of which two Prayers both for Words and Matter wholly left unto the building of the Preacher but the whole action to be sanctified by the singing of Psalms At all such Prayers the people to kneel reverently upon their knees In the Administration of Baptism a Declaration to be made in a certain Form not onely of the promises of the Grace of God but also of the Mysteries of that holy Sacrament Sureties or Witnesses to be required at the Baptizing of Infants The Lords Supper to be Ministred on the Lords day at the Morning-Sermon and that in sitting at the Table for no other gesture is allowed of the men sit first and the women after or below them which though it might pass well in the Gallick Churches would hardly down without much chewing by the Wives of England The publication of intended Marriages which we call the bidding of the Bains to be made openly in the Church and the said Marriages to be solemnized with Exhortation and Prayer No Holy-days at all allowed of nothing directed in relation unto Christian Burials or the visiting of the Sick or to the Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth all which were pretermitted as either superstitious or impertinent Actions 14. That naked Form of Worship which Calvin had devised for the Church of Geneva not beautified with any of those outward Ornaments which make Religion estimable in the sight of the people and by the which the mindes of men are raised to a contemplation of the glorious Majesty which they come together to adore All ancient Forms and Ceremonies which had been recommended to the use of the Church even from the times of the Apostles rejected totally as contracting some filth and rubbish in the times of Popery without being called to answer for themselves or defend their innocencie And as for the habit of the Ministry whether Sacred or Civil as there was no course taken by the Rules of their Discipline or by the Rubricks of the book of their publick Offices so did they by themselves and their Emissaries endeavour to discountenance and discredit all other Churches in which distinct Vestures were retained Whence came those manifold quarrels against Coaps and Surplices as also against the Caps Gowns and Tippets of the lower Clergie the Rochets and Chimeres of the Bishops wherewith for more then twenty years they exercised the patience of the Church of England But naked as it was and utterly void of all outward Ornaments this Form of Worship looked so lovely in the eyes of Calvin that he endeavoured to obtrude it on all Churches else Having first setled his new Discipline in the Town of Geneva Anno 1541 and crusht Perinus and the rest in the dancing business about five years after he thought himself to be of such confidence that no Church was to be reformed but by his advice Upon which ground of self-opinion he makes an offer of himself to Archbishop Cranmer as soon as he had heard of the Reformation which was here intended but Cranmer knew the man and refused the offer Which though it was enough to have kept him from venturing any further in the business and affairs of England yet he resoved to be of counsel in all matters whether called or not And therefore having taken Order with Martin Bucer on his first coming into England to give him some account of the English Liturgie he had no sooner satisfied himself in the sight thereof but he makes presently his exceptions and demurs upon it which afterwards became the sole ground of those many troubles those horrible disorders and confusions wherewith his Faction have involved the Church of England from that time to this 15. For presently on the account which he received of the English Liturgy he writes back to Bucer whom he requireth to be instant with the Lord Protector that all such Rites as savoured of superstition might be taken away and how far that might reach we may easily guess Next he dispatched a long Letter to the Protector himself in which he makes many exceptions against the Liturgie as namely against Commemoration of the dead which he acknowledgeth notwithstanding to be ancient also against Chrisme or Oyl in Baptism and the Apostolical Rite of Extream Vnction though the last be rather permitted then required by the Rules of that Book which said he wisheth that all these Ceremonies should be abrogated and that withal he should go forward to reform the Church without fear or wit without regard of peace at home or correspondencie abroad such considerations being onely to be had in Civil matters but not in matters of the Church wherein not any thing is to be exacted which is not warranted by the Word and in the managing whereof saith he there is not any thing more distasteful in the eyes of God then worldly Wisdom either in moderating cutting off or going backward but meerly as we are directed by his will revealed In the next place he toucheth on the Book of Homilies which very faintly he permits for a season onely but not allows of and thereby gave the hint to many others who ever since almost have declaimed against them But finding nothing to be done by the Lord Protector he tryes his Fortune with the King and with the Lords of the Council and is resolved to venture once again on Archbishop Cranmer In his Letter to the King he lets him know that in the State of the Kingdom there were many things which required a present Reformation in that to the most Reverend Cranmer that in the Service of this Church there was remaining a whole Mass of Popery which seemed not onely to deface but in a manner to destroy Gods publick Worship and finally in those to the Lords of the Council that they needed some excitements to go forwards with the Work in hand in reference to the Alteration for that I take to be his aim of the publick Liturgie 16. But not content to tamper by his Letters with those Eminent Persons he had his Agents in the Court the City the Uversities the Country and the Convocation all of them practising in their distinct and proper Circuits to bring the people to dislike that Form of Worship which at the first was looked on by them as an Heavenly Treasure composed by the especial aid of the Holy Ghost Their Actings of this kinde for bringing down the Communion-Table decrying the Reverent use of Kneeling at the Participation inveighing against the sign of the Cross abolishing all distinction of days and times into Fasts and Festivals with many others of that nature I purposely omit till I come to England Let it suffice that by the eagerness of their sollicitations more then for any thing which could be faulted in the book it self it was brought under a review and thereby altered to a further distance then it had before from the Rituals of the Church of Rome But though it had much
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-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
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
History OF THE PRESBYTERIANS LIB X. Containing A Relation of their Plots and Practises in the Realm of England Their horrible Insolencies Treasons and Seditions in the Kingdom of Scotland from the Year 1595 to the Year 1603. THE English Puritans having sped so ill in a course of violence were grown so wise as to endeavour the subverting of that Fort by an undermining which they had no hope to take by storm or battery And the first course they fell upon besides the Artifices lately mentioned for altering the posture of the Preacher in the Spittle-Sermons and that which was intended as a consequent to it was the Design of Dr. Bound though rather carried under his Name than of his devising for lessening by degrees the Reputation of the ancient Festivals The Brethren had tryed many ways to suppress them formerly as having too much in them of the Superstitions of the Church of Rome but they had found no way succesful till they fell on this which was To set on foot some new Sabbath-Doctrine and by advancing the Authority of the Lord's-Day Sabbath to cry down the rest Some had been hammering on this Anvil ten years before and had procured the Mayor and Aldermen of London to present a Petition to the Queen for the suppressing of all Plays and Interludes on the Sabbath-day as they pleased to call it within the Liberties of their City The gaining of which point made them hope for more and secretly to retail those Speculations which afterward Bound sold in gross by publishing his Treatise of the Sabbath which came out this year 1595. And as this Book was published for other Reasons so more particularly for decrying the yearly-Festivals as appears by this passage in the same viz. That he seeth not where the Lord hath given any Authority to his Church ordinarily and perpetually to sanctifie any day except that which he hath sanctified himself And makes it an especial Argument Argument against the goodness of Religion in the Church of Rome That to the Seventh-day they had joyned so many other days and made them equal with the Seventh if not superior thereunto as well in the solemnity of Divine Offices as restraint from labour So that we may perceive by this what their intent was from the very beginning To cry down the Holy-days as superstitious Popish Ordinances that so their new-found Sabbath being left alone and Sabbath now it must be called might become more eminent Some other Ends they might have in it as The compelling of all persons of what rank soever to submit themselves unto the yoak of their Sabbath-rigors whom they despaired of bringing under their Presbyteries Of which more hereafter 2. Now for the Doctrine it was marshalled in these Positions that is to say That the Commandment of sanctifying every Seventh day as in the Mosaical Decalogue is Natural Moral and Perpetual That when all other things in the Jewish Church were so changed that they were clean taken away this stands the observation of the Sabbath And though Jewish and Rabinical this Doctrine was it carried a fair shew of Piety at the least in the opinion of the common people and such as did not stand to examine the true grounds thereof but took it up on the appearance such as did judg thereof not by the workmanship of the Stuff but the gloss and colour In which it is not strange to see how suddenly men were induced not only to give way unto it but without more 〈…〉 the same till in the end and that in very little time it grew the most bewitching error the most popular infatuation that ever wa◠infused into the people of England For what did follow hereupon but such monstrous Paradoxes and those delivered in the Pulpit as would make every good man tremble at the hearing of them It being preached at a Market-Town as my Author tells me That to do any servile work or business on the Lord's day was as great a sin as to kill a man or commit Adultery In Somersetshire That to throw a Bowl on the Lord's day was as great a sin as to kill a man In Norfolk That to make a Feast or dress a Wedding-Dinner on the same was as great a sin as for a Father to take a Knife and cut his Child's throat And in Suffolk That to ring more Bells than one on the Lord's day was as great a sin as to commit a Murther Some of which Preachers being complained of occasioned a more strict enquiry into all the rest and not into their Persons only but their Books and Pamphlets insomuch that both Arch-bishop Whitgift and Chief Justice Popham commanded these Books to be called in and neither to be Printed nor made common for the time to come Which strict proceedings notwithstanding this Doctrine became more dispersed than can be imagined and possibly might encrease the more for the opposition no System of Divinity no Book of Catechetical Doctrine from thenceforth published in which these Sabbath-Speculations were not pressed on the People's Consciences 3. Endearing of which Doctrines as formerly to advance their Elderships they spared no place or Text of Scripture where the Word Elder did occurre and without going to the Heralds had framed a Pedigree thereof from Iethro from Noah's Ark and from Adam finally So did these men proceed in their new Devices publishing out of Holy Writ both the Antiquity and the Authority of their Sabbath-day No passage of God's Book unransacked where there was mention of a Sabbath whether the Legal Sabbath charged upon the Iews or the Spiritual Sabbath of the Soul from sin which was not fitted and applied to the present purpose though if examined as it ought with no lesse reason than Paveant illi non paveam Ego was by an ignorant Priest alledged from Scripture to prove that his Parishioners ought to pave the Chancel And on the confidence of those Proofs they did presume exceedingly of their success by reason of the general entertainment which those Doctrines found with the common people who looked upon them with as much regard and no less reverence than if they had been sent immediately from the Heavens themselves for encrease of Piety Possest with which they greedily swallowed down the Hook which was baited for them 4. A Hook indeed which had so fastned them to those men who love to fish in troubled waters that by this Artifice there was no small hope conceived amongst them to fortifie their Side and make good that Cause which till this trim Device was so thought of was almost grown desperate By means whereof they btought so great a bondage on all sorts of people that a greater never was imposed on the Iews themselves though they had pinned their Consciences on the Sleeves of the Scribes and Pharises But then withall by bringing all sorts of people into such a bondage they did so much improve their Power and encrease their Party that they were able at the last to oppose
gave notice to the several Ministers of the present Dangers and advised them to excite their Flocks to be in readiness to the end they might oppose these Resolutions of the King and Council as far as lawfully they might A day was also set apart for Humiliation and Order given to the Presbyteries to excommunicate all such as either harboured any of the Popish Lords or kept company with them and this Excommunication to be passed summarily on the first Citation because the safety of the Church seemed to be in danger which was the mischief by the King suspected under that Reserve They appointed also that sixteen of their Company should remain at Edenborough according to the number of the Tribunes at Paris who together with some of the Presbytery of that City should be called The Council of the Kirk That four or five of the said sixteen should attend Monthly on the Service in their turns and courses and that they should convene every day with some of that Presbytery to receive such Advertisements as should be sent from other places and thereupon take counsel of the best Expedients that could be offered in the case And for the first Essay of their new Authority the Lord Seaton President of the Sessions appears before them transmitted unto their Tribunal by the Synod of Lothian for keeping intelligence with the Earl of Huntley From which with many affectations having purged himself he was most graciously dismist Which though the King beheld as an Example of most dangerous consequence yet being willing to hold fair with the Kirk he connived at it till he perceived them to be fixed on so high a pin so cross to his Commands and Purposes that it was time to take them down He therefore signifies to them once for all That there could be no hope of any right understanding to be had between them during the keeping up of two Jurisdictions neither depending on the otherâ— That in their Preachings they did censure the Affairs of the State and Council convocate several Assemblies without his Licenses and there conclude what they thought good without his Allowance and Approbation That in their Synods Presbyteries and particular Sessions they embraced all manner of business under colour of scandal and that without redress of these Misdemeanors there either was no hope of a good Agreement or that the said Agreement when made could be long kept by either Party 21. The Ministers on the other side had their Grievances also that is to say The Favours extended by his Majesty to the Popish Lords the inviting of the Lady Huntley to the Baptism of the Princess Elizabeth being then at hand the committing of the Princess to the Custody of the Lady Levingston and the â—estrangement of his Countenance from themselves And though the King gave very satisfactory Answers to all these Complaints yet could not the suspitions of the Kirk be thereby removed every day bringing forth some great cry or other That the Papists were favoured in the Court The Miâ—â—â—ters troubled for the free rebuke of sin and the Scepter of Christ's Kingdom sought to be overthrown In the mean time it hapned that one David Blake one of the Ministers of St. Andrews had in a Sermon uttered divers Seditioâ—s Speeches of the King and Queen as also against the Council and the Lords of the Session but more particularly that as all Kings were the Devils Barns so the heart of K. IAMES was full of Treachery That the Queen was not to be prayed for but for fashion-sake because they knew that she would never do them good That the Lords of the Council were corrupt and takers of Bribes and that the Queen of England was an Atheist one of no Religion Notice whereof being given to the English Ambassador he complains of it to the King and Blake is cited to appear before the Lords of the Council Melvin makes this a common Cause and gives it out That this was only done upon design against the Ministers to bring their Doctrine under the censure and controlment of the King and Council or at the least a meer device to divert the Ministers from prosecuting their just Suit against the coming and reception of the Popish Lords and that if Blake or any other should submit their Doctrines to the tryal of the King and Council the Liberties of the Kirk would be quite subverted By which means he prevailed so far on the rest of the Council I mean the Council of the Kirk that they sent certain of their number to intercede in the business and to declare how ill it might be taken with all sorts of people if the Ministers should now be called in question for such trifling matters when the Enemies of the Truth were both spared and countenanced But not being able by this means to delay the Censure it was advised that Blake should make his Declinatour renounce the King and Council as incompetent Judges and wholly put himself upon tryal of his own Presbytery Which though it seemed a dangerous course by most sober men yet was it carryed by the major part of the Voices as the Cause of God 22. Encouraged by this general Vote and enflamed by Melvin he presents his Declinatour with great confidence at his next appearance And when he was interrogated amongst other things Whether the King might not as well judg in matters of Treason as the Kirk of Heresie He answered That supposing he had spoken Treason yet could he not be first judged by the King and Council till the Kirk had taken cognizance of it In maintenance of which proceeding the Commissioners of the Kirk direct their Letters to all the Presbyteries of the kingdom requiring them to subscribe the said Declinatour to recommend the Cause in their Prayers to God and to stir up their several Flocks in defence thereof This puts the King to the necessity of publishing his Proclamation of the Month of November In which he first lays down the great and manifold encroachments of this new Tribunal to the overthrow of his Authority The sending of the Declinatour to be subscribed generally by all the Ministers The convocating of the Subjects to assist their proceedings as if they had no Lord or Superior over them and in the mean time that the Ministers forsake their Flocks to wait on these Commissioners and attend their service which being said he doth thereby charge the said Commissioners from acting any thing according to that deputation commanding them to leave Edenborough to repair to their several Flocks and to return no more for keeping such unlawful Meetings under pain of Rebellion He published another Proclamation at the same time also by which all Barons Gentlemen and other Subjects were commanded not to joyn with any of the Ministry either in their Presbyteries Synods or other Ecclesiastical Assemblies without his License Which notwithstanding he was willing to revoke those Edicts and remit his Action against Blake if the Church would either
wave the Declinatour or if they would declare at the least That it was not a general but a particular Declinatour used in the case of Mr. Blake as being in a case of Slander and therefore appertaining to the Church's Cognizance But these proud men either upon some confidence of another Bothwell or else presuming that the King was not of a Spirit to hold out against them or otherwise infatuated to their own destruction resolved That both their Pulpits and their Preachers too should be exempted totally from the King's Authority In which brave humour they return this Answer to his Proposition That they resolved to stand to their Declinatour unless the King would pass from the Summons and remitting the pursuit to the Ecclesiastical Judg That no Minister should be charged for his Preaching at least before the meeting of the next general Assembly which should be in their Power to call as they saw occasion Which Answer so displeased the King that he charged the Commissioners of the Kirk to depart the Town and by a new Summons citeth Blake to appear on the last of November This fills the Pulpit with Invectives against the King and that too on the day of the Princess's Christning at what time many Noble men were called to Edenborough to attend that Solemnity With whose consent it was declared at Blake's next appearance That the Crimes and Accusations charged in the Bill were Treasonable and Seditious and that his Majesty his Council and all other Judges substitute by his Authority were competent Judges in all matters either Criminal or Civil as well to Ministers as to other Subjects Yet still the King was willing to give over the Chase makes them another gracious Offer treats privately with some Chiefs amongst them and seems contented to revoke his two Proclamations if Blake would only come before the Lords of the Council and there acknowledg his offence against the Queen But when this would not be accepted the Court proceeds unto the Examination of Witnesses And upon proof of all the Articles objected Sentence was given against him to this effect That he should be confined beyond the North water enter into Ward within six days and there remain till his Majesty's pleasure should be further signified Some Overtures were made after this for an Accommodation But the King not being able to gain any reason from them sends their Commissioners out of the Town and presently commands That Twenty four of the most Seditious persons in Edenborough should forsake the City hoping to find the rest more cool and tractable when these Incendiaries were dismissed 23. The Preachers of the City notwithstanding take fire up on it and the next day excite the Noble-men assembled at the Sermon upon Sunday the fifteenth of December to joyn with them in a Petition to the King To preserve Religion Which being presented in a rude and disorderly manner the King demands by what Authoririty they durst convene together without his leave We dare do more than this said the Lord of Lindsey and will not suffer our Religion to be overthrown Which said he returns unto the Church stirrs up the people to a tumult and makes himself the Head of a Factious Rabble who crying out The Sword of the Lord and Gideon thronged in great numbers to the place in which the King had locked himself for his greater safety the doors whereof they questionless had forced open and done some out-rage to his Person if a few honest men had not stopt their Fury The Lord-Provost of the City notwithstanding he was then sick and kept his Bed applied his best endeavours to appease the Tumult and with some difficulty brought the people to lay down their Arms which gave the King an opportunity to retire to his Palace where with great fear he passed over all the rest of that day The next morning he removes with his Court and Council to the Town of Lintithgoe and from thence publisheth a Proclamation to this effect viz. That the Lords of the Session the Sheriffs Commissioners and Justices with their several Members and Deputies should remove themselves forth of the Town of Edenborough and be in readiness to go to any such place as should be appointed and that all Noble-men and Barons should return unto their Houses and not presume to convene in that or in any other place without License under pain of his Majesty's Displeasure The Preachers on the contrary are resolved to keep up the Cause to call their Friends together and unite their Party and were upon the point of Excommunicating certain Lords of the Council if some more sober than the rest had not held their hands 24. In which confusion of Affairs they indict a Fast For a preparatory whereunto a Sermon is preached by one Welch in the chief Church of that City Who taking for his Theam the Epistle sent to the Angel oâ— the Church of Ephesus did pitifully rail against the King saying That he was possessed with a Devil and that one Devil being put out seven worse were entred in the place and that the Subjects might lawfully rise and take the Sword out of his hands Which last he confirmed by the Example of a Father that falling into a Phrensie might be taken by the Children and Servants of the Family and tyed hand and foot from doing violence Which brings into my mind an usual saying of that King to this effect viz. That for the twelve last years of his living in Scotland he used to pray upon his knees before every Sermon That he might hear nothing from the Preacher which might justly grieve him and that the case was so well altered when he was in England that he was used to pray that he might profit by what he heard But all exorbitancy of Power is of short continuance especially if abused to Pride and Arrogance The madness of the Presbyterians was now come to the height and therefore in the course of Nature was to have a fall and this the King resolves to give them or to lose his Crown He had before been so afflicted with continual Baffles that he was many times upon the point of leaving Scotland putting himself into the Seignury of Venice and living there in the capacity of a Gentleman so they call the Patricians of that Noble City And questionless he had put that purpose in execution if the hopes of coming one day to the Crown of England had not been some temptation to him to ride out the storm But now a Sword is put into his hands by the Preachers themselves wherewith he is enabled to cut the Gordian-knot of their Plots and Practises which he was not able to untye For not contented to have raised the former Tumults they keep the Noble-men together invite the people to their aid and write their Letters to the Lord of Hamilton to repair unto them and make himself the Head of their Association A Copy of which Letter being showed unto the King by that
