'but compel others to the same? Better were it for you to leave your lordly dignity, not given you by Christ, and to suffer affliction for the truth of the gospel, than by enjoying 'thereof to become a persecutor of your brethren. Consider (I pray you) if throughout the whole scriptures you can 'find one, that was first a persecutor, and after was persecuted for the truth, that ever fell to persecuting again and 'repented. I desire you, in the bowels of Christ, to consid'er your own case, who by your own confession was once a persecutor, and have since been persecuted; whether 'displacing, banishing, and imprisoning God's children 'more streightly than felons, heretics or traitors, be persecuting again or no? They that make the best of it, say, you buffet your brethren, which if the master of the house find 'you so doing you know your reward. I desire you, therefore, in the bowels of Christ, not to restrain us of the liberty of our consciences, but be a means to enlarge our liberty in the truth and sincerity of the gospel; and use your interest, that all the remnants of Antichrist may be abol'ished, with every plant that our heavenly father has not planted. Signed, Fours in the Lord to command, WM. WHITE, who joineth with you in every speck of truth, but 'utterly detesteth whole Antichrist, head, body, and tail, 'never to join with you, or any, in the least joint thereof; nor in any ordinance of man, contrary to the word of GOD, by his grace unto the church."

But neither the arguments nor sufferings of the Puritans, nor their great and undissembled piety, had an influence upon the commissioners, who had their spies in all suspected places, to prevent their religious assemblies; and gave out strict orders, that no clergyman should be permitted to preach in any of the pulpits of London, without a licence from the archbishop of Canterbury, or the bishop of London.

The persecution of the protestants in France and the Low Countries was hot and terrible about this time. The King of France broke through all his edicts, for the free exercise of the reformed religion; he banished their ministers, and much blood was spilt in their religious wars. In the Netherlands the Duke D'Alva breathed out nothing but blood and slaughter, putting multitudes to death for re

ligion. This occasioned great numbers to fly into Eng,Colland, which multiplied the Dutch churches in Norwich, chester, Sandwich, Canterbury, Maidstone, Southampton, London, Southwark, and elsewhere. The Queen, for their encouragement, allowed them the liberty of their own mode of worship, and as they brought their manufactures over with them, they proved very beneficial to the trade and commerce of the nation.

Even in England the hearts of all good men were ready to fail, for fear of the return of popish idolatry; the Queen being suddenly seized with a severe fit of sickness this summer, [1568] which brought her to the very point of death, and the presumptive heir, MARY, late Queen of Scots, being a bigotted papist. The Queen, together with her bodily distemper, was under great terror of mind for her sins, and for not discharging the duty of her high station as she ought: She said, she had forgotten her God! to whom she had made many vows, and been unthankful to him. Prayers were composed, and publicly read in all churches for her majesty's recovery, in which they petitioned, that GOD would heal her soul, and cure her mind as well as her body. The papists were never more sanguine in their expectations, nor the reformation in greater danger, than now; and yet Bridewell and other prisons were full of Puritans, as appears by a manuscript letter of Mr. Thomas Lever, now before me, dated Dec. 5, 1568, in which he endeavors to comfort the prisoners, and declares that though the popish garments and ceremonies were not unclean in themselves,* yet he was determined for himself, by God's grace, never to wear the square cap and surplice, because they tended neither to decency nor edification, but to offence, dissension, and division in the church of Christ: nor would he kneel at the communion, because it was a symbolizing with popery, and looked too much like the adoration of the host. But at length it pleased Almighty God to dissipate for the present the clouds that hung over the reformation, by the Queen's recovery.

This year was published the Bible in folio, called the Bishop's Bible, with a preface by ArchbishopParker. It was

* MS. p. 18.

only Cranmer's translation revised and corrected by several bishops and learned men, whose names may be seen in the records of bishop Burnet's history of the reformation.The design was to set aside the Geneva translation, which had given offence. In the beginning, before the book of Genesis, is a map of the land of Canaan; before the New Testament is inserted a map of the places mentioned in the four evangelists, and the journeys of Christ and his apostles. There are various cuts dispersed through the book, and several genealogical and chronological tables, with the arms of divers noblemen, particularly those of Cranmer and Parker. There are also some references and marginal notes, for the explication of difficult passages.* This was the Bible that was read in the churches till the last translation of King James I. took place.

