subscriptions, unwarranted by their laws, and contrary to CHARLES their national oath and covenant, approved by his majesty." The substance of this demand was granted them. In their sixth demand," they desire reparation for the losses which the kingdom of Scotland hath sustained, and the vast charges they have been put to, by occasion of the late troubles.”—That is, they desired to be well paid for their rebellion. And so they were: for the houses granted them 300,000%. for their "brotherly assistance," besides the 8507. a-day which they had been allowed for subsisting their troops. Their seventh article was, "that all proclamations and books, which censured their invasion and called them rebels, might be revoked and suppressed." This demand was likewise granted. And thus they were not only pardoned for insulting the government and drawing the king's sword against him, but applauded and caressed: for part of this article was, that the "loyalty, integrity, and faithfulness of his majesty's subjects of Scotland, towards his majesty's royal person and government, was to be published in all parish-churches through his majesty's dominions1." L'Estrange's censured by About this time, Pocklington and Bray, doctors in divinity, Pocklington were brought under censure by the parliament; the first was and Bray chaplain in ordinary to the king, the other to the archbishop the house of of Canterbury. Pocklington's crime was preaching a visitation Lords. sermon before the bishop of Lincoln, and publishing it under the title of "Sunday no Sabbath." His other obnoxious book was called "The Christian Altar," in which he had maintained several things contrary to his diocesan's opinion upon that subject. These books were both licensed by Bray. Williams, upon the death of Neile, was made archbishop of York, and, standing fair with the parliament, moved that these two divines might be brought to a recantation. The house of lords, believing the bishop a proper judge in the controversy,though, by the way, he had been a party,-remitted the collecting the exceptionable propositions to him. This prelate, having examined the tracts, moved that Bray might recant seven erroneous propositions in the first, and twenty-four in the second. As for Pocklington, a recantation would not serve his turn he was to be deprived of his preferments. This passage affords an illustration of Collier's wit; which Dr. Johnson calls "in the highest degree keen and sarcastic." LAUD, Fuller will have it that both these doctors died soon after the Abp. Cant. execution of the sentence; and that either shame for being mistaken in print, or want of fortitude to maintain their opinion, proved mortal to them. But Heylin reports, from his own knowledge, that Pocklington lived more than two, and Bray above four, years after this censure; and that the misfortune had not the least visible effect upon their health or temper. Fuller's Examen Histor. p. 243. Smart's complaint against Dr. Cosins. Ch. Hist. book 11. p. 173. Soon after, one Smart, a prebendary of Durham, complained to the parliament against Dr. Cosins, prebendary of the same church, and dean of Peterborough. Cosins was charged with superstition, and illegal proceedings against the complainant. The articles of superstition suggested that Cosins set up a marble altar, with cherubims, in the cathedral of Durham; that this, with the appurtenances, cost two thousand pounds; that this ornamental furniture, which he calls appurtenances, was a cope, the representation of the Trinity, and God the Father in the figure of an old man. There was likewise said to be a crucifix, with a red beard and blue cap. The dean was further accused for lighting two hundred wax candles about the altar on Candlemas-day; for forbidding the singing any psalms before or after sermons; for making an anthem to be sung of the "Three Kings of Cologne, Gaspar, Balthazar, and Melchior;" and for procuring a consecrated knife only to cut the bread at the communion; that Smart above-mentioned declaimed with some vehemence in the pulpit against these innovations, his text was, "I hate all those that hold of superstitious vanities, but thy law do I love;" that, for this freedom, he was imprisoned by the High Commission at York, and kept under durance four months before any articles were exhibited against him; that from hence he was removed to the High Commission at Lambeth; and that, after having been harassed a long time, he was remanded to York, fined five hundred pounds, committed, and ordered to recant; and that, refusing to make this submission, he was further fined, excommunicated, degraded, and deprived. This complaint, formed into a bill, was laid before the house of commons, and afterwards carried up to the house of lords; that Smart was called the "proto-martyr of England in these later days of persecution," by Rouse, who carried up the bill to the lords; and that a large reparation was made to the complainant. Thus far Fuller. But that this historian was misinformed, I. appears by his own letter to Dr. Cosins, in which he owns his CHARLES mistake, and promised to make the dean satisfaction in his next print. tion of misrepre Paris, Examen p. 284. et I shall give the reader matter of fact from Dr. Cosins's A vindicaletter upon this subject. To be brief. When Smart's bill of Cosins from complaint was carried up by Rouse, a member of the house of Fuller's commons, to the house of lords, Cosins put in a full answer sentation. upon oath; that his answer was entered upon the rolls of par- April 6, liament, made good before the lords both by himself and by the 1658. very witness that Smart and his son-in-law produced against Histor. him; that, upon this, Glover, Smart's lawyer, told him, at the deinc. bar of the house of lords, he was ashamed of his complaint, and could in conscience plead no longer for him; that, after this, the cause came on no more; that many of the lords declared publicly that Smart had abused the house of commons with a groundless complaint against Cosins; and that, by an order from the lords, delivered to him by the earl of Warwick, he had the liberty to go where he pleased, and never heard any more of them. The answer Cosins gave in upon oath, and made good before the lords, was to this effect: 1. That the communion-table in the church of Durham, which the bill of complaint calls the marble altar with cherubims, was not set up by Cosins, but by the dean and chapter, many years before he was prebendary of that church; and that Smart was then one of that chapter. 2. That, by the public accounts standing upon the register, the charge did not amount to above the tenth part of what was pretended. 3. That the copes used in that church were furnished long before Cosins's time; and that Smart, the complainant, was prebendary when they were bought, and allowed his share of the charge. 4. That Cosins never approved the picture of the Trinity, or the image of God the Father, in any figure; and that, to his knowledge, there was no such representation in the church of Durham. 5. That the crucifix, with a blue cap and a golden beard, mentioned in the bill of complaint, was nothing but the top of bishop Hatfield's tomb, which had stood in the church above 799. LAUD, two hundred and fifty years; and that there was no such Abp. Cant. figure upon any of the copes as is reported in Fuller's history. A bill passed in the house 6. That, by the statutes of that church, to which Smart was sworn no less than Cosins,