and Ceremonies being first abolished they should proceed to the Establishment of such a Form of Ministration in the Church of England as might be grounded on some express Authorities of the Word of God Which as he makes to be a work agreeable unto Grindals piety so Grindal after this and this bears date in Iuly 1568 appeared more favourable every day then other to those common Barretters who used their whole endeavours to embroyl the Church 30. Nor were these years less fatal to the Church of England by the defection of the Papists who till this time had kept themselves in her Communion and did in general as punctually attend all Divine Offices in the same as the vulgar Protestants And it is probable enough that they might have held out longer in their due obedience if first the scandal which was given by the other Faction and afterwards the separation which ensued upon it had not took them off The Liturgie of the Church had been exceedingly well fitted to their approbation by leaving out an offensive passage against the Pope restoring the old Form of words accustomably used in the participation of the holy Sacrament the total expunging of a Rubrick which seemed to make a Question of the Real presence the Scituation of the holy-Table in the place of the Altar the Reverend posture of kneeling at it or before it by all Communicants the retaining of so many of the ancient Festivals and finally by the Vestments used by the Priest or Minister in the Ministration And so long as all things continued in so good a posture they saw no causâ— of separating from the rest of their Brethren in the acts of Worship But when all decency and order was turned out of the Church by the heat and indiscretion of these new Reformers the holy-Table brought into the midst of the Church like a common-Table the Communicants in some places sitting at it with as little Reverence as at any ordinary Table the ancient Fasts and Feasts deserted and Church-Vestments thrown aside as the remainders of the Superstition of the Church of Rome they then began visibly to decline from their first conformity And yet they made no general separation nor defection neither till the Genevian brethren had first made the Schism and rather chose to meet in Barns and Woods yea and common Fields then to associate with their brethren as in former times For that they did so is affirmed by very good Authors who much bemoaned the sad condition of the Church in having her bowels torn in pieces by those very Children which she had cherished in her bosom By one of which who must needs be of years and judgement at the time of this Schism we are first told what great contentions had been raised in the first ten years of her Majesties Reign through the peevish frowardness the out-cryes of such as came from Geneva against the Vestments of the Church and such like matters And then he adds That being crossed in their desires touching those particulars they separated from the rest of their Congregations and meeting together in Houses Woods and common Fields kept there their most unlawful and disorderly Conventicles 31. Now at such time as Button Billingham and the rest of the Puritan Faction had first made the Schism Harding and Sanders and some others of the Popish Fugitives imployed themselves as busily in perswading those of that Religion to the like temptation For being licensed by the Pope to exercise Episcopal jurisdiction in the Realm of England they take upon them to absolve all such in the Court of Conscience who should return to the Communion of the Church of Rome as also to dispense in Causes of irregularity except it were incurred by wilful murther and finally from the like irregularities incurred by Heresie if the party who desired the benefit of the Absolution abstain'd from Ministring at the holy Altar for three years together By means whereof and the advantages before mentioned which were given them by the Puritan Faction they drew many to them from the Church both Priests and People their numbers every day increasing as the scandal did And finding how the Sectaries inlarged their numbers by erecting a French Church in London and that they were now upon the point of procuring another for the use and comfort of the Dutch they thought it no ill piece of Wisdom to attempt the like in some convenient place near England where they might train up their Disciples and fit them for imployment upon all occasions Upon which ground a Seminary is established for them at Doway in Flanders Anno 1568 and another not long after at Rhemes a City of Champaigne in the Realm of France Such was the benefit which redounded to the Church of England by the perversness of the Brethren of this first separation that it occasioned the like Schism betwixt her and the Papists who till that time had kept themselves in her Communion as before was said For that the Papists generally did frequent the Church in these first ten years is positively affirmed by Sir Edward Coke in his Speech at the Arraignment of Garnet the Jesuit and afterward at the Charge which was given by him at the general Assizes held in Norwich In both which he speaks on his own certain knowledge not on vulgar hearsay affirming more particularly that â—e had many times seen Bedenfield Cornwallis and some other of the Leading Romanists at the Divine Service of the Church who afterwards were the first that departed from it The like averred by the most Learned Bishop Andrews in his Book called Tortura Torti p. 130. and there asserted undeniably against all opposition And which may serve instead of all we finde the like affirmed also by the Queen her self in her Instructions given to Walsingham then being her Resident with the French King Anno 1570. In which Instructions bearing date on the 11 of August it is affirmed expresly of the Heads of that party and therefore we may judge the like of the Members also that they did ordinarily resort from the beginning of her Reign in all open places to the Churches and to Divine Service in the Church without any contradiction or shew of misliking 32. The parallel goes further yet For as the Puritans were encouraged to this separation by the Missals and Decretory Letters of Theodore Beza whom they beheld as the chief Patriarch of this Church So were the Papists animated to their defection by a Bull of Pope Pius the Fifth whom they acknowledged most undoubtedly for the Head of theirs For the Pope being thrust on by the importunity of the House of Guise in favour of the Queen of Scots whose Title they preferred before that of Elizabeth and by the Court of France in hatred to the Queen her self for aiding the French Hugonots against their King was drawn at last to issue out this Bull against her dated at Rome Feb. 24. 1569. In which Bull he doth not
last were left at liberty by the Rules of the Church and used in some few places onely Of all which he not onely signified a plain dislike but endeavoured to shew the errours and absurdities contained in them for such they must contain if he pleased to think so And what could follow hereupon but an open Schism a separation from the Church a resort to Conventicles which he takes notice of in his last to Grindal but imputes it unto that severity which was used by the Bishops in pressing such a yoak of Ceremonies upon tender Consciences The breach not lessened but made wider by another Letter directed to the French and Dutch Churches at London in which he sets before them the whole Form of Worship which was established at Geneva insisteth upon many points neither agreeable to the Discipline or Doctrine of the Church of England and â—inally so restrains the power of the Supreme Magistrate that he is left to the correction and control of his under Officers Of which two Letters that which was writ for satisfaction of the English brethren bears date Octob. 24. 