which made him afterwards more cordial to the interest of the Church of Rome notwithstanding all the arguments and insinuations used by his Wife a most zealous Hugonot to withdaaw him from it But the Hugonots gave out on the other side that they had made good their Doctrines convinced the Catholick Doctors confounded the Cardinal of Lorrain and gotten License from the King to Preach Which gave such courage to the rest of that Faction that they began of their own Authority to assemble themselves in such places as they thought most convenient and their Ministers to preach in publick and their Preachings followed and frequented by such infinite multitudes as well of the Nobility as the common People that it was thought impossible to suppress and dangerous to disturb their Meetings For so it was that if either the Magistrates molested them in their Congregations or the Catholicks attemped to drive them out of their Temples without respect to any Authority they put themselves into Arms and in the middle of a full Peace was made a shew of a most terrible and destructive War 15. This being observed by those which sate at the Helme and finding that these tempests were occasioned by the Edict of Iuly it was resolved to stere their course by another winde For the Queen being setled in this Maxime of State That she was not to suffer one Faction to destroy the other for fear she should remain a prey to the Victor not onely gave order for conventing all the Parliaments to a Common-Council but earnestly sollicited for a Pacification which gave beginning to the famous Edict of Ianuary whereby it was granted that the Hugonots should have the Free exercise of their Religion that they might assemble to hearing of Sermons in any open place without their Cities but on condition that they went unarmed and that the Officers of the place were there also present Which Edict so offended the chief Heads of the Catholick party that a strict combination and confederacy was concluded on between the King of Navar the Constable and the Duke of Guise for maintenance of the Religion of the Church of Rome And this reduced the Queen-Regent to the like necessity of making a strict union with the Admiral and the Prince of Conde whereby she was assured of the power of the Hugonots and they became as confident of her Protection In which condition they were able to form their Churches to cast them into Provinces Classes and other subdivisions of a less capacity to settle in them their Presbyteries and Synodical Meetings grounded according to their Rules of Calvins Platform in Doctrine Discipline and Worship The Forms whereof being discribed at large in the former Book may there be found without the trouble of a repetition In so much that it was certified to the Fathers in the Council of Trent that the French Hugonots were at that time distributed into two thousand one hundred and fifty Churches each of them furnished with their proper and peculiar Preachers according to a just computation which was taken of them which computation was then made to satisfie the Queen-Regent in the strength of that party for which she could not otherwise declare her self unless she were first made acquainted with their power and numbers But being satisfied in those points she began to shew her self much inclined to Calvinism gave ear unto the Discourses of the Ministers in her private Chamber conferred familiarly with the Prince the Admiral and many others in matters which concerned their Churches and finally so disguised her self that the Pope was not able to discover at what port she aimed For sometimes she would write unto him for such a Council as by the Calvinians was desired at other times for a national one to be held in France sometimes desiring that the Communion might be administred under both kindes otherwhile requiring a Dispensation for Priests to Marry now solliciting that Divine Service might be said in the vulgar tongue then proposing such other like things as were wished and preached for by the Hugonots By which dissimulations she amused the World but gave withal so many notable advantages to the Reformation that next to God she was the principal promoter and advancer of it though this prosperity proved the cause of those many miseries which afterwards ensued upon it 16. For by this means the Preachers having free access into the Court became exceedingly respected in the City of Paris where in short time their followers did increase to so great a multitude as put the Prince of Conde into such a confidence that he assumed unto himself the managery of all great affairs Which course so visibly tended to the diminution of the King of Navar that he resolved by strong hand to remove him from Paris And to that end directed both his Messages and his Letters to the Duke of Guise to come in to help him The Duke was then at Iainville in the Province of Champaigne and happened in his way upon a Village called Vassey where the Hugonots were assembled in great numbers to hear a Sermon A scuffle unhappily is begun between some of the Dukes Footmen and not a few of the more unadvised and adventurous Hugonots which the Duke coming to part was hit with a blow of a stone upon one of his Cheeks which forced him with the loss of some blood to retire again Provoked with which indignity his Followers being two Companies of Lances charge in upon them with their Fire-looks kill sixty of them in the place and force the rest for preservation of their lives into several houses This accident is by the Hugonots given out to be a matter of design the execution done upon those sixty persons must be called a Massacre and in revenge thereof the Kingdom shall be filled with Blood and Rapine Altars and Images defaced Monasteries ruined and pulled down and Churches bruitishly polluted The Queen had so long juggled between both parties that now it was not safe for her to declare for either Upon which ground she removed the Court to Fountain-bleau and left them to play their own Games as the Dice should run The presence of the King was looked upon as a matter of great importance and either party laboured to get him into their power The City of Orleance more especially was aimed at by the Prince of Conde as lying in the heart of the Kingdom rich large and populous sufficiently inclined to novelty and innovations and therefore thought the fittest Stage for his future Actings Being thus resolved he first sends D' Andelot with some Forces to possess the Town and posts himself towards Fountain-Bleau with three thousand Horse But the Catholick Confederates had been there before him and brought the King off safely to his City of Paris which being signified to the Prince as he was on his way he diverts toward Orleance and came thither in a luckie hour to relieve his Friends which having seized upon one of the
Bishops of Leige some to the jurisdiction of the Archbishops of Rheims and Colen and others under the Authority of the Bishops of Munster Of which the first were in some sort under the Protection of the Dukes of Burgundy the three last absolute and independent not owing any suite or Service at all unto them By means whereof concernments of Religion were not looked into with so strict an eye as where the Bishops are accomptable to the Prince for their Administration or more united with and amongst themselves in the publick Government The inconvenience whereof being well observed by Charles the Fifth he practised with the Pope then being for increasing the number of the Bishopricks reducing them under Archbishops of their own and Modeling the Ecclesiastical Politie under such a Form as might enable them to exercise all manner of spiritual jurisdiction within themselves without recourse to any Forreign Power or Prelate but the Pope himself Which being first designed by him was afterwards effected by King Philip the Second though the event proved contrary to his expectation For this enlargement of the number of the Sees Episcopal being projected onely for the better keeping of the Peace and Unity of the Belgick Churches became unhappily the occasion of many Tumults and Disorders in the Civil State which drew on the defection of a great part of the Country from that Kings obedience 14. For so it was that the Reformed Religion being entertained in France and Germany did quickly finde an entrance also into such of the Provinces as lay nearest to them where it found people of all sorts sufficiently ready to receive it To the increase whereof the Emperor Charls himself gave no small advantage by bringing in so many of the Switz and German Souldiers to maintain his Power either in awing his own Subjects or against the French by which last he was frequently invaded in the bordering Provinces Nor was Queen Mary of England wanting though she meant it not to the increasing of their numbers For whereas many of the Natives of France and Germany who were affected zealously to the Reformation had put themselves for Sanctuary into England in the time of King Edward they were all banished by Proclamation in the first year of her Reign Many of which not daring to return to their several Countries dispersed themselves in most of the good Towns of the Belgick Provinces especially in such as lay most neer unto the Sâ—a where they could best provide themselves of a poor subsistance By means whereof the Doctrine of the Protestant and Reformed Churches began to get much ground upon them to which the continual intercourses which they had with England gave every day such great and manifest advantage that the Emperour was fain to bethink himself of some proper means for the suppressing of the inconveniences which might follow on it And means more proper he found none in the whole course of Government then to increase the number of the former Bishopricks to re-inforce some former Edicts which he made against them and to bring in the Spanish Inquisition which he established and confirmed by another Edict bearing date April 20. 1548. Which notwithstanding the Professors of that Doctrine though restrained a while could not be totally suppressed some Preachers out of Germany and others out of France and England promoting underhand those Tenents and introducing those opinions which openly they durst not own in those dangerous times But when the Emperour Charles had resigned the Government and that King Philip the Second upon some urgent Reasons of State had retired to Spain and left the Chief Command of his Belgick Provinces to the Dutchess of Parma they then began to shew themselves with the greater confidence and gained some great ones to their side whom discontent by reason of the disappointment of their several aims had made inclinable to innovation both in Church and State 15. Amongst the great ones of which time there was none more considerable for Power and Patrimony then William of Nassaw Prince of Orange invested by a long descent of Noble Ancestors in the County of Nassaw a fair and goodly Territory in the Higher Germany possest of many good Towns and ample Signories in Brabant and Holland derived upon him from Mary Daughter and Heir of Philip Lord of Breda c. his great Grand-fathers Grand-mother and finally enriched with the Principality of Orange in France accruing to him by the death of his Cozen Rene which gave him a precedencie before all other Belgick Lords in the Court of Brussels By which advantages but more by his abilities both for Camp and Counsel he became great in favour with the Emperour Charles by whom he was made Governour of Holland and Zealand Knight of the Order of the Fleece imployed in many Ambassies of weight and moment and trusted with his dearest and most secret purposes For Rivals in the Glory of Arms he had the Counts of Horne and Egmond men of great Prowess in the Field and alike able at all times to Command and Execute But they were men of open hearts not practised in the Arts of Subtilty and dissimulation and wanted much of that dexterity and cunning which the other had for working into the affections of all sorts of people Being advanced unto this eminencie in the Court and knowing his own strength as well amongst the Souldiers as the common people he promised to himself the Supreme Government of the Belgick Provinces on the Kings returning into Spain The disappointment of which hope obliterated the remembrance of all former favours and spurred him on to make himself the Head of the Protestant party by whose assistance he conceived no small possibility of raising the Nassovian Family to as great an height as his ambition could aspire to 16. The Protestants at that time were generally divided into two main bodies not to say any thing of the Anabaptists and other Sectaries who thrust in amongst them Such of the Provinces as lay toward Germany and had received their Preachers thence embraced the Forms and Doctrines of the Lutherâ—â— Câ—â—â—ches in which not onely Images had been still retained â—ogether with set-Forms of Prayer kneeling at the Communioâ— the Cross in Baptism and many other laudable Ceremonies of the Elder times but also most of the ancient Fasts and Fâ—â—tivals of the Catholick Church and such a Form of Eccleâ—â—tical Polity as was but little differing from that of Bishops which Forms and Doctrines being tolerated by the Edicts of Paussaw and Ausberg made them less apt to work disturbance in the Civil State and consequently the less obnoxious to the fears and jealousies of the Catholick party But on the other side such Provinces as lay toward France participated of the humour of that Reformation which was there begun modelled according unto Calvins Platform both in Doctrine and Discipline More stomacked then the other by all those who adhered to the Church of Rome or otherwise pretended to the peace
Free Exercise of Gods true Religion and his promoting of his Gospel 17. These Premises being laid together he comes at last to this conclusion as to assure her in plain terms but with all humility That he could not with a safe Conscience and without the offence of the Majesty of God give his assent to the suppressing of the said Exercises much less send out any Injunction for the utter and universal subversion of the same that he might say with the Apostle That he had no power to destroy but onely to edifie that he could do nothing against the Truth but for it And therefore finally that if it were her Majesties pleasure for this or any other cause to remove him out of his place he would with all humility yeild thereunto and render again unto her Majesty that which he had received from her For to what purpose as he said should he endeavour to retain a Bishoprick or to gain the world with the loss and hazard of his Soul considering that he which doth offend against his Conscience doth but digg out his own way to Hell In which respect he humbly desires her to bear with him if he rather chuse to offend her earthly Majesty then the Heavenly Majesty of Almighty God But not content with such an absolute refusal and setting her at such a distance from Almighty God he takes upon him to advise her to discharge her self of the concernments of the Church or not to manage it at the least with so high a hand as she had done hitherto Fitter it was as he conceived it That all Ecclesiastical matters which concerned Religion the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church should be referred unto the Bishops and the Divines of this Realm according to the example of all Christian Emperours and the godly Princes of all ages in the times before her And this he further pressed upon her by her own Example in not deciding any questions about the Laws of the Realm in her Court or Palace but sending them to be determined by her Judges in the Courts of Westminster and therefore by the self-same Reason when any question did arise about the Discipline and Doctrine of the Church within her Dominions the ordinary way must be to refer the same to the Decision of the Bishops and other chief Ministers of the Church in Synodicall Meetings and not to determine of them in the Court by the Lords of her Council 18. But notwithstanding his refusal to conform to her will and pleasure on the one side and this harsh Counsel on the other which must needs be unwelcome to a Prince that loved and understood her own Authority so well as his Mistress did he might have kept his Bishoprick with her Majesties favour which he appeared so willing to resign unto her He might I say have kept them both having so many great Friends about the Queen who appâ—oved his doings if a breach had not happened about this time betwixt him and Leicester the mighty Patron and Protector of the Puritan Faction occasion'd by his denying at the Earls request to alienate his goodly House and Mannor of Lambeth that it might serve for a retiring place to that mighty favourite And hereunto he did contribute further as was said by others for refusing to grant a Dispensation to marry one which was too near of kindred to him clearly within the Compass of those degrees which seemed to him to be prohibited by the Word of God This Leicester thought he might command and was exceedingly vexed not to finde obedience in one who had been raised by him and depended on him Upon which ground all passages which bâ—fore were shut against his Enemies were now left free and open for them and the Queens ears are open to their informations as the passages were unto her person By them she comes to understand what a neglect there was of the publick Liturgy in most parts of the Kingdom what ruine and decay of Churches what innovations made already and what more projected by which she would be eased in time of all cares of Government and finde the same to be transferred to the Puritan Consistories She was told also of the general disuse of all weekly Fasts and those which annually were required by the Laws of the Realm and that instead thereof the Brethren had took upon them according to the Arrian Doctrine to appoint solemn and occasional Fasts in several places as at Leicester Coventry c. in defiance of the Laws and her own Prerogative Touching which last she gave another hot Alarm to Archbishop Grindal who in a long Letter did excuse the matter as not being done by his allowance or consent though it could not be denyed but that it had been done by his connivance which came all to one so that the Accusation being strong his Defences weak and no Friend left about the Queen who durst mediate for him for who durst favour him on whom Leicester frowned the Archi-Episcopal Jurisdiction was sequestred from him conferred upon four Suffragans of the Province of Canterbury and he himself confined to one of his Country-houses till the Queens â—â—rther pleasure should be signified to him Which Sequestration must needs happen before the beginning of the Convocation which was held this year the Pesidency whereof was then devolved on the Bishop of London by reason of Grindals incapacity to perform that Service 19. For on the sixteenth day of Ianuary it pleased the Queen to call a Parliament to be held at Westminster in which some things occurred of great importance in order to the Presbyterian History which we have in hand The Puritans following the Arrians in that particular as in many others had openly decryed all set and determinate Fasts but then ascribed more merit unto those of their own appointing then any Papists do to those of the Popes Ordaining They had also much took off the edge of the people from the Common-prayer-book but â—â—st especially from the Litany none of the meanest Pieces in it which â—ill that time was read accustomably in the House of Commons before the Members setled upon any business But in the beginning of this Parliament it was moved by one Paul Wentworth in the House of Commons that there might be a Sermon every Morning before they sate and that they would nominate some day for a solemn Fast. How the first motion sped I have nowhere found but may conclude by the event that it came to nothing because I never heard that any thing was done in puisance of it till the late Long Parliament where the like Toy was taken up for having Sermons every Morning in the Abbey-Church But that about the Fast being made when more then half the Members were not present at it was carried in the Affirmative by fifteen voices And thereupon it was ordered as the Journal tâ—llâ—â—h us That as many of the House as conveniently could should on the Sundâ—y fortnight following assemble and meet
thoughts of restoring Episcopacy by passing over the Church-Lands to the use of the Crown And to make as sure of it as they could because a three-fold Cord is not easily broken they had before called upon the King to reinforce the Band or National Covenant which had been made for their adhaesion to the true Religion and renouncing Popery For so it was that some suspitions had been raised by the Presbyterians That the King was miserably seduced and enclined to Popery and that the Earl of Lenox had been sent from France for no other purpose but to work Him to it And thereupon the King gave order unto Mr. I. Craige being then a Preacher in the Court to form a short Confession of Faith wherein not only all the Corruptions of the Church of Rome in point of Doctrine but even those also which related unto Discipline and Forms of Worship were to be solemnly abjured Which Confession for example to others the King Himself with all His Court and Council did publickly both subscribe and swear Anno 1580. And the next year He required the like Oath and Subscription from all His Subjects for the securing of those Fears and Jealousies which the Kirk had of Him But in regard this general Confession was not found sufficient to hinder the encrease of Popery for want of some strict Combination amongst the Subjects which professed the Reformed Religion it was desired that a Solemn League or Band might be authorized by which they should be bound to stand to one another in defence thereof that is to say both of their Covenant and Religion against all Opponents The Guisian Papists had projected the like League in France to suppress the Gospel and why should they in Scotland be less zealous for the true Religion than the Guisian Papists for the false Upon which ground the King was easily entreated to consent unto it and first subscribed the Band Himself with all His Family An. 1589 which the next year he caused to be subscribed by all sorts of people as the General Assembly had desired 48. Now in this Covenant and Confession they did not only bind themselves to renounce the Pope together with all the Superstitions and Corruptions of the Church of Rome but in particular to continue in obedience to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Kirk of Scotland and to defend the same according to their vocation and power all the days of their lives And though it cannot be conceived that under those general words of Doctrine and Discipline there could be any purpose to abjure the Episcopal Government which was in being when that Confession was first framed and for many years after yet being now received and subscribed unto and their Presbyteries established by Act of Parliament it was interpreted by the Covenanters of succeeding times Anno 1638 to contain in it an express renouncing of Episcopacy as also of such Rites and Ceremonies as had been introduced amongst them by the Synod of Perth Anno 1618. The sad Effects whereof the King foresaw not at the present but He took order to redress them in the time to come For now the Temporal Estates of Bishops being alienated and annexed to the Crown by Act of Parliament Anno 1587. Episcopacy tacitly abjured by Covenant and that Covenant strengthned by a Band or Association Anno 1590. And finally their Presbyteries setled by like Act of Parliament in this present year Anno 1592. it was not to be thought that ever Bishops or Episcopacy could revive again though it otherwise happened It cannot be denied but that K. IAMES did much despise this Covenant commonly called the Negative Confession when He came into England for taking occasion to speak of it in the Conference of Hampton-Court he lets us know That Mr. Craige the Compiler of it with his renouncings and abhorrings his detestations and abrenounciations did so amaze the simple people that few of them being able to remember all the said particulars some took occasion thereby to fall back to Popery and others to remain in their former ignorance To which he added this short note That if he had been bound to that Form of Craige 's the Confession of his Faith must have been in his Table-Book and not in his Head But what a mean opinion soever K. IAMES had of it the Puritans or Presbyterians of both Kingdoms made it serve their turns for raising a most dangerous Rebellion against his Son and altering the whole Frame of Government both in Church and State which they new-molded at their pleasure and sure I am that at the first entring into this Band the Presbyterians there grew so high and insolent that the King could get no Reason of them in his just demands The King had found by late experience how much they had encroached upon his Royal Prerogative defamed the present Government and reviled his Person And thereupon as he had gratified them in confirming their Discipline so he required them not long after to subscribe these Articles that is to say That the Preacher should yeeld due obedience unto the King's Majesty That they should not pretend any priviledg in their Allegiance That they should not meddle in matters of State That they should not publikely revile His Majesty That they should not draw the people from their due obedience to the King That when they are accused for their Factious Speeches or for refusing to do any thing they should not alledg the inspiration of the Spirit nor feed themselves with colour of Conscience but confess their faults like Men and crave pardon like Subjects But they were well enough they thanked him and were resolved to hold their own Power let Him look to His. AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History OF THE PRESBYTERIANS LIB IX Containing Their Disloyalty Treasons and Seditions in France the Country of East-Friesland and the Isles of Brittain but more particularly in England Together with the severe Laws made against them and the several Executions in pursuance of them from the year 15â—9 to the year 1595. THus have we brought the Presbyterians to their highest pitch in the Kirk of Scotland when they were almost at their lowest fall in the Church of England these being at the very point of their Crucifixion when the others were chanting their Hosanna's for their good success The English Brethren had lost their principal Support by the death of Leicester though he was thought to have cooled much in his affections towards their Affairs But what they lost in him they studied to repair by the Earl of Essex whose Father's Widow he had married trained him up for the most part under Puritan Tutors and married him at the last to Walsingham's Daughter Upon these hopes they made their applications to him and were chearfully welcomed the Gentleman bâ—ing young ambitious and exceeding popular and therefore apt enough to advance their Interest and by theirs his own And he appeared the rather for them at the first to cry quits
as the President of it By whose great industry and indefatigable pains a Body of Canons was collected to the number of One hundred forty one out of the Articles Injunctions and Synodical Acts during the Reigns of Queen ELIZABETH and K. EDWARD the sixth Which being methodically digested approved of in the Convocation and ratified by his Majesty's Letters Patents in due form of Law were stoutly put in execution by the said Dr. Bancroft translated to the See of Canterbury in the Month of December Anno 1604. 10. And to say truth it did concern him to be resolute in that prosecution considering how strict a Bond was made by many of the Brethren when they agreed unto the drawing of the former Petition by which they bound themselves not only to seek redress of those Particulars which are comprehended in the same but that the state of the Church might be reformed in all things needful according to the Rule of God's holy Word and agreeable to the example of other Reformed Churches which had restored both their Doctrine and Discipline as it was delivered by our Saviour Christ and his holy Apostles And how far that might reach none knew better than he who in his Note of Dangerous Positions and Proceedings and his Survey of the pretended Holy Discipline had founded the depth of their Designs and found that nothing could ensue upon their Positions but a most unavoidable ruin to the Church and State He had observed with what a peevish malice they had libelled against Arch-bishop Whitgift a Prelate of a meek and moderate spirit after his decease and could not but expect a worse dealing from them which he after found by how much he had handled them more coarsly than his Predecessor For though the Lords had showed their Zeal unto the memory of that famous Prelate by the severe punishment of Pickering who made the Libel yet well he knew that the terror of that Punishment would be quickly over if a hard hand were not also kept upon all the rest And for keeping a hard hand upon all the rest he was encouraged by the words of K. IAMES at the end of the Conference when he affirmed That he would either make the Puritans conform themselves or else would hurry them out of the Land or do that which was worse Upon which grounds he sets himself upon the Work requires a strict Conformity to the Rules of the Church according to the Laws and Canons in that behalf and without sparing Non-conformists or Half-Conformists at last reduced them to that point That they must either leave their Churches or obey the Church The Aultar of Damascus tells us if we may believe him That no fewer than Three hundred Preaching-Ministers were either silenced or deprived upon that account But the Authors of that Book whosoever they were who use sometimes to strain at Gnats and swallow a Camel at other times can make a Mountain of a Mole-hill if it stand in their way For it appears upon the Rolls brought in by Bishop Bancroft before his death that there had been but Forty nine deprived upon all occasions which in a Realm containing Nine thousand Parishes could be no great matter But so it was that by the punishment of some few of the Principals he struck such a general terror into all the rest that Inconformity grew out of fashion in a lesse time than could be easily imagined 11. Hereupon followed a great alteration in the Face of Religion more Churches beautified and repaired in this short time of his Government than had been in many years before The Liturgy more solemnly officiated by the Priests and more religiously attended by the common people the Fasts and Festivals more punctually observed by both than of later times Coaps brought again inâ—to the Service of the Church the Surplice generally worn without doubt or haesitancy and all things in a manner are reduced to the same estate in which they had been first setled under Queen ELIZABETH which though it much redounded to the Honour of the Church of England yet gave it no small trouble to some sticklers for the Puritan Faction exprest in many scandalous Libels and seditious railings in which this Reverend Prelate suffered both alive and dead Some who had formerly subscribed but not without some secret evasion or mental reservation which they kept to themselves are now required to testifie their Conformity by a new subscription in which it was to be declared that they did willingly ex animo subscribe to the three Articles formerly tendred to the Clergy under Arch-bishop Whitgift but now incorporated into the thirty six Canons and to all things in the same contained Which leaving them no starting-hole either for practising those Rites and Ceremonies which they did not approve or for approving that which they meant not to practise as they had done formerly occasioned many of them to forsake their Benefices rather than to subscribe according to the true intention of the Church in the said three Articles Amongst which none more eminent than Dr. Iohn Burges beneficed at that time in Lincoln Diocess who for some passages in a Sermon preached before the King on the 19 th of Iune 1604 was committed Prisoner and being then required by the Bishop of London to subscribe those Articles he absolutely made refusal of it and presently thereupon resigned his Benefice the reasons whereof he gives in a long Letter to Dr. William Chatterton then Bishop of Lincoln He applied himself also both by Letter and Petition to his Sacred Majesty clearing himself from all intention of preaching any thing in that Sermon which might give any just offence and humbly praying for a restitution not to his Church but only to his Majesty's Favour Which gained so far upon the King that he admitted him not long after to a personal Conference recovered him unto his station in the Church from which he was fallen and finally occasioned his preferring to the Rectory of Colshill in the County of Warwick After which he became a profest Champion of the Government and Liturgy of the Church of England both which he justified against all the Cavils of the Non-conformists as appears by a Learned Book of his entituled An Answer rejoyned to the applauded Pamphlet c. published in the year 1631. 12. But the gaining of this man did not still the rest For presently on the neck of this comes out a Factious Pamphlet published by the Lincoln-shire-Ministers which they call The Abridgment containing the sum and substance of all those Objections which either then were or formerly had been made against the Church in reference to Doctrine Government or Forms of Worship Concerning which it is observed by the said Dr. Burges That he found the state of the Questions to be very much altered in the same that Cartwright and the rest in the times fore-going though they had sharpned both their Wits and Pens against the Ceremonies opposed them as inconvenient only
