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paper, or the access of their friends, till they were released by the long parliament.*

7

Dr. Williams, bishop of Lincoln, and the Rev. Mr. Osbaldeston, head-master of Westminster school, met with severe hardships by means of Archbishop Laud. Bishop Williams had been so good a friend to Laud as to persuade King James to advance him to a bishopric. But upon the accession of King Charles, Laud turned upon his benefactor, and supplanted him from favour and preferments at court. Upon which Bishop Williams retired to his diocese, and spent his time in reading and in the good government of his diocese. He said once in conversation, "that the puritans were the king's best subjects, and he was sure would carry all at last; and that the king had told him, "that he would treat the puritans more mildly for the future." Laud being informed of this expression, caused an information to be lodged against him in the Star-Chamber, for revealing the king's secrets; but the charge not being well supported, a new bill was exhibited against him, for tampering with the king's witnesses. Consequently the bishop was suspended from all his offices and benefices, was fined eleven thousand

*Neal's Hist. of the Puritans, vol. ii, p. 280.

See a full account of these sufferers in Brook's Lives of the Puritans, vol. iii.

pounds, and to be imprisoned in the Tower during the king's pleasure. He was kept a close prisoner about four years, till the meeting of the long parliament. The Rev. Mr. Osbaldeston was charged with plotting with the bishop of Lincoln to divulge false news, and to breed a difference between the Lord Treasurer Weston and the Archbishop of Canterbury as long ago as the year 1633. The information was grounded upon two letters of Mr. Osbaldeston to Bishop Williams, found among the papers of the latter, in which were some expressions, which the jealous Archbishop interpreted as concerning himself. Though there was no foundation for conviction, yet the court fined him £5000 to the King, and £5000. to the Archbishop: to be deprived of all his spiritual dignities and promotions, to be imprisoned during the King's pleasure, and to stand in the pillory in the Dean's yard before his own school, and have his ears nailed to it. ever, Mr. Osbaldeston so effectually concealed himself till the beginning of the long parliament, that he fortunately escaped this very severe

sentence.

How

CHAPTER IV.

THOUGH there had been bishops in Scotland for some years, they were, in a great measure, but nominal, being subject to a presbyterian assembly. The attempt of establishing episcopacy in that country in the time of king James, and king Charles, was carried on in a rather arbitrary, and so unsuccessful a manner. A man of archbishop Laud's temper was very unfit to introduce that primitive mode of church government among a people remarkable for their love of liberty, and for sobriety and moral conduct. To impose upon that nation a set of canons, a liturgy of Laud's revision, and a declaration for sports on the sabbath, were such measures as "proved the fatal torch that put the two kingdoms into a flame." *

When, in the year 1637, the liturgy, revised and altered by Laud, was sent into Scotland, and accompanied with a royal proclamation, com

• Welwood's Memoirs, p. 45.

manding all his majesty's subjects to receive it; the Scots tumultuously refused it, and afterwards assumed to themselves the liberty and power of holding a general assembly of their church, in which they passed an act for abjuring and abolishing episcopacy. They also passed sentence of deposition against the bishops; eight of them were excommunicated, four excluded from the ministerial function, and two only allowed to officiate as pastors or presbyters. Upon this, most of the bishops withdrew from Scotland, only four remained in the country, three of whom renounced their episcopal orders, viz. Alexander Ramsey, bishop of Dunkeld, George Graham, bishop of Orkney, and James Fairby, bishop of Argyle; but the fourth, George Guthrey, bishop of Murray, kept his ground, and weathered the storm.

In consequence of the Scots' assembly abolishing episcopacy as unlawful, Bishop Hall, at the recommendation of Archbishop Laud, undertook to write a book in defence of the DIVINE RIGHT OF EPISCOPACY, as a counterbalance to the proceedings of the Scots. Bishop Hall sent a rude draught or skeleton of his intended work to Archbishop Laud for his inspection and approbation. The following, according to Heylin,* were the original points and propositions submitted to the

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Archbishop, together with his Grace's remarks, and alterations:-"That episcopacy is a lawful, most ancient, holy, and divine institution, (as it is joined with imparity, and superiority of jurisdiction) and therefore where it hath through God's providence obtained, cannot, by any human power, be abdicated without a manifest violation of God's ordinance.

"That the presbyterian government, however vindicated under the glorious names of Christ's kingdom, and ordinance, hath no true footing either in Scripture, or the practice of the church in all ages from Christ's till the present; and that howsoever it may be of use, in some cities or territories, wherein episcopal government through iniquity of times cannot be had; yet to obtrude it upon a church otherwise settled under an acknowledged monarchy, is utterly incongruous and unjustifiable."

In order to prove these two points, he was to lay down some propositions or postulata, as the ground work of his proceedings; which were the following, before they were altered and revised:

(1)" That government, which was of apostolical institution, cannot be denied to be of divine right. (2.) Not only that government which was directly commanded and enacted, but also that which was practised and recommended by the apostles to the church, must justly pass for an apostolic

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