the end that being under his eye and dealt with in a kinde and temperate manner he might in time be well recovered and finally withdrawn from all the Reliques of his fond opinions Which Letters of his bear date on the 8 of October 1585. But long he had not staid in his Fathers house when he returned unto his vomit and proving utterly incorrigible was dismist again the good old Gentleman being resolved upon this point that he would not own him for a Son who would not own the Church of England for his Mother But at the last though not till he had passed through two and thirty prisons as he used to brag by the perswasions of some Friends and his own necessities the more powerful Orators of the two he was prevailed with to accept of a place called A Church in Northamptonshire beneficed with cure of Souls to which he was presented by Thomas Lord Burleigh after Earl of Exon and thereunto admitted by the Bishop of Peterborough upon his promise not to make any more disturbances in the proceedings of the Church A Benefice of good value which might tempt him to it the rather in regard that he was excused as well from preaching as from performing any other part of the publick Ministry which Offices he discharged by an honest Curate and allowed him such a competent maintainance for it as gave content unto the Bishop who had named the man And on this Benefice he lived to a very great age not dying till the year 1630 and then dying in Northampton Gaol not on the old account of his inconformity but for breach of the Peace A most unhappy man to the Church of England in being the Author of a Schism which he could not close and most unfortunate to many of his Friends and Followers who suffered death for standing unto those conclusions from which he had withdrawn himself divers years before 32. But it is time that we go back again to Cartwright upon whose principles and positions he first raised this Schism Which falling out so soon upon the Execution which was done on Stubs could not but put a great rebuke upon his spirit and might perhaps have tended more to his discouragement had not his sorrows been allayed and sweetned by a Cordial which was sent from Beza sufficient to revive a half-dying brother Concerning which there is no more to be premised but that Geneva had of late been much wasted by a grievous pestilence and was somewhat distressed at this time by the Duke of Savoy Their peace not to be otherwise procured but by paying a good sum of money and money not to be obtained but by help of their Friends On this account he writes to Travers being then Domestick Chaplain to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh but so that Cartwright was to be acquainted with the Tenour of it that by the good which the one might do upon the Queen by the means of his Patron and the great influence which the other had on all his party the contribution might amount to the higher pitch But as for so much of the said Letter as concerns our business it is this that followeth viz. If as often dear Brother as I have remembred thee and our Cartwright so often I should have written unto thee you had been long since overwhelmed with my Letters no one day passing wherein I do not onely think of you and your matters which not onely our ancient Friendship but the greatness of those affairs wherein you take pains seems to require at my hands But in regard that you were fallen into such times wherein my silence might be safer far then my writing I have though most unwillingly been hitherto silent Since which time understanding that by Gods Grace the heats of some men are abated I could not suffer this my Friend to come unto you without particular Letters from me that I may testifie my self to be the same unto you as I have been formerly as also that at his return I may be certified of the true state of your affairs After which Preamble he acquaints him with the true cause of his writing the great extremities to which that City was reduced and the vast debts in which they were plunged whereby their necessities were grown so grievous that except they were relieved from other parts they could not be able to support them And then he addes I beseech thee my dear Brother not onely to go on in health with thy daily prayers but that if you have any power to prevail with some persons shew us by what honest means you can how much you love us in the Lord. Finally having certified him of other Letters which he had writ to certain Noblemen and to all the Bishops
their Bishop to whom the planting of so many Dutch Churches in the principal City and other of the chief Towns of his Diocess had given trouble enough To the Petition of the Kentish Ministers which concerned himself he was required to answer at the Council-Table on the Sunday following Instead whereof he lays before them in the Letter That the Petitioners for the most part were ignorant and raw young men few of them licensed Preachers and generally disaffected to the present Government That he had spent the best part of two or three days in labouring to reduce them to a better understanding of the points in question but not being able to prevail he had no otherwise proceeded then the Law required That it was not for him to sit in that place if every Curate in his Diocess might be permitted so to use him nor possible for him to perform the Duty which the Queen expected at his hands if he might not proceed to the execution of that power by her Majesty committed to him without interruption That he could not be perswaded that their Lordships had any purpose to make him a party or to require him to come before them to defend those actions wherein he supposed that he had no other Iudge but the Queen her self and therefore in regard that he was called by God to that place and function wherein he was to be their Pastor he was the rather moved to desire their assistance in matters pertaining to his Office for the quietness of the Church the credit of Religion and the maintainance of the Laws in defence thereof without expecting any such attendance on them as they had required for fear of giving more advantage to those wayward persons then he conceived they did intend And thereunto he added this protestation That the three Articles whereunto they were moved to subscribe were such as he was ready by Learning to defend in manner and form as there set down against all opponents either in England or elsewhere 39. In reference to the paper of the Suffolk Ministers he returns this answer It seemeth something strange to me that the Ministers of Suffolk finding themselves agrieved with the doings of their Diocesans should leave the ordinary course of proceeding by the Law which is to appeal unto me and extraordinarily trouble your Lordships in a matter not so incident as I think to that honourable Board seeing it hath pleased her Majesty her own self in express words to commit these causes Ecclesiastical to me as to one who is to make answer unto God and her Majesty in this behalf my Office also and place requiring the same In answer unto their complaint touching their ordinary proceedings with them I have herewith sent your Lordships a Copy of a Letter lately received from his Lordship wherein I think that part of their Bill to be fully answered Touching the rest I know not what to judge of it but in some points it talketh as I think modestly and charitably They say they are no Iesuits sent from Rome to reconcile c. True it is neither are they charged to be so but notwithstanding they are contentious in the Church of England and by their contentions minister occasion of offence to those which are seduced by Jesuits and give the Sacraments against the form of publick Prayer used in this Church and by Law established and thereby increase the number of them and confirm them in their wilfulness They also make a Schism in the Church and draw many other of her Majesties Subjects to a misliking of her Laws and Government in Causes Ecclesiastical So far are they from perswading them to obedience or at the least if they perswade them to it in the one part of her Authority it is in Causes Civil they disswade them from it as much in the other that iâ— in Causes Ecclesiastical so that indeed they pluck down with the one hand that which they seem to build with the other 40. More of which Letter might be added were not this sufficient as well to shew how perfectly he understood both his place and power as with what courage and discretion he proceeded in the maintenance of it Which being observed by some great men about the Court who had ingaged themselves in the Puritan quarrels but were not willing to incur the Queens displeasure by their opposition it was thought best to stand a while behind the Curtain and set Beal upon him of whose impetuosity and edge against him they were well assured This Beal was in himself a most eager Puritan trained up by Walsingham to draw dry-foot after Priests and Jesuits his extream hatred to those men being looked on as the onely good quality which he could pretend to But being over-blinded by zeal and passion he was never able to distinguish rightly between truth and falshood between true Sanctity and the counterfeit appearance of it This made him first conceive that whatsoever was not Puritan must needs be Popish and that the Bishops were to be esteemed no otherwise then the sons of Antichrist because they were not looked upon as Fathers by the holy Brotherhood And so far was he hurried on by these dis-affections that though he was preferred to be one of the Clerks of the Council yet he preferred the interest of the Faction before that of the Queen Insomuch that he was noted to jeer and gibe at all such Sermons as did most commend Her Majesties Government and move the Auditory to obedience not sparing to accuse the Preachers upon such occasions to have broached false Doctrine and falsly to alledge the Scriptures in defence thereof This man had either writ or countenanced a sharp Discourse against Subscription inscribed to the Archbishop and presented to him and thereupon caused speeches to be cast abroad that the three Articles to which Subscription was required should shortly be revoked by an Act of the Council which much encreased the obstinacy of the self-willed Brethren But after fearing lest the Queen might have a sight of the Papers he resolved to get them out of his hands and thereupon went over to Lambeth where he behaved himself in such a rude and violent manner as forced the Archbishop to give an acconnt thereof by Letter to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh who hitherto had stood fair towards him in these following words 41. I have born saith he with Mr. Beals intemperate speeches unseemly for him to use though not in respect of my self yet in respect of Her Majestie whom he serveth and of the Laws established whereunto he ought to shâ—w some duty Yesterday he came to my house as it seems to demand the Book he delivered unto me I told him That the book was written unto me and therefore no reason why he should require it again especially seeing I was assured that he had a Copy thereof otherwise I would cause it to be written out for him Whereupon he fell into very great passions with me which I think
of the English Armies which served in the Low-Countreys to make sure of all He takes a course also to remove the Imprisoned Queen from the Earl of Shrewsbury and commits her to the custody of Paulet and Drury two notorious Puritans though neither of them were so base as to serve his turn when he practised on them to assassinate her in a private way I take no pleasure in recounting the particulars of that Horrid Act by which a Soveraign Queen lawfully Crowned and Anointed was brought to be arraigned before the Subjects of her nearest Kinswoman or how she was convicted by them what Artifices were devised to bring her to the fatal Block or what dissimulations practised to palliate and excuse that Murther 16. All I shall note particularly in this woful story is the behaviour of the Scots I mean the Presbyters who being required by the King to recommend her unto God in their publick Prayers refused most unchristianly so to do except only David Lindesay at Leith and the King 's own Chaplains And yet the Form of Prayer prescribed was no more than this That it might please God to illuminate her with the Light of his Truth and save her from the apparent danger wherein she was cast On which default the King appointed solemn Prayers to be made for her in Edenborough on the third of February and nominates the Arch-bishop of St. Andrews to perform that Office Which being understood by the Ministers they stirred up one Iohn Cooper a bold young man and not admitted into Orders of their own conferring to invade the Pulpit before the Bishop had an opportunity to take the place Which being noted by the King he commanded him to come down and leave the Pulpit to the Bishops as had been appointed or otherwise to perform the Service which the Day required To which the sawcy Fellow answered That he would do therein according as the Spirit of God should direct him in it And then perceiving that the Captain of the Guard was coming to remove him thence he told the King with the same impudence as before That this day should be a witness against him in the Great Day of the Lord And then denouncing a Wo to the Inhabitants of Edenborough he went down and the Bishop of St. Andrews entring the Pulpit did the Duty required For which intollerable Affront Cooper was presently commanded to appear before the Lords of the Council and he took with him Watson and Belcanqual two of the Preachers of Edenborough for his two Supporters Where they behaved themselves with so little reverence that the two Ministers were discharged from preaching in Edenborough and Cooper was sent Prisoner to the Castle of Blackness But so unable was the King to bear up against them that having a great desire that Montgomery Arch-bishop of Glasgow might be absolved from the Censures under which he lay he could no otherwise obtain it than by releasing this Cooper together with Gibson before-mentioned from their present Imprisonment which though it were yeelded to by the King