2. That the Book of Common Prayer, &c. contains nothing contrary to the word of God, and that he will use it and none other. 3. That he alloweth the thirty-nine articles of 1562, to be all and every one of them agreeable to the word of God. To these he shall subscribe in the following form of words:

IN. N. do willingly, and ex animo, subscribe to these three articles above mentioned, and to all things that are contained in them.

Canon 38 says, that if any minister, after subscription, shall disuse the ceremonies, he shall be suspended; then after a month be excommunicated, and after another month be deposed from his ministry. Canon 55 contains the form of bidding prayer before sermon; "ye shall pray for Christ's holy catholic church," &c. the original of which I have accounted for. Canon 82 appoints, "that convenient and decent tables shall be provided in all churches for the celebration of the holy communion, and the same tables shall be covered in times of divine service with a carpet of silk, or other convenient stuff; and with a fair linen cloth at the time of the administration, as becometh that table, and so stand, saving when the said holy communion is to be administered; at which time the same shall be placed in so good sort within the church or chancel, as thereby the minister may be more conveniently heard of the communicants in his prayer and administration; and the communicants also more conveniently, and in more numbers, may communicate with the said minister; and a convenient seat shall be made for the minister to read service in."

The other canons relate to the particular duties of ministers, lecturers, churchwardens, parish-clerks; to the jurisdiction and business of ecclesiastical courts, with their proper officers, as, judges ecclesiastical, surrogates, proctors, registrars, apparitors, &c. The book concludes with denouncing the sentence of excommunication, 1. Against such as shall affirm, that this synod thus assembled, is not the true church of England by representation. 2. Against such as shall affirm, that persons not particularly assembled in this synod, either clergy or laity, are not subject to the decrees thereof, as not having given their voices to them. 3. Against such as shall affirm, this sacred synod was a

company of such persons as did conspire against godly and religious professors of the gospel, and therefore that they and their proceedings ought to be despised and contemned, though ratified and confirmed by the royal supremacy and authority.

The king, in his ratification of these canons, commands them to be diligently observed and executed; and for the better observation of the same, that every parish-minister shall read them over once every year in his church, on a Sunday or holiday, before divine service; and all archbishops, bishops, and others, having ecclesiastical jurisdic tion, are commanded to see all and every the same put in execution, and not spare to execute the penalties in them severally mentioned on those that wilfully break or neglect them. I shall leave the reader to make his own comment on the proceedings of this synod, only observing, that when they had finished their decrees, they were prorogued to January, 1605-6, when, Dr. Overal being prolocutor, they gave the king four subsidies, but did no more church-business till the time of their dissolution, in the year 1610.

Dr. Bancroft bishop of London, being translated to the see of Canterbury [December 1604], was succeeded by Vaughan bishop of Chester, a corpulent man, and of little activity; upon his advancement the Dutch and French ministers within his diocess presented him with an address for his protection and favour, wherein they set forth, "that their churches were granted them by charter from pious king Edward VI. in the year 1550; and that, though they were again dispersed by the Marian persecution, they were restored to their churches and privileges by queen Elizabeth, in the year 1558, from which time they have been in the uninterrupted possession of them. It appears from our records (say they) how kind and friendly the pious Grindal was to us; and what pains the prudent bishop Sandys took in composing our differences. We promise ourselves the like favour from your lordship, &c.-for whom we shall always pray, &c.-"* Monsieur de la Fontaine delivered the address, with a short Latin speech, to whom the bishop replied, "I thank you, most dear brethren, for your kind address; I am sensible of the merits of John Alasco, Uten

* Address of the French and Dutch churchesto the bishop of London, Strype's Annals, vol. 4. p. 390.

hovius, and Edmund Grindal bishop of London ;* superintendants of your churches; and of the rest of my predecessors in this bishoprick, who had reason to take your churches, which are of the same faith with our own, under their patronage, which I also am ready to do. I have known your churches twenty-five years to have been beneficial to the kingdom, and serviceable to the church of England, in which the devil, the author of discord, has kindled the fire of dissension, into which I pray you not to pour oil, but to endeavour by your counsels and prayers, to extinguish.”+ Thus the foreign churches enjoyed full peace, while his majesty's own subjects, of the same faith and discipline with them, were harassed out of the kingdom.

Bancroft was a divine of a rough temper, a perfect creature of the prerogative, and a declared enemy of the religious and civil liberties, of his country. He was for advancing the prerogative above law, and for enlarging the juris diction of the spiritual courts, by advising his majesty to take from the courts of Westminster-hall, to himself, the whole right of granting prohibitions; for this purpose he framed twenty-five grievances of the clergy, which he called articuli cleri, and presented them to the king for his approbation; but the judges having declared them to be contrary to law, they were set aside.

