Upon casting up the survey, the state of the following

counties stands thus:

It must be uncommon diligence and application, as well as a very great expense, to collect so many names and characters of men; the exact valuation of so many livings; the number of non-resident ministers; of such as had been mass-priests; and of mechanics and tradesmen: But such was the zeal of these pious men! The survey of Lincolnshire was signed by the justices of the peace of that county, and the others are attested by some of the principal clergymen of those parts; and are so particular in all circumstances, as leave little room to doubt of their truth in general, though there may be some few mistakes in characters and numbers: Upon the whole, the SURVEY takes notice, that after 28 years establishment of the church of England, there were only 2000 preachers to serve near 10,000 parish churches, so that there were almost 8000 parishes without preaching ministers.* To this account agrees that of Mr. Fenner, who lived in these times; and says, that a third part of the ministers of England, were covered with a cloud of * MS. p. 206.

suspensions; that if persons would hear a sermon, they must go in some places, 5, 7, 12, yea in some counties 20 miles, and at the same time be fined 12d. a sabbath for being absent from their own parish church, though it be proved, they were hearing a sermon elsewhere, because they had none at home. Nor is it at all strange it should be thus in the country, when the bishop of London enjoined his clergy in his visitation this very year, 1. That every parson should have a bible in Latin and English. 2. That they should have Bullinger's Decads. 3. That they should have a paper book, and write in it the quantity of a sermon every week. 4. That such as could not preach themselves, should be taxed at four purchased sermons a year.† What a miserable state of things was this! when many hundreds of pious and conscientious preachers were excluded the church, and starving with their families for want of employment.

With the supplication and survey abovementioned, a bill‡ was offered to the House of Commons for a further refor

* Answer to Dr. Bridges, p. 48.

+ Life of Aylmer, p. 128.

Bishop Warburton condemns "the offering of this bill to the House "as such a mutinous action in the puritan ministers," that he wonders a writer of Mr. Neal's "good sense could mention them without een"sure, much more that he should do it with commendation." It is not easy to see where his lordship found Mr. Neal's commendation of this bill; the Editor can discern a bare state of the proceedings only. And by what law or by what principle of the constitution is the offering of a bill and a representation of grievances to the house, an act of mutiny ? The bill of the puritans undoubtedly went to new model the establishment, but only by enlarging the terms of communion; not by substituting new ceremonies in the room of those which were burthensome to themselves. It went, it is true, to introduce a new discipline, but not to abolish episcopacy. And was not the spiritual jurisdiction then exercised, oppressive? Were not the proceedings of the bishops arbitrary? If so, how was it "insufferable insolence" to seek a parliamentary reform? It would have been, as his lordship grants, just and reasonable, if the puritans had moved for toleration only. This would have been more consistent in those who sought only their own liberty. But his lordship did not allow for the very different ideas we may have on the measures that should have been pursued, who view these transactions at this distance of time and many years after a toleration act has passed, from what those had whose minds, in the infancy of a separation from the church, felt all the attachments to it produced by education and habit, and were naturally averse to a total and final secession from

mation; wherein, after a recital of their grievances, they pray that the book hereunto annexed, entitled, a book of the form of Common Prayer, &c. and every thing therein contained, may be from henceforth authorized and put in use and practice, throughout all her majesty's dominions, any former law, custom, or statute to the contrary, in any wise notwithstanding. The book contained prayers before and after sermon, but left a liberty for variation, if it was thought proper. * The minister was to pray and give thanks in the words there prescribed, or such like. In the creed it leaves the article of Christ's descent into hell more at large. It omits three of the thirty-nine articles, viz. the 34th, 35th, and 36th. It takes the jurisdiction of the church out of the hands of the spiritual courts, and places it in an assembly of ministers and elders in every shire, who shall have power to examine, approve, and present ministers to the several parishes for their election, and even to depose them, with the consent of the bishop, upon their misbehavior.

At the same time a pamphlet was dispersed without doors, entitled, a request of all true christians to the honorable house of parliament. It prays, "That every parish church may have its preacher, and every city its superintendant, to live honestly but not pompously." And to provide for this, it prays, "That all cathedral churches may be put down, where the service of GoD is grievously abused by piping with organs, singing, ringing and trowling of psalms from one side of the choir to another, with the squeaking of chanting choristers, disguised (as are all the rest) in white surplices; some in corner caps and filthy it. He considers the House of Commons in a temper to have passed "a "bill for toleration." But he forgets, that the success of such a bill, or of any bill, did not depend on the temper of the House, but on the pleasure of the Queen. Besides, for the first twelve or fourteen years of her Majesty's reign the prayer of the petitions presented by the puritans was, if not for a toleration in a separation from the church, yet only for a dispensation for the use of the habits and three or four ceremonies, and a redress of a few notorious abuses. As the Queen and bishops continued unyielding, and grew more vigorous, new questions were started, and new burthens were felt, and new demands arose. See Mr. Neal's Review. ED.

*Life of Whitgift, p. 258.

6

copes, imitating the fashion and manner of antichrist the pope, that man of sin, and child of perdition, with his other rubble of miscreants and shavelings. These unprofitable drones, or rather caterpillars of the world, consume yearly some two thousand five hundred pounds, some three thousand pounds, some more, some less, whereof no 6 profit cometh to the church of GOD. They are the dens of idle loitering lubbards; the harbors of time-serving hypocrites, whose prebends and livings belong some to 'gentlemen, some to boys, and some to serving-men and ? others. If the revenues of these houses were applied to augment the maintenance of poor, diligent, preaching parish-ministers, or erecting schools, religion would then flourish in the land."*

Some bold speeches were made in parliament against the arbitrary proceedings of the bishops, by Mr. Wentworth and others for which those members were sent to the Tower; at which the house was so intimidated, that they would not suffer the bill to be read. Besides the Queen sent both for the bill and petition out of the house, and ordered the speaker to acquaint them, "That she was already settled in her religion, and would not begin again; that chan'ges in religion were dangerous; that it was not reasonable for them to call in question the established religion, while others were endeavoring to overthrow it; that she had considered the objections, and looked upon them as frivolous; and that the platform itself was most prejudicial to her crown, and to the peace of her government." Nay, so incensed was the Queen with these attempts of the puritans, that in drawing up a general pardon to be passed in parliament, she ordered an exception to be made of such as committed any offence against the act of uniformity, or were publishers of seditious books or pamphlets.‡

The convocation, contrary to all custom and usage, continued sitting after the parliament, and gave the Queen a subsidy or benevolence. This precedent archbishop Laud made use of in the year 1640, to prove the lawfulness of a convocation sitting without a parliament. All they did Heyl. Aer. p. 269.

* MS. p. 814. Life of Whitgift, p. 259.