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
propositions as were made to him at the first by Count Lodowick his Ministers and alter by the Agent of the Prince himself He had sent some aid not long before to support the Hugonots But now his Souldiers being returned from France and grown burdensome to him are drawn together into a body and with the help of some others out of France and Germany compound an Army of seven thousand Foot and four thousand Horse with which he sends Prince Christopher a younger son under the conduct of Count Lodowick and his Brother Henry But they had scarce entred within the Borders of Gelderland where they expected an addition of fresh Forces from the Prince of Orange when they were set upon by Sanchio d' Avila before mentioned and routed with so great a slaughter that almost all the whole Army were either taken prisoners remedilesly wounded or slain outright and as for their three Generals Lodowick of Nassaw Grave Henry and the young Prince Christopher they were either slain fighting in the battail or trampled under the Horses Feet or finally stisled in the flight as they crossed the Fens the last more probable because their bodies were not to be found on the strictest search 43. But not withstanding this misfortune neither the Prince Elector nor the Prince of Orange could be moved to desert the Cause which by the temptation of revenge was grown dearer to them For after this we finde Prince Casimir another of the Palatine Princes in the Head of an Army raised for assisting the Confederates in the Belgick Provinces by which name they began to be commonly called after the death of Requesenes who had succeeded Alva in the publick Government but wanting time before his death to settle the command in some trusty hands till some Supreme Officer might be sent unto them from the Court of Spain the Government devolved for the present on the Council of State and was invaded afterwards by the States themselves whose Deputies assembling in the Council-house or Court of Brussels made up the body of that Council which governed all Affairs both of Peace and War But great contentions growing betwixt them and the Souldiers and those contentions followed on either side with great animosities the Prince of Orange had a most excellent opportunity for the establishing of his new Dictatorship over Holland and Zealand and some of the adjoyning Provinces of less name and note But being weary at the last of their own confusions and more impatient of the insupportable insolencies of the Spanish Souldiers an Association is first made in the Provinces of Brabant Flanders Artois and Haynalt By which it was agreed in Writing and confirmed by Oath that they should mutually assist each other against the Spaniards till they had cleared the Country of them And with these Provinces consisting for the most part of such as were counted Catholicks Holland and Zealand with the rest though esteemed heretical did associate also which Union is called commonly the Pacification of Gaunt because agreed on in that City and was so much insisted on by the Heads of the Leaguers that it was counselled by the Prince not to admit of Don Iohn for their Supreme Governour till he had ratified and confirmed that Association 44. But because there was no mention of maintaining the Kings Authority or preserving the Catholick Religion in the Originals of the League it was found necessary to provide for both by some explication to take away the envy and suspition of that great disloyalty which otherwise must have fallen upon them And by that explication it was thus declared viz. that they would faithfully from thenceforth maintain the League for the conservation of their most Sacred Faith and the Roman Catholick Religion for preserving the Pacification made at Gaunt for the expulsion of the Spaniards and their adherents their due obedience to the Kings most excellent Majesty being always tendered According to which explication it was confirmed by Don Iohn under the name of the perpetual Edict with the Kings consent who thought his own Authority and the Roman Religion to be thereby sufficiently provided for but he found the contrary For when the Prince of Orange was required to subscribe to the Pacification with the addition of two Clauses for constancie in this Religion and the Kings obedience he refused it absolutely assuring such as moved it to him that the Provinces under his command or consederacie with him were barred in Conscience from subscribing to the preservation of the Romish Faith And at this time it was that he merrily told the Duke of Arescot who was one of the Delegates that there was not more Calvism on his head then there was Calvinism in his heart He well foresaw that the agreement betwixt Don Iohn and the Estates of the Country would not long continue and he resolved to make some advantage of the breach whensoever it hapned Nor was he any thing mistaken in the one or the other for discontents and jealousies encreasing mutually between the parties Don Iohn leaves Brussels and betakes himself to the Castle of Namure for fear of an Assassinate as it was given out which was intended on his person which so incensed the Estates that by a general consent a Dictatorian or Soveraign power was put into the hands of the Prince of Orange by the name Ruart according to the priviledge and practice of the Brabanters in extreme necessities Invested with which power he instituteth a new face of Government both in Brussels it self and many of the Towns adjoyning modelled after the Example of Holland and Zealand He demolished also the great Fort at Antwerp which had been raised with so great Pride and Ostentation by the Duke of Alva The like done also in demolishing the Castles of Gant Vtrecht Lisle Valenciennes and some other places performed by such alacrity by them that did it as if they had shaken off the Yoke of some Forreign servitude An Oath was also framed for renouncing all obedience to Don Iohn their Governour and people of all sorts compelled to take it for the refusal whereof by the Iesuits of Antwerp a Rabble of Calvinian Zealots on the day of Pentecost forced open the doors of that Society plundred their houses of all things Sacred and Prophane and set the Father on board a Ship of the Hollanders with great scorn and insolencie to be landed in some other Country 45. The like done also to the Fathers of Tournay Bruges and Maestricht banished on the same account from their several Cities with whom were also exiled in some places Franciscan Fryars in others many secular Priests who would not easily be perswaded to abjure their Loyalty By whose departure divers Churches were left destitute and unprovided of incumbents to instruct the people which so increased the confidence and hopes of the Calvinians that they not onely petitioned the Estates for liberty of Conscience but for the publick use of Churches in their several Territories but being refused in their
desires though the Prince of Orange openly appeared for them they were resolved no longer to expect the lazie temper of Authority but actually took possession of some of the Churches in Brabant Gelderland and Flanders and openly exercised that Religion which till then they had professed in secret nor durst the Estates do any thing in vindication of their own Authority considering what necessary use they might have of them in the present War against Don Iohn and from how great a person they received incouragement But in the midst of this career they received a stop for the Confederates being vanquished by Don Iohn at the battail of Gemblack Brussels and all the Towns of Brabant submitted themselves one after another to the power of the conquerour Philipivil a strong Town of Haynalt Limburg and Dalem with some others not so easily yeilding were either forced by long siege or some violent storming or otherwise surrended upon capitulations During which Sieges and Surrendries the Prince of Orange who had escaped with safety from the battail of Gemblack was busied in establishing his Dominion on the Coast of Holland In which designe he found no opposition but at Amsterdam constant at that time even to miracle both to their old Religion and their old Obedience But being besieged on all sides both by Sea and Land they yeilded on condition of enjoying the free exercise of their former Faith and of the like Freedom from all Garrisons but of Native Citizens But when they had yeilded up the Town they were not onely forced to admit a Garrison but to behold their Churches spoil'd their Priests ejected and such new Teachers thrust upon them as they most abominated But liberty of Religion being first admitted a confused liberty of opinions followed shortly after till in the end that Town became the common Sink of all Sects and Sectaries which hitherto have disturbed the Church and proved the greatest scandal and dishonor of the Reformation 46. Holland had lately been too fruitful of this viperous brood but never more unfortunate then in producing David George of Delfe and Henry Nicholas of Leiden the two great Monsters of that age but the impieties of the first were too gross and horrid to finde any followers the latter was so smoothed over as to gain on many whom the Impostor had seduced The Anabaptists out of Westphalia had found shelter here in the beginning of the Tumults and possibly might contribute both their hearts and hands to the committing of those spoils and outrages before remembred In imitation of whose counterfeit piety and pretended singleness of heart there started up another Sect as dangerous and destructive to humane Society as the former were for by insinuating themselves into the heart of the ignorant multitude under a shew of singular Sanctity and Integrity did afterwards infect their mindes with damnable Heresies openly repugnant to the Christian Faith In ordinary Speech they used new and monstrous kindes of expressions to which the ears of men brought up in the Christian Church had not been accustomed and all men rather wondered at then understood To difference themselves from the rest of mankinde they called their Sect by the name of the Family of Love and laboured to perswade their hearers that those onely were elected unto life Eternal which were by them adopted Children of that Holy Family and that all others were but Reprobates and Damned persons One of their Paradoxes was and a safe one too that it was lawful for them to deny upon oath whatsoever they pleased before any Magistrate or any other whomsoever that was not of the same Family or Society with them Some Books they had in which their dotages were contained and propagated first writ in Dutch and afterwards translated into other Languages as tended most to their advantage that is to say The Gospel of the Kingdom The Lords Sentences The Prophesie of the Spirit of the Lord The publication of peace upon earth by the Author H. N. But who this H. N. was those of the Family could by no fair means be induced or inforced by