His grace revived the persecution of the Puritans, by enforcing the strict observance of all the festivals of the church; reviving the use of copes, surplices, caps, hoods, &c. according to the first service-book of king Edward; obliging the clergy to subscribe over again to the three articles of Whitgift, which by the late canon [no. 36.] they were to declare they did willingly, and from the heart. By these methods of severity above three hundred Puritan ministers were silenced or deprived; some of whom were excommunicated and cast into prison, others were forced to leave the native country and livelihood, and go into banish

Utenhovius and Edmund Grindal, as Dr. Grey observes, are not mentioned in the bishop's answer, though they are in Fontaine's speech.-ED.

+ Strype's Annals, vol. 5. p. 395.

This account is controverted by Dr. Grey, on the authority of Heylin's Aer. Rediviv. p. 376; who says, "that by the rolls brought in by bishop Bancroft before his death it appears, that there had been but forty-five deprived on all occasions; which, in a realm containing nine thousand parishes, could be no great matter. But it was, that by the punishment of some of the principals, he struck such a general terror into all the rest, that inconformity grew out of fashion in less time than could be easily imagined."-ED.

ment, to preserve their consciences. I say, says Mr. Collyer, to preserve their consciences, for it is a hard thing to bring every body's understanding to the common standard, and to make all honest men of the same mind.*

To countenance and support the archbishop's proceedings the king summoned the twelve judges into the star-chamber, and demanded their judgments upon three questions; there were present the bishops of Canterbury and London, and about twelve lords of the privy council.

The lord-chancellor opened the assembly with a sharp speech against the Puritans, as disturbers of the peace, declaring, that the king intended to suppress them, by having the laws put in execution;† and then demanded, in his majesty's name, the opinion of the judges in three things:

Q. 1. "Whether the deprivation of Puritan ministers by the high commissioners, for refusing to conform to the ceremonies appointed by the last canons, was lawful?

The judges replied, "that they had conferred thereof before, and held it to be lawful, because the king had the supreme ecclesiastical power, which he has delegated to the commissioners, whereby they have the power of deprivation, by the canon law of the realm, and the statute 1st Eliz. which appoints commissioners to be made by the queen, but does not confer any new power, but explain and declare the ancient power; and therefore they held it clear, that the king without parliament might make orders and constitutions for the government of the clergy, and might deprive them if they obeyed not; and so the commissioners might deprive them; but that the commissioners could not make any new constitutions, without the king. And the divulging such ordinances by proclamation is a most gracious admonition. And forasmuch as they [the Puritans] have refused to obey, they are lawfully deprived by the commissioners ex officio, without libel, et ore tenus convocati. Q. 2. "Whether a prohibition be grantable against the commissioners upon the statute of 2 Henry V. if they do not deliver the copy of the libel to the party?"

The judges replied, "that that statute was intended where the ecclesiastical judge proceeds ex officio, et ore tenus.” Q. 3. "Whether it be an offence punishable, and what + Eccles. Hist. p. 687.

* Crook's Reports, Mich. term, 2 Jac. part 2. p. 37. parag. 13.

punishment they deserved, who framed petitions, and collected a multitude of hands thereto, to prefer to the king in a public cause, as the Puritans had done, with an intimation to the king, that if he denied their suit many thousands of his subjects would be discontented?"

The judges replied, "that it was an offence finable at discretion, and very near to treason and felony in the punishment, for it tended to the raising sedition, rebellion, and discontent among the people." To which unaccountable resolution all the lords agreed.

By these determinations the whole body of the clergy are excluded the benefit of the common and statute law; for the king without parliament may make what constitutions he pleases his majesty's high commissioners may proceed upon these constitutions ex officio; and the subject may not open his complaints to the king, or petition for relief, without being finable at pleasure, and coming within danger of treason or felony.*

Before the breaking up of the assembly, some of the lords declared, that the Puritans had raised a false rumour of the king, as intending to grant a toleration to Papists; which offence the judges conceived to be heinously finable by the rules of common law, either in the King's-bench, or by the king in council; or now, since the statute of 3 Henry VII. in the star-chamber. And the lords severally declared, that the king was discontented with the said false rumour, and had made but the day before a protestation to them, that he never intended it, and that he would spend the last drop of blood in his body before he would do it; and prayed, that before any of his issue should maintain any other religion than what he truly possessed and maintained, that God would take them out of the world. The reader will remember this solemn protestation hereafter.

After these determinations the archbishop resumed fresh courage, and pursued the Puritans without the least compassion. A more grievous persecution of the orthodox faith, says my author, is not to be met with in any prince's reign. Dr. John Burges, rector of Sutton-Colefield, in one of his letters to king James, says, the number of Nonconformists in the counties he mentions, were six or seven hundred, *This (as Dr. Warner well observes) was making the king absolute in all ecclesiastical affairs, without any limitation or redress: and it was intended probably as a step to make him so in the state."-Ev.