1567 the other Iune 21 in the year next following 43. With great Zeal he drives on in pursuit of the Discipline the Form and Power whereof we will first lay down out of his Epistles and then observe to what a height he doth endeavour to advance the same excluding the Episcopal Government as Antichristian if not Diabolical First then he tells us that to each Minister which officiates in the Country-Villages within the Signiory of Geneva two Over-seers are elected as Assistants to him and that to them it appertains to keep a watchful eye over all men in their several Parishes to convent such before them as they finde blame-worthy to admonish them of their misdeeds and finally if he cannot otherwise prevail upon them to turn them over to the censure of the Eldership which resides in the City This Eldership he compounds of the six ordinary Pastors and twelve Lay-elders the last continually chosen from amongst the Senators To whose charge and office it belongs to take notice of all scandals and offences of what sort soever within the bounds assigned unto them and every Thursday to report to the Court or Consistory what they have discovered The parties thereupon are to be convented fairly admonished of their faults sometimes suspended from the Sacrament if the case require it and excommunicated at the last if they prove impenitent To this Eldership also it belongs to judge in all cases and concernments of Matrimony according to the Word of God and the Laws of the City to repel such from the Communion as do not satisfie the Ministers by a full confession of their Faith and Knowledge And in the company of an Officer of each several Ward to make a diligent inquiry over them in every Family concerning their proficiencie in the Word of God and the ways of Godliness 44. We must next see to what a height he doth endeavour to advance this Discipline which if we take it on his word is not to be received onely as a matter necessary but to be had in equall Reverence with the Word of God Sarnixius had acquainted him with some news from Poland concerning the Divisions and subdivisions in the Churches there whereunto Beza makes his answer by his Letters of the first of November 1566 That unless some Form of Ecclesiastical Discipline according to the Word of God were received among them he could not see by what means they were able to remedy their discords oâ— to prevent the like for the time to come that he had many times admired that being warned by the confusion of their Neighbours in Germany they had not considered before this time as well of the necessity to receive such Discipline as for the strict observing of it when it was received that there was onely one and the self-same Author both of Doctrine and Discipline and therefore that it must seem strange which I would have the Reader mark with his best attention to entertain one part of the Word of God and reject the other that it was most ridiculous to expect or think that either the Laws could be observed or the Peace maintained without Rules and Orders in which the very life of the Law did so much consist that for the avoiding of some new Tyranny which seemed to lye disguised under the Mask and Vizard of the present Discipline they should not run themselves into such Anarchy and discords as were not otherwise to be prevented and finally that no severity could be feared in the use of that Discipline as long as it was circumscribed within the bounds and limits assigned unto it by the Word of God and moderated by the Rules of Christian charity So that we are not to admire if the Discipline be from henceforth made a Note of the Church every way as essential to the nature of it as the Word and Sacraments which as it is the common Doctrine of the Presbyterians so we must look on Beza as the Author of it such Doctrine being never preached in the Church before 45. But because Beza seems to speak in that Epistle concerning the necessity of admitting some certain Form of Ecclesiastical Discipline without pointing punctually and precisely unto that of Geneva we must next see what Form of Discipline he means and whether a Church-Government by Bishops were intended in it And first he tells us in a Postscript of a Letter to Knox dated the third of Iuly 1569 wherein he much congratulates his good Fortune for joyning the Discipline in his Reformation with the truth of Doctrine beseeching him to go forward with it as he had begun lest it might happen to him as it did to others either to slacken in their speed or not be able to advance were they never so willing And we know well what Discipline what Form of Government and Worship had been by Knox established in the Kirk of Scotland But secondly many of the Scots being still unsatisfied in the point of Episcopacy and not well pleased with any other Government of a late invention it was thought fit to send to Beza for his judgement in it who was now looked upon as the Supreme Pastor Successor unto Calvin both in place and power Beza considers of the Business and by his Letters of the 12 of April 1572 returns this Answer viz. That he beheld it as an extraordinary blessing on the Church of Scotland That together with the true Religion they also had received the Discipline for the bond thereof Both which he earnestly conjures them so to hold together as to be sure that there is no hope to keep the one if they lose the other which being said in reference to the Holy Discipline he next proceeds to spend his judgement in the point of Episcopacy In reference to which he first tells them this that as the
that there was no necessity of Lay-elders to be Ministers of it 40. But his main business was to settle the Calvinian Forms in the Realms of Britain in which he aimed at the acquiring of as great a name as Calvin had obtained in France or Poland Knox had already so prevailed amongst the Scots that though they once subscribed to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England yet he had brought them to admit such a Form of Worship as came more neer to the Example of Geneva And he had brought the Discipline to so good a forwardness that Beza was rather wanting to confirm then to introduce it as shall appear at large when we come to Scotland But Knox had many opportunities to effect his business during the absence of their Queen the Regencie of Queen Mary of Lorreign and the unsettledness of affairs in the State of that Kingdom which the Brethren could not finde in England where the Fabrick of the State was joyned together with such Ligaments of Power and Wisdom that they were able to act little and effect much less Some opposition they had made after their coming back from Frankfort and Geneva their two chief Retreats against the Vestments of the Church and the distinction of Apparel betwixt Priests and Lay-men In which some of them did proceed with so vain an obstinacie that some of them were for a time suspended and others totally deprived of their Cures and Benefices some of them also had begun to take exception against some parts and Offices of the publick Liturgie refusing thereupon to conform unto it and thereupon likely to incur the very same penalties which were inflicted on the other In both these cases they consult the Oracle resolving to adhere to his determination in them whatsoever it was First therefore he applyes himself to Grindal then Bishop of London and very zealously affected to the name of Calvin to whom he signifies by his Letter of the 26 of Iune 1566 how much he was afflicted with the sad reports out of France and Germany by which he was advertised that many Ministers in England being otherwise unblamable both for Life and Doctrine had been exauctorated or deprived by the Queens Authority the Bishops giving their consent and approbation onely for not subscribing to some Rites and Ceremonies but more particularly that divers of them were deprived not onely for refusing to wear those Vestments which were peculiar to Baals Priests in the times of Popery but for not conforming to some Rites which had degenerated into most shameful superstitions such as the Cross in Baptism kneeling at the Communion and the like to these That Baptism was admitted sometimes by Midwives That power was left unto the Queen to Ordain other Rites and Ceremonies as she saw occasion and finally that the Bishops were invested with the sole Authority for ordering matters in the Church the other Ministers not advised with or consulted in them 41. Such is the substance of his charge against each particular point whereof he bends his forces as if he had a minde to batter down the Bulwarks of the Church of England and lay it open to Geneva I shall not note how much he blames the Ancient Fathers for bringing in so many Ceremonies into use and practice which either had been borrowed from the Iews or derived from the Gentiles or how he magnifieth the nakedness and simplicity of those Forreign Churches which abominate nothing more then such outward trappings But the result of all is this that whatsoever Rite or Ceremony was either brought into the Church from the Iews or Gentiles not warranted by the institution of Christ or by any