the Service-Books and Books of Common-Prayer bestrewing the whole Pavement with the Leaves thereof They also exercised their madness on the Arras Hangings which adorned the Quire representing the whole story of our Saviour And meeting with some of his Figures amongst the rest some of them swore that they would stab him and others that they would rip up his bowels which they did accordingly so far forth at the least as those figures in the Arras Hanging could be capable of it And finding another Statua of Christ placed in the Frontispiece of the South-Gate there they discharged Forty Muskets at it exceedingly triumphing when they hit him in the Head or Face And it is thought they would have fallen upon the Fabrick if at the humble suit of the Mayor and Citizens they had not been restrained by their principal Officers Less spoil was made at Rochester though too much in that their Follies being chiefly exercised in tearing the Book of Common-Prayer and breaking down the Rails before the Altar Seaton a Scot and one of some command in the Army afterwards took some displeasure at the Organs but his hands were tyed whether it were that Sandys repented of the Outrages which were done at Canterbury or else afraid of giving more scandal and offence to the Kentish Gentry I am not able to determine But sure it is that he enjoyed but little eomfort in these first beginnings receiving his death's wound about three Weeks after in the fight near Powick of which within few Weeks more he dyed at Worcester 26. But I am weary of reciting such Spoils and Ravages as were not acted by the Goths in the sack of Rome And on that score I shall not take upon me to relate the Fortunes of the present Warr which changed and varied in the West as in other places till the Battel of Stratton in which Sir Ralph Hopton with an handful of his gallant Cornish raised by the reputation of Sir Bevil Greenvile and Sir Nicholas Slaining gave such a general defeat to the Western Rebels as opened him the way towards Oxon with small opposition Twice troubled in his March by Waller grown famous by his taking of Malmsbury and relieving Glocester but so defeated in a fight at Roundway-Down Run-away Down the Soldiers called it that he was forced to flye to London for a new Recruit Let it suffice that the King lost Reading in the Spring received the Queen triumphantly into Oxon within a few Weeks after by whom he was supplied with such a considerable stock of Arms aud other Necessaries as put him into a condition to pursue the Warr. This Summer makes him Master of the North and West the North being wholly cleared of the Enemy's Forces but such as seemed to be imprisoned in the Town of Hull And having lost the Cities of Bristol and Exon no Towns of consequence in the West remained firm unto them but Pool Lime and Plymouth so that the leading-members were upon the point of forsaking the Kingdom and had so done as it was generally reported and averred for certain if the King had not been diverted from his march to London upon a confidence of bringing the strong City of Glocester to the like submission This gave them time to breathe a little and to advise upon some course for their preservation and no course was found fitter for them than to invite the Scots to their aid and succour whose amity they had lately purchased at so deer a rate Hereupon Armin and some others are dispatched for Scotland where they applied themselves so dextrously to that proud and rebellious people that they consented at the last to all things which had been desired But they consented on such terms as gave them an assurance of One hundred thousand pound in ready money the Army to be kept both with Pay and Plunder the chief Promoters of the Service to be rewarded with the Lands and Houses of the English Bishops and their Commissioners to have as great an influence in all Counsels both of Peace and Warr as the Lords and Commons 27. But that which proved the strongest temptation to engage them in it was an assurance of reducing the Church of England to an exact conformity in Government and Forms of Worship to the Kirk of Scotland and gratifying their Revenge and Malice by prosecuting the Arch-bishop of Canterbury to the end of his Tragedy For compassing which Ends a Solemn League and Covenant is agreed between them first taken and subscribed to by the Scots themselves and afterwards by all the Members in both Houses of Parliament as also by the principal Officers of the Army all the Divines of the Assembly almost all those which lived within the Lines of Communication and in the end by all the Subjects which either were within their power or made subject to it Now by this Covenant the Party was to bind himself amongst other things first That he would endeavour in his place and calling to preserve the Reformed Religion in Scotland in Doctrine Discipline and Government That he would endeavour in like manner the Reformation of Religion in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland according to the Word of God and the example of the best Reformed Churches but more particularly to bring the Churches of God in all the three Kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in Religion Confession of Faith Form of Church-Government and Directory for Worship and Catechising Secondly That without respect of persons they would endeavour to extirpate Popery and Prelacy that is to say Church-Government by Arch-bishops Bishops their Chancellors Commissairs Deans Deans and Chapters Arch-deacons and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on it And thirdly That he would endeavour the discovery of such as have been or shall be Incendiaries Malignants and evil Instruments either in hindering the Reformation of Religion or in dividing between the King and his people c. whom they should bring to condign punishment before the Supream Iudicatories of either Kingdom as their offences should deserve Of which three Articles the two first tended to the setting up of their dear Presbyteries the last unto the prosecution of the late Arch-bishop whom they considered as their greatest and most mortal Enemy 28. The terror of this Covenant and the severe penalty imposed on those which did refuse it compelled great numbers of the Clergy to forsake their Benefices and to betake themselves to such Towns and Garrisons as were kept under the command of his Majesty's Forces whose vacant places were in part supplied by such Presbyterians who formerly had lived as Lecturers or Trencer-Chaplains or else bestowed upon such Zealots as flocked from Scotland and New-England like Vultures and other Birds of Rapine to seek after the prey But finding the deserted Benefices not proportionable to so great a multitude they compelled many of the Clergy to forsake their Houses that so they might avoid imprisonment or some worse Calamity Others they sent to several Gaols or
in all the Churches of his Platform In which as his Doctrine in some other points had first prepared the way to bring in his Discipline so was it no hard matter for the Discipline to support these Doctrines and crush all them that durst oppose them Onely it was permitted unto Beza and his Disciples to be somewhat milder then the rest in placing the Decree of Predestination before the Fall which Calvin himself though in some passages of his Writings he may seem to look the same way also hath placed more judiciously in Massa corrupta in the corrupted mass of mankinde and the more moderate Calvinians as rightly presuppose for a matter necessary before there could be any place for Election or Reprobation of particular Persons But being they concurred with the rest as to the personal Election oâ— Reprobation of particular men the restoring of the benefit of our Saviours sufferings to those few particulars whom onely they had honoured with the glorious Name of Gods Elect the working on them by the irresistable power of Grace in the act of Conversion and bringing them infallibly by the continual assistance of the said Grace unto life everlasting there was hardly any notice taken of their Deviation insomuch that they were scarce beheld in the condition of erring brethren though they differed from them in the main Foundation which they built upon but generally passed under the name of Calvinists as the other did Which Doctrines though I charge not wholly on the score of Presbytery in regard that many of our English Divines who abhorred that Government appeared in favour of the same yet I may truely father them on the two grand Patrons of the Presbyterians by whom they have been since exposed as their dearest darling and no less eagerly contended for then the holy Discipline 23. Another of Calvins great designs was to cry down that Civil Idolatry which he conceived had been committed unto Kings and Princes in making them Supreme and uncontrollable in their several Countries For pulling down of whose Authority even in Civil Matters he attributes such power to such popular Officers as are by them appointed for the ease of their Subjects that by his Doctrine they may call the Supreme Magistrate to a strict account whensoever they shall chance to exceed those bounds which they had prescribed unto themselves onely by which they may be circumscribed by others For having in the last Chapter of his Institutions first published in the year 1536 exceeding handsomely laid down the Doctrine of Obedience and the unlawfulness of resistance in what case soever he gives in the close such a qualification as utterly overthrows his former Doctrine and proved the sole ground of such Rebellions Treasons and Assassinates as have disfigured the otherwise undefiled beauty of the Church of Christ. Which passages I shall here lay down in the Authors words with a translation by their side that the Reader may perceive there is no wrong done him and afterwards proceed to the discovery of those sad effects which have ensued upon them in too many places wherein his Discipline hath either been received or contended for His Doctrine in which point is this that followeth 24. Neque enim si ultio Domini est â—ffraenaiae dominationis correctio ideo protinus demandatum nobis arbitremur quibus nullum aliud quam parendi patiendi datum est mandatum De privatis hominibus semper loquar Nam si qui nunc sint Populares Magistratus ad moderandum Regum libidinem constituti quales olim erant qui Lacedemoniis Regibus oppositi erant Ephori aut Romanis Consulibus Tribuni Plebis aut Atheniensium Senatui Demarchi qua etiam forte potestate ut nunc res habent funguntur in singuli Regnis tres Ordines cum primarios conventus peragunt adeo illos ferocienti Regum licentiae pro officio intercedere non veto ut si Regibus impotenter grassantibus humili plebeculae insultantibus conniverunt eorum dissimulationem nefaria nefaria perfidia non carere affirmem quia populi libertatem cujus se Dei ordinatione tutores positos norunt fraudulenter produnt 24. Nor may we think because the punishment of Licentious Princes belongs to God that presently this power is devolved on us to whom no other warrant hath been given by God but onely to obey and suffer But still I must be understood of private persons For if there be now any Popular Officers ordained to moderate the licentiousness of Kings such as were the Ephori set up of old against the Kings of Sparta the Tribunes of the people against the Roman Consuls and the Demarchy against the Athenian Senate and with which power perhaps as the world goes the three States are seiz'd in each several Kingdom when they are solemnly assembled so far am I from hindring them to put restraints upon the exorbitant power of Kings as their Office binds them that I conceive them rather to be guilty of a persidious dissimulation if they connive at Kings when they play the Tyrants or wantonly insult on the Common people in that they treacherously betray the Subjects liberties of which they knew they were made Guardians by Gods own Ordinance 25. Which dangerous Doctrine being thus breathed and broached by Calvin hath since been both professed and practised by all his Followers as either they had opportunity to declare themselves or strength enough to put the same in execution Some of whose words I shall here add as a tast to the rest and then refer the rest to their proper places And first we will begin with Beza who in his twenty fourth Epistle inscribed to the Outlandish Churches in England doth resolve it thus If any man saith he contrary to the Laws and Liberties of his native Country shall make himself a Lord or Supreme Magistrate over all the rest or being lawfully invested with the Supreme Magistracie should either unjustly spoil or deprive his Subjects of those Rights and Priviledges which he hath sworn to them to observe or otherwise oppress them by open Tyranny that then the ordinary and inferiour Officers are to oppose themselves against them who both by reason of their several Offices and by Gods appointment are bound in all such cases to protect the Subjects not onely against Forreign but Domestick Tyrants Which is as much as could be possibly contrained in so narrow a compass And if he were the Author as some say he was of the Book called Vindiciae contra Tyrannos published under the name of Stephanus Brutus there hath been no Rebellion raised since that Book was written or likely to be raised in the times ensuing which may not honestly be charged upon his account But because the Author of this Book is commonly reported to be meerly French and none of the Genevian Doctors we may possibly hear more of him in that part of our History which relateth to the Actings of the Presbyterians in the
Gospel did with Christ our Saviour adorned them in their Royal Robes with their Crowns and Scepters and then exposed them to the scorn of the common Souldiers the insolencies and reproaches of the raskal Rabble 28. Nor do they deal much better with them in reference to their power in Spiritual Matters which they make either none at all or such as is subservient onely to the use of the Church Calvin first leads the way in this as he did in the other and seems exceedingly displeased with King Henry the Eighth for taking to him the title of Supreme Head on Earth of the Church of England Of this he makes complaint in his Commentary on the 7 of Amos not onely telling us what inconsiderate men they were who had conferred upon him any such Supremacie but that himself was very much disquieted and offended at it And though he be content to yeild him so much Authority as may enable him to make use of the Civil Sword to the protecting of the Church and the true Religion yet he condemns all those of the like inconsiderateness who make them more spiritual that is to say of greater power in Sacred Matters then indeed they are The Supreme power according to the Rules of Calvins Platform belongs unto the Consistory Classes or Synodical Meetings to which he hath ascribed the designation of all such as bear publick Office in the Church the appointing and proclaiming of all solemn Fasts the calling of all Councils or Synodical Meetings the censuring of all misdemeanors in the Ministers of holy Church in which last they have made the Supreme Magistrate an incompetent Judge and therefore his Authority and final Judgement in such cases of no force at all Beza treads close upon the heels of his Master Calvin and will allow no other power to the Civil Magistrate then to protect the Church and the Ministry of it in propagating and promoting the True Worship of God It is saith he the Office of the Civil Magistrate to use the Sword in maintenance and defence of Gods holy Church as it is the duty of the Ministers and Preachers of it to implore their aid as well against all such as refuse obedience to the Decrees and Constitutions of the Church as against Hereticks and Tyrants which endeavoured to subvert the same In which particulars if the Magistrate neglects to do his duty and shall not diligently labour in suppressing Heresie and executing the Decrees of the Church against all opponents what can the people do but follow the Example of the Mother-City in taking that power upon themselves though to the total alteration and subversion of the publick Government For from the Principles and practice of these great Reformers it hath ever since been taken up as a Ruled case amongst all their Followers that if Kings and Princes should refuse to reform Religion that then the inferiour Magistrates or the Common people by the direction of their Ministers both may and ought to proceed to a Reformation and that by force of Arms also if need so require 29. That by this Rule the Scots did generally walk in their Reformation under the Regencie of Mary of Lorreign Queen-Dowager to Iames the Fifth and after her decease in the Reign of her Daughter we shall show hereafter And we shall show hereafter also that it was published for good Genevian Doctrine by our English Puritans That if Princes hinder them that travail in the search of this holy Discipline they are Tyrants to the Church and the Ministers of it and being so may be deposed by their subjects Which though it be somewhat more then Calvin taught as to that particular yet the conclusion follows well enough on such faulty Premises which makes it seem the greater wonder in our English Puritans that following him so closely in pursuit of the Discipline their disaffection unto Kings and all Soveraign Princes their manifest contempt of all publick Liturgies and pertinaciously adhering to his Doctrine of Predestination they should so visibly dissent him in the point of the Sabbath For whereas some began to teach about these times that the keeping holy of one day in seven was to be reckoned for the Moral part of the fourth Commandment he could not let it pass without some reproof for what saith he can be intended by those men but in defiance of the Jews to change the day and then to add a greater Sanctity unto it then the Jews ever did First therefore he declares for his own Opinion that he made no such reckoning of a seventh-day-Sabbath as to inthral the Church to a necessity of conforming to it And secondly that he esteemed no otherwise of the Lords-day-Sabbath then of an Ecclesiastical Constitution appointed by our Ancestors in the place of the Jewish Sabbath and therefore alterable from one day to another at the Churches pleasure Followed therein by all the Churches of his party who thereupon permit all lawful Recreations and many works of necessary labour on the day it self provided that the people be not thereby hindred from giving their attendance in the Church at the times appointed Insomuch that in Geneva if self all manlike exercises as running vaulting leaping shooting and many others of that nature are as indifferently indulged on the Lords day as on any other How far the English Puritans departed from their Mother-Church both in Doctrine and Practice with reference to this particular we shall see hereafter when they could finde no other way to advance Presbytery and to decry the Reputation of the ancient Festivals then by erecting their new Sabbath in the hearts of the people 30. It is reportred by Iohn Barkley in his Book called Parenesâ—s ad Scotos that Calvin once held a Consultation at Geneva for transferring the Lords day from Sunday to Thursday Which though perhaps it may be true considering the inclination of the man to new devices yet I conceive that he had greater projects in his Head and could finde other ways to advance his Discipline then by falling upon any such ridiculous and odious Counsel He had many Irons in the fire but took more care in hammering his Discipline then all the rest First by entitling it to some express Warrant from the holy Scripture and afterwards by commending it to all the Churches of the Reformation In reference to the first he lets us know in his Epistle to Farellus Septemb. 16. 1543. that the Church could not otherwise subsist then under such a Form of Government as is prescribed in the Word and observed in old times by the Church And in relation to the other he was resolved to make his best use of that Authority which by his Commentaries on the Scriptures his Book of Institutions and some occasional Discourses against the Papists he had acquired in all the Protestant and reformed Churches Insomuch that Gasper Ligerus a Divine of Witteberge by his Letters bearing date Feb. 27. 1554
imployed themselves to advance his projects Amongst whom none more practical or pragmatical rather then Iohn Alasco of a Noble Family in that Country but a professed Calvinian both for Doctrine and Discipline for the promoting whereof when he had setled himself and his Church in London Anno 1550 he publisheth a Pamphlet in defence of sitting at the Holy Sacrament incouraged those who had refused conformity to the Cap and Surplice and eagerly sollicited M. Bucer a man of greater parts but of more moderation to shew himself on their behalf Driven out of England he betakes himself to the Dukedom of Saxony where he behaved himself with such indiscretion that he was fain to quit those parts and retire to Poland in which the greatness of his kindred was his best protection There he sets up again for Calvin By the Activity of this man the diligence of Vtenhorius and the compliance of some great persons upon Politick ends the Eldership is advanced in many places of that Kingdom as appears by the Letters of the said Vtenhorius bearing date Ian. 27. 1559. In which he signifies unto him that the most illustrious Prince the Palatine of Vilâ—a in Lithuania being come to the Assembly of the States which was held at Petrico resolved not to depart from thence before some Convention of the Brethren should be held there also to which as well the Elders which his Highness brought thither with him as those he found there at his coming should consult together for the establishing of a greater purity in Rites and Ceremonies to be used amongst them For which admission of the Discipline into Lithuania Calvin expresseth no small joy in his Letters to a nameless Friend in that Country bearing date Octob. 9. 1561. In which he lets him know how much he did congratulate the happiness of the Realm of Poland and more particularly of the Province of Lithuania that the Reformed Religion made so great a progress in those Countries by which addition Christs Kingdom had been much enlarged that his joy was very much increased by hearing that together with the same Religion they received the Discipline that it was not without very good cause that he used to call the Discipline the Nerves of the Church in regard of the great strength which it added to it By which last words we may perceive what kinde of Church Government it was which he commended to Ligerus before remembred under this very title of the Nerves of Discipline by which Religion was to be preserved inviolable for the times to come 33. In the Assembly at Petrico before remembred the Palatines and other great men of the Kingdom obtained a Priviledge whereby it was made lawful for them to reform all the Churches under their command to reform them in such manner as to them seemed best It was then also moved by the Count of Tarnaco that the Bishops should no longer hold their place or suffrage in the Assembly of Estates but keep themselves only to such matters as concerned the Church which though it did not take effect yet the attempt appeared so dreadful in the eye of those Prelates then present that they became more tractable and obsequious to the great State-Officers then they had been formerly And what could follow hereupon but that the great men being left to please themselves in their own Religion and the Bishops not daring to oppose not onely Zuinglianism and the Discipline but many other Sects and Innovations should get ground upon them In reference to the Discipline as it was fitted and accommodated to whole Realms and Nations they had not onely their Presbyteries as in Geneva Strasbourg and some other Cities but their Classical and Synodical Meetings as in France and Scotland wherein they took upon them to make Laws and Ordinances for the directing of their Churches after Calvins Model For in the Synod held at Tzenger in the year 1564 it was Decreed that they should use no other Musick in their Churches then the singing of Psalms after the manner of Geneva understand it so condemning that which was then used in the Church of Rome partly because the Psalms and Hymns were sung in the Latine Tongue and partly because the Priests did bellow in them as they pleased to phrase it like the Priests of Baal Concerning which we are to know that the device of turning Davids Psalms into Rhyme and Meter was first taken up by Clement Marrot one of the Grooms of the Bed-chamber to King Francis the First who being much addicted to Poetry and having some acquaintance with those which were thought to wish well to the Reformation was perswaded by the learned Vatablus Professor of the Hebrew Tongue in the University of Paris to exercise his Poetical Fancies in translating some of Davids Psalms For whose satisfaction and his own he translated the first fifty of them into Gallick Meters and after fleeing to Geneva grew acquainted with Beza who in some tract of time translated the other hundred also and caused them to be fiâ—ted unto several Tunes Which thereupon began to be sung in private Houses and by degrees to be taken up in all the Churches of the French and other Nations which followed the Genevian Platform For first in imitation of this Work of Marrot's Sternhold a Groom of the Privy-Chamber to King Edward the Sixth translated thirty seven of them into English Meeter Anno 1552 the rest made up by Iohn Hopkins and some others in the time of Queen Mary but most especially by such as had retired unto Geneva in those very times Followed therein by some Dutch Zealots who having modelled their Reformation by the Rules of Calvin were willing to imbrace this Novelty amongst the rest So as in little tract of time the singing of these Psalms in Meter became a most especial part of their publick Worship and was esteemed as necessary to the Service of God as were the acts of Prayer and Preaching and whatsoever else was esteemed most Sacred In the next place to take away all difference in Apparel whether Sacred or Civil and all distinction in the choice of Meats and Drinks he accounted it a ridiculous and ungodly thing for those which are the Heirs of all things with dominion over all the Creatures to suffer themselves to be restrained by any superstitious use of Meats Drinks or Vestments The Temples built unto their hands they were contented to make use of for their publick Meetings being first purged of Idols Altars the Bellowings beforementioned and other the like dregs of Popery though formerly they had been abused who sees not a Calvinian spirit walking in all these lines by the Priests of Baal They seem content also to allow their Ministers Meat Drink and wages condemning those which grutch them such a sorry Pittance But as for Tithes and Glebes and Parsonage-Houses they kept them wholly to themselves that being the Fish they angled for in those troubled waters and the
leisure to coâ—sult the same or otherwise may make a judgement of them by this small scantling as the wise Mathematician took the just measure of the body of Hercules by the impression which he made in the sand by one of his Feet And therefore I shall look no further then upon such specialities as have relation to the Doctrine Discipline or Forms of Worship which are most proper to the rest Some of the Brethren not fully setled in a Church had laid aside the singing of Psalms either for fear of being discovered or otherwise terrified and discouraged by the threats of the adversary For this he reprehends them in a tedious Letter dated Iuly 19. 1559. imputes it to their fearfulness or pasillanimity accuseth them of plain tergiversation and shutting up all passages against the entrance of the Graces of Almighty God The Brethren of Mont-Pelyard for I think the former lived in Mettz the chief City of Lorrein were required by the Guardians of their Prince that is to say the Palatine of Zuibrook and the Duke of Wirtenberge to hold conformity in some Ceremonies with the Lutheran Church as namely in the Form of their Catechising the manner of Administring the Holy Sacrament the Form of publick Prayers and Solemnizing of Marriages They were required also to imploy themselves in Preaching down the errours and corruptions of the Church of Rome in some small Signiories which were lately fallen unto their Prince and had not formerly been instructed in the Doctrine of the Protestant Churches But absolutely they refused the one and would do nothing in the other without Calvins leave to whose infallible judgement and determination they refer the points whereunto he returns such answer by his Letters bearing date September 25. 1562 as confirmed them in their first refusal excepting more particularly against suffering Midwives to Baptize and against praying for the joyful Resurrection of a man deceased at the time of his Burial But in the other he adviseth them to accept the charge as visibly conducing to the propagation of the true Religion and the inlarging of Christs Kingdom 37. So for the Discipline which seemed to be devised at first upon humane prudence accommodated to the present condition of Geneva onely the use of Excommunication had been discontinued in the Protestant Churches and no such creatures as Lay-Elders heard of in the Primitive times or glanced at in the holy Scriptures So that to trust them with the power of the Churches-censures could not pretend to any ground in the Word of God supposing that the use of Excommunication was to be every where received Calvin himself confesses in his Letter unto those of Zurick that in the judgement of most Learned and Religious men there was no need of Excommunication under Christian Princes Beza acknowledgeth the like in the Life of Calvin and what Ligerus saith for the Church of Saxonie hath been shewed already But by degrees it came to be intituled to Divine Authority at first commended as convenient and at last as necessary With the opinion of the Sacred and Divine Authority of the holy Discipline he had so far possessed Saligniar a man of Eminent power in the City of Paris and one that for thirty years before had declared himself in favour of the Reformation that he acknowledgeth it in the end to be Apostolical For in his Letter written unto Calvin on the Ides of December he lets him know how vehemently he did desire that they might have such a Form of Ecclesiastical Polity as Calvin seemed to breath and could not be denyed to be Apostolical From hence it was that he declared so positively in his Epistle to Poppius February 25. 1559 that the Magistrates were to be sollicited for the Exercise of Excommunication by publick Authority which if it could not be obtained the Ministers were to make this protestation that they durst not give the Sacrament to unworthy receivers for fear of coming under the censure of casting that which was holy before Dogs and Swine More fully in his answer to some questions about the Discipline in which we finde and that goes very high indeed that the safety of the Church cannot otherwise be provided for then by the free use of Excommunication for the purifying of the same from filth the restraint of licentiousness abolishing enormous crimes and the correcting of ill manners the moderate exercise whereof he that will not suffer doth plainly shew himself to be no sheep of our Saviours Pasture 38. And so far Calvin had proceeded but he went no further neither condemning the Estate of Bishops as Antichristian and unlawful nor thinking his Lay-elders so extreamly necessary that no Decree of Excommunication could be past without them But Beza who succeeded in the Chair of Calvin is resolved on both For Calvin having sate eight and twenty years in the Chair of Geneva ended his life in the year 1564. During which time he had attained to such an height of Reputation that even the Churches of the Switzers lost the name of Zuinglians and thought it no small honour to them as well as those of Germany France Pole or Scotland to be called Calvinian Onely the English held it out and neither had imbraced his Doctrines nor received his Discipline And though the Puritan party in it took the name of Calvinists our Divines commonly called Calvinists say the two Informers yet both Saravia stomached it to be so accounted Mountague in answer to the two Informers doth protest against it and all the true sons of the Church of England do as much disclaim it Beza endeavoured what he could to introduce his Discipline and Forms of Worship into all the Churches which did pretend to any Reformation of their ancient Errours In the pursuit whereof he drives on so furiously like Iehu in the holy Scriptures as if no Kings or Princes were to stand before him Scarce was he setled in his Chair when one of his professed Champions for Presbytery puts himself into Heidelberg which had not long before admitted the Calvinian Doctrines but not submitted to the Discipline as extrinsecal to them This Champion therefore challenges the Divines thereof to a disputation publickly holds forth this proposition which he then defended that is to say That to a Minister with his Elders there is power given by express warrant from Gods Word to Excommunicate all offenders even the greatest Prince From hence proceeded that dispute which afterwards Erastus of whom more hereafter maintained with Beza the point being put upon this issue Whether all Churches ought to have their Eldership invested with a power of Excommunication and that Lay-elders were so necessary in every Eldership that nothing could be done without them In which dispute as it is very well observed by judicious Hooker they seemed to divide the whole truth between them Beza most truely holding the necessity of Excommunication in a Church well constituted Erastus no less truely shewing