49. Such being the issue of the Warr let us next look upon the Presbyterians in the acts of Peace in which they threatned more destruction to the Church than the Warr it self As soon as they had setled the strict keeping of the Lord's-day-Sabbath suppressed the publick Liturgy and imposed the Directory they gave command to their Divines of the Assembly to set themselves upon the making a new Confession The Nine and thirty Articles of the Church of England were either thought to have too much of the ancient Fathers or too little of Calvin and therefore fit to be reviewed or else laid aside And at the first their Journey-men began with a Review and fitted Fourteen of the Articles to their own conceptions but in the end despairing of the like success in all the rest they gave over that impertinent labour and found it a more easie task to conceive a new than to accommodate the old Confession to their private Fancies And in this new Confession they establish the Morality of their Lord's-day-Sabbath declare the Pope to be the Antichrist the Son of Perdition and the Man of Sin And therein also interweave the Calvinian Rigours in reference to the absolute Decree of Predestination Grace Free-will c. But knowing that they served such Masters as were resolved to part with no one Branch of their own Authority they attribute a Power to the Civil Magistrate not only of calling Synods and Church-Assemblies but also of being present at them and to provide that whatsoever is therein contracted be done agreebly to the Mind and Will of God But as to the matter of Church-Government the Divine Right of their Presbyteries the setting of Christ upon his Throne the Parity or Imparity of Ministers in the Church of Christ not a word delivered Their mighty Masters were not then resolved upon those particulars and it was fit the Holy Ghost should stay their leisure and not inspire their Journey-men with any other Instruction than what was sent them from the Houses 50. But this Confession though imperfect and performed by halves was offered in the way of an Humble Advice to the Lords and Commons that by the omnipotency of an Ordinance it might pass for currant and be received for the established Doctrine of the Church of England The like was done also in the tendry of their Larger Catechism which seems to be nothing in a manner but the setting out of their Confession in another dress and putting it into the form of Questions and Answers that so it might appear to be somewhat else than indeed it was But being somewhat of the largest to be taught in Schools and somewhat of the hardest to be learned by Children it was brought afterwards into an Epitome commonly called The lesser Catechism and by the Authors recommended to the use of the Church as far more Orthodox than Nowel's more clear than that contained in the Common-Prayer-Book and not inferior to the Palatine or Genevian Forms But in all three they held forth such a Doctrine touching God's Decrees that they gave occasion of reviving the old Blastian Heresie in making God to be the Author of Sin Which Doctrine being new published in a Pamphlet entituled Comfort for Believers in their Sins and Troubles gave such a hot Alarm to all the Calvinists in the new Assembly that they procured it to be burnt by the hands of the Hangman But first they thought it necessary to prepare the way to that execution by publishing in print their detestation of that abominable and blasphemous Opinion That God hath a hand in and is the Author of the sinfulness of his people as the Title tells us So that now Calvin's Followers may sleep supinely without regard to the reproaches of uncivil men who had upbraided them with maintaining such blasphemous Doctrine The Reverend Divines of the Assembly have absolved them from it and showed their Detestation of it and who dares charge it on them for the time to come 51. But these things possibly were acted as they were Calvinians and perhaps Sabbatarians also and no more than so And therefore we must next see what they do on the score of Presbytery for setting up whereof they had took the Covenant called in the Scots and more insisted on the abolition of the Episcopal Function than any other of the Propositions which more concern them To this they made their way in those Demands which they sent to Oxon the Ordinance for Ordination of Ministers and their advancing of the Directory in the fall of the Liturgy They had also voted down the Calling of Bishops in the House of Commons on Septemb. 8. 1642 and caused the passing of that Vote to be solemnized with Bells and Bonfires in the streets of London as if the whole City was as much concerned in it as some Factious Citizens But knowing that little was to be effected by the Propositions and much less by their Votes they put them both into a Bill which past the House of Peers on the third of February some two days after they had tendred their Proposals to the King at Oxon. And by that Bill it was desired to be Enacted That from the Fifth of November the day designed for the blowing up the Parliament by the Gun-powder-Traytors which should be in the year of our Lord 1643 there should be no Archbishops Bishops Commissaries c. with all their Train recited in the Oxon Article Numb 21. in the Church of England That from thenceforth the Name Title and Function of Arch-Bishops Bishops Chancellors c. or likewise the having using or exercising any Iurisdiction Office and Authority by reason or colour of any such Name Dignity or Function in the Realm of England should utterly and for ever cease And that the King might yeeld the sooner to the Alteration they tempt him to it with a Clause therein contained for putting him into the actual possession of all the Castles Mannors Lands Tenements and Hereditaments belonging to the said Arch-bishops or Bishops or to any of them And for the Lands of Deans and Chapters the Brethren had a hope to parcel them amongst themselves under the colour of encouraging and maintaining of a Preaching-Ministry some sorry pittance being allowed to the old Proprietaries and some short Pension during life to the several Bishops 52. Such was the tenour of the Bill which found no better entertainment than their Propositions So that despairing of obtaining the King's consent to advance Presbytery they resolved to do it of themselves but not till they had broken the King's Forces at the Battel of Naisby For on the nineteenth of August then next following they publish Directions in the name of the Lords and Commons after advice with their Divines of the Assembly for the chusing of RVLING-ELDERS in all the Congregations and in the Classical Assemblies for the Cities of London and Westminster and the several Counties of the Kingdom in order to the speedy setling of Presbyterial
the Government both of Church and State Some Hugonots which afterwards were took in Gascoyne and by the Marshal of Monluck were exposed to torture are said to have confessed upon the Rack that it was really intended to kill the King together with the Queen and the two young Princes and having so cut off the whole Royal Line to set the Crown upon the head of the Prince of Conde But Charity and Christianity bids me think the contrary and to esteem of this report as a Popish Calumny devised of purpose to create the greater hatred against the Authors of those Wars 27. But whether it were true or not certain it is that the design was carryed with such care and closeness that the Queen had hardly time enough to retire to Meux a little Town twelve Leagues from Paris before the whole Body of the Hugonots appeared in sight from whence they were with no less difficulty conducted by the Switz whom they had suddenly drawn together to the Walls of Paris the Switz being charged upon the way by no fewer then eleven hundred Horse and D' Andelot in the head of one of the parties but gallantly making good their March and serving to the King and the Royal Family for a Tower or Fortress no sooner were they come to Paris but the Hugonots take a resolution to besiege the City before the Kings Forces could assemble to relieve the same To which end they possessed themselves of all the passes upon the River by which provisions came into it and burned down all the Wind-mills about the Town which otherwise might serve for the grinding of such Corn as was then within it No better way could be devised to break this blow then to entertain them with a Parley for an accommodation not without giving them some hope of yeilding unto any conditions which could be reasonably required But the Hugonots were so exorbitant in their demands that nothing would content them but the removing of the Queen from publick Government the present disbanding of the Kings Forces the sending of all strangers out of the Kingdom a punctual execution of the Kings Edict of Ianuary liberty for their Ministers to Preach in all places even in Paris it self and finally that Calice Metz and Havre-de-grace might be consigâ—ed unto them for Towns of caution but in plain truth to serve them for the bringing in of the English and Germans when their occasion so required The Treaty notwithstanding was continued by the Queen with great dexterity till the King had drawn together sixteen thousand men with whom the Constable gives battel to the Enemy on the 10 of November compels them to dislodge makes himself master of the Field but dyed the next day after in the eightieth year of his age having received his deaths wound from the hands of a Switz who most unmanfully shot him when he was not in condition to make any resistance 28. In the mean time the City of Orleance was surprised by the Hugonots with many places of great importance in most parts of the Realm which serving rather to distract then increase their Forces they were necessitated to seek out for some Forraign aid Not having confidence enough to apply themselves to the Queen of England whom in the business of Newhaven they had so betrayed they send their Agents to sollicite the Elector Palatine and prevailed with him for an Army of seven thousand Horse and four thousand Foot to which the miserable Country is again exposed Encouraged with which great supplies they laid Siege to Chartres the principal City of La Beaue the loss whereof must of necessity have subjected the Parisians to the last extremities The chief Commanders in the Kings Army were exceeding earnest to have given them battel thereby to force them from the Siege But the Queen not willing to venture the whole State of the Kingdom upon one cast of the Dice especially against such desperate Gamesters who had nothing to lose but that which they carryed in their hands so plyed them with new Offers for accommodation that her conditions were accepted and the Germans once again disbanded and sent back to their Country During which broyls the Town of Rochel strongly sâ—ituated on a bay of the Ocean had declared for the Hugonots and as it seems had gone so far that they had left themselves no way to retreat And therefore when most other places had submitted to the late Accord the Rochellers were resolved to stand it out and neither to admit a Garrison nor to submit to any Governour of the Kings appointment in which rebellious obstinacy they continued about sixty years the Town being worthily esteemed for the safest sanctuary to which the Hugonots retired in all times of dangeâ— and most commodious for the letting in of a forraign army when they found any ready to befriend them in that cause and quarrel The standing out of which Town in such obstinate manner not only encouraged many others to doe the like but by the fame thereof drew thither both the Admiral and the Prince of Conde with many other Gentlemen of the Hugonot Faction there to consult about renewing of the war which they were resolved on To whom repaired the Queen of Navarre with the Prince her Son then being but fifteen years of age whom she desired to train up in that holy war upon an hope that he might one day come to be the head of that party as he after was And here being met they publish from hence two several Manifests one in the name of all the Hugonots in general the other in the name of that Queen alone both tending to the same effect that is to say the putting of some specious colour upon their defection and to excuse the breaking of the peace established by the necessity of a warre 29. This rapture so incensed the King and his Council that they resolved no longer to make use of such gentle medicines as had been formerly applyed in the like distempers which resolution was the parent of that terrible Edict by which the King doth first revoke all the former Edicts which had been made during his minority in favour of the Reformed Religion nullifying more particularly the last capitulations made only in the way of Provision to redress those mischiefs for which no other course could be then resolved on And that being done it was ordained and commanded That the exercise of any other Religion then the Roman Catholick ever observed by him and the King his Predecessors should be prohibited and expresly forbidden and interdicted in all places of the Kingdom banished all the Calvinist Ministers and Preachers out of all the Towns and places under his Dominion and within fifteen days upon pain of death to avoid the Realm pardoned through special grace all things past in matters of Religion but requiring for the future under pain of death a general Conformity to the Rites of the Catholick Church and finally ordained that no person should
the chief Church of Heidelberg the principal City of the lower Palatinate and the chief Seat of his 〈◊〉 The news whereof encouraged all the rest of the Protestant Princes to congratulate with him and to desire him to embrace the Confession of Ausberge to which he readâ—ly accorded and setled all things in his Countries by the Lutheran Model as well for Government and Doctrine as for Forms of Worship In which condition it continued during the residue of his life and the short Government of Otho-Henry who succeeded him in those Estates and was the last of the direct Line of the House of Bavaria After whose death Anno 1559 succeeded Frederick Duke of Simmeren descended from Steven Palatine of Zuidbrook or Bipont younger son of the Emperour Rupert From whom the Princes of the other House had delivered their Pedigree Which Prince succeeding by the name of Frederick the Third appeared more favourable to the Zuinglian then the Lutheran Forms animated thereunto by some â—eedy Courtiers in hope to make a prey of â—lebe and Tythes and other poor remainders of the Churches Patrimony 2. For the advancing of this Work Gualâ—er a very moderate and learned man is desired from Zurick and cheerfully undertakes the Service in which he prospered so well that he took off most of the Princes from their former opinions and brought them to conform their judgements in all points of Doctrine to the Confession of the Switzer or Helvetian Churches The Discipline of which Churches differed at that time from Calâ—ins Platform as appears clearly by some passages in a Letter of Bullingers bearing date Decemb. 13. 1553 when Calvin was necessitated to beg some tolerable approbation of his new Device For there it is expresly said that though their Discipline at Zurick and the rest of the Cantons agreed not in all points with that of the Consistory which had been setled at Geneva but was accommodated to the temper of their own Dominions yet they desired not the subversion of Calvins Model which seemed so necessary at that time for the Town of Geneva that they advised not to have it altered But more particularly it appears by Beza in the life of Calvin and by the Letter of Ligerus before remembred that Excommunications were not used in any of the Reformed Churches whether they were of Lutheran or Zuinglian judgement But scarce had Gualter so setled Zuinglianism in the Church of Heidelberg and those which did depend upon it when a bold Challenger from Geneva deâ—ies them all and undertakes to prove this Proposition in the publick Schools That to a Minister assisted with the help of his Eldership doth appertain the power of Excommunication by the Law of God Hereupon followed that famous Disputation in the Schools of Heidelberg the substance whereof we finde drawn up in Vrsines Catechism from pag. 835. to pag. 847. of the English Edition By which it doth appear that the name of the Respondent was George Withers a Native of England and that one Peter Boquine was the Moderator and therefore Withers must be taken to have made the Challenge The Theses then maintained by Withers were these two that follow viz That to the sincere preaching of the Word and the lawful administration of the Sacraments is required an Office or Power of Government in the Church 2. That a Minister with his Eldership ought to enjoy and exercise a Power of Convicting Reproving Excommunicating and Executing any part of Ecclesiastical Discipline or any Offenders whatsoever even on Princes themselves 3. The Arguments by which the Respondent was assaulted together with the answers which were made unto them were taken by the pen of Vrsine a Divine of Heidelberg who was present at the Disputation and by his means transmitted to the use of the Church the Title of his Abstract this viz. 〈◊〉 Arguments assoyled whereby some in a publiâ—k Disputation held in Heidelberg 1568 June 10. Dr. Peter Boquine being Moderator and Mr. George Withers English man Respondent endeavoured to abolish Ecclesiastical Discipline Which Arguments and their solutions were taken word for word from the mouth of Dr. Ursine at the repetition of this disputation on the next day privately made in Colleg. Sapient For further satisfaction I refer the Reader to the Book it self and shall now onely add this note viz. that as the Arguments were not found sufficient to beat down that power which Christ had left unto his Church for excommunicating scandalous and notoriâ—us sinners so neither were the Answers strong enough to preserve Lay-elders in the possession of a power that belonged not to them Which was in time the issue of the disputation which afterwards was so hotly followed between Theodore Beza on the one side and Dr. Thomas Erastus whom Calvin mentioneth in his Epistle to Olerianus Doctor of Physick on the other Beza evincing the necessity of Excommunication in the Church of Christ and Erastus proving nothing to the contrary but that Lay-elders were not necessary to the exercise of it Which disputation lasted long and effected little managed on both sides in Printed Tractates the last of which was that of Beza first published at Geneva reprinted afterwards at London An. 1590. But in the mean time the Genevian Discipline was admitted in both Palatinates the Country divided into Classes and Synodical meetings those Classes subdivided into their Presbyteries and each Presbytery furnished with a power of Excommunication and exercising such Church-censures as the Fact required But then we are to know withal that those wise Princes being loath to leave too much Authority in the hands of the Elderships with whose encroachments on the power of the Civil Magistrate they were well acquainted appointed some Superiour Officers of their own nomination to sit as Chief amongst them without whom nothing could be done and they were sure that by them nothing would be done which either might intrench upon their Authority or their people's Liberty A temperament for which they were beholden to the said Erastus who being a Doctor of Physick as before was noted devised this Pill to purge Presbytery of some Popish humours which secretly lay hid in the body of it 4. The like alloy was mixed with the Genevian Discipline in the Churches of Hassia Nassaw and those other petite Estates and Signories which make up the Confederacie of the Wetterâ—vians Which having once received the Doctrine of Zuinglius did shortly after entertain the Calvinian Elderships but moderated and restrained in those Exorbitancies which the Presbyterians actually committed in the Realm of Scotland and in most places else subjected unto their Authority But in regard the Palatine Churches are esteemed as a Rule to the rest the rest of Germany I mean in all points of Doctrine and that the publick Catechism thereof is generally reckoneâ— for Authentick not onely in the Churches of the Higher Germany but in the Netherland-Churches also it will not be amiss to take notice of them in such Doctrinal Points