upon condition that Gibson should make some acknowledgment of his Offence in the face of the Church yet after many triflings and much tergiversation he took his flight into England where he became a useful Instrument in the Holy Cause 17. For so it was that notwithstanding the Promise made to Arch-bishop Whitgift by Leicester Walsingham and the rest as before is said they gave such encouragements under-hand to the Presbyterians that they resolved to proceed toward the putting of the Discipline in execution though they received small countenance in it from the Queen and Parliament Nor were those great Persons altogether so unmindful of them as not to entertain their Clamours and promote their Petitions at the Council-Table crossing and thwarting the Arch-bishop whensoever any Cause which concerned the Brethren had been brought before them Which drew from him several Letters to the Lords of the Council each syllable whereof for the great Piety and Modesty which appears in them deserves to have been written in Letters of Gold Now the sum of these Letters as they are laid together by Sir George Paul is as followeth 18. God knows saith he how desirous I have been from time to time to have my doings approved by my ancient and honourable Friends for which cause since my coming to this place I have done nothing of importance against these Sectaries without good Advice I have risen up early and sate up late to yeeld Reasons and make Answer to their Contentions and their Seditious Objections And shall I now say I have lost my labour Or shall my just dealing with disobedient and irregular persons cause my former professed and ancient Friends to hinder my just proceedings and make them speak of my doings yea and of my self what they list Solomon saith An old Friend is better than a new I trust those that love me indeed will not so lightly cast off their old Friends for any of these new-fangled and factious Sectaries whose fruits are to make division and to separate old and assured Friends In my own private Affairs I know I shall stand in need of Friends but in these publick Actions I see no cause why I should seek any seeing they to whom the care of the Commonwealth is committed ought of duty therein to joyn with me And if my honourable Friends shall forsake me especially in so good a Cause and not put their helping-hand to the redress of these Enormities being indeed a matter of State and not of the least moment I shall think my coming unto this Place to have been for my punishment and my hap very hard that when I think to deserve best and in a manner consume my self to satisfie that which God Her Majesty and the Church requireth of me I should be evilly rewarded Sed meliora spero It is objected by some that my desire of Uniformity by way of Subscription is for the better maintenance of my Book They are mine Enemies that say so but I trust my Friends have a better opinion of me Why should I seek for any confirmation of my Book after twelve years approbation Or what shall I get thereby more than already I have Yet if Subscription may confirm it it is confirmed long ago by the Subscription of almost all the Clergy of England before my time Mine Enemies likewise and the slanderous Tongues of this uncharitable Sect report that I am revolted bâ—come a Papist and I know not what But it proceedeth from thâ—â—r Leudness and not from any desert of mine 19. I am further burthened with Wilfulness I hope my Friends are better perswaded of me to whose Consciences I appeal It is strange that a man of my place dealing by so good a warrant as I do should be so encountred and for not yeelding counted Wilful But I must be content Vincit qui patitur There is a difference betwixt Wilfulness and Constancy I have taken upon me by the Place
London-Brethren became forthwith bindiâ—g to the rest none being admitted into any of the aforesaid Classes before he hath promised under his hand That he would submit himself and be obedient unto all such Orders and Decrees as are set down by the Classis to be observed At these Classes they enquired into the Life and Doctrine of all that had subscribed unto them censuring some deposing others as they saw occasion in nothing more severe than in censuring those who had formerly used the Cross in Baptism or otherwise had been conâ—ormable to the Rules of the Church And unto every Classis there belonged a Register who took the Heads of all that passed and saw them carefully entred in a Book for that purpose that they might remain upon Record 22. It may seem strange that in a constituted Church backed by Authority of Law and countenanced by the Favour of the Supreme Magistrate a distinct Government or Discipline should be put in practise in contempt of both but more that they should deal in such weighty matters as were destructive of the Government by Law established Some Questions had before been started at a Meeting in Cambridg the final decision whereof was thought fit to be referred to the Classis of Warwick where Cartwright governed as the perpetual Moderator And they accordingly assembling on the tenth day of the fourth Month for so they phrased it did then and there determine in this manner follow That private Baptism is unlawful That it is not lawful to read Homilies in the Church and that the sign of the Cross is not to be used in Baptism That the Faithful ought not to communicate with unlearned Ministers although they may be present at their Service in case they come of purpose to hear a Sermon the reading of the Service being looked on as a Lay-man's Office That the Calling of Bishops c. is unlawful That as they deal in Causes Ecclesiastical there is no duty belonging to them nor any publickly to be given them That it is not lawful to be ordained by them into the Ministry or to denounce either Suspensions or Excommunications sent by their Authority that it is not lawful for any man to rest in the Bishop's deprivation of him from his Charge except upon consultation it seem good unto his Flock and the Neighbouring-Ministers but that he continue in the same until he be compelled to the contrary by Civil Force That it is not lawful to appear in a Bishop's Court but with a Protestation of their unlawfulness That Bishops are not to be acknowledged either for Doctors Elders or Deacons as having no ordinary Calling in the Church of Christ. That touching the restauration of the Ecclesiastical Discipline it ought to be taught to the people datâ occasione as occasion should serve and that as yet the people are not to be sollicited publickly to practise the Discipline till they be better instructed in the knowledg of it And finally That men of better understanding are to be allured privately to the present allowing the Discipline and the practise of it as far as they shall be well able with the Peace of the Church 23. But here we are to understand That this last Caution was subjoined in the close of all not that they had a care of the Church's Peace but that they were not of sufficient strength to disturb the same without drawing ruine on themselves which some of the more hot-headed Brethren were resolved to hazzard of which they had some loss this year by the Imprisonment of Barrow Greenwood Billet Boudler and Studley who building on their Principles and following the Example of Robert Brown before remembred had brake out into open Schism when their more cunning Brethren kept themselves within the Pale of the Church But these we only touch at now leaving the further prosecution of them to a fitter place Suffice it that their present sufferings did so little moderate the heats of some fiery spirits that they resolved to venture all for the Holy Discipline as appears by Pain 's Letter unto Feild Our zeal to Gods Glory saith he our love to his Church and the due planting of the same in this For-headed Age should be so warm and stirring in us as not to care what adventure we give or what censures we abide c. For otherwise the Diabolical boldness of the Iesuits and Seminaries will cover our faces with shame c. And then he adds It is verily more than time to register the Names of the fittest and hottest Brethren round about our several dwellings whereby to put the godly Counsel of Specanus in execution Note that Specanus was one of the first Presbyterian Ministers in the Belgick Churches that is to say Si quis objiciat c. If any man object That the setting up the lawful practise of the Discipline in the Church be hindred by the Civil Magistrate let the Magistrate be freely and modestly admonished of his duty in it and if he esteem to be accounted either a Godly or Christian Magistrate without doubt he will admit wholesome Counsels but if he do not yet let him be more exactly instructed that he may serve God in fear and lend his Authority in defence of God's Church and his Glory Marry if by this way there happen no good success then let the Ministers of the Church execute their Office according to the appointment of Christ for they must rather obey God than men In which last point saith Pain we have dolefully failed which now or never stands us in hand to prosecute with all celerity without lingring or staying so long for Parliaments But this Counsel of Paine being thought too rash in regard they could not find a sufficient number of Brethren to make good the Action it was thought fit to add the Caution above-mentioned The Hundred thousand Hands which they so much bragged of were not yet in readiness and therefore it was wisely ordered That as yet the whole multitude were not to be allured publickly to the practise of it until men were better instructed in the knowledg of so rare a Mystery Till when it could not be safe for them to advance their Discipline in the way of force 24. Now to prepare the people for the entertainment of so great a Change it was found necessary in the first place to return an Answer to some Books which had been written in defence of Episcopal Government and in the next to make the Bishops seem as odious and contemptible in the eyes of their Profelytes as Wit and Malice could devise Dr. Iohn Bridges Dean of Sarum and afterwards Bishop of Oxford published a Book in the year 1587 entâ—tuled A Defence of the Government of the Church of England intended chiefly against Beza but so that it might serve to satisfie all Doubts and Cavils which had been made against that Government by the English Puritans To which an Answer is returned by some zealous Brethren under the Name of A
Defence of the godly Ministers against the Slanders of Dr. Bridges Bridges replies and his Reply produceth a Rejoynder An. 1588 bearing this Inscription viz. A Defence of the Ecclesiastical Discipline against the Reply of Mr. Bridges Dr. Some Master of Peter-House in Cambridg to check the sawciness of Penrie a most fiery Puritan published a Discourse at the same time to detect his Follies and presently comes out a Libel entituled Mr. Some laid open in his Colours The Brethren had been smart enough with Dr. Bridges and might be thought to have been malepert enough with Dr. Some if they had not carried themselves with far more irreverence towards the Arch-Bishop and the rest of the Sacred Hierarchy For now in prosecution of the other part of their Design which was To make the Bishops odious and contemptible in the eyes of their Proselytes four of the most seditious of all the Pack that is to say Penrie Throgmorton Vdal and Fenner lay their heads together From which conjunction there proceeded such a swarm of pestiferous Libels that the like mischief neither in nature nor in number did never exercise the Patience of a Christian State The Authors of them masked under the borrowed Name of Martin Mar-Prelate which Title they had taken on themselves not without good cause as may appear unto any which have looked into these particulars that is to say The Epistle to the Confocation-House The Epitome The Demonstration of Discipline The Supplication Diotrephes Martins Minerals Have you any work for a Cooper Penry 's Epistles sent from Scotland Theses Martinianae or Martin Iunior The Protestation of Martin Martin Senior More Work for the Cooper A DIALOGVE setting forth the Tyrannical dealing of the Bishops against God's Children Read over Dr. Bridges c. with many others of like strain of which it is hard to say whether their Malice or Uncharitableness had the most predominancy In all which doings Cartwright was either of the Council in the first Design or without doubt a great approver of them upon the post-fact and thereupon he is affirmed to have used these words That since the Bishops lives would not amend by grave Books and Advertisements it was fit they should be so dealt with to their further shame 25. For printing these pestiferous Libels they chiefly made use of Walgrave's Press which he removed from place to place for his greater safety that is to say at Moulsey near Kingston upon Thames thence to Fausly in Northampton-shire so to Norton afterwards to Coventry and so to Welstome in Warwick-shire and from thence finally to the Town of Manchester where both the Work-men and the Press were seized on by the Earl of Darby as they were Printing the bold Pamphlet called More Work for Cooper For the dispersing of these Libels they made use of one Newman a Cobler a Fellow fit for such a business and it had been great pity if they had employed any other Instrument But for their countenance and support especially as to the bearing of their Charges they had the Purse of Knightly of Fausley at whose House some of them were Printed being a Gentleman of good Note but of greater Zeal whom Snape and other Leading-men of that County had inveigled to them But he and all the rest might have payed deer for it if he whom they most wronged had not stood their Friend For being called into the Starr-Chamber and there deeply Censured they were upon submission at the humble and most earnest suit of the Arch-Bishop released from their Imprisonment and their Fines remitted And it is worth the observation That the Puritans were then most busie as well in setting up their Discipline as in publishing these Railing and Seditious Pamphlets when the Spaniards were hovering on the Seas with their terrible