threatnings to reveal But after it was found to be this Henry Nicholas of Leiden whom before we spake of Who being emulous of the Glories of King Iohn of Leiden that most infamous Botcher had most blasphemously preached unto all his followers that he was partaker of the Divinity of God as God was of his humane nature How afterwards they past over into England and what reception they found there may be told hereafter 50. By giving freedom of Conscience to all Sects and Sectaries and amongst others to these also the Prince of Orange had provided himself of so strong a party in this Province that he was able to maintain a defensive War against all his opposites especially after he had gained the Ports of Brill and Vlushing which opened a fair entrance unto all adventurers out of England and Scotland For on the Rumour of this War the Scots in hope of prey and plunder the English in pursuit of Honour and the use of Arms resorted to the aid of their Belgick Neighbours whose absolute subjugation to the King of Spain was looked on as a thing of dangerous consequence unto either Nation And at the first they went no otherwise then as Voluntiers of their own accord rather connived at then permitted by their several Princes But when the Government was taken into the hands of the States and that the War was ready to break out betwixt them and Don Iohn the Queen of England did not onely furnish them with large sums of money but entred into a League or Confederation by which it was agreed That the Queen should send unto their aid one thousand Horse and five thousand Foot that they should conclude nothing respecting either Peace or War without her consent and approbation that they should not enter into League with any person or persons but with her allowance and she if she thought good to be comprehended in the same that the States should send the like aid unto the Queen if any Prince attempted any act of Hostility against her or her Kingdoms and that they should furnish her with forty Ships of sufficient burthen to serve at her pay under the Lord Admiral of England whensoever she had any necessary occasion to set forth a Navy and finally not to insist upon the rest that if any difference should arise amongst themselves it was to be referred and offered unto her Arbitrament And to this League she was the rather induced to grant her Royal assent because she had been certainly advertised by the Prince of Orange that Don Iohn was then negotiating a marriage with the Queen of Scots that under colour of her Title he might advance himself to the Crown of England And yet she ventured neither men nor money but on very good terms receiving in the way of pawn the greatest part of the rich Jewels and massie Ornaments of Plate which anciently
my purpose to relate It is sufficient that we have presented to the eye of the Reader upon what principles the Netherlands were first embroyled whose hands they were by which the Altars were prophaned the Images defaced Religious Houses rifled and the Churches ruinated And finally by what party and by whose strange practices the King of Spain was totally devested of all those Provinces which since have cast themselves into the form of a Common-wealth 59. Which being thus shortly laid together in respect of their Politicks we must look back and take another view of them in their Ecclesiasticks In which we shall finde them run as cross to all Antiquity as they had done to Order and good Government in their former Actings And the first thing we meet with of a Church-concernment was the publishing of their Confession of their Faith and Doctrine Anno 1565 or thereabouts as many national and provincial Churches had done before but differing in many great points from that of Ausberg and therefore the less acceptable unto the Lutheran party and the more distasteful to the Romish In which Confession to be sure they must hold forth a parity of Ministers in the Church of Christ they had not else come up to the Example and designe of the Mother-City which was to lay all flat and level in the publick Government For in the XXXI Article it is said expresly that for as much as concerns the Ministers of Gods holy Word in what place soever they shall execute that Sacred Calling they are all of them to enjoy the same Power and Authority as being all of them the Ministers of Jesus Christ the onely Universal Bishop and the onely Head of his Body which is the Church And for the Government of the Church it was declared to be most agreeable to that Sacred and Spiritual Polity by God prescribed in his Word that a Consistory or Ecclesiastical Senate should be Ordained in every Church consisting of Pastors Elders and Deacons to whose charge and care it should belong that true Religion be preserved sound Doctrine preached and that all vitious and lewd livers should be restrained and punished by the Churches Censures For turning which Aerian Doctrines into use and practice they did not only animate all Orders and Degrees of men not to admit their new Bishops where they were not setled or to expel them where they were but alienated and dismembred all such Lands and Rents by which they were to be maintained This they conceived the readiest way to make sure work with them for when the maintainance was gone the Calling was not like to hold up long after And this being done as they had first set up their Consistories in Antwerp and such other Cities in which they were considerable for power and number so by degrees they set up their Presbyteries in the lesser Towns which they united into Classes and ranged those Classes into National and Provincial Synods In which they made such Laws and Canons if some of their irregular Constitutions may deserve that name as utterly subverted the whole Frame of the ancient Discipline and drew unto themselves the managery of all Affairs which concerned Religion 60. But that they might not be supposed therein to derogate from the Authority of the Civil Magistrate they are content to give him a coercive power in some matters which were meerly Civil and therefore in plain terms condemn the Anabaptists for seditious persons Enemies to all good Order and publick Government But then they clog him with some Duties in which he was to be subservient to their own designs that is to say the countenancing of the Sacred Ministry removing all Idolatry from the Worship of God the ruinating and destroying of the Kingdom of Antichrist And what they meant by Antichrist Idolatry and the Sacred Ministry is easie to be understood without the help of a Commentary Which Duties if the Magistrate shall discharge with care and diligence he would ease them of much labour which otherwise they meant to take upon themselves if not they must no longer stay his leisure nor expect his pleasure but put their own hands unto the work and so it was delivered for good Doctrine by Snecanus a Divine of West-Friesland for which see lib. 8. num 23. Which though it be the general Doctrine of all the party yet never was it preached more plainly then by Cleselius a Calvinian of Rotterdam who openly maintained that if the Magistrates took no care to reform the Church that then it did belong to the common people And they as he informs us were obliged to do it even by force and violence not onely to the shedding of their own but their Brethrens blood So principled it could be no marvail if they turned out the Bishops to make room for their own Presbyteries defaced all Churches that retained any thing in them of the old Idolatries and finally pulled down even the Civil Magistrate when his advancing did not stand with their ends and purposes Flacius Ilyricus the founder of the Stiff or Rigid Lutherans had led the way unto them in the last particular By whom it was held forth for a Rule in all Church-Reformations that Princes should be rather terrified with the fear of Tumults then any thing which seemed to savour of Idolatry or Superstition should either be tolerated or connived at for quietness-sake Concurring with him as they did in his Doctrines of Predestination Grace Freewil and things indifferent they were the better fitted to pursue his Principles in opposition unto all Authority by which their Councils were controuled or their Power restrained And by this means the publishing of their Confession with these Heads and Articles they did not onely justifie their exorbitancies in the time then past but made provision for themselves in the times to come 61. In such other points of their Confession as were meerly doctrinal and differing from the general current of the Church of Rome they shew themselves for the most part to be Anti-Lutheran that is to say Zuinglians in the point of the Holy Supper and Calvinists in the Doctrine of Predestination In which last point they have exprest the Article in such modest terms as may make it capable of an Orthodox and sober meaning For presupposing all mankinde by the Fall of Adam to be involved by Gods just judgement in the Gulph of Perdition they make them onely to be predestinate to eternal life whom God by his eternal and immutable counsel hath elected in Christ and separated from the rest by the said Election But when the differences were broken out betwixt them and such of their Brethren which commonly past amongst them by the name of Remonstrants and that it was pretended by the said Remonstrants that the Article stood as fair to them as the opposite party the words were then restrained to a narrower sence then the generality of the expression could literally and