Blessed Virgin and that too on the very Festival of her Assumption when the like outrages were committed in other places For not content to jeer and taunt them in the Streets as they passed along they follow them into the principal Church of that City where first they fall to words and from words to blows and from blows to wounds to the great scandal of Religion and the unpardonable prophanation of that holy Place 31. But this was onely an Essay of the following mischief For on the same day Sennight being not onely more numerous but better armed they flocked to the same Church at the Evening-Service which being ended they compel the people to forsake the place and possess themselves of it Having made fast the Doors for fear that some disturbance might break in upon them one of them begins to sing a Psalm in Marots Meter wherein he is followed by the rest that such a holy exercise as they were resolved on might not be undertook without some preparation which fit of Devotion being over they first pulled down a massie Image of the Virgin afterwards the Image of Christ and such other Saints as they found advanced there on their several Pedestals some of them treading them underfoot some thrusting Swords into their sides and others hagling of their Heads with Bills and Axes In which work as many were imployed in most parts of the Church so others got upon the Altars cast down the sacred Plate defaced the Pictures and disfigured the paintings on the Walls whilst some with Ladders climbed the Organs which they broke in pieces and others with like horrible violence destroyed the Images in the Windows or rather brake the Windows in despight of the Images The Consecrated Host they took out of the Pixes and trampled under their feet carouse such Wine as they brought with them in the sacred Chalices and greased their shooes with that Chrysome or anoynting Oyl which was prepared for some Ceremonies to be used at Baptism and in the visiting of the sick And this they did with such dispatch that one of the fairest Churches in Europe richly adorned with Statues and massie Images of Brass and Marble and having in it no fewer then seventy Altars was in the space of four hours defaced so miserably that there was nothing to be seen in it of the former beauties Proud of which fortunate success they brake into all other Churches of that City where they acted over the same spoils and outragious insolencies and afterwards forcing open the doors of Monasteries and Religious Houses they carryed away all their Consecrated Furniture entred their Store-houses seized on their Meat and drank off their Wine and took from them all their Money Plate and Wardrobes both Sacred and Civil not sparing any publick Library wheresoever they came a ruine not to be repaired but with infinite sums the havock which they made in the great Church onely being valued at four hundred thousand Ducates by indifferent rates The like outrages they committed at the same time in Gaunt and Oudenard and all the Villages about them the severalties whereof would make up a Volume let it suffice that in the Province of Flanders onely no fewer then four hundred Consecrated places were in the space of ten days thus defaced and some of them burnt down to the very ground 32. The news of these intolerable outrages being posted one after another to the Court at Brussels occasioned the Governess when it was too late to see her errour in sending back her Spanish Souldiers and yeilding to the improvident dismission of the prudent Cardinal by whose Authority and Counsel she had so happily preserved those Provinces in peace and quiet and then she found that she had good reason to believe all the information which Count Mansfield gave her touching a plot of the Calvinian party in France from whence came most of these new Preachers to imbroyl the Netherlands which till that time she looked on as a groundless jealousie But as it is in some Diseases that when they are easie to be cured they are hard to be known and when they are easie to be known they are hard to be cured so fared it at that time with these distempers in the Belgick Provinces which now were grown unto that height that it was very difficult if not almost impossible to finde out a remedy For having called together the great Council of State and acquainted them with the particulars before remembred she found the Counts of Mansfield Aremberg and Barlamont cheerfully offering their assistance to reduce the people to obedience by force of Arms but Egmont Horne and Orange whose Brother Count Lodowick was suspected for a chief contriver of the present mischief of a contrary judgement so that she could proceed no further and indeed she durst not for presently a secret Rumour was dispersed that if she did not so far gratifie the Covenanters and their adherents that every man might have liberty to go to Sermons and no man be punished for Religion she should immediately see all the Churches in Brussels fired the Priests murthered and her self imprisoned For fear whereof though she took all safe courses for her own security yet she found none so safe as the granting of some of their demands to the Chief Conspirators by which the Provinces for the present did enjoy some quiet But this was onely like an Intermission in the fit of an Ague For presently hereupon she received advertisement that those of the Reformed party were not onely suffered to take unto themselves some Churches in Machlin Antwerp and Tournay which till then had never been permitted but that at Vtrecht they had driven the Catholicks out of their Churches and at the Bosch had forced the Bishop to forsake the City as their holy Fathers in Geneva had done before them And in a word to make up the measure of her sorrows and compleat their insolencies she had intelligence of the like Tumult raised at Amsterdam where some of the Reforming Rabble had broken into a Monastery of the Franciscans defaced all Consecrated things beat and stoned out the Religious persons not without wounding some of the principal Senators who opposed their doings 33. Provoked with these indignities she resolves upon the last remedy which was to bring them to obedience by force of Arms and therein she had no small encouragement from the King himself and good assurance of assistances from such Princes of Germany as still adhered unto the Pope The news whereof so startâ—es the chief of the Covenanters that they enter into consultation of Electing a new Prince or putting themselves under the power of some potent Monarch by whom they might be countenanced against their King and priviledged in the cojoyment of their Religion It was advised also that three thousand Books of Calvinian Doctrine should be sent into Spain and dispersed in the chief Cities of it to the end that whiâ—st the King was busied in looking to his
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
Pastimes and that the afternoon was spent in such imployment as was most suitable to the condition of each several man Nor was the morning so devoted to Religious uses but that in some of their good Towns they kept upon that day the ordinary Fairs and Markets Kirk-Masses as they commonly called them which must needs draw away a great part of the people to attend those businesses to which their several Trades and Occupations did most especially oblige them What alterations hapned in the change of times we shall see hereafter 64. Nor was that portion of the day which they were pleased to set apart for Religious Duties observed with much more reverence by those in the Church then it was by others in the Market the head uncovered very seldom and the knee so little used to kneeling as if God had created it for no such purpose And whereas once Tertullian did upbraid the Gentiles for their irreverence in sitting before some of those Gods whom they pretended to adore so might this people be reproached for using the same posture in all acts of Worship but that they do it purposely to avoid all outward signes of Adoration even in the Sacrament of the Supper in which it cannot be denyed but that our Saviour is more eminently present then in any other Divine Ordinance of what name soever they are so fearful of relapsing to their old Idolatries if by that name they may be called that they chuse rather to receive it in any posture sitting or standing yea or walking then reverently upon their knees For so they have ordained it in another Synod mentioned by Daniel Angelocratur in his Epitome Consiliorum By the decrees whereof it was left at liberty to receive that Sacrament standing sitting or walking but by no means kneeling And kneeling was prohibited Ob 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 periculum for fear of falling into a new kinde of Idolatry which was never thought of in the world till they found it out that is to say Bread-worship or the Adoration of Bread it self The Conference at Hampton-Court hath told us somewhat but obscurely of these Ambling-Communions but I never understood them rightly till I saw this Canon For Canon they will have it called though most uncanonical More of the like stuff might be produced from the Acts of their Synods but that this little is too much to inform the Reader how different they are both in their Discipline and Doctrine in point of speculation and matter of practice from that which was most countenanced by the piety of the Primitive times and recommended to them by the constant and uniform tradition of the ages following 65. As is their work such is the wages they received and as the reverence is which they give to Christ in his holy Sacrament such is the honour which is paid them by the common people They had abolished the daily Sacrifice of Praise and Prayer which might have been continued though the Mass was abrogated disclaimed the hearing of Confessions the visitation of the Sick and Sacerdotal Absolution as inconsistent with the purity of their Profession took away all the annual Festivals with their Eves and Vigils and in a word reduced the whole Service of their Ministry to the Sunday-Morning Which hardly taking up the tenth part of time expended formerly by the Priests on Religious Offices they were so conscientious as to rest contented with little more then the tenth part of those yearly profits which by the Priest had been received They had besides so often preached down Tythes as a Iewish maintainance improper and unfit for Ministers of the holy Gospel when they were paid unto the Clergy of the Church of Rome that at the last the people took them at their word believe them to be so indeed and are spurred on the faster to a change of Religion in which they saw some glimmering of a present profit Of these mistakes the Prince of Orange was too wise not to make advantage giving assurance â—o the Land-holders and Country-Villagers that if they stood to him in the Wars against the Spaniard they should from thenceforth pay no Tythes unto their Ministers as before they did The Tythes in the mean time to be brought into the common Treasury toward the charges of the War the Ministers to be maintained by contributions at an easie rate But when the War was come to so fair an issue that they thought to be exempted from the payment of Tythes answer was made that they should pay none to the Ministers as they had done formerly whereby their Ministers in effect were become their Masters but that the Tythes were so considerable a Revenue to the Common-wealth that the State could not possibly subsist without them that therefore they must be content to pay them to the States Commissioners as they had done hitherto and that the State would take due care to maintain a Ministry By means whereof they do not only pay their Tythes as in former times but seeing how much the publick allowance of the State doth come short of a competencie thoughby that name they please to call it they are constrained as it were out of common charity if not compelled thereto by order to contribute over and above with the rest of the people for the improvement and increase of the Ministers maintainance But as they Bake so let them Brew to make good the Proverb And so I leave them for the present till we have traced the Presbyterian practices and positions both in England and Scotlâ—nd but in Scotland first to that point of time to which we have deduced their successes in these Belgick Provinces and then we shall hear further of them as they come in our way The end of the third Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB IV. Containing Their beginning Progress and Positions their dangerous Practices Insurrections and Conspiracies in the Realm of Scotland from the year 1544 to the year 1566. 1. CRoss we next over into Scotland where the Genevian Principles were first reduced into use and practice In which respect the Presbyterians of that Realm should have had precedencie in the present story not onâ—ly before any of their Brethren in the Belgick Provinces but even before the French themselves though nearest both in scituation and affection to the Mother-City For though the Emissaries â—f Geneva had long been tampering with that active and unquiet people yet such a strict hand was held upon them both by Francis the First and Henry the Second his Successor that they durst not stir till by the death of those two Kings they found the way more free and open to pursue those counsels which by the industry of those men had been put into them before which time the Scots had acted over all those Tumults Riots and Rebellions in which not long after they were followed by the French and Netherlands But howsoever I have purposely reserved them to this time and
rest and with the rest released upon the Peace made between France and England at the delivering up of Bulloigne from whence he past over into England where he was first made Preacher at Barwick next at New-castle afterwards to some Church of London and finally in some other places of the South so that removing like our late Itinerants from one Church to another as he could meet with entertainment he kept himself within that Sanctuary till the death of King Edward and then betook himself to Geneva for his private Studies From hence he published his desperate Doctrine of Predestination which he makes not onely to be an impulsive to but the compulsive cause of mens sins and mens wickednesses From hence he published his trayterous and seditious Pamphlet entituled The first blast of the Trumpet in which he writes most bitterly amongst other things against the Regiment of Women aiming therein particularly at the two Mâ—ries Queens of Scotland Queen Mary of England and Mary Qâ—eâ—n Dowager of Hungary Governess of the Low-Countries for Charles the Fifth and finally from hence he published another of the like nature entituled An Admonition to Christians In which he makes the Emperour Charles to be worlâ— then Nero and Mary Queen of England nothing better then Iesabel According to which good beginning he calls her in his History but not published hence that Idolatrous and Mischievous Mary of the Spaniards bloud a cruel persecutrix of Gods people as the Acts of her unhappy Reign did sufficiently witness In which he comes as close to Calvin as could be desired 5. By this means he grew great with Calvin and the most leading men of the Consistorians who looked upon him as a proper Engine to advance their purposes But long he had not stayed amongst them when he received an invitation from some Friends of his of the same temper and affections as it after proved to take charge of the Church of Frankfort to which some learned men and others of the English Nation had retired themselves in the Reign of Queen Mary which call he first communicated unto Calvin by whose encouragement and perswasion he accepted of it and by his coming rather multiplyed then appeased the quarrels which he found amongst them But siding with the inconformable party and knowing so much of Calvins minde touching the Liturgie and Rites of the Church of England he would by no means be perswaded to officiate by it and for that cause was forced by Dr. Cox and others of the Learned men who remained there to forsake the place as hath been shewn at large in another place Outed at Frankfort he returns again to his Friends at Geneva and being furnished with instructions for his future carriage in the cause of his Ministry he prepares for his journey into Scotland passeth to Dieppe form thence to England and at last came a welcome man to his Native Country which he found miserably divided into sides and factions Mary their Infant Queen had been transported into France at six years of age the Regency taken from Iames Earl of Arran given to Mary of â—orraign the Queens Mother not well obeyed by many of the Nâ—bility and great men of the Country but openly opposed and reviled by those who seemed to be inclinable to the Reformation To these men Knox applyed himself with all caâ—e and cunning preaching from place to place and from house to house as opportunity was given him In which he gathered many Churches and set up many Congregations as if he had been the Apâ—stle-General of the Kirk of Scotland in all points holding a conformity unto Calvins Platform even to the singing of Davids Psalms in the English Meter the onely Musick he allowed of in Gods publick Service From Villages and private Houses he ventured into some of the great Towns and more eminent Cities and at the last appeared in Edenborough it self preaching in all and ministring the Communion in many places as he saw occasion This was sufficient to have raised a greater storm against him then he could have been able to indure but he must make it worse by a new provocation For at the perswasion of the Earl of Glencarne and some others of his principal followers he writes a long Letter to the Queen Regent in which he earnestly perswades her to give ear to the Word of God according as it was then preached by himself and others which Letter being communicated by the Queen to the Archbishop of Glasco and dispersed in several Copies by Knox himself gave such a hot Alarm to the Bishops and Clergy that he was cited to appear in Blackfryars Church in Edenborough on the 15 of May and though upon advertisement that he came accompanied with so great a train that it could not be safe for them to proceed against him he was not troubled at that time yet he perceived that having made the Queen his enemy he could not hope to remain longer in that Kingdom but first or last he must needs fall in their hands 6. But so it happened that when he was in the midst of these perplexities he received a Letter from the Schismatical English which repaired to Geneva when they had lost all hope of putting down the English Liturgie in the Church of Frankfort by which he was invited to return to his former charge this Letter he communicated to his principal Friends resolves to entertain the offer and prepares all things for his journey And to say truth it was but time that he should set forwards for the danger followed him so close that within few days after his departure he was condemned for not appearing and burnt in his Effigies at the Cross in Edenborough But first he walks his round visits all his Churches takes a more solemn farewel of his especial Friends and having left sufficient instructions with them for carrying on the Reformation in despite of Authority in the latter end of Iuly he sets sail for France His party was by this time grown strong and numerous resolved to follow such directions as he left behind him To which encouraged by the preaching of one Willock whom Knox had more especially recommended to them in the time of his absence they stole away the Images out of most of their Churches and were so venturous as to take down the great Image of St. Gyles in the chief Church of Edenborough which they drowned first in the Northlake and burnt it afterwards But this was but a Prologue to the following Comedy The Festival of St. Gyles draws near in which the Image of that Saint was to be carryed through the chief Streets of Edenborough in a solemn Procession attended by all the Priests Fryars and other Religious persons about that City another Image is borrowed from the Gray-Fryars to supply the place and for the honour of the day the Queen Regent her self was pleased to make one in the Pageant But no sooner was she retired to her private repose when a
utterly to destroy the Town Man Woman and Childe to consume the same with â—ire and after to sow Salt upon it in signe of perpetual desolation And it is possible she might have been as good as her word if the Earl of Glencarne the Lords Vchiltrie and Boyd the young Sheriff of Air and many other men of eminent Quality attended by two thousand five hundred Horse and Foot had not come very opportunely to the aid of their Brethren Perth being thus preserved from the threatned danger but forced to receive a Garrison of the Queens appointment Knox leaves the Town and goes in company with the Earl of Arguile and the Lord Iames Steward toward the City of St. Andrews In the way to which he preached at a Town called Craâ—le inveighs most bitterly against such French Forces as had been sent thither under the Command of Monsieur d' Osselle exhorting his Auditors in fine to joyn together as one man till all strangers were expulsed the Kingdom and either to prepare themselves to live like men or to dye victorious Which exhortation so prevailed upon most of the hearers that immediately they betook themselves to the pulling down of Altars and Images and finally destroyed all Monuments of Superstition and Idolatry which they found in the Town The like they did the next day at a place called Anstruther From thence they march unto St. Andrews in the parish-Parishâ—Church whereof Knox preached upon our Saviours casting the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple and with his wonted Rhetorick so inflamed the people that they committed the like outrages there as before at Perth destroying Images and pulling down the Houses of the Black and Gray-fryars with the like dispatch This happened upon the 11 of Iune And because it could not be supposed but that the Queen would make some use of her French Forces to Chastise the chief Ring-leaders of that Sedition the Brethren of the Congregation flock so fast unto them that before Tuesday night no fewer then three thousand able men from the parts adjoyning were come to Cooper to their aid By the accession of which strength they first secured themselves by a Capitulation from any danger by the French and then proceeded to the removing of the Queens Garrison out of Perth which they also effected Freed from which yâ—ke some of the Towns-men joyning themselves with those of Dundee make an assault upon the Monastery of Scone famous of long time for the Coronation of the Kings of Scotland and for that cause more sumptuously adorned and more richly furnished then any other in the Kingdom And though the Noblemen and even Knox himself endeavoured to appease the people and to stop their fury that so the place might be preserved yet all endeavours proved in vain or were coldly followed So that in fine a ter some spoyl made in defacing of Images and digging up great quantity of hidden goods which were buried there to be preserved in expectation of a better day they committed the whole House to the Mercie of Fire the flame whereof gave grief to some and joy to others of St. Iohn stones scituate not above a Mile from that famous Abby 14. They had no sooner plaid this prize but some of the Chiefs of them were advertised that Queen Regent had a purpose of putting some French Forces into Sterling the better to cut off all intercourse and mutual succours which those of the Congregation on each side of the Fryth might otherwise have of one another For the preventing of which mischief the Earl of Arguile and the Lord Iames Steward were dispatched away Whose coming so inflamed the zeal of the furious multitude that they pulled down all the Monasteries which were in the Town demolished all the Altars and defaced all the Images in the Churches of it The Abbey of Cambuskenneth near adjoyning to it was then ruined also Which good success encouraged them to go on to Edenborough that the like Reformation might be made in the capital City Taking Linlithgow in their way they committed the like spoyl there as before at Sterling but were prevented of the glory which they chiefly aimed at in the Saccage of Edenborough Upon the news of their approach though their whole Train exceeded not three hundred persons the Queen Regent with great fear retires to Dunbar and the Lord Seaton being then Provest of the Town staid not long behind But he was scarce gone out of the City when the Rascal Rabble fell on the Religious Houses destroyed the Covents of the Black and Gray-fryars with all the other Monasteries about the Town and shared amongst them all the goods which they found in those Houses In which they made such quick dispatch that they had finished that part of the Reformation before the two Lords and their attendants could come in to help them 15. The Queen Regent neither able to endure these outrages nor of sufficient power to prevent or punish them conceived it most expedient to allay these humours for the present by some gentle Lenitive that she might hope the better to extinguish them in the time to come which when she had endeavoured but with no effect she caused a Proclamation to be published in the name of the King and Queen in which it was declared That she perceived a seditious Tumult to be raised by a part of the Lieges who named themselves the Congregation and under pretence of Religion had taken Arms Thâ—t by the advice of the Lords of the Council for satisfying every mans Conscience and pacifying the present troubles she had made offer to call a Parliament in January then following but would call it sooner if they pleased for establishing an Vniversal Order in Affairs of Religion That in the mean time every man should be suffered to live at liberty using their own Consciences without trouble until further order That those who called themselves of the Congregation rejecting all reasonable offers had made it manifest by their actions that they did not so much seek for satisfaction in point of Religion as the subversion of the Crown For proof whereof she instanced in some secret intelligence which they had in England seizing the Irons of the Mans and Coyning Money that being one of the principal Iewels of the Royal Diadem In which regard she straightly willeth and commandeth all manner of persons not being Inhabitants of the City to depart from Edenborough within six hours after publication thereof and live obedient to her Authority except they would be holden and reputed Traytors 16. This Proclamation they encountred with another which they published in their own names for satisfaction of the people some of which had begun to shrink from them at the noise of the former And â—herein they made known to all whom it may concern That such crimes as they were charged with never entred into their hearts That they had no other intention then to banish Idolatry to advance true Religion and to defend the Preachers