Navy At what time they conceived and that not improbably that the Queen and Council would be otherwise busied than to take notice of their Practises or suppress their doings or rather that they durst not call them into question for their Words or Actions for fear of alienating the Affections of so strong a Party as they had raised unto themselves The serious apprehension of which mischievous Counsels prevailed so far on Leicester and Walsingham that they did absolutely renounce any further intercession for them professing That they had been horribly abused with their Hypocrisie which possibly might happen better for themselves than it did for the Church the Earl of Leicester going to his own Place before the end of this Year and Walsingham being gathered to his Fathers within Two years after 26. I am ashamed to rake in these â—ilthy Puddles though it be necessary that the bottom of the Cinque be opened that notice may be taken of that stinch and putrefaction which proceeded from them In which respect I hope the Reader will excuse me if I let him know that they could find no other Title for the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury than Belzebub of Canterbury Pope of Lambeth the Canterbury-Caiaphas â—sau A Monstrous Antichristian Pope A most â—loody Opposer of God's Saints A very Antichristian Beast A most vile and cursed Tyrant They tell us further of this humble and meek-spirited man That no Bishop ever had such an aspiring and ambitious mind as he no not Cardinal Wolsey None so proud as he no not Stephen Gardiner of Winchester None so tyrannical as he no not Bonner the Butcher of London In general he tells us both of Him and the rest of the Bishops That they are Vnlawful Vnnatural False and Bastardly Governours of the Church the Ordinances of the Devil Petty Popes Petty Antichrists Incarnate Devils Bishops of the Devil Cogging Cozening Knaves and will lye like Dogs That they are Proud Popish Presumptuous Prophane Paltry Pestilent Pernicious Prelates and Vsurpers Enemies of God and the most pestilent Enemies of the State and That the worst Puritan in England is an Honester man than the best Lord Bishop in Christendom Nor do they speak any better of the Inferior Clergy than they do of the Bishops of whom they tell us in like manner That they are Popish Priests or Monks or Friars or Ale-haunters or Boys and Lads or Drunkards and Dolts That they will wear a Fool 's Hood for a Living-sake That they are Hogs Dogs Wolves Foxes Simoniaks Vsurpers Proctors of Antichrist's Inventions Popish Chap-men halting Neutrals greedy Dogs to fill their Paunches a multitude of desperate and forlorn Atheists a Cursed Vncircumcised Murthering Geration a Crew or Hoop of Bloody Soul-murtherers and Sacrilegious Church-Robbers and Followers of Antichrist 27. Behold the Bishops and Clergy in their Convocation and we shall see them termed by one of the Captains of this Crew Right puissant poysoned persecuting and terrible Priests Clergie Masters of the Confocation-House the Holy-League of Subscription the Crew of monstrous and ungodly Wretches that mingle Heaven and Earth together Horned Monsters of the Conspiration-House An Antichristian Swinish Rabble Enemies of the Gospel most covetous
as put a difference between the Rights of a Prophane and a Christian Magistrate Specanus a stiff Presbyterian in the Belgick Provinces makes a distinction between potestas Facti and potestas Iuris and then infers upon the same That the Authority of determining what is fit to be done belongs of right unto the Ministers of the Church though the execution of the Fact in Civil Causes doth properly appertain to the Supreme Magistrate And more than this the greatest Clerks amongst themselves would not give the Queen If she assume unto Her self the exercise of Her farther Power in ordering Matters of the Church according to the lawful Authority which is inherent in the Crown She shall presently be compared unto all the wicked Kings and others of whom we read in the Scriptures that took upon them unlawfully to intrude themselves into the Priest's Office as unto Saul for his offering of Sacrifice unto Osias for burning Incense upon the Altar unto Gideon for making of an Ephod and finally to Nadab and Abihu for offering with strange fire unto the Lord. 33. According to these Orthodox and sound Resolves they hold a Synod in St. Iohn's Colledg in Cambridg taking the opportunity of Sturbridg-Fayr to cloak their meeting for that purpose At which Synod Cartwright and Perkins being present amongst the rest the whole Book-Discipline reviewed by Traverse and formally approved of by the Brethren in their several Classes received a more Authentick approbation insomuch that first it was decreed amongst them That all which would might subscribe unto it without any necessity imposed upon them so to do But not long after it was made a matter necessary so necessary as it seems that no man could be chosen to any Ecclesiastical Office amongst them nor to be of any of their Assemblies either Classical Provincial or National till he had first subscribed to the Book of Discipline Another Synod was held at Ipswich not long after and the Results of both confirmed in a Provincial and National Synod held in London which gave the Book of Discipline a more sure establishment than an Act of State It is reported that the night before the great Battel in the Fields of Thessaly betwixt Caesar and Pompey the Pompeyan Party was so confident of their good success that they cast Dice amongst themselves for all the great Offices and Magistracies of the City of Rome even to the Office of the Chief-Priest-hood which then Caesar held And the like vanity or infatuation had possessed these men in the opinion which they had of their Strength and Numbers Insomuch that they entred into this consideration how Arch-Bishops Bishops Chancellors Deans Cannons Arch-Deacons Commissaries Registers Apparitors c. all which by their pretended Reformation must have been thrust out of their Livings should be provided for that the Commonwealth might not be thereby pestered with Beggars And this they did upon the confidence of some unlawful Assistance to effect their purposes if neither the Queen nor the Lords of the Council nor the Inferior Magistrates in their several Counties all which they now sollicited with more heat than ever should co-operate with them For about this time it was that Cartwright in his Prayer before his Sermon was noted to have used these words viz. Because they meaning the Bishops which ought to be Pillars in the Church combine themselves against Christ and his Truth therefore O Lord give us Grace and Power all as one man to set our selves against them Which words he used frequently to repeat and to repeat with such an earnestness of spirit as might sufficiently declare that he had a purpose to raise Sedition in the State for the imposing of that Discipline on the Church of England which was not likely to be countenanced by any lawful Authority which put the Queen to a necessity of calling him and all the rest of them to a better account to which they shall be brought in the years next following 33. In the mean time we must pass over into France where we find HENRY the Third the last King of the House of Valoise most miserably deprived of his Life and Kingdom driven out of Paris first by the Guisian Faction and afterwards assassinated by Iaques Clement a Dominican Fryar as he lay at St. Cloud attending the reduction of that stubborn City Upon whose death the Crown descended lineally on HENRY of Bourbon King of Navarre and Duke of Vendosme as the next Heir-male For the excluding of which Prince and the rest of that House the Holy League was first contrived as before is said There was at that time in the late King's Army a very strong Party of French Catholicks who had preferred their Loyalty to their Natural Prince before the private Interest and Designs of the House of Guise and now generally declare in favour of the true Successor By their Assistance and the concurring-Forces of the Hugonot-Faction it had been no hard matter for him to have Mastered the Duke of Maine who then had the Command of the Guisian Leagues But in the last he found himself deceived of his expectation The Hugonots which formerly had served with so much cheerfulness under his Command their King would not now serve him in his just and lawful Warrs against his Enemies Or if they did it shall be done upon Conditions so intolerable that he might better have pawned his Crown to a Forreign Prince than on such terms to buy the favour of his Subjects They looked upon him as reduced to a great necessity most of the Provinces and almost all the Principal Cities having before engaged against HENRY the Third and many others falling off when they heard of his death So that they thought the new King was not able to subsist without them and they resolved to work their own Ends out of that Necessity Instead of leading of their Armies and running cheerfully and couragiously towards his defence who had so oft defended them they sent Commissioners or Delegates to negotiate with him that they may know to what Conditions he would yeeld for their future advantage before they acted any thing in order to his preservation and their Conditions were so high so void of all Respects of Loyalty and even common Honesty that he conceived it safer for him and far more honourable in it self to cast himself upon the Favour of the Queen of England than condescend to their unreasonable and unjust demands So that in fine the Hugonots to a very great number forsook him most disloyally in the open Field drew off their Forces and retired to their several dwellings inforcing him to the necessity of imploring succours from the professed Enemies of his Crown and Nation Nor did he find the Queen unwilling to supply him both with Men and Money on his first desires For which She had better reason now than when She aided him and the rest of the French Hugonots in their former Quarrels And this She did with such a cheerful
again by Admonition or Threatning of God's Judgments or by Correction It appertains to the Eldership to take heed that the Word of God be purely preached within their bounds the Sacraments rightly ministred the Discipline entertained and Ecclesiastical Goods uncorruptly distributed It belongeth to this kind of Assemblies To cause the Ordinances made by the Assemblies Provincial National and general to be kept and put in execution To make Constitutions which concern 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Kirk for decent Order in the particular Kirk where they govern providing that they alter no Rules made by the Provincial and General Assemblies and that the Provincial Assemblies aforesaid be privy to the Rules that they shall make and to abolish Constitutions tending to the hurt of the same It hath power to excommunicate the obstinate formal process being had and due interval of times observed Anent particular Kirks if they be lawfully ruled by sufficient Ministers and Session they have Power and Jurisdiction in their own Congregation in matters Ecclesiastical and decrees and declares the Assemblies Presbyteries and Sessions-Jurisdiction and Discipline aforesaid to be in all times coming most just good and godly in it self notwithstanding whatsoever Statutes Acts Canons Civil and Municipal Laws made to the contrary to which and every one of them these Presents shall make express derogation 44. And because there are divers Acts of Parliament made in favour of the Papistical Church tending to the prejudice of the Liberty of the true Kirk of God presently professed within this Realm Jurisdiction and Discipline thereof which stand yet in the Books of the Acts of Parliament not abrogated nor annulled Therefore His Highness and Estates foresaid hath abrogated casted and annulled and by the tenour hereof abrogates casts and annuls all Acts of Parliament made by any of His Highness Predecessors for maintenance of Superstition and Idolatry with all and whatsoever Acts Laws and Statutes made at any time before the day and date hereof against the Liberty of the true Kirk Jurisdiction and Discipiline thereof as the same is used and exercised within this Realm And in special that Act of Parliament holden at Sterling the 4 th of November 1543 commanding obedience to be given to Eugenius the Pope for the time the Act made by K. Iames the 3d in His Parliament holden at Edenborough the 24 th of February in the year of God 1480. And all other Acts whereby the Pope's Authority is established The Act of the said King Iames in his Parliament holden at Edenborough the 20 th of November 1469 anent the Saturday and other Vigils to be Holy-day from Even-song to Even-song Item That part of the Act made by the Queen-Regent holden at Edenborough the first day of February 1551 giving specially License for holding of of Pasch and Zuil 45. And further the King's Majesty and Estates aforesaid declare That the 129 th Act of Parliament holden at Edenborough the 22 d of May in the year of God 1584 shall no ways be prejudicial or derogate any thing from the Priviledg that God hath given the Spiritual Office-bearers in the Kirk concerning Heads of Religion Matters of Heresie Excommunication Collation or Deprivation of Ministers or any such like Ecclesiastical Censures specially grounded and having warrant of the Word of God Item Our Soveraign Lord and Estates of Parliament foresaid abrogates casts and annihilates the Acts of the same Parliament holden at Edenborough the same year 1584 granting Commission to Bishops and other Judges constitute in Ecclesiastical Causes to receive His Highness Presentation to Benefices to give Collation thereupon and to put Order to all Causes Ecclesiastical which His Majesty and Estates foresaid declares to be expired in the self and to be null in time coming of none avail force or effect And therefore ordains all Presentations to Benefices to be direct to the particular Presbyteries in all time coming with full Power to give Collation thereupon and to put Order to all Matters and Causes Ecclesiastical within their bounds according to the Discipline of the Kirk Providing