Examples of the Apostles as also all significant Ceremonies which by no right were at first brought into the Church ought all at once to be prohibited and suppressed there being no hope that the Church would otherwise be restored to her native Beauty I onely note that he compares the Cross in Baptism to the Brazen Serpent abused as much to Superstition and Idolatry and therefore to be abrogated with as great a Zeal in a Church well ordered as that Image was destroyed by King Hezekiah He falls soul also on that manner of singing which was retained in the Queens Chappels all the Cathedrals and some Parish-Churches of this Kingdom because perhaps it was set forth with Organs and such Musical Instruments as made it sitter in his judgement to be used in Dancing then in Sacred actions and tended more to please the ears then to raise the affections Nor seems he better pleased with that Authority which was enjoyed and exercised by the Archbishop of Canterbury in granting Licenses for Pluralities non-Residence contracting Marriages in the Church and eating Flesh on days prohibited with many other things of that nature which he accounts not onely for so many stains and blemishes in the Face of Christendom but for a manifest defection even from Christ himself in which respect they rather were to be commended then condemned and censured that openly opposed themselves against such corruptions 42. Yet notwithstanding these complaints he grants the matters in dispute and the Rites prescribed to be things indifferent not any way impious in themselves nor such as should necessitate any man to forsake his Flock rather then yeild obedience and conformity to them But then he adds that if they do offend who rather chuse to leave their Churches then to conform themselves to those Rites and Vestments against their Consciences a greater guilt must be contracted by those men before God and his Angels who rather chuse to spoil these Flocks of able Pastors then suffer those Pastors to make choice of their own Apparel or rather chuse to rob the people of the Food of their souls then suffer them to receive it otherwise then upon their knees But in his Letter of the next year he adventureth further and makes it his request unto all the Bishops that some fit Medicine be forthwith applyed to the present mischief which did not onely give great scandal to the weak and ignorant but even to many Learned and Religious Persons And this he seems to charge upon them as they will answer for the contrary at the Judgement-Seat of Almighty God to whom an account is to be given of the poorest Sheep which should be forced to wander upon this occasion from the rest of the Flock Between the writing of which Letters some of their brethren had propounded their doubts unto him touching the calling of the Ministers as it was then and still is used in the Church of England the wearing of the Cap and Surplice and other Vestments of the Clergy which was then required the Musick and melodious singing in Cathedral Churches the interrogatories proposed to Infants at the time of their Baptism the signing of them with the sign of the Cross kneeling at the Communion administring the same in unleavened Bread though the
Bishops of Leige some to the jurisdiction of the Archbishops of Rheims and Colen and others under the Authority of the Bishops of Munster Of which the first were in some sort under the Protection of the Dukes of Burgundy the three last absolute and independent not owing any suite or Service at all unto them By means whereof concernments of Religion were not looked into with so strict an eye as where the Bishops are accomptable to the Prince for their Administration or more united with and amongst themselves in the publick Government The inconvenience whereof being well observed by Charles the Fifth he practised with the Pope then being for increasing the number of the Bishopricks reducing them under Archbishops of their own and Modeling the Ecclesiastical Politie under such a Form as might enable them to exercise all manner of spiritual jurisdiction within themselves without recourse to any Forreign Power or Prelate but the Pope himself Which being first designed by him was afterwards effected by King Philip the Second though the event proved contrary to his expectation For this enlargement of the number of the Sees Episcopal being projected onely for the better keeping of the Peace and Unity of the Belgick Churches became unhappily the occasion of many Tumults and Disorders in the Civil State which drew on the defection of a great part of the Country from that Kings obedience 14. For so it was that the Reformed Religion being entertained in France and Germany did quickly finde an entrance also into such of the Provinces as lay nearest to them where it found people of all sorts sufficiently ready to receive it To the increase whereof the Emperor Charls himself gave no small advantage by bringing in so many of the Switz and German Souldiers to maintain his Power either in awing his own Subjects or against the French by which last he was frequently invaded in the bordering Provinces Nor was Queen Mary of England wanting though she meant it not to the increasing of their numbers For whereas many of the Natives of France and Germany who were affected zealously to the Reformation had put themselves for Sanctuary into England in the time of King Edward they were all banished by Proclamation in the first year of her Reign Many of which not daring to return to their several Countries dispersed themselves in most of the good Towns of the Belgick Provinces especially in such as lay most neer unto the Sâ—a where they could best provide themselves of a poor subsistance By means whereof the Doctrine of the Protestant and Reformed Churches began to get much ground upon them to which the continual intercourses which they had with England gave every day such great and manifest advantage that the Emperour was fain to bethink himself of some proper means for the suppressing of the inconveniences which might follow on it And means more proper he found none in the whole course of Government then to increase the number of the former Bishopricks to re-inforce some former Edicts which he made against them and to bring in the Spanish Inquisition which he established and confirmed by another Edict bearing date April 20. 1548. Which notwithstanding the Professors of that Doctrine though restrained a while could not be totally suppressed some Preachers out of Germany and others out of France and England promoting underhand those Tenents and introducing those opinions which openly they durst not own in those dangerous times But when the Emperour Charles had resigned the Government and that King Philip the Second upon some urgent Reasons of State had retired to Spain and left the Chief Command of his Belgick Provinces to the Dutchess of Parma they then began to shew themselves with the greater confidence and gained some great ones to their side whom discontent by reason of the disappointment of their several aims had made inclinable to innovation both in Church and State 15. Amongst the great ones of which time there was none more considerable for Power and Patrimony then William of Nassaw Prince of Orange invested by a long descent of Noble Ancestors in the County of Nassaw a fair and goodly Territory in the Higher Germany possest of many good Towns and ample Signories in Brabant and Holland derived upon him from Mary Daughter and Heir of Philip Lord of Breda c. his great Grand-fathers Grand-mother and finally enriched with the Principality of Orange in France accruing to him by the death of his Cozen Rene which gave him a precedencie before all other Belgick Lords in the Court of Brussels By which advantages but more by his abilities both for Camp and Counsel he became great in favour with the Emperour Charles by whom he was made Governour of Holland and Zealand Knight of the Order of the Fleece imployed in many Ambassies of weight and moment and trusted with his dearest and most secret purposes For Rivals in the Glory of Arms he had the Counts of Horne and Egmond men of great Prowess in the Field and alike able at all times to Command and Execute But they were men of open hearts not practised in the Arts of Subtilty and dissimulation and wanted much of that dexterity and cunning which the other had for working into the affections of all sorts of people Being advanced unto this eminencie in the Court and knowing his own