London-Brethren became forthwith bindiâ—g to the rest none being admitted into any of the aforesaid Classes before he hath promised under his hand That he would submit himself and be obedient unto all such Orders and Decrees as are set down by the Classis to be observed At these Classes they enquired into the Life and Doctrine of all that had subscribed unto them censuring some deposing others as they saw occasion in nothing more severe than in censuring those who had formerly used the Cross in Baptism or otherwise had been conâ—ormable to the Rules of the Church And unto every Classis there belonged a Register who took the Heads of all that passed and saw them carefully entred in a Book for that purpose that they might remain upon Record 22. It may seem strange that in a constituted Church backed by Authority of Law and countenanced by the Favour of the Supreme Magistrate a distinct Government or Discipline should be put in practise in contempt of both but more that they should deal in such weighty matters as were destructive of the Government by Law established Some Questions had before been started at a Meeting in Cambridg the final decision whereof was thought fit to be referred to the Classis of Warwick where Cartwright governed as the perpetual Moderator And they accordingly assembling on the tenth day of the fourth Month for so they phrased it did then and there determine in this manner follow That private Baptism is unlawful That it is not lawful to read Homilies in the Church and that the sign of the Cross is not to be used in Baptism That the Faithful ought not to communicate with unlearned Ministers although they may be present at their Service in case they come of purpose to hear a Sermon the reading of the Service being looked on as a Lay-man's Office That the Calling of Bishops c. is unlawful That as they deal in Causes Ecclesiastical there is no duty belonging to them nor any publickly to be given them That it is not lawful to be ordained by them into the Ministry or to denounce either Suspensions or Excommunications sent by their Authority that it is not lawful for any man to rest in the Bishop's deprivation of him from his Charge except upon consultation it seem good unto his Flock and the Neighbouring-Ministers but that he continue in the same until he be compelled to the contrary by Civil Force That it is not lawful to appear in a Bishop's Court but with a Protestation of their unlawfulness That Bishops are not to be acknowledged either for Doctors Elders or Deacons as having no ordinary Calling in the Church of Christ. That touching the restauration of the Ecclesiastical Discipline it ought to be taught to the people datâ occasione as occasion should serve and that as yet the people are not to be sollicited publickly to practise the Discipline till they be better instructed in the knowledg of it And finally That men of better understanding are to be allured privately to the present allowing the Discipline and the practise of it as far as they shall be well able with the Peace of the Church 23. But here we are to understand That this last Caution was subjoined in the close of all not that they had a care of the Church's Peace but that they were not of sufficient strength to disturb the same without drawing ruine on themselves which some of the more hot-headed Brethren were resolved to hazzard of which they had some loss this year by the Imprisonment of Barrow Greenwood Billet Boudler and Studley who building on their Principles and following the Example of Robert Brown before remembred had brake out into open Schism when their more cunning Brethren kept themselves within the Pale of the Church But these we only touch at now leaving the further prosecution of them to a fitter place Suffice it that their present sufferings did so little moderate the heats of some fiery spirits that they resolved to venture all for the Holy Discipline as appears by Pain 's Letter unto Feild Our zeal to Gods Glory saith he our love to his Church and the due planting of the same in this For-headed Age should be so warm and stirring in us as not to care what adventure we give or what censures we abide c. For otherwise the Diabolical boldness of the Iesuits and Seminaries will cover our faces with shame c. And then he adds It is verily more than time to register the Names of the fittest and hottest Brethren round about our several dwellings whereby to put the godly Counsel of Specanus in execution Note that Specanus was one of the first Presbyterian Ministers in the Belgick Churches that is to say Si quis objiciat c. If any man object That the setting up the lawful practise of the Discipline in the Church be hindred by the Civil Magistrate let the Magistrate be freely and modestly admonished of his duty in it and if he esteem to be accounted either a Godly or Christian Magistrate without doubt he will admit wholesome Counsels but if he do not yet let him be more exactly instructed that he may serve God in fear and lend his Authority in defence of God's Church and his Glory Marry if by this way there happen no good success then let the Ministers of the Church execute their Office according to the appointment of Christ for they must rather obey God than men In which last point saith Pain we have dolefully failed which now or never stands us in hand to prosecute with all celerity without lingring or staying so long for Parliaments But this Counsel of Paine being thought too rash in regard they could not find a sufficient number of Brethren to make good the Action it was thought fit to add the Caution above-mentioned The Hundred thousand Hands which they so much bragged of were not yet in readiness and therefore it was wisely ordered That as yet the whole multitude were not to be allured publickly to the practise of it until men were better instructed in the knowledg of so rare a Mystery Till when it could not be safe for them to advance their Discipline in the way of force 24. Now to prepare the people for the entertainment of so great a Change it was found necessary in the first place to return an Answer to some Books which had been written in defence of Episcopal Government and in the next to make the Bishops seem as odious and contemptible in the eyes of their Profelytes as Wit and Malice could devise Dr. Iohn Bridges Dean of Sarum and afterwards Bishop of Oxford published a Book in the year 1587 entâ—tuled A Defence of the Government of the Church of England intended chiefly against Beza but so that it might serve to satisfie all Doubts and Cavils which had been made against that Government by the English Puritans To which an Answer is returned by some zealous Brethren under the Name of A
