of the House of Commons why Bishops ought not to have votes in Parliament. Ecaufe it is a very great hinderance to the exercife of their Minifte riall Function.. BE Because they doe vow and undertake at their Ordination, when they enter into holy Orders, that they will give themselves wholly to that Vocation. 3 Becaufe Councels and Canons in feverall Ages do forbid them to meddle with Secular affaires. 4 Because the twenty foure Bishops have a dependancie on the two Archbishops, and because of their Canonicall Obedience to them. 5 Because they are but for their lives, and therefore are not fit to have Legiflative power over the Honours, Inheritances, Perfons,and Liberties of others. 6 Because of Bishops dependancy and expectancy of Translations to places of great profit. That feverall Bifhops have of late much encroacht upon the Confciences. and Liberties of the Subjects, and they and their Succeffours will be much encourag'd ftill to encroach,and the Subjects will be much difcouraged from complayning against fuch encouragements, if twenty fixe of that Order bee to bee Judges upon thofe complaints,the fame reafon extends to their Legislative pow er in any Bill to paffe for the regulation of their power upon any emergent inconvenience by it. 8 Because the whole number of them is intereffed to maintain the Jurifdiction of Bishops, which hath been found fo grievous to the three Kingdomes,that Scotland hath utterly abolished it, and Multitudes in England and Ireland have petitioned againftit. 9 Because the Bishops being Lords of Parliament, it fetteth too great a diNance between them and the reft of their Brethren in the Miniftery, which occafioneth pride in them, difcontent in others, and difquiet in the Church.. I To their having Votes a long time. Fin convenient time and usage are not to be considered with Law. makers. Some Abbots voted as anciently in Parliament as Bishops, yet are taken as way. That for the Bishops Certificate to plenary of Benefice, and Loyalty of Ma riage the Bill extends not to them. For the Secular Jurifdictions of the Dean of weftminfler, the Bishops of Durham, and Ely, and Archbishop of Terke, which they are to execute in their own perfons the former Reasons fhew the inconveniences therein." For their temporal Courts and Jurifdictions which are executed by their tem porali Offices, the Bill doth not concern them. FINIS. their wayes. The worke of God was no sooner manifest in them; but presently they were both scoffed and scorned by the prophane multitude, and the ministers urged with the yoak of subscription, or els must be silenced; and the poore people were so vexed with apparators, and pursuants, and the comissarie courts,' as truly their affliction was not smale; which notwithstanding they bore sundrie years with much patience, till they were occasioned (by the continuance, and encrease of these troubles, and other means which the Lord raised up in those days) to see further into things by the light of the word of God. How not only these base and beggerly ceremoneis were unlawfull; but also that the lordly and tiranous power of the prelates, ought not to be submitted unto; which thus (contrary to the freedome of the gospell,) would load and burden mens consciences; and by their compulsive power make a prophane mixture of persons, and things in the worship of God. And that their offices and calings; courts and cannons &c. were unlawfull and Antichristian; being shuch as have no warrante in the word of God; but the same that were used in poperie, and still retained. Of which a famous author thus writeth in his dutch commentaries.2 At the coming of king James into England;3 The new king (saith he) found 1 An apparitor was an officer of the Ecclesiastical Courts. One reason why he was so much disliked is to be found in the opportunities for extortion which his office gave him, and which he too often used. The pursuivant was a warrant officer, who could abuse his functions in the same way as a sumner or apparitor. The commissary represented the bishop in parts of his diocese, and exercised spiritual or ecclesiastical jurisdiction. 2 Em: meter: lib: 25. fol. 119. - BRADFORD. Emanuel van Meteren, General History of the Netherlands, translated by Edward Grimstone, Lib. xxv. fol. 119. Ed. 1608. Grimstone's work was largely a compilation, and the issue of 1609 contains only sixteen books and the paging runs to 1415. The statement quoted by Bradford is not found in it. In his progress to London in 1603, James received a petition, commonly known as the Millenary Petition, in which the Puritan clergy formulated their proposed reforms in the Prayer Book and in church discipline. The suggested changes could not be acceptable to the church party; but they contained matter worthy of serious consideration, and better fitted to produce peace and toleration than extreme measures or abso their established the reformed Religion, according to the reformed religion of king Edward the 6 Retaining, or keeping still the spirituall state of the Bishops, &c. after the ould maner, much varying lute rejection. The University of Oxford replied to the petition in a very hostile spirit, but the King gave evidence of having been influenced by it, and called a conference to be held in his presence of leading men of both parties. This was the famous Hampton Court Conference, held in January, 1604, in which the King asserted of the Puritans, "If this be all they have to say, I shall make them conform themselves, or I will harry them out of the land, or else do worse." Gardiner, History of England, 1. 