the foresaid Presbyters be bound and astricted to receive and admit whatsoever qualified Minister presented by His Majesty or Laick Patrons 46. Such was the Act by which the Presbyterian Discipline was setled in the Kirk of Scotland They had given Him trouble enough before when they had no authority of Law to confirm their actions But now He must expect much more and they will see His expectation satisfied to the very full So that it may be much admired that He yeelded to it the rather in regard the Reasons of it are not certainly known nor very easie to be guessed at Whether it were that he were not well enough informed touching the low condition which the English Puritans were at this time brought to or that He stood so much in fear of the Earl of Bothwell whose treacherous practises threatned Him with continual danger that He was under a necessity of conforming to them for His own preservation or that He thought it His best way to let them have their own Wills and pursue their own Counsels till they had wearied both themselves and the rest of the Subjects by the misgovernment of that Power which He had given them or whether it were all or none of these it is hard to say Nor is it less to be admired that the Nobility of Scotland who had found the weight of that heavy yoke in the times fore-going should take it so easily on their necks and not joyn rather with the King to cast it off But they had gotten most of the Church-Lands into their possession and thought it a greater piece of wisdom to let the Presbytery over-top them in their several Consistories than that the Bishops Deans and Chapters or any other who pretended unto their Estates should be restored again to their Power and Places and thereby brought to a capacity of contending with them for their own In which respect they yeelded also to another Act against the everting of Church-Lands and Tenths into Temporal Lordships for To what purpose should they strive for such empty Titles as added little to their profit and not much to their pleasures There also passed some other Acts which seemed much to favour both the Kirk and the Kirk-men as namely For the ratification of a former Act 1587 in favour of the Ministers their Rents and Stipends for enabling Lay-Patrons to dispose of their Prebendaries and Chaplinaries unto Students and that no Benefices with Cure pay any Thirds There passed another Act also which concerned the Glebes and Manses in Cathedral Churches preserved of purpose by the King though they thought not of it that when he found it necessary to restore Episcopacy the Bishops might find Houses and other fit Accommodations near their own Cathedrals 47. Thus have the Presbyterians gained two Acts of great importance The one for setling their Presbyteries in all parts of the Kingdom The other for repressing all
so in himself he seemed not very ambitious of those glorious Attributes which could not otherwise be purchased than at Penry's Price 33. For now perceiving when too late to what calamitous and miserable Ends he had brought his Followers what horrible Confusions had disturbed the whole Church by his obstinate Follies he was contented to knock off and to give way to those Prudential Considerations which the complexion of Affairs did suggest unto him He saw too clearly that there were no more Walsinghams or Leicesters at the Council-Table That the Arch-bishops little finger moved more powerfully there than those few Friends which durst speak for him being put together That the Chief Justice Popham was a man of a ridged nature not to be trifled with or took off from the prosecution if he should come within the compass of the Law And finally that though the Statute made in the last Session seemed chiefly to relate unto the Brethren of the Separation yet there might be some way or other to hook in all the Zealots for the Discipline also if they did any thing in derogation of the present Government Of these Relentings some intelligence had been given to Arch-bishop Whitgift who thereupon resolved to work some impression on him when he found him like a piece of Wax well warmed and thereby sitted to receive it In which Resolution he applies himself unto the Queen from whose Clemency he not only obtained for him a release from Prison but made it the more comfortable by a gracious Pardon for all Errors past He suffered him moreover to return to Warwick where he was Master of the Hospital founded by the Earl of Leicester as before is said and there permitted him to preach though with this condition That he should neither Write nor Preach nor act in any thing to the disturbance of the Church either in reference to her Government or Forms of Worship And though it be affirmed That Cartwright kept himself within those Restrictions yet when the Queen had notice of it she was much displeased and not a little blamed the Arch-bishop for it But he beheld not Cartwright as he had done Travers though both pretending to the Ordination of a Forreign Presbytery For Travers never had any other Hands imposed on him than those of the Presbytery of Antwerp which might stand for nothing But Cartwright was first lawfully ordained in the Church of England the Character whereof could not be obliterated though it might possibly be defaced either by the Rescinding of his Letters of Orders which some say he did or by the super-addition of such other Hands as were laid upon him after the fashion of Geneva Neither was Cartwright so insensible of the Obligation as not to know and to acknowledg by whose Favour he received that Freedom carrying himself from that time forwards to the Arch-bishop both in his Letters and Addresses with as much respect as any of the Regular and Conformable Clergy continuing in that peaceable disposition till the time of his death which hapned about ten years after his enlargement that is to say on the 27 th day of December Anno 1603. 34. But the Arch-bishop stayed not here he knew right well that Punishment without Instruction would not edifie much with men of common understandings and therefore carefully employed both himself and others in giving satisfaction to all doubting-judgments For his own part he wrote this year his long and learned Letter to Theodore Beza which before we spake of and therein calmly laid before him that deplorable Rupture which not without his privity had been made in the Church of England Which point he prest upon him with such Christian Modesty and did withall so clearly justifie this Church in her whole proceedings that Beza could not but confess himself to be conquered by his future carriage which from thenceforth breathed nothing else but Peace to the Church it self and dutiful respects to that Reverend Prelate And for the satisfaction of all Parties interested amongst our selves a Book was published this year also by Dr. Thomas Bilson then Warden of the Colledg near Winchester concerning The perpetual Government of the Church of Christ proving therein That from the time of Christ himself till these latter days neither the Universal Church nor any National or Provincial Church in what place soever had been governed otherwise than by Bishops and their Under-Officers True other Books were published at the same time also by Dr. Richard Bancroft so often mentioned the one for the undeceiving of the people who had been miserably abused by such counterfeit Wares entituled A Survey of the pretended Holy Discipline The other to inform them in the Dangerous Positions and Proceedings published and practised in this Island of Britain under pretence of Reformation c. which was the Title of the Book The like course was also taken for the justification of the Bishops Courts by publishing the Apology of Dr. Cosens before remembred And because Hacket's Treasons had been built on no other Foundation than that the Holy Discipline might be raised upon them a Narrative thereof is penned by Dr. a Doctor of the Civil Laws collected for the most part out of the Letters and Confessions of some Disciplinarians which either had been intercepted or perswaded from them A course exceeding prosperous to all those whom it most concerned For the Arch-bishop by this means went in peace to his Grave Beza was gratified by him with a liberal Pension Bilson within a short while after made Bishop of Winchester Bancroft preferred about the same time to the See of London Cosens for his encouragement made Dean of the Arches 35. And though we find not any Preferment to be given to Cartwright yet was it a Preferment to him to enjoy his Ministry by means whereof he is affirmed to have grown very wealthy partly by the Revenues of his Place in the Hospital and partly by the Bounty and Munificence of his constant Auditors Only it is reported of him that towards his end he was afflicted with many infirmities insomuch that he could not otherwise apply himself unto his Studies than upon his knees which some were willing to impute as a judgment on him for having so bitterly inveighed against all such men as in that reverend and religious posture did receive the Sacrament Some also have informed us of him That notwithstanding all his Clamours and Tumultuous manner of proceedings against the Church he could not chuse but confess there was more Discipline exercised in the Church of England than in any of those Churches beyond Seas which himself had seen Which words as he is said to have spoken to one Mr. Woods then Parson of Freckenham in Norfolk during the time of his imprisonment in the Fleet so the said Woods reported them to Dr. Iohn Burges before-mentioned and from him I have them But I had brought the man to his Grave before and should not have disturbed his rest by these sad
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
as the President of it By whose great industry and indefatigable pains a Body of Canons was collected to the number of One hundred forty one out of the Articles Injunctions and Synodical Acts during the Reigns of Queen ELIZABETH and K. EDWARD the sixth Which being methodically digested approved of in the Convocation and ratified by his Majesty's Letters Patents in due form of Law were stoutly put in execution by the said Dr. Bancroft translated to the See of Canterbury in the Month of December Anno 1604. 10. And to say truth it did concern him to be resolute in that prosecution considering how strict a Bond was made by many of the Brethren when they agreed unto the drawing of the former Petition by which they bound themselves not only to seek redress of those Particulars which are comprehended in the same but that the state of the Church might be reformed in all things needful according to the Rule of God's holy Word and agreeable to the example of other Reformed Churches which had restored both their Doctrine and Discipline as it was delivered by our Saviour Christ and his holy Apostles And how far that might reach none knew better than he who in his Note of Dangerous Positions and Proceedings and his Survey of the pretended Holy Discipline had founded the depth of their Designs and found that nothing could ensue upon their Positions but a most unavoidable ruin to the Church and State He had observed with what a peevish malice they had libelled against Arch-bishop Whitgift a Prelate of a meek and moderate spirit after his decease and could not but expect a worse dealing from them which he after found by how much he had handled them more coarsly than his Predecessor For though the Lords had showed their Zeal unto the memory of that famous Prelate by the severe punishment of Pickering who made the Libel yet well he knew that the terror of that Punishment would be quickly over if a hard hand were not also kept upon all the rest And for keeping a hard hand upon all the rest he was encouraged by the words of K. IAMES at the end of the Conference when he affirmed That he would either make the Puritans conform themselves or else would hurry them out of the Land or do that which was worse Upon which grounds he sets himself upon the Work requires a strict Conformity to the Rules of the Church according to the Laws and Canons in that behalf and without sparing Non-conformists or Half-Conformists at last reduced them to that point That they must either leave their Churches or obey the Church The Aultar of Damascus tells us if we may believe him That no fewer than Three hundred Preaching-Ministers were either silenced or deprived upon that account But the Authors of that Book whosoever they were who use sometimes to strain at Gnats and swallow a Camel at other times can make a Mountain of a Mole-hill if it stand in their way For it appears upon the Rolls brought in by Bishop Bancroft before his death that there had been but Forty nine deprived upon all occasions which in a Realm containing Nine thousand Parishes could be no great matter But so it was that by the punishment of some few of the Principals he struck such a general terror into all the rest that Inconformity grew out of fashion in a lesse time than could be easily imagined 11. Hereupon followed a great alteration in the Face of Religion more Churches beautified and repaired in this short time of his Government than had been in many years before The Liturgy more solemnly officiated by the Priests and more religiously attended by the common people the Fasts and Festivals more punctually observed by both than of later times Coaps brought again inâ—to the Service of the Church the Surplice generally worn without doubt or haesitancy and all things in a manner are reduced to the same estate in which they had been first setled under Queen ELIZABETH which though it much redounded to the Honour of the Church of England yet gave it no small trouble to some sticklers for the Puritan Faction exprest in many scandalous Libels and seditious railings in which this Reverend Prelate suffered both alive and dead Some who had formerly subscribed but not without some secret evasion or mental reservation which they kept to themselves are now required to testifie their Conformity by a new subscription in which it was to be declared that they did willingly ex animo subscribe to the three Articles formerly tendred to the Clergy under Arch-bishop Whitgift but now incorporated into the thirty six Canons and to all things in the same contained Which leaving them no starting-hole either for practising those Rites and Ceremonies which they did not approve or for approving that which they meant not to practise as they had done formerly occasioned many of them to forsake their Benefices rather than to subscribe according to the true intention of the Church in the said three Articles Amongst which none more eminent than Dr. Iohn Burges beneficed at that time in Lincoln Diocess who for some passages in a Sermon preached before the King on the 19 th of Iune 1604 was committed Prisoner and being then required by the Bishop of London to subscribe those Articles he absolutely made refusal of it and presently thereupon resigned his Benefice the reasons whereof he gives in a long Letter to Dr. William Chatterton then Bishop of Lincoln He applied himself also both by Letter and Petition to his Sacred Majesty clearing himself from all intention of preaching any thing in that Sermon which might give any just offence and humbly praying for a restitution not to his Church but only to his Majesty's Favour Which gained so far upon the King that he admitted him not long after to a personal Conference recovered him unto his station in the Church from which he was fallen and finally occasioned his preferring to the Rectory of Colshill in the County of Warwick After which he became a profest Champion of the Government and Liturgy of the Church of England both which he justified against all the Cavils of the Non-conformists as appears by a Learned Book of his entituled An Answer rejoyned to the applauded Pamphlet c. published in the year 1631. 