France for demolishing all Religious Houses and other Monuments of Superstition and Idolatry Under which name all the Cathedrals were interpreted to be contained and by that means involved in the general ruine onely the Church at Glasco did escape that storm and remained till this time undefaced in its former glory But now becomes a very great eye-sore to Andrew Melvin by whose practices and sollicitations it was agreed unto by some Zealous Magistrates that it should forthwith be demolished that the materials of it should be used for the building of some lesser Churches in that City for the ease of the people and that such Masons Quarriers and other Workmen whose service was requisite thereunto should be in readiness for that purpose at the day appointed The Arguments which he used to perswade those Magistrates to this Act of Ruine were the resorting of some people to that Church for their private Devotions the huge vastness of the Fabrick which made it incommodious in respect of hearing and especially the removing of that old Idolatrous Monument which only was kept up in despite of the Zeal and Piety of their first Reformers But the business was not carried so closely as not to come unto the knowledge of the Crafts of the City who though they were all sufficiently Zealous in the cause of Religion were not so mad as to deprive their City of so great an Ornament And they agreed so well together that when the Work-men were beginning to assemble themselves to speed the business they made a tumult took up Arms and resolutely swore that whosoever pulled down the first stone should be buried under it The Work-men upon this are discharged by the Magistrates and the people complained of to the King for the insurrections The King upon the hearing of it receives the actors in that business into his protection allows the opposition they had made and layes command upon the Ministers who had appeared most eager in the prosecution not to meddle any more in that business or any other of that nature adding withal that too many Churches in that Kingdom were destroyed already and that he would not tolerate any more abuses of such ill example 40. The King for matter of his Book had been committed to the institution of George Buchanan a most fiery and seditious Calvinist to moderate whose heats was added Mr. Peter Young father of the late Dean of Winchester a more temperate and sober man whom he very much esteemed and honoured with Knighthood and afterwards preferred to the Mastership of St. Cross in England But he received his Principles for maâ—ter of State from such of his Council as were most tender of the pubâ—lick interest of their Native Country By whom but most especially by the Earl of Morton he was so well instructed that he was able to distinguish between the Zeal of some in promoting the Reformed Religion and the madness or sollies of some others who practised to introduce their innovations under that pretence Upon which grounds of State and Prudence he gave order to the general Assembly sitting at this time not to make any alteration in the Polity of the Church as then it stood but to suffer things to continue in the state they were till the following Parliament to the end that the determinations of the three Estates might not be any ways prejudged by their conclusions But they neglecting the command look back upon the late proceedings which were held at Stirling where many of the most material points in the Book of Discipline were demurred upon And thereupon it was ordained that nothing should be altered in Form or Matter which in that Book had been concluded by themselves With which the King was so displeased that from that time he gave less countenance to the Ministers then he had done formerly And to the end that they might see what need they had of their Princes favour he suffered divers sentences to be past at the Council Table for the suspending of their Censures and Excommunications when any matter of complaint was heard against them But they go forwards howsoever confirmed and animated by a Discourse of Theodore Beza which came out this year entituled De Triplici Episcopatu In which he takes notice of three sorts of Bishops the Bishop of Divine Institution which he makes to be no other then the ordinary Minister of a particular Congregation the Bishop of humane Constitution that is to say the President or Moderator in the Church-assemblies and last of all the Devils Bishop such as were then placed in a perpetual Authority over a Diocesâ— or Province in most parts of Christendom under which last capacity they beheld their Bishops in the Kirk of Scotland And in the next Assembly held at Dundee in Iuly following it was concluded That the Office of a Bishop as it was then used and commonly taken in that Realm had neither foundation ground nor warrant in the holy Scriptures And thereupon it was decreed That all persons either called unto that Office or which should hereafter be called unto it should be required to renounce the same as an Office unto which they are not warranted by the Word of God But because some more moderate men in the next Assembly held at Glasgow did raise a scruple touching that part of the Decree in which it was affirmed That the calling of Bishops was not warranted by the Word of God it was first declared by the Assembly that they had no other meaning in that Expression then to condemn the estate of Bishops as they then stood in Scotland With which the said moderate men did not seem contented but desired that the conclusion of the matter might be respited to another time by reason of the inconvenience which might ensue They are cryed down by all the rest with great heat and violence insomuch that it was proposed by one Montgomery Minister of Stirling that some Censure might be laid on those who had spoken in defence of that corrupted estate Nay such was the extream hatred to that Sacred Function in the said Assembly at Dundee that they stayed not here They added to the former a Decree more strange inserting That they should desist and cease from Preaching ministring the Sacraments or using in any sort of Office of a Pastor in the Church of Christ till by some General Assembly they were De Novo Authorized and admitted to it no lower Censure then that of Excommunication if they did the contrary As for the Patrimony of the Church which still remained in their hands it was resolved that the next General Assembly should dispose thereof 49. There hapned at this time an unexpected Revolution in the Court of Scotland which possibly might animate them to these high presumptions It had been the great Master-piece of the Earl of Morton in the time of his Regency to fasten his dependance most specially on the Queen of England without which he saw it was impossible to preserve
to redound unto him by his Letter to the Lord Protector he sets upon the King himself and tells him plainly that there were many things amiss which required Reformation In his Letters unto the King and Council as he writes to Bullinger he had excited them to proceed in the good work which they had begun that is to say that they should so proceed as he had directed With Cranmer he is more particular and tells him in plain terms That in the Liturgie of this Church as then it stood there remained a whole mass of Popery which did not onely blemish but destroy Gods Publick Worship But fearing he might not edifie with the godly King assisted by so wise a Council and such Learned Prelates he hath his Emissaries in the Court and amongst the Clergie his Agents in the City and Countrey his Intelligencers one Monsieur Nicholas amongst the rest in the University All of them active and industrious to advance his purposes but none more mischievously practical then Iohn Alasco a Polonian born but a profest Calvian both in Doctrine and Forms of Worship who coming out of Poland with a mixed Congregation under pretence of being forced to fly their Countrey for professing the Reformed Religion were gratified with the Church of Augustine-Fryers in London for their publick use and therein suffered to enjoy their own way both in Worship and Government though in both exceeding different from the Rules of this Church In many Churches of this Realm the Altars were left standing as in former times and in the rest the holy Table was placed Altar-wiâ—e at the East-end of the Quire But by his party in the Court he procures an Order from the Lords of the Council for causing the said Table to be removed and to be placed in the middle of the Church or Chancel like a common Table It was the usage of this Church to give the holy Sacrament unto none but such as kneeled at the participation according to the pious order of the primitive times But Iohn Alasco coming out of Poland where the Arrians who deny the Divinity of Christ our Saviour had introduced the use of â—itting brought that irreverend custom into England with him And not content with giving scandal to this Church by the use thereof in his own Congregâ—tion he publisheth a Pamphlet in defence of that irreverend and sawey gesture because most proper for a Supper The Liturgie had appointed several Offices for many of the Festivals observed in the most regular times of Christianity Some of the Clergy in the Convocation must be set on work to question the conveniencie if not the lawfulness of those observations considering that all days are alike and therefore to be equally regarded in a Church Reformed And some there were which raised a scruple touching the words which were prescribed to be used in the delivery of the Bread and Wine to the Congregation 5. Not to proceed to more particulars let it suffice that these Emissaries did so ply their work by the continual solliciting of the King the Council and the Convocation that at the last the Book was brought to a review The product or result whereof was the second Liturgie confirmed in Parliament Anno 5 6 Edw. 6. By the tenour of which Act it may appear first that there was nothing contained in the said Book but what was agreeable to the Word of God and the Primitive Church very comfortable to all good people desiring to live in Christian conversation and most profitable to the Estate of this Realm And secondly That such doubts as had been raised in the use and exercise thereof proceeded rather from the curiosity of the Minister and Mistakers then of any other worthy cause And thereupon we may conclude that the first Liturgie was discontinued and the second superinduced upon it after this review to give satisfaction unto Calvins Cavils the curiosities of some and the mistakes of others of his Friends and Followers But yet this would nor serve the turn they must have all things modelled by the Form of Geneva or else no quiet to be had Which since they could not gain in England in the Reign of King Edward who did not long out-live the setling of the second Liturgie they are resolved more eagerly to pursue the project in a Foâ—reign Country during their exile and affliction in the Reign of Queen Mary Such of the English as retired to Embden Strasburg Basil or any other of the Free and Imperial Cities observed no Form of Worship in their Publick Meetings but this second Liturgie In contrary whereof such as approved not of that Liturgy when they were in England united themselves into a Church or Congregation in the City of Frankfort where they set up a mixt Form of their own devising but such as carried some resemblance to the Book of England Whittingham was the first who took upon himself the charge of this Congregation which after he resigned to Knox as the fitter man to carry on the work intended who having retired to Geneva on the death of King Edward and from thence published some tedious Pamphlets against the Regiment of Women and otherwise defamatory of the Emperour and the Queen of England was grown exceeding dear to Calvin and the rest of that Consistory By his indeavours and forwardness of too many of the Congregation that little which was used of the English Liturgie was quite laid aside and all things brought more near the Order which be found at Geneva though so much differing from that also as to intitle Knox for the Author of it 6. The noise of this great Innovation brings Gryndal and Chambers from the Church of Strasburg to set matters right By whom it was purposed that the substance of the English Book being still retained there might be a forbearance of some Ceremonies and Offices in it But Knox and Whittingham were as much bent against the substance of the Book as against any of the Circumstantials and Extrinsecals which belonged unto it So that no good effect following on this interposition the Agents of the Church of Strasburg return back to their brethren who by their Letters of the 13 of December expostulate in vain about it To put an end to these Disputes no better way could be devised by Knox and Whittingham then to require the countenance of Calvin which they thought would carry it To him they send an Abstract of the Book of England that by his positive and determinate Sentence which they presumed would be in favour of his own it might stand or fall And he returns this Answer to them That in the Book of England as by them described he had observed many tolerable Fooleries that though there was no manifest impiety yet it wanted much of that purity which was to be desired in it and that it contained many Relicts of the dregs of Popery and finally that though it was lawful to begin with such beggerly Rudiments yet it behooved
omit the incongruities of the Translation which King Iames judged to be the worst that he had ever seen in the English Tongue the Notes upon the same in many places savour of Sedition and in some of Faction destructive of the Persons and Powers of Kings and of all civil intercourse and humane society That Learned King hath told us in the Conference at Hampton-Court that the Notes on the Genevian Bible were partial untrue seditious and savouring too much of dangerous and trayterous conceits For proof whereof he instanced in the Note of Exod. 1. v. 19. where they allow of disobedience unto Kings and Soveraign Princes And secondly in that on 2 Chron. 8.15 16. where Asa is taxed for not putting his Mother to death but deposing her onely from the Regency which before she executed Of which last note the Scotish Presbyterians made especial use not onely in deposing Mary their lawful Queen but prosecuting her openly and under-hand till they had took away her life And to this too he might have added that on Matth. 2.12 where it is said that Promise ought not be kept where Gods honor and preaching of his truth is hindred or else it ought not to be broken Which opens a wide gap to the breach of all Oaths Covenants Contracts and Agreements not onely between man and man but between Kings and their Subjects For what man can be safe or King secure what Promise can oblige or what Contract bind or what Oath tye a man to his Faith and duty if on pretence of Gods honor or the propagating of his truth he may lawfully break it And yet this Doctrine passed so currantly amongst the French that it was positively affirmed by Eusebius Philadelphus whosoever he was That Queen Elizabeth was no more bound to keep the League which she had made and sworn with Charles IX because forsooth the preaching of the Gospel might be hindred by it then Herod was obliged to keep the Oath which he had sworn to the Dancing-Harlot Follow them to Rev. 9. and they will tell us in their Notes upon that Chapter that by the Locusts which came out of the smoak are meant false Teachers Hereticks and worldly subtile Prelates with Monks Fryers Cardinals Patriarchs Archbishops Bishops Doctors Batchelors and Masters To which though they subjoyn these words viz. Which forsake Christ to maintain false Doctrine yet lays it a disgrace on all Archbishops and Bishops and on all such as take Academical degrees by bringing them under the name of Locusts and joyning them with Monks and Friers whom they beheld no otherwise then as Limbs of Antichrist Which being the design of their Annotations agreeable to Calvins Doctrine in reference to Civil Ecclesiastical Government there is no doubt but that they come up roundly to him in reference to Predestination and the points appendant for which I shall refer the Reader to the Notes themselves observing onely in this place that they exclude Christ and all his sufferings from being any way considerable in mans Election which they found onely on the absolute will and pleasure of Almighty God but are content to make him an inferiour cause and onely an inferiour cause of a mans salvation For which consult them on Rom 9.15 16. Now with this Bible and these Notes which proved so advantagious to them in their main projectments they also brought in Davids Psalms in English metre of which they served themselves to some tune in the time succeeding Which device being first taken up by Clement Marot and continued afterwards by Beza as before is said was followed here in England by Thomas Sternhold in the Reign of King Edward and afterwards by Iohn Hopkins and some others who had retired unto Geneva in the time of Queen Mary Being there finished and printed at the end of their Bibles they were first recommended to the use of private Families next brought into the Church for an entertainment before the beginning of the Morning and Evening Service And finally published by themselves or at the end of the Psalter with this Declaration that they were set forth and allowed to be sung in all Churches before and after Morning and Evening Prayer as also before and after Sermons But first no such allowance can be found as is there pretended nor could be found when this allowance was disputed in the High Commission by such as have been most industrious and concerned in the search thereof And then whereas it is pretended that the said Psalms should be sung before and after Morning and Evening Prayer as also before and after Sermons which shews they were not to be intermingled with the Publick Liturgie in very little time they prevailed so far in most Parish-Churches as to thrust out the Te Deum and the Benedicite the Benedictus the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis quite out of the Church And thirdly by the practices and endeavours of the Puritan party who had an eye upon the usage of Geneva they came to be esteemed the most Divine part of Gods publick service the reading Psalms together with the first and second Lessons being heard in many places with a covered head but all men sitting bare-headed when the Psalm is sung And to that end the Parish-Clerk must be taught to call upon the people to sing it to the Praise and Glory God no such preparatory Exhortation being used at the naming of the Chapters or the daily Psalms 17. By these preparatives they hoped in time to bring in the whole body of Calvinism as well in reference to Government and forms of Worship as to points of Doctrine But then they were to stay their time and not to shew too much at once of the main designe but rather to divert on some other counsels The Liturgy was so well fortified by the Law and the Bishops so setled in their jurisdictions that it had been a madness to attempt on either till they should finde themselves increased both in power and number and that they had some Friend in Court not onely to excuse but defend their actions In which respect nothing seemed more expedient to them then to revive the Quarrels of King Edwards time about Caps and Tippets and other Vestments of the Clergy which had not the like Countenance from the Laws of the Land In which as they assured themselves of all help from the hands of Peter Martyr so they despaired not of obtaining the like from Calvin and Beza whensoever it should be required But as one Wave thrusts another forwards so this dispute brings in some others in which the judgement of Peter Martyr was demanded also that is to say concerning the Episcopal Habit the Patrimony of the Church the manner of proceedings to be held against Papists the Perambulation used in the rogation-Rogation-Week with many other points of the like condition Which Quarrels they pursued for five years together till the setling of that business by the Book of Advertisements Anno 1565. They also
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
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