strength as well amongst the Souldiers as the common people he promised to himself the Supreme Government of the Belgick Provinces on the Kings returning into Spain The disappointment of which hope obliterated the remembrance of all former favours and spurred him on to make himself the Head of the Protestant party by whose assistance he conceived no small possibility of raising the Nassovian Family to as great an height as his ambition could aspire to 16. The Protestants at that time were generally divided into two main bodies not to say any thing of the Anabaptists and other Sectaries who thrust in amongst them Such of the Provinces as lay toward Germany and had received their Preachers thence embraced the Forms and Doctrines of the Lutherâ—â— Câ—â—â—ches in which not onely Images had been still retained â—ogether with set-Forms of Prayer kneeling at the Communioâ— the Cross in Baptism and many other laudable Ceremonies of the Elder times but also most of the ancient Fasts and Fâ—â—tivals of the Catholick Church and such a Form of Eccleâ—â—tical Polity as was but little differing from that of Bishops which Forms and Doctrines being tolerated by the Edicts of Paussaw and Ausberg made them less apt to work disturbance in the Civil State and consequently the less obnoxious to the fears and jealousies of the Catholick party But on the other side such Provinces as lay toward France participated of the humour of that Reformation which was there begun modelled according unto Calvins Platform both in Doctrine and Discipline More stomacked then the other by all those who adhered to the Church of Rome or otherwise pretended to the peace
chosen the Professor for the Lady Margaret that he might come as near to him as he could both in place and power But not content with that which he had done in the Colledge he puts up his Disciples into all the Pulpits in the University where he and they inveigh most bitterly against the Government of the Church and the Governours of it the Ordination of Priests and Deacons the Liturgie established and the Rites thereof And though Whitgift Preached them down as occasion served with great applause unto himself but greater satisfaction to all moderate and sober men yet Cartwright and his Followers were now grown unto such a head that they became more violent by the opposition 32. It hapneth commonly as a Learned man hath well observed That those fervent Reprehenders of things established by publick Authority are always confident and bold spirited men and such as will not easily be taken off from their prosecutions by any fair and gentle usage Which Whitgift found at last alter all his patience insomuch that having many times in vain endeavoured by gentle Admonitions and fair perswasions to gain the man unto himself or so to moderate and restrain him as that he should no longer trouble both that Colledge and the whole University with his dangerous Doctrines he was necessitated in the end to expel him out of the House and after to deprive him also of the Margaret-Lecture Which last he acted as Vice-chancellor upon this account that he had delivered divers errors in his Lectures which he had neither recanted as he was required nor so expounded as to free himself from that imputation and that withal he had exercised the Function of a Minister without being able to produce any Letters of Orders Hereupon Cartwright and his Followers began to mouth it complaining that the man had been mightily wronged in being deprived of his preferments in the University without being called unto his answer that Cartwright had made many offers of Disputation for tryal of the points in Question but could never be heard and therefore that Whitgift supplyed this by excess of power which he was not able to make good by defect of Arguments To stop which clamour Whitgift not onely offered him the opportunity of a Conference with him but offered it in the presence of sufficient witnesses and put the man so hard unto it that he not onely declined the Conference at the present but confest that Whitgift had made him the like offers formerly and that he had refused the same as he now did also All which appears by a Certificate subscribed by eight sufficient Witnesses and a publick Notary dated the 18 of March 1570. But this disgrace was followed by a greater much about that time for finding himself in a necessity to depart from Cambridge he would have taken the degree of Doctor along with him for his greater credit but was denyed by the major part of the Regent Masters and others which had votes therein which so displeased both him and all his adherents that from this time the Degrees of Doctors Batchellors and Masters were esteemed unlawful and those that took them reckoned for the Limbs of Antichrist as appears by the Genevian Notes on the Revelâ—tion But for this and all the other wrongs which he had suffered as was said in the University he will revenge himself upon the Church in convenient time and in convenient time we shall hear more of it 36. In the mean season we must make a step to Banstâ—ed in Surrey where we shall finde a knot of more Zealous Calvinists then in other places so Zealous and conceited of their own dear Sanctity that they separated themselves from the rest of their brethren under the name of the Anoynted The Bond of Peace was broken by the rest before and these men meant not to retain the unity of spirit with them as they had done formerly Their Leader was one Wright their Opinions these viz. That no man is to be accused of sin but he that did reject the truths by them professed That the whole New Testament contained nothing but predictions of things to come and therefore that Christ whom they grant to have appeared in the flesh before shall come before the Day of Iudgement and actually perform those things which are there related That he whose sins are once pardoned cannot sin again And that no credit was to be afforded to men of Learning but all things to be taught by the Spirit onely Of these men Sanders tells us in his Book De visibile Monarchia Fol. 707 and placeth them in this present year 1570. But what became of them I finde not there or in any others And therefore I conceive that either they were soon worn out for want of Company or lost themselves amongst the Anabaptists Familists or some other And this I look upon as one of the first Factions amongst the Puritans themselves after they had begun their separation from the Church of England Which separation so begun as before is said was closed again about this time by the hands of those who first had laboured in the breach 37. For so it was that either out of love to their own profit or the publick peace some of them had consulted Beza touching this particular that is to say Whether he thought it more expedient for the good of the Church That the Ministers should chuse rather to forsake their Flocks then to conform unto such Orders as were then prescribed Whereunto he returns this Answer That many things both may and ought to be obeyed which are not warrantably commanded That though the Garments in dispute were not imposed upon the Church by any warrant from the Word of God yet having nothing of impiety in them he conceived that it were fitter for the Ministers to conform themselves then either voluntarily to forsake their Churches or be deprived for their refusal That in like manner the people were to be advised to frequent the Churches and hear their Pastors so apparelled as the Church required rather then utterly to forsake that spiritual food by which their souls were to be nourished to eternal life But so that first the Ministers do discharge their Consciences by making a modest protestation against those Vestments as well before the Queens Majesty as their several Bishops and so apply themselves to suffer what they could not remedy This might have stopt the breach at the first beginning if either the English Puritans had not been too hot upon it to be cooled so suddenly or that he had not made his own good counsel ineffectual in the close of all In which he tells them in plain terms That if they could no otherwise preserve their standing in the Church then either by subscribing to the lawfulness of the Orders Rites and Ceremonies which were then required or by giving any countenance to them by a faulty silence they should then finally give way to that open violence which they were