12. But the gaining of this man did not still the rest For presently on the neck of this comes out a Factious Pamphlet published by the Lincoln-shire-Ministers which they call The Abridgment containing the sum and substance of all those Objections which either then were or formerly had been made against the Church in reference to Doctrine Government or Forms of Worship Concerning which it is observed by the said Dr. Burges That he found the state of the Questions to be very much altered in the same that Cartwright and the rest in the times fore-going though they had sharpned both their Wits and Pens against the Ceremonies opposed them as inconvenient only
having none to joyn in Opinion with him baptized himself and thereby got the name of a Se-baptist which never any Sectary or Heretick had obtained before 15. It fell not out much otherwise in the Belgick Provinces with those of the Calvinian Judgment who then began to find some diminution of that Power and Credit wherewith they carried all before them in the times preceding Iunius a very moderate and learned man and one of the Professors for Divinity in the Schools of Leyden departed out of this life in the same year also into whose Place the Overseers or Curators as they call them of that University made choice of Iacob Van Harmine a man of equal Learning and no less Piety He had for fifteen years before been Pastor as they love to phrase it to the great Church of Amsterdam the chief City of Holland during which time he published his Discourse against the Doctrine of Predestination as laid down by Perkins who at that time had printed his Armilla Aurea and therein justified all the Rigours of the Supra-lapsarians Encouraged with his good success in this Adventure he undertakes a Conference on the same Argument with the Learned Iunius one of the Sub-lapsarian Judgment the sum whereof being spread abroad in several Papers was afterward set forth by the name of Amica Collatio By means whereof as he attained a great esteem with all moderate men so he exceedingly exasperated most of the Calvinian Ministers who thereupon opposed his coming to Leyden with their utmost power accusing him of Heterodoxies and unsound Opinions to the Council of Holland But the Curators being constant in their Resolutions and Harmin having purged himself from all Crimes objected before his Judges at the Hague he is dispatched for Leyden admitted by the University and confirmed by the Estate Towards which the Testimonial-Letters sent from Amsterdam did not help a little in which he stands commended for a man of an unblamable life sound Doctrine and fair behaviour as by their Letters may appear exemplified in an Oration which was made at his Funeral 16. By which Attractives he prevailed as much amongst the Students of Leyden as he had done amongst the Merchants at Amsterdam For during the short time of his sitting in the Chair of Leyden he drew unto him a great part of that University who by the Piety of the man his powerful Arguments his extream diligence in that place and the clear light of Reason which appeared in all his Discourses became so wedded at the last unto his Opinions that no time or trouble could divorce them from Harmin Dying in the year 1609 the Heats betwixt his Scholars and those of a contrary Perswasion were rather encreased than abated the more encreased for want of such prudent Moderators as had before preserved the Churches from a publick Rupture The breach between them growing wider and wider each side thought fit to seek the countenance of the State and they did accordingly For in the year 1610 the Followers of Arminius address their Remonstrance containing the Antiquity of their Doctrines and the substance of them to the States of Holland which was encountred presently by a Contra-Remonstrance exhibited by those of Calvin's Party from hence the Name of Remonstrants and Contra-Remonstrants so frequent in their Books and Writings Which though it brought some trouble for the present on the Churches of Holland conduced much more to the advantage of the Church of England whose Doctrine in those points had been so over-born if not quite suppressed by those of the Calvinian Party that it was almost reckoned for a Heresie to be sound and Orthodox according to the tenour of the Book of Articles and other publick Monuments of the Religion here by Law established For being awakened by the noise of the Belgick Troubles most men began to look about them to search more narrowly into the Doctrines of the Church and by degrees to propagate maintain and teach them against all Opposers as shall appear more largely and particularly in another place 17. At the same time more troubles were projected in the Realm of Sweden Prince Sigismund the eldest Son of Iohn and the Grand-child of Gustavus Ericus the first King of that Family was in his Father's life-time chosen King of Poland in reference to his Mother the Lady Catherine Sister to SIGISMVND the Second But either being better pleased with the Court of Poland or not permitted by that people to go out of the Kingdom he left the Government of Sweden to his Unkle CHARLES a Prince of no small Courage but of more Ambition At first he governed all Affairs as Lord Deputy only but practised by degrees the exercise of a greater Power than was belonging to a Vice-Roy Finding the Lutherans not so favourable unto his Designs as he conceived that he had merited by his Favours to them he raised up a Calvinian Party within the Realm according to whose Principles he began first to withdraw his obedience from his Natural Prince and after to assume the Government to himself But first he suffers all Affairs to fall into great Disorders the Realm to be invaded by the Muscovites on the one side by the Danes on the other that so the people might be cast on some necessity of putting themselves absolutely under his protection In which distractions he is earnestly solicited by all sorts of people except only those of his own Party to accept the Crown which he consents to at the last as if forced unto it by the necessities of his Countrey But he so play'd his Game withall that he would neither take the same nor protect the Subjects till a Law was made for entailing the Crown for ever unto his Posterity whether Male or Female as an Hereditary Kingdom In all which Plots and Purposes he thrived so luckily if to usurp another Prince's Realm may be called Good luck that after a long Warr and some Bloody Victories he forced his Nephew to desist from all further Enterprises and was Crowned King at Stockholm in the year 1607 But as he got this Kingdom by no better Title than of Force and Fraud so by the same the Daughter of his Son Gustavus Adolphus was divested of it partly compelled and partly cheated out of her Estate So soon expired the Race of this great Politician that many thousands of that people who saw the first beginning of it lived to see the end 18. Such Fortune also had the French Calvinians in their glorious Projects though afterwards it turned to their destruction For in the year 1603 they held a general Synod at Gappe in Daulphine anciently the chief City of the Apencenses and at this time a Bishop's-See Nothing more memorable in this Synod as to points of Doctrine than that it was determined for an Article of their Faith That the Pope was Antichrist But far more memorable was it for their Usurpations on the Civil Power For at this Meeting they gave Audience to
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
hereupon preferred against them to the Lords of the Council in which their Lordships were informed That the Inhabitants generally of the Isle were discontented with the present Discipline and guidance of the Church that most of them would be easily perswaded to submit to the English Goverment and that many of them did desire it 39. This brings both Parties to the Court the Governour and his Adherents to prosecute the Suit and make good their Intelligence the Ministers to answer to the Complaint and stand to the Pleasure of His Majesty in the final Judgment And at the first the Ministers stood fast together but as it always happeneth that there is no Confederacy so well jointed but one Member of it may be severed from the rest and thereby the whole Practise overthrown so was it also in this business For those who there sollicited some private business of the Governour 's had kindly wrought upon the weakness and ambition of De la Place one of the Ministers appointed to attend the Service perswading him That if the Government were altered and the Dean restored he was infallibly resolved on to be the man Being fashioned into this hope he speedily betrayed the Counsels of his Fellows and furnished their Opponents at all their Interviews with such Intelligence as might make most for their advantage At last the Ministers not well agreeing in their own demands and having little to say in defence of their proper Cause whereunto their Answers were not provided before-hand my Lord of Canterbury at the Council Table thus declared unto them the Pleasure of the King and Council viz. That for the speedy redress of their disorders it was reputed most convenient to establish amongst them the Authority and Office of the Dean That the Book of Common-Prayer being again Printed in the French should be received into their Churches but the Ministers not tyed to the strict observance of it in all particulars That Messervy should be admitted to his Benefice and that so they might return to their several Charges This said they were commanded to depart and to signifie to those from whom they came the full scope of His Majesty's Resolution and so they did But being somewhat backward in obeying this Decree the Council intimated to them by Sir Philip de Carteret chief Agent for the Governour and Estates of the Island That the Ministers from among themselves should make choice of three Learned and Grave persons whose Names they should return unto the Board out of which His Majesty should resolve on one to be their Dean 40. But this Proposal little edified amongst the Brethren not so much out of any dislike of the alteration with which they seemed all well enough contented but because every one of them gave himself some hopes of being the man And being that all of them could not be elected they were not willing to destroy their particular hopes by the appointment of another In the mean time Mr. David Bandinell an Italian born then being Minister of St. Mary's under pretence of other business of his own is dispatched for England and recommended by the Governour as the fittest person for that Place and Dignity And being well approved of by the Arch-bishop of Canterbury who found him answerable in all points to the Governour 's Character he was established in the Place by his Majesty's Letters Patents bearing date Anno 1619 and was accordingly invested in all such Rights as formerly had been inherent in that Office whether it were in point of Profit or of Jurisdiction And for the executing of this Office some Articles were drawn and ratified by His Sacred Majesty to be in force until a certain Body of Ecclesiastical Canons should be digested and confirmed Which Articles he was pleased to call the Interim a Name devised by CHARLES the fifth on the like occasion as appears by His Majesty's Letters Paters Patents for confirmation of the Canons not long after made And by this Interim it was permitted for the present that the Ministers should not be obliged to bid the Holy-days to use the Cross in Baptism or to wear the Surplice or not to give the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper unto any others but such as did receive it kneeling but in all other things it little differed from the Book of Canons which being first drawn up by the Dean and Ministers was afterwards carefully perused corrected and accommodated for the use of that Island by the Right Reverend Fathers in God George Lord Arch-bishop of Canterbury Iohn Lord Bishop of Lincoln Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England and Lancelot Lord Bishop of Winchester whose Diocess or Jurisdiction did extend over both the Islands In which respect it was appointed in the Letters Patents by which His Majesty confirmed these Canons Anno 1623 That the said Reverend Father in God the Bishop of Winchester should forthwith by his Commission under his Episcopal Seal as Ordinary of the place give Authority unto the said Dean to exercise Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the said Isle according to the Canons and Constitutions thus made and established Such were the Means and such the Counsels by which this Island was reduced to a full conformity with the Church of England 41. Guâ—rnsey had followed in the like if first the breach between K. IAMES and the King of Spain and afterwards between K. CHARLES and the Crown of France had not took off the edg of the prosecution During which time the Ministers were much heartned in their Inconformity by the Practises of De la Place before remembred Who stomacking his disappointment in the loss of the Deanry abandoned his Native Countrey and retired unto Guernsey where he breathed nothing but disgrace to the English Liturgy the Person of the new Dean and the change of the Government Against the first so perversly opposite that when some Forces were sent over by King CHARLES for defence of the Island he would not suffer them to have the use of the English Liturgy in the Church of St. Peter's being the principal of that Island but upon these Conditions that is to say That they should neither use the Liturgy therein nor receive the Sacrament And secondly Whereas there was a Lecture weekly every Thursday in the said Church of St. Peters when once the Feast of Christ's Nativity fell upon that day he rather chose to disappoint the Hearers and put off the Sermon than that the least honour should reflect on that ancient Festival An Opposition far more superstitious than any observation of a day though meerly Iewish By his Example others were encouraged to the like perversness insomuch that they refused to baptize any Child or Children though weak and in apparent danger of present death but such as were presented unto them on the day of Preaching And when some of them were compelled by the Civil Magistrate to perform their duty in this kind a great Complaint thereof was made to the Earl of
