"It is some consolation to record," says that candid writer Mr. Marsden, "that upon the primate's death Mr. Paget was reinstated in the ministry, and presented to the living of St. Agnes in Aldersgate. Kindness accomplished what severity had assayed in vain. A virtuous and godly minister was restored to usefulness and honor, and died in conformity with the Church of England."1 We trust this case may be remembered, as redolent, not only of the bald illegality, but also of the persistent inhumanity, of Archbishop Whitgift's administration. "Pages," adds Mr. Marsden, "might be filled with similar details." He might have said "volumes." In the year 1584, Bishop Aylmer suspended thirty-eight laborious and devoted clergymen, in the county of Essex alone, for the single offence of not wearing the surplice, and threatened to proceed to their deprivation, saying, "that they should be white with him, or he would be black with them."2 For the same offence, a Mr. Knight was imprisoned six months and fined one hundred marks.3 In the year 1585, Mr. Thomas Carew, minister of Hatfield, in the county of Essex, was brought before the High Commissioners. Mr. Strype says, that he could not speak three words of Latin, and took upon him to preach without authority, nay, against authority"; and Collier, that "he had his mission only from the people's election."5 Yet 1 "Early Puritans," 167. 2 Neal, I. 167, note. Ibid., 167. 4 Strype's Aylmer, 120, 121. he had been educated in the University of Oxford, ordained by the Bishop of Worcester, and licensed by Archbishop Grindal and by Bishop Aylmer himself, who had also much commended his preaching. Mr. Carew happened to offend his lordship by informing him that "in Essex, within the compass of sixteen miles, were twenty-two non-resident ministers, and thirty who were insufficient for their office and of scandalous lives, while at the same time there were nineteen who were silenced for refusing subscription." His lordship immediately took occasion to summon him before the Commissioners, where various charges were brought against him, some of which it is recorded were false, and others were certainly improbable. But instead of proving the charges, or attempting to prove them, the bishop offered him the oath ex officio, and then sent him to the Fleet prison for refusing it. Another clergyman was sent to supply his cure, whom Mr. Allen, the patron, refused to admit, as he had a perfect right to do, and probably, as will appear, had good reasons for doing. For this he also was committed to prison. Both offered bail, which was refused except on the conditions, which they would not accept, that the patron would admit his lordship's clergyman and that Mr. Carew would preach no more in the diocese without further license. After being in prison eight weeks, they appealed to the Council, who liberated them. By this his lordship was incensed, and wrote to their Honors, that, “if such men -precisians, petty gentlemen, fools, rebels, and rascals1-were countenanced, he, for his part, 1 Neal, I. 167. Brook, II. 168. must yield up to her Highness all authority which he had received at her hand." But the bishop never ceased to persecute Mr. Carew until he had driven him out of his diocese. To conclude: The clergyman who had been sent to Hatfield in Mr. Carew's place was soon found guilty of adultery, and when Bishop Aylmer was entreated by the parishioners that for this crime he might be removed, and that then their former minister might be restored, his lordship replied, that "for all the livings he had, he would not deprive a poor man of his living for the fact of adultery." So much more unclerical and criminal did the Precisians of the day consider the breach of ecclesiastical forms than the breach of the seventh commandment of the decalogue! In the year 1586, John Gardiner, minister of Malden in Essex, was deprived by Bishop Aylmer and committed to Newgate, where he sickened of the jail fever,- for matters falsely laid to his charge seven years before, and of which he had been acquitted by a regular course of law. So that Bishop Aylmer proceeded in open contempt of the decisions of the civil courts, and of that provision in the Act of Uniformity which limited prosecution for offences committed or alleged to a certain time.* We turn to one case more. In this same year, Thomas Settle, minister of Boxford in Suffolk, was cited before Archbishop Whitgift and his colleagues in Commission, to answer to the following articles: That he did not observe the order in the Book 1 Strype's Aylmer, 122. 2 Brook, II. 166. VOL. III. 4 5 3 Brook, I. 316, 317. 1 Eliz., Cap. II. Sec. VIII. of Common Prayer: That in baptism he did not use the sign of the cross, nor admit the promise and vow That he did not marry with the ring: That he frequented conventicles: That he denied the lawfulness of private baptism by women, and of baptism by ministers who could not preach: and, That he denied that the soul of our Saviour went to the regions of the damned. This last charge was the only one upon which he was examined; and the examination was as characteristic as brief. "I confess it to be my opinion," said he, "that Christ did not descend locally into hell, and in this opinion I am supported by Calvin, Beza, and other learned men."1 "You are an ass, a dolt, a fool; and they are liars," replied the Archbishop. 1 " About this time, the profoundly learned Hugh Broughton wrote his book on Christ's descent into Hades, to prove that Hades was a general term for the world of souls, and not to be confounded with Gehenna, or Hell, the place of punish ment." (Collier, VII. 43, note. Strype's Whitgift, 482.) That the soul of our Saviour, after his crucifixion, went to the world of woe, was the generally received doctrine of the Church of England. (Brook, II. 222.) Except Bishop Aylmer, who was a tolerable Hebraist, I find none but Puritans who at this time held to the true Scriptural meaning of that Article in the Creed, "He descended into hell." Dr. Bancroft, Dr. Cooper, Dr. Bilson, Archbishop Whitgift, a man of "bare Latin studies" (Biog. Britannica, II. 610), - and other prominent Church men, held to the false interpreta From Dr. Cooper's " Admonition to the People of England," printed in 1589, I give the following extracts. "He". Archbishop Whitgift" firmly believeth that Christ in soul descended into hell. All the Martinists" - Puritans "in Christendom are not able to prove the contrary: and they that endeavor it do abuse the Scriptures, and fall into many absurdities.” (p. 33.) "The Article of the Common Creed touching Christ's descension into hell, contrary to the sense of all ancient writers, hath been strangely interpreted, and by some with unreverent speeches flatly rejected." (p. 103.) "Your lordship ought not to rail at me, being a minister of the Gospel." "What! dost thou think it much to be called ass' and 'dolt'? I have called many of thy betters so." "True,"― and in that word was a world of meaning, -"but the question is, How lawfully?" "Thou shalt preach no more in my Province." "I am called to preach the Gospel, and I will not cease to preach it." "Neither you nor any one in England shall preach without my leave"; and the Archbishop immediately commanded him to be taken close prisoner to the Gate-house. "Have you subscribed?" asked the Dean of Westminster. "Yes; I have subscribed, and am ready to subscribe again, to the doctrine of faith and the sacraments, being as much as the law requires. But to other rites and ceremonies, I neither can nor will subscribe." "Then," said the Archbishop, "thou shalt be subject to the ecclesiastical authority." "I thank God," replied Mr. Settle, "you can use violence only on my poor body"; a noble reply and worthy of any Christian martyr." The Archbishop then committed him close prisoner to the Gate-house, where he was confined about six years. His tendencies to "Independency" are manifest in the bold and decisive manner in which he met the threats of the Primate, particularly in his round assertion that "preach the Gospel of Christ he would." Those tendencies were but de 1 Brook, II. 46, 47. |