last were left at liberty by the Rules of the Church and used in some few places onely Of all which he not onely signified a plain dislike but endeavoured to shew the errours and absurdities contained in them for such they must contain if he pleased to think so And what could follow hereupon but an open Schism a separation from the Church a resort to Conventicles which he takes notice of in his last to Grindal but imputes it unto that severity which was used by the Bishops in pressing such a yoak of Ceremonies upon tender Consciences The breach not lessened but made wider by another Letter directed to the French and Dutch Churches at London in which he sets before them the whole Form of Worship which was established at Geneva insisteth upon many points neither agreeable to the Discipline or Doctrine of the Church of England and â—inally so restrains the power of the Supreme Magistrate that he is left to the correction and control of his under Officers Of which two Letters that which was writ for satisfaction of the English brethren bears date Octob. 24. 1567 the other Iune 21 in the year next following 43. With great Zeal he drives on in pursuit of the Discipline the Form and Power whereof we will first lay down out of his Epistles and then observe to what a height he doth endeavour to advance the same excluding the Episcopal Government as Antichristian if not Diabolical First then he tells us that to each Minister which officiates in the Country-Villages within the Signiory of Geneva two Over-seers are elected as Assistants to him and that to them it appertains to keep a watchful eye over all men in their several Parishes to convent such before them as they finde blame-worthy to admonish them of their misdeeds and finally if he cannot otherwise prevail upon them to turn them over to the censure of the Eldership which resides in the City This Eldership he compounds of the six ordinary Pastors and twelve Lay-elders the last continually chosen from amongst the Senators To whose charge and office it belongs to take notice of all scandals and offences of what sort soever within the bounds assigned unto them and every Thursday to report to the Court or Consistory what they have discovered The parties thereupon are to be convented fairly admonished of their faults sometimes suspended from the Sacrament if the case require it and excommunicated at the last if they prove impenitent To this Eldership also it belongs to judge in all cases and concernments of Matrimony according to the Word of God and the Laws of the City to repel such from the Communion as do not satisfie the Ministers by a full confession of their Faith and Knowledge And in the company of an Officer of each several Ward to make a diligent inquiry over them in every Family concerning their proficiencie in the Word of God and the ways of Godliness 44. We must next see to what a height he doth endeavour to advance this Discipline which if we take it on his word is not to be received onely as a matter necessary but to be had in equall Reverence with the Word of God Sarnixius had acquainted him with some news from Poland concerning the Divisions and subdivisions in the Churches there whereunto Beza makes his answer by his Letters of the first of November 1566 That unless some Form of Ecclesiastical Discipline according to the Word of God were received among them he could not see by what means they were able to remedy their discords oâ— to prevent the like for the time to come that he had many times admired that being warned by the confusion of their Neighbours in Germany they had not considered before this time as well of the necessity to receive such Discipline as for the strict observing of it when it was received that there was onely one and the self-same Author both of Doctrine and Discipline and therefore that it must seem strange which I would have the Reader mark with his best attention to entertain one part of the Word of God and reject the other that it was most ridiculous to expect or think that either the Laws could be observed or the Peace maintained without Rules and Orders in which the very life of the Law did so much consist that for the avoiding of some new Tyranny which seemed to lye disguised under the Mask and Vizard of the present Discipline they should not run themselves into such Anarchy and discords as were not otherwise to be prevented and finally that no severity could be feared in the use of that Discipline as long as it was circumscribed within the bounds and limits assigned unto it by the Word of God and moderated by the Rules of Christian charity So that we are not to admire if the Discipline be from henceforth made a Note of the Church every way as essential to the nature of it as the Word and Sacraments which as it is the common Doctrine of the Presbyterians so we must look on Beza as the Author of it such Doctrine being never preached in the Church before 45. But because Beza seems to speak in that Epistle concerning the necessity of admitting some certain Form of Ecclesiastical Discipline without pointing punctually and precisely unto that of Geneva we must next see what Form of Discipline he means and whether a Church-Government by Bishops were intended in it And first he tells us in a Postscript of a Letter to Knox dated the third of Iuly 1569 wherein he much congratulates his good Fortune for joyning the Discipline in his Reformation with the truth of Doctrine beseeching him to go forward with it as he had begun lest it might happen to him as it did to others either to slacken in their speed or not be able to advance were they never so willing And we know well what Discipline what Form of Government and Worship had been by Knox established in the Kirk of Scotland But secondly many of the Scots being still unsatisfied in the point of Episcopacy and not well pleased with any other Government of a late invention it was thought fit to send to Beza for his judgement in it who was now looked upon as the Supreme Pastor Successor unto Calvin both in place and power Beza considers of the Business and by his Letters of the 12 of April 1572 returns this Answer viz. That he beheld it as an extraordinary blessing on the Church of Scotland That together with the true Religion they also had received the Discipline for the bond thereof Both which he earnestly conjures them so to hold together as to be sure that there is no hope to keep the one if they lose the other which being said in reference to the Holy Discipline he next proceeds to spend his judgement in the point of Episcopacy In reference to which he first tells them this that as the
Bishops were the first means to advance the Pope so the pretended Bishops would maintain the Relicks of Popery And then he adds that it concerns all those to avoid that plague by which he meanâ— undoubtedly the Episcopal Order who pretend to any care of the Churches safety And therefore since they had so happily discharged that calling in the Church of Scotland they never should again admit it though it might flatter them with some assurance of peace and unity 46. What followed thereupon in Scotland we shall see hereafter But his desires of propagating the Genevian Forms was not to be restrained to that part of the Island In his first Letter unto Grindal he doth not onely justifie the Genevian Discipline and the whole Order of that Church in Sacred Offices as grounded on the Word of God but findes great fault with the Episcopal Government in the Church of England and the great power which was ascribed unto the Queen in Spiritual Matters How so Because said he he found no warrant for it in the Word of God or any of the ancient Canons by which it might be lawful for the Civil Magistrate of his own Authority either to abrogate old Ceremonies or establish new or for the Bishops onely to ordain and determine any thing without the judgement and consent of their Presbyteries being first obtained And in his answer to the Queries of the English brethren he findes no less fault with the manner of proceedings in the Bishops Courts in regard that Excommunications were not therein passed by the common consent of a Presbytery but decreed onely by some Civil Lawyers or other Officers who faâ—e as Judges in the same But first the man was ignorant of the course of those Courts in which the sentence of Excommunication is never published or pronounced but by the mouth of a Minister ordained according to the Rules of the Church of England And secondly it is to be conceived in Reason that any Batchelor or Doctor of the Civil Law is far more fit to be imployed and trusted in the exercise of that part of Discipline then any Trades-man of Geneva though possibly of the number of the five and twenty For the redress of which great mischief and of many other he applies himself unto the Queen to whom he dedicates his Annotations on the New Testament published in the year 1572. In the Epistle whereunto though he acknowledgeth that she had restored unto this Kingdom the true Worship of God yet he insinuates that there was wanting a full Reformation of Ecclesiastical Discipline that our Temples were not fully purged that some high places still remained not yet abolished and therefore wisheth that those blemishes might be removed and those wants supplyed Finally understanding that a Parliament was then shortly to be held in England and that Cartwright had prepared an Admonition to present unto it he must needs interpose his credit with a Peer of the Realm to advance the service as appears plainly by his Letter of the same year and the Nones of Iuly In which though he approves the Doctrine yet he condemns the Government of the Church as most imperfect not onely destitute of many things which were good and profitable but also of some others which were plainly necessary 47. But here it is to be observed that in his Letter to this great person whosoever he was he seems more cautelous and reserved then in that to Grindal but far more modest then in those to Knox and the English Brethren The Government of England was so well setled as not to be ventured on too rashly And therefore he must first see what effect his counsels had produced in Scotland before he openly assaults the English Hierarchy But finding all things there agreeable to his hopes and wishes he published his Tract De Triplici Episcopatu calculated for the Meridian onely of the Kirk of Scotland as being writ at the desire of the Lord Chancellor Glammis but so that it might generally serve for all Great Britain In which Book he informs his Reader of three sorts of Bishops that is to say the Bishop by Divine Institution being no other then the Minister of a particular Church or Congregation the Bishop by humane appointment being the same onely with the President of a Convocation or the Moderator as they phrase it in some Church-assembly and finally the Devils Bishops such as presume to take upon them the whole charge of a Diocess together with a superiority and jurisdiction over other Ministers Which Book was afterwards translated into English by Feild of Wandsworth for the instruction and content of such of the Brethren as did not understand the Latine To serve as a Preface to which Work the Presbyterian Brethren publish their Seditious Pamphlets in defence of the Discipline some in the English Tongue some in the Latine but all of them Printed at Genâ—va For in the year 1570 comes out The plain and full Declaration of Ecclesiastical Discipline according to the Word of God without the name of any Author to gain credit to it And Traverse a furious Zealot amongst the English had published at Geneva also in the Latine Tongue a discourse of Ecclesiastical Discipline according to the Word of God as it was pretended with the declining of the Church of England from the same Anno 1574 which for the same reason must be turned into English also and Printed at Geneva with Beza's Book Anno 1580. What pains was took by some of the Divines of England but more particularly by Dr. Iohn Bridges Dean of Sarum and Dr. Adrian Saravia preferred upon the merit of this service in the Church of Westminster shall be remembred in a place more proper for it when we shall come to a review of those disturbances which were occasioned in this Church by the Puritan Faction Most of which did proceed from no other Fountain then the pragmaticalness of Beza the Doctrines of Calvin and the Example of Geneva which if they were so influential on the Realms of Britain though lying in a colder climate and so far remote it is to be presumed that they were far more powerful in France and Germany which lay nearer to them and in the last of which the people were of a more active and Mercurial Spirit 48. What influence Calvin had upon some of the Princes Cities and Divines of Germany hath been partly touched upon before and how his Doctrines did prevail in the Palatine Churches and his Discipline in many parts and Provinces of the Germane Empire may be shown hereafter In France he held intelligence with the King of Navar the Brethren of Rouen Aix Mont-Pelier and many leading men of the Hugonot party none of which can be thought to have asked his counsel about purchasing Lands the Marriages of their Children or the payment of Debts And when the Fortune of the Wars and the Kings just anger necessitated many of them to forsake their Country they
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
ground whereof they alledged amongst other things not onely the oppression of the Church in general but the danger wherein the Kings Person stood by a company of wicked men who laboured to corrupt him in Religion as well as manners 52. But no man laid more hastily about him or came better off then Walter Belcanqual another Preacher of that City Who in a Sermon by him preached used some words to this purpose That within this four years Popery had entred into the Countrey and Court and was maintained in the Kings Hall by the Tyranny of a great Champion who was called Grace which Adjunct they gave ordinarily to their Dukes in Scotland but that if his Grace continued in opposing himself to God and his Word he should come to little Grace in the end The King at the first hearing of it gives order to the General Assembly to proceed therein Which being signified to Belcanqual he is said to have given thanks to God for these two things first For that he was not accused for any thing done against his Majestie and the Laws But principally because he perceived the Church had obtained some Victory And for the last he gave this reason That for some quarrel taken at a former Sermon the Council had took upon them to be Iudges of a Ministers Doctrine but now that he was ordered to appear before the Assembly he would most joyfully submit his Doctrine to a publick Tryal But those of the Assembly sending word to the King that they could not warrantably proceed against him without the business were prosecuted by some Accuser and made good by witnesses the King was forced for fear of drawing any of his Servants into their displeasures to let fall the cause But Belcanqual would not so give over The Kings desisting from the prosecution would not serve his turn unless he were absolved also by the whole Assembly who had been present at the Sermon This was conceived to be most reasonable and just for having put it to the vote his Doctrine was declared to be â—ound and Orthodox and that he had delivered nothing which might give just offence unto any person The King begins to see by these particulars what he is to trust to But they will presently find out another expedient as well for tryal of their own power as his utmost patience 52. A corrupt Contract had been made betwixt Montgomery before mentioned and the Duke of Lenox by which it was agreed That Montgomery should be advanced by the Dukes Intercession to the Archbishoprick of Glasgow and that Montgomery in requital of so great a favour should grant unto the Duke and his Heirs for ever the whole Estate and Rents of the said Archbishoprick upon the yearly payments of One thousand pound Scotch with some Horse Corn and Poultry No sooner had the Kirk notice of this Transaction but without taking notice of so base a Contract they censured him for taking on him the Episcopal Function The King resolves to justifie him in the Acceptation unless they could be able to charge him with unfoundess of Doctrine or corruption of manners Hereupon certain Articles are preferred against him and amongst others it was charged that he had said The Discipline was a thing indifferent and might stand the one way or the other That to prove the lawfulness of Bishops in the Church he had used the Examples of Ambrose and Augustine That at another time he called the Discipline and the lawful Calling of the Church the triefls of Policy That he said the Ministers were captious and men of curious brains That he charged them with sedition and warned them not to meddle in the disposing of Crowns and that if they did they should be reproved That he accused them of Pasquils Lying Backbiting c. And finally he denyed that any mention of Presbytery or Eldership was made in any part of the New Testament For which and other Errours of like nature in point of Doctrine though none of them sufficiently proved when it came to tryal it was resolved by the Assembly that he should stand to his Ministry in the Church of Stirling and meddle no further with the Bishoprick under the pain of Excommunication But not content with ordering him to give off the Bishoprick they suspend him on another quarrel from the use of his Ministry To neither of which sentences when he would submit as being supported by the King on one side and the Duke on the other they cited him to appear before the Synod of Lothian to hear the sentence of Excommunication pronounced against him This moved the King to interpose his Royal Authority to warn the Synod to appear before him at the Court at Stirling and in the mean time to desist from all further Process Pont and some others make appearance in the name of the rest but withal make this protestation That though they had appeared to testifie their obedience to his Majesties warrant yet they did not acknowledge the King and Council to be competent Iudges in that matter and therefore that nothing done at that time should either prejudge the Liberties of the Church or the Laws of the Realm Which Protestation notwithstanding they were inhibited by the Council from using any further proceedings against the man and so departed for the present 54. But the next general Assembly would not leave him so but prosecute him with more heat then ever formerly and were upon the point of passing their judgement on him when they were required by a Letter missive from the King not to trouble him for any matter about the Bishoprick or any other cause preceding in regard the King resolved to have the business heard before himself But Melvin hereupon replyed That they did not meddle with any thing belonging to the Civil Power and that for matters Ecclesiastical they had Authority enough to proceed against him as being a Member of their Body The Master of the Requests who had brought the Letter perceiving by these words that they meant to proceed in it as they had begun commanded a Messenger at Arms whom he had brought along with him to charge them to desist upon pain of Rebellion This moves them as little as the Letter and he is summoned peremptorily to appear next morning that he might receive his sentence Next morning he appears by his Procurator and puts up an appeal from them to the King and Council the rather in regard that one who was his principal Accuser in the last Assembly was now to sit amongst his Judges But neither the Appeal it self nor the Equity of it could so far prevail as to hinder them from passing presently to the Sentence by which upon the specification and recital of his several crimes he was ordained to be deprived and cast out of the Church And now the courage of the man begins to fail him He requires a present Conference with some of the Brethren submits himself to the Decrees of the Assembly
the Superiority of Bishops and the Supremacy of the Queen together with the dangerous Practises and Designs of the Disciplinarians exemplified by their Proceedings in Scotland and their Positions in England of which more anon All which particulars with many more upon the by he proved with such evidence of demonstration such great variety of Learning and strength of Arguments that none of all that Party could be found to take Arms against them in defence either of their leud Doctrine or more scandalous Vses And this being done he closed up all with a grave and serious Application in reference to the prevalency and malignity of the present Humours which wrought so much upon his Auditors of both Houses of Parliament that in the passing of a general Pardon at the end of the Sessions there was Exception of Seditious Books Disturbances of Divine Service and Offences against the Act of Vniformity in the Worship of God 30. And yet it is not altogether improbable but that this Exception was made rather at the Queen's Command or by some Caveat interposed by the House of Peers than by the sole Advice or any voluntary Motion of the House of Commons in which the Puritans at that time had a very strong Party By whose Endeavour a smart Petition is presented to the Lords in the Name of the Commons for rectifying of many things which they conceived to be amiss in the state of the Church The whole Petition did consist of Sixteen particulars of which the first Six did relate to a Preaching-Ministry the want of which was much complained of in a Supplication which had been lately Printed and presented to them but such a Supplication as had more in it of a Factious and Seditious Libel than of a Dutiful Remonstrance In the other Ten it was desired 1. That no Oath or Subscription might be tendred to any at their entrance into the Ministry but such as was prescribed by the Statutes of the Realm and the Oath against corrupt Entring 2. That they may not be troubled for omission of some Rites or Offices prescribed in the Book of Common-Prayer 3. That such as had been suspended or deprived for no other offence but only for not subscribing might be restored 4. That they may not be called and urged to answer before the Officials and Commissaries but before the Bishops themselves 5. That they might not be called into the High Commission or Moot of the Diocess where they lived except for some notable Offence 6. That it might be permitted to them in every Arch-Deaconry to have some common Exercises and Conferences amongst themselves to be limited and prescribed by the Ordinaries 7. That the high Censure of Excommunication may not be denounced or executed for small matters 8. Nor by Chancellors Commissioners or Officials but by the Bishops themselves with the assistance of grave persons 9. That Non-residency may be quite removed out of the Church Or 10. That at least according to the Queen's Injunctions Art 44. no Non-resident having already a License or Faculty may enjoy it unless he depute an able Curate that may weekly Preach and Catechise as was required by Her Majesty in the said Injunctions Against the violence of this Torrent Arch-bishop Whitgift interposed both his Power and Reason affirming with a sober confidence in the H. of Peers not only that England flourished more at that time with able Ministers than ever it had done before but that it had more able men of eminent Abilities in all parts of Learning than the rest of Christendom besides But finding that the Lord Gray and others of that House had been made of the Party he drew the rest of the Bishops to joyn with him in an humble Address to Her Sacred Majesty in which they represented to Her the true estate of the Business together with those many Inconveniences which must needs arise to the State present and to come to the Two Universities to all Cathedral Churches and the Queen Her Self if the Commons might have had their will though in no other Point than in that of Pluralities All which they prest with such a Dutiful and Religious Gravity that the Queen put an end to that Dispute not only for the present but all Parliaments following 31. Somewhat there must be in it which might make them so afraid of that Subscription which was required at their hands to the Queen's Supremacy as well as to the Consecration of Arch-bishops and Bishops to the Liturgy and to the Articles of Religion by Law established and therefore it will not be amiss as we have done already in all places else to touch upon the Principles and Positions of our English Puritans that we may see what Harmony and Consent there is betwixt them and their dear Brethren of the Discipline in other Nations For if we look into the Pamphlets which came out this Year we shall find these Doctrines taught for more Sacred Truths viz. That if Princes do hinder them that seek for this Discipline they are Tyrants both to the Church and Ministers and being so may be deposed by their Subjects That no Civil Magistrate hath pre-eminence by ordinary Authority either to determine of Church-Causes or to make Ecclesiastical Orders and Ceremonies That no Civil Magistrate hath such Authority as that without his consent it should not be lawful for Ecclesiastical persons to make and publish Church-Orders That they which are no Elders of the Church have nothing to do with the Government of it That if their Reformation be not hastned forward by the Magistrate the Subjects ought not any longer to tarry for it but must do it themselves That there were many thousands which desired the Discipline And That great Troubles would ensue if it were denied them That their Presbyteries must prevail And That if it be brought about by such ways and means as would make the Bishops hearts to ake let them blame themselves For explication of which last passage Martin Mar-Prelate in his first Book threatens only fists but in the second he adviseth the Parliament then assembled to put down Lord Bishops and bring in the Reformation which they looked for whether Her Majesty would or not 32. But these perhaps were only the Evaporations of some idle Heads the Freaks of Discontent and Passion when they were crossed in their Desires Let us see therefore what is taught by Thomas Cartwright the very Calvin of the English as highly magnified by Martin and the rest of that Faction as the other was amongst the French Dr. Harding in his Answer to Bishop Iewel assures us That the Office of a King is the same in all places not only amongst Christians but amongst the Heathen Upon which Premises he concludes That a Christian Prince hath no more to do in deciding of Church-matters or in making Ceremonies and Orders for the same than hath a Heathen Cartwright affirms himself to be of the same opinion professing seriously his dislike of all such Writers
for ever continue and maintain such their Right and Title in the Church's Government with all Equity and Christian Moderation 15. At this time grew the Heats also betwixt Hooker and Travers the first being Master of the Temple and the other Lecturer Hooker received his Education in Corpus Christi Colledg in Oxon from whence he came well stocked in all kind of Learning but most especially in Fathers Councils and other approved Monuments of Ecclesiastical Antiquity Travers was bred in Trinity Colledg in Cambridg well skilled in the Oriental Tongues and otherwise better studied in Words than Matter being Cotemporary with Cartwright and of his Affection He sets up his studies in Geneva and there acquaints himself with Beza and the rest of that Consistory of whom and their new Discipline he grew so enamoured that before his coming into England he was made Minister as well at least as such hands could make him by the Presbytery of Antwerp as appears by their Certificate for I dare not call them Letters of Orders dated May 14 1578. Thus qualified he associates himself with Cartwright whom he found there at his coming in preaching to the Factory of English Merchants and follows him not long after into England also By the commendation of some Friends he was taken into the House of William Lord Burleigh whom he served first in the nature of a Pedagogue to his younger Son and after as one of his Chaplains Preferments could not chuse but come in his way considering the Greatness of his Master whose eminent Offices of Lord Treasurer Chief Secretary and Master of the Wards could not but give him many opportunities to prefer a Servant to the best places in the Church But Travers knew his incapacity to receive such Favours as neither lawfully ordained according to the Form prescribed by the Church of England nor willing to subscribe to such Rites and Ceremonies as he found were used in the same But being a great Factor for promoting the Holy Discipline he gets himself into the Lecture of the Temple which could not easily be denyed when the Chaplain of so great a Councellor was a Suitor for it 16. In this place he insinuates himself by all means imaginable into the good affections of many young Students and some great Lawyers of both Houses on whom he gained exceedingly by his way of Preaching graced with a comely Gesture and a Rhetorical manner of Elocution By which advantages he possest many of the long Robe with a strong affection to the devices of Geneva and with as great a prejudice to the English Hierarchy the fruits whereof discovered themselves more or less in all following Parliaments when any thing concerning the Church came in agitation And by the opportunity of this Place he had the chief managing of the Affairs of the Disciplinarians presiding for the most part in their Classical Meetings and from hence issuing their Directions to the rest of the Churches And so it stood till Hooker's coming to be Master who being a man of other Principles and better able to defend them in a way of Argument endeavoured to instruct his Auditors in such Points of Doctrine as might keep them in a right perswasion of the Church of England as well in reference to her Government as her Forms of Worship This troubled Travers at the heart as it could not otherwise to see that the fine Web which he had been so long in weaving should be thus unravell'd Rather than so Hooker shall tell them nothing in the Morning but what he laboured to confute in the Afternoon not doubting but that a great part of the Auditors would pass Sentence for him though the truth might run most apparently on the other side Hooker endured it for some time but being weary at the last of the opposition he complains thereof to the Arch-bishop who had deservedly a very great opinion of him and this Complaint being seasonably made in that point of time when Cartwright Snape and other Leading-men of the Puritan Faction were brought into the High Commission it was no hard matter for him to procure an Order to suppress his Adversary silenced from preaching in the Temple and all places else Which Order was issued upon these grounds that is to say That he was no lawfully ordained Minister according to the Church of England That he took upon him to preach without being licensed and That he had presumed openly to confute such Doctrine as had been publickly delivered by another Preacher without any notice given thereof to the lawful Ordinary contrary to a Provision made in the Seventh year of the Queen for avoiding Disturbances in the Church 17. But Travers was too stiff and too well supported to sit down on the first Assault He makes his supplication therefore to the Lords of the Council where he conceived himself as strong and as highly favoured as Hooker was amongst the Bishops and the High Commissioners In this Petition he complains of some obliquity in the proceedings had against him for want of some Legalities in the conduct of it But when he came to answer to the Charges which were laid upon him his Defences appeared very weak and flat and could not much conduce to his justification when they were seriously examined in the scale of Judgment His exercising the Ministry without lawful Orders he justified no otherwise than that by the Communion of Saints all Ordinations were of like Authority in a Christian Church The Bishop of London had commended him by two Letters unto that Society to be chosen Lecturer and That he took for a sufficient License as might enable him to preach to that Congregation And as for his confuting in the Afternoon what had been preached by Mr. Hooker in the morning before he conceived that he had warrant for it from St. Paul's example in withstanding St. Peter to his face for fear lest otherwise God's Truth might receive some prejudice The weakness and insufficiency of which Defences was presently made known in Hooker's Answer to the Supplication Which wrought so much upon the Lords and was so strongly seconded by the Arch-bishop himself that all the Friends which Travers had amongst them could not do him good especially when it was represented to them how dangerous a thing it was that a man of such ill Principles and of worse Affections should be permitted to continue in his former Lecture which what else were it in effect but to retain almost half the Lawyers of England to be of Councel in all Causes which concerned the Church whensoever those of the Genevian or Puritan Faction should require it of them But so it hapned and it hapned very well for Travers that the Queen had erected an University at Dublin in the year fore-going 1591 Founding therein a Colledg dedicated to the Holy Trinity to the Provostship whereof he was invited by the Arch-bishop of Dublin who had been once a Fellow of the same House with him Glad of which opportunity