his last Book against Learned Whitgift That the want of the Elderships is the cause of all evil and that it is not to be hoped that any Commonwealth can flourish without it but also that it is no small part of the Gospel yea the substance of it 9. And if it proved to be a part of our Saviours Gospel what could the brethren do less then pretend some Miracles for Confirmation of the same and to what Miracles could they pretend with more shew of Sanctity and manifestation of the Spirit then to the casting out of Devils Cambden inform us in this year that the credulity of some London-Ministers had been abused by a young Wench who was pretended at that time to be possessed of the Devil But I rather think that the London-Ministers were confederate with this Wench then abused by her considering the subsequent practice in that kinde of casting out Devils by the Puritan Preachers to gain the greater credit to their Cause for in this very year they practised the casting of a Devil out of one Mildred the base Daughter of Alice Norrington of Westwell in Kent Which for all the godly pretences made by Roger Newman and Iohn Brainford two of the Ministers of that County who were parties to it was at the last confessed to be but a false imposture Dr. Harsnet who afterward dyed Archbishop of York informs us also in his Book against Darrel that there were at this time two Wenches in London that is to say Agnes Bridges and Rachel Pinder who publickly were given out to be so possessed and it is possible that one of them may be she whom Cambden speaks of Under which head may be also ranged the dispossessing of one Margaret Gooper at Ditchet in the County of Sommerset about ten years after 1584. But all inferiour to the Pranks which were played by Darrel with whom none of the Puritan Exorcists is to hold comparison of which we are to speak hereafter in its proper place The Papists have been frequently and justly blamed for their impostures in this thing and no terms are thought vile enough to express their falshoods But they were onely pious frauds in the Presbyterians because conducing to such godly and religious ends in the advancing of the Scepter and Throne of Christ by the holy Discipline And it is strange that none of all their Zealots have endeavoured to defend them in it as well as Cartwright laboureth to excuse their unlawful meetings from the name of Conventicles that being as he tells us too light a word to express the Gravity and Piety of those Assemblies in which Sacraments are Administred and the Gospel Preached If so all other Sectaries whatsoever may excuse themselves from the holding of Conventicles or being obnoxious to any penal Laws and Sanctions upon that account because they hold their Factious and Schismatical Meetings for the self-same ends And then the Queen must be condemned for executing some severity on a Knot of Anâ—baptists whom she found holding the like lawless Meetings in the year next following 10. For so it was that many of those Forreigners which resorted hither from the Belgick Provinces and were incorporated into a distinct Society or Congregation differing both in Government and Forms of Worship from the Church of England did by degrees withdraw themselves from her Communion and held their Conventicles a part from the rest of that body Of these some openly declared themselves for the Sect of the Anabaptists others would needs be Members of the Family of Henry Nicholas who had been once a Member of the Dutch Church under Iohn â—lasco called commonly the Family of Love Of which we have spoken in the History of the Belgick troubles Lib. 3. Numb 46. And not content to entertain those new Opinions and devices amongst themselves they must draw in the English also to participate with them who having deviated from the paths of the Church were like enough to fall into any other and to pursue those crooked ways in which the cunning Hereticks of those times did and had gone before them But such a diligent eye was had upon all their practices that they were crossed in the beginning For upon Easter-day about nine in the Morning was disclosed a Conventicle of these Anabaptists Dutch-men at an House without the Bars of Aldgate whereof twenty seven were taken and sent to prison and four of them bearing Fagots at St. Pauls Cross recanted in form following viz. Whereas I N N being seduced by the spirit of Error and by false Teachers his Ministers have fallen into many damnable and detestable Heresies viz. 1. That Christ took not flesh of the substance of the Blessed Virgin Mary 2. That Infants horn of faithful Parents ought to be Rebaptized 3. That no Christian man ought to be a Magistrate or bear the Sword or Office of Authority 4. And that it is not lawful for a Christian man to take an Oath Now by the Grace of God and through Conference with good and Learned Ministers of Christ his Church I do understand and acknowledge the same to be most damnable and detestable Heresies and do ask God here before his Church mercy for my said former Errors and do forsake them recant and renounce them and abjure them from the very bottom of my heart And further I confess that the whole Doctrine and Religion established in this Realm of England as also that which is received and practised in the Dutch Church here in this City is sound true and acording to the Word of God whereunto in all things I submit my self and will most gladly be a Member of the said Dutch Church from henceforth utterly abandoning and forsaking all and every Anabaptistical Error 11. This gave a stop to many of them at their first setting out But some there were who neither would be terrified with the fear of punishment or edified by the Retractation which those four had made continued in their former courses with great pertinacity insomuch that on the 21 of May being Whitson-Eve no fewer then eleven of that Sect all Dutch that is to say one man and ten Women were condemned in the Consistory at St. Pauls to be burned in Smithfield And though great pains was taken to reclaim them from those wicked Errors yet such was their obstinacie and perversness that one Woman onely was converted The râ—st had so much mercy shewed them as to be banished the Realm without further punishment which gave the greater resolution to the rest of their company to be more practical then before in promoting their Heresies Which put the State upon a just necessity of proceeding more severely against some of them then by Bonds and banishments Two of the same Nation and Opinions being burnt in Smithfield on the second of Iuly where they dyed with very great horror exprest by many roarings and cryings but without any signe or shew of true Repentance Before the executing of which sentence Iohn Fox the
English Martyrologist addrest his Letters to the Queen in which he supplicated for the lives of those wretched men and offered many pious and prudential reasons for the reversing of that sentence or at the least for staying it from execution By which he so prevailed upon her that she consented to a gratious sparing of their lives iâ— on a months Reprieve and Conference in the mean time with Learned men they could be gained unto a retractation of their damnable Heresies But that expedient being tryed and found ineffectual the forfeiture of their lives was taken and the sentence executed Nor had the Dutch Church of Norwich any better Fortune or could pretend to be more free from harbouring some Fanatical spirits then the Dutch Congregation in the Augustine Fryars From some of which it may be probably supposed that Matthew Hamant a poor Plow-wright of Featherset within three Miles of Norwich took his first impressions which afterwards appeared in more horrid blasphemies then any English ever had been acquainted with in the times preceding For being suspected to hold many dangerous and unsound Opinions he was convented before the Bishop of that City at what time it was charged upon him that he had publickly maintained these Heresies following that is to say That the new Testament or Gospel was but meer foolishness and a story of men or rather a meer Fable That he was restored to Grace of the free Mercy of God without the means of Christ his Blood and Passion That Christ is not God or the Saviour of the World but a sinful man a meer man and an abominable Idol and that all they that worship him are abominable Idolaters That Christ did not rise again from death to life by the power of his Godhead neither that he ascended into Heaven That the Holy Ghost is not God and that there is no such thing as an Holy Ghost That Baptism is