III

At last a crisis came. Some of the deprived ministers and many of their people began to consider the lawfulness and the necessity of separation from the national communion. The course which they were considering was full of peril. But they could not have the Word of God preached or the Sacraments administered in the church without what they called "idolatrous gear," and they concluded that their only course was to form a separate congregation. There had been secret societies of devout men in the evil times of their fathers; and since their hopes of a complete Reformation had been wrecked, they determined that it would be no crime, but the fulfilment of a duty, for those who wished to cleanse the service of God from the superstitions which still defiled it, to assemble together in private houses and wherever else they could meet safely. They hesitated for a time whether they should use the Book of Common Prayer with necessary modifications, but decided to use the Geneva Service Book.

How often they met for worship before their meetings were discovered, there is nothing to show. When it came to the Queen's ears that some of her subjects in the City of London were having prayers and hearing sermons together in secret, and were even celebrating the Lord's Supper, she immediately charged the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to lay their hands. on the offenders. In the first instance, gentle means were to be used to persuade them to conform; if they were obstinate, they were to be deprived of the freedom of the city-a punishment which would involve a kind of civil excommunication, and make it unlawful for those of them who were merchants and tradesmen to carry on their business. If this failed, the Commissioners were to resort to severer

measures.

On June 19, 1567, they were caught. They had hired Plumbers' Hall, telling the hall-keeper that they intended to celebrate a wedding. The sheriffs had information of the meeting, and found about a hundred persons-men and women-holding a religious service. A considerable number of them were carried off to prison, and the next day they were brought before the Lord Mayor, Grindal, Bishop of London,

and other Commissioners.8 Grindal argued with them gently. He reminded them that by separating themselves from the Church they condemned not only all that were at that time in communion with it, but the Reformers in the days of King Edward VI. and the martyrs who had suffered under Queen Mary; he quoted the judgment of Bullinger against the lawfulness of separation from the Church of England on the ground of vestments and ceremonies; he insisted that copes and surplices were things indifferent, and that in using them there could be neither sin nor virtue; that the Gospel was truly preached and the Sacraments rightly administered in the churches; that in relation to ceremonies and other matters of the same kind, which God had neither commanded nor forbidden, the Prince had authority to make regulations for the sake of public order. The Dean of Westminster argued much in the same way.

The prisoners maintained that surplices and copes were superstitious and idolatrous, and denied that the Prince had power to command the ministers of the Church to wear them. In reply to what was said about the vestments being" things indifferent," they quoted Melancthon on Romans xiv. :" When the opinion of holiness, or merit, or necessity is put into things indifferent, then they darken the light of the Gospel and ought by all means to be taken away." Grindal replied that to wear the vestments was not commanded as though it were necessary to acceptable worship. One of the prisoners rejoined: “You have made it a matter of necessity in the Church, and that many a poor man doth feel."

The Lord Mayor said :

"I cannot talk learnedly with you in celestial matters, but I have a mother wit, and I will persuade the best I can. The Queen hath not established these garments and things for any holiness' sake or religion, but only for a civil order and comeliness; because she would have the Ministers known from other men; as the Aldermen are known by their tippets, and the Judges by

* For an account of the proceedings before the Commission, see An Examination of certayne Londoners before the Commissioners, about anno 1567, in A parte of a register, contayninge sundrie memorable matters, written by divers godly and learned in our time, which stande for, and desire the reformation of our Church, in Discipline and Ceremonies, accordinge to the pure Worde of God, and the Lawe of our Lande, 23-37. See also Strype, Grindal, 169-178.

their red gowns, and sometimes they wear coifs and likewise Lords' servants are known by their badges. I will tell you an example: There was an Alderman within this year, that went in the street, and a boisterous fellow met him, and went between him and the wall, and put him towards the kennel,' and some that were about him said, 'Knowest thou not what thou doest? He is an Alderman.' And he said, 'I knew him not: he might have worn his tippet.' Even so when the Ministers began to be despised, the Queen's grace did ordain this priests' apparel." 10

His lordship also warned them that if they resisted the Queen, she "may have occasion to say: 'Will they not be content that I should rule in the Church? I will restore that my forefathers have followed: and therefore, masters, take heed.'"

The prisoners do not seem to have been alarmed by the menace; one of them answered, "Even so, my Lord, as you do say that the Alderman is known by his gown and tippet, even so by this apparel that these men now wear, were the papist mass-priests known from other men.”

