the fathers, and he scarce one, it would easily appear to the learned world by their writings; but that it was suffi ciently known that he had hunted him with more hounds than one. The strength of his reply lies in reducing the policy of the church as near as possible to the standard of scripture; for when Dr. Whitgift alledged some of the fathers of the 4th and 5th century on his side, Cartwright replied, "That "forasmuch as the fathers have erred, and that corruptions "crept early into the church, therefore they ought to have "no further credit than their authority is warranted by the "word of GOD and good reason; to press their bare authority without relation to this, is to bring an intolerable "tyranny into the church of GOD." The second part of Cartwright's reply was not published till two years forward, when he was fled out of the kingdom; it is intitled, The rest of the second reply of Thomas Cartwright against Master Doctor Whitgift's answer, touching the church discipline, imprinted 1577: in which he shews,that church-government by an ELDERSHIP is by divine appointment, and of perpetual obligation. He then considers the defects of the church of England, and treats of the power of the civil magistrate in ecclesiastical matters; of ecclesiastical persons bearing civil offices; and of the habits. He apologizes for going through with the controversy at such a distance of time, but he thought it of importance, and that it need not be ashamed of the light. Speaking of his own poverty, disgrace and banishment, for appearing in this cause, he says, 'It were an intolerable delicacy, if he could not give up a little ease and commodity, for that whereunto his life was due, if it had been asked; or that he would 'grudge to dwell in another corner of the world, for that 'cause for which he ought to be ready altogether to depart out of it.' But he was sensible he strove against the stream, and that his work might be thought unseasonable, his adversary being now advanced so much above him; for this year Whitgift was made a bishop, when poor Cartwright was little better than a wandering beggar.† Thus ended the controversy between these two champions; so that Fuller, Heylin and Collier, must be mistaken, when they say, Whitgift kept the field, and carried off a complete victory, when Cartwright had certainly the last word. But whoever had the better of the argument, Whitgift got the most by it; and when he was advanced to the pinnacle of church-preferment, acted an ungenerous part towards his adversary for many years, prosecuting him with continual vexations and imprisonments, and pointing all his church artillery against him, not suffering him so much as to defend the common cause of christianity against the papists, when he was called to it; however, at length being wearied out with the importunities of great men, or growing more temperate in his old age, he suffered him to govern a small hospital in Warwick, given him by the Earl of Leicester, where this great and good man's grey hairs came down with sorrow to the grave. To return notwithstanding all this opposition from the Queen and her commissioners, the puritans gained ground; and though the press was restrained, they galled their adversaries with pamphlets, which were privately dispersed both in city and country. Parker employed all his emissaries to discover their printing presses, but to no purpose; whereupon he complained to the treasurer in these words, "I understand throughout all the realm (says he) how the matter is taken; the puritans are justified, and we judged "to be extreme persecutors; I have observed this for seven "years; if the sincerity of the gospel should end in such "judgments, I fear the council will be overcome. The pu"ritans slander us with books and libels, lying they care "not how deep, and yet the more they write the more they "are applauded and comforted."* The scholars of Cambridge were generally with the puritans, but the masters and heads of colleges were against them; so that many who ventured to preach for the discipline were deprived of their fellowships, and expelled the university, or obliged to a public retractation. There being no further prospect of a public reformation by the legislature, some of the leading puritans agreed to *Life of Parker, p. 389. attempt it in a more private way; for this purpose they erected a presbytery at Wandsworth, a village five miles from the city, conveniently situated for the London brethren, as standing on the banks of the river Thames. The heads of the association were, Mr. Field lecturer of Wandsworth, Mr. Smith of Mitcham, Mr. Crane of Roehampton, Messrs. Wilcox, Standen, Jackson, Bonham, Saintloe, and Edmonds, to whom afterwards were joined Messrs. Travers, Chake, Barber, Gardiner, Crook, Egerton, and a number of very considerable laymen. On the 20th of November eleven elders were chosen, and their offices described in a register, intitled, The orders of Wandsworth. This was the first presbyterian church in England. All imaginable care was taken to keep their proceedings secret, but the bishop's eye was upon them, who gave immediate intelligence to the high commission, upon which the Queen issued out a proclamation for putting the act of uniformity in execution; but though the commissioners knew of the presbytery, they could not discover the members of it, nor prevent others being erected in neighboring counties. While