prosecution of which work he commends to Iewel that by the interposing of his Authority they might be brought to yield to the points proposed and thereby be continued in the exercise of their Vocation Which last clause could not chuse but be exceeding acceptable to that Reverend Prelate who had shewed himself so earnest for Conformity in a Sermon preached by him at the Cross that he incurred some censure for it amongst the brethren Which put him to this Protestation before his death That his last Sermon at S. Pauls Cross and Conference about the Ceremonies and state of the Church was not to please any man living nor to grieve his brethren of a contrary opinion but onely to this end that neither party might prejudice the other But he was able to act nothing in pursuance of Zanchy's motion by reason of his death within few days after if not some days before he received that Letter For on the 22 of the same Moneth it pleased God to take him to himself and thereby to deprive the Church of the greatest Ornament which she could boast of in that age The end of the sixth Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB VII Containing A Relation of their secret and open Practices the Schism and Faction by them raised for advancing the Genevian Discipline in the Church of England from the year 1572 to the year 1584. 1. THe English Puritans had hitherto maintained their Quarrel by the Authority of Calvin the sawciness of Knox the bold activities of Beza and the more moderate interposings of some Forreign Divines whose name was great in all the Churches of the Reformation But now they are resolved to try it out by their proper valour to fling away their Bulrushes and lay by their Crutches or at the best to make no other use of Out-landish Forces then as Auxiliaries and Reserves if the worst should happen And hitherto they had appeared onely against Caps and Surplices or questioned some Rites and Ceremonies in the publick Liturgie which might be thought to have been borrowed from the Church of Rome But now they are resolved to venture on the Episcopal Government and to endeavour the erecting of the Presbyterian as time and opportunity should make way unto it Amongst which undertakers none more eminent because none more violent then Cartwright formerly remembred Snape of Northampton a great stickler for the holy Discipline and Feild a Lecturer in London as ridiculously zealous to advance Presbytery as the most forward in the pack But Cartwright was the man upon whose Parts and Learning they did most depend and one who both by private Letters and some Printed Pamphlets had gained more credit to the side then all the rest And yet it was amongst his own onely that he gained such credit For when his Papers had been shewn unto Bishop Iewel and that the Judgement of that Reverend and Learned Prelate was demanded of them he is said to have returned this answer That the Arguments therein contained were too slight to build up and too weak to pull down And so it proved in the event when Cartwrights whole discourses against the Forms of Government and Publick Worship here by Law established came to be seriously debated 2. For having been long great with Childe of some new designe the Babe comes forth in the beginning of the Parliament which was held in the year 1572 intituled by the name of an Admonition in which complaint was made of their many grievances together with a Declaration of the onely way to redress the same which they conceived to be no other then the setling of the Genevian Platform in all parts of the Kingdom But the Parliament was so little pleased with the Title and so much displeased with the matter of the Admonition that the Authors and Preferrers of it were imprisoned by them But this imprisonment could lay no Fetters on their spirits which grew the more exasperated because so restrained For towards the end of the Parliament out comes the second Admonition far more importunate then the first and it comes out with such a flash of Lightning and such claps of Thunder as if Heaven and Earth were presently to have met together In the first he had amassed together all those several Arguments which either his reading could afford or his wit suggest or any of that party could excogitate for him against the Government of Bishops the whole body of the English Liturgie and almost all the particular Offices in the same contained And in the second he not onely justified whatsoever had been found in the first but challenged the Parliament for not giving it a more gratious welcome For there he tells them in plain terms That the State did not shew it self upright alledge the Parliament what it will That all honest men should finde lack of equity and all good Consciences condemn that Court That it should be easier for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of Iudgement then for such a Parliament That there is no other thing to be looked for then some speedy vengeance to light upon the whole Land let the Politick Mâ—chiavils of England provide as well as they can though God do his worst And finally that if they of that Assembly would not follow the advice of the first Admonition they would infallibly be thâ—ir own carvers in it the Church being bound to keep Gods Ordeâ— and nothing to be called Gods Order but their present Platform 3. About this time Clark Travers Gardiner Barber Cheston and lastly Crook and Egerton joyned themselves to the Brotherhood Amongst whom the handling of such points as concerned the Discipline became very frequent many motions being made and some conclusions setled in pursuance of it but more particularly it was resolved upon the question That for as much as divers Books had been written and sundry Petitions exhibited to her Majesty the Parliament and their Lordships to little purpose every man should therefore labour by all means possible to bring the Reformation into the Church It was also then and there resolved That for the better bringing in of the said holy Discipline they should not onely as well publickly as privately teach it but by little and little as well as possibly they might draw the same into practice According to which Resolution a Presbytery was erected on the 20 of November at a small Village in Surrey called Wandsworth where Field had the Incumbencie or cure of Souls a place conveniently scituate for the London-Brethren as standing near the bank of the Thames but four miles from the City and more retired and out of sight then any of their own Churches about the Town This first Establishment they indorsed by the name of the Orders of Wandsworth In which the Elders names are agreed on the manner of the Election declared the approvers of them mentioned their Offices agreed on also and described And though the Queen might have no notice of this first
the 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
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
following and there received the Sentence of death in due form of Law But such was the exceeding Lenity of the good Arch-bishop that he looked more upon the Parts of the man than upon his Passions upon his Learning and Abilities though too much abused than the ill use that he made of them in those stirring-times And so far he engaged himself with his Royal Mistress who used to call him Her Black Husband that she gave way to a Reprieve though she could not easily be induced to grant a Pardon Which notwithstanding the Arch-bishop could not scape the lash of some virulent Tongues by whom he stood more accused for the Condemnation than he was magnified for the Reprieve of the man condemned And therefore it was after pleaded in his justification That Vdal's Book was clearly within the compass of the Statute 23 Eliz. cap. 2. for punishing Seditious words against the Queen according to the Resolution of the Judges before laid down That divers Seditious Sermons might have been objected against him as well as the making of that Book which would have rendred him more culpable in the sight of his Judges and that whereas one Catsfield could have spoken more materially against him than any of the rest of the Witnesses he was never called unto the Barr to give in his Evidence the Jurors being fully satisfied in the former Proofs So that the whole Indictment being rightly grounded the Prosecution favourable and the Evidence full the man remained a living-Monument of the Arch-bishop's extraordinary Goodness to him in the preserving of that Life which by the Law he had forfeited But how long he remained alive I am not able to say and therefore shall add only this That he left a Son behind called Ephraim who afterwards was Beneficed at the Church of St. Augustines near St. Paul's Church-yard and proved as great a Zealot for Conformity in the time of King CHARLES as his Father was reputed for his Non-conformity in the times we write of And he paid almost as deer for it as his Father did being sequestred about the year 1643 not submitting to some Oaths and Covenants then required of him his bed-rid Wife turned out of doors and left most unmercifully in the open Streets 13. Now whilst the State was taken up in these Criminal Processes the Learned men and others interessed on each side were no less busied in defence of their own Concernments Adrian Saravia born in the Lower-Germany but better studied in the Fathers than the most of his Rank had found by search into their Writings of what Antiquity and Necessity the Calling of Bishops had been reckoned in the Primitive times even in the days of the Apostles but finding no encouragement to maintain any such opinion in his Native Countrey where the Presbyteries governed all and Parity of Ministers was received as an Article of their publike Confession he put himself upon the Favour and Protection of the Church of England He had before fashioned his Reply to Beza's Book entituled De Triplici Episcopatu as before was said But the first Piece published by him on his coming hither was a right learned Work entituled De diversis gradibus Ministrorum Evangelii In which he proved by undeniable Arguments That Bishops were a different Order as well as by Degrees superior to all other Presbyters This Book he dedicates to the Ministers of the Belgick Churches as appears by his Epistle dated March 26 Anno 1590. Amongst whom though he could not hope for much approbation yet he received but little or no opposition But so it prov'd not at Geneva where Beza governed backed by Danaeus and the rest of the Consistorians who looked upon it as destructive to their whole Contrivements Beza had other Work in hand and therefore leaves him for the present to the lash of Danaeus who falls upon him with Reproaches instead of Arguments as Saravia complained in his Reply reckoning his Corpulency for a Crime calling him Swineherd Hog a man born only for the stuffing of a filthy paunch with many the like scurrilous strains of Genevian Rhetorick Beza comes slowly on but he comes at last not publishing his Answer to it till the third year after to which Saravia replies in the year next following Anno 1594. In which he made an exact parallel amongst other things betwixt the practises of Hacket and the Puritan Faction on the one side and those of Iohn of Leyden and the Anabaptists when they reigned in Munster In the end Beza gave him over which raised him to such eminent note with the English Prelates that he was made a Prebendary of the Church of Westminster and otherwise well provided for to his full contentment 14. In the mean time the Minister of the Italian Church in the City of London could not rest satisfied with the enjoying the same Priviledges which the French and Dutch Churches had before procured but published a Book in maintenance and commendation of the Holy Discipline which gave a just occasion to Dr. Matthew Suttliff then Dean of Exon to set out a judicious Work in Latin touching the nature of the truly Catholick and Christian Church wherein he grated somewhat hard on the point of Presbytery and was the first English man that did so in the Latin Tongue And though he named Beza only and no more than named him yet Beza thought his Name so sacred or himself so high that he conceived himself to be much dishonoured reproaches him by the name of a petulant Railer and complains of the affront in an Epistle to the Arch-bishop of Canterbury But he got nothing by the Bargain For as he was handsomely shaked up for it by Saravia in his Replication so the Arch-bishop in an Answer to the said Epistle dated in Ianuary 1593 severely reprehends him for his intermedling with the Church of England and plainly lays before him all those disturbances which by his means had been occasioned in the same so that being learnedly refuted by Saravia on the one side and gravely reprehended on the other by that Reverend Prelate he grows wise at last leaving the English Puritans to their own defences And more than so in his Reply to his last Letter he gives him his due Titles of the most Reverend Father in Christ and his honoured Lord assuring him That in all his writings touching Church-Government he impugned only the Romish Hierarchy but never intended to touch the Ecclesiastical Polity of this Church of England nor to exact of us to frame our selves or our Church to the pattern of their Presbyterian Discipline And thereunto he added this safe Conclusion That as long as the substance of Doctrine was uniform in the Church of Christ they may lawfully vary in other matters as the circumstance of time place and persons requires and as prescription of Antiquity may warrant And to that end he wished and hoped that the Sacred and Holy Colledges of Bishops for so he calls them would
so in himself he seemed not very ambitious of those glorious Attributes which could not otherwise be purchased than at Penry's Price 33. For now perceiving when too late to what calamitous and miserable Ends he had brought his Followers what horrible Confusions had disturbed the whole Church by his obstinate Follies he was contented to knock off and to give way to those Prudential Considerations which the complexion of Affairs did suggest unto him He saw too clearly that there were no more Walsinghams or Leicesters at the Council-Table That the Arch-bishops little finger moved more powerfully there than those few Friends which durst speak for him being put together That the Chief Justice Popham was a man of a ridged nature not to be trifled with or took off from the prosecution if he should come within the compass of the Law And finally that though the Statute made in the last Session seemed chiefly to relate unto the Brethren of the Separation yet there might be some way or other to hook in all the Zealots for the Discipline also if they did any thing in derogation of the present Government Of these Relentings some intelligence had been given to Arch-bishop Whitgift who thereupon resolved to work some impression on him when he found him like a piece of Wax well warmed and thereby sitted to receive it In which Resolution he applies himself unto the Queen from whose Clemency he not only obtained for him a release from Prison but made it the more comfortable by a gracious Pardon for all Errors past He suffered him moreover to return to Warwick where he was Master of the Hospital founded by the Earl of Leicester as before is said and there permitted him to preach though with this condition That he should neither Write nor Preach nor act in any thing to the disturbance of the Church either in reference to her Government or Forms of Worship And though it be affirmed That Cartwright kept himself within those Restrictions yet when the Queen had notice of it she was much displeased and not a little blamed the Arch-bishop for it But he beheld not Cartwright as he had done Travers though both pretending to the Ordination of a Forreign Presbytery For Travers never had any other Hands imposed on him than those of the Presbytery of Antwerp which might stand for nothing But Cartwright was first lawfully ordained in the Church of England the Character whereof could not be obliterated though it might possibly be defaced either by the Rescinding of his Letters of Orders which some say he did or by the super-addition of such other Hands as were laid upon him after the fashion of Geneva Neither was Cartwright so insensible of the Obligation as not to know and to acknowledg by whose Favour he received that Freedom carrying himself from that time forwards to the Arch-bishop both in his Letters and Addresses with as much respect as any of the Regular and Conformable Clergy continuing in that peaceable disposition till the time of his death which hapned about ten years after his enlargement that is to say on the 27 th day of December Anno 1603. 34. But the Arch-bishop stayed not here he knew right well that Punishment without Instruction would not edifie much with men of common understandings and therefore carefully employed both himself and others in giving satisfaction to all doubting-judgments For his own part he wrote this year his long and learned Letter to Theodore Beza which before we spake of and therein calmly laid before him that deplorable Rupture which not without his privity had been made in the Church of England Which point he prest upon him with such Christian Modesty and did withall so clearly justifie this Church in her whole proceedings that Beza could not but confess himself to be conquered by his future carriage which from thenceforth breathed nothing else but Peace to the Church it self and dutiful respects to that Reverend Prelate And for the satisfaction of all Parties interested amongst our selves a Book was published this year also by Dr. Thomas Bilson then Warden of the Colledg near Winchester concerning The perpetual Government of the Church of Christ proving therein That from the time of Christ himself till these latter days neither the Universal Church nor any National or Provincial Church in what place soever had been governed otherwise than by Bishops and their Under-Officers True other Books were published at the same time also by Dr. Richard Bancroft so often mentioned the one for the undeceiving of the people who had been miserably abused by such counterfeit Wares entituled A Survey of the pretended Holy Discipline The other to inform them in the Dangerous Positions and Proceedings published and practised in this Island of Britain under pretence of Reformation c. which was the Title of the Book The like course was also taken for the justification of the Bishops Courts by publishing the Apology of Dr. Cosens before remembred And because Hacket's Treasons had been built on no other Foundation than that the Holy Discipline might be raised upon them a Narrative thereof is penned by Dr. a Doctor of the Civil Laws collected for the most part out of the Letters and Confessions of some Disciplinarians which either had been intercepted or perswaded from them A course exceeding prosperous to all those whom it most concerned For the Arch-bishop by this means went in peace to his Grave Beza was gratified by him with a liberal Pension Bilson within a short while after made Bishop of Winchester Bancroft preferred about the same time to the See of London Cosens for his encouragement made Dean of the Arches 35. And though we find not any Preferment to be given to Cartwright yet was it a Preferment to him to enjoy his Ministry by means whereof he is affirmed to have grown very wealthy partly by the Revenues of his Place in the Hospital and partly by the Bounty and Munificence of his constant Auditors Only it is reported of him that towards his end he was afflicted with many infirmities insomuch that he could not otherwise apply himself unto his Studies than upon his knees which some were willing to impute as a judgment on him for having so bitterly inveighed against all such men as in that reverend and religious posture did receive the Sacrament Some also have informed us of him That notwithstanding all his Clamours and Tumultuous manner of proceedings against the Church he could not chuse but confess there was more Discipline exercised in the Church of England than in any of those Churches beyond Seas which himself had seen Which words as he is said to have spoken to one Mr. Woods then Parson of Freckenham in Norfolk during the time of his imprisonment in the Fleet so the said Woods reported them to Dr. Iohn Burges before-mentioned and from him I have them But I had brought the man to his Grave before and should not have disturbed his rest by these sad
remembrances if the Honour of the Church of England were not some way vindicated as well by the one as by the other Thus as before we brought the Presbyterians in Scotland to their greatest height in seeing their Discipline established by Laws and confirmed by Leagues so have we brought the English Puritans to their lowest fall by divers sharp Laws made against them some severe Executions done upon them for their transgressing of those Laws their principal Leaders humbled or cut off by the Sword of Justice and the whole Mackina of their Devices brought to utter ruine not the less active for all this to advance the Cause though after a more peaceful and more cunning way so much the more dangerous to this Church because less suspected but not so closely carried as to scape discovery And the first practise which they fell upon was this that followeth 36. It hath been an ancient Custom in the City of London to have three solemn Sermons preached on Monday Tuesday and Wednesday in the easter-Easter-week at the place commonly called the Spittle being a dissolved Hospital not far from Bishops-Gate at which the Lord Mayor and Aldermen used to be present in their Robes besides a great concourse of Divines Gentlemen and other Citizens For the performance of which Work a decent Pulpit was erected in an open place which had been part of the Church-yard the ordinary Hearers sitting upon Forms before the Pulpit the Lord Mayor Aldermen and their Wives with other Persons of Quality in two handsome Galleries to which was added in the year 1594 a fair large House for the reception of the Governours and Children of the Hospital founded in the Grey-Fryers who from thenceforth were tyed to attend those Sermons At what time also the old Pulpit was taken down and a new set up with the Preachers face turned toward the South which had before been towards the West for so in former times the Pulpits were generally placed in all Churches of England to the end that the peoples faces in all acts of Worship might look toward the East according to the Custom of the Primitive times Which alteration seemed to be made upon design that without noise or any notice taken of it they might by little and little change the posture of Adoration from the East to the West or any other point of the Compass as their humour served In which first they were showed the way by Sir Walter Mildmay in his Foundation of the Chappel of Emmanuel Colledg 1585. Who being a great favourer of the Puritan Faction gave order for this Chappel to stand North and South and thereby gave example unto others to affect the like Which brings into my mind a Project of Tiberius Gracchus one of the most Seditious of the Roman Tribunes for transferring the Supreme Power of the Commonwealth from the Lords of the Senate to the People For whereas formerly all Orators in the Publick Assemblies used to address their Speeches to the Lords of the Senate as the Supreme Magistrates this Gracchus turned his face to the common people and by that Artifice saith Plutarch transferred unto them the Supreme Majesty of the Roman Empire without Noise or Tumult 37. But it is now time to look back towards Scotland where we left them at their highest and the poor King so fettered or intangled by his own Concessions that he was not able to act any thing in the Kirk and very little in the State He had not very well digested their Refusal to subscribe to His Articles mentioned in the close of the former Book when he held an Assembly at Dundee in the end of April 1593 at what time the King being well informed of the low condition of the English Puritans sent Sir Iames Melvin to them with these two Articles amongst many others In the first of which it was declared That He would not suffer the Priviledg and Honour of his Crown to be diminished and Assemblies to be made when and where they pleased therefore willed them before the dissolution of the present Assembly to send two or three of their number by whom they should know His mind touching the time and place of the next Meeting And in the second it was required That an Act should be made inhibiting Ministers to declaim in the Pulpit against the proceedings of His Majesty and the Lords of His Council which He conceived He had good reason to desire in regard that His Majesty's good intentions were well known to themselves for maintaining Religion and Justice and of the easie access that divers of the Ministry had unto Him by whom they might signifie their Complaints and Grievances To the first of which two Articles they returned this Answer That in their Meetings they would follow the Act of Parliament made by Him in the year preceding And to the second they replyed That they had made an Act prohibiting all Ministers to utter in the Pulpit any rash or irreverent speeches against His Majesty or His Council but to give their Admonitions upon just and necessary Causes in fear love and reverence Which seeming to the King to serve then rather for a colour to excuse their Factiousness than to lay any just restraint upon it He turned a deaf Ear to their Petitions as well concerning his proceeding with the Popish Lords as against the erecting of Tythes into Temporall Lordships In this Assembly also they passed an Act prohibiting all such as professed Religion to traffick in any part of the Dominions of the King of Spain where the Inquisition was in force And this to be observed under the pain of Excommunication till His Majesty could obtain a free Trade for them without fear of any danger to their Goods or Consciences Which being complained of to the King and by Him looked upon as an Intrenchment upon the Royal Prerogative the Merchants were encouraged to proceed as formerly In opposition whereunto the Ministers fulminate their Censures till the Merchants generally made offer to forbear that Trade as soon as their Accounts were made and that their Creditors in those parts had discharged their Debts They pass'd another Order also in the said Assembly for putting down the Monday's Market in the City of Edenborough under pretence that the Sabbath was thereby prophaned Which so displeased the Shoo-makers and other Artificers that they came tumultuously to the Ministers Houses and threatned to turn them out of the City without more ado if ever that Act were put into execution For fear whereof that Project was dashed for ever after and thereby an occasion given unto the Court to affirm this of them That Rascals and Sowters could obtain that at the Ministers hands which the King was not able to do in matters far more just and reasonable To such audaciousness were they grown upon the filly confidence of their own establishment as to put limits upon Trade dispose of Markets and prostitute both King and Council to the lust of their Preachers