The bishop, who was a Puritan at heart, admitted in the course of the discussion that although he wore the cope and surplice in St Paul's, he would rather minister without them; he wore them for the sake of order and in obedience to the Queen. Upon this the prisoners declaimed against the vestments; one called them the " conjuring garments of Popery "; another compared the bishops to the Popish bishops of Queen Mary's time who made the mayor and aldermen their butchers. When reminded that the bishops and the authorities of the city were acting under the commission of the Queen, and that she was a godly sovereign, one of them had the audacity to say that "the fruits " showed what she was; and another added that the servants of God were persecuted under her. Most-if not all of the prisoners, twenty-four men and seven women, were sent to the Bridewell, where they were kept for a year and then discharged.11

9 The open sewer running along the street. Go, hop me over every kennel home " (Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew, iv. iii. 98). 19 A Parte of a Register, 31. The original has been slightly modernised in this and the following extracts.

11 Strype, Grindal, 175-176, 200–201.

IV

In the report of the trial there is nothing to indicate that the congregation which met in Plumbers' Hall had any definite ecclesiastical organisation, or held any theory of church polity which required them to separate themselves from the English Establishment. Indeed one of them said: "So long as we might have the Word freely preached, and the Sacraments administered, without preferring of idolatrous gear above it, we never assembled together in houses." 12 But in a letter written by Grindal to Bullinger in June, 1568, about the time that the Plumbers' Hall prisoners were being released after their year's imprisonment, he speaks of the discovery of a secret Church in London, with ministers, elders, and deacons.

"Our controversy concerning the habits, about which you write, had cooled for a time, but broke out again last winter ; and this by the means of some who are more zealous than they are either learned or gifted with pious discretion. Some London citizens of the lowest order, together with four or five ministers, remarkable neither for their judgment nor learning, have openly separated from us; and sometimes in private houses, sometimes in the fields, and occasionally even in ships, they have held their meetings and administered the Sacraments. Besides this, they have ordained ministers, elders, and deacons, after their own way, and have even excommunicated some who had seceded from their church. . . The number of this sect is about two hundred, but consisting of more women than men. The Privy Council have lately committed the heads of this faction to prison, and are using every means to put a timely stop to this sect." 13

Dr. Waddington was fortunate to discover in the State Paper Office three documents, one of which-printed in black letter-is signed by Richard Fitz, the pastor of a secret Christian society, meeting in London and organised on Congregational principles; the second-a manuscript—is signed by twentyseven members of this society; the third-also in manuscriptis a declaration of reasons for separating from the English Church and renouncing "the relics of Antichrist.” 14

12 i.e. in private houses. Parte of a Register, 24-25.

13 Zurich Letters: 1558-1579 (Parker Society), lxxxii. 201-202. 14 The documents are endorsed-" Bishop of London: Puritans." Dr. Waddington thinks that these papers were seized by the officers when the members of the Church were taken to the Bridewell prison. But this is clearly impossible. The imprisonment of the congregation

The first, signed by the pastor, is a reply to slanderous reports about the Church.

"THE TRUE MARKES OF CHRIST'S CHURCH, ETC.

"The order of the Privy Church in London, which, by the malice of Satan, is falsely slandered and evil spoken of.

"The minds of them, that by the strength and working of the Almighty, our Lord Jesus Christ, have set their hands and hearts to the pure, unmingled, and sincere worshipping of God, according to his blessed and glorious Word in all things, only abolishing and abhorring all traditions and inventions of man whatsoever, in the same religion and service of our Lord God, knowing this always, that the true and afflicted Church of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ either hath, or else ever more continually under the cross striveth for to have

"First and foremost, the glorious word and Evangel preached, not in bondage and subjection, but freely and purely.

"Secondly, to have the Sacraments ministered purely only and altogether according to the institution and good word of the Lord Jesus, without any tradition or invention of man; and

"Last of all, to have not the filthy canon law, but discipline only and altogether agreeable to the same heavenly and Almighty Word of our good Lord Jesus Christ.

"RICHARD FYTZ, Minister." 15

The second document, signed by twenty-seven members of the Church, is an appeal to England to return to God, and especially to acknowledge the supreme authority of His Word. The writers are resolved to do their part.

"Therefore, according to the saying of the Almighty our God, (Matt. xviii. 20), 'Wherever two or three are gathered in my name there am I': So we a poor congregation whom God hath separated from the Church of England, 16 and from the mingled and false

which met at Plumbers' Hall-and it is to this imprisonment that Dr. Waddington refers-was in June, 1567. One of the documents was written in the thirteenth year of the Queen's reign, which was 1571. It is curious that neither in his History nor in his Congregational Martyrs does he give the documents in a complete form or in the same form. The History contains only part of the second document, but gives all the signatures; the Congregational Martyrs contains much more of the document, but gives only some of the signatures. Waddington, i. (1200—1567), 742-745, and Congregational Martyrs, 11-15.

15 Waddington, i. (1200-1567), 742-743; and Congregational Martyrs, 11-12.

16 They had not separated themselves: God had separated them. He had shown them His will; and they had only to obey.