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which may reach to the overthrow of ecclesiastical juris'diction, and study of the civil laws. The pretence of the bill is against excessive fees and exactions in eccle'siastical courts; which fees are none other than have been of long time accustomed to be taken; the law already 'established providing a sharp and severe punishment for such as shall exact the same; beside an order also which we have at this time for the better performance thereof.

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"I therefore most humbly beseech your majesty, to con'tinue your gracious goodness towards us, who with all humility submit ourselves to your highness, and cease not daily to pray for your happy state, and long and prosperous reign over us. From Lambeth, the 24th of March,

• 1584.

Your Majesty's chaplain,

and daily orator most bound,

Jo. CANTUAR."

The Queen was pleased with the archbishop's advice of making alterations by canon and not by statute, that she might reserve the power in her own hands; and immedi ately sent a message to the Commons by the lord treasurer, to reprimand them "for encroaching upon her supremacy, and for attempting what she had forbidden, with which 'she was highly offended; and to command the speaker, in 'her majesty's name, to see that no bills touching reforma❝tion in causes ecclesiastical should be exhibited, and if any such were exhibited, she commands him upon his allegi'ance not to read them." The Commons now saw their mistake, in vesting the whole power of reforming the policy of the church in the single person of the Queen, who knew how to act the sovereign, and display her prerogative as well as her father. Had it been reserved to the whole legislature, Queen, Lords and Commons, with advice of the representative body of the clergy, it had been more equitable; but now if the whole nation were dissatisfied, not an insignificant rite or ceremony must be changed, or a bill brought into either house of parliament, without an infringement of the prerogative: No lay-person in the kingdom

must meddle with religion except the Queen; the hands of lords and commons are tied up, her majesty is absolute in the affairs of the church, and no motion for reformation must arise from any but herself.

The archbishop's reasons against the bill for marrying at any time of the year are very extraordinary; it is contrary (says his grace) to the old canons. But many of these are contrary to the canon of scripture; and they who fram ed this seem a little to resemble the character which the apostle gives of an apostate from the faith; 1 Tim. iv. 3. Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats. He adds, It tendeth to the slander of the church, AS HAVING HITHERTO MAINTAINED AN ERROR. Is it then a slander to the church of England, or to any protestant church, to say she is fallible and may have maintained an error? Have not fathers and councils erred? Nay, in the very church of Rome, which alone lays claim to INFALLI BILITY, have we not read of one pope and council reversing the decrees of another? The 21st article of the church of England, says, that general councils may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining to God. And if a general council may err, even in things of importance to salvation, surely it can be no slander to say a convocation, a parliament, or single person, may mistake, in commanding to abstain from meats, and forbidding to marry at certain times of the year.

While the puritans were attending the parliament, they did not neglect the convocation: a petition was presented to them in the name of the ministers who refused to subscribe the archbishop's three articles, wherein they desire to be satisfied in their scruples, which the law admits, but had not hitherto been attempted.* The convocation rejecting their petition, the ministers printed their apology to the church, and humble suit to the high court of parliament, iv which they mention several things in the public service as repugnant to the word of God; as, requiring faith in an infant to be baptized; confounding baptism and regeneration; adding to the pure and perfect institutions of Christ the cross in baptism, and the ring in marriage; advancing the

* MS. p. 595.

writings of the Apocrypha, to a level with holy scripture by reading them in the church, with many others. They conclude with an earnest supplication to their superiors, to be continued in their callings, considering their being set apart to the ministry, and the obligations they were under to GoD and their people; they protest they will do any thing they can without sin, and the rather, because they are apprehensive that the shepherds being stricken, their flocks will be scattered.

The puritans' last resort was to the archbishop, who had a prevailing interest in the Queen; a paper was therefore published, entitled, Means how to settle a godly and charitable quietness in the church; humbly addressed to the archbishop, and containing the following proposals:

That it would please his grace not to press such subscription as had been of late required, seeing in the parliament that established the articles, the subscription was misliked and put out :* That he would not oblige men to accuse themselves by the oath ex officio, it being contrary to law and the liberty of the subject: That those ministers who have been of late suspended, may be restored upon giving a bond and security not to preach against the dignities of archbishops, bishops, &c. nor to disturb the orders of the church, but to maintain it as far as they can; and soberly to teach Jesus Christ crucified:† That ministers may not be exposed to the malicious prosecution of their enemies, upon their omission of any TITTLE in the service-book: That they may not be obliged to read the Apocrypha, seeing in the first book printed in her majesty's reign the same was left out, and was afterwards inserted without warrant of law, and contrary to the statute, which allows but three alterations: That the cross in baptism may not be enforced, seeing in King Edward's 2d book there was a note which left that, and some other rites indifferent; which note ought

Life of Whitgift, p. 196.