About this time one of the Ministers named Rosse uttered divers Treasonable and Irreverent speeches against His Majesty in a Sermon of his preached at Perth for which the King craved Justice of the next Assembly and he required this also of them That to prevent the like for the times ensuing the Ministers should be inhibited by some Publick Order from uttering any irreverent speeches in the Pulpit against His Majesty's Person Council or Estate under the pain of Deprivation This had been often moved before and was now hearkned to with as little care as in former times All which the King got by it was no more but this that Rosse was only admonished to speak so reverently of His Majesty for the time to come as might give no just cause of complaint against him As ill success he had in the next Assembly to which he recommended some Conditions about the passing of the Sentence of Excommunication two of which were to this effect 1. That none should be excommunicated for Civil causes for any Crimes of leight importance or for particular wrongs offered to the Ministers lest the Censure should fall into contempt 2. That no summary Excommunication should be thenceforth used but that lawful citations of the Parties should go before in all manner of Causes whatsoever To both which he received no other Answer but That the Points were of too great weight to be determined on the sudden and should be therefore agitated in the next Assembly In the mean time it was provided That no Summary Excommunication should be used but in such occasions in which the Safety of the Church seemed to be in danger Which Exception much displeased the King knowing that they would serve their turn by it whensoever they pleased Nor sped he better with them when he treated severally than when they were in the Assembly The Queen of England was grown old and he desired to be in good terms with all his Subjects for bearing down all opposition which might be made against his Title after her decease To which end he deals with Robert Bruce a Preacher of Edenborough about the calling home the Popish Lords men of great Power and Credit in their several Countreys who had been banished the last year for holding some intelligence with the Catholick King Bruce excepts only against Huntley whom the King seemed to favour above all the rest and positively declared That the King must lose him if he called home Huntley for that it was impossible to keep them both And yet this Bruce was reckoned for a Moderate man one of the quietest and best-natur'd of all the Pack What was the issue of this business we shall see hereafter 42. In the mean time let us pass over into France and look upon the Actions of the Hugonots there of whose deserting their new King we have spoke of before And though they afterwards afforded him some Supplies both of Men and Money when they perceived him backed by the Queen of England and thereby able to maintain a defensive Warr without their assistance yet they did it in so poor a manner as made him utterly despair of getting his desired Peace by an absolute Victory In which perplexity he beholds his own sad condition his Kingdom wasted by a long and tedious Warr invaded and in part possessed by the Forces of Spain new Leagues encreasing every day both in strength and number and all upon the point of a new Election or otherwise to divide the Provinces amongst themselves To prevent which he reconciles himself to the Church of Rome goes personally to the Mass and in all other publick Offices which concerned Religion conformed himself unto the directions of the Pope And for so doing he gives this account to Wilks the Queen's Ambassador sent purposely to expostulate with him upon this occasion that is to say That Eight hundred of the Nobility and no fewer than Nine Regiments of the Protestant Party who had put themselves into the Service of his Predecessor returned unto their several homes and could not be induced to stay with him upon any perswasions That such of the Protestants as he had taken at the same time to his Privil-Council were so intent on their own business that they seldom vouchsafed their presence at the Council-Table so that being already forsaken by those on whom he relyed and fearing to be forsaken by the Papists also he was forced to run upon that course which unavoidable necessity had compelled him to and finally that being thus necessitated to a change of Religion he rather chose to make it look like his own free Act that he might thereby free the Doctrine of the Protestants from those Aspersions which he conceived must otherwise needs have fallen upon it if that Conversion had been wrought upon him by Dispute and Argument for hearkening whereunto he had bound himself when he first took the Crown upon him If by this means the Hugonots in France shall fall to as low an ebb as the Fortunes of their Brethren did in England at the same time they can lay the blame on nothing but their own Ingratitude their Disobedience to their King and the Genevian Principles that were rooted in them which made them Enemies to the Power and Guidance of all Soveraign Princes But the King being still in heart of his own Religion or at least exceeding favourable to all those that professed the same he willingly passed over all unkindness which had grown between them and by his countenance or connivence gave them such advantages as made them able to dispute the point with his Son and Successor whether they would continue Subjects to the Crown or not 43. In the Low-Countreys all things prospered with the Presbyterians who then thrive best when they involve whole Nations in Blood and Sacriledg By whose example the Calvinians take up Arms in the City of Embden renounce all obedience to their Prince and put themselves into the Form of a Commonwealth This Embden is the principal City of the Earl of East-Friesland situate on the mouth of the River Emns called Amasus by Latin Writers and from thence denominated Beautified with a Haven so deep and large that the greatest Ships with full sail are admitted into it The People rich the Buildings general fair both private and publick especially the Town-Hall and the stately Castle Which last being situate on a rising-ground near the mouth of the Haven and strongly fortified toward the Town had for long time been the Principal Seat of the Earls of that Province The second Earl hereof called Ezard when he had governed this Countrey for the space of sixty years or thereabouts did first begin to introduce the Doctrines of Luther into his Estates Anno 1525. But being old he left the Work to be accomplished by Enno his eldest Son who first succeeded in that Earldom and using the assistance of Hardimbergius a Moderate and Learned man established the Augustine Confession in the
Street cryed out so loud that he was heard by all the Lords and Gentlemen of his Retinue who thereupon prepared themselves for his assistance In the pursuit whereof the Earl himself is killed by Eveskin as he was making haste to help his Brother and Alexander is dispatched by Ramsey one of the King's Pages who being acquainted with the House came by the back-stairs time enough to preserve his Master Of this great Danger and Deliverance the King gives notice to all his Subjects desiring them to joyn with him in thanks to Almighty God for so great a Mercy which was accordingly performed by all honest men but the whole Story disbelieved discredited mis-reported by the Presbyterians whom it concerned to wash their hands of so foul a Treason And how far they were Parties in it or at least well-wishers to it may appear by this That when the Ministers of Edenborough were desired to convene their people and give God thanks for this deliverance of the King they excused themselves as not being well acquainted with all particulars And when it was replyed unto them That they were only required to make known to the people That the King had escaped a great Danger and to excite them to Thansgiving for his deliverance They answered That they were not very well satisfied in the truth of the matter That nothing was to be delivered in the Pulpit the truth whereof was not certainly known and that they were to utter nothing in that place but that which migh be spoke in Faith On which Refusal it was ordered by the Lords of the Council That the people should be drawn together into the Market-place That the Bishop of Ross should make a Declaration of the whole Design and therewithall conceive a Prayer of Thanksgiving for the King's Deliverance Which was performed on his part with a true affection and entertained by the people with great joy and gladness 37. But the whole Nation was not so besotted by the Presbyterians as either to dispute the Story or despise the Mercy Which wrought so far upon the Consciences of all honest men that in a Parliament held at Edenborough in November following the Estate of Goury was confiscate his Sons disherited the Name of Ruthen utterly abolished but the last dispenced with the bodies of the two Brothers brought to Edenborough there hanged and quartered the Heads of both being fixed upon the top of the Common Prison and finally The Fifth of August ordained by Act of Parliament for a Day of Thanksgiving in all times succeeding The like done also two years after at a General Assembly of the Ministers of the Church held in Haly-Rood-House as to the Day of Thanksgiving which they decreed to be kept solemnly from thenceforth in all the Churches of that Kingdom And it was well they did it then the King not venturing the Proposal to them in the year fore-going when they assembled at Burnt-Island whether in reference to some indisposition of Body which he found in himself or rather of some greater indisposition of Mind which he found in them But now it went clearly for him without contradiction as did some other things propounded to their consideration His Ey now looks unto the Crown of England and he resolved to bring the Churches of both Kingdoms to an Uniformity but so to do it as might make neither noise nor trouble The solemnizing of Marriage had been prohibited on Sundays by the Rules of the Discipline but by an Order made in the present Assembly it was indifferently permitted on all days alike Sundays as well as other days at the will of the Parties Before this time the Sacrament of Baptism was not administred but only at the times of Preaching on some opinion which they had of the indifferency or at the least the non-necessity thereof But now it was ordained with a joynt consent That the Ministers should not refuse the Sacrament of Baptism to Infants nor delay the same upon whatsoever pretext the same being required by the Parents or others in their name Which brought them two steps nearer to the Church of England than before they were 38. It was not long after the end of this Assembly when the King received Intelligence of Queen Elizabeth's death and of the general acknowledgment of his Succession both by Peers and People This puts him on a preparation for a Journey to England where he is joyfully received and found no small contentment in the change of his Fortunes here sitting amongst Grave Learned and Reverend men not as before a King without State without Honour without Order where Beardless Boys would every day brave him to his face where Jack and Tom and Will and Dick did at their pleasures cenâ—â—re the proceedings of him and his Council where Will stood up and said he would have it thus and Dick replied Nay marry but it shall be so as he describes their carriage in the Conference at Hampton-Court p. 4. and 80. So leaves he Scotland and the Puritans there with this Character of them recorded in the Preface of his Book called Basilicon Doron in which he paints them out as people which refusing to be called Anabaptists too much participated of their Humours not only agreeing with them in their General Rule the contempt of the Civil Magistrate and in leaning to their own Dreams Imaginations and Revelations but particularly in accounting all men prophane that agree not to their Fancies in making for every particular Question of the Polity of the Church as much Commotion as if the Article of the Trinity was called in question in making the Scripture to be ruled by their Conscience and not their Conscience by the Scripture in accounting every body Ethnicus Publicanus not worthy to enjoy the benefit of breathing much less to participate with them in the Sacraments that denies the least jot of their Grounds and in suffering King People Law and all to be trod under foot before the least jot of their Grounds be impugned in preferring such Holy Warrs to an Vngodly Peace not only in resisting Christian Princes but denying to pray for them for Prayer must come by Faith and it is not revealed that God will bear their Prayers for such a Prince To which He adds this Clause in the Book it self viz. That they used commonly to tell the people in their Sermons That all Kings and Princes were naturally Enemies to the Liberty of the Church and could never patiently bear the Yoak of Christ. And thereupon he gives this Counsel to the Prince To take heed all of such Puritans whom he calls the very Pests of the Church and Commonwealth whom no deserts can oblige neither Oaths nor Promises bind breathing nothing but Sedition and Calumnies aspiring without measure railing without reason and making their own imaginations the square of their Conscience protesting before the Great God That he should never find in any Highlander baser Thieves greater Ingratitude and more Lyes and vile
do somewhat which is worse p. 85. Which notwithstanding they gave out That all was theirs and that they had obtained an absolute Victory but more particularly that the King gratified Dr. Reynolds in every thing which he proposed and that Dr. Reynolds obtained and prevailed in every thing they did desire That if any man report the contrary he doth lye and that they could give him the lye from Dr. Reynolds his mouth that these things now obtained by the Reformers were but the beginning of Reformation the greater matters being yet to come That my Lord of Winton stood mute and said little or nothing That my Lord of London called Dr. Reynolds Schismatick he thanks him for it but otherwise said little to the purpose That the King's Majesty used the Bishops with very hard words but embraced Dr. Reynolds and used most kind speeches to him That my Lord of Canterbury and my Lord of London falling on their knees besought his Majesty to take their Cause into his own Hands and to make some good end of it such as might stand with their Credit 7. All this and more they scattered up and down in their scurrilous Papers to keep up the spirits of their Party two of which coming to the hands of Dr. Barlow before-mentioned he caused them to be published at the end of the Conference The Truth and Honesty of whose Collections having been universally approved above fifty years hath been impugned of late by some sorry Scriblers of the Puritan Faction and a report raised of some Retractation which he is fabled to have made at the time of his death of the great wrong which he had done to Dr. Reynolds and the rest of the Millenaries The silliness of which Fiction hath been elsewhere canvased and therefore not to be repeated in this time and place But for the clearing of that Reverend person from so soul a Calumny we shall not make use of any other Argument than the words of K. IAMES who tells us in his Proclamation of the fifth of March that he could not conceal That the success of that Conferrence was such as hapneth to many other things which moving great expectations before they be entred into in their issue produce small effects That he found mighty and vehement Informations supported with so weak and slender Proofs as it appeared unto him and his Council that there was no cause why any change should be in that which was most impugned namely the Book of Common-Prayer containing the publick Service of God here established nor in the Doctrine which appeared to be sincere nor in the Forms and Rites which were justified out of the practise of the primitive Churrh And finally that though with the consent of the Bishops and other Learned men then and there assembled some passages therein were rather explained than altered yet that the same might very well have been born amongst such men who would have made a reasonable construction of them Which I conceive to be sufficient for the vindication of that Learned Prelate for clearing him from doing any injury to Dr. Reynolds in the repeating of his words as is suggested by some Puritan Scriblers of these present times 8. But to proceed this Conference was followed with the Proclamation of the fifth of March in which his Majesty having first declared the occasion and success thereof in the words formerly laid down proceeds to signifie the present course which he had taken for causing the Book of Common-Prayer to be so explained and being so explained to be forthwith Printed not doubting but that all his Subjects both Ministers and others would receive the same with due reverence and conform themselves to it Which notwithstanding he conceived it necessary to make known his Authorizing of the same by his Proclamation and by that Proclamation to require and enjoyn all men as well Ecclesiastical as Temporal to conform themselves thereunto as to the only publick Form of serving God established and allowed in this Realm Which said he lays a strict Command on all Arch-bishops and Bishops and all other publick Ministers as well Ecclesiastical as Civil for causing the same to be observed and punishing all Offenders to the contrary according to the Laws of the Realm made in that behalf Finally He admonisheth all his Subjects of what sort soever not to expect hereafter any Alteration in the publick Form of God's Service from that which he had then established And this he signified as afterward it followeth in the said Proclamation because that he neither would give way to any to presume that his Judgment having determined in a matter of such weight should be swayed to any Alteration by the Frivolous Suggestions of any leight head nor could be ignorant of the inconveniencies that do arise in Government by admitting Innovation in things once setled by mature deliberation and how necessary it was to use constancy in the publick Determinations of all States for that saith he such is the unquietness and unsteadfastness of some dispositions affecting every year new Forms of things as if they should be followed in their unconstancy would make all Actions of State ridiculous and contemptible whereas the steadfast maintaining of things by good Advice established is the Preservative and Weal of all publick Governments 9. The main Concernments of the Church being thus secured his Majesty proceeds to his first Parliament accompanied as the custom is with a Convocation which took beginning on the twentieth day of March then next ensuing In the Parliament there passed some Acts which concerned the Church as namely one for making void all Grants and Leases which should be made of any of the Lands of Arch-bishops and Bishops to the King's Majesty or any of his Heirs and Successors for more than One and twenty years or Three Lives Which Act was seasonably procured by Bishop Bancroft to prevent the begging of the Scots who otherwise would have picked the Church to the very bone There also past an Act for the repealing of a Statute in the Reign of Queen Mary by means whereof the Statute of King Edward the sixth touching the Lawfulness of Ministers Marriages were revived again as in the Millenary Petition was before desired And either by the Practise of some Puritan Zealots who had their Agents in all corners or by the carelesness and connivence of his Majesty's Council learned in the Laws of this Realm who should have had an eye upon them that Statute of K. EDWARD was revived also by which it was enacted That all Processes Citations Judgments c. in any of the Ecclesiastical Courts should be issued in the King's Name and under the King's Seal of Arms which afterwards gave some colour to the Puritan Faction for creating trouble to the Bishops in their Jurisdiction The Convocation was more active some days before the sitting whereof the most Reverend Arch-bishop Whitgift departs this life and leaves it to the managing of Dr. Richard Bancroft Bishop of London