the other two In whose behalf when it was moved by one Mr. Wroth That the House should be humble Suitors to Her Majesty for the releasing of such of their Members as were under restraint it was answered by such of the Privy-Councellors as were then Members of the House That Her Majesty had committed them for causes best known to Her self and that to press Her Highness with this Suit would but hinder those whose good it sought That the House must not call the Queen to an account for what she did of Her Royal Authority That the Causes for which they are restrained may be high and dangerous That Her Majesty liketh no such Questions neither did it become the House to deal in such matters Upon which words the House desisted from interposing any further in their behalf but left them wholly to the Queen by whom Wentworth was continued Prisoner for some years after 24. In the same Parliament one Morrise Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster proposed unto the House That some course might be taken by them against the hard courses of Bishops Ordinaries and other Ecclesiastical Judges in their several Courts towards sundry godly Ministers and painful Preachers who deserved more encouragement from them They also spake against Subscription and the Oath Ex Officio and offered a Bill unto the House against the imprisonment of such as refused the same Of this the Queen had present notice and thereupon sends for Coke then Speaker of the House of Commons but afterwards successively Chief Justice of either Bench to whom she gave command to deliver this Message to the House that is to say That it was wholly in Her Power to call to determine to assent or dissent to any thing done in Parliament That the calling of this was only that the Majesty of God might be more Religiously observed by compelling with some sharp Laws such as neglect that Service and that the safety of Her Majesty's Person and the Realm might be provided for That it was not meant they should meddle with matters of State or Causes Ecclesiastical That She wondered that any should attempt a thing so contrary to Her Commandment and that She was highly offended at it and finally that it was Her pleasure That no Bill touching any matters of State or for the Reformation of Causes Ecclesiastical should be there exhibited On the delivery of which Message Morrise is said to have been seized on in the House by a Serjeant at Arms but howsoever seized on and committed Prisoner kept for some years in Tutbury Castle discharged from his Office in the Dutchy and disabled from any Practise in his Profession as a common Lawyer Some others had prepared a Bill to this effect That in lieu of Excommunication there should be given some ordinary Process with such sute and coertion as thereunto might appertain that so the dignity of so high a Sentence being retained and the necessity of mean Process supplied the Church might be restored to its ancient splendor Which Bill though recommended somewhat incogitantly by one of the Gravest Councellors of State which was then in the House was also dashed by Her Majesty's express Command upon a Resolution of not altering any thing the quality of the times considered which had been setled in the Church both by Law and Practise Which constancy of Hers in the preserving of Her own Prerogative and the Church's Power kept down that swelling humour of the Puritan Faction which was even then upon the point of overflowing the banks and bearing down all opposition which was made against them 25. And that they might be kept the better in their natural Channel she caused an Act to be prepared and passed in this present Parliament for retaining them and others of Her Subjects in their due obedience By which it was Enacted for the preventing and avoiding of such Inconveniencies and Perils as might happen and grow by the wicked and dangerous Practices of Seditious Sectaries and Disloyal persons That if any person or persons above the age of sixteen years should obstinately refuse to repair to some Church Chappel or usual place of Common-Prayer to hear Divine Service established or shall forbear to do the same by the space of a Month without lawful cause or should move or perswade any other person whatsoever to forbear and abstain from coming to the Church to hear Divine Service or to receive the Communion according to the Laws and Statutes aforesaid or to come or be present at any unlawful Assemblies Conventicles or Meetings under pretence of Religious Exercise contrary to the Laws and Statutes made in that behalf or should at any time after forty days from the end of that Session by Printing Writing or express Words or Speeches advisedly and purposely go about to move or perswade any of Her Majesty's Subjects or any other within Her Highness Realms and Dominions to deny withstand or impugn Her Majesty's Power and Authority in causes Ecclesiastical united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of the Realm That then every person so offending and convicted of it should be committed unto Prison without Bail or Main-prise till he or they should testifie their Conformity by coming to some Church Chappel or other place of Common-prayer to hear Divine Service and to make open submission and declaration of the same in such form and manner as by the said Statute was provided Now that we may the better see what great care was taken as well by the two Houses of Parliament as by the Queen Her self for preserving the Honour of the Church the Jurisdiction of the Bishops and the Royal Prerogative in both it will not be amiss to represent that Form to the eye of the Reader in which the said Submission was to be delivered The tenour whereof was as followeth viz. 26. I A. B. do humbly confess and acknowledg That I have grievously offended God in contemning Her Majesty's godly and lawful Government and Authority by absenting my self from Church and from hearing Divine Service contrary to the godly Laws and Statutes of this Realm and in using and frequenting disordered and unlawful Conventicles and Assemblies under pretence and colour of exercise of Religion And I am heartily sorry for the same and do acknowledg and testifie in my Conscience That no person or persons hath or ought to have any Power or Authority over Her Majesty And I do promise and protest without any dissimulation or any colour of means of any Dispensation That from henceforth I will from time to time obey and perform Her Majesty's Laws and Statutes in repairing to the Church and hearing Divine Service and do mine utmost endeavour to maintain and defend the same 27. This Declaration to be made in some Church or Chappel before the beginning of Divine Service within three Months after the conviction of the said Offenders who otherwise were to abjure the Realm and to depart the same at such time and place as should be limited
History OF THE PRESBYTERIANS LIB X. Containing A Relation of their Plots and Practises in the Realm of England Their horrible Insolencies Treasons and Seditions in the Kingdom of Scotland from the Year 1595 to the Year 1603. THE English Puritans having sped so ill in a course of violence were grown so wise as to endeavour the subverting of that Fort by an undermining which they had no hope to take by storm or battery And the first course they fell upon besides the Artifices lately mentioned for altering the posture of the Preacher in the Spittle-Sermons and that which was intended as a consequent to it was the Design of Dr. Bound though rather carried under his Name than of his devising for lessening by degrees the Reputation of the ancient Festivals The Brethren had tryed many ways to suppress them formerly as having too much in them of the Superstitions of the Church of Rome but they had found no way succesful till they fell on this which was To set on foot some new Sabbath-Doctrine and by advancing the Authority of the Lord's-Day Sabbath to cry down the rest Some had been hammering on this Anvil ten years before and had procured the Mayor and Aldermen of London to present a Petition to the Queen for the suppressing of all Plays and Interludes on the Sabbath-day as they pleased to call it within the Liberties of their City The gaining of which point made them hope for more and secretly to retail those Speculations which afterward Bound sold in gross by publishing his Treatise of the Sabbath which came out this year 1595. And as this Book was published for other Reasons so more particularly for decrying the yearly-Festivals as appears by this passage in the same viz. That he seeth not where the Lord hath given any Authority to his Church ordinarily and perpetually to sanctifie any day except that which he hath sanctified himself And makes it an especial Argument Argument against the goodness of Religion in the Church of Rome That to the Seventh-day they had joyned so many other days and made them equal with the Seventh if not superior thereunto as well in the solemnity of Divine Offices as restraint from labour So that we may perceive by this what their intent was from the very beginning To cry down the Holy-days as superstitious Popish Ordinances that so their new-found Sabbath being left alone and Sabbath now it must be called might become more eminent Some other Ends they might have in it as The compelling of all persons of what rank soever to submit themselves unto the yoak of their Sabbath-rigors whom they despaired of bringing under their Presbyteries Of which more hereafter 2. Now for the Doctrine it was marshalled in these Positions that is to say That the Commandment of sanctifying every Seventh day as in the Mosaical Decalogue is Natural Moral and Perpetual That when all other things in the Jewish Church were so changed that they were clean taken away this stands the observation of the Sabbath And though Jewish and Rabinical this Doctrine was it carried a fair shew of Piety at the least in the opinion of the common people and such as did not stand to examine the true grounds thereof but took it up on the appearance such as did judg thereof not by the workmanship of the Stuff but the gloss and colour In which it is not strange to see how suddenly men were induced not only to give way unto it but without more 〈…〉 the same till in the end and that in very little time it grew the most bewitching error the most popular infatuation that ever wa◠infused into the people of England For what did follow hereupon but such monstrous Paradoxes and those delivered in the Pulpit as would make every good man tremble at the hearing of them It being preached at a Market-Town as my Author tells me That to do any servile work or business on the Lord's day was as great a sin as to kill a man or commit Adultery In Somersetshire That to throw a Bowl on the Lord's day was as great a sin as to kill a man In Norfolk That to make a Feast or dress a Wedding-Dinner on the same was as great a sin as for a Father to take a Knife and cut his Child's throat And in Suffolk That to ring more Bells than one on the Lord's day was as great a sin as to commit a Murther Some of which Preachers being complained of occasioned a more strict enquiry into all the rest and not into their Persons only but their Books and Pamphlets insomuch that both Arch-bishop Whitgift and Chief Justice Popham commanded these Books to be called in and neither to be Printed nor made common for the time to come Which strict proceedings notwithstanding this Doctrine became more dispersed than can be imagined and possibly might encrease the more for the opposition no System of Divinity no Book of Catechetical Doctrine from thenceforth published in which these Sabbath-Speculations were not pressed on the People's Consciences 3. Endearing of which Doctrines as formerly to advance their Elderships they spared no place or Text of Scripture where the Word Elder did occurre and without going to the Heralds had framed a Pedigree thereof from Iethro from Noah's Ark and from Adam finally So did these men proceed in their new Devices publishing out of Holy Writ both the Antiquity and the Authority of their Sabbath-day No passage of God's Book unransacked where there was mention of a Sabbath whether the Legal Sabbath charged upon the Iews or the Spiritual Sabbath of the Soul from sin which was not fitted and applied to the present purpose though if examined as it ought with no lesse reason than Paveant illi non paveam Ego was by an ignorant Priest alledged from Scripture to prove that his Parishioners ought to pave the Chancel And on the confidence of those Proofs they did presume exceedingly of their success by reason of the general entertainment which those Doctrines found with the common people who looked upon them with as much regard and no less reverence than if they had been sent immediately from the Heavens themselves for encrease of Piety Possest with which they greedily swallowed down the Hook which was baited for them 4. A Hook indeed which had so fastned them to those men who love to fish in troubled waters that by this Artifice there was no small hope conceived amongst them to fortifie their Side and make good that Cause which till this trim Device was so thought of was almost grown desperate By means whereof they btought so great a bondage on all sorts of people that a greater never was imposed on the Iews themselves though they had pinned their Consciences on the Sleeves of the Scribes and Pharises But then withall by bringing all sorts of people into such a bondage they did so much improve their Power and encrease their Party that they were able at the last to oppose