Redemption by the death and blood-shedding â—f Christ Jesus the Son of God and his descending into Hell This he accordingly performed in several Sermons upon the words of the Apostle viz. God forbid that I should glory in any thing but in the Cross of our Lord Iesus Christ whereby the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world Gal. 6.14 In prosecuting of which Text he discoursed at large as well concerning the contents as the effects of Christ's Cross and brought the point unto this issue that is to say That no Scripture did teach the death of Christ's Soul or the Pains of the damned to be requisite in the Person of Christ before he could be our Ransomer and the Saviour of the World And because the proofs pretended for this point might be three Predictions that Christ should suffer those pains Causes why he must suffer them and Signs that he did suffer them He likewise insisted on all three and shewed there were no such Predictions Causes or Signs of the true pains of Hell to be suffered in the Soul of Christ before he could save us And next as touching Christ's descent into Hell it was declared That by the course of the Creed it ought not to be referred to Christ living but to Christ being dead showing thereby the Conquest which Christ's Manhood had after death over all the powers of darkness declared by his Resurrection when he arose Lord over all his Enemies in his own Person Death Hell and Satan not excepted and had the keys that is all Power of Death and Hell delivered to him by God that those in Heaven Earth and Hell should stoop unto him and be subject to the Strength and Glory of his Kingdom And this he proved to be the true and genuine meaning of that Article both from the Scriptures and the Fathers and justified it for the Doctrine of the Church of England by the Book of Homilies 18. But let the Scriptures and the Fathers and the Book of Homilies teach us what they please Calvin was otherwise resolved and his Determination must be valued above all the rest For no sooner were these Sermons Printed but they were presently impugned by a Humorous Treatise the Author whereof is said to have writ so loosly as if he neither had remembred what the Bishop uttered or cared much what he was to prove In answer whereunto the Bishop adds a short Conclusion to his Sermons and so lets him pass The Presbyterian Brethren take a new Alarum Muster their Forces compare their Notes and send them to the Author of the former Treatise that he might publish his Defence Which he did accordingly the Author being named Henry Iacob a well-known Separatist Which Controversie coming to the Queen's knowledg being then at Farnham a Castle belonging to the Bishop she signified Her Pleasure to him That he should neither desert the Doctrine nor suffer the Function which he exercised in the Church of England to be trodden and trampled under-foot by unquiet men who both abhorred the Truth and despised Authority On which Command the Bishop sets himself upon the writing of that Learned Treatise entituled A Survey of Christ's Sufferings c. although by reason of a sickness of two years continuance it was not published till the year 1604. The Controversie after this was plyed more hotly in both Universities where the Bishop's Doctrine was maintained but publickly opposed by many of our Zealots both at home and abroad At home opposed by Gabriel Powel a stiff Presbyterian Abroad by Broughton Parker and some other Brethren of the Separation After this justified and defended by Dr. Hill whom Aumes replyed unto in his Rejoynder as also by another Parker and many more till in the end the Brethren willingly surceased from the prosecution of their former Doctrines which they were not able to maintain And though the Church received some trouble upon this occasion yet by this means the Article of Christ's Descent became more rightly understood and more truly stated according to the Doctrine of the Church of England than either by the Church of Rome or any of the Protestant or Reformed Churches of what Name soever 19. But while the Prelates of the Church were busied upon these and the like Disputes the Presbyterians found themselves some better work in making Friends and fastning on some eminent Patron to support their Cause None fitter for their purpose than the Earl of Essex gracious amongst the Military men popular beyond measure and as ambitious of Command as he was of Applause He had his Education in the House of the Earl of Leicester and took to Wife a Daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham as before is said who fitted and prepared him for those Applications which hitherto he had neglected upon a just fear of incurring the Queen's Displeasure But the Queen being now grown old the King of Scots not much regarded by the English and very ill obeyed by his natural Subjects he began to look up towards the Crown to which a Title was drawn for him as the direct Heir of Thomas of Woodstock Duke of Glocester one of the younger Sons of K. EDWARD the third This man the Puritans cry up with most infinite Praises both in their Pulpits and in their Pamphlets telling him That he was not only great in Honour and the love of the people but temporis expectationâ— major far greater in the expectation which his Friends had of him And he accordingly applies himself to those of the Puritan Faction admits them to Places of most Trust and Credit about his Person keeps open House for men of those Opinions to resort unto under pretence of hearing Sermons and hearing no Sermons with more zeal and edification than those which seemed to attribute a Power to Inferior Magistrates for curbing and controlling their undoubted Soveraigns Which questionless must needs have ended in great disturbance to the Church and State if he had not been outwitted by Sir Robert Cicil Sir Walter Rawleigh and the rest of their Party in the Court by whom he was first shifted over into Ireland and at last brought upon the Scaffold not to receive a Crown but to lose his Head Which hapned very opportunely for K. IAMES of Scotland whose Entrance might have been opposed and his Title questioned if this Ambitious man had prospered in his undertakings which he conducted generally with more Heat than Judgment 20. This brings me back again to Scotland In which we left the King intent upon the expectation of a better Crown and to that end resolved upon the Restitution of the banished Lords who being advertised of his purpose returned as secretly as might be offering to give good Security to live conformable to the Laws in all peace and quietness The King seems willing to accept it and is confirmed by a Convention of Estates in those good Intentions The News whereof gave such offence to those of the Kirk that presently they assembled themselves at Edenborough
least that Enormities might be redressed as namely That Excommunication might not come forth under the name of Lay-persons Chancellors Officials c. That men be not excommunicated for Trifles and Twelve-penny matters That none be excommunicated without consent of his Pastors That the Officers be not suffered to extort unreasonable Fees That none having Jurisdiction or a Register's Place put the same to Farm That divers Popish Canons as for restraint of Marriage at certain times be reversed That the length of Suits in Ecclesiastical Courts which hung sometimes two three four five six seven years may be restrained That the Oath Ex Officio whereby men are forced to accuse themselves be more sparingly used That Licenses for Marriages without being Asked may be more sparingly granted 4. And here it is to be observed that though there was not one word in this Petition either against Episcopal Government or Set-forms of Prayer yet the design thereof was against them both For if so many of the Branches had been lopped at once the Body of the Tree must needs have rotted and consumed in a short time after The two Universities on the contrary were no less zealous for keeping up the Discipline and Liturgy of the Church then by Law established And to that end it was proposed and passed at Cambridg on the ninth of Iune That whosoever should oppose by word or writing either the Doctrine or the Discipline of the Church of England or any part thereof whatsoever within the Verge and Limits of the same University otherwise than in the way of Disputation he should be actually suspended from all Degrees already taken and utterly disabled for taking any in the time to come They resolved also to return an Answer to the said Petition but understanding that the University of Oxon was in hand therewith and had made a good progress in the same they laid by that purpose congratulating with their Sister-University for her forwardness in it as appears plainly by their Letter of the 7 th of October All this was known unto the King but he resolved to answer them in another way and to that end designed a Conference between the Parties A Conference much desired by those of the Puritan Faction in Queen Elizabeth's time who could not be induced to grant it knowing full well how much it tended to the ruin of all publick Government that matters once established in due form of Law should be made subject to Disputes But K. IAMES either out of a desire of his own satisfaction or to shew his great Abilities in Judgment Oratory and Discourse resolved upon it and accordingly gave Order for it To which end certain Delegates of each Party were appointed to attend upon Him at His Royal Palace of Hampton-Court on the 14 th of Ianuary then next following there to debate the Heads of the said Petition and to abide his Majesty's Pleasure and Determination At what time there attended on behalf of the Church the Lord Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Lord Bishop of London the Bishops of Durham Winchester Worcester St. Davids Chichester Carlisle and Peterborough The Dean of the Chappel Westminster Christ-Church Pauls Worcester Salisbury Chester and Windsor together with Dr. King Arch-Deacon of Nottingham and Dr. Feild who afterwards was Dean of Glocester Apparelled all of them in their Robes and Habits peculiar to their several Orders 5. There appeared also in the behalf of the Millenaries Dr. Iohn Reynolds and Dr. Thomas Spark of Oxford Mr. Chatterton and Mr. Knewstubs of Cambridg Apparelld neither in Priest's Gowns or Canonical Coats but in such Gowns as were then commonly worn in reference to the form and fashion of them by the Turkey Merchants as if they had subscribed to the Opinion of old T. C. That we ought rather to conform in all outward Ceremonies to the Turks than the Papists Great hopes they gave themselves for setling the Calvinian Doctrines in the Church of England and altering so much in the Polity and Forms of Worship as might bring it nearer by some steps to the Church of Geneva In reference to the first it was much prest by Dr. Reynolds in the name of the rest That the Nine Articles of Lambeth which he entituled by the name of Orthodoxal Assertions might be received amongst the Articles of the Church But this Request upon a true account of the state of that business was by that prudent King rejected with as great a constancy as formerly the Articles themselves had been suppressed under Queen ELIZABETH It was moved also That these words neither totally nor finally might be inserted in the Sixteenth Article of the publick Confession to the intent that the Article so explained might speak in favour of the Zuinglian or Calvinian Doctrine concerning the impossibility of falling from the state of Grace and Justification Which Proposition gave a just occasion to Bishop Bancroft to speak his sense of the Calvinian Doctrine of Predestination which he called in plain terms a desperate Doctrine Upon whose interposings in that particular and a short Declaration made by the Dean of St. Pauls touching some Heats which had been raised in Cambridg in pursuit thereof this second Motion proved as fruitless as the first had done 6. Nor sped they better in relation to the Forms of Worship than they had done in reference unto points of Doctrine some pains they took in crying down the Surplice and the Cross in Baptism the Ring in Marriage and the Interrogatories proposed to Infants And somewhat also was observed touching some Errors in the old Translation of the English Psalter as also in the Gospels and Epistles as they stood in the Liturgy But their Objections were so stale and so often answered that the Bishops and Conformable Party went away with an easie Victory not only the King's Majesty but the Lords of his Council being abundantly well satisfied in such former scruples as had been raised against the Church and the Orders of it The sum and substance of which Conference collected by the hand of Dr. Barlow then Dean of Chester can hardly be abbreviated to a lesser compass without great injury to the King and the Conferrees Let it suffice that this great Mountain which had raised so much expectation was delivered only of a Mouse The Millenary Plaintifs have gained nothing by their fruitless travel but the expounding of the word Absolution by Remission of sins the qualifying of the Rubrick about private Baptism the adding of some Thanksgivings at the end of the Letany and of some Questions and Answers in the close of the Catechism But on the other side the Brethren lost so much in their Reputation that the King was very well satisfied in the weakness of their Objections and the Injustice of their Cavils insomuch that turning his head towards some of the Lords If this be all quoth he which they have to say I will either make them conform themselves or hurry them out of the Land or
esteem for his Parts and Piety and setled all things as they thought in so good a posture that some of them retired to their Countrey-houses and others slackned their attendance about the Court. Which opportunity being taken by the Earl of Dunbar he puts in for Abbot who had attended him in some of his Negotiations with the Kirk of Scotland Upon the merits of which Service he was preferred first to the See of Litchfield to which he received his Episcopal Consecration on the third of December 1609 and within the compass of the year was removed to London But Dunbar was resolved to advance him higher And he put in so powerfully on his behalf that at last he carried it to the great detriment of the Church as it after proved For as one very well observeth of him he seemed to be better qualified with merit to attain the Dignity than with a spirit answerable to so great a Function Which made him slack and negligent in the course of his Government and too indulgent to that Party which Bancroft had kept under with such just severity But take his Character in the words of the said Historian and we shall find that he was a man too facil and yeelding in the exercise of that great Office that by his extraordinary remisness in not exacting strict conformity to the prescribed Orders of the Church in point of Ceremony he seemed to resolve those Legal determinations to their first indifferency and finally That he brought in such a habiâ— of Nonconformity that the future reduction of those tender Conscienced-men to a long discontinued obedience was at the last interpreted for an Innovation 27. But to go forwards where we left Bancroft being dead the English Puritans began to put forth again not pushing at the Liturgy and Episcopal Government as in former times but in pursuance of the Sabbatarian and Calvinian Rigors Which having been advanced in the year 1595 as is there declared and afterward laid aside till a fitter season were now thought fit to be resumed as the most proper Mediums for inferring the desired Conclusion In both which they received some countenance from K. IAMES himself but more from the connivence if I may not call it the encouragement of the new Arch-bishop In reference to the first the King had published a Proclamation in the first year of his Reign prohibiting some rude and disorderly Pastimes as namely Ball Baitings Bear-baitings and common Interludes from being followed on the Sunday because they drew away much people from God's publick Service And he had caused the Morality of the Lord's-day-Sabbath to be confâ—â—â—ed amongst the rest of the Irish Articles Anno 1615 of which more anon Which Condescentions were so husbanded by the Puritan Faction that by the raising of the Sabbath they depressed the Festivals and with the Festivals all those ancient and Annual Fasts which had been kept upon the Eves And following close upon the Doctrines of Aerius before remembred they introduced by little and little a general neglect of the Weekly Fasts the holy time of Lent and the Embring-days reducing all the Acts of Humiliation to solemn and occasional Fasts as amongst the Scots and yet this was not all the mischief which ensued on their Sabbath-Doctrines By which and by the temper of the present Government they gave occasion to some Preachers and not a few publick Ministers of Justice in their several Countreys to interdict all lawful sports upon that Day By means whereof the people were perswaded by some Priests and Jesuits especially in Lancashire and some others of the Northern Counties that the Reformed Religion was incompetible with that Christian Liberty which God and Nature had indulged to the sons of men And having brought them to that point it was no hard matter to perswade them to fall off to Popery as a Religion more agreeable to human Society and such as would permit them all such lawful pleasures as by the Stoicism of the other had been interdicted Which brought the King to a necessity of publishing his Declaration about lawful sports dated at Greenwich on the 24 th day of May Anno 1620. Which as it put some Water into the Wine of the Sabbatarians so shewed he within few years after how little he affected the Calvinian Rigors 28. In reference to which last some of the Zealots in the Cause had took encouragement from his Declaration against Vorstus a Divine of the Netherlands in which he had bestowed some unhandsome Epethetes upon the Followers of Van Harmine in the Belgick Provinces This seemed sufficient to expose all those of the same Perswasions unto scorn and hatred and on the other side to animate all those who favoured Calvinism to act such things as drew upon them at the last the King 's high displeasure Calvin had published a blasphemous Fancy touching Christ's suffering of Hell-torments in the time of his Passion even to the horrors of Despair Which being touched upon by Corbet one of the Students of Christ-Church in a Passion-Sermon 1613 he was most sharply reprehended by the Repetitioner for so great a sauciness Dr. Iohn Houson one of the Canons of that Church who had most worthily discharged the Office of Vice-Chancellor twelve years before declared himself somewhat to the prejudice of the Annotations which were made on the Genevian Bibles and for so doing is condemned to a Recantation much about that time though the said Annotations had been censured for their partiality and seditiousness by the Tongue of K. IAMES And finally Dr. William Laud being then President of St. Iohn's Colledg had showed himself no Friend to Calvinism in Doctrine or Discipline and must be therefore branded for a Papist in a publick Sermon preached upon Easter Suâ—â—ay by Dr. Robert Abbot then Vice-Chancellor and Doctor of the Chair in that University Which passages so closely following upon one another ocsioned as most conceived the publishing of some Directions by His Majesty in the year next following In which it was injoyned among other things That young Students in Divinity should be directed to study such Books as were most agreeable in Doctrine and Discipline to the Church of England and be excited to bestow their time in the Fathers and Councils School-men Histories and Controversies and not to insist too long upon Compendiums and Abbreviators making them the grounds of those Sacred Studies Which as it was the first great blow which was given to Calvinism so was it followed not long after by the King's Instructions touching Preaching and Preachers In which it was precisely cautioned amongst other things That no Preacher of what Title soever under the Degree of a Bishop or Dean at the least should from thenceforth presume to preach in any popular Auditory the deep points of Predestination Election Reprobation or of the Vniversality Efficacity Resistibility or Irresistibility of God's Grace but should rather leave those Theams to be handled by Learned men as being fitter for Schools and
oppositions to Monarchical and Episcopal Government in the Realm of Scotland their secret Practices and Conspiracies to advance their Discipline together with their frequent Treasons and Rebellions in the pursuance of the same from the year 1565 till the year 1585. Lib. VI. Containing The beginning progress and proceedings of the Puritan Faction in the Realm of England in reference to their Innovations both in Doctrines and Forms of Worship their Opposition to the Church and the Rules thereof from the beginning of the Reign of King Edward VI 1548 to the fifteenth year of Queen Elizabeth Anno 1572. 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. Lib. VIII Containing The Seditious Practices and positions of the said English Puritans their Libelling Railing and Reviling in order to the setting up of the holy Discipline from the year 1584 to the year 1589. The undutiful carriage of the French and the horrible insolencies of the Scottish Presbyters from the year 1585 to the year 1592. Lib. IX Containing Their Disloyalties Treasons and Seditions in France the Country of East-Friesland and the Isles of Britain but more particularly in England together with the several Laws made against them and the several exceptions in pursuance of them from the year 1589 to the year 1595. Lib. X. Containing A relation of their Plots and Practices in the Realm of England their horrible Insolencies Treasons and Seditions in the Kingdom of Scotland from the year 1595 to year 1603. Lib. XI Containing Their successes either good or bad in England Scotland Ireland and the Isles of Jersey from the year 1602 to the year 1623 with somewhat touching their affairs as well in France and Sweden as the Belgick Provinces Lib. XII Containing Their tumultuating in the Belgick Provinces their Practices and Insurrections in the Higher-Germany the frustrating their designe on the Churches of Brandenberg the revolts of Transylvania Hungary Austria and Bohemia and the Rebellions of the French from the year 1610 to the year 1628. Lib. XIII Containing The Insurrection of the Presbyterian and Puritan Faction in the Realm of Scotland the Rebellions raised by them in England their horrid Sacriledges Murders Spoils and Rapines in pursuit thereof their Innovations both in Doctrine and Discipline and the great Alteration made in the Civil Government from the year 1536 to the year 1647 when they were stript of all Command by the Independants Advervisement of Books newly printed The History of the late Wars in Denmark comprizing all the Transactions both Military and Civil during the differences betwixt the two Northern Crowns in the years 1657 1658 1659 1660. Illustrated with several Maps By R. Manley To be sold by Tho. Basset at the George in Fleetstreet A Help to English History Containing a Succession of all the Kings of England the English Saxons and the Britains the Kings and Princes of Wales the Kings and Lords of Man the Isle of Wight As also of all the Dukes Marquesses Earls and Bishops thereof with the description of the places from whence they had their Titles continued and enlarged with the names and ranks of the Viscounts Barons and Baronets to the year 1669. By Peter Heylyn AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB I Containing The first institution of Presbyterie in the Town of Geneva the Arts and Practices by which it was imposed on the neck of that City and pressed upon all the Churches of the Reformation together with the dangerous Principles and Positions of the chief Countrivers in the pursuance of that project from the year 1536 to the year 1585. AT such time as it pleased God to raise up Martin Luther a Divine of Saxonie to write against the errours and corruptions of the Church of Rome Vlderick Zuinglius a Cannon of the Church of Zurick endeavoured the like Reformation amongst the Switzers but holding no intelligence with one another they travailed divers ways in pursuance of it which first produced some Animosities between themselves not to be reconciled by a personal Conference which by the Lantgrave of Hassia was procured between them but afterwards occasioned far more obstinate ruptures between the followers of the parties in their several stations The Zuinglian Reformation was begun in defacing Images decrying the established Fasts and appointed Festivals abolishing set forms of worship denying the old Catholick Doctrine of a real presence and consequently all external reverence in the participation of the blessed Sacrament which Luther seriously laboured to preserve in the same estate in which he found them at the present They differed also in the Doctrine of Predestination which Luther taught according to the current of the ancient Fathers who lived and flourished before the writings of St. Augustine so that the Romanists had not any thing to except against in that particular when it was canvassed by the School-men in the Council of Trent But Zuinglius taught as was collected from his writings That God was the total cause of all our Works both good and evil that the Adultery of David the cruelty of Manlius and the treason of Iudas were the works of God as well as the vocation of Saul that no man hath power to think well or ill but that all cometh of absolute necessity that man doth nothing towards his Predestination or Reprobation but all is in the Will of God that the Predestinate cannot be condemned nor the Reprobate saved that the Elect and Predestinate are truely justified that the justified are bound by Faith to believe they are in the number of the Predestinated that the justified cannot fall from Grace but is rather bound to believe that if he chance to fall from Grace he shall receive it again and finally that those who are not in the number of the Predestinate shall never receive Grace though offered to them Which difference being added unto that of the Sacrament and eagerly pursued on both sides occasioned such a mortal and implacable hatred between the parties that the Lutherans have solemnly vowed rather to fall off roundly to the Church of Rome then yeild to those Predestinarian and Sacramentary pestilences as they commonly called them But Zuinglius in the mean time carried it amongst the Switzers five of those thirteen Cantons entertain his Doctrine the like did also divers Towns and Seignories which lay nearest to them of which Geneva in a short time became most considerable 2. Geneva is a City of the Alpian Provinces belonging anciently to the Allobroges and from thence called Aurelia Allobrogum by some Latine writers scituated on the South-side of the Lake Lemane opposite to the City of Lozanne in the Canton of Berne from which it is distant six Dutch Miles the River Rhosâ—o having passed through the lake with so clear a colour that it seemeth not at all to mingle with the waters of it runeth