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
Ammunition for an hour it was some favour to his Soldiers to be taken to Mercy But whatsoever Mercy was exprest to them the poor Town found but little and the Church much less the Town being miserably plundered for no other reason but that they were not able to keep Grandison out had they been so minded Which though it was sufficient to impoverish a more Wealthy City yet Waller had two pulls more at it in the course of the Warr to the undoing of some Families and the spoil of others But it was more defaced by Ogle about three years after in burning down some Houses about the Castle but most of all by pulling down the Bishop's Palace the Deanry and no fewer than eight Prebends Houses sold by the Presbyterians to make money of the Lead and Timber the Iron Glass and Stones which made up those Edifices 23. But for the Church though it was not the first Example of their Reformation according to the practise of the Hugonot-French the Scottish and the Belgick Zealots yet fared it worse in some respects than the other Cathedrals because it fell unto the Scots commanding some Scotizing English to do execution For they not only broke the Organs in pieces and defaced the Carved Work of the Quire containing the story of the Old and New Testament in most excellent Imagery but threw down the Communion-Table and broke down the Rails which they burnt afterwards in an Ale-house and strewed the Pavements of the Quire with the torn leaves and Fragments of the Common-prayer-Books Next they proceeded to the spoiling of the Tombs and Monuments erected to the memory of some eminent Prelates which had been formerly both an Ornament and an Honour to it as namely that of Cardinal Beaufort a principal Benefactor to the Church and Hospital of St. Cross neighbouring near unto the City and that of William Wainflet the Magnificent and sole Founder of Magdalen-Colledg in Oxon. And whereas the Remainders of the Bodies of some Saxon Kings and many Bishops of those times had been gathered into several Leaden Chests by Bishop Fox who lived and flourished in the last times of K. HENRY the 7th the barbarous Soldiers Sacrilegiously threw down those Chests scattered the dust remaining of their Bodies before the wind and threw their bones about the Pavements of the Church They break down as many of the Glass Windows as they could reach with Swords and Pikes and at the rest they threw the Bones of the dead Kings or shot them down with their Muskets the spoil of which Windows could not be repaired for one thousand pounds After all this they seize upon the Communion-Plate the Surplices of the Priests and Quire-men all the rich Hangings and large Cushions of Velvet and the costly Pulpit-clothes somes of which were of Cloath of Silver and others of Gold And finding two Brazen Statua's of K. IAMES and K. CHARLES at the first entrance of the Quire they brake off the two Swords which were placed by their sides and with their own mangled the Crown upon the head of K. CHARLES swearing in scorn That they would bring him back again to his Houses of Parliament 24. This hapned upon Thursday the fifteenth of December and the same Month proved as calamitous to the Church of Chichester which City had received some Soldiers of His Majesty's Party who either were too few to keep it or found it not tenable enough to make any resistance Waller presents himself before it and without any great dispute becomes Master of it by which the Town got little and the Church lost more For upon Innocents-day the Soldiers forcibly break into it where they seize upon the Vestments and Ornaments of the Church together with the Consecrated Plate serving for the Altar not leaving so much as a Cushion for the Pulpit or a Chalice for the blessed Sacrament But this rich spoil being committed by the Marshal and other Officers the rest was left unto the hands and weapons of the common Soldiers who with their Pole-axes did not only break down the Organs but cut in pieces the Communion-Table with the Rail before it They defaced the two Tables of the Law at the East end of the Quire for fear they should rise up against them in the Day of Judgment most miserably made havock of the History of that Churches Foundation which they found on the one side of the South-cross Isle pourtrayed in Artificial manner with the Statues of the Kings of England and coming to the Portraiture of K. EDWARD the sixth they picked out his eyes saying in scorn That all this Mischief came from him in establishing the Book of Common-prayer Which that it might not be officiated as in former times they break open all the Chests and Cupboards in which the Quire-men had laid up their Singing-Books Common-Prayer-Books Gowns and Surplices strewing the Pavements of the Church with the Leaves of the Books but turning the Gowns and Surplices into ready money To all which Acts of Sacrilegious Spoil and Rapine as Waller gave some countenance by his personal presence and in that somewhat worse than Nero as the story tells us So Haslerig gave much more by his Voice and Actions For forcing his way into the Chapter-House he did not only command the Soldiers to break down the Wainscot but seized on all the rich Plate which belonged to the Church And when it was desired that they would leave one Chalice only for the use of the Sacrament answer was most prophanely made by one of the Scots of which Nation the two Houses had employed too many That they might serve the turn with a Wooden Dish Nor were some Presbyterian Zealots in the City of Exeter more favourable to their own Cathedrals than the rude Soldiers were to this where being incensed by some of their Sediâ—ious Preachers they acted over all those outrages of Spoil and Rapine which have been formerly recited and added to them such prodigious and unheard Irreverences by turning the Church into a â—akes and leaving their filth on and about the holy Altar as fills me with Religious horror at the thinking of it 25. But their first Furies in this kind brake out in the Cathedral Church of Canterbury and that of Rochester under the conduct and command of Colonel Sandys one of the Natives of that County who taking some Forces with him to make sure of Canterbury came thiâ—her in the end of August and having got the Keys of the Cathedral into his possession gave a free entrance to the Rabbâ—e which attended on him forcing their way into the Quire they overthrew the Communion-Table tore the Velvet Cloath which they found about it defaced the goodly Screen or Tabernacle-work violated the Monuments of the dead spoiled the Organs brake down the ancient Rails and Seats with the brazen Eagle which did support the Bible forced open the Cupboards of the Singing-men rent some of their Surplices Gowns and Bibles and carried away others mangled all
placed before or about the same should be taken away and the ground levelled with the rest which had been raised for the standing of any such Table within the space of twenty years then last past That all Tapers Candlesticks and Basons which had of late been used on any of the said Tables should also be removed and taken away neither the same nor any such like to be from thenceforth used in God's Publick Service That all Crucifixes Crosses and all Images and Pictures of any one or more Persons of the Trinity or of the Virgin Mary and all other Images and Pictures of Saints should be also demolished and defaced whether they stood in any of the said Churches or Chappels or in any Church-yard or other open place whatsoever never to be erected or renewed again With a Proviso notwithstanding for preserving all Images Pictures and Coats of Arms belonging to any of their Ancestors or any of the Kings of this Realm or any other deceased persons which were not generally considered and beheld as Saints 38. But yet to make sure work of it this Ordinance was re-inforced and enlarged by another of the 9th of May in the year next following wherein besides the particulars before recited they descend to the taking away of all Coaps Surplices and other Superstitious Vestments as they pleased to call them as also to the taking away of all Organs and the Cases in which they stood and the defacing of the same requiring the same course to be also taken in the removing and defacing of Roods Rood-Lofts and Holy-water-water-Fonts as if any such things had been of late erected or permitted in the Church of England as indeed there were not whereupon followed the defacing of all Glass Windows and the demolishing of all Organs within the compass of their power the transposing of the holy Table from the place of the Altar into some other part of the Church or Chancel the tearing and defacing of all Coaps and Surplices or otherwise employing them to domestick uses and finally the breaking down and removing of the Sacred Fonts anciently used for the Ministration of holy Baptism the name of Holy-water-fonts being extended made use of to comprise them also hereupon followed also the defacing and demolishing of many Crosses erected as the Monuments of Christianity in Cities Towns and most of our Country-Villages none being spared which came within the compass of those Enemies of the Cross of Christ. Amongst which Crosses none more eminent for Cost and Workmanship than those of Cheapside in London and Abington in the County of Berks both of them famous for the excellencies of the Statua's which were placed in them more for the richness of the trimming which was used about them But the Divine Vengeance fell on some of the Executioners for a terror to others one of them being killed in pulling down the Cross of Cheapside and another hanged at Stow on the Wold within short time after he had pulled down the first Image of the Cross in Abington And because no Order had been made for the executing of this Order in His Majesty's Chappels as there was in all Cathedral and Parish-Churches a private Warrant was obtained by Harlow a Knight of Herefordshire for making the said Chappels equal to all the rest by depriving them of all such Ornaments of State and Beauty with which they had been constantly adorned in all times since the Reformation And all this done or at the least pretended to be done as the Ordinance tell us as being pleasing unto God and visibly conducing to the blessed Reformation so much desired but desired only as it seems by those Lords and Commons who had a hand in the Design 39. So far they went to show their hatred unto Superstition their dislike of Popery but then they must do somewhat also for expressing their great zeal to the glory of God by some Acts of Piety And nothing seemed more pious or more popular rather than to enjoin the more strict keeping of their Lords-day-Sabbath by some publick Ordinance With this they had begun already on the fifth of May on which it was ordered by no worse men than the Commons in Parliament the Lords being either not consulted or not concurring That His Majesty's Book for tolerating sports on the Lord's Day should be forthwith burned by the hands of the common Hangman in Cheapside and other usual places and that the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex should see the same put in execution which was done accordingly Than which an Act of a greater scorn an Act of greater Insolency and disloyal impudence was never offered to a Soveraign and Annointed Prince So as it was no marvel if the Lords joined with them in the Ordinance of the sixth of April 1644 for to expose all Books to the like disgrace which had been writ or should be writ hereafter by any person or persons against the Morality of the Sabbath By which Ordinance it was also signified That no manner of person whatsoever should publickly cry shew forth and expose to sale any Wares Merchandises Fruits Herbs or other Goods upon that day on pain of forfeiting the same or travel carry burthens or do any act of Labour on it on pain of forfeiting Ten shillings for the said offence That no person from thenceforth on the said day should use exercise keep maintain or be present at any wrestling shooting bowling ringing of Bells for pleasure or pastime Mask Wake otherwise called Feasts Church-Ale Games Dancing Sport or other pastimes whatsoever under the several penalties therein contained And that we may perceive with what weighty cares the heads of these good men were troubled when the whole Nation was involved in Blood and Ruin a Clause was added for the taking down of May-poles also with a Command unto all Constables and Tything-men to see it done under the penalty of forfeiting five shillings weekly till the said May-poles which they looked upon as an Heathenish Vanity should be quite removed Which Nail was driven so far at last that it was made unlawful for any Taylor to carry home a new Suit of Clothes or any Barber to trim the man that was to wear them for any Water-man to Ferry a passenger cross the Thames and finally to any person whatsoever though neither new trimmed or new apparelled to sit at his own door or to walk the streets or take a mouth-full of fresh air in the open Fields Most Rabinical Dotages 40. The day of publick Worship being thus new-molded they must have new Priests also and new Forms of Prayer a new Confession of the Faith new Catechisms and new Forms of Government Towards the first an Ordinance comes out from the Lords and Commons in October following Advice being first had with the Assembly of Divines by which a power was given to some chief men of the Assembly and certain Ministers of London or to any seven or more of them to impose hands upon such persons