not necessary in the Church of God nor the use of the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ. For which he was coâ—demned for an Heretick in the Bishops Consistory on the Fourteenth of April and being thereupon delivered to the Sheriff of the City he was burnt in the Castle-Ditch on the Twentieth of May 1579. As a preparative to which punishment his ears had been cut off on the Thirteenth of that Moneth for base and slanderous words against the Queen and Council 12. About the same time that the Anabaptists were first brought to Censure there spawned another Fry of Hereticks who had its first Original amongst the Dutch and from thence came for England with the rest of their brethren These called themselves the Family of Love as before is said and were so well conceited of their own great holiness that they thought none to be Elected to Eternal life but such as were admitted into their Society The particulars of their Opinions and the strange manner of Expressions have been insisted on before Let it suffice that by their seeming Sanctity and other the like deceitful arts of Dissimulation they had drawn some of the English to them who having broke the bond of peace could not long keep themselves to the Spirit of Unity Some of them being detected and convented for it were condemned to do Penance at S. Pauls Cross and there to make a Retractation of their former Errors According to which Sentence five of them are brought thither on the 12 of Iune who there confest themselves utterly to detest as well the Author of that Sect H. N. as all his damnable Heresies Which gentle punishment did rather serve to multiply then decrease the Sect which by the diligence of the Hereticks and the remisness of the new Archbishop came to such an height that course was taken at the last for thâ—ir apprehension and for the severe punishing of those which were so apprehended For the Queen seriously considering how much she was concerned both in honor and safety to preserve Religion from the danger threatned by such desperate Hereticks published her Proclamation on the ninth of October An. 1580 for bringing their persons unto Justice and causing their pestilent Pamphlets to be openly burnt And to that end she gave a strict Command to all Temporal Judges and other Ministers of Justice to be assistant to the Bishops and their under Officers in the severe punishing of those Sects and Sectaries by which the happiness of the Church was so much endangered By which severities and a Formal Abjuration prescribed unto them by the Lords of the Council these Sects were seasonably suppressed or had the reason to conceal themselves amongst such of the Brethren as did continue in their Separation from the Church of England 13. In the mean time there hapned a great alteration in the state of the Church by the death of one and the preferment of another of the greatest Prelates Archbishop Parker left this life on the 17 of May Anno 1575. To whom succeeded Dr. Edmond Grindal Translated from the See of York unto that of Canterbury on the 15 of February The first a Prelate of great parts and no less Eminent for his zeal in the Churches cause which prompted him to keep as hard a hand on all Sects and Sectaries and more particularly on those of the Genevian Platform as the temper of the times could bear But Grindal was a man of another spirit without much difficulty wrought upon by such as applied themselves to him And having maintained a correspondence when he lived in Exile with Calvin Beza and some others 〈◊〉 â—he Consistory he either could not shake off their acquaintâ—â—â—e at his coming home or was as willing to continue it as they câ—uld desire Being advanced unto the Bishoprick of London he condescends to Calvins motion touching the setling of a French Church in that City on Genevian Principles and received thanks from him for the same And unto whom but him must Beza make his Applications when any of the brethren were suspended deprived or sequestred for not conforming to the Vestments then by Law required Being Translated unto York which wâ—s upon the 22 of May 1370 he entertains a new Intelligence with Zanchy a Divine of Heidelburg somewhat more moderate then the other but no good Friend neither to the Church of England as appears by his interposings in behalf of the brethren when they were under any Censure for their inconformity To this man Grindal renders an account of his Preferment both to York and Canterbury To him he sends Advertisement how things went in Scotland at his Advancement to the first and of the present state of affairs in England when he came to the other The like Intelligence he maintained with Bullinger Gualter and some of the chief Divines amongst the Switzers taking great pride in being courted by the Leading-men of those several Churches though they had all their ends upon him for the advancing of Presbytery and Inconformity in the Church of England 14. Upon these grounds
the honor to themselves To which end Heywood Parsons and Campian first set foot in England and both by secret practices and printed Pamphlets endeavoured to withdraw the Subjects from their due obedience Nothing more ordinary in their mouths or upon their pens then that the Crown belonged of right to the Queen of Scots That Elizabeth was to be deprived That if the Pope commanded one thing and the Queen another the Popes commands were to be obeyed and not the Queens And in a word That all the Subjects were absolued from their Allegiance and might declare as much when they found it necessary Which that it might be done with the greater safety Pope Gregory the XIII is desired to make an Explication of the former Bull. By which it should be signified to the English Catholicks that the said former Bull of Pope Pius V should remain obligatory unto none but the Hereticks onely but that the Romish Catholicks should not be bound by it as the case then stood till they should find themselves in a fit capacity to put the same in execution without fear of danger And presently upon their first entrance a Book is published by one Howlet containing many reasons for deterring the Papists from joyning in any Act of Worship with the English Protestants the going or not going to Church being from henceforth made a sign distinctive as they commonly phrased it In this year also Beza published his Schismatical Pamphlet intituled De triplici Episcopatu of which see Lib. 1. numb 47. Lib. 5. numb 40. first written at the request of Knox and other of the Presbyterians of the Kirk of Scotland that they might have the better colour to destroy Episcopacy translated afterwards into English for the self-same reason by Field of Wandsworth Against this Book Dr. Iohn Bridges Dean of Sarum writ a large Discourse intituled A Defence of the Government established in the Church of England not published till the year 1587 when the Authority thereof was most highly stood on The like done afterward by Dr. Hadrian Savavia of which we shall speak more in its proper place 23. And now the waters are so troubled that Cartwright might presume of gainful fishing at his coming home Who having settled the Presbytery in Iersey and Guernsey first sends back Snape to his old Lecture at Northampton there to pursue such Orders and Directions as they had agreed on and afterwards put himself into the Factory of Antwerp and was soon chosen for their Preacher The news whereof brings Travers to him who receives Ordination if I may so call it by the Presbytery of that City and thereupon is made his Partner in that charge It was no hard matter for them to perswade the Merchants to admit that Discipline which in their turns might make them capable of voting in the Publick Consistory And they endeavoured it the rather that by their help they might effect the like in the City of London whensoever they should find the times to be ready for them The like they did also in the English Church at Middleborough the chief Town in Zealand in which many English Merchants had their constant residence To which two places they drew over many of the English Nation to receive admission to the Ministery in a different Form from that which was allowed in the Church of England Some of which following the example of Cartwright himself renounced the Orders which they had from the hands of the Bishops and took a new Vocation from these Presbyters as Fennor Arton c. and others there admitted to the rank of Ministers which never were ordained in England as Hart Guisin c. not