in regard the Bishop could not satisfie them in their expectations they are resolved to satisfie themselves out of his Estate and either for his sake or their own to cast off all relation to the Duke of Savoy as their Patron Paramount And though both Lords did afterwards unite against them and besieged the Town yet by the help of those of Berne with whom they joyned themselves in a strict Confederacie they repulsed them both Since which time they have strongly fortified the Town on all sides but most especially on that side which lies toward Savoy and would never since permit the Duke to arm any Boats or Galleys upon the Lake for fear he might make use of them to their disadvantage 5. The power and dominion of that Citie being thus put into the hands of the common people it could not be expected that any Discipline or good Order should be kept in the Church The Common-Council of the Town disposed of all things as they pleased and if any Crime which anciently belonged to the Ecclesiastical Discipline did happen to be committed in it it was punished by order from the Council No Censures Ecclesiastical no Sentence of Excommunication was either thought on at Geneva or at that time in any other of the Popular Churches modelled according to the Form devised by Zuinglius as Beza hath observed in the Life of Calvin The like affirmed by Calvin also in his Letter above-mentioned to those of Zurick who grants it to have been a received opinion with some very grave and learned men that Excommunication was not necessary under Christian Magistrates And so it stood till Calvin's coming to the Citie Anno 1536 who being born at Noyon Noviodunum the chief Town of Picardie was by his father destined to the Civil Laws but his own inclination carried him rather to the studie of Divinity in the pursuit whereof he first began to fancie the Reformed Religion and finding no assurance in the Realm of France resolved to fix himself in Strasburgh or Basil. But taking Geneva in his way upon the importunity of Farellus he condescended to make that place the Scene of his actions and endeavours and his aâ—â—eâ—â— being once made known he was forthwith admitted to be one of their Preachers and in the Month of August chosen their Divinity Reader This done he presently negotiates with them not onely to abjure the Papacie with all obedience to their Bishop forth enime to come but to admit some heads of Doctrine and such a Form of Discipline as he and his colleagues had devised for them And he prevailed in it at the last though with no small difficulty the said Discipline being generally sworn and subscribed unto 20 Iuly 1537. Which Form of Discipline what it was I have nowhere found but sure I am that it had no affinity with the practice of the Primitive Church which Calvin plainly doth acknowledge in his Letter to Sadolet who had objected it against him But the people being proud and headstrong and not willing to be stripped so easily of the precious Liberty which so happily they had acquired became soon weary of the yoke though they disguised it under colour of not giving offence to those of Berne Zurick and the rest of their neighbours whose friendship was most necessary for them in all time of trouble But Calvin being peremptory not to administer the Communion unto any of those who could not quietly without contradiction submit themselves unto the Discipline which themselves had sworn to and having Farellus and Coraldus two of his Associates in conjunction with him together with his two Associates is expelled the Town 6. Three years or thereabouts he continued in his excile being bountifully entertain'd at Strasburgh where by his diligent preaching and laborious writings he grew into a greater reputation then the rest of their Ministers the fame whereof being daily posted to Geneva made them first sensible of the loss that they suffered in him and afterwards procured them to sollicite the Chief Magistrates of the City of Strasburgh to license his return unto them from whence at last with unresistable importunity he was again recalled by that unconstant multitude A desire to which by no means he would hearken unless both they and all their Ministers would take a solemn Oath to admit a compleat Form of Discipline not arbitrary nor changeable but to remain in force for ever after Upon assurance of their conformity herein he returns unto them like another Tully unto Rome and certainly we may say of him as the Historian doth of the other that never man was banished with greater insolence nor welcomed home again with an equal gladness On the 13 day of September 1541 he is received into the Town and on the 20 of November following he confirm'd his Discipline which he had modelled in this manner A standing Ecclesiastical Court to be established perpetual Judges in that Court to be the Ministers others of the people annually chosen twice so many in number to be Judges together with them in the same Court this Court to have care of all mens Manners power of determining all kinde of Ecâ—lesiastical causes and Authority to convent to control and to punish as far as with Excommunication whensoever they should think to have deserved it none either small or great excepted To this device he brought the people to submit without any reluctancie for what cause had they to suspect any yoak or bondage to be intended in that project wherein they had a double Vote to each single Minister and consequently a double number on their side upon all occasions But when the first year was expired and that the Elders of that year were to leave their places they then perceived how much they had inthralled themselves by their own facility And now they began to have some fear that the filling up of the Seats in the Consistory with so geat a number of Lay-men was but to please the mindes of the people to the end they might think themselves of some power therein that their Pastors being men of parts and practised in affairs of that nature would easily over-rule the rest though the greater number that the Lay-elders being onely annual and changed from one year to another might first or last come under the severe lash of their Pastors who were in a perpetuaâ— residencie if they should dare at any time to act against them by their double Vote and that amongst the Ministers themselves one being far in estimation above the rest the rest of the voices are most likely to be given with reference to his will and pleasure which what else were it in effect but to bring in Popery again by another name in setting over them a Supream Pastor or perpetual Residence with power to carry all before him 7. But nothing gave them more offence then the confidence of that vast and unlimited power which was to be put
being displaced the Elder turned out of his Office Perine and his Wife clapt up in Prison and all the rest exposed to some open shame So he in his Epistle to his Friend Farellus Anno 1546. Upon this ground Perinus always made himself of the opposite party and thereupon sollicited the relaxation given to Bertilier but in the end was forced together wâ—â—h the rest to submit themselves unto this yoak and the final sentence of the said four Churches was imposed upon them And so we have the true beginning of the Genevian Discipline begotten in Rebellion born in Sedition and nursed up by Faction 10. Thus was the Discipline confirmed and Calvin setled in the jurisdiction which he had aspired to But long he could not be content with so narrow a Diocess as the Town and Territory of Geneva and would have thought himself neglected if all those Churches which embraced the Zuinglian Doctrines had not withal received the Genevian Discipline for the confirming whereof at home and the promoting it in all parts abroad there was no passage in the Scripture which either spake of Elders or Excommunication but he applyed the same for justifying the Authority of his new Presbytery in which the Lay-elders were considered as distinct from those which laboured in the Word and Sacraments but joyned with them in the exercise of a Jurisdiction even that of Ordination also which concerned the Church Assuredly we are as much in love with the Children of our Brains as of our Bodies and do as earnestly desire the preferment of them Calvin had no sooner conceived and brought forth this Discipline but he caused it first to be nourished and brought up at the charge of Geneva and when he found it strong enough to go abroad of it self he afterwards commended it to the entertainment of all other Churches in which he had attained to any credit proceeding finally so far as to impose it upon the world as a matter necessary and not to be refused on pain of Gods high displeasure by means whereof what Jealousies Heart-burnings Jars and Discords have been occasioned in the Protestant Reformed Churches will be made manifest by the course of this present History Which notwithstanding might easily have been prevented if the Orders which he devised for the use of this City had not been first established in themselves then tendered unto others as things everlastingly required by the Law of that Lord of lords against whose Statutes there was no exception to be taken In which respect it could not chuse but come to pass that his Followers might condemn all other Churches which received it not of manifest disobedience to the Will of Christ And being once engaged could not finde a way how to retire again with Honour Whenas the self-same Orders having been established in a Form more wary and suspence and to remain in force no longer then God should give the oportunity of some general Conference the Genevians either never had obtruded this Discipline on the rest of the Churches to their great disquiet or left themselves a fair liberty of giving off when they perceived what trouble they had thereby raised to themselves and others 11. Now for the means by which this Discipline was made acceptable to the many Churches which had no dependance on Geneva nor on Calvin neither they were chiefly these that is to say â—irst The great contentment which it gave the Common people to see themselves intrusted with the weightiest matters in Religion and thereby an equality with if not by reason of their number being two for one superiority above their Ministers Secondly the great Reputation which Calvin had attained unto for his diligence in Writing and Preaching whereby his Dictates came to be as authentick amongst some Divines as ever the Popes Ipse dixit was in the Church of Rome Thirdly his endeavours to promote that Platform in all other Churches which was first calculated for the Meridian of Geneva onely of which we shall speak more particularly in the course of this History Fourthly the like endeavours used by Beza who not content to recommend it as convenient for the use of the Church higher then which Calvin did not go imposed it as a matter necessary upon all the Churches so necessary that it was utterly as unlawful to recede from this as from the most material Points of the Christian Faith of which more hereafter Fifthly the self-ends and ambition of particular Ministers affecting the Supremacy in their several Parishes that themselves might lord it over Gods Inheritance under pretence of setting Christ in his Throne Upon which ground they did not onely prate against the Bishops with malicious words aâ— Dieotrephes did against the Apostles but were resolved to cast them out of the Church neither receiving them amongst themselves nor suffering those that would have done it if they might Sixthly the covetousness of some great persons and Lay-Patrons of which the one intended to raise themselves great Fortunes by the spoil of the Bishopricks and the other to return those Titles to their own proper use to which they onely were to nominate some deserving person For compassing of which three last ends their followers drove on so furiously that rather then their Discipline should not be admitted and the Episcopal Government destroyed in all the Churches they are resolved to depose Kings ruine Kingdoms and subvert the Fundamental Constitutions of all Civil States 12. Thus have we seen the Discipline setled at the last after many struglings but setled onely by the forestalled judgement and determination of four neighbouring Churches which neither then did entertain it nor could be ever since induced to receive the same And we have took a general view of those Arts and Practices by which it hath been practised and imposed upon other Nations as also of those grounds and motives on which it was so eagerly pursued by some and advanced by others We must now therefore cast our eyes back on that Form of Worship which was by him devised at first for the Church of Geneva commended afterwards to all other Churches which were not of the Lutheran Model and finally received if not imposed upon most Churches which imbraced the Discipline Which Form of Worship what it was may best be gathered from the summary or brief view thereof which Beza tendreth to the use of the French and Dutch Churches then established in the City of London and is this that followeth The publick Meetings of the Church to be held constantly on the Lords day to be alike observed both in Towns and Villages but so that in the greater Towns some other day be set apart on which the Word is to be preached unto the people at convenient times Which last I take to be the grounds of those Week-day-Lectures which afterwards were set up in most of the great Towns or Cities of this Realm of England a Prayer to usher in the Sermon and another after it the frame
Realm of France What was taught afterwards in pursuance of Calvins Doctrines by Hottaman and him that calls himself Eusebius Philadelphos amongst the French by Vrsine and Pareus in the Palatine Churches by Buchanan and Knox amongst the Scots and by some principal Disciplinarians amongst the English we shall hereafter see in their proper places And we shall then see also what was done in point of practice first by the Princes on the House of Bourbon and afterwards by some great Lords of the Hugonot party against Francis the Second Charles the Ninth Henry the Third and Lewis the Thirteenth Kings of France by William Prince of Orange and other of the Belgick Lords in the final abdication of King Philip the Second by the Hungarians and Bohemians in their revolting from the Princes of the House of Austria by the Rebellious Scots in deposing imprisoning and expelling of their rightful Queen and finally by the Genevian Faction in the Realm of England in their imbroylments of the Nation under Queen Elizabeth and that calamitious War but more calamitous in the issue and conclusion of it against Charles the First All which are built upon no other ground then this Doctrine of Calvin accommodated and applyed to their several purposes as appears plainly by the Answer of the Scots to Queen Elizabeth who justified the deposing of their natural and lawful Queen on those words of Calvin which they relyed on for the sole ground of that horrible Treason and their Indemnity therein of which more hereafter 26. In the mean time I shall content my self with the following passage faithfully gathered out of the Common Places of William Bucan Divinity-Reader in the small University of Lawsanna sâ—ituate on the Lake Lemane in the Canton of Berne and consequently a neer Neighbour to the Town of Geneva who treating in his forty one Chapter of the Duty of Magistrates propounds this question toward the close viz. What a good Christian ought to do if by a cruel Prince he be distressed by some grievous and open injury To which he thus returns his Answer That though Princes and Subjects have relation unto one another yet Subjects in the course of nature were before their Princes and therefore that such Princes if they usurp not a plain Tyranny in their several Kingdoms are not Superiour to the rest by nature in the right of Father hood but are setled by the suffrages and consent of the people on such conditions as originally were agreed between them and that it follows thereupon according unto Buchanans Doctrine that Subjects are not born for the good of their Kings but that all Kings were made to serve for the good of the people that it is lawful to defend Religion by force of Arms not onely against the assaults of such Forreign Nations as have no jurisdiction over us but also against any part of the same Common-wealth the common consent of the Estates being first obtained which doth indeavour to subvert it that no violence is to be offered to the person of the Supreme Magistrate though he play the Tyrant by any private man whatsover except he be warranted thereunto by some extraordinary and express command from the Lord himself but the oppression rather to be born with patience then that God should be offended by such rash attempts that the Protection of the Supreme Magistrate was to be required against the unjust oppressions of inferiour Officers and that in a free Common-wealth the Supreme Magistrate is rather to be questioned in a course of Law then by open Force that Subjects may lawfully take up Arms in defence of their Wives and Children if the Chief Magistrate make any violent assault upon them as Lyons and other brute Creatures sight to defend their young ones this last exemplified by that of Trajan giving the Sword to the Captain of his Guard with these following words Hoc ense pro me justa faciente injusta facienâ—e contra me utaris that is to say That he should use the Sword against him in defence of himself and for the protection of all those who in regard of his Office were subject to him that therefore it was well done by the Switzers to free themselves of their subjection to the House of Austria when the Princes of the House had exercised more then ordinary cruelty in most parts of the Country that David might lawfully have killed Saul because he gave his Wife to another man expelled him from his native Country murdered the Priests for doing some good Offices to him and pursued him from one place to another with his flying Army but that he did forbear to do it lest he should give an Example to the people of Israel of killing their Kings which other men prompted by ambition might be like enough to imitate 27. Such is the Commentary of Buchanus upon Calvins Text by which all Christian Kings are made accountable even in Civil Matters to the three Estates or any other ordinary Officers of their own appointing Which Doctrines being once by him delivered and inforced by others what else could follow thereupon but first an undervaluing of their transcendent Authority afterwards a contempt of their persons and finally a reviling of them with reproachful Language From hence it was that Calvin calls Mary Queen of England by the name of Proserpine assuring us that all the Devils in Hell were not half so mischievous and that Knox could not finde for her any better titles then that of Iezabel mischievous Mary of the Spaniards blood the professed enemy of God From hence it was that Beza calls Mary Queen of Scots by the names of Medea and Athaliah of which the one was no less infamous in the Sacred then the other was in the Heathen story that the English Puritans compared Queen Elizabeth to an idle slut who swept the middle of the room but left all the dust and filth thereof behind the doors that Didoclavius calls King Iames the greatest and most deadly enemy of the holy Gospel and positively affirms of all Kings in general that they are naturally enemies to the Kingdom of Christ. And finally from hence it was that the seditious Author of the base and unworthy Dialogue entituled Eusebius Philadelphus hath so bespattered the great Princes of the House of France that he hath made them the most ugly Monsters in their lusts and cruelty which ere Nature produced and could devise no fitter names for Queen Mary of Scotland then those of Medea Clytemnestra Proserpine with that of monstrum Exitiale in the close of all And that the late most mighty Monarch of Great Britain was handled by his Subjects of this Faction with no less scurrility then if he had been raised on high for no other purpose then to be made the mark against which they were to shoot their Arrows even most bitter words the object of all false tongues and calumnious Pens Thus do they deal with Kings and Princes as Pilate in the
chief bait that tempted them to swallow down those alterations in Religion which afterwards made them a reproach and a by-word to the rest of Christendom 34. I have some reason to believe that sitting at the Lords Table came first in with Calvinism as being most agreeable to the Rules of the Discipline and the Doctrine of the Zuinglian Church But afterwards upon consideration of the scandal which was given thereby as well to the Lutherans as the Papists it was thought fit to change that posture into standing or kneeling and then to charge the introduction of that sawey custom on the Arrain Hereticks who looking on Christ no otherwise then their elder Brother thought it no robbery at all to be equal with him and sit down with him at his Table And it was well for them though it happened very ill for the peace of Christendom that they could finde so fair a Plaster for so foul a soar For so it was that both the Heresies of Arrius the impieties of Servetus the extravagancies of the Anabaptists and the exploded errors of the Samosatenians who from the last reviver of them are now called Socinians grew up together in this Kingdom with the Doctrine of Calvin and might receive some good encouragement from the Rules of his Discipline by which that slovenly gesture or posture of sitting was imposed as necessary Nor was the Discipline of force sufficient to repress those Heresies though Calvin thought it such a great preservative of the true Religion and that it was conâ—irmed at the Synod of Sendomier 1570 as grounded on the Word of God and warranted both by Christs command and the example of his Apostles which gives the Presbyterian Discipline more Divine Institution then Calvin durst ascribe unto it or any of our Sabbatarians could ever finde for their Lords-day-Sabbath Some difference there was in the choice of their Elders between these Polish Churches and the rest of that Platform the Government of the rest being meerly popular but these retaining somewhat in them of an Aristocracy For besides the several Presbyteries of particular Churches they have a more general superintendencie in every Diocess or any other large District of what name soever For managing whereof some of the principal Ministers are chosen by consent of their Synods whom they call by the name of Spiritual Superintendents each of them being associated with two or three Elders of the Lay-Nobility and for the most part of the rank or degree of Knights By means whereof they keep the ordinary Presbyteries and Parochial Sessions within the bounds appointed for them not suffering them to intrench upon the priviledges of Prince or People as they have done in other places where they want this curb 36. Leaving the Polish Churches under this establishment we must follow Calvin into Scotland where he imployed Iohn Knox as his Vicar-General He knew the spirit of the man by his Factious Writings his actings in the Schism at Frankfort and the long conversation which he had with him in Geneva it self and having given him a Commission to return to Scotland instructed and incouraged him in his following courses And Knox applyed himself so well to his Instructions that presently on his return he inflamed the people to the defacing of Images the destroying of Altars demolishing of Monasteries and Religious Houses and making havock of all things which formerly were accounted Sacred This Calvin calls the propagation of the Gospel and by his Letters doth congratulate with him for his good success So that if Tully's Rule be true and that there be little or no difference between the advising of mischief and the rejoycing at it when the deed is done Calvin must be as guilty of those spoils and Sacrileges as even Knox himself And that he might proceed as he had begun he lays this Rule before him for his future carriage that is to say that the Church was to be cleared from all that filth which had issued out of errour and superstition and that the Mysteries of God were not to be defiled with idle and impertinent mixtures Under which general Rule and such a general Rule as hath no exceptions there was no Ceremony used in the Church of Rome though Primitive and Apostolical in it self which was not presently to be discharged as impure or idle or otherwise abominated as some part of the filths of Popery And because all things must be done to the honour of Galviu he is consulted with in all such doubts and emergent difficulties as could not be sufficiently determined by a less Authority It is reported in the History writ by Venerable Bede that when Augustine the Monk was sent into England by Pope Gregory to convert the Saxons he met with many difficult and intricate cases which he was not able to resolve In which respect he sent them all in writing to the Pope himself requiring his judgement in the same that he might have the better ground to proceed upon either in ordering of such matters which concerned the Church or determining finally such cases as were brought before him Knox looks on Calvin with as great a Reverence as Augustine did upon the Pope accounts him for the Supreme Pastor of the Reformation and therefore sends his doubts unto him concerning the Baptizing of Bastards as also of the Children of Idolaters and Excommunicate persons He makes another Querie also but such as seemed to be rather a matter of Concupiscence then a case of Conscience Whether the Monks and Parish-Priests which remained in Scotland were to receive their Tythes and Rents as in former times considering that they did no service in the Church of Christ. To which last Query he returned such answer for in the other he was Orthodox and sound enough as served to strip the Monks and Priests of all their livelyhood it being clearly his opinion that they ought not to be fed and cloathed at the publick charge in regard they lived in idleness and did nothing for it but that they rather were to get their livings by the sweat of their brows and by the labour of their hands According to which resolution no man is sure of his Estate but may be stript of it as an idle boy or an unprofitable servant when the Brethren please 36. But Calvins thoughts were not confined to Poland or to Scotland onely He now pretends to a more general or Apostolical care over all the Churches sending abroad his Missives like the Decretals of some former Popes which being made in reference to those emergent difficulties which were brought before them served afterwards for a standing Rule to regulate the like cases for the times to come It would be thought a matter of impertinency or curiosity at the best to touch upon all particulars of this nature in which he signified his good pleasure to the rest of the Churches The Reader may satisfie himself out of his Epistles if he hath any list or
in point of courage And yet the anger of God did not stay here neither that Plague being carried into England at the return of the Soldiers which raged extreamly both in London and most parts of the Realme beyond the precedent and example of former ages It was on the 17 of Iuly an 1563 that New-haven was yielded to the French that being the last day of the first war which was raised by the Hugonots and raised by them on no other ground but for extorting the free exercise of their Religion by force of Arms according to the doctrine and example of the Mother-City In the pursuit whereof they did not only with their own hands ruinate and deface the beauty of their native Country but gave it over for a prey to the lust of Strangers The calling in of the English to support their faction whom they knew well to be the antient enemies of the Crown of France and putting into their hands the chief strength of Normandy of whose pretensions to that Dukedome they could not be ignorant were two such actions of a disloyal impolitick nature as no pretence of zeal to that which they called the Gospel could either qualifie or excuse Nor was the bringing in of so many thousand German Souldiers of much better condition who though they could pretend no title to the Crown of France nor to any particular Province in it were otherwise more destructive to the peace of that Country and created far more mischief to the people of it then all the forces of the English for being to be maintained on the pay of the Hugonots and the Hugonots not being able to satisfie their exorbitant Arrears they were suffered to waste the Country in all parts where they came and to expose the whole Kingdom from the very borders of it toward Germany to the English Chanell unto spoyle and rapine so that between the Hugonots themselves on the one side and these German Souldiers on the other there was nothing to be seen in most parts of the Kingdom but the destruction of Churches the profanation of Altars the defacing of Images the demolishing of Monasteries the burning of Religious Houses and even the digging up of the bones of the dead despitefully thrown about the fields and unhallowed places 25. But this first was only raked up in the Embers not so extinguished by the Articles of the late agreement but that it broke out shortly into open flames for the Hugonots pressing hard for the performance of the Edict of Ianuary and the Romanists as earnestly insisting on some clauses of the pacification the whole Realm was filled in a manner with such fears and jealousies as carryed some resemblance of a War in the midst of Peace The Hugonots had some thoughts of surprising Lyons but the Plot miscarryed they practised also upon Narbonne a chief City of Languedock and openly attempted the Popes Town of Avignion but were prevented in the one and suppressed in the other A greater diffidence was raised against them by the unseasonable Zeal of the Queen of Navar who not content with setling the reformed Religion in the Country of Berne when she was absolute and supreme suffered the Catholicks to be infested in her own Provinces which she held immediately of the Crown insomuch that at Pamiers the chief City of the Earldom of Foix the Hugonots taking offence at a solemn Procession held upon Corpus Christi day betook themselves presently to Arms and falling upon those whom they found unarmed not onely made a great slaughter amongst the Church-men but in the heat of the same fury burnt down their Houses Which outrage being suffered to pass unpunished gave both encouragement and example to some furious Zealots to commit the like in other places as namely at Montaban Gaelion Rodez Preieux Valence c. being all scituate in those Provinces in which the Hugonots were predominant for power and number But that which most alarmed the Court was a seditious Pamphlet published by a Native of Orleance in which it was maintained according to the Calvinian Doctrines that the people of France were absolved from their Allegiance to the King then Reigning because he was turned an Idolater In which reason it is lawful also to kill him as opportunity should be offered Which Doctrine being very agreeable unto some designs which were then every where in agitation amongst the Hugonots was afterward made use of for the justifying of the following Wars when the opinion grew more general and more openly maintained both from Press and Pulpit 26. The Catholicks on the other side began to put themselves into a posture of Arms without so much as taking notice of those misdemeanors which they seemed willing to connive at not so much out of any inclinations which they had in themselves but because they found it not agreeable to the will of the Court where such dissimulations were esteemed the best arts of Government The Catholick King had sent the Duke of Alva with a puissant Army to reduce the Low Countries to obedience where the Calvinians had committed as great spoils and Rapines as any where in France or Scotland This Army being to pass in a long march near the Borders of France gave a just colour to the King to arm himself for fear lest otherwise the Spaniards might forget their errand and fall with all their Forces into his Dominions To this end he gives order for a Levy of six thousand Switz which he caused to be conducted through the heart off the Kingdom and quartered them in the Isle of France as if they were to serve to a Guard for Paris far enough off from any of those parts and Provinces by which the Spaniards were to pass But this gave such a jealousie to the heads of the Hugonots that they resorted to Chastillion to consult with the Admiral By whose advice it was resolved that they must get the King and Queen into their power and make such use of both their names as the Catholicks had made of them in the former War This to be done upon the sudden before the opening of a War by the raising of Forces should render the surprize impossible and defeat their purposes The King and Queen lay then at Monceux an House of pleasure within the Territory of Byre in Champaigne not fearing any the least danger in a time of peace and having the Switz near enough to secure their persons against any secret Machinations And thereupon it was contrived that as many Horse as they could raise in several places should draw together at Rosay not far from Monceux on the 27 of September that they should first surprize the King the Queen and her younger Sons and then fall in upon the Switz who being quartered in several places and suspecting nothing less then the present danger might very easily be routed and that being done they should possess themselves of Paris and from thence issue out of all Mandates which concerned