Acts being past Patterns were sent from London in a short time after for the Apparel of the Lords of the Session the Justice and other inferior Judges for the Advocates the Lawyers the Commissairs and all that lived by practise of the Law with a command given to every one whom the Statutes concerned to provide themselves of the Habits prescribed within a certain space under the pain of Rebellion But for the habit of the Bishops and other Church-men it was thought fit to respite the like appointment of them till the new Bishops had received their Consecration to which now we hasten 23. But by the way we must take notice of such preparations as were made towards it in the next General Assembly held at Glasgow Anno 1610 and managed by the Earl of Dunbar as the former was in which it was concluded That the King should have the indiction of all General Assemblies That the Bishops or their Deputies should be perpetual Moderators of the Diocesan Synods That no Excommunication or Absolution should be pronounced without their approbation That all presentations of Benefices should be made by them and that the deprivation or suspension of Ministers should belong to them That every Minister at his admission to a Benefice should take the Oath of Supremacy and Canonical Obedience That the Visitation of the Diocese shall be performed by the Bishop or his Deputy only And finally That the Bishop should be Moderator of all Conventions for Exercisings or Prophesyings call them which you will which should be held within their bounds All which Conclusions were confirmed by Act of Parliament in the year 1612 in which the Earl of Dumferling then being Lord Chancellor of that Kingdom sate as chief Commissioner who in the same Session also procured a Repeal of all such former Acts more patticularly of that which passed in favour of the Discipline 1592. as were supposed to be derogatory to the said Conclusions In the mean time the King being advertised of all which had been done at Glasgow calls to the Court by special Letters under his Sign-Manual Mr. Iohn Spotswood the designed Arch-bishop of Glasgow Mr. Gawen Hamilton nominated to the See of Galloway and Mr. Andrew Lamb appointed to the Church of Brechin to the intent that being consecrated Bishops in due Form and Order they might at their return give consecration to the rest of their Brethren They had before been authorized to vote in Parliament commended by the King unto their several Sees made the perpetual Moderators of Presbyteries and Diocesan Synods and finally by the Conclusions made at Glasgow they were restored to all considerable Acts of their Jurisdiction The Character was only wanting to compleat the Work which could not be imprinted but by Consecration according to the Rules and Canons of the Primitive times 24. And that this Character might be indelibly imprinted on them His Majesty issues a Commission under the Great Seal of England to the Bishops of London Ely Wells and Rochester whereby they were required to proceed to the Consecration of the said three Bishops according to the Rules of the English Ordination which was by them performed with all due solemnity in the Chappel of the Bishop of London's House near the Church of St. Pauls Octob. 21 1610. But first a scruple had been moved by the Bishop of Ely concerning the capacity of the persons nominated for receiving the Episcopal Consecration in regard that none of them had formally been ordained Priests which scruple was removed by Arch-bishop Bancroft alledging that there was no such necessity of receiving the Order of Priesthood but that Episcopal Consecrations might be given without it as might have been exemplified in the Cases of Ambrose and Nectarius of whichâ— the first was made Arch-bishop of Millain and the other Patriarch of Constantinople without receiving any intermediate Orders whether of Priest Deacon or any other if there were any other at that time in the Church And on the other side the Prelates of Scotland also had their Doubts and Scruples fearing lest by receiving Consecration of the English Bishops they might be brought to an acknowledgment of that Superiority which had been exercised and enjoyed by the Primates of England before the first breaking out of the Civil Warrs betwixt York and Lancaster Against which fear the King sufficiently provided by excluding the two Arch-bishops of Canterbury and York who only could pretend to that Superiority out of His Commission which Bancroft very cheerfully condescended to though he had chiefly laid the plot and brought on the work not caring who participated in the Honour of it as long as the Churches of both Kingdoms might receive the Benefit 25. This great Work being thus past over the King erects a Court of High Commission in the Realm of Scotland for ordering all matters which concerned that Church and could not safely be redressed in the Bishops Courts He also gave them some Directions for the better exercise of their Authority by them to be communicated to the Bishops and some principal Church-men whom he appointed to be called to Edenborough in the following February where they were generally well approved But as all general Rules have some Exceptions so some Exceptions were found out against these Commissions and the proceedings thereupon Not very pleasing to those great Persons who then sate at the Helm and looked upon it as a diminution to their own Authority and could not brook that any of the Clergy should be raised to so great a Power much more displeasing to the principal sticklers in the Cause of Presbytery who now beheld the downfall of their glorious Throne which they had erected for themselves in the Name of Christ. One thing perhaps might comfort them in the midst of their sorrows that is to say the death of the most Reverend Arch-bishop Bancroft who left this life upon the second of November not living above thirteen days after the Scottish Bishops had received Consecration For which great blessing to the Church he had scarce time to render his just acknowledgments unto God and the King when he is called on to prepare for his Nunc Dimittis And having seen so great a work accomplished for the glory of God the honour of his Majesty and the good of both Kingdoms beseecheth God to give him leave to depart in peace that with his eyes he might behold that great Salvation which was ordained to be a Light unto the Gentiles and to be the Glory of his people Israel 26. Bancroft being dead some Bishops of the Court held a Consultation touching the fittest Person to succeed him in that eminent Dignity The great Abilities and most exemplary Piety of Dr. Lancelot Andrews then Bishop of Ely pointed him out to be the man as one sufficiently able to discharge a Trust of such main importance and rather looked on as a Preferment to that See than preferred unto it Him they commended to King IAMES who had him in a high
of the Queen not much improved in case it were not made more miserable In the time of K. IAMES some Propositions had been offered by Him in the Conference at Hampton-Court about sending Preachers into Ireland of which he was but half King as himself complained their Bodies being subject unto his Authority but their Souls and Consciences to the Pope But I find nothing done in pursuance of it till after the year 1607 where the Earl of Ter-ownen Ter-connel Sir Iohn Odaghartie and other great Lords of the North together with their Wives and Families took their flight from Ireland and left their whole Estates to the King 's disposing Hereupon followed the Plantation of Vlster first undertaken by the City of London who fortified Colraine and built London-Derrie and purchased many thousand Acres of Lands in the parts adjoyning But it was carried on more vigorously as more unfortunately withall by some Adventurers of the Scottish Nation who poured themselves into this Countrey as the richer Soil And though they were sufficiently industrious in improving their own Fortunes there and set up Preaching in all Churches whersoever they fixed yet whether it happened for the better or for the worse the event hath showed For they brought with them hither such a stock of Puritanism such a contempt of Bishops such a neglect of the publick Liturgy and other Divine Offices of this Church that there was nothing less to be found amongst them than the Government and Forms of Worship established in the Church of England 32. Nor did the Doctrine speed much better if it sped not worse For Calvinism by degrees had taken such deep root amongst them that at the last it was received and countenanced as the only Doctrine which was to be defended in the Church of Ireland For not contented with the Articles of the Church of England they were resolved to frame a Confession of their own the drawing up whereof was referred to Dr. Iames Vsher then Provost of the Colledg of Dublin and afterwards Arce-bishop of Armagh and Lord Primate of Ireland By whom the Book was so contrived that all the Sabbatarian and Calvinian Rigors were declared therein to be the Doctrines of that Church For first the Articles of Lambeth rejected at the Conference at Hampton-Court must be inserted into this Confession as the chief parts of it And secondly An Article must be made of purpose to justifie the Morality of the Lord's-day-Sabbath and to require the spending of it wholly in Religious Exercises Besides which deviations from the Doctrine of the Church of England most grievous Torments immediately in His Soul are there affirmed to be endured by Christ our Saviour which Calvin makes to be the same with his descent into Hell The Abstinencies from eating Flesh upon certain days declared not to be Religious Fasts but to be grounded upon Politick Ends and Considerations All Ministers adjudged to be lawfully called who are called unto the work of the Ministry by those that have publick Authority given them in the Church but whether they be Bishops or not it makes no matter so they be authorized unto it by their several Churches The Sacerdotal Power of Absolution made declarative only and consequently quite subverted No Power ascribed to the Church in making Canons or Censuring any of those who either carelesly or maliciously do infringe the same The Pope made Antichrist according to the like determination of the French Hugonots at Gappe in Daulphine And finally Such a silence concerning the Consecration of Arch-bishops and Bishops expresly justified and avowed in the English Book as if they were not a distinct Order from the common Presbyters All which being Vsher's own private Opinions were dispersed in several places of the Articles for the Church of Ireland approved of in the Convocation of the year 1615 and finally confirmed by the Lord Deputy Chichester in the Name of King IAMES 33. What might induce King IAMES to confirm these Articles differing in so many points from his own Opinion is not clearly known but it is probable that he might be drawn to it on these following grounds For first He was much governed at that time in all Church-concernments by Dr. George Abbot Arch-bishop of Canterbury and Dr. Iames Mountague Bishop of Bath and Wells who having formerly engaged in maintenance of some or most of those Opinions as before is said might find it no hard matter to perswade the King to a like approbation of them And secondly The King had so far declared himself in the Cause against Vorstius and so affectionately had espoused the Quarrel of the Prince of Orange against those of the Remonstrant Party in the Belgick Churches that he could not handsomely refuse to confirm those Doctrines in the Church of Ireland which he had countenanced in Holland Thirdly The Irish Nation at that time were most tenaciously addicted to the Errors and Corruptions of the Church of Rome and therefore must be bended to the other Extream before they could be straight and Orthodox in these points of Doctrine Fourthly and finally It was an usual practise with that King in the whole course of His Government to balance one Extream by the other countenancing the Papists against the Puritans and the Puritans against the Papists that betwixt both the true Religion and Professors of it might be kept in safety But whether I hit right or not certain it is that it proved a matter of sad consequence to the Church of England there being nothing more ordinary amongst those of the Puritan Party when they were pressed in any of the points aforesaid then to appeal unto the Articles of Ireland and the infallible Judgment of K. IAMES who confirmed the same And so it stood until the year 1634 when by the Power of the Lord Deputy Wentworth and the Dexterity of Dr. Iohn Bramhall then Lord Bishop of Derry the Irish Articles were repealed in a full Convocation and those of England authorised in the place thereof 34. Pass we next over to the Isles of Iersey and Guernsey where the Genevian Discipline had been setled under Queen ELIZABETH and being so setled by that Queen was confirmed by K. IAMES at his first coming to this Crown though at the same time he endeavoured a subversion of it in the Kirk of Scotland But being to do it by degrees and so to practise the restoring of the old Episcopacy as not to threaten a destruction to their new Presbyteries it was thought fit to tolerate that Form of Government in those petit Islands which could have no great influence upon either Kingdom Upon which ground he sends his Letter to them of the 8 th of August first writ in French and thus translated into English that is to say 35. JAMES by the Grace of God King of England Scotland France and Ireland c. Vnto all those whom these Presents shall concern greeting Whereas We Our selves and the Lords of Our Council have been given to understand that
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
in the Liturgy should be expunged and others altered to the worse That Decency and Reverence in officiating God's publick Service should be brought within the compass of Innovations That Doctrinal Calvinism should be entertained in all parts of the Church and all their Sabbath-Speculations though contrary to Calvin's Judgment super-added to it But before any thing could be concluded in those weighty matters the Commons set their Bill on foot against Root and Branch for putting down all Bishops and Cathedral Churches which put a period to that Meeting without doing any thing And though the Bill upon a full debate thereon amongst the Peers was cast out of that House and was not by the course of Parliaments to be offered again yet contrary to all former Custom it was prest from one time to another till in the end they gained the point which they so much aimed at Hereupon followed some Petitions from the Universities in favour of Cathedral and Collegiate Churches without which Learning must be destitute of its chief encouragements and some Petitions from whole Counties in behalf of Episcopacy without which there was like to be no preservative against Sects and Heresies But nothing was more memorable than the inter-pleadings in the House of Commons between Dr. Iohn Hâ—cket one of the Prebendaries of St. Pauls and Arch-Deacon of Bedford and Dr. Cornelius Burges a right doubty Disputant but better skilled in drawing down his Myrmidons than in mustering Arguments the issue of whose Plea was this That though Cathedrals were unnecessary and the Quire-men scandalous yet that their Lands could not be alienated unto private persons without guilt of Sacriledg 9. But little did this edifie with the Leading-part in the House of Commons who were resolved to practise on the Church by little and little and at the last to play at sweep-stake and take all together First therefore they began with taking down the Starr-Chamber and the High Commission without which Courts the Subjects could not easily be kept in order nor the Church from Faction And in the Act for taking down the Court of the High Commission a clause is cunningly inserted which plainly took away all Coercive Power which had been vested in the Bishops and their Under-Officers disabling them from imposing any pain or penalty and consequently from inflicting all Church-Censures on notorious sinners Their Jurisdiction being thus gone it was not likely that their Lands should stay long behind though in good manners it was thought convenient to strip them first from having any place or suffrage in the House of Peers And when they once were rendred useless to the Church and State the Lands would follow of themselves without any great trouble And that they might attain the end which they so much aimed at Burges draws down his Myrmidons to the Doors of he Parliament and teacheth them to cry No Bishops No Bishops with their wonted violence By which confused Rabble some indignities and affronts are very frequently put upon them either in keeping them off from landing if they came by water or offer violence to their persons if they came by Land Which multiplied Injuries gave such just cause of fear and trouble that they withdrew themselves from the House of Peers but sent withall a Protestation to preserve their Rights In which it was declared That all Acts made or to be made in the time of their absence considering their absenâ—e was inforced not voluntary should be reputed void and null to all intents and purposes in the Law whatsoever This Protestation being tendred in the House of Peers communicated to the House of Commons and the supposed offence extreamly aggravated by the Lord Keeper Littleton the Bishops are impeached of Treason nine of them sent Prisoners to the Tower and two committed to the custody of the Gentleman-Usher 10. And there we leave them for a while to look into the Fortunes of the publick Liturgy not like to stand when both the Scots and English Presbyterians did conspire against it The Fame whereof had either caused it totally to be laid aside or performed by halfs in all the Counties where the Scots were of strength and power and not much better executed in some Churches of London wherein that Faction did as much predominate as if it had been under the protection of a Scottish Army But the first great interruption which was made at the officiating of the publick Liturgy was made upon a Day of Humiliation when all the Members of the House of Commons were assembled together at St. Margaret's in Westminster At what time as the Priest began the second Service at the Holy Table some of the Puritans or Presbyterians began a Psalm and were therein followed by the rest in so loud a Tune that the Minister was thereby forced to desist from his duty and leave the Preacher to perform the rest of that day's Solemnity This gave encouragement enough to the rest of that Party to set as little by the Liturgy in the Countrey as they did in the City especially in all such usages and rights thereof as they were pleased to bring within the compass of Innovations But they were more encouraged to it by an Order of the Lower-House bearing date on the 8 th of September Anno 1641. By which all Church-Wardens were required in their several Parishes to remove the Holy Table from the East-end of the Chancel to any other part of the Church to take away the Ralis before it and not to suffer any Tapers Candlesticks or Basons to be placed upon it It was required also by the same That there should be no bowing at the Name of Jesus nor adoration toward the East nor any reverence used in men's approaches to the Holy Table And by the same all Dancing and other lawful Recreations were prohibited on their Lord's-day-Sabbath after the duties of the Day and Catechising turned into After-noon-Sermons directly contrary to His Majesty's Declarations and Instructions given in that behalf And though the Lords refused to join with them in that Vote and sent them back unto an Order of the 16 th of Ianuary by which they had confirmed and enjoined the use of the Liturgy yet Pym commands the Order to be put in execution by a Warrant under his own hand only and that too during the Recess when almost all the Lords and Commons had retired themselves to their several dwellings 11. Hereupon followed such an alteration in all Churches and Chappels that the Church-Wardens pulled down more in a Week or two than all the Bishops and Clergy had been able to raise in two Weeks of years And hereupon there followed such irreverences ni God's publick Service and such a discontinuance of it in too many places that His Majesty was compelled to give new life to it by His Proclamation of the tenth of December and taking order in the same for punishing all the wilful Contemners and Disburbers of it But this Proclamation being published in that point