thereof Should our Meetings be in the Name of Man Are we not to take up our selves and to acknowledg our former errors and feebleness in the Work of the Lord It is time for us now when so many of our worthy Brethren are thrust out of their Callings without all order of just proceedings and Jesuits Atheists and Papists are suffered countenanced and advanced to great Rooms in the Realm for the bringing in Idolatry and Captivity more than Babylonical with an high hand and that in our chief City Is it time for us I say of the Ministry to be inveigled and blind-folded with pretence of the preferment of some small number of our Brethren to have voice in Parliament and have Titles of Prelacy Shall we with Sampson sleep still on Dalilah's knees till she say The Philistines be upon thee Sampson c. Which Letter speaks the words of Davidson but the sense of others who having the like discontentments privately whispered them in the ears of those who either seemed zealous for Religion or Factiously enclined to make new Disturbances in this unsetledness of Affairs In which conjuncture it was no hard matter for them so to work upon men's Affections as to assure them to themselves and to be ready to flye out upon all occasions especially when any powerful Head should be offered to them 34. Of the last sort was the Conspiracy and Treason of the Earl of Goury Son of that William Earl of Goury who had been executed for surprizing the King's Person at Ruthen-Castle Anno 1584. And though this Son of his had been restored by the King to his Blood and Hononrs one of his Sisters married to the Duke of Lenox another placed in the Attendance of the Queen and that his Brother Alexander was advanced to a Place in the Bed-Chamber yet all these Favours were not able to obliterate the remembrance of the Execution so justly done upon their Father By nature he was Proud Aspiring and of a Mind greater than his Fortune Ill principled in the course of his Education which made him passionately affected to the Disciplinarians of whom he was ambitious to be thought a Patron To this man they apply themselves who by the loss of their Authority or Tyranny rather measured the Fortunes of the Church as though Religion could not stand if their Empire fell To him they frequently insinuated their Fears and Jealousies the King's aversness from the Gospel his extraordinary Favour to the Popish Lords his present Practises and Designs to subvert the Discipline the only Pillar and Support of the Kirk of Scotland not without some Reflections on the death of his Father whose Zeal to God was testified by the loss of his Life which cryed aloud for vengeance both to God and Man By which insinuations they so wrought upon him that he began to study nothing but Revenge and to that end engaged his Brother Alexander a fierce young man and of a very daring Spirit in the practise with him He also held intelligence with such of the Ministers as were supposed to be most discontented at the present Transactions but most especially with the Preachers of Edenborough who could not easily forget the Injuries so they must be called which they had suffered from the King for some years last past The like intelligence he kept with many Male-contents amongst the Laicks preparing all but opening his Design to few but opening it howsoever to Logen of Restalrig in whom he had more confidence than all the rest 35. Concerning which it was averred by one Sprot a Notary as well upon Examination before the Lords of the Session as his Confession at the Gallows Anno 1608 That he had seen a Letter written by this Logan to the Earl of Goury in which was signified That he would take part with him in revenge of his Father's death That to effect it he must find some way or other to bring the King to Fast-Castle That it was easier to be done by Sea than Land and that they might safely keep him there till they had given advertisement of it to the other Conspirators For proof of which Confession being free and voluntary he told the people on the Ladder that he would give them a Sign which he performed by clapping his hands three times after his turning off by the Executioner It was affirmed also by Mr. William Cowper a right godly man then being Minister at Perth and afterwards made Bishop of Galloway That going to the House of the Earl the Hereditary Provost of that Town not many days before the intended Treason he found him reading a Book entituled De Conjurationibus adversus Principes containing a Discourse of Treasons and Conspiracies against several Princes of which he was pleased to give this Censure That most of them were very foolishly contrived and faulty in some point or other which was the reason that they found not the desired effect By which it seems that he intended to out-go all former Conspirators in the contrivance of his Treason though in the end he fell upon a Plot which was most ridiculous not to be parallel'd by any in that Book which he so much vilified The Design was To draw the King to his House in the Town of Perth under pretence of coming secretly to see a man whom he had lately intercepted with Letters and some quantity of Gold from Rome and having brought him to some remote part of the House to make sure work of him The King was then at Falkland-Castle and going out betimes on Tuesday the fifth of August to take his pleasure in the Park he is met by Alexander who tells him of the News of Perth and that a speedy posting thither would be worth his travel The King comes thither before Dinner accompanied with the Duke of Lenox the Earl of Marre Evesking the Captain of his Guard and some other Gentlemen all of them in their Hunting-Coats as minding nothing but a Visit to the Nobleman Thus is he brought into the toyl but they shall only hunt him to the view and not pull him down 36. The King 's own Dinner being ended the Lords fall to theirs which Alexander takes to be the fittest time to effect the Enterprise and therefore takes the King along with him to an upper Chamber But seeing Eveskin at his heels he willed him to stay behind and made fast the doors Being brought into a Chamber on the top of the House the King perceived a man in a secret corner and presently asked Alexander if he were the Party who had brought the Letters and the Gold But Alexander then changed his countenance upbraided him with the death of his Father for which he was now brought to make satisfaction and therewith left him to the mercy of the Executioner I shall not stand on all particulars of the story the sum whereof is briefly this That the King having having by much strugling gained a Window a corner whereof looked toward 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
had they stood to that they had been unblameable but finding by the Subscriptions which they had received from all parts of the Kingdom that they were nothing inferiour to their Adversaries in power and number they were not able to hold long in so good an humour Howsoever it was thought expedient for the avoiding of Scandal that they should first proceed in the way of supplication to the Queen and Council in which it was desired that it might be lawful for them to meet publickly or privately for having the Common-prayers in the vulgar tongue that the Sacrament of Baptism might be administred in the same Tongue also the Sacrament of the Lords Supper in both kindes according to Christs Institution and that a Reformation might be made of the wicked lives of Prelates Priests and other Ecclesiastical persons The Queen of Scots was in the mean time Married to the Daulphin of France upon whose head it was desired by the French that at the least the Matrimonial Crown should be solemnly placed and that all the French Nation should forthwith be naturalized in the Realm of Scotland For the better effecting whereof in the following Parliament the Queen Regent thought it no ill peece of State-craft so far to gratifie the Petitioners in their desires as to license them to meet in publick or private for the exercise of their own Religion so that it were not in the City of Edenborough or the Port of Leith for fear some Tumult or Sedition might ensue upon it But not content with this Indulgence they were resolved to move the Parliament for an Abrogation of all former Laws made against Sects and Heresies by which they might incur the loss of Life Land or Liberty and that none of their profession should be condemned for Heresie unless they were first convinced by the Word of God to have erred from the Faith which the holy Spirit witnesseth to be necessary to mans Salvation 11. But hereunto they could not get the Queens consent And thereupon they caused a Protestation to be drawn and openly pronounced in the face of the Parliament in which it was declared amongst other things that neither they nor any other of the Godly who pleased to joyn with them in the true Faith grounded upon the Word of God should incur any danger of Life or Lands or other particular pains for not observing such acts as have passed heretofore in favour of their Adversaries or for violating such Rites as have been invented by man without the Commandment of God that if any Tumult or Uproar should happen to arise in the Realm or that any violence should be used in reforming of such things as were amiss in the state of the Church the blame should not be laid on them who had desired that all things might be rectified by publick Order And finally that they pretended to no other end but onely for the reforming of such abuses as were found in Religion and therefore that they might no otherwise be thought of then as faithful and obedient Subjects to Supreme Authority And now the Scheme begins to open the Town of Perth by some called St. Iohnstone declared in favour of the Lords of the Congregation which name they had took unto themselves the news whereof was so unpleasing to the Queen that she commanded the Lord Ruthuen a man of principal Authority