excited him with many Captains and Commanders who for the most part lived upon spoil and plunder to raise an Army of seven thousand Horse and four thousand Foot with which they made foul work in France wasting and spoiling all Countries wheresoever they came for being joyned unto the rest of the Hugonots Army they found them brought to such a poor and low condition that they were not able to advance the least part of that sum which they had promised to provide against their coming Somewhat was raised by way of Contribution to keep them in some present compliance and for the rest they were permitted to pay themselves in the spoil of the Country especially Churches Monasteries and Religious Houses But the Queen offering termes of Peace none were more forward then these Germans to imbrace the offer and Casimir more forward in it then all the rest The King had offered to disburse a great part of the money which belonged to the Souldiers for their pay which to those mercenary spirits was too strong a temptation to be resisted or neglected 8. These Germans were scarcely setled in their several Houses when the Hugonots brake out again and a new Army must be raised by the Duke of Zudibruck whom the French call the Duke of Deuxponts a Prince of the Collateral Line to the Electoral Family who upon hope of being as well paid as his Cozen Casimir tempted with many rich promises by the Heads of the Hugonots and secretly encouraged by some Ministers of the Queen of England made himself Master of a great and puisâ—ant Army consisting of eight thousand Horse and six thousand Foot With this Army he wastes all the Country from the very edge of Burgundy to the Banks of Loire crosseth that River and commits the like outrages in all the Provinces which lye between that River and the Aquitain Ocean In which action either with the change of Air the tediousness of his Marches or excessive drinking he fell into a violent Feaver which put a period to his travails within few days after Nor did this Army come off better though it held out longer for many of them being first consumed with sickness arising from their own intemperance and the delicious lusts of the Strumpets of France the rest were almost all cut off at the Battail of Mont-counter in which they lost two Colonels and twenty seven Captains of Foot and all their Horse except two thousand which saved themselves under Count Lodowick of Nassaw But the love of money prevailed more with them then the fear of death For within few years after Anno 1575 we finde them entring France again under Prince Iohn Casimir in company with the young Prince of Conde who had sollicited the Cause The Army at that time consisting of eight thousand Horse three thousand French Fire-locks and no fewer then fourteen thousand Switz and Germane Foot joyned with the Hugonots and a new Faction of Politicks or Male-contents under the Command of the Duke of Alanzon who had revolted from his Brother became so terrible to the King that he resolved to buy his Peace upon any rates To which end having somewhat cooled the heats of his Brother he purchaseth the departure of the Germane Souldiers by ingaging to pay them their Arrears which came in all to twelve hundred thousand Crowns on a full computation Besides the payment of which vast sum he was to gratifie Prince Casimir with the Siguory of â—hasâ—eau-Thierry in the Province of Champagne the command of one hundred French Lances and an annual pension of fourteen thousand Crowns as before was said 9. In the mean time the flames of the like civil War consumed a great part of Flanders to which the Prince Elector must bring Fewel also For being well affected to the House of Nassaw and more particularly to the Prince of Orange and knowing what encouragements the Calvinians in the Netherlands had received from them he hearkned cheerfully to such Propositions as were made to him at the first by Count â—odowick his Ministers and after by the Agents of the Prince himself But those small Forces which he sent at their first ingaging doing no great service he grants them such a large supply after the first return of Prince Casimirs Army Anno 1568 as made them up a Body of French and Germans consisting of seven thousand Foot and four thousand Horse with which he sent Prince Christopher a younger Son to gain experience in the War and to purchase Honour And though he might have been discouraged by the loss of that Army and the death oâ— his Son into the bargain from medling further in that quarrel yet the Calvinian spirit so predominated in his Court and Counsels that another Army should be raised and Casimir imployed as Commander of it as soon as he could give himself the least assurance that the French required not his assistance During the languishing of which Kingdom between Peace and War the War in Flanders grew more violent and fierce then ever which moved the Provinces confederated with the Prince of Orange to enter into a strict union with the Queen of England who could not otherwise preserve her self from the plots and practices of Don Iohn of Austria by which he laboured to embroyl her Kingdom By the Articles of which League or Union she bound her self to aid them with one thousand Horse and five thousand Foot the greatest part whereof she raised in the Dominions of the Prince Elector or indeed rather did contribute to the payment of so much money for his Army which was drawn together for the service of the Prince of Orange as might amount unto that number And that they might receive the greater countenance in the eye of the World she sends for Casimir into England where he arrived about the latter end of Ianuary 1578 is Royally feasted by the Queen rewarded with an annual Pension and in the next year made Knight of the Garter also By these encouragements he returns to his charge in the Army which he continued till the calling in of the Duke of Anjou and then retired into Germany to take breath a while where he found such an alteration in the State of affairs as promised him no great assurance of employment on the like occasion 10. For Lodowick the fifth succeeding Prince Elector in the place of his Father and being more inclined to the Lutheran Forms did in time settle all his Churches on the same Foundation on which it had been built by the Electors of the former Line so that it was not to be thought that either he could aid the Hugonots or the Belgick Calvinists in any of their Insurrections against their Princes if either of them possibly could have had the confidence to have moved him in it But he being dead and Frederick the Fourth succeeding the Zuinglian Doctrines and the Genevian Discipline are restored again and then Prince Casimir is again sollicited to raise a greater
power then ever for the aid of the French The Catholicks of which Realm had joyned themselves in a common League not onely to exclude the King of Navar and the Prince of Condâ— from their Succession to the Crown but wholly to extirpate the Reformed Religion To counterpoise which Potent Faction the King of Navar and his Associates in that Cause implored the assistance of their Friends in Germany but more particularly the Prince Elector Palatine the Duke of Wirtemberge the Count of Mombelliard and the Protestant Cantons who being much moved by the danger threatned unto their Religion and powerfully stirred up by Beza who was active in it began to raise the greatest Army that ever had been sent from thence to the aid of the Hugonots And that the action might appear with some Face of Justice it was thought fit to try what they could do towards an atonement by sending their Ambassadors to the Court of France before they entred with their Forces But the Ambassador of Prince Casimir carried himself in that imployment with so little reverence and did so plainly charge the King with the infringing of the Edicts of Pacification that the King dismist them all with no small disdain telling them roundly that he would give any man the lye which should presume to tax him of the breach of his promise This short dispatch hastned the coming in of the Army compounded of twelve thousand German Horse four thousand German Foot sixteen thousand Switz and about eight thousand French Auxiliaries which staid their coming on the Borders With which vast Army they gained nothing but their own destruction for many of them being consumed by their own intemperance more of them wasted by continual skirmishes with which they were kept exercised by the Duke of Guise most of the rest were miserably slaughtered by him near a place called Auneaw a Town of the Province of La Beausse or murthered by the common people as they came in their way 11. Such ill success had Frederick the Fourth in the Wars of France as made him afterwards more careful in engaging in them until he was therein sollicited on a better ground to aid that King against the Leaguers and other the disturbers of the Common Peace Nor did some other of the petty Princes speed much better in the success of this Affair the Country of Montbelguard paying dearly for the Zeal of their Count and almost wholly ruined by the Forces of the Duke of Guise Robert the last Duke of Bouillon of the House of Marke had spent a great part of his time in the acquaintance of Beza and afterwards became a constant follower of the King of Navar by whom he was imployed in raising this great Army of Switz and Germans and destined to a place of great Command and Conduct in it Escaping with much difficulty in the day of the slaughter he came by many unfrequented ways to the Town of Geneva where either spent with grief of minde or toyl of body he dyed soon after leaving the Signory of Sedan to his Sister Charlot and her to the disposing of the King of Navar who gave her in Marriage not long after to the Viscount Turenne but he had first established Calvinism both for Doctrine and Discipline in all the Towns of his Estate in which they were afterwards confirmed by the Marriage of Henry Delatoure Viscount of Turenne Soveraign of Sedan and Duke of Bouillon by his former Wife with one of the Daughters of William of Nassaw Prince of Orange a professed Calvinian the influence of which House by reason of the great Command which they had in the Netherlands prevailed so far on many of the Neighbouring Princes that not onely the Counties of Nassaw and Hanaw with the rest of the Confederacy of Vetteravia but a great part of Hassia also gave entertainment to those Doctrines and received that Discipline which hath given so much trouble to the rest of Christendom Which said we have an easie passage to the Belgick Provinces where we shall finde more work in prosecution of the Story then all the Signories and Estates of the Upper Germany can present unto us 12. The Belgick Provinces subject in former times to the Dukes of Burgundy and by descent from them to the Kings of Spain are on all sides invironed with France and Germany except toward the West where they are parted by the Intercurrent-Ocean from the Realm of England with which they have maintained an ancient and wealthy Traffick Being originally in the hands of several Princes they fell at last by many distinct Titles to the House of Burgundy all of them except five united in the person of Duke Philip the good and those five added to the rest by Charles the Fifth From hence arose that difference which appears between them in their Laws and Customs as well as in distinct and peculiar Priviledges which rendred it a matter difficult if not impossible to mould them into one Estate or to erect them into an absolute and Soveraign though it was divers times endeavoured by the Princes of it The whole divided commonly into seventeen Provinces most of them since they came into the power of the Kings of Spain having their own proper and subordinate Governours accountable to their King as their Lord in Chief who had the sole disposal of them and by them managed all Affairs both of War and Peace according to their several and distinct capacities All of them priviledged so far as to secure them all without a manifest violation of their Rights and Liberties from the fear of Bondage But none so amply priviledged as the Province of Brabant to which it had been granted by some well-meaning but weak Prince amongst them that if their Prince or Duke by which name they called him should by strong hand attempt the violation of their ancient priviledges the Peers and People might proceed to a new Election and put themselves under the Clyentele or Patronage of some juster Governour 13. The whole Estate thus laid together is reckoned to contain no more in compass then twelve hundred miles but is withall so well planted and extremely populous that there are numbered in that compass no fewer then three hundred and fifty Cities and great Towns equal unto Cities besides six thousand and three hundred Villages of name and note some of them equal to great Towns not taking in the smaller Dorps and inferiour Hamlets But amongst all the Cities and great Towns there were but four which anciently were honoured with Episcopal Sees that is to say the Cities of Vtrecht Cambray Tournay and Arras and of these four they onely of Arras and Tournay were naturally subject to the Princes of the House of Burgundy the Bishop of Cambray being anciently a Prince of the Empire and Vtrecht not made subject to them till the Government of Charles the Fifth Which paucity of the Episcopal Sees in so large a Territory subjected some of the Provinces to the
pardon And when men once are brought unto such a condition they must resolve to fight it out to the very last and either carry away the â—arland as a signe of Victory or otherwise live like Slaves or dye like Traytors But this was done according to Calvins Doctrine in the Book of Institutes in which he gives to the Estates of each several Country such a Coercive Power over Kings and Princes as the Ephori had exercised over the Kings of Sparta and the Roman Tribunes sometimes put in practice against the Consuls And more then so he doth condemn them of a betraying of the Peoples Liberty whereof they are made Guardians by Gods own appointment so he saith at least if they restrain not Kings when they play the Tyrants and want only insult upon or oppress the Subjects So great a Master could not but meet with some apt Scholars in the Schools of Politie who would reduce his Rules to practice and justifie their practice by such great Authority 54. But notwithstanding the unseasonable publication of such an unprecedented sentence few of the Provinces fell off from the Kings obedience and such strong Towns as still remained in the hands of the States were either forced unto their duty or otherwise hard put to it by the Prince of Parma To keep whom busied in such sort that he should not be in a capacity of troubling his Affairs in Holland the Prince of Orange puts the Brabanders whose priviledges would best bear it to a new Election And who more fit to be the man then Francis Duke of Anjou Brother to Henry the Third of France and then in no small possibility of attaining to the Marriage of the Queen of England Assisted by the Naval power of the one and the Land-Forces of the other What Prince was able to oppose him and what power to withstand him The young Duke passing over into England found there an entertainment so agreeable to all expectations that the Queen was seen to put a Ring upon one of his Fingers which being looked on as the pledge of a future Marriage the news thereof posted presently to the Low Countries by the Lord Aldegund who was then present at the Court where it was welcomed both in Antwerp and other places with all signes of joy and celebrated by discharging of all the Ordnance both on the Walls and in such Ships as then lay on the River After which triumph comes the Duke accompanied by some great Lords of the Court of England and is invested solemnly by the Estates of those Countries in the Dukedoms of Brabant and Limburg the Marquisate of the holy Empire and the Lordship of Machlin which action seems to have been carryed by the power of the Consistorian Calvinists for besides that it agreeth so well with their common Principles they were grown very strong in Antwerp where Philip Lord of Aldegund a profest Calvinian was Deputy for the Prince of Orange as they were also in most Towns of consequence in the Dukedom of Brabant But on the other side the Romish party was reduced to such a low estate that they could not freely exercise their own Religion but onely as it was indulged unto them by Duke Francis their new-made Soveraign upon condition of taking the Oath of Allegiance to him and abdicating the Authority of the King of Spain the grant of which permission had been vain and of no significancie if at that time they could have freely exercised the same without it But whosoever they were that concurred most powerfully in conferring this new honour on him he quickly found that they had given him nothing but an airy Title keeping all power unto themselves So that upon the matter he was nothing but an honourable Servant and bound to execute the commands of his mighty Masters In time perhaps he might have wrought himself to a greater power but being young and ill advised he rashly enterprised the taking of the City of Antwerp of which being frustrated by the miscarriage of his plot he returned ingloriously into France and soon after dyes 55. And now the Prince of Orange is come to play his last part on the publick Theatre his winding Wit had hitherto preserved his Provinces in some terms of peace by keeping Don Iohn exercised by the General States and the Prince of Parma no less busied by the Duke of Anjou nor was there any hope of recovering Holland and Zealand to the Kings obedience but either by open force or some secret practice the first whereof appeared not possible and the last ignoble But the necessity of removing him by what means soever prevailed at last above all sence and terms of Honour And thereupon a desperate young Fellow is ingaged to murther him which he attempted by discharging a Pistol in his face when he was at Antwerp attending on the Duke of Anjou so that he hardly escaped with life But being recovered of that blow he was not long after shot with three poyson Bullets by one Balthasar Gerard a Burgundian born whom he had lately taken into his service which murder was committed at Delph in Holland on the 10 of Iune 1584 when he had lived but fifty years and some months over He left behind him three Sons by as many Wives On Anne the Daughter of Maximilian of Egmont Earl of Bucen he begat Philip Earl of Bucen his eldest Son who succeeded the Prince of Orange after his decease By Anne the Daughter of Maurice Duke Elector of Saxony he was Father of Grave Maurice who at the age of eighteen years was made Commander General of the Forces of the States United and after the death of Philip his Elder Brother succeeded him in all his Titles and Estates And finally by his fourth Wife Lovise Daughter of Gasper Colligny great Admiral of France for of his third being a Daughter to the Duke of Montpensier he had never a Son he was the Father of Prince Henry Frederick who in the year 1625 became Successor unto his Brother in all his Lands Titles and Commands Which Henry by a Daughter of the Count of Solmes was Father of William Prince of Orange who married the Princess Mary Eldest Daughter of King Charles the second Monarch of great Britain And departing this life in the flower of his youth and expectations Anno 1650 he left his Wife with Childe of a Post-humous Son who after was baptized by the name of William and is now the onely surviving hope of that famous and illustrious Family 56. But to return again to the former William whom we left weltring in his bloud at Delph in Holland He was a man of great possessions and Estates but of a soul too large for so great a Fortune For besides the Principality of Orange in France and the County of Nassaw in Germany he was possessed in right of his first Wife of the Earldom of Bucen in Gelderland as also of the Town and Territories of Lerdame and Iselstine in Holland
into France yet afterwards with one thousand Foot and some remainders of his Horse he recovered Leith and joyned himself unto the rest of that Nation who were there disposed of Of all which passages and provocations the Chief Confederates of the Congregation were so well informed as might assure them that Queen Elizabeth would be easily moved for her own security to aid them in expelling the French and then the preservation of Religion and the securing of themselves their Estates and Families would come in of course 22. It was upon this Reason of State and not for any quarrel about Religion that Queen Elizabeth put her self into Arms and lent the Scots a helping hand to remove the French And by the same she might have justified her self before all the World if she had followed those advantages which were given her by it and seized into her hands such Castles Towns and other places of importance within that Kingdom as might give any opportunity to the French-Scots to infest her Territories For when one Prince pretends a Title to the Crown of another or otherwise makes preparations more then ordinary both by Land and Sea and draws them together to some place from whence he may invade the other whensoever he please the other party is not bound to sit still till the War be brought to his own doors but may lawfully keep it at a distance as far off as he can by carrying it into the Enemies Country and getting into his power all their strong Passes Holds and other Fortresses by which he may be hindred from approaching nearer But this can no way justifie or excuse the Scots which are not to be reckoned for the less Rebels against their own undoubted Soveraign for being subservient in so just a War to the Queen of England as neither the Caldeans or the wilde Arabians could be defended in their thieving or Nebuchadnezzar justified in his pride and Tyranny because it pleased Almighty God for tryal of Iobs faith and patience to make use of the one and of the other for chastising his people Israel The point being agitated with mature deliberation by the Councel of England it was resolved that the French were not to be suffered to grow strong so near the Border that the Queen could not otherwise provide for her own security then by expelling them out of Scotland and that it was not to be compassed at a less expence of bloud and Treasure then by making use of the Scots themselves who had so earnestly supplicated for her aid and succours Commissioners are thereupon appointed to treat at Barwick Betwixt whom and the Agents for the Lords of the Congregation all things in reference to the War are agreed upon The sum and result whereof was this That the English with a puissant Army entred into Scotland reduced the whole War to the Siege of Leith and brought the French in short time into such extremities that they were forced in conclusion to abandon Scotland and leave that Country wholly in a manner to the Congregation 23. These were the grounds and this the issue of those counsels which proved so glorious and successful unto Queen Elizabeth in all the time of her long Reign For by giving this seasonable Aid to those of the Congregation in their greatest need and by feeding some of the Chiefs amongst them with small annual Pensions she made her self so absolute and of such Authority over all the Nation that neither the Queen Regent nor the Queen her self nor King Iames her son nor any of their Predecessors were of equal power nor had the like Command upon them The Church was also for a while a great gainer by it the Scots had hitherto made use of the English Liturgie in Gods publick Worship the fancie of extemporary Prayers not being then taken up amongst them as is affirmed by Knox himself in his Scottish History But now upon the sence of so great a benefit and out of a desire to unite the Nations in the most constant bonds of friendship they binde themselves by their subscription to adhere unto it For which I have no worse a Witness then their own Buchanan And that they might approach as near unto it in the Form of Government as the present condition of the times would bear as they placed several Ministers for their several Churches as Knox in Edenborough Goodman at St. Andrews Aeriot at Aberdeen c. so they ordained certain Superintendants for their Ministers all the Episcopal Sees being at that time filled with Popish Prelates And happy it had been for both had they continued still in so good a posture and that the Presbyterian humour had not so far obliterated all remembrance of their old affections as in the end to prosecute both the Liturgie and Episcopacie to an extermination And there accrued a further benefit by it to the Scots themselves that is to say the confirmation of the Faith which they so contended for by Act of Parliament for by difficulties of Agreement between the Commissioners authorized on all sides to attone the differences it was consented to by those for the Queen of Scots that the Estates of the Realm should convene and hold a Parliament in the August following and that the said Convention should be as lawful in all respects as if it should be summoned by the particular and express command of the Kings themselves According to which Article they hold a Parliament and therein pass an Act for the ratification of the Faith and Doctrine as it was then drawn up into the Form of a Confession by some of their Ministers But because this Confession did receive a more plenary Confirmation in the first Parliament of King Iames we shall refer all further speech of it till we come to that They also passed therein other Acts to their great advantage first for abolishing the Popes Authority the second for repealing all former Statutes which were made and maintained of that which they called Idolatry and the third against the saying or hearing of Mass. 24. It was conditioned in the Articles of the late agreement that the Queen of Scots should send Commissioners to their present Parliament that the results thereof might have the force and effect of Laws but she intended not for her part to give their Acts the countenance of Supreme Authority and the Chief-leading-men of the Congregation did not much regard it as thinking themselves in a capacity to manage their own business without any such countenance For though they had addressed themselves to the King and Queen for confirmation of such Acts as had passed in this Parliament yet they declared that what they did was rather to express their obedience to them then to beg of them any strength to their Religion They had already cast the Rider and were resolved that neither King nor Queen should back them for the time to come The Qâ—een Regent wearied and worn out with such horrid insolencies departed this
Friends and Followers they could finde in Edenborough but they found that place too hot for them also the Captain of the Castle did so ply them with continual shot that it was held unsafe for them to abide there longer From thence therefore they betook themselves to the Town of Dumfreis not far from the City of Carlisle in England into which they might easily escape whatsoever happened as in time they did For the King leaving his old Father the Earl of Lenox to attend them there march'd with his Forces into Fife where the party of the Lords seemed most considerable which Province they reduced to their obedience some of the great Lords of it had forsook their dwellings many were taken prisoners and put to Ransome and some of the chief Towns fined for their late disloyalty Which done they march to Edenborough and from thence followed to Dumfreis On whose approach the Lords unable to defend themselves against their Forces put themselves into Carlisle where they are courteously received by the Earl of Bedford who was then Lord-Warden of the Marches from thence Duke Hamilton the Earls of Glencarne and Rothes the Lord Vchiltry the Commendator of Kilvinning and divers others of good note removed not long after to New-castle that they might have the easier passage into France or Germany if their occasions so required The Earl of Murray is dispatched to the Court of England but there he found so little comfort at the least in shew as brought the Queen under a suspition amongst the Scots either of deep dissimulation or of great inconstancy The news whereof did so distract and divide the rest that Duke Hamilton under-hand made his own peace with his injured Queen and put himself into her power in the December following The falling off of which great person so amazed the rest that now they are resolved to follow all those desperate counsels by which they might preserve themselves and destroy their enemies though to the ruine of the King the Queen and their natural Country But what they did in the pursuance of those counsels must be reserved for the subject of another Book The end of the fourth Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB V. Containing A further discovery of their dangerous Doctrines their oppositions to Monarchical and Episcopal Government their secret Practices and Conspiracies to advance their Discipline together with their frequent Treasons and Rebellions in the pursuance of the same from the year 1565 till the year 1585. 1. AMongst the many natural Children of King Iames the Fifth none were more eminent and considerable in the course of these times then Iames Pryor of St. Andrews and Iohn Pryor of â—oldingham neither of which were men in Orders or trained up to Learning or took any further charge upon them then to receive the profit of their several places which they enjoyed as Commendators or Administrators according to the ill custom of some Princes in Germany Iohn the less active of the two but Father of a Son who created more mischief to King Iames the Sixth then Iames the other Brother did to the present Queen For having took to Wiâ—e a Daughter of the House of Hepbourn Sister and next Heir of Iames Hepbourn Earl of Bothwel of whom more anon he was by her the Father of Francis Stewart who succeeded in that Earldom on the death of his Unckle But Iames the other Brother was a man of a more stirring spirit dextrous in the dispatch of his business cunning in turning all things to his own advantage a notable dissembler of his love and hatred and such a Master in the art of insinuation that he knew how to work all parties to espouse his interest His preferments lay altogether in Ecclesiastical Benefices designed unto him by his Father or conferred upon him by his Sister or the King her Husband But that all three conjured to the making of him appears by the Kings Letter on the seventeenth day of Iuly upon this occasion At what time as the Marriage was solemnized between Francis then Daulphin of France and the Queen of Scots he went thither to attend those tryumphs where he became a Suiter to the Queen his Sister that some further Character or Mark of Honour might be set upon him then the name of Pryor But the Queen having been advertised by some other Friends that he was of an aspiring minde and enterprising nature and of a spirit too great for a private Fortune thought it not good to make him more considerable in the eye of the people then he was already and so dismist him for the present 2. The frustrating of these hopes so exceedingly vexed him as certainly some are as much disquieted with the loss of what they never had as others with the ruine of a present possession that the next year he joyned himself to those of the Congregation took Knox into his most immediate and particular care and went along with him hand in hand in defacing the Churches of St. Andrews Stirling Lithgow Edenborough and indeed what not And for so doing he received two sharp and chiding Letters from the King and Queen upbraiding him with former Benefits received from each and threatning severe punishment if he returned not immediately to his due obedience Which notwithstanding he continues in his former courses applies himself unto the Queen and Council of England and lays the plot for driving the French Forces out of Scotland Which done he caused the Parliament of 1560 to be held at Edenborough procures some Acts to pass for banishing the Popes Supremacie repealed all former Statutes which were made in maintainance of that Religion and ratifies the Confession of the Kirk of Scotland in such form and manner as it was afterwards confirmed in the first Parliament of King Iames the Sixth Upon the death of Francis the young French King he goes over again And after some condolements betwixt him and the Queen intimates both to her and the Princes of the House of Guise how ill the rugged and untractable nature of the Scots would sort with one who had been used to the compliances and affabilities of the Court of France adviseth that some principal person of the Realm of Scotland might be named for Regent and in a manner recommends himself to them as the fittest man But the worst was that his Mother had been heard to brag amongst some of her Gossips that her Son was the lawful Issue of King Iames the Fifth to whose desires she had never yeilded but on promise of Marriage This was enough to cross him in his present aims and not to trust him with a power by which he might be able to effect his purposes if he had any such aspirings And so he was dismist again without further honour then the carrying back of a Commission to some Lords in Scotland by which they were impowered to manage the affairs of that Kingdom till the Queens return 3. This second disappointment