157. The hopes awakened by the Millenary Petition led to the sending of a fruitless deputation from the English in Holland to London, to implore the king that they might return to England in peace. Dexter, The England and Holland of the Pilgrims, 440. The King met his first Parliament and Convocation in a spirit decidedly hostile to Puritans or non-conformists. The Convocation framed rules for enforcing conformity, and when Richard Bancroft (1544-1610) became primate, he began at once to enforce these rules, which were indeed largely of his composure. Since 1585 Bancroft had been a vigorous and uncompromising opponent of Puritanism, and he now gave his best efforts to suppress schism in the church. Not content with the canons framed by Convocation, he devised the "ex animo" form of subscription which called for an unreserved acceptance of the doctrines of the Prayer Book. Many of the clergy who had been willing to admit a general conformity were not able to give a full assent, and so were dispossessed and driven from the church. It is estimated that near three hundred ministers suffered at this time for their non-conformity, a goodly number considering the poverty in clergy of the church. While the ceremonies were the ostensible cause of the dispossession, political reasons formed quite as essential part in the policy. Conformity, absence of schism, uniformity in service and doctrine, unquestioning obedience to the King as the titular head of the church such constituted the end desired by Bancroft and his master. Opposition to the canons of Convocation became opposition to "lawful authority," and thus a menace to the supremacy of the King. This close intermixture of state with religious policy makes it difficult at times to determine which is the dominant factor, politics or religion. Bradford deals very gently with King James, whose antipathy to Puritans was strong and outspoken, and without whose support, the Bishops, holding their places at the will of the King, would not have dared to enter upon so violent a persecution of non-conformists. That he refused to accept the proposed canons of 1606, was an act of leniency more than off-set by the extravagant attack upon Puritans contained in his Premonition to Monarchs, composed in that year: "As I euer maintained the state of Bishops and the Ecclesiasticall Hierarchie for order sake; so was I euer an enemy to the confused Anarchie or paritie of the Puritanes, as wel appeareth in my ΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΟΝ ΔΩΡΟΝ. I cannot enough woonder with what brazen face this and differing from the reformed churches, in Scotland, France, and the Neatherlands, Embden, Geneva, &c. whose Reformation is cut, or shapen much nerer the first Christian churches, as it was used in the Apostles times.1 [6] So many therfore (of these proffessors) as saw the evill of these things (in thes parts,) and whose harts the Lord had touched with heavenly zeale for his trueth; they shooke of this yoake of Antichristian bondage. And as the Lords free people,3 joyned them Answerer [Bellarmine] could say, That I was a Puritane in Scotland, and an enemy to Protestants: I that was persecuted by Puritanes there, not from my birth only, but euer since foure moneths before my birth? I that in the yeere of GOD 84 erected Bishops, and depressed all their popular paritie, I then being not 18 yeeres of age? I that in my said Booke to my Sonne, do speak tenne times more bitterly of them nor of the Papists; haueing in my second Edition thereof affixed a long Apologetike Preface, only in odium Puritanorum? And I that for the space of sixe yeeres before my comming into England, laboured nothing so much as to depresse their Paritie, and re-erect Bishops againe? . . . And surely I give a faire commendation to the Puritanes in that place of my booke, when I affirme that I have found greater honesty with the high-land and border theeues, then with that sort of people." 1 The reformed churche[s] shapen much neerer the primitive patterne the[n] England, for they cashered the Bishops with al their courts, cannons, and ceremoneis, at the first; and left them amongst the popishtr[ash] to which they pertained. BRADFORD. The last word in the note is uncertain in the мs. 2 "First I desire it may be observed by the reader how Mr. Bern[ard] stileth the worshipful personages, vnder the wing of whose protection he shrowdeth his papers Christian Professors. A title peculiar to some few in the land, which favour the forward preachers, frequent their sermons & advance the cause of reformatio. Such persons are comonly called amongst themselves professors, vertuous and religious, & thereby distinguished fro the body of the land, which make no such profession, and are therefore accounted (and iustly) prophane, and without religion, and that as roundly by Mr. B. as by any other in the Land. But it seemeth he had forgot both his Epistle & whom both he in it, and others every where, call Professors for distinction sake, when he wrote his book; for in it he makes all the kingdome professors at a venture, and Christian professours I hope he meaneth." John Robinson, A Justification of Separation, 7. 3 Barrow and Greenwood in one of their tracts describe a true church as a company of "faithful and holie people," having as its officers pastors, teachers, elders, deacons, and widows, who obtain their office "by the holy and free election of the Lordes holie and free people." While this formed the foundation of all separatist churches, the manner of exercising discipline produced the widest differences of opinion and led to the various descriptions of separatism. CONSTITVTIONS AND CANONS Treated vpon by the Bishop of Lon don, Prefident of the Conuocation for the And agreed vpon with the Kings Maiefties Licence in their Sy.. France and Ireland the fift,aud of Scorland the 37. And now publ fed for the due obferuation of them by his IMPRINTED AT LOMDON by Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings moft Excellent Maicflic. ANNO, 1604. |