Ammunition for an hour it was some favour to his Soldiers to be taken to Mercy But whatsoever Mercy was exprest to them the poor Town found but little and the Church much less the Town being miserably plundered for no other reason but that they were not able to keep Grandison out had they been so minded Which though it was sufficient to impoverish a more Wealthy City yet Waller had two pulls more at it in the course of the Warr to the undoing of some Families and the spoil of others But it was more defaced by Ogle about three years after in burning down some Houses about the Castle but most of all by pulling down the Bishop's Palace the Deanry and no fewer than eight Prebends Houses sold by the Presbyterians to make money of the Lead and Timber the Iron Glass and Stones which made up those Edifices 23. But for the Church though it was not the first Example of their Reformation according to the practise of the Hugonot-French the Scottish and the Belgick Zealots yet fared it worse in some respects than the other Cathedrals because it fell unto the Scots commanding some Scotizing English to do execution For they not only broke the Organs in pieces and defaced the Carved Work of the Quire containing the story of the Old and New Testament in most excellent Imagery but threw down the Communion-Table and broke down the Rails which they burnt afterwards in an Ale-house and strewed the Pavements of the Quire with the torn leaves and Fragments of the Common-prayer-Books Next they proceeded to the spoiling of the Tombs and Monuments erected to the memory of some eminent Prelates which had been formerly both an Ornament and an Honour to it as namely that of Cardinal Beaufort a principal Benefactor to the Church and Hospital of St. Cross neighbouring near unto the City and that of William Wainflet the Magnificent and sole Founder of Magdalen-Colledg in Oxon. And whereas the Remainders of the Bodies of some Saxon Kings and many Bishops of those times had been gathered into several Leaden Chests by Bishop Fox who lived and flourished in the last times of K. HENRY the 7th the barbarous Soldiers Sacrilegiously threw down those Chests scattered the dust remaining of their Bodies before the wind and threw their bones about the Pavements of the Church They break down as many of the Glass Windows as they could reach with Swords and Pikes and at the rest they threw the Bones of the dead Kings or shot them down with their Muskets the spoil of which Windows could not be repaired for one thousand pounds After all this they seize upon the Communion-Plate the Surplices of the Priests and Quire-men all the rich Hangings and large Cushions of Velvet and the costly Pulpit-clothes somes of which were of Cloath of Silver and others of Gold And finding two Brazen Statua's of K. IAMES and K. CHARLES at the first entrance of the Quire they brake off the two Swords which were placed by their sides and with their own mangled the Crown upon the head of K. CHARLES swearing in scorn That they would bring him back again to his Houses of Parliament 24. This hapned upon Thursday the fifteenth of December and the same Month proved as calamitous to the Church of Chichester which City had received some Soldiers of His Majesty's Party who either were too few to keep it or found it not tenable enough to make any resistance Waller presents himself before it and without any great dispute becomes Master of it by which the Town got little and the Church lost more For upon innocents-Innocents-day the Soldiers forcibly break into it where they seize upon the Vestments and Ornaments of the Church together with the Consecrated Plate serving for the Altar not leaving so much as a Cushion for the Pulpit or a Chalice for the blessed Sacrament But this rich spoil being committed by the Marshal and other Officers the rest was left unto the hands and weapons of the common Soldiers who with their Pole-axes did not only break down the Organs but cut in pieces the Communion-Table with the Rail before it They defaced the two Tables of the Law at the East end of the Quire for fear they should rise up against them in the Day of Judgment most miserably made havock of the History of that Churches Foundation which they found on the one side of the South-cross Isle pourtrayed in Artificial manner with the Statues of the Kings of England and coming to the Portraiture of K. EDWARD the sixth they picked out his eyes saying in scorn That all this Mischief came from him in establishing the Book of Common-prayer Which that it might not be officiated as in former times they break open all the Chests and Cupboards in which the Quire-men had laid up their Singing-Books Common-Prayer-Books Gowns and Surplices strewing the Pavements of the Church with the Leaves of the Books but turning the Gowns and Surplices into ready money To all which Acts of Sacrilegious Spoil and Rapine as Waller gave some countenance by his personal presence and in that somewhat worse than Nero as the story tells us So Haslerig gave much more by his Voice and Actions For forcing his way into the Chapter-House he did not only command the Soldiers to break down the Wainscot but seized on all the rich Plate which belonged to the Church And when it was desired that they would leave one Chalice only for the use of the Sacrament answer was most prophanely made by one of the Scots of which Nation the two Houses had employed too many That they might serve the turn with a Wooden Dish Nor were some Presbyterian Zealots in the City of Exeter more favourable to their own Cathedrals than the rude Soldiers were to this where being incensed by some of their Sediâ—ious Preachers they acted over all those outrages of Spoil and Rapine which have been formerly recited and added to them such prodigious and unheard Irreverences by turning the Church into a â—akes and leaving their filth on and about the holy Altar as fills me with Religious horror at the thinking of it 25. But their first Furies in this kind brake out in the Cathedral Church of Canterbury and that of Rochester under the conduct and command of Colonel Sandys one of the Natives of that County who taking some Forces with him to make sure of Canterbury came thiâ—her in the end of August and having got the Keys of the Cathedral into his possession gave a free entrance to the Rabbâ—e which attended on him forcing their way into the Quire they overthrew the Communion-Table tore the Velvet Cloath which they found about it defaced the goodly Screen or Tabernacle-work violated the Monuments of the dead spoiled the Organs brake down the ancient Rails and Seats with the brazen Eagle which did support the Bible forced open the Cupboards of the Singing-men rent some of their Surplices Gowns and Bibles and carried away others mangled all
visitation of all the Ministers and Churches in their several bounds to fix their dwellings in the chief Towns or Cities within the same and to be chosen by the Burgesses of the said Towns or Cities together with the suffrages of the Ministers of their several Circuits and more particularly that the County or Province of Lothaine shall be abstracted from the Diocess of St. Andrews and have a Superintendent of its own who was to keep his Residence in the City of Edenborough which afterwards in the year 1633 was erected by King Charles into a Bishops See and Lothaine assigned him for his Diocess as was here devised That for the better maintainance of the Ministers and Superintendents as also for defraying of all other publick charges which concerned the Churches the lands belonging unto the Bishops as also to all Cathedral and Convenâ—â—al Churches and to the Houses of Monks and Fryars shall be set apart not otherwise to be imployed That in all Churches there be two Elders annually chosen to be associate with the Ministers in the Cognizance of all Ecclesiastical Causes and in the Censures of the Church That the said Elders shall have power not onely to admonish but correct their Ministers if occasion be but not to proceed to deprivation without the allowance and consent of the Superintendent and that the Deacons shall be joyned as Assistants in judgement with the Elders and Ministers That no man presume to eat or drink or otherwise to converse familiarly with excommunicate persons except those of his own Family onely That their Children should not be Baptised till they came unto the years of discretion And that all Murtherers and other Malefactors punishable by death according to the Laws of the Land though they be pardoned for the same by the supreme Magistrates shall notwithstanding be esteemed as excommunicate persons and not received into the Church without such satisfaction and submission as is required of other notorious offenders by the Rules of the Discipline It appears also by this Book that there was one standing Supreme Câ—uncil for ordering the Affairs of the Church and by which all publick grievances were to be redressed but of what persons it consisted and in what place it was held is not mentioned in it 28. This Book being tendered to the consideration of the Convention of Estates was by them rejected whether it were because they could not make such a manifest separation from the Polity of the Church of England or that it concerned them more particularly in their own proper interest in regard of the Church-lands Tythes which they had amongst them or perhaps for both Certain it is that some of them past it over by no better Title then that of some devout Imaginations which could not be reduced to practice This so offended Knox and others who had drawn it up if any other but Knox onely had a hand therein that they spared not bitterly to revile them for their coldness in it taxing them for their carnal liberty their love untâ—â— their worldly Commodities and their corrupt imaginations Some of them are affirmed to have been licentious some greedily to have griped the possessions of the Church and others to be so intent upon the getting of Christs Coat that they would not stay till he was crucified Of the Lord Erskin who refused to subscribe to the Book it is said particularly that he had a very evil woman to his Wife and that if the Schools the poor and the Ministry of the Church had their own his Kiâ—â—hâ—n would have lacked two parts of that which he then possessed Of all of them it was admired that for such a long continuance they could hear the threatnings of God against Thieves and Robbers and that knowing themselves to be guilty of those things which were most rebuked they should never have any remorse of Conscience nor intend the restoring of those things which they had so stolen For so it was if they may be believed that said it that none in all the Realm were more unmerciful to the poor Ministers then they that had invaded and possessed themselves of the greatest Rents of right belonging unto the Church and therein verified as well the old Proverb That the belly hath no ears at all as a new observation of their own devising That nothing would suffice a wretch Such were the discontents and evaporations of these zealous men when they were crossed in any thing which concerned them in their power or profit 30. But in another of their projects they had better Fortune They had sollicited the Convention of Estates for demolishing of all Monuments of Superstition and Idolatry in which number they accounted all Cathedral Churches as well as Monasteries and other Religious Houses which they insisted on the rather because it was perceived and perhaps given out that the â—apists would again erect their old Idolatry and take upon them a command as before they did upon the Consciences of the people that so as well the great men of the Realm as such whom God of his Mercy so they tell us had subjected to them should be compelled to obey their lawless appetites In this some hopes were given them that they should be satisfied but nothing done in execution of the same till the May next following And possibly enough it might have been delayed to a longer time if the noise and expectation of the Queens return had not spurred it on For either fearing or not knowing what might happen to them if she should interpose her power to preserve those places whose demolishing they so much desired they introduce that Discipline by little and little which they could not settle all at once They begin first planting Churches and nominating Superintendents for their several Circuits they superinduce their own Ministers over the heads of the old incumbents establish their Presbyteries divide them into several Classes and hold their general Assemblies without any leave desired of the Queen or Council They proceed next to execute all sorts of Ecclesiastical Censures and arrogate Authority to their selves and their Elders to Excommunicate all such as they found unconformable to their new devices For the first tryal of their power they convent one Sanderson who had been accused to them for Adultery whom they condemned to be carted and publickly exposed unto the scorn of Boys and Children An uproar had been made in Edenborough about the chusing of a Robbinhood or a Whitson-Lord in which some few of the preciser sort opposed all the rest and for this crime they excommunicate the whole multitude wherein they shewed themselves to be very unskilful in the Canon-law in which they might have found that neither the Supreme Magistrate nor any great multitudes of people are to be subject to that Censure They proceed afterwards to the appointing of solemn Fasts and make choice of Sunday for the day which since that time hath been made use of for those Fasts more then any
other and in this point they shewed themselves directly contrary to the practice of the Primitive Church in which it was accounted a great impiety to keep any Fast upon that day either private or publick They Interdict the Bishops from exercising any Ecclesiastical Jurisdictâ—on in their several Diocesses and openly quarrel with their Queen for giving a Commission to the Archbishop of St. Andrews to perform some Acts which seemed to them to savour of Episcopal power Having attained unto this height they maintain an open correspondence with some Forreign Churches give audience to the Agents of Berne Basil and Geneva from whom they received the sum of their Confessions and signified their consent with them in all particulars except Festivals onely which they had universally abolished throughout the Kingdom and finally they take upon them to write unto the Bishops of England whom they admonished not to vex or suspend their Brethren for not conforming to the Rules of the Church especially in refusing the Cap and Surplice which they call frequently by the name of trifles vain trifles and the old badges of idolatry All which they did and more in pursuit of their Discipline though never authorized by Law or confirmed by the Queen nor justified by the Convenâ—ion of Estates though it consisted for the most part of their own Prosessors A Petition is directed to the Lords of secret Council from the Assemblies of the Church in which their Lordships are sollicited to dispatch the business But not content with that which they had formerly moved it was demanded also that some severe course might be taken against the Sayers and Hearers of Mass that fit provision should be made for their Superintendents Preachers and other Ministers and that they should not be compellable to pay their Tythes as formerly to the Popish Clegy with other particulars of that nature And that they might not trifle in it as they had done hitherto the Petition carried in it more threats and menaces then words of humble supplication as became Petitioners For therein it said expresly That before those Tyrants and dumb Dogs should have Empire over them and over such as God had subjected unto them they were fully determined to hazard both life and whatsoeever they had received of God in Temporal things that therefore they besought their Lordships to take such order that the Petitioners if they may be called so might have no occasion to take the Sword of just defence into their hands which they had so willingly resigned after the Victory obtained into those of their Lordships that so doing their Lordships should perceive they would not onely be obedient unto them in all things lawful but ready at all times to bring all such under their obedience as should at any time rebel against their Authority and finally that those enemies of God might assure themselves that they would no no longer suffer Pride and Idolatry and that if their Lordships would not take some order in the premises they would then proceed against them of their own Authority after such a manner that they should neither do what they list nor live upon the sweat of the brows of such as were in no sort debtors to them 31. On the receipt of this Petition an Order presently is made by the Lords of the Council for granting all which was desired and had more been desired they had granted more so formidable were the Brethren grown to the opposite party Nor was it granted in words onely which took no effect but execution caused to be done upon it and warrants to that purpose issued to the Earls of Arrane Arguile and Glencarne the Lord Iames Steward c. Whereupon followed a pitiful devastation of Churches and Church-buildings in all parts of the Realm no difference made but all Religious Edifices of what sort soever were either terribly defaced or utterly ruinated the holy Vessels and whatsoever else could be turned into money as Lead Bells Timber Glass c. was publickly exposed to sale the very Sepulchres of the dead not spared the Registers of the Church and the Libraries thereunto belonging defaced and thrown into the fire Whatsoever had escaped the former tumults is now made subject to destruction so much the worse because the violence and sacrilegious actings of these Church-robbers had now the countenance of Law And to this work of spoyl and rapine men of all Ranks and Orders were observed to put their helping hands mâ—n of most Note and Quality being forward in it in hope of getting to themselves the most part of the booty those of the poorer sort in hope of being gratified for their pains therein by their Lords and Patrons Both sorts encouraged to it by the Zealous madness of some of their sedirious Preachers who frequently cryed out that the places where Idols had been worshipped ought by the Law of God to be destroyed that the sparing of them was the reserving of things execrable and that the Commandment given to Israel for destroying the places where the Canaanites did worship their false Gods was a just warrant to the people for doing the like By which encouragements the madness of the people was transported beyond the bounds which they had first prescribed unto it In the beginning of the heats they designed onely the destruction of Religious Houses for fear the Monks and Fryars might otherwise be restored in time to their former dwellings But they proceeded to the demolition of Cathedral Churches and ended in the ruine of Parochial also the Chancels whereof were sure to be levelled in all places though the Isles and bodies of them might be spared in some 32. Such was the entertainment which the Scots prepared for their Queens coming over Who taking no delight in France where every thing renewed the memory of her great loss was easily intreated to return to her native Kingdom Her coming much desired by those of the Popish party in hope that by her power and presence they might be suffered at the least to enjoy the private Exercise of their Religion if not a publick approbation and allowance of it Sollicited as earnestly by those of the Knoxian interest upon a confidence that they should be better able to deal with her when she was in their power assisted onely by the Counsels of a broken Clergy then if she should remain in France from whence by her Alliances and powerful Kindred she might create more mischief to them then she could at home On the 19 day of August she arrives in Scotland accompanied by her Uncles the Duke of Aumales the Marquess of Elboeuf and the Lord grand Pryor with other Noble-men of France The time of her arrival was obscured with such Fogs and Mists that the Sun was not seen to shine in two days before nor in two days after Which though it made her passage safe from the Ships of England which were designed to intercept her yet was it looked upon by most men as a sad presage
which by an unexpected Tempest was blown down to the ground and looked on as a sad presage of his following Fortunes Passing thorough Staffordshire he gained some small encrease to his little Party but never could attain unto the reputation of an Army till he came to Shrewsbury to which great multitudes flocked unto him out of Wales and Cheshire and some of the adjoining Countreys Encouraged with which supplies and furnished as well by the Queen from Holland as by the Countrey-Magazins with Cannon Arms and Ammunition he resolves for London gives the first brush unto his Enemies at Poick near Worcester and routs them totally at Edg-hill in the County of Warwick This battel was fought on Sunday the 23 d of October Anno 1642 being a just Twelve-month from the breaking out of the Irish Rebellion this being more dangerous than that because the King's Person was here aimed at more than any other For so it was that by corrupting one Blake once an English Factor but afterwards employed as an Agent from the King of Morocco they were informed from time to time of the King's proceedings and more particularly in what part of the Army he resolved to be which made them aim with the greater diligence and fury at so fair a Mark But the King being Master of the Field possest of the dead Bodies and withall of the Spoil of some of the Carriages discovered by some Letters this most dangerous practise For which that wretched Fellow was condemned by a Court of Warr and afterwards hanged upon the Bough of an Oak not far from Abington 20. In the mean time the King goes forward takes Banbury both Town and Castle in the sight of the Enemy and enters triumphantly into Oxon which they had deserted to his hands with no fewer than Six-score Colours of the vanquished Party But either he stayed there too long or made so many halts in his way that Essex with his flying-Army had recovered London before the King was come to Colebrook There he received a Message for an Accommodation made ineffectual by the Fight at Brentford on the next day after Out of which Town he beat two of their choicest Regiments sunk many pieces of Cannon and much Ammunition put many of them to Sword in the heat of the Fight and took about Five hundred Prisoners for a taste of his Mercy For knowing well how miserably they had been mis-guided he spared their Lives and gave them liberty on no other Conditions but only the taking of their Oaths not to serve against him But the Houses of Parliament being loath to lose so many good men appointed Mr. Stephen Marshall a principal Zealot at that time in the Cause of Presbytery to call them together and to absolve them from that Oath Which he performed with so much Confidence and Authority that the Pope himself could scarce have done it with the like The next day being Sunday and the 13 th of November he prepares for London but is advertised of a stop at Turnham-Green two miles from Brentford where both the remainders of the Army under the Earl of Essex and the Auxiliaries of London under the Conduct of the Earl of Warwick were in a readiness to receive him On this Intelligence it was resolved on mature deliberation in the Council of Warr That he should not hazzard that Victorious Army by a fresh encounter in which if he should lose the day it would be utterly impossible for him to repair that Ruin Accordingly he leads his Army over Kingston-Bridg leaves a third part of it in the Town of Reading and with the rest takes up his Winter-Quarters in the City of Oxon. 21. But long he had not been at Oxon when he received some Propositions from the Houses of Parliament which by the temper and complexion of them might rather seem to have proceeded from a conquering than a losing-side One to be sure must be in favour of Presbytery or else Stephen Marshal's zeal had been ill regarded And in relation to Presbytery it was thus desired that is to say That his Majesty would give consent to a Bill for the utter abolishing and taking away of all Arch-bishops Bishops their Chancellors and Commissaries Deans Sub-deans Deans and Chapters Arch-deacons Canons and Prebendaries and all Chaunters Chancellors Treasurers Sub-treasurers Succentors and Sacrists and all Vicars Choral and Choristers old Vicars and new Vicars of any Cathedral or Collegiate Church and all other their Vnder-officers out of the Church of England And that being done that he would consent to another Bill for consultation to be had with Godly Religious and Learned Divines and then to settle the Church-Government in such a way as upon consultation with the said Divines should be concluded and agreed on by both Houses of Parliament A Treaty howsoever did ensue upon these Propositions but it came to nothing the Commissioners for the Houses being so straitned in point of time and tyed up so precisely to the Instructions of their Masters that they could yeeld to nothing which conduced to the Publick peace Nor was the North or South more quiet than the rest of the Kingdom For in the North the Faction of the Houses was grown strong and prevalent commanded by Ferdinand Lord Fairfax who had possest himself of some strong Towns and Castles for maintenance whereof he had supplies from Hull upon all occasions The care of York had been committed by the King to the Earl of Cumberland and Newcastle was then newly Garrisoned by the Ecrl thereof whose Forces being joined to those of the Earl of Cumberland gave Fairfax so much work and came off so gallantly that in the end both Parties came to an accord and were resolved to stand as Neutrals in the Quarrel Which coming to the knowledg of the Houses of Parliament they found some Presbyterian Trick to dissolve that Contract though ratified by all the Obligations both of Honour and Conscience 22. But in the South the King's Affairs went generally from bad to worse Portsmouth in Hampshire declared for him when he was at York but being besieged and not supplied either with Men Arms or Victuals as had been promised and agreed on it was surrendred by Col. Goring the then Governour of it upon Capitulation Norton a Neighbouring Gentleman of a fair Estate was one of the first that shewed himself in Arms against it for the Houses of Parliament and one that held it out to the very last For which good Service he was afterward made a Collonel of Horse Governour of Southampton and one of the Committee for Portsmouth after the Government of that Town had been taken from Sir William Lewis on whom it was conferred at the first surrendry A Party of the King 's commanded by the Lord Viscount Grandison was followed so closely at the heels by Brown and Hurrey too mercenary Scots in the pay of the Houses that he was forced to put himself into Winchester-Castle where having neither Victuals for a day nor