in the parts adjoyning to take some order for suppressing those Innovations in Religion which some busie people of that Town had introduced To which he answered That he was able if she pleased to force their bodies and to seize their goods but that he had no power to compel their Consciences which answer did not more displease the Queen then it encouraged those of the Congregation who now from all parts flocked to Perth as a Town strong by scituation well fortified and standing in a fruitful Country from whence they might receive all necessaries if any open force or violence should be used against them 12. Knox in the mean time had retreated to his charge at Geneva not thinking fit to tempt that danger by an unseasonable return which he had so narrowly escaped at his being there He onely waited opportunity to go back with safety and would not stir though frequently sollicited by his Friends in Scotland In so much that means was made to Calvin by especial Letters to re-ingage him in the Cause Which Letters were brought to him in the Month of November Anno 1558. And that it may appear what influence Calvin had upon all the counsels and designes of the Congregation he is advertised from time to time of their successes of the estate of their Affairs whether good or bad in so much that when the Queen Regent had fed them with some flattering hopes Calvin is forthwith made acquainted with their happiness in it And who but he must be desired to write unto her that by his Grave counsel and exhortation she might be animated to go forward constantly in promoting the Gospel But though these Letters came to Calvin in the Month of November yet we finde not Knox in Scotland till the May next following when those of his party had possessed themselves of the Town of Perth though he loved Calvin well and the Gospel better yet all that a man hath he will give for his life and Knox was dearer to himself then either of them But unto Perth he comes at last on the fifth of May. In the chief Church whereof he preached such a thundring Sermon against the Adoration of Images and the advancing of them in places of Gods publick Worship as suddenly beat down all the Images and Religious Houses within the Precincts of that Town For presently after the end of the Sermon when almost all the rest of the people were gone home to dinner some few which remained in the Church pullâ—d down a glorious Tabernacle which stood on the Altar broke it in pieces and defaced the Images which they found therein Which being dispatched they did the like execution on all the rest in that Church and were so nimble at their work that they had made a clear riddance of them before the tenth man in the Town was advertised of it The news hereof causeth the Rascal Multitude so my Author calls them to resort in great numbers to the Church But because they found that all was done before they came they fell with great fury on the Monastery of Carthusian Monks and the Houses of the Preaching and Franciscan Fryars beginning wiâ—h the Images first but after spoyling them of all their provisions Bedding and Furniture of Houshold which was given for a prey unto the poor And in the ruinating of these Houses they continued with much force and eagerness so that within the compass of two days they had left nothing standing of those goodly Edifices but the outward Walls 13. It was reported that the Queen was so inraged when she heard the news that she vowed
of it That they were ready to continue in all duty toward their Soveraign and her Mother there Regent provided they might have the free exercise of their own Religion In reference to their medling with the Irons of the Mint and the Coyning of Money they justified themselves as being most of them Councellors born and doing nothing in it but for the good of the people To which effect they writ their Letters also to the Regent her self whom they assured in the close that if she would make use of her authority for the abolishing of Idolatry and Superstitious abuses which agreed not with the Word of God she should finde them as obedient as any Subjects within the Realm Which in plain truth was neither more nor less then this that if they might not have their wills in the point of Religion she was to look for no obedience from them in other matters whereof they gave sufficient proof by their staying in Edenborough her command to the contrary notwithstanding by pressing more then ever for a toleration and adding this over and above to their former demands that such French Forces as remained in Scotland might be disbanded and sent back to their native Country In the first of which demands they were so unreasonable that when the Queen offered them the exercise of their own Religion upon condition that when she had occasion to make use of any of their Churches for her own Devotions such exercise might be suspended and the Mass onely used in that conjuncture they would by no means yeild unto it And they refused to yeild unto it for this Reason onely because it would be in her power by removing from one place unto another to leave them without any certain Exercise of their Religion which in effect was utterly to overthrow it And hereto they were pleased to add that as they could not hinder her from exercising any Religion which she had a minde to but this was more then they would stand to in their better Fortunes so could they not agree that the Ministers of Christ should be silenced upon any occasion and much less that the true Worship of God should give place to Idolatry A point to which they stood so stifly that when the Queen Regent had resetled her Court at Edenborough she could neither prevail so far upon the Magistrates of that City as either to let her have the Church of St. Gyles to be appropriated onely to the use of the Mass or that the Mass might be said in it at such vacant times in which they made no use of it for themselves or their Ministers 17. But in their other demands for sending the French Souldiers out of Scotland they were not like to finde any such compliance as had been offered in the former Henry the Third of France dyed about that time and left the Crown to Francis the Second Married not long before to the Queen of Scots the preservation of whose power and prerogative Royal must be his concernment And he declared himself so sensible of those indignities which had been lately put upon her as to protest that he would rather spend the Crown of France then not be revenged of the seditious Tumults raised in Scotland in pursuance of which resolution he sends over a French Captain called Octavian who brought with him a whole Regiment of Souldiers great sums of money and all provisions necessary to maintain a War Followed not long after with four Companies more which made up twenty Ensigns compleat together with four Ships of War both to defend the Town of Leith and command the Haven Incouraged with whose coming the Queen Regent did not onely fortifie that Town but put a strong Garrison of the French into it which gave a new grievance unto those of the Congregation the Trade and Town of Edenborough being like by this means to be brought under her command and to rest wholly in a manner at her devotion The breach made wider on the one side by the taking of the Fort of Boughty Crag into the hands of those of the Congregation which was pretended to be done for fear lest otherwise it might have been seized on by the French and on the other side by the coming of two thousand French Souldiers out of France under pretence of being a Convoy to the Bishop of Amiens and some other persons sent thither to dispute as it was given out with the Scotish Ministers Which great accession of French Forces so amazed the Lords of the Congregation that they excited the whole Kingdom by a publick Writing to arm against them requiring all those which were or desired to be accounted for nâ—tural Scotch-men to judge betwixt the Queen and them and not abstract the just and dutiful support from their Native Country in so needful a time assuring them that whosoever did otherwise should be esteemed betrayers of their Country to the power of strangers 18. And that the people might not cool in the midst of this heat they draw their Forces together and march toward Edenborough on the 18 of October upon the news whereof the Queen Regent put her self into Leith as the safer place and leaves them Masters of the City From whence they send a Letter to her requiring in a peremptory and imperious manner that the fortifications about Leith be forthwith slighted the Forts about the same to be demolished and all strange Souldiers to be immediately removed Which if she not pleased to do they must bethink themselves of some such other remedies as they thought most necessary But when their Messenger returned unsatisfied and that Lyon King at Arms was sent presently after him commanding them amongst other things to remove from Edenborough they then resolve for putting that in execution which had been long before in deliberation that is to say the deposing of the Queen Regent from the publick Government But first they must consult with their Ghostly Fathers that by their countenance and authority they might more certainly prevail upon all such persons as seemed unsatisfied in the point Willock and Knox are chosen above all the rest to resolve this doubt if at the least any of them doubted of it which may well be questioned They were both Factors for Geneva and therefore both obliged to advance her interest Willock declares that albeit God had appointed Magistrates onely to be his Lieutenants on Earth honouring them with his own title and calling them Gods yet did he never so establish any but that for just causes they might be deprived Which having proved by some Examples out of holy Scripture he thereupon inferred that since the Queen Regent had denyed her chief Duty to the Subjects of this Realm which was to preserve them from invasion of Strangers and to suffer the Word of God to be freely preached seeing also she was a maintainer of superstition and despised the counsel of the Nobility he did think they might justly deprive her from all Regiment and