the Publick Government then the omitting the first Clause in the Twentieth Article In which it was declared That the Church hâ—d power to Decree Rites and Ceremonies and Authority in Controversies of Faith Which Clause though extant in the Registers oâ— the Convocation as a part of that Article and printed as a part thereof both in Latine and English Anno 1562 was totally left out in this new Impression and was accordingly left out in all the Harmonies of Confessions or other Collections of the same which were either printed at Geneva or any other place where Calvinism was of most predominancy And so it stood with us in England till the death of Leicester After which in the year 1593 the Articles were reprinted and that Clause resumed according as it stands in the Publick Registers By which Clause it was after published in the third year of K. Iames and in the tenth year of the said King Anno 1512 and in all following Impressions from that time to this Once cunningly omitted in a Latine Impression with came out at Oxon An. 1536. but the forgery was soon discovered and the Book call'd in the Printer checked and ordered to reprint the same with the Clause prefixed Which makes it the more strange and almost incredible that the Puritans should either plainly charge it as an Innovation on the late Archbishop or that any other sober or indifferent man should make a question whether the Addition of that Clause were made by the Prelates or the Substraction of it by the Puritans for their several purposes 41. There also past a Book of Canons in this Convocation by which it was required That all such as were admitted unto Holy-Orders should subscribe the Book of Articles as before was said That the Gâ—ay Amice still retained as it seems by some of the old Priests of Queen Maries time should be from thenceforth laid aside and no longer used That the Deans and Residentiaries of Cathedral Churches should admit no other Form of saying or singing Divine Service of the Church or administring the holy Sacraments then that which was prescribed in the Publick Liturgie That if any Preacher in the same should openly maintain any point of Doctrine contrary to any thing contained in the Book of Articles or the Book of Common-Prayer the Bishop should be advertised of it by the Dean and Prebendaries to the end he might proceed therein as to him seemed best That no man be admitted to preach in what Church soever till he be licensed by the Queen or the Archbishop of the Province or the Bishop of the Diocess in which he serveth And that no Preacher beng so licensed should preach or teach any thing for Doctrinal to bâ— believed by the people but what was consonant to the Word of God in Holy Scripture or by the Ancient Fathers or Orthodox Bishops of the Church had been gathered from it That no Parson Vicar or Curate should from thenceforth read the Common Prayers in any Chappel Oratory or Private House unlâ—ss he were licensed by the Bishop under hand and seâ—â— And that none of the persons aforesaid should 〈◊〉 his Ministery or carry himself in his apparel or kind of life like â—o one of the Laity That the said Parsons Vicars and Curates should yearly certifie to their several Ordinaries the names and Sirnames of all persons of fourteen years of age and upwards who had not received the Communion or did refuse to be instructed in the Publick Catechiâ—m or that they should not suffer any such persons to be God-Father or God-Mother to any child or to contract any Marriage either between themselves or with any other It was also ordered in those Canons That every Bishop should cause the Holy Bible in the largest Volume to be set up in some convenâ—ent place of his Hall or Parlour that as well those of his own Family as all such strangers as resorted to him might have recourse to it if they pleased And that all Bishops Deans and Archdeacon should cause the Book called The Acts and Monuments to be disposed of in like sort for the use aforesaid The first of which Injunctions seems to have been made for keeping up the Reputation of the English Bibles publickly Authoâ—ized for the use of this Church The credit and Authority of which Translation was much decryed by those of the Genevian Faction to advance their own By the other there was nothing aimed at but to gain credit to the Book which served so seasonably to create an odium in all sorts of people against the Tyrannies and Superstitions of the Pope of Rome whose plots and practices did so apparently intend the ruine of the Queen and Kingdom No purpose either in the Bishops or Clergie to justifie all or any of the passages in the same contained which have been since made use of by the Disciplinarians either to countenance some strange Doctrine or decry some Ceremony to which he shewed himself a Friend or Enemy as the case might vary 42. Fortified with these Canons and Synodical Acts the Prelates shew themselves more earnest in requiring Subscription more zealous in pressing for Conformity then before they did but found a stiffer opposition in the Puritan Faction then could be rationally expected For whether it were that they relyed upon their Friends in Court or that some Lawyers had informed them that by the Statute no Subscription was to be required of them but only unto points of Doctrine certain it is that they were now more insolent and intractable then they had been formerly For now the bettâ—r to disguise their Projects to wound the Discipline the quarrels about Surplices and other Vestments which seemed to have been banished a while are revived again complaints made of their sufferings in it to the Forreign Churches and the report is spread abroad to gain the greater credit to their own perverseness that many of the Bishops did as much abominate those Popish Vestments as any of the brethren did For so writes Zanchy a Divine of Heidelburg in his Letters unto Queen Elizabeth of September the second and writes so by direction from the Prince Elector whom they had engaged in the cause out of an hope to take her off from giving any further countenance to the Bishops in that point of Conformity To the same purpose he writes also to Bishop Iewel on the 11 of September Where he informs as he had been informed himself That many of the Ecclesiastical Order would rather chuse to quit their station in the Church and resign their Offices then yield to the wearing of those Vestments which had been formerly defiled by such gross Superstition He also signifies what he had writ unto the Queen of whose relenting he could give himself no great assurance and that he had also been advised to write to some of the Clergie to the end that they might be perswaded to a present Conformity rather then deprive the Church of their future Ministery The
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
with Whitgift who when he might have been elected Chancellor of the University of Oxon on the death of Leicester chose rather to commend his dear Friend the Lord Chancellor Hatton to the place than to assume it on himself and after Hatton's death to nominate the Lord Buckburst to them who was also chosen The young Earl had an eye upon that great Office that he might be as powerful amongst men of the Gown as he was amongst Gentlemen of the Sword and took it for an high affront that the Arch-bishop should presume to commend any other to that Honour which he designed unto himself But the Queen easily took him off and made him so far Friends with Whitgift as not to make any open profession of displeasure toward him by which the opposite Faction might be animated to their former Insolencies which notwithstanding the Arch-bishop kept a vigilant eye upon all his actions as one that was not to be told of his private practises the secret intelligence which he had with the Heads of that Party and saw that most of his Allies and Kindred were engaged that way For though upon the reconciliation which was made between them the Earl had offered him to run a course in Clergy-Causes according to his directions and advice yet what he did therein proceeded rather from a fear of the Queen's displeasure than from any love to Whitgift or the Church it self as afterwards appeared most evidently in the course of his actions 2. But that which gave the Brethren their greatest blow was the death of Walsingham who dyed on the sixt of April 1590. The Queen had lately been more sensible of those manifold dangers which both the Principles and Practises of the Disciplinarians did most apparently threaten to her whole Estate more now than ever by the coming out of a Pamphlet called The humble Motion In which it was affirmed That thousands did sigh for the Discipline ten thousands had sought it and that the most worthy men of every Shire had consented to it That the Eldership was at hand That the people were inflamed with a zeal to have it and that it was hard dangerous and impossible to stand against it Incensed thereat and fearing the sad consequences of such pestilent Pamphlets She resolved upon some speedy course to prevent the mischief and therefore gave the greater countenance to the Arch-bishops Bishops and their subordinate Officers for proceeding with them On which encouragement the seeming-neutrality of the Earl of Essex and the sickness of Walsingham Snape and some others of their principal Leaders were called before the High-Commission at Lambeth in the first beginning of Easter-Term which though it seemed both strange and unwelcome to them yet there was no remedy Appear they did because they must but were resolved that their appearance should conduce as little as might be to their disadvantage For being required to take their Oaths according to the use of the Court to answer punctually to all such Interrogatories as were to be propounded to them the Oath is absolutely refused unless the Interrogatories might be shewed unto them First therefore they were made acquainted with the substance of them but that would not serve They were assured in the next place That they should be required to answer no further unto any of them than they were bound to do by the Laws of the Land But that served as little In fine it was resolved That the Interrogatories should be shewed unto them here contrary to the practise of all Courts in Criminal Causes which served least of all For now Snape finding what was like to be charged upon them gave notice of the same to the rest of the Brethren and did not only refuse the Oath as before he did but put the rest upon a course of premeditation both whether it were fit to answer upon Oath or not and then what Answer they would make if they were put to it But so it hapned that his Letters being intercepted were produced against him upon which he was clapped up in Prison and a great terror thereby struck into all the Brethren who now began to apprehend the dangers they were fallen into by their former Insolencies 3. It may be gathered by those Letters that no small diligence had been used by such as had employed themselves in it to search into the bottom of their deepest Counsels and most secret Purposes and that so perfect a discovery had been made thereof as might warrant the High Commissioners to proceed severely without the least fear of being foyled in their undertakings For Snape confesseth in those Letters That they had the knowledg not only of Generals but of Specials and Particulars also that is to say touching the places where they met Oxford London Cambridg c. the times of their accustomed Meetings as Sturbridg-Faire Acts Terms c. the persons which assembled at them as Cartwright Perkins Travers Chark c. and finally the very matters which they dealt in and agreed upon Much troubled the good man seemed to be in guessing at that false Brother who had made the discovery but that they were discovered he is sure enough for he affirmeth that their Actings neither were or could be any longer concealed and therefore that the Lord called upon them to be resolute in the present case And thereupon it was propounded Whether it were better and more safe that one man with the consent of the rest should boldly freely and wisely confess and lay open c or that some weak or wicked man should without consent and in evil sort acknowledg c. He tells them That the matter aimed at by High Commissioners was To bring them within danger of Law for holding Conventicles That in Causes of Murther and the like it was commonly asked Whether the Party fled upon it and therefore that they should do well to consider of it in reference to the present case and so advising That T. C. should be sent to with all speed he concludes his Letter 4. This Letter coming up so close to the former discoveries brings Cartwright into play in September following But first a consultation must be had amongst them at the House of one Gardiner Whether and if at all how far it might be fit for him to reveal all or any of the matters which had passed in conference or disputation in any of their former Assemblies And as it seems it was determined in the Negative according to the Doctrine of the old Priscilianists that he should not do it For when the Oath was offered to him he refused to take it The High-Commission-Court was at that time held in the Bishop of London's Consistory in the Church of St. Paul At which were present amongst others the Lord Bishop of London the two Chief Justices Serjeant Puckering afterwards Lord Keeper of the Great Seal Mr. Justice Gaudie and Popham then Attorney-General but afterwards Chief Justice of the Common-Pleas All which did severally and
City of Embden and afterwards in all places under his command prohibiting the exercise of all Religion but the Lutheran only Which Prohibition notwithstanding some Anabaptists from the Neighbouring Westphalia found way to plant themselves in Embden where liberty of Trade was freely granted to all comers which allured thither also many Merchants and Artificers with their Wives and Families out of the next-adjoining Provinces of Holland Zealand and West-Friesland then subject to the King of Spain Who being generally Calvinians in point of Doctrine were notwithstanding suffered to plant there also in regard of the great benefit which accrued unto it by their Trade and Manufactures But nothing more encreased the Power and Wealth of that City than the Trade of England removed from Antwerp thither on occasion of the Belgick Troubles and the great fear they had conceived of the Duke of Alva who seemed to breathe nothing but destruction unto their Religion And though the English Trade was removed not long after unto Hambourgh upon the hope of greater Priviledges and Immunities than they had at Embden yet still they kept a Factory in it which added much to the improvement of their Wealth and Power insomuch that the Inhabitants of this Town only are affirmed to have Sixty Ships of One hundred Tun a-piece and Six hundred lesser Barks of their own besides Seven hundred Busses and Fishing Boats maintained for the most part by their Herring-fishing on the Coast of England 44. Having attained unto this Wealth they grew proud withall and easily admitting the Calvinian Doctrines began to introduce also the Genevian Discipline connived at by Ezardus the second the Son of Enno in respect of the profit which redounded by them to his Exchequer though they began to pinch upon him to the diminution of his Power In which condition it remained till his marriage with Catharine the Daughter of Gustavus Ericus King of Sweden who being zealously addicted to the Lutheran Forms and sensible of those great Incroachments which had been made upon the Earl's Temporal Jurisdiction by the Consistorians perswaded him to look better to his own Authority and to regain what he had lost by that Connivence Something was done for the recovering of his Power but it went on slowly hoping to compass that by time and dissimulation which he could not easily obtain by force of Arms. After whose death and the short Government of Enno the second the matter was more stoutly followed by Rodolphus the Nephew of Catharine who did not only curb the Consistorians in the exercise of their Discipline but questioned many of those Priviledges which the unwariness of his Predecessors had indulged unto them The Calvinians had by this time made so strong a Party that they were able to remonstrate against their Prince complaining in the same That the Earl had violated their Priviledges and infringed their Liberties That he had interposed his Power against Right and Reason in matters which concerned the Church and belonged to the Consistory That he assumed unto himself the Power of distributing the Alms or publick Collections by which they use to bind the poor to depend upon them That he prohibited the exercise of all Religions except only the Confession of Ausberg And that he would not stand to the Agreement which was made betwixt them for interdicting all Appeals to the Chamber of Spires Having prepared the way by this Remonstrance they take an opportunity when the Earl was absent arm themselves and seize by force upon his Castle demolished part of it which looks toward the Town and possest themselves of all the Ordnance Arms and Ammunition with an intent hereafter to employ them against him And this being done they govern all Affairs in the Name of the Senate without relation to their Prince making themselves a Free-Estate or Commonwealth like their Belgick Neighbours 45. Extreamly moved with this affront and not being able otherwise to reduce them to a sense of their duty he borrows Men and Arms from Lubeck to compel them to it With which assistance he erects a Fort on the further side of the Haven to spoil their Trade and by impoverishing the people to regain the Town The Senate hereupon send abroad their Edicts to the Nobility and Commons of East-Friesland it self requiring them not to aid their own lawful Prince with Men Arms or Money threatning them if they did the contrary to stop the course of all Provisions which they had from their City and by breaking down their Dams and Sluces to let the Ocean in upon them and drown all their Countrey Which done they make their Applications to the States of Holland requiring their assistance in that common Cause to which they had been most encouraged by their Example not doubting of their Favour to a City of their own Religion united to them by a long intercourse of Trade and resemblance of Manners and not to be deserted by them without a manifest betraying of their own Security All this the States had under their consideration But they consider this withall That if they should assist the Embdeners in a publick way the Earl would presently have recourse for some aid from the Spaniard which might draw a Warr upon them on that side where they lay most open Therefore they so contrived the matter with such Art and Cunning that carrying themselves no otherwise than as Arbiters and Umpires between the Parties they discharged some Companies of Soldiers which they had in West-Friesland who presently put themselves into the Pay of the Embdens and thereby caused the Earl to desist from his Intrenchments on the other side of the Haven After which followed nothing but Warrs and Troubles between the City and the Earl till the year 1606. At what time by the Mediation of the English Ambassador and some other Honourable Friends the differences were compromised to this effect That all the Ordnance Arms and Ammunition which were found in the Castle should be restored unto the Earl That he should have to his own use the whole Profit of the Imposts which were laid on Wine and half the benefit of those Amercements or Fines which should be raised upon Delinquents together with the sole Royalties both of Fishing and Hunting And on the other side That the Embdeners should have free Trade with all the Profits and Emoluments belonging to it which should be granted to them by Letters Patents But for admitting him to any part of the Publick Government or making restitution of his House or Castles the ancient Seat of his abode as there was nothing yeelded or agreed on then so could he never get possession of them from that time to this Which said we must cross over again into the Isle of Brittain where we shall find the English Puritans climbing up by some new devices and the Scottish Presbyterians tumbling down from their former height till they were brought almost to as low a fall as their English Brethren AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The
Perjuries than amongst those Fanatical spirits he should meet withall 39. But on the contrary he tells us of the Church of England at his first coming thither That he found that Form of Religion which was established under Queen ELIZABETH of famous memory by the Laws of the Land to have been blessed with a most extraordinary Peace and of long continuance which he beheld as a strong evidence of God's being very well pleased with it He tells us also That he could find no cause at all on a full debate for any Alteration to be made in the Common-Prayer-Book though that most impugned that the Doctrines seemed to be sincere the Forms and Rites to have been justified out of the Practise of the Primitive Church And finally he tells us That there was nothing in the same which might not very well have been born withall if either the Adversaries would have made a reasonable construction of them or that his Majesty had not been so nice or rather jealous as himself confesseth for having all publick Forms in the Service of God not only to be free from all blame but from any suâ—spition For which consult his Proclamation of the fifth of March before the Book of Common-Prayer And herewith he declared himself so highly pleased that in the Conference at Hampton-Court he entred into a gratulation to Almighty God for bringing him into the Promised Land so he pleased to call it where Religion was purely profest the Government Ecclesiastical approved by manifold blessings from God himself as well in the encrease of the Gospel as in a glorious and happy Peace and where he had the happiness to sit amongst Grave and Learned men and not to be a King as elsewhere he had been without State without Honour without Order as before was said And this being said we shall proceed unto the rest of our Story casting into the following Book all the Successes of the Puritans or Presbyterians in his own Dominions during the whole time of his Peaceful Government and so much also of their Fortunes in France and Belgium as shall be necessary to the knowledg of their future Actings AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History OF THE PRESBYTERIANS LIB XI Containing Their Successes whether good or bad in England Scotland Ireland and the Isle of Jersey from the Year 1602 to the Year 1623 with somewhat touching their Affairs as well in France and Sweden as the Belgick Provinces 1. THE Puritans and Presbyterians in both Kingdoms were brought so low when King IAMES first obtained the Crown of England that they might have been supprest for ever without any great danger if either that King had held the Rains with a constant hand or been more fortunate in the choice of his Ministers after the old Councellors were worn out than in fine he proved But having been kept to such hard meats when he lived in Scotland he was so taken with the Delicacies of the English Court that he abandoned the Severities and Cares of Government to enjoy the Pleasures of a Crown Which being perceived by such as were most near unto him it was not long before the Secret was discovered to the rest of the people who thereupon resolved to husband all occasions which the times should give them to their best advantage But none conceived more hopes of him than some Puritan Zealots who either presuming on his Education in the Kirk of Scotland or venturing on the easiness of his Disposition began to intermit the use of the Common-Prayer to lay aside the Surplice and neglect the Ceremonies and more than so to hold some Classical and Synodical Meetings as if the Laws themselves had dyed when the Queen expired But these Disorders he repressed by his Proclamation wherein he commanded all his Subjects of what sort soever not to innovate any thing either in Doctrine or Discipline till he upon mature deliberation should take order in it 2. But some more wary than the rest refused to joyn themselves to such forward Brethren whose Actions were interpreted to savour stronger of Sedition than they did of Zeal And by these men it was thought better to address themselves by a Petition to His Sacred Majesty which was to be presented to him in the name of certain Ministers of the Church of England desiring Reformation of sundry Ceremonies and Abuses Given out to be subscribed by a thousand hands and therefore called the Millenary Petition though there wanted some hundreds of that number to make up the sum In which Petition deprecating first the imputation of Schism and Faction they rank their whole Complaints under these four heads that is to say The Service of the Church Church-Ministers the Livings and Maintenance of the Church and the Discipline of it In reference to the first the Publick Service of the Church it was desired That the Cross in Baptism Interrogatories ministred to Infants and Confirmations as superfluous might be taken away That Baptism might not be administred by Women That the Cap and Surplice might not be urged That Examination might go before the Communion and that it be not administred without a Sermon That the terms of Priest and Absolution with the Ring in Marriage and some others might be corrected That the length of Service might be abridged Church-Songs and Musick moderated And that the Lord's Day be not prophaned nor Holy-days so strictly urged That there might be an Uniformity of Doctrine prescribed That no Popish Opinion be any more taught or defended That Ministers might not be charged to teach their people to bow at the Name of Iesus And that the Canonical Scriptures be only read in the Church 3. In reference to Church-Ministers it was propounded That none hereafter be admitted into the Ministry but Able and Sufficient men and those to preach diligently especially upon the Lord's Day but such as be already entred and cannot preach may either be removed and some charitable course taken with them for their Relief or else to be forced according to the value of their Livings to maintain Preachers That Non-residency be not permitted That K. Edward's Statute for the lawfulness of Ministers marriage might be revived That Ministers might not be urged to subscribe but according to the Law the Articles of Religion and the King's Supremacy It was desired also in relation to the Church's Maintenance That Bishops might leave their Commendams some holding Prebends some Parsonages some Vicaridges with their Bishopricks That double-beneficed men might not be suffered to hold some two some three Benefices and as many Dignities That Impropriations annexed to Bishopricks and Colledges be demised only to the Preachers Incumbents for the old Rent That the Impropriations of Lay-men's Fee may be charged with a sixth or seventh part of the worth to the maintenance of a Preaching-Minister And finally in reference to the execution of the Church's Discipline it was humbly craved That the Discipline and Excommunication might be administred according to Christ's own Institution or at the
having none to joyn in Opinion with him baptized himself and thereby got the name of a Se-baptist which never any Sectary or Heretick had obtained before 15. It fell not out much otherwise in the Belgick Provinces with those of the Calvinian Judgment who then began to find some diminution of that Power and Credit wherewith they carried all before them in the times preceding Iunius a very moderate and learned man and one of the Professors for Divinity in the Schools of Leyden departed out of this life in the same year also into whose Place the Overseers or Curators as they call them of that University made choice of Iacob Van Harmine a man of equal Learning and no less Piety He had for fifteen years before been Pastor as they love to phrase it to the great Church of Amsterdam the chief City of Holland during which time he published his Discourse against the Doctrine of Predestination as laid down by Perkins who at that time had printed his Armilla Aurea and therein justified all the Rigours of the Supra-lapsarians Encouraged with his good success in this Adventure he undertakes a Conference on the same Argument with the Learned Iunius one of the Sub-lapsarian Judgment the sum whereof being spread abroad in several Papers was afterward set forth by the name of Amica Collatio By means whereof as he attained a great esteem with all moderate men so he exceedingly exasperated most of the Calvinian Ministers who thereupon opposed his coming to Leyden with their utmost power accusing him of Heterodoxies and unsound Opinions to the Council of Holland But the Curators being constant in their Resolutions and Harmin having purged himself from all Crimes objected before his Judges at the Hague he is dispatched for Leyden admitted by the University and confirmed by the Estate Towards which the Testimonial-Letters sent from Amsterdam did not help a little in which he stands commended for a man of an unblamable life sound Doctrine and fair behaviour as by their Letters may appear exemplified in an Oration which was made at his Funeral 16. By which Attractives he prevailed as much amongst the Students of Leyden as he had done amongst the Merchants at Amsterdam For during the short time of his sitting in the Chair of Leyden he drew unto him a great part of that University who by the Piety of the man his powerful Arguments his extream diligence in that place and the clear light of Reason which appeared in all his Discourses became so wedded at the last unto his Opinions that no time or trouble could divorce them from Harmin Dying in the year 1609 the Heats betwixt his Scholars and those of a contrary Perswasion were rather encreased than abated the more encreased for want of such prudent Moderators as had before preserved the Churches from a publick Rupture The breach between them growing wider and wider each side thought fit to seek the countenance of the State and they did accordingly For in the year 1610 the Followers of Arminius address their Remonstrance containing the Antiquity of their Doctrines and the substance of them to the States of Holland which was encountred presently by a Contra-Remonstrance exhibited by those of Calvin's Party from hence the Name of Remonstrants and Contra-Remonstrants so frequent in their Books and Writings Which though it brought some trouble for the present on the Churches of Holland conduced much more to the advantage of the Church of England whose Doctrine in those points had been so over-born if not quite suppressed by those of the Calvinian Party that it was almost reckoned for a Heresie to be sound and Orthodox according to the tenour of the Book of Articles and other publick Monuments of the Religion here by Law established For being awakened by the noise of the Belgick Troubles most men began to look about them to search more narrowly into the Doctrines of the Church and by degrees to propagate maintain and teach them against all Opposers as shall appear more largely and particularly in another place 17. At the same time more troubles were projected in the Realm of Sweden Prince Sigismund the eldest Son of Iohn and the Grand-child of Gustavus Ericus the first King of that Family was in his Father's life-time chosen King of Poland in reference to his Mother the Lady Catherine Sister to SIGISMVND the Second But either being better pleased with the Court of Poland or not permitted by that people to go out of the Kingdom he left the Government of Sweden to his Unkle CHARLES a Prince of no small Courage but of more Ambition At first he governed all Affairs as Lord Deputy only but practised by degrees the exercise of a greater Power than was belonging to a Vice-Roy Finding the Lutherans not so favourable unto his Designs as he conceived that he had merited by his Favours to them he raised up a Calvinian Party within the Realm according to whose Principles he began first to withdraw his obedience from his Natural Prince and after to assume the Government to himself But first he suffers all Affairs to fall into great Disorders the Realm to be invaded by the Muscovites on the one side by the Danes on the other that so the people might be cast on some necessity of putting themselves absolutely under his protection In which distractions he is earnestly solicited by all sorts of people except only those of his own Party to accept the Crown which he consents to at the last as if forced unto it by the necessities of his Countrey But he so play'd his Game withall that he would neither take the same nor protect the Subjects till a Law was made for entailing the Crown for ever unto his Posterity whether Male or Female as an Hereditary Kingdom In all which Plots and Purposes he thrived so luckily if to usurp another Prince's Realm may be called Good luck that after a long Warr and some Bloody Victories he forced his Nephew to desist from all further Enterprises and was Crowned King at Stockholm in the year 1607 But as he got this Kingdom by no better Title than of Force and Fraud so by the same the Daughter of his Son Gustavus Adolphus was divested of it partly compelled and partly cheated out of her Estate So soon expired the Race of this great Politician that many thousands of that people who saw the first beginning of it lived to see the end 18. Such Fortune also had the French Calvinians in their glorious Projects though afterwards it turned to their destruction For in the year 1603 they held a general Synod at Gappe in Daulphine anciently the chief City of the Apencenses and at this time a Bishop's-See Nothing more memorable in this Synod as to points of Doctrine than that it was determined for an Article of their Faith That the Pope was Antichrist But far more memorable was it for their Usurpations on the Civil Power For at this Meeting they gave Audience to