But there was another storm gathering abroad, which threatened the reformation all over Europe; most of the popish princes having entered into a league to extirpate it out of the world: the principal confederates were the pope, the emperor, the kings of Spain, France, and Portugal; with the Duke of Savoy, and some lesser princes: their agreement was, to endeavor by force of arms to depose all protestant kings or potentates, and to place catholics in their room; and to displace, banish, and condemn to death, all well-wishers, and assistants of the clergy of Luther and Calvin, while the pope was to thunder out his anathemas against the Queen of England, to interdict the kingdom, and to absolve her subjects from their allegiance. In prosecution of this league, war was already begun in France, Holland, and in several parts of Germany, with unheard-of cruelties against the reformed. Under these difficulties, the protestant princes of Germany entered into a league, for their common defence, and invited the Queen of England to accede to it. Her majesty sent Sir Henry Killigrew over to the Elector Palatine with a handsome excuse; and at the same time ordered her ambassador in France, to offer her mediation between that King and his protestant subjects: but the confederacy was not to be broken by treaties ;

upon which her majesty, by way of self-defence, and to ward off the storm from her own kingdoms, assisted the confederate protestants of France and Holland, with men and money. This was the second time the Queen had supported them in their religious wars against their natural Kings. The foreign popish princes reproached her for it; and her majesty's ministers had much ado to reconcile it with the court doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance. At home the papists were in motion, having vast expectations from certain prophecies, that the Queen should not reign above twelve years; their numbers were formidable and such was their latitude, that it was not easy to bring them within the verge of the laws. In Lancashire the common prayer-book was laid aside, churches were shut up, and the mass celebrated openly. The Queen sent down commissioners of enquiry, but all they could do was to bind some of the principal gentlemen to their good behavior in recognizances of 100 marks. Two of the colleges of Oxford, (viz.) New College and Corpus Christi, were so overrun with papists, that the bishop of Winchester their visitor, was forced to break open the gates of the college, and send for the ecclesiastical commission to reduce them to order.† Great numbers of papists harbored in the inns of court, and in several other places of public resort, expecting with impatience the death of the Queen, and the succession of the presumptive heir, MARY, late Queen of Scotland.

Towards the latter end of the year, the earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, with their friends, to the number of 4000, broke out into open rebellion; their pretence was, to restore the popish religion, and deliver the Queen of Scots. In the city of Durham they tore the Bible and common prayer-book to pieces, and restored the mass in all places wherever they came; but hearing of the advance of the Queen's army under the Earl of Suffolk, they fled northward, and mouldered away, without standing a battle: the Earl of Northumberland was taken in Scotland, and executed at York, with many of his confederates; but the Earl of Westmoreland escaped into Flanders, and died in poverty. + Grindal's Life, p. 133.

*Strype's Ann. p. 541.

No sooner was this rebellion over but the lord Dacres excited another on the borders of Scotland; but after a small skirmish with the governor of Berwick he was defeated and fled, and the rabble were pardoned. There was a general commotion among the papists in all parts of the kingdom, who would have united their forces, if the northern rebels had maintained their ground.

To give new life to the catholic cause, the pope published a bull, excommunicating the Queen, and absolving her subjects from their allegiance. In this bull he calls her majesty an usurper, and a vassal of iniquity; and having given some instances of her aversion to the catholic religion, he declares her an heretic, and an encourager of heretics; and anathematizes all that adhere to her. He deprives 'her of her royal crown and dignity, and absolves all her 'subjects from all obligations of fidelity and obedience.* He involves all those in the same sentence of excommu'nication who presume to obey her orders, commands, or laws, for the future; and excites all foreign potentates to take up arms against her.' This alarmed the administration, and put them upon their guard; but it quickly appeared that the pope's thunderbolts had lost their terror; for the Roman catholic princes not being forward to encour age the court of Rome's pretended power of excommunicating princes, continued their correspondence with the Queen; and her own Roman catholic subjects remained pretty quiet; though from this time they separated openly from the church. But the Queen took hold of the opportunity to require all justices of peace, and other officers in commission, throughout all the counties in England, to subscribe their names to an instrument, professing their conformity and obedience to the act of uniformity in religion, and for due resorting to their parish churches to hear common prayer. This affected puritans as well as papists. The gentlemen of the inns of court were also cited before the ecclesiastical commission, and examined about their resorting to church, and receiving the sacrament, of which most of them were very negligent. This raised a clamor, as if the Queen intended to ransack into men's consciences; in an