disobedience against them but rather is to be accounted for a just obedience because it agrees with the Word of God 42. The same man preaching afterwards at one of their General Assemblies made a distinction between the Ordinance of God and the persons placed by him in Authority and then affirmed that men might lawfully and justly resist the persons and not offend against the Ordinance of God He added as a Corollary unto his discourse That Subjects were not bound to obey their Princes if they Command unlawful things but that they might resist their Princes and that they were not bound to suffer For which being questioned by Secretary Ledington in the one and desired to declare himself further in the other point he justified himself in both affirming that he had long been of that opinion and did so remain A Question hereupon arising about the punishment of Kings if they were Idolaters it was honestly affirmed by Ledington That there was no Commandment given in that case to punish Kings and that the people had no power to be judges over them but must leave them unto God alone who would either punish them by death imprisonment war or some other Plagues Against which Knox replyed with his wooted confidence that to affirm that the people or a part of the people may not execute Gods Judgments against their King being an offender the Lord Ledington could have no other Warrant except his own imaginations and the opinion of such as rather feared to displease their Princes then offend their God Against which when Ledington objected the Authority of some eminent Protestants Knox answered that they spake of Christians subject to Tyrants and Infidels so dispersed that they had no other force but onely to cry unto God for their deliverance That such indeed should hazard any further then those godly men willed them he would not hastily be of counsel But that his Argument had another ground and that he spake of a people assembled in one Body of a Commonwealth unto whom God had given sufficient force not onely to resist but also to suppress all kinde of open Idolatry and such a people again he affirmed were bound to keep their Land clean and unpolluted that God required one thing of Abraham and his Seed when he and they were strangers in the Land of Egypt and that another thing was required of them when they were delivered from that bondage and put into the actual Possession of the Land of Canaan 43. Finally that the Application might come home to the point in hand it was resolved by this learned and judicious Casuist that when they could hardly finde ten in any one part of Scotland who rightly understood Gods Truth it had been foolishness to have craved the suppression of Idolatry either from the Nobility or the common subject because it had been nothing else but the betraying of the silly Sheep for a prey to the Wolves But now saith he that God hath multiplyed knowledge and hath given the victory unto Truth in the hands of his Servants if you should suffer the Land again to be defiled you and your Prince should drink the cup of Gods indignation the Queen for her continuing obstinate in open Idolatry in this great light of the Gospel and you for permission of it and countenancing her in the same For my assertion is saith he that Kings have no priviledge more then hath the people to offend Gods Majesty and if so be they do they are no more exempted from the punishment of the Law then is any other subject yea and that subjects may not onely lawfully oppose themselves unto their Kings whensoever they do any thing that expresly oppugnes God 's Commandments but also that they may execute Iudgement upon them according to Gods Laws so that if the King be a Murtherer Adulterer or an Idolater he should suffer according to Gods Law not as a King but as an Offender Now that Knox did not speak all this as his private judgement but as it was the judgement of Calvin and the rest of the Genevian Doctors whom he chiefly followed appears by this passage in the story It was required that Knox should write to Calvin and to the Learned men in other Churches to know their judgements in the Question to which he answered that he was not onely fully resolved in conscience but had already heard their judgements as well in that as in all other things which he had affirmed in that Kingdom that he came not to that Realm without their resolution and had for his assurance the hand-writing of many and therefore if he should now move the same questions again he must either shew his own ignorance or inconstancie or at least forgetfulness 44. Of the same Nature and proceeding from the same Original are those dangerous passages so frequently dispersed in most parts of his History By which the Reader is informed That Reformation of Religion doth belong to more then the Clergie and the King That Noblemen ought to reform Religion if the King will not That Reformation of Religion belongeth to the Commonalty who concurring with the Nobility may compel the Bishops to cease from their Tyranny and bridle the cruel Beasts the Priests That they may lawfully require of their King to â—ave true Preachers and if he be negligent they justly may themselves provide them maintain them defend them against all that do persecute them and may detain the profits of the Church-livings from the Popish Clergy That God appointed the Nobility to bridle the inordinate appetite of Princes who in so doing cannot be accounted as resisters of Authority and that it is their duty to repress the rage and insolency of Princes That the Nobility and Commonalty ought to reform Religion and in that case may remove from honours and may punish such as God hath condemned of what estate condition or honour soever they be That the punishment of such crimes as touch the Majesty of God doth not appertain to Kings and chief Rulers onely but also to the whole body of the people and to every member of the same as occasion vocation or ability shall serve to revenge the injury done against God That Princes for just causes may be deposed That of Princes be Tyrants against God and his Truth their subjects are freed from their Oaths of obedience And finally that it is neither birth right or propinquity of bloud which makes a King rule over a people that profess Iesus Christ but that it comes from some special and extraordinary dispensation of Almighty God 45. Such is the plain Song such the Descant of these Sons of Thunder first tuned by the Genevian Doctors by them commended unto Knox and by Knox preached unto his Brethren the Kirk of Scotland In which what countenance he received from Goodman and how far he was justified if not succeeded by the pen of Buchanan we shall see hereafter In the mean time the poor Queen must needs be in
privy Postern The news of this disorder is carried post to the Queen who thereupon gives order to the Provost of Edenborough to seize upon the persons of Andrew Armstrong or Patrick Craâ—ston the Chief-Ringleaders of the tumult that they might undergo the Law at a time appointed for fore-thought Felony in making a violent invasion into the Queens Palace and for spoliation of the same This puts the Brethren into a heat and Knox is ordered by the consent of the rest of the Ministers to give notice unto all the Church of the present danger that they might meet together as one man to prevent the mischief In the close of which Letter he â—ets them know what hopes he had that neither flattery nor fear would make them so far to decline from Christ Jesus as that against their publick Promise and solemn Bond they would leave their dear Brethren in so just a cause It was about the beginning of August that the tumult hapned and the beginning of October that the Letter was written A Copy of it comes into the hands of the Lords of the Council by whom the writing of it was declared to be treason to the great rejoycing of the Queen who hoped on this occasion to revenge her self upon him for his former insolencies But it fell out quite contrary to her expectation Knox is commanded to appear before the Lords of the Council and he comes accordingly but comes accompanied with such a train of godly Brethren that they did not onely fill the open part of the Court but thronged up stairs and prest unto the doors of the Council This makes the man so confident as to stand out stoutly against the Queen and her Council affirming that the convocating of the people in so just a Cause was no offence against the Law and boldly telling them that they who had inflamed the Queen against those poor men were the Sons of the Devil and therefore that it was no marvail if they obeyed the desires of their Father who was a Murtherer from the beginning Moved with which confidence or rather terrified with the clamours of the Rascal Rabble even ready to break in upon them the whole Nobility then present absolved him of all the crimes objected to him not without some praise to God for his modesty and for his plain and sensible answers as himself reports it 49. Worse fared it with the Queen and those of her Religion in another adventure then it did in this At the ministring of the Communion in Edenborough on the first of April the Brethren are advertised that the Papists were busie at their Mass some of which taking one of the Bayliffs with them laid hands upon the Priest the Master of the House and two or three of the Assistants all whom they carryed to the Tole-booth or Common-hall The Priest they re-invest with his Massing-Garments set him upon the Market-cross unto which they tye him holding a Chalice in his hand which is tyed to it also and there exposed him for the space of an hour to be pelted by the boys with rotten Eggs. The next day he is accused and convicted in a course of Law by which he might have suffered death but that the Law had never been confirmed by the King or Queen So that instead of all other punishments which they had no just power to inflict upon him he was placed in the same manner on the Market-cross the Common-hang-man standing by and there exposed to the same insolencies for the space of three or four hours as the day before Some Tumult might have followed on it but that the Provost with some Halberdiers dispersed the multitude and brought the poor Priest off with safety Of this the Queen complains but without any Remedy Instead of other satisfaction an Article is drawn up by the Commissioners of the next Assembly to be presented to the Parliament then sitting at Edenborough in which it was desired That the Papisâ—ical and blasphemous Mass with all the Papistical Idolatry and Papal Iurisdiction be universally supprest and abolished throughout this Realm not onely in the subjects but the Queens own person c. of which more hereafter It was not long since nothing was more preached amongst them then the great tyranny of the Prelates and the unmerciful dealing of such others as were in Authority in not permitting them to have the liberty of Conscience in their own Religion which now they denyed unto their Queen 50. But the affront which grieved her most was the perverse but most ridiculous opposition which they made to her Marriage she had been desired for a Wife by Anthony of Bourbon King of Navar Lewis Prince of Conde Arch-duke Charles the Duke of Bavaria and one of the younger Sons of the King of Sweden But Queen Elizabeth who endeavoured to keep her low disswaded her from all Alliances of that high strain perswaded her to Marry with some Noble Person of England for the better establishment of her Succession in the Crown of this Realm and not obscurely pointed to her the Earl of Leicester Which being made known to the Lady Margaret Countess of Lenox Daughter of Margaret Queen of Scots and Grand-childe to King Henry the Seventh from whom both Queens derived their Titles to this Crown she wrought upon the Queen of Scots by some Court-Instruments to accept her Eldest Son the Lord Henry Steward for her Husband A Gentleman he was above all exception of comely personage and very plausible behaviour of English Birth and Education and much about the same age with the Queen her self And to this Match she was the more easily inclined because she had been told of the King her Father that he resolved if he had dyed without any Issue of his own to declare the Earl of Lenox for his Heir Apparent that so the Crown might be preserved in the name of the Stewarts But that which most prevailed upon her was a fear she had lest the young Lord being the next Heir unto her self to the Crown of England might Marry into some Family of power and puissance in that Kingdom by means whereof he might prevent her of her hopes in the succession to which his being born in England and her being an Alien and an Enemy might give some advantage Nor did it want some place in her consideration that the young Lord and his Parents also were of the same Religion with her which they had constantly maintained notwithstanding all temptations to the contrary in the Court of England To smooth the way to this great business the Earl desires leave of Queen Elizabeth to repair into Scotland where he is graciously received and in â—ull Parliament restored unto his native Country from whence he had been banished two and twenty years The young Lord follows not long after and findes such entertainment at the hands of that Queen that report voiced him for her Husband before he could assure himself of his own affections This proved no