Saxon Weimar were taken Prisoners the Bohemian Ordnance all suprised Prague forced to yeeld unto the Victor the King and Queen compelled to flye into Silesia from whence by many difficult passages and untravelled ways they came at last in safety to the Hague in Holland Nor is it altogether unworthy of our observation That this great Victory was obtained on a Sunday morning being the 8 th of November and the 23 d Sunday after Trinity in the Gospel of which day occurred that memorable passage Reddite Caesari qua sunt Caesaris that is to say Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesars Which seemed to judgâ— the Quarrel on the Emperor's side Hereupon followed the most Tragical or rather most Tyranical Execution of the chief Directors who had a hand in the Design the suppressing of the Protestant Reformed Religion in all the Emperor's Estates the falling back of Bethlem Gabor into Transylvania the proscribing of the Prince Elector and his Adherents the transferring of the Electoral Dignity together with the Upper Palatinate on the Duke of Bavaria the Conquest of the lower Palatinate by the King of Spain and the setting up of Popery in all parts of both In which condition they remained till the restoring of Charles Lodowick the now Prince Elector to the best part of his Estate by the Treaty of Munster 1648. 35. Such was the miserable end of the Warr of Bohemia raised chiefly by the Pride and Pragmaticalness of Calvin's Followers out of a hope to propagate their Doctrines and advance their Discipline in all parts of the Empire Nor sped the Hugonots much better in the Realm of France where by the countenance and connivance of King HENRY the 4 th who would not see it and during the minority of LEWIS the 13 th who could not help it they possessed themselves of some whole Countreys and near Two hundred strong Towns and fortified places Proud of which Strength they took upon them as a Commonwealth in the midst of a Kingdom summoned Assemblies for the managing of their own Affairs when and as often as they pleased Gave Audience to the Ministers of Forreign Churches and impowred Agents of their own to negotiate with them At the same Meetings they consulted about Religion made new Laws for Government displaced some of their old Officers and elected new ones the King's consent being never asked to the Alterations In which licentious calling of their own Assemblies they abused their Power to a neglect of the King's Authority and not dissolving those Assemblies when they were commanded they improved that Neglect to a Disobedience Nay sometimes they run cross therein to those very Edicts which they had gained by the effusion of much Christian Blood and the expence of many Hundred thousand Crowns For by the last Edict of Pacification the King had granted the free exercise of both Religions even in such Towns as were assigned for Caution to the Hugonot Party Which liberty being enjoyed for many years was at last interrupted by those very men who with so much difficulty had procured it For in an Assembly of theirs which they held at Loudun Anno 1619 they strictly commanded all their Governours Mayors and Sheriffs not to suffer any Jesuit nor those of any other Order to preach in any of the Towns assigned to them though licensed by the Bishop of the Diocess in due Form of Law And when upon a dislike of their proceedings the King had declared their Meetings to be unlawful and contrary to the Publick Peace and had procured the Declaration to be verified in the Court of Parliament they did not only refuse to separate themselves as they were required but still insisted upon terms of Capitulation even to a plain justifying of their actings in it 36. These carriages gave the King such just offence that he denied them leave to send Commissioners to the Synod of Dort to which they had been earnestly invited by the States of the Netherlands For being so troublesome and imperious when they acted only by the strength of their Provincial or National Meetings what danger might not be suspected from a general Confluence in which the Heads of all the Faction might be laid together But then to sweeten them a little after this Refusal he gave them leave to hold an Assembly at Charenton four miles from Paris there to debate those points and to agree those differences which in that Synod had been agitated by the rest of their Party Which Liberty they made such use of in the said Assembly that they approved all the Determinations which were made at Dort commanded them to be subscribed and bound themselves and their Successors in the Ministry by a solemn Oath Not only stedfastly and constantly to adhere unto them but to persist in maintenance thereof to the last gasp of their breath But to return to the Assembly at Loudun They would not rise from thence though the King commanded it till they had taken order for another Assembly to be held at Rochel the chief place of their strength and the Metropolis or principal City of their Common-wealth Which General Assembly being called by their own Authority and called at such a time as had given the King some trouble in composing the Affairs of Bearn was by the King so far disliked and by especial Edict so far prohibited that they were all declared to be guilty of Treason who should continue in the same without further Order Which notwithstanding they sate still and very undutifully proceeded in their former purposes Their business was to draw up a Remonstrance of their present Grievances or rather of the Fears and Jealousies which they had conceived on the King's journey into Bearn This they presented to the King by their own Commissioners and thereunto received a fair and plausible Answer sent in a Letter to them by the Duke Des Diguiers by whom they were advised to dissolve the Assembly and submit themselves unto the King Instead whereof they published a Declaration in defence of their former Actions and signified a Resolution not to separate or break up that Meeting until their Grievances were redressed 37. It hapned at the same time that the Lord of Privas a Town in which the Hugonots made the strongest Party married his Daughter and Heir to the Viscount of Cheylane and dying left the same wholly unto his disposal Who being of different perswasions from the greatest part of his Vassals altered the Garrison and placed his own Servants and Dependents in it as by Law he might This moved the Hugonots of the Town and the Neighbouring Villages to put themselves into a posture of Warr to seize upon the places adjoining and thereby to compel the young Noble-man to forsake his Inheritance Which being signified to the King he presently scored this insolence on the account of the Rochellers who standing in defiance of his Authority was thought to have given some animation unto the Town of Privas to commit
fearing nor having cause to fear the least disturbance With those of the Catholick Party they were grown so intimate by reason of their frequent inter-marriages with one another that in few years they might have been incorporated with them and made of the same Family though of different Faiths The exercise of their Religion had been permitted to them since the passing of the Edict of Nants 1598 without interruption And that they might have satisfaction also in the Courts of Justice some Courts were purposely erected for their ease and benefit which they called Les Chambres d' l' Edict wherein there were as many Judges and other Officers of their own Perswasions as there were of the contrary In a word they lived so secure and happy that they wanted nothing to perpetuate their Felicities to succeeding Ages but Moderation in themselves Gratitude to Almighty God and good Affections towards their King 44. Such were the Fortunes and Successes of the Presbyterians in the rest of Christendom during the last ten years of the Reign of K. IAMES and the beginnings of K. CHARLES By which both Kings might see how unsafe they were if men of such Pragmatical Spirits and Seditious Principles should get ground upon them But K. IAMES had so far supported them in the Belgick Provinces that his own Calvinists presumed on the like Indulgence which prompted them to set nought by his Proclamations to vilifie his Instructions and despise his Messages Finally they made tryal of his patience also by setting up one Knight of Broadgates now called Pembroke Colledg to preach upon the Power of such popular Officers as Calvin thinks to be ordained by Almighty God for curbing and restraining the Power of Kings In which though Knight himself was censured the Doctrines solemnly condemned execution done upon a Book of Pareus which had misguided the unfortunate and ignorant man yet the Calvinians most tenaciously adhered to their Master's tendries with an intent to bring them into use and practise when occasion served So that K. IAMES with all his King-craft could find no better way to suppress their Insolencies than by turning Mountague upon them a man of mighty Parts and an undaunted Spirit and one who knew as well as any how to discriminate the Doctrines of the Church of England from those which were peculiar to the Sect of Calvin By which he galled and gagged them more than his Popish Adversary but raised thereby so many Pens against himself that he might seem to have succeeded in the state of Ismael 45. In this conjuncture of Affairs K. IAMES departs this life and K. CHARLES succeeds who to ingratiate himself with this powerful Faction had plunged his Father in a Warr with the House of Austria by which he was brought under the necessity of calling Parliaments and gave those Parliaments the courage to dispute his Actions For though they promised to stand to him with their Lives and Fortunes in prosecution of that Warr yet when they had engaged him in it they would not part with any money to defray that Charge till they had stripped him of the Richest Jewels in the Regal Diadem But he was much more punished in the consequence of his own Example in aiding those of Rochel against their King whereby he trained up his own Subjects in the School of Rebellion and taught them to confederate themselves with the Scots and Dutch to seize upon his Forts and Castles invade the Patrimony of the Church and to make use of his Revenue against himself To such Misfortunes many Princes do reduce themselves when either they engage themselves to maintain a Party or govern not their Actions by the Rules of Justice but are directed by self-ends or swayed by the corrupt Affections of untrusty Ministers These things I only touch at here which I reserve for the Materials of another History as I do also all the intermediate passages in the Reign of K. CHARLES before the breaking out of the Scottish Tumults and most of the preparatives to the Warr of England AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History OF THE PRESBYTERIANS LIB XIII Containing The Insurrections of the Presbyterian or Puritan Faction in the Realm of Scotland The Rebellions raised by them in England Their horrid Sacriledges Murders Spoils and Rapines in pursuit thereof Their Innovations both in Doctrine and Discipline And the greatest Alteration made in the Civil Government from the year 1636 to the year 1647 when they were stript of all Command by the Independents 1. THE Presbyterian-Scots and the Puritan-English were not so much discouraged by the ill successes of their Brethren in France and Germany as animated by the prosperous Fortunes of their Friends in Holland Who by Rebellion were grown Powerful and by Rapine Wealthy and by the Reputation of their Wealth and Power were able to avenge themselves on the opposite Party To whose Felicities if those in England did aspire they were to entertain those Counsels and pursue those courses by which the others had attained them that is to say They were by secret practises to diminish the King's Power and Greatness to draw the people to depend upon their Directions to dissolve all the Ligaments of the former Government and either call in Forreign Forces or form an Army of their own to maintain their doings And this had been the business of the Puritan Faction since the death of Bancroft when by the retirements of K. IAMES from all cares of Government and the connivance or remisness of Arch-bishop Abbot the Reins were put into their hands Which gave them time and opportunity to grow strong in Parliaments under pretence of standing for the Subjects Property against the encroachments of the Court and for the preservation of the true Religion against the practises of the Papists By which two Artifices they first weakned the Prerogative Royal to advance their own and by the diminution of the King's Authority endeavoured to erect the People's whom they represented And then they practised to asperse with the Name of Papist all those who either join not with them in their Sabbath-Doctrines or would not captivate their Judgments unto Calvin's Dictates Their actings in all which particulars either as Zealots for the Gospel in maintaining Calvinism or Patriots for the Common-wealth in bringing down the Power and Reputation of the two last Kings shall be at large delivered in the Life of the late Arch-bishop and consequently may be thought unnecessary to be here related And therefore pretermitting all their former practises by which their Party was prepared and the Design made ready to appear in publick we will proceed to a Relation of the following passages when they had pulled off their Disguise and openly declared themselves to be ripe for Action 2. The Party in both Kingdoms being grown so strong that they were able to proceed from Counsel unto Execution there wanted nothing but a fair occasion for putting themselves into a posture of defence and from that posture breaking
brake down the Rails before the Table and burnt them in the very place in the heats of Iuly but wretchedly prophaned the very Table it self by setting about it with their Tobacco and Ale before them and not without the company of some of their zealous Lecturers to grace the Action What else they did in imitation of the Brethren of Exon in laying their filth and execrements about it also I abhor to mention And now I must crave leave to step into the Colledg the Government whereof was taken from the Dean and Prebendaries and given to a select Committee of fifty persons some Lords but Members for the most part of the Lower-House who found there a sufficient quantity of Plate and some other good Houshold-stuff to a very good value which was so Husbanded amongst them that it was either stoln or sold or otherwise imbezilled and inverted to the use of some private persons who best knew how to benefit themselves by the Church's Patrimony 35. But the main business of this year and the three next following was the calling sitting and proceedings of the new Assembly called the Assembly of Divines but made up also of so many of the Lords and Commons as might both serve as well to keep them under and comptroll their Actions as to add some countenance unto them in the eye of the people A Convocation had been appointed by the King when he called the Parliament the Members whereof being lawfvlly chosen and returned were so discountenanced and discouraged by the Votes of the Lower-House the frequent Tumults raised in Westminster by the Rascal Rabble and the preparatives for a Warr against the King that they retired unto their Houses but still continued undissolved and were in a capacity of acting as a Convocation whensoever they should be thereunto required and might do it with safety But being for the most part well affected to the Church of England they were not to be trusted by the Houses of Parliament who then designed the hammering of such a Reformation both in Doctrine and Discipline as might unite them in a perpetual Bond and Confederation with their Scottish Brethren And that they might be furnished with such men the Knights of every Shire must make choice of two to serve as Members for that County most of them Presbyterians some few Royallists four of the Independent Faction and two or three to represent the Kirk of Scotland Which ploughing with an Ox and an Ass as it was no other was anciently prohibited by the Law of Moses And yet these men associated with some Members of either House as before is said no ways impow'red or authorised by the rest of the Clergy must take upon them all the Powers and Priviledges of a Convocation to which they were invited by an Ordinance of the Lords and Commons bearing date Iune the 12 th His Majesty makes a start at this encroachment on His Royal Prerogative and countermands the same by His Proclamation of the 22 d. In which He takes notice amongst other things That the far greatest part of those who had been nominated to the present Service were men of neither Learning or Reputation eminently disaffected to the Government of the Church of England and such as had openly preached Rebellion by their exciting of the people to take Arms against Him and therefore were not like to be proper Instruments of Peace and Happiness either unto the Church or State For maintenance whereof and for the preservation of His own Authority he inhibits them from meeting at the time appointed declares their Acts to be illegal and threatens them with the punishments which they had incurred by the Laws of the Land 36. But they go forwards howsoever hold their first Meeting on the first of Iuly and elect Dr. Twisse of Newberry a rigid Sabbatarian but a professed Calvinian in all other points for their Prolocutor called to this Iourney-work by the Houses they were dispensed with for Non-residence upon their Livings against the Laws preferred to the best Benefices of the Sequestred Clergy some of them three or four together and had withall four shillings a man for their daily wages besides the honour of assisting in so great an action as the ruin of the Church and the subversion of the present Government of the Realm of England In reference whereunto they were to be employed from time to time as occasion was to stir up the people of the Counties for which they served to rise and arm themselves against the King under colour of their own defence as appears plainly by the Order of the tenth of August And that they might be looked upon with the greater reverence they maintain a constant intercourse by Letters with their Brethren of Scotland the Churches of the Netherlands the French and Switzers but chiefly with Geneva it self In which they laid such vile Reproaches on His Majesty and the Church of England the one for having a design to bring in Popery the other for a readiness to receive the same that His Majesty was necessitated to set out a Manifest in the Latin Tongue for laying open the Imposture to the Churches of all Forreign Nations Amongst the rest of this Assembly Dr. Dan. Featly not long before made Chaplain in Ordinary to the King must needs sit for one whether to shew his Parts or to head a Party or out of his old love to Calvinism may best be gathered from some Speeches which he made and printed But he was theirs in heart before and therefore might afford them his body now though possibly he may be excused from taking the Covenant as the others did An Exhortation whereunto was the first great work which was performed by these Masters in Israel after their assembling the Covenant taken by them in most solemn manner at St. Margarets in Westminster on the 25th of September the Exhortation voted to be published on the 9th of February 37. Now to begin the blessed Reformation which they had in hand the Houses were resolved upon exterminating all external Pomp and comely Order out of the Worship of Almighty God And to this end upon the humble motion of these Divines of the Assembly and the sollicitation of some zealous Lecturers who were grown very powerful with them or to ingratiate themselves with the Scottish Covenanters whose help they began to stand in need of or finally out of the perversness of their own cross humours they published an Ordinance on the 28 th of August For the utter demolishing removing and taking away all Monuments of Superstition and Idolatry Under which notion it was ordered That before the last of November then next following all Altars and Tables of stone as if any such were then erected should be demolished in all Churches and Chappels throughout the Kingdom That the Communion-Tables should in all such places be removed from the East end of the Chancel unto some other part of the Church or Chappel That all such Rails as had been
allure the people to adhere unto them they flatter them with an hope of an absolute Freedom and such a power in Sacred matters as should both authorize and justifie their approaches to the holy Altar without the intervention of Priest or Prelate Which being done they boldly shew themselves against Moses and Aaron and told them plainly to their faces that they took more upon them then belonged to either that all the Congregation was holy every one of them in regard that God appeared so visibly amongst them and therefore that they had done that which they could not justifie in lifting themselves above the Congregation of the Lord. In which it is to be observed that though some of the chief Princes of the House of Dan and perhaps many also of the other Tribes did appear in the Action yet it is plainly called in Scripture The Gain-saying of Korah either because the practice was of his Contrivement or chiefly carried on by the power and credit which he and his Accomplices of the Tribe of Levi had gained amongst the common people by reason of their Interests and Concernments in Sacred matters so excellent are the opportunities which are afforded to unquiet and seditious men when either by â— seeming zeal to the Worship of God or by some special place and interest in his Publick Service they are become considerable in the eyes of the Vulgar These were the first seeds of those dangerous Doctrines and most unwarrantable practices which afterwards brought forth such sad effects toward the latter end of the Jewish State when the Pharisees began to draw unto themselves the managing of all affairs both Sacred and Civil They were not ignorant of that high displeasure which God had manifestly shewn against the principal Authors of that first Sedition who under the pretence of regulating the Authority of his two Chief Ministers had put a baffle as it were upon God himself whose Servants and Ministers they were The Pharisees therefore were content that both the Chief-Priest and the Supreme Prince should still preserve their rank and station as in former times but so that neither of them should be able to act any thing of weight and moment but as directed by their counsels and influenced by their assistance For the obtaining of which point what arts they used what practices they set on foot and by what artifices they prevailed upon mens affections as also into what calamities they plunged that Nation by the abuse of their Authority having once obtained it shall be laid down at large in the following History All the particulars whereof the Reader is desired to observe distinctly that he may see how punctually the Presbyterians of our times have played the Pharisees as well in the getting of their power by lessening the Authority both of Prince and Prelate as in exasperating the people to a dangerous War for the destruction of them both the calling in of Foreign forces to abet their quarrel the fractions and divisions amongst themselves and the most woful Desolation which they have brought upon the happiest and most flourishing Church which the Sun of Righteousness ever shined on since the Primitive times Nec ovum oâ—o nec lac lacti similius Iupiter could not make himself more like Amphitrio nor Mercury play the part of Sociae with more resemblance then the ensuing Story may be parallel'd in our late Combustions Actor for Actor Part for Part and Line for Line there being nothing altered in a manner in that fearful Tragedie but the Stage or Theatre Change the Stage from Palestine or the Realm of Iuda and we shall see the same Play acted over again in many parts and Provinces of the Christian Church In which we finde the Doctrines of the Pharisees revived by some their Hypocrisie or pretended Purity taken up by others their Artifices to encrease their party in the gaining of Proselytes embraced and followed by a third till they grew formidable to those powers under which they lived and finally the same Confusions introduced in all parts of Christendom in which their counsels have been followed Which I shall generally reduce under these four heads that is to say The practices of the Novatians in the North the Arrians in the East the Donatists in Affrick or the the Southern parts and the Priscillianists in the Western The arts and subtilties of the Pharisees were at first suppos'd to be too Heterogeneous to be all found in any one Sect of Hereticks amongst the Christians till they were all united in the Presbyterians the Sects or Hereticks above mentioned participating more or less of their dangerous counsels as they conceived it necessary to advance their particular ends In the pursuance of which ends as the Arrians ventured upon many points which were not known to the Novatians and the Donatists upon many more which were never practised by the Arrians so the Priscillianists did as much exceed the Donatists in the arts of mischief as they themselves have been exceeded by the Presbyterians in all the lamentable consequents and effects thereof which I desire the Reader to consider distinctly that he may be his own Plutarch in fitting them and every one of them with a perfect parallel in reference to those men whose History I shall draw down from the time of Calvin unto these our days tracing it from Geneva into France from France into the Netherlands from the Netherlands to Scotland and from thence to England And in this search I shall adventure upon nothing but what is warranted by the Testimony of unquestioned Authors from whose sence I shall never vary though I may finde it sometimes necessary not to use their words And by so doing I shall keep my self unto the rules of a right Historian in delivering nothing but the Truth without omitting any thing for fear or speaking any thing in favour of the adverse party but as I shall be justified by good Authors THE CONTENTS Lib. I. Containing THe first Institution of Presbytery in the Town of Geneva the Arts and Practices by which it was imposed on the neck of that City and pressed upon all the Churches of the Reformation together with the dangerous Principles and Positions of the chief Contrivers in the pursuance of their project from the year 1536 to the year 1585. Lib. II. Containing Their manifold Seditions Conspiracies and Insurrections in the Realm of France their Libelling against the State and the Wars there raised by their procurement from the year 1559 to 1585. Lib. III. Containing Their Positions and Proceedings in the Higher Germany their dangerous Doctrines and Seditions their Innovations in the Church and alteration in the Civil Government of the Belgick Provinces from the year 1559 to the year 1585. 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. Lib. V. Containing A further discovery of their dangerous Doctrines their
was no distinction of Apparel either Sacred or Civil that he refused to wear such Robes at his Consecration as by the Rules of the Church were required of him And by the Rules of the Church it was required that for his ordinary Habit he should wear the Rochet and Chimere with a square Cap upon his head and not officiate at the Altar without his Coap or perform any Ordination without his Crosier Incouraged by his refusal many of the inferiour Clergie take the like exceptions against Caps and Surplices as also against Gowns and Tippets the distinct Habits of their Order Upon this ground Archbishop Cranmer makes a stop of his Consecration and would not be perswaded to dispute with him in that particular though he much desired it He had fastned some dependance upon Dudley then Earl of Warwick and afterwards created Duke of Northumberland who did not onely write his own Letters but obtained the Kings that without pressing him any further to conform himself to those Robes and Habits the Bishop should proceed immediately to his Consecration But Cranmer weighing the importance of that ill Example held off his hand till he had satisfied the King and so cooled the Earl that Hooper was left unto himself and still continuing in his contumacy was committed Prisoner The news being brought to Calvin he must needs play the Bishop in another mans Diocess or rather the Archbishop in another mans Province But having little hope of prevailing with Cranmer who had before rejected his assistance in the Reformation he totally applies himself to the Duke of Sommerset And he writes to him to this purpose That the Papists would grow every day more insolent then other unless the differences about the Ceremonies were first composed But then they were to be composed in such a manner as rather might encourage the dissenters in their opposition then end in the reduction of them to a due conformity And to this end he is unseasonably instant with him to lend a helping hand to Hooper as the head of that Faction By which encouragement if not also by his setting on the like was done by Peter Martyr and by Iohn Alasco the first of which was made Divinity-Reader in Oxon and the other Preacher to the Dutch in London both ingaged in stickling for the unconformable party against the Vestments of the Church But they both gained as little by it as Calvin did who seeing how little he effected in the Church of England more then the getting of the name of a Polypragmon a medler in such matters as concerned him not gave over the affairs thereof to the charge of Beza who being younger then himself and of less discretion might live to see some good success of his Travails in it And he accordingly bestirred himself in this very quarrel as if the safety of the Church and the preservation of Religion had been brought in danger writing his Letters unto Grindal when Bishop of London not to insist so far on those matters of Ceremony as to deprive any of his Ministery upon that account He also signifies unto the Brethren his dislike of those Vestments and thereby strengthned and confirmed them in their former obstinacy And finally left no stone unmoved no kinde of practice unattempted by which this Church might be at last necessitated to a Reformation upon Calvins Principles whose counsels he pursued to the very last 21. But as for Calvin he had some other game to fly at and of greater nature then to dispute the lawfulness of Caps and Surplices and other Vestments of the Clergie or to content himself with altering the old Forms of Government and publick Worship The Doctrine was to be refined and all Idolatry removed whether it were Civil or Spiritual In point of Doctrine he came neerest unto that of Zuinglius as well in reference to the Sacrament as Predestination but pitched upon the last for the main concernment which was to difference his own Followers from all other Christians The straining of which string to so great a height hath made more discord in the harmony of the Church of Christ then any other whatsoever For not content to go the way of the Ancient Fathers or to rely upon the judgement of St. Augustine Fulgentius Prosper or any others which have moderated his excesses in it he must needs add so much unto those extravagancies which he found in Zuinglius as brought him under a suspition with some sober men for making God to be the Author of sin For by his Doctrine God is made to lay on our Father Adam an absolute and an unavoidable necessity of falling into sin and misery that so he might have opportunity to manifest his Mercy in Electing some few of his Posterity and his Justice in the remediless rejecting of all the rest In which as he could finde no countenance from the Ancient Fathers so he pretendeth not to any ground for it in the Holy Scripture For whereas some objected in Gods behalf De certis verbis non extare that the Decree of Adams Fall and consequently the involving of his whole Posterity in sin and misery was no where extant in the Word he makes no other answer to it then a quasi vero As if saith he God had made and created Man the most exact Piece of his Heavenly Workmanship without determining of his End either Heaven or Hell And on this point he was so resolutely bent that nothing but an absolute Decree for Adams Fall seconded by the like for the involving of all his Race in the same perdition would either serve his turn or preserve his credit If any man shall dare to opine the contrary as Castillo did he must be sure to be disgraced and censured by him as Castillo was and as all others since have been which presumed to question that determination for which himself can give us no better name than that of an Horrible Decree as indeed it is a cruel and Horrible Decree to pre-ordain so many millions to destruction and consequently unto sin that he might destroy them 22. I had not stood so long upon this particular but in regard of those confusions and distractions which by his Followers have been occasioned in the Church by their adhering to this Doctrine and labouring to obtrude it upon all mens consciences The Zuinglian Gospellers as Bishop Hooper rightly calls them began to scatter their predestinary Doctrines in the Reign of King Edward But they effected little in it till such of our Divines as had retired themselves to Basil Zurick and amongst the Switzers or otherwise had been brought up at the Feet of Calvin encouraged by his Authority and countenanced by his name commended them to all the people of this Realm for sound Catholick verities The like diligence was also used by his Disciples in all places else By means whereof it came to be generally received as a truth undoubted and one of the most necessary Doctrines of mans Salvation