the Queen and bishops were defending the outworks of the church against the puritans, and bracing up the building with articles, canons, injunctions, and penal laws, enforced by the sword of the civil magistrate, the papists were sapping the very foundation; for upon publishing the pope's bull of excommunication against the Queen, great numbers deserted the public worship, and resorted to private conventicles to hear mass, while others who kept their stations in the church were secretly undermining it. "There ' were at this time (says a learned writer*) certain ministers of the church that were papists, who subscribed and ob'served the orders of the church, wore a side gown, a square 'cap, a cope and surplice. They would run into corners, and say to the people, Believe not this new doctrine, it is 'naught, it will not long endure; although I use order 'among them outwardly, my heart is not with them, but with the mother church of Rome. No, no, we do not preach, nor yet teach openly; though we read their Strype's Ann. p. 98. 'new devised homilies for a colour to satisfy the time for C a season." In Yorkshire they went openly to mass, and were so numerous, that the protestants stood in awe of them. In London there was a great resort to the Portugal ambassador's chapel; and when the sheriff, by order of the bishop of London, sent his officers to take some of them into custody, the Queen was displeased, and ordered them immediately to be released. Sad was the state of religion (says Mr. Strype) at this time; "the substantials being lost in contending for externals; the churchmen heaped up many benefices upon 'themselves, and resided upon none; neglecting their cures.$ "Many of them alienated their lands, made unreasonable 'leases, and waste of woods, and granted reversions, and advowsons to their wives and children.-Among the laity there was little devotion; the Lord's day greatly profaned, and little observed; the common prayers not frequented; some lived without any service of GoD at all; many 'were mere heathens and atheists; the Queen's own court ❝an harbor for epicures and atheists, and a kind of lawless 'place, because it stood in no parish; which things made good men fear some sad judgments impending over the nation." The governors of the church expressed no concern for suppressing of vice, and encouraging virtue ; there were no citations into the Commons for immoralities: but the bishops were every day shutting the mouths of the most pious, useful and industrious preachers in the nation, at the time when the Queen was sick of the small-pox, and troubled with fainting fits, and the whole reformation depended upon the single thread of her life. This precarious state of religion was the more terrible, because of the Parisian massacre, which happened this very summer [1572] on the 24th of August, being Bartholomewday, when great numbers of protestants having been invited to Paris, on pretence of doing honor to the King of Navarre's marriage to the King's sister, ten thousand were massacred in one night, and twenty thousand more in other parts of the kingdom, within the compass of a few weeks, § Life of Parker, p. 395. by his majesty's commission; no distinction being made between lords, gentlemen, justices, lawyers, scholars, physicians, and the meanest of the people ;* they spared neither women, maids, children in the cradle, nor infants in their mother's womb. Many who escaped fled to Geneva · and Switzerland, and great numbers into England, to save their lives. The protestant princes of Germany were awakened with this butchery; and the Queen put the coasts into a posture of defence, but made no concessions for uniting her protestant subjects among themselves. This year died the reverend and learned Mr. John Knox, the apostle, and chief reformer of the kirk of Scotland. This divine came into England in the reign of King Edward VI. and was appointed one of the itinerant preach, ers for the year 1552; he was afterwards offered a parochial living in London, but refused it; upon King Edward's death he retired beyond sea, and became preacher to the English exiles at Frankfort, till he was artfully spirited away by the contrivance of Mr. Cox, now bishop of Ely, for not reading the English service. He afterwards preach ed to the English at Geneva; and upon the breaking up of that congregation in the year 1559, he returned to Scot land, and was a great instrument in the hand of providence for the reformation of that kirk. He was a son of thun. der, and feared not the face of any man in the cause of religion, which betrayed him sometimes into too coarse treatment of his superiors. However, he had the respect of all the protestant nobility and gentry of his country; and after a life of great service and labor, he died comfortably in the midst of his friends, in the 67th year of his age,t being greatly supported in his last hours from the 17th chapter of St. John, and 1 Cor. 15th chapter; both which *Strype's Ann. p. 160. 5 It has been justly observed, "That though the praise of sincerity and piety cannot be denied him, it is to be regretted that those virtues were accompanied with a narrow and bigotted turn of mind. In the time of John Knox, the having suffered persecution, did not hinder men from exercising persecution when it was in their power. The New Annual Register for 1789. History of Knowledge, p. 31, + Life of Parker, p. 366. |