to say any thing of such as were elected to be Elders or Deacons in those Forreign Consistories that they might serve the Churches in the same capacity at their coming home And now at last they are for England where Travers puts himself into the service of the Lord Treasurer Burleigh by whose Recommendation he is chosen Lecturer of the Temple Church which gave him opportunity for managing all affairs which concerned the Discipline with the London-Ministers Cartwright applies himself to the Earl of Leicester by whom he is sent down to Warwick and afterwards made Master of an Hospital of his Foundation In the chief Church of which Town he was pleased to preach as often as he could dispense with his other business At his admission to which place he faithfully promised if he might be but tolerated to Preach not to impugne the Laws Orders Policy Government nor Governours in this Church of England but to perswade and procure so much as he could both publickly and privately the estimation and peace of this Church 24. But scarce was he setled in the place when he made it manifest by all his actions how little care he took of his words and promises for so it was when any Minister either in private Conferences or by way of Letters required his advice in any thing which concerned the Church he plainly shewed his mislike of the Ecclesiastical Government then by Law Established and excepted against divers parts of the Publick Liturgie according to the Tenour of the two Admonitions by him formerly published By means whereof he prevailed with many who had before observed the Orders of the Common-prayer-book now plainly to neglect the same and to oppose themselves against the Government of Bishops as far as they might do it safely in relation to the present times And that he might not press those points to others which he durst not practice in himself he many times inveighed against them in his Prayers and Sermons The like he also did against many pâ—ssages in the Publick Liturgie as namely The use of the Surplice the Interrogatories to God-fathers in the name of Infants the Cross in Baptism the Ring in Marriage the Thanksgiving after Child-birth Burials by Ministers the kneeling at Communions some points of the Litany certain Collects and Prayers the reading of Portions of Scripture for the Epistle and Gospel and the manner of singing in Cathedral Churches And for example unto others he procured his Wife not to give thanks for her Delivery from the peril of Childbirth after such Form and in such place and manner as the Church required Which as it drew on many other women to the like contempt so might he have prevailed upon many more if he had not once discoursed upon matters of Childbirth with such in discretion that some of the good Wives of Warwick were almost at the point to stone him as he walked the streets But that he might not seem to pull down more with one hand then he would be thought sufficiently able to build up with both he highly magnified in some of his Sermons the Government of the Church by Elderships in each Congregation and by more Publick Conferences in Classical and Synodical Meetings which he commended for the onely lawful Church-Government as being of Divine Institution and ordained by
for ever continue and maintain such their Right and Title in the Church's Government with all Equity and Christian Moderation 15. At this time grew the Heats also betwixt Hooker and Travers the first being Master of the Temple and the other Lecturer Hooker received his Education in Corpus Christi Colledg in Oxon from whence he came well stocked in all kind of Learning but most especially in Fathers Councils and other approved Monuments of Ecclesiastical Antiquity Travers was bred in Trinity Colledg in Cambridg well skilled in the Oriental Tongues and otherwise better studied in Words than Matter being Cotemporary with Cartwright and of his Affection He sets up his studies in Geneva and there acquaints himself with Beza and the rest of that Consistory of whom and their new Discipline he grew so enamoured that before his coming into England he was made Minister as well at least as such hands could make him by the Presbytery of Antwerp as appears by their Certificate for I dare not call them Letters of Orders dated May 14 1578. Thus qualified he associates himself with Cartwright whom he found there at his coming in preaching to the Factory of English Merchants and follows him not long after into England also By the commendation of some Friends he was taken into the House of William Lord Burleigh whom he served first in the nature of a Pedagogue to his younger Son and after as one of his Chaplains Preferments could not chuse but come in his way considering the Greatness of his Master whose eminent Offices of Lord Treasurer Chief Secretary and Master of the Wards could not but give him many opportunities to prefer a Servant to the best places in the Church But Travers knew his incapacity to receive such Favours as neither lawfully ordained according to the Form prescribed by the Church of England nor willing to subscribe to such Rites and Ceremonies as he found were used in the same But being a great Factor for promoting the Holy Discipline he gets himself into the Lecture of the Temple which could not easily be denyed when the Chaplain of so great a Councellor was a Suitor for it 16. In this place he insinuates himself by all means imaginable into the good affections of many young Students and some great Lawyers of both Houses on whom he gained exceedingly by his way of Preaching graced with a comely Gesture and a Rhetorical manner of Elocution By which advantages he possest many of the long Robe with a strong affection to the devices of Geneva and with as great a prejudice to the English Hierarchy the fruits whereof discovered themselves more or less in all following Parliaments when any thing concerning the Church came in agitation And by the opportunity of this Place he had the chief managing of the Affairs of the Disciplinarians presiding for the most part in their Classical Meetings and from hence issuing their Directions to the rest of the Churches And so it stood till Hooker's coming to be Master who being a man of other Principles and better able to defend them in a way of Argument endeavoured to instruct his Auditors in such Points of Doctrine as might keep them in a right perswasion of the Church of England as well in reference to her Government as her Forms of Worship This troubled Travers at the heart as it could not otherwise to see that the fine Web which he had been so long in weaving should be thus unravell'd Rather than so Hooker shall tell them nothing in the Morning but what he laboured to confute in the Afternoon not doubting but that a great part of the Auditors would pass Sentence for him though the truth might run most apparently on the other side Hooker endured it for some time but being weary at the last of the opposition he complains thereof to the Arch-bishop who had deservedly a very great opinion of him and this Complaint being seasonably made in that point of time when Cartwright Snape and other Leading-men of the Puritan Faction were brought into the High Commission it was no hard matter for him to procure an Order to suppress his Adversary silenced from preaching in the Temple and all places else Which Order was issued upon these grounds that is to say That he was no lawfully ordained Minister according to the Church of England That he took upon him to preach without being licensed and That he had presumed openly to confute such Doctrine as had been publickly delivered by another Preacher without any notice given thereof to the lawful Ordinary contrary to a Provision made in the Seventh year of the Queen for avoiding Disturbances in the Church 17. But Travers was too stiff and too well supported to sit down on the first Assault He makes his supplication therefore to the Lords of the Council where he conceived himself as strong and as highly favoured as Hooker was amongst the Bishops and the High Commissioners In this Petition he complains of some obliquity in the proceedings had against him for want of some Legalities in the conduct of it But when he came to answer to the Charges which were laid upon him his Defences appeared very weak and flat and could not much conduce to his justification when they were seriously examined in the scale of Judgment His exercising the Ministry without lawful Orders he justified no otherwise than that