†To this proposal the archbishop answered, "I do not mislike of the "bond; but he that shall enter into it, and yet refuse to subscribe, in "my opinion is a mere hypocrite, or a very wilful fellow; for this con"dition containeth more than doth the subscription." ED. Maddox's Vindication, p. 348.

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to have been in the Queen's book, it not being among the alterations appointed by statute: They further desire, that in baptism the godfathers may answer in their own names, and not in the child's: That midwives and women may not baptize: That the words upon delivery of the ring in marriage may be left indifferent: That his grace would not urge the precise wearing of the gown, cap, tippet and surplice, but only that ministers be obliged to wear apparel meet and decent for their callings: That lecturers who have not cure of souls, but are licenced to preach, behaving themselves well, be not enforced to minister the sacraments, unless they be content so to do.

But the archbishop would abate nothing, nor admit of the least latitude from the national establishment. He framed an answer to the proposals, in which he insists upon a full conformity, telling the petitioners, that it was none of his business to alter the ecclesiastical laws, or dispense with them; which was all they were to expect from him. What could wise and good men do more in a peaceable way for the liberty of their consciences, or a further reformation in the church? They petitioned the Queen, applied to both houses of parliament, and addressed the convocation and bishops; they moved no seditions nor riots, but fasted and prayed for the Queen and church, as long as they were allowed; and when they could serve them no longer, they patiently submitted to suspensions and deprivations, fines and imprisonments, till it should please GOD, of his infinite mercy, to open a door for their further usefulness.

The papists made their advantages of these divisions, a plot was discovered this very year [1585] against the Queen's life, for which lord Paget and others fled their country; and one Parry was executed, who was to have killed her majesty, as she was riding abroad; to which (it is said) the pope encouraged him, by granting him his blessing, and a plenary indulgence and remission of all his sins; assuring him that, besides the merit of the action in heaven, his holiness would make himself his debtor in the best manner he could, and therefore exhorted him to put his most holy and honorable purposes in execution; this was Strype's Ann. vol. ii. p. 249.

*

written from Rome, Jan. the 30th, 1584, and signed by the cardinal of Como. MARY Queen of Scots was big with expectation of the crown of England at this time, from the preparations of foreign popish princes, who were determined to make the strongest efforts to set her upon the throne, and to restore the catholic religion in England: but they could not get ready before her head was laid down upon the block.

The parliament which met again in November, being sensible of the importance of the Queen's life, entered into a voluntary association to revenge her death, if that should happen through any violence :* They also made a severe statute against jesuits and seminary priests, or others who engaged in plots, by virtue of the bull of excommunication of pope Pius V. and against any subject of England that should go abroad for education in any of the popish seminaries. Yet none of these things could move the Queen or bishops to take any steps towards uniting protestants among themselves.

But to put an effectual stop to the pens of the church's adversaries, his grace applied to the Queen for a further restraint of the press, which he obtained and published by authority of the star-chamber (says Mr. Strype†) June 23, 28 Eliz. It was framed by the archbishop's head, who prefixed a preface to it: The decree was to this purpose, "That there should be no printing presses in private places, 'nor any where but in London and the two universities. 'No new presses were to be set up but by licence from 'the archbishop, and bishop of London for the time being; 'they to signify the same to the wardens of the stationers' company, who should present such as they chose to be 'masters of printing presses before the ecclesiastical com'missioners for their approbation. No person to print any 'book unless first allowed according to the Queen's in'junctions, and to be seen and perused by the archbishop or bishop of London, or their chaplain. No book to be printed against any of the laws in being, nor any of the 'Queen's injunctions. Persons that should sell or bind up + Life of Whitgift, p. 223.

* Ibid. p. 293.

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