the King in â—â—rliament and the approving of the same deferred to a furâ—her time they took this not for a delay but a plain denyal and therefore it was agreed in the next general Assembly as before is said to put the same in execution by their own Authority without expecting any further confirmation of it from the King or Council Which that they might effect without fear of disturbance they first discharge the Bishops and Superintendents from intermedling in Affairs which concerned Religion but onely in their own particular Churches that so their Elderships according to this new establishment might grow up and flourish And then they took upon them with their own adherents to exercise all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction without respect to Prince or Prelate they altered the Laws according to their own appetite they assembled the Kings Subjects and injoyned Ecclesiastical pains unto them they made Decrees and put the same in execution they prescribed Laws to the King and State they appointed Fasts throughout the whole Realm especially when some of their Faction were to move any great enterprise they used very traytorous seditious and contumelious words in the Pulpits Schools and otherwise to the disdain and reproach of the King and being called to answer the same they utterly disclaimed the Kings Authority saying he was an incompetent Judge and that matters of the Pulpit ought to be exempted from the judgement and correction of Princes And finally they did not onely animate some of those that adhered unto them to seize upon the Kings person and usurp his power but justified the same in one of their general Assemblies held at Edenborough for a lawful Act ordaining all those to be excommunicated which did not subscribe unto the same This we take up by whole-sale now but shall return it by retail in that which follows 37. And first they begin with Mr. Iames Boyd Archbishop of Glasco a man of a mild and quiet nature and therefore the more like to be conformable to their commands requiring him to submit himself to the Assembly and to suffer the corruptions of the Episcopal Order to be reformed in his person To which proud intimation of their will and pleasure he returned this Answer which for the modesty or piety thereof deserves to be continued to perpetual memory I understand saith he the name Office and Reverence given to a Bishop to be lawful and allowed by the Scriptures of God and being elected by the Church and King to be Bishop of Glasco I esteem my Office and Calling lawful and shall endeavour with all my power to perform the duties required submitting my self to the judgement of the Church if I shall be tryed to offend so as nothing be required of me but the performance of those duties which the Apostle prescribeth Finding him not so tractable as they had expected they Commissionate certain of their Members to require his subscription to the Act made at Stirling for reformation of the State Episcopal by which it was agreed that every Bishop should take charge of some flock in particular And this they prest upon him with such heat and violence that they never left prosecuting the poor man till they had brought him to his Grave By none more violently pursued then by Andrew Melvin whom he had brought to Glasco and made Principal of the Colledge there gave him a free access to his House and Table or otherwise very liberally provided for him But Scots and Presbyterians are not won by favours nor obliged by Benefits For Melvin so disguised his nature that when he was in private with him at his Table or elsewhere he would use him with all reverence imaginable giving him the title of his Lordship with all the other honours which pertained unto him but in all particular Meetings whatsoever they were he would onely call him Mr. Boyd and otherwise carried himself most despitefully towards him 38. Their rough and peremptory dealing with this Reverend Prelate discouraged all the rest from coming any more to their Assemblies Which hapned as they could have wished For thereupon they agree amongst themselves upon certain Articles which every Bishop must subscribe or else quit his place that is to say 1. That they should be content to be Ministers and Pastors of a flock 2. That they should not usurp any criminal jurisdiction 3. That they should not vote in Parliament in the name of the Church unless they had a Commission from the general Assembly 4. That they should not take up for maintaining their ambition the Rents which might maintain many Pastors Schools and Poor but content themselves with a reasonable portion for discharge of their Offices 5. That they should not claim the title of Temporal Lords nor usurp any Civil Iurisdiction whereby they might be drawn from their charge 6. That they should not Empire over Presbyteries but be subject to the same 7. That they should not usurp the power of Presbyteries nor take upon them to visit any bounds that were not committed to them by the Church 8. That if any more corruptions should afterwards be tryed the Bishop should agree to have them reformed These Articles were first tendred to Patrick Adamson Archbishop of St. Andrews and Metropolitan of all Scotland against whom they had a former quarrel not onely because he was preferred elected and admitted to that eminent Dignity without their consent but had also exercised the Jurisdiction which belonged unto it in express and direct opposition unto their commands And first they quarrelled with him for giving Collation unto Benefices and for giving voice in Parliament not being authorized thereunto by the Kirk They quarrelled with him afterwards for drawing or advising the Acts of Parliament Anno 1584 which they conceived to be so prejudicial to the Rights of the Kirk and held the King so hard unto it that he was forced to counsel the poor Prelate to subscribe some Articles by which he seemed in a manner to renounce his Calling of which more hereafter They quarrelled with him again in the year 1589 for marrying one of the Daughters of the late Duke of Lenox to the Earl of Huntly without their consent wherein the King was also fain to leave him to their discretion And finally they so vexed and persecuted him from one time to another upon pretence of not conforming to their lawless pleasures that they reduced him in the end to extreme necessity published a false and scandalous Paper in his name as he lay on his death bed containing a Recantation as they called it or rather a renouncing of his Episcopal Function together with his approbation of their Presbyteries which Paper he disowned at the the hearing of it By which and many such unworthy courses they brought his gray hairs as they did some others of his Order with shame and sorrow to the Grave 39. Mention was made before of an Act of Parliament made in the time of the Interregnum before the Queens coming back from
privity and advice Which whether it were done with greater Moderation or Discretion it is hard to say 27. So good a Foundation being laid the building could not chuse but go on apace But first they must prepare the matter and remove all doubts which otherwise might interrupt them in the course of their building And herein Beza is consulted as the Master-Workman To him they send their several scruples and he returns such answer to them as did not onely confirm them in their present obstinacy but fitted and prepared them for the following Schism To those before they add the calling of the Ministers and their ordaining by the Bishops neither the Presbyterie being consulted nor any particular place appointed for their Ministration Which he condemns as contrary to the Word of God and the ancient Canons but so that he conceives it better to have such a Ministery then none at all praying withal that God would give this Church a more lawful Ministery the Church was much beholding to him for his zeal the while in his own good time Concerning the Interrogatories proposed to Infants in their Baptism he declares it to be onely a corruption of the ancient Form which was used in the baptizing persons of riper years And thereupon desires as heartily as before That as the Church had laid aside the use of Oyl and the old Rite of Exorcising though retained at Rome so they would also abdicate those foolish and unnecessary Interrogations which are made to Infanâ—â— And yet he could not chuse but vaunt that there was somewhat in one of S. Augustines Epistles which might seem to favour it and that such questionâ— were proposed to Infants in the time of Origen who lived above Two hundred years before S. Augustine In some Churches and particularly in Westminster-Abbey they still retained the use of Wafers made of bread unleavened to which we can find nothing contrary in the Publik Rubricks This he acknowledgeth of it self for a thing indifferent but so that ordinary leavened bread is preferred before it as being more agreeable to the Institution of our Lord and Saviour And yet he could not chuse but grant that Christ administred the Sacrament in unleavened bread no other being to be used by the Law of Moses at the time of the Passover He dislikes also the deciding of Civil causes by which he means those of Tythes Marriages and the Last-Wills or Testaments of men deceased in the Bishops Courts but more that the Bishops Chancellors did take upon them to decree any Excommunication without the approbation and consent of the Presbyters Whose acts therein he Majestically