by the Communion of Saints all Ordinations were of like Authority in a Christian Church The Bishop of London had commended him by two Letters unto that Society to be chosen Lecturer and That he took for a sufficient License as might enable him to preach to that Congregation And as for his confuting in the Afternoon what had been preached by Mr. Hooker in the morning before he conceived that he had warrant for it from St. Paul's example in withstanding St. Peter to his face for fear lest otherwise God's Truth might receive some prejudice The weakness and insufficiency of which Defences was presently made known in Hooker's Answer to the Supplication Which wrought so much upon the Lords and was so strongly seconded by the Arch-bishop himself that all the Friends which Travers had amongst them could not do him good especially when it was represented to them how dangerous a thing it was that a man of such ill Principles and of worse Affections should be permitted to continue in his former Lecture which what else were it in effect but to retain almost half the Lawyers of England to be of Councel in all Causes which concerned the Church whensoever those of the Genevian or Puritan Faction should require it of them But so it hapned and it hapned very well for Travers that the Queen had erected an University at Dublin in the year fore-going 1591 Founding therein a Colledg dedicated to the Holy Trinity to the Provostship whereof he was invited by the Arch-bishop of Dublin who had been once a Fellow of the same House with him Glad of which opportunity
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
having concluded a Truce of Twelve years with the States United wanted Employment for his Army and that he might engage that King with the greater confidence he reconciles himself to the Church of Rome and marries the Lady Magdalen Daughter to the Duke of Bavaria the most potent of the German Princes of that Religion which also he established in his own Dominions on the death of his Father This puts the young Marquess to new Counsels who thereupon calls in the Forces of the States Vnited the Warr continuing upon this occasion betwixt them and Spain though the Scene was shifted And that they might more cordially espouse his Quarrel he took to Wife the Sister of Frederick the fifth Prince Elector Palatine and Neece of William of Nassaw Prince of Orange by his youngest Daughter and consequently Cousin-German once removed to Count Maurice of Nassaw Commander-General of the Forces of the Sates Vnited both by Sea and Land This kept the Balance eeven between them the one possessing the Estates of Cleve and Mark and the other the greatest part of Berge and Gulick But so it was that the old Marquess of Brandenbourgh having setled his abode in the Dukedom of Prussia and left the management of the Marquissate to the Prince his Son left him withall unto the Plots and Practises of a subtil Lady Who being throughly instructed in all points of Calvinism and having gotten a great Empire in her Husband's Affections prevailed so far upon him in the first year of their Marriage Anno 1614 that he renounced his own Religion and declared for Her 's which he more cheerfully embraced in hope to arm all the Calvinians both of the Higher and the Lower Germany in defence of his Cause as his Competitor of Newbourgh had armed the Catholicks to preserve his Interest 15. Being thus resolved he publisheth an Edict in the Month of February Anno 1615 published in his Father's Name but only in his own Authority and sole Command under pretence of pacifying some distempers about Religion but tending in good earnest to the plain suppression of the Lutheran forms for having spent a tedious and impertinent Preamble touching the Animosities fomented in the Protestant Churches between the Lutherans and those of the Calvinian Party he first requires that all unnecessary Disputes be laid aside that so all grounds of strife and disaffection might be also buried Which said he next commands all Ministers within the Marquissate to preach the Word purely and sincerely according to the Writings of the holy Prophets and Apostles the Four Creeds commonly received amongst which the Te Deum is to go for one and the Confession of Ausberg of the last Correction and that omitting all new glosses and interpretations of idle and ambitious men affecting a Primacy in the Church and a Power in the State they aim at nothing in their Preachings but the Glory of God and the Salvation of Mankind He commands also That they should abstain from all calumniating of those Churches which either were not subject to their Jurisdiction nor were not lawfully convicted of the Crime of Heresie which he resolved not to connive at for the time to come but to proceed unto the punishment of all those who wilfully should refuse to conform themselves to his Will and Pleasure After which giving them some good Counsel for following a more moderate course in their Preachings and Writings than they had been accustomed to in the times fore-going and in all points to be obedient to their principal Magistrate he pulls off the Disguise and speaks plainly thus 16. These are saith he the Heads of that Reformation which is to be observed in all the Churches of Brandenbourgh that is to say All Images Statua's and Crosses to be removed out of the place of publick Meetings all Altars as the Relicks of Popery and purposely erected for the Sacrifices of the Popish Mass to be taken away that in their room they should set up a Table of a long square Figure covered at all times with a Carpet of Black and at the time of the Communion with a Linnen Cloth That Wafers should be used instead of the former Hosts which being cut into long pieces should be received and broken by the hands of those who were admitted to communicate at the holy Table That ordinary Cups should be made use of for the future instead of the old Popish Chalice That the Vestments used in the Mass should be forborn no Candles lighted in any of their Churches at noon-day No Napkin to be held to those that received the Sacrament nor any of them to receive it upon their knees as if Christ were corporally present The sign of the Cross to be from thenceforth discontinued The Minister not to turn his back to the people at the Ministration The Prayers and Epistles before the Sermon to be from thenceforth read not sung and the said Prayers not to be muttered with a low voice in the Pulpit or Reading-Pew but pronounced audibly and distinctly Auricular Confession to be laid aside and the Communion not to be administred to sick persons in the time of any common Plague or Contagious Sickness No bowing of their knee at the Name of Iesus Nor Fonts of stone to be retained in their Churches the want whereof may be supplied by a common Bason The Decalogue to be repeated wholly without mutilation and the Catechism in some other points no less erroneous to be corrected and amended The Trinity to be adored but not exprest in any Images either carved or painted The words of Consecration in the holy Supper to be interpreted and understood according unto that Analogy which they held with the Sacrament and other Texts of holy Scripture And finally That the Ministers should not be so tyed to preach upon the Gospels and Epistles that were appointed for the day but that they might make choice of any other Text of Scriptures as best pleased themselves Such was the tenour of this Edict on which I have insisted the more at large to show the difference between the Lutheran and Genevian Churches and the great correspondence of the first with the Church of England But this Calvinian Pill did not work so kindly as not to stirr more Humours than it could remove For the Lutherans being in possession would not deliver up their Churches or desert those Usages to which they had been trained up and in which they were principled according to the Rules of their first Reformation And hereupon some Rupture was like to grow betwixt the young Marquess and his Subjects if by the intervention of some honest Patriots it had not been closed up in this manner or to this effect That the Lutheran Forms only should be used in all the Churches of the Marquissate for the contentation of the people and that the Marquess should have the exercise of his new Religion for Himself his Lady and those of his Opinion in their private Chappels 17. But the
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-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