whatsoever whom they found qualified and gifted for the holy Ministry a Clause being added thereunto That every person and persons which were so ordained should be reputed deemed and taken for a Minister of the Church of England sufficiently authorised for any Office or Employment in it and capable of receiving all advantages which appertained to the same To shew the nullity and invalidity of which Ordinations a learned Tractate was set out by Dr. Bohe Chaplain sometimes to the Right Reverend Dr. Houson Bishop of Oxford first and of Durham afterwards Never since answered by the Presbyterians either Scots or English Next after comes the Directory or new Form of Worship accompanied with an Ordinance of the Lords and Commons on the third of Ianuary for authorising the said Directory or Form of Worship as also for suppressing the publick Liturgy repealing all the Acts of Parliament which confirmed the same and abrogating all the ancient and established Festivals that so Saint Sabbath as sometimes they called it might be all in all The insufficiency of which Directory to the Ends proposed in the same pronounced the weakness of the Ordinance which authorised it and the excellency of the publick Liturgy in all the parts and offices of it was no less learnedly evinced by Dr. Hammond then newly made a Chaplain in ordinary to His Sacred Majesty Which though it might have satisfied all equal and unbyassed men yet neither Learning nor Reason could be heard in the new Assembly or if it were the voice thereof was drowned by the noise of the Ordinances 41. For on the 23 d of August Anno 1645 another Ordinance comes thundering from the Lords and Commons for the more effectual Execution of the Directory for publick Worship with several Clauses in the same not only for dispersing and use thereof but for calling in the Book of Common-prayer under several penalties Which coming to His Majesty's knowledg as soon as he returned to His Winter-Quarters He published His Proclamation of the 13th of November commanding in the same the use of the Common-Prayer notwithstanding any Ordinance to the contrary from the Houses of Parliament For taking notice first of those notable Benefits which had for Eighty years redounded to this Nation by the use of the Liturgy He next observes that by abolishing the said Book of Common-Prayer and imposing the Directory a way would be left open for all Ignorant Factious and Evil men to broach their Fancies and Conceits be they never so erroneous to mislead people into Sin and Rebellion against the King to raise Factions and Divisions in the Church and finally to utter those things for their Prayers in the Congregation to which no Conscientious can say Amen And thereupon He gives Commandment to all Ministers in their parish-Parish-Churches to keep and use the said Book of Common-Prayer in all the Acts and Offices of God's Publick Worship according to the Laws made in that behalf and that the said Directory should in no sort be admitted received or used the said pretended Ordinances or any thing contained in them to the contrary notwithstanding But His Majesty sped no better by His Proclamation than the two Doctors did before by their Learned Arguments For if He had found little or no obedience to his Proclamations when he was strong and in the head of a victorious and successful Army He was not to expect it in a low condition when his Affairs were ruinated and reduced to nothing 42. For so it was that the Scots having raised an Army of Eighteen thousand Foot and Three thousand Horse taking the Dragoons into the reckoning break into England in the depth of Winter Anno 1643 and marched almost as far as the Banks of the River Tine without opposition There they received a stop by the coming of the Marquess of Newcastle with his Northern Army and entertain'd the time with some petit skirmishes till the sad news of the surprise of Selby by Sir Thomas Fairfax compelled him to return towards York with all his Forces for the preserving of that place on which the safety of the North did depend especially The Scots march after him amain and besiege that City in which they were assisted by the Forces of the Lord Fairfax and the Earl of Manchester who by the Houses were commanded to attend that Service The issue whereof was briefly this that having worsted the great Army of Prince Rupert at Marston-moor on the second of Iuly York yeelded on Composition upon that day fortnight the Marquess of Newcastle with many Gentlemen of great Note and Quality shipt themselves for France and the strong Town of Newcastle took in by the Scots on the 19th of October then next following More fortunate was His Majesty with His Southern Army though at the first he was necessitated to retire from Oxon at such time as the Forces under Essex and Waller did appear before it The news whereof being brought unto them it was agreed that Waller should pursue the King and that the Earl's Army should march Westward to reduce those Countreys And here the Mystery of Iniquity began to show its self in its proper colours For whereas they pretended to have raised their Army for no other end but only to remove the King from his Evil Councellors those Evil Councellors as they call them were left at Oxon and the King only hunted by his insolent Enemies But the King having totally broken Waller in the end of Iune marched after Essex into Devonshire and having shut him up in Cornwall where he had neither room for forrage nor hope of succours he forced him to flye ingloriously in a Skiff or Cockboat and leave his Army in a manner to the Conqueror's Mercy But his Horse having the good fortune to save themselves the King gave quarter to the Foot reserving to Himself their Cannons Arms and Ammunition as a sign of His Victory And here again the Warr might possibly have been ended if the King had followed his good fortune and march'd to London before the Earl of Essex had united his scattered Forces and Manchester was returned from the Northern Service But setting down before Plymouth now as he did before Glocester the last year he lost the opportunity of effecting his purpose and was fought withall at Newberry in his coming back where neither side could boast of obtaining the Victory 43. But howsoever having gained some reputation by his Western Action the Houses seem inclinable to accept His offer of entring into Treaty with Him for an Accommodation This He had offered by His Message from Evesham on the 4th of Iuly immediately after the defeat of Waller and pressed it by another from Tavestock on the 8th of September as soon as he had broken the great Army of the Earl of Essex To these they hearkned not at first But being sensible of the out-cries of the common people they condescend at last appointing Vxbridg for the place and the thirtieth day of Ianuary for the
49. Such being the issue of the Warr let us next look upon the Presbyterians in the acts of Peace in which they threatned more destruction to the Church than the Warr it self As soon as they had setled the strict keeping of the Lord's-day-Sabbath suppressed the publick Liturgy and imposed the Directory they gave command to their Divines of the Assembly to set themselves upon the making a new Confession The Nine and thirty Articles of the Church of England were either thought to have too much of the ancient Fathers or too little of Calvin and therefore fit to be reviewed or else laid aside And at the first their Journey-men began with a Review and fitted Fourteen of the Articles to their own conceptions but in the end despairing of the like success in all the rest they gave over that impertinent labour and found it a more easie task to conceive a new than to accommodate the old Confession to their private Fancies And in this new Confession they establish the Morality of their Lord's-day-Sabbath declare the Pope to be the Antichrist the Son of Perdition and the Man of Sin And therein also interweave the Calvinian Rigours in reference to the absolute Decree of Predestination Grace Free-will c. But knowing that they served such Masters as were resolved to part with no one Branch of their own Authority they attribute a Power to the Civil Magistrate not only of calling Synods and Church-Assemblies but also of being present at them and to provide that whatsoever is therein contracted be done agreebly to the Mind and Will of God But as to the matter of Church-Government the Divine Right of their Presbyteries the setting of Christ upon his Throne the Parity or Imparity of Ministers in the Church of Christ not a word delivered Their mighty Masters were not then resolved upon those particulars and it was fit the Holy Ghost should stay their leisure and not inspire their Journey-men with any other Instruction than what was sent them from the Houses 50. But this Confession though imperfect and performed by halves was offered in the way of an Humble Advice to the Lords and Commons that by the omnipotency of an Ordinance it might pass for currant and be received for the established Doctrine of the Church of England The like was done also in the tendry of their Larger Catechism which seems to be nothing in a manner but the setting out of their Confession in another dress and putting it into the form of Questions and Answers that so it might appear to be somewhat else than indeed it was But being somewhat of the largest to be taught in Schools and somewhat of the hardest to be learned by Children it was brought afterwards into an Epitome commonly called The lesser Catechism and by the Authors recommended to the use of the Church as far more Orthodox than Nowel's more clear than that contained in the common-prayer-Common-Prayer-Book and not inferior to the Palatine or Genevian Forms But in all three they held forth such a Doctrine touching God's Decrees that they gave occasion of reviving the old Blastian Heresie in making God to be the Author of Sin Which Doctrine being new published in a Pamphlet entituled Comfort for Believers in their Sins and Troubles gave such a hot Alarm to all the Calvinists in the new Assembly that they procured it to be burnt by the hands of the Hangman But first they thought it necessary to prepare the way to that execution by publishing in print their detestation of that abominable and blasphemous Opinion That God hath a hand in and is the Author of the sinfulness of his people as the Title tells us So that now Calvin's Followers may sleep supinely without regard to the reproaches of uncivil men who had upbraided them with maintaining such blasphemous Doctrine The Reverend Divines of the Assembly have absolved them from it and showed their Detestation of it and who dares charge it on them for the time to come 51. But these things possibly were acted as they were Calvinians and perhaps Sabbatarians also and no more than so And therefore we must next see what they do on the score of Presbytery for setting up whereof they had took the Covenant called in the Scots and more insisted on the abolition of the Episcopal Function than any other of the Propositions which more concern them To this they made their way in those Demands which they sent to Oxon the Ordinance for Ordination of Ministers and their advancing of the Directory in the fall of the Liturgy They had also voted down the Calling of Bishops in the House of Commons on Septemb. 8. 1642 and caused the passing of that Vote to be solemnized with Bells and Bonfires in the streets of London as if the whole City was as much concerned in it as some Factious Citizens But knowing that little was to be effected by the Propositions and much less by their Votes they put them both into a Bill which past the House of Peers on the third of February some two days after they had tendred their Proposals to the King at Oxon. And by that Bill it was desired to be Enacted That from the Fifth of November the day designed for the blowing up the Parliament by the Gun-powder-Traytors which should be in the year of our Lord 1643 there should be no Archbishops Bishops Commissaries c. with all their Train recited in the Oxon Article Numb 21. in the Church of England That from thenceforth the Name Title and Function of Arch-Bishops Bishops Chancellors c. or likewise the having using or exercising any Iurisdiction Office and Authority by reason or colour of any such Name Dignity or Function in the Realm of England should utterly and for ever cease And that the King might yeeld the sooner to the Alteration they tempt him to it with a Clause therein contained for putting him into the actual possession of all the Castles Mannors Lands Tenements and Hereditaments belonging to the said Arch-bishops or Bishops or to any of them And for the Lands of Deans and Chapters the Brethren had a hope to parcel them amongst themselves under the colour of encouraging and maintaining of a Preaching-Ministry some sorry pittance being allowed to the old Proprietaries and some short Pension during life to the several Bishops 52. Such was the tenour of the Bill which found no better entertainment than their Propositions So that despairing of obtaining the King's consent to advance Presbytery they resolved to do it of themselves but not till they had broken the King's Forces at the Battel of Naisby For on the nineteenth of August then next following they publish Directions in the name of the Lords and Commons after advice with their Divines of the Assembly for the chusing of RVLING-ELDERS in all the Congregations and in the Classical Assemblies for the Cities of London and Westminster and the several Counties of the Kingdom in order to the speedy setling of Presbyterial