wretched Popish priests and the Convocation-House of Devils and Belzebub of Canterbury the chief of these Devils The like Reproaches they bestow on the Common-Prayer of which they say That it is full of Corruption and that many of the Contents thereof are against the Word of God the Sacraments wickedly mangled and prophaned therein the Lord's Supper not eaten but made a Pageant or Stage-play and that the Form of publick Baptism is full of Childish Superstitious Toys So that we are not to admire if the Brownists please themselves in their separation from a Church so polluted and unreformed from men so wicked and prophane from such a Cinque of Satan such a Den of Devils But much less can we wonder that the Papists should make use of these horrible Slanders not only to confirm but encrease their Party By shewing them from the Pens of their greatest Adversaries what ugly Monsters had the Government of the Church of England from what Impieties they were preserved by not joyning with them One I am sure that is Parsons in his Book of Three Conversions reports these Calumnies and Slanders for undoubted Truths That Martin Mar-Prelate is affirmed by Sir Edwine Sandys to pass in those times for unquestion'd Credit in the Court of Rome his Authority much insisted on to disgrace this Church and finally that Kellison one of later date doth build as much upon the Credit of these Libels to defame the Clergy as if they had been dictated by the same Infallible Spirit which the Pope pretends to Such excellent Advantages did these Saints give unto the Devil that all the Locusts in the Revelation which came out of the Pit never created so much scandal to the Primitive times 28. To still these Clamours or at the least to stop the mouths of these Railing Rabshecha's that so the abused people on all sides might be undeceived as good a course was took by Whitgift and the rest of the Prelates as Human Wisdom could devise For first A grave Discourse is published in the year next following entituled An Admonition to the People of England in answer to the slanderous Untruths of Martin the Libeller But neither this nor any other grave Refutal would ever put them unto silence till they were undertaken by Tom Nash a man of a Sarcastical and jeering Wit who by some Pamphlets written in the like loose way which he called Pasquill and Marsorius The Counter-Scuffle Pappe with a Hatchet and the like stopped their mouths for ever none of them daring to deal further in that Commodity when they saw what Coyn they should be paid in by so frank a Customer Mention was made before of a sorry Pamphlet entituled The Complaint of the Commons for a Preaching-Ministry which Penry seconded by another called by the Name of A Supplication for Preaching in Wales In both which it was intimated to all sorts of people That the Gospel had no free passage amongst us That there was no care taken for Preaching the Word of God for the instruction of the people for want whereof they still remained in darkness and the shadow of death For the decrying of which scandalous and leud suggestions Order was given unto the Bishops to take the Names and Number of the Preachers in their several Diocesses and to present a true and perfect Catalogue of them in the Convocation which was then at hand By which Returns it will appear That at this time when so much noise was made for want of Preaching there were within the Realm of England and the Dominion of Wales no fewer than Seven thousand four hundred sixty three Preachers and Catechisers which last may be accounted the best sort of Preachers for the instruction of the people Of which great Number there were found to be no fewer than One hundred forty five Doctors in Divinity Three hundred forty eight Batchellors of Divinity Thirty one Doctors of both Laws Twenty one Batchelors of the same Eighteen hundred Masters in Arts Nine hundred forty six Batchelors of Arts and Two thousand seven hundred forty six Catechisers So that neither the number of bare Reading-Ministers was so great nor the want of Preaching so deplorable in most parts of the Kingdom as those Pamphlets made it the Authors whereof ought rather to have magnified the Name of God for sending such a large Encrease of Labourers in his Heavenly Husbandry as could not any where be parallel'd in so short a time there passing no more than Thirty years between the first beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign and the rendring of this Account to the Convocation 29. And that the Parliament might receive the same satisfaction a most excellent and judicious Sermon was Preached at St. Paul's Cross on Sunday the ninth of February being the first Sunday after their Assembling by Dr. Richard Bancroft being then Chaplain to the Lord Chancellor Hatton preferred within some few years after to the See of London and from thence to Canterbury In the performance of which Service he selected for the Theam or Subject of his Discourse 1 Iohn 4.1 viz. Dearly beloved believe not every spirit but try the spirits whether they be of God for many false prophets are gone out into the world In canvasing which Text he did so excellently set forth the false Teachers of those times in their proper colours their Railing against Bishops their Ambition their Self-love their Covetousness and all such Motives as had spurred them on to disturb this Church as satisfied the greatest part of that huge Congregation touching the Practises and Hypocrisies of these holy Brethren He also shewed on what a weak Foundation they had built their Discipline of which no tract or footsteps could be found in the Church of Christ from the Apostles days to Calvin and with what Infamy the Aerian Hereticks were reproached in the Primitive times for labouring to introduce that Parity which these men designed He further laid before them the great danger which must needs ensue if private men should take upon them to deny or dispute such matters as had been setled in the Church by so good Authority Against which troublesome Humour many Provisions had been made by the Canons of Councils and the Edicts of Godly and Religious Emperors To which he added the necessity of requiring Subscription in a Church well constituted by all the Ministers of the same which he justified by the example of Geneva and the Churches of Germauy to be the best way to try the spirits whether they be of God or not as his Text required Next he insisted on the excellency of the common-prayer-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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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