pronounceth to be void and null not to oblige the Conscience of any man in the sight of God and otherwise to be a foul and shameful prophanation of the Churches Censures 28. To other of their Queries Touching the Musick in the Church Kneeling at the Communion The Cross in Baptism and the rest He answers as he did before without remitting any thing of his former censure Which Letter of his bearing date on the 24 of October 1567. was superscribed Ad quosdam Anglicanum Ecclesiarum fratres c. To certain of the brethren of the Churches in England touching some points of Ecclesiastical Order and concernment which were then under debate by the receiving whereof they found themselves so fully satisfied and encouraged that they fell into an open Schism in the year next following At which time Benson Button Hallingham Coleman and others taking upon them to be of a more Ardent zeal then others in professing the true Reformed Religion resolved to allow of nothing in Gods Publick Service according to the Rules laid down by Calvin and Beza but what was found expresly in the holy Scriptures And whether out of a desire of Reformation which pretence had gilded many a rotten post or for singularity sake and Innovation they openly questioned the received Discipline of the Church of England yea condemned the same together with the Publick Liturgie and the Calling of Bishops as savouring too much of the Religion of the Church of Rome Against which they frequently protested in their Pulpits affirming That it was an impious thing to hold any correspondency with the Church and labouring with all diligence to bring the Church of England to a Conformity in all points with the Rules of Geneva These although the Queen commanded to be laid by the heels yet it is incredible how upon a sudden their followers increased in all parts of the Kingdom distinguished from the rest by the name of Puritans by reason of their own perverseness and most obstinate refusal to give ear to more sound advice Their numbers much encreased on a double account first by the negligence of some and the connivance of other Bishops who should have looked more narrowly into their proceedings And partly by the secret favour of some great men in the Court who greedily gaped after the Remainder of the Churches Patrimony 29. It cannot be denied but that this Faction received much encouragement underhand from some great persons near the Queen from no man more then from the Earl of Leicester the Lord North Knollis and Walsingham who knew how mightily some numbers of the Scots both Lords and Gentlemen had in short time improved their fortune by humoring the Knoxian Brethren in their Reformation and could not but expect the like in their own particulars by a compliance with those men who aimed apparently at the ruine of the Bishops and Cathedral Churches But then it must be granted also that they received no smaâ—l encouragement from the negligence and remissness of some great Bishops whom Calvin and Beza â—ad cajoled to a plain connivance Of Calvins writing unto Grindal for setting up a French Church in the middle of London we have seen before And we have seen how Beza did address himself unto him in behalf of the Brethren who had suffered for their inconformity to established Orders But now he takes notice of the Schism a manifest defection of some members from the rest of the body but yet he cannot chuse but tamper with him to allow their doings or otherwise to mitigate the rigour of the Laws in force For having first besprinkled him with some commendation for his zeal to the Gospel and thanked him for his many favours to the new French Church he begins roundly in plain terms to work him to his own perswasions He lays before him first how great an obstacle was made in the course of Religion by those petite differences not onely amongst weak and ignorant but even Learned men And then adviseth that some speedy remedy be applied to so great a mischief by calling an Assembly of such Learned and Religious men as were least contentious of which he hoped to be the chief if that work went forwards With this Proviso notwithstanding That nothing should be ordered and determined by them with reference unto Ancient or Modern usages but that all Popish Rites
having concluded a Truce of Twelve years with the States United wanted Employment for his Army and that he might engage that King with the greater confidence he reconciles himself to the Church of Rome and marries the Lady Magdalen Daughter to the Duke of Bavaria the most potent of the German Princes of that Religion which also he established in his own Dominions on the death of his Father This puts the young Marquess to new Counsels who thereupon calls in the Forces of the States Vnited the Warr continuing upon this occasion betwixt them and Spain though the Scene was shifted And that they might more cordially espouse his Quarrel he took to Wife the Sister of Frederick the fifth Prince Elector Palatine and Neece of William of Nassaw Prince of Orange by his youngest Daughter and consequently Cousin-German once removed to Count Maurice of Nassaw Commander-General of the Forces of the Sates Vnited both by Sea and Land This kept the Balance eeven between them the one possessing the Estates of Cleve and Mark and the other the greatest part of Berge and Gulick But so it was that the old Marquess of Brandenbourgh having setled his abode in the Dukedom of Prussia and left the management of the Marquissate to the Prince his Son left him withall unto the Plots and Practises of a subtil Lady Who being throughly instructed in all points of Calvinism and having gotten a great Empire in her Husband's Affections prevailed so far upon him in the first year of their Marriage Anno 1614 that he renounced his own Religion and declared for Her 's which he more cheerfully embraced in hope to arm all the Calvinians both of the Higher and the Lower Germany in defence of his Cause as his Competitor of Newbourgh had armed the Catholicks to preserve his Interest 15. Being thus resolved he publisheth an Edict in the Month of February Anno 1615 published in his Father's Name but only in his own Authority and sole Command under pretence of pacifying some distempers about Religion but tending in good earnest to the plain suppression of the Lutheran forms for having spent a tedious and impertinent Preamble touching the Animosities fomented in the Protestant Churches between the Lutherans and those of the Calvinian Party he first requires that all unnecessary Disputes be laid aside that so all grounds of strife and disaffection might be also buried Which said he next commands all Ministers within the Marquissate to preach the Word purely and sincerely according to the Writings of the holy Prophets and Apostles the Four Creeds commonly received amongst which the Te Deum is to go for one and the Confession of Ausberg of the last Correction and that omitting all new glosses and interpretations of idle and ambitious men affecting a Primacy in the Church and a Power in the State they aim at nothing in their Preachings but the Glory of God and the Salvation of Mankind He commands also That they should abstain from all calumniating of those Churches which either were not subject to their Jurisdiction nor were not lawfully convicted of the Crime of Heresie which he resolved not to connive at for the time to come but to proceed unto the punishment of all those who wilfully should refuse to conform themselves to his Will and Pleasure After which giving them some good Counsel for following a more moderate course in their Preachings and Writings than they had been accustomed to in the times fore-going and in all points to be obedient to their principal Magistrate he pulls off the Disguise and speaks plainly thus 16. These are saith he the Heads of that Reformation which is to be observed in all the Churches of Brandenbourgh that is to say All Images Statua's and Crosses to be removed out of the place of publick Meetings all Altars as the Relicks of Popery and purposely erected for the Sacrifices of the Popish Mass to be taken away that in their room they should set up a Table of a long square Figure covered at all times with a Carpet of Black and at the time of the Communion with a Linnen Cloth That Wafers should be used instead of the former Hosts which being cut into long pieces should be received and broken by the hands of those who were admitted to communicate at the holy Table That ordinary Cups should be made use of for the future instead of the old Popish Chalice That the Vestments used in the Mass should be forborn no Candles lighted in any of their Churches at noon-day No Napkin to be held to those that received the Sacrament nor any of them to receive it upon their knees as if Christ were corporally present The sign of the Cross to be from thenceforth discontinued The Minister not to turn his back to the people at the Ministration The Prayers and Epistles before the Sermon to be from thenceforth read not sung and the said Prayers not to be muttered with a low voice in the Pulpit or Reading-Pew but pronounced audibly and distinctly Auricular Confession to be laid aside and the Communion not to be administred to sick persons in the time of any common Plague or Contagious Sickness No bowing of their knee at the Name of Iesus Nor Fonts of stone to be retained in their Churches the want whereof may be supplied by a common Bason The Decalogue to be repeated wholly without mutilation and the Catechism in some other points no less erroneous to be corrected and amended The Trinity to be adored but not exprest in any Images either carved or painted The words of Consecration in the holy Supper to be interpreted and understood according unto that Analogy which they held with the Sacrament and other Texts of holy Scripture And finally That the Ministers should not be so tyed to preach upon the Gospels and Epistles that were appointed for the day but that they might make choice of any other Text of Scriptures as best pleased themselves Such was the tenour of this Edict on which I have insisted the more at large to show the difference between the Lutheran and Genevian Churches and the great correspondence of the first with the Church of England But this Calvinian Pill did not work so kindly as not to stirr more Humours than it could remove For the Lutherans being in possession would not deliver up their Churches or desert those Usages to which they had been trained up and in which they were principled according to the Rules of their first Reformation And hereupon some Rupture was like to grow betwixt the young Marquess and his Subjects if by the intervention of some honest Patriots it had not been closed up in this manner or to this effect That the Lutheran Forms only should be used in all the Churches of the Marquissate for the contentation of the people and that the Marquess should have the exercise of his new Religion for Himself his Lady and those of his Opinion in their private Chappels 17. But the