acknowledgeth the great benefit which he had received by his Writings acquaints him with the peaceable estate of the Church of Saxonie but signifies withal that Excommunication was not used amongst them whereunto Calvin makes this Answer That he was glad to hear that the Church of Saxony continued in that condition but sorry that it was not so strengthned by the Nerves of Discipline as might preserve the same inviolated to the times to come He adds that there could be no better way of correcting vice then by the joynt consent of all the Pastors of one City and that he never thought it meet that the power of Excommunicating should reside in the Pastors onely that is to say not in conjunction with their Elders which last he builds on these three Reasons First in regard it is an odious and ungrateful Office next because such a sole and absolute power might easily degenerate into tyranny and finally because the Apostles had taught otherwise in it By which we see that as he builds his Discipline on the Word of God or at the least on Apostolical tradition which comes close unto it so he adventureth to commend it to the Lutheran Churches in which his Reputation was not half so great as amongst those which had embraced the Zuinglian Doctrines 31. But in the Zuinglian Churches he was grown more absolute his Writings being so highly valued and his person so esteemed of in regard of his Writings that most of the Divines thereof depended wholly upon his judgement and were willing to submit to any thing of his Prescription The Church of Strasbourgh where he had remained in the time of his exile received his Discipline with the first as soon as it was finally established in Geneva it self For it appeareth by the Letter which Gasper Oberianus sent to Calvin bearing date April 12. 1560. that the Eldership was then well setled in that Church and the Elders of it in a full possession of their power the exercise whereof they are desired to suspend in one particular which is there offered to his view This Gasper was chief Minister of the Church of Tryers so passionately affected to the name of Calvin that he accounted it for one of his greatest honours to be called a Calvinian Preacher Acquainting him with the condition of the Church of Tryers he tells him amongst other things that he found the people very willing to submit to Discipline and thereupon intreats him for a Copy of those Laws and Orders which were observed in the Consistory of Geneva to the end he might communicate them to such of the Senators as he knew to be zealously affected Calvin who was apt enough to hearken to his own desires sends him a large draught of the whole Platform as well relating to the choice of the Members either Lay or Ministers as to the power and jurisdiction which they were to exercise with all the penalties and particularities with reference unto crimes and persons which depended on it And having given him that account he thus closeth with him This summary saith he I had thought sufficient by which or out of which you may easily frame to your self such a form of Government as I have no reason to prescribe To you it appertains modestly to suggest those counsels which you conceive to be most profitable for the use of the Church that godly and discreet men who seldom take it ill to be well advised may thereupon consider what is best be to done Which words of his though very cautelously couched were so well understood by Oberianus that the Discipline was first admitted in that Church and afterwards propagated into those of the Neighbouring Provinces 32. He hath another way of screwing himself into the good opinion of such Kings and Princes as he conceived to be inclinable to the Reformation sometimes congratulating with them for their good success sometimes encouraging them to proceed in so good a work of which sort were his Letters to King Edward the Sixth to Queen Elizabeth and Mr. Secretary Cecil to the Prince Elector Palatine Duke of Wirâ—inburgh Lantgrave of Hesse But he bestirred himself in no place more then he did in Poland which though he never visited in person yet he was frequent in it by his Lines and Agents The Augustane Confession had been brought thither some years before of which he took but little notice But he had heard no sooner that the Doctrines of Zuinglius began to get some ground upon them under the Reign of Sigismund sirnamed Augustus when presently he posts his Letters to the King and most of the great Officers which were thought to encline that way Amongst which he directs his Letters to Prince Radzeville one of the Chief Palatines and Earl Marshal Spirtetus Castelan of Sunderzee and Lord high-Treasurer to Iohn Count of Tarnaco Castelan of Craco and Lord General of his Majesties Armies besides many other Castelans and persons of great power in the Affairs of that Kingdom In his first Letters to that King dated the fourth of December 1554 he seems to congratulate with him for imbracing the Reformed Religion though in that point he was somewhat out in his intelligence and thereupon exhorts him to be earnest in the propagating of the Faith and Gospel which in himself he had imprest and that he would proceed to reform the Church from the dregs of Popery without regard to any of those dangers and inconveniences which might follow on it But in his next address 1555 he comes up more close speaks of erecting a tribunal or throne to Christ setting up such a perfect Form of the true Religion as came neerest to the Ordinance of Christ. And we know well that in the meaning of his party the settling of Presbytery was affirmed to be nothing else then setting Christ upon his Throne holding the Scepter of the Holy Discipline in his own right-hand And somewhat to this purpose he had also written to the Count of Tarnaco whom in his first Letter he applauds for his great readiness to receive the Gospel But in his second bearing date the nineteenth of November 1558 he seems no less grieved that the Count demurred on something which he had recommended to him under pretence that it was not safe to alter any thing in the State of the Kingdom and that all innovations seemed to threaten some great danger to it which cautelousness in that great person could not relate to any alteration in the State of Religion in which an alteration had been made for some years before and therefore must refer to some Form of Discipline which Calvin had commended to him for the use of those Churches And no man can conceive that he would recommend unto them any other Form then that which he devised for the Church of Geneva 32. But Calvin did not deal by Letters onely in the present business but had his Agents in that Kingdom who busily
Christ. A Form whereof he had drawn up in a little Book Which having past the approbation of some private Friends was afterwards recommended to the use of the rest of the brethren assembled together by his means for such ends and purposes by whom it was allowed of as most fit to be put in practice For being a new nothing and of Cartwrights doing it could not but finde many besides Women and Children to admire the Workmanship 25. This was the sum of Cartwrights Actings in order to the Innovations both in Government and Forms of Worship which heretofore he had projected Not that all this was done at once or in the first year onely after his return but by degrâ—â—s as opportunity was offered to him Yet so far he prevailed in the first year onely that a meeting of sixty Ministers out of the Counties of Essex Cambridge and Norfolk was held at a Village called Corkâ—il where Knewstubs who was one of their number had the cure of Souls Which Meeting was held May 8. Anno 158â— there to coâ—fer about some passages in the Common prayer-book what might be tolerated in the same and what â—eâ—used as namely Apparel Matter Form Holy-days Fastings Injunctions c. The like Meeting held at the Commencement in Cambridge then next ensuing And what they did resolve in both may be gathered partly from a passage in the Preface to a Book published in the year next following by William Reynods before mentioned In which he tells us That it had been appointed by the first Book of Common prayer That the Minister in the time of his Ministration should use such Ornaments in the â—hurch as were in use by Authority of Parliament in the second year of the Reign of King Edward the Sixth And then saith he I appeal to the knowledge of every man how well that Act of Parliament is observed throughout the Realm in how many Cathedrals or Parishâ—Churches those Ornaments are reserved Whether every private Minister by his own Authority in the time of his Ministration disdain not such Ornaments using onely such Apparel as is most vulgar and prophane to omit other particular differences of Facts of Holy-days crossing in Baptism the visitation of the Sick c. In which their alterations are well known saith he by their daily practice and by the differences betwixt some Common prayer books which were last Printed as namely that of Richard Jugg before remembred from those which were first published by Supreme Authority In all which deviations from the Rule of the Church the Brethren walked on more securely because the State was wholly exercised at this time in executing the severity of the late Statute on such Priests and Jesuits as laboured to pervert the Subjects and destroy the Queen thereby to re-advance the Pope to his former Tyranny In which respect it was conceived to be a good Rule in the School of Policy to grant a little more liberty to the Puritan Faction though possibly it were done on no other score then that of their notorious enmity to the Popish party 26. About this time it also was that by the practices of Cartwright and his adherents their Followers began to be distinguished by their names and titles from the rest of the people First in relation to their Titles Thus those of his Faction must be called the Godly the Elect the Righteous all others being looked upon as carnal Gospellers the Prophane the Wicked And next in reference to their names Their Children must not be Baptized by the names of their Ancestors as Richard Robert and the like but by some name occurring in the holy Scriptures but more particularly in the Old Testament because meerly Hebrew and not prophaned with any mixture of the Greek or Roman concerning which there goes a story that an Inhabitant of Northampton called Hodgkingson having a Childe to be Baptized repaired to Snape before mentioned to do it for him and he consented to the motion but with promise that he should give it some name allowed in Scripture The holy action being so far forwards that they were come to the naming of the Infant they named it Richard which was the name of his Grandfather by the Mothers side Upon this a stop was made nor would he be perswaded to Baptize the Childe unless the name of it were altered Which when the God-father refused to do the Childe was carried back unchristened It was agreed by him and Cartwright in the Book of Discipline which they imposed upon the Islands That the Minister in Baptizing Children should not admit of any such names as had been used in the time of Paganism the names of Idols and the like Which Rule though calculated like a common Almanack for the Meridian of those Islands onely was afterwards to be observed on the like occasions in all the Churches of Great Britain Such was their humour at that time but they fell shortly after on another Fancie For taking it for granted because they thought so that the English Tongue might be as proper and significanâ— as the holy Hebrew they gave such names unto their Children as many of them when they came to age were ashamed to own Out of which Forge came their Accepted Ashes Consolation Dust Deliverance Discipline Earth Freegift Fight-the good fight-of-faith From above Ioy-again Kill-sin More-fruit More-tryal Praiseâ—God Reformation Tribunal The-Lord-is-neer Thankful with many others of like nature which onely served to make the Sacrament of Baptism as contemptible as they had made themselves ridiculous by these new inventions 27. Some stop they had in their proceedings which might have terrified them at the present from adventuring further but that they were resolved to break through all difficulties and try the patience of the State to the very utmost The Queen had entertained a treaty of Marriage Anno 1581 with Francis Duke of Anjow the youngest Son of Henry the Second and the onely surviving brother of Henry the Third then Reigning in France For the negotiating whereof Monsieur Simier a most compleat Courtier was sent Ambassador from that King By whom the business was sollicited with such dexterity that the Match was generally conceived to be fully made The Puritans hereupon begin to clamour as if this Maâ—ch did aim at nothing but the reduction of Popery the destruction of Religion here by Law established But fearing more the total ruine of their hopes and projects then any other danger which could happen by it The Queen took care to tye the Duke to such conditions that he could hardly be permitted to hear Mass in his private Closet and had caused Campâ—an to be executed at his being here to let him see how little favour was to be expected by him for the Catholick party Yet all this would not satisfie the zealous Brethren who were resolved to free themselves from their own fears by what means soever First therefore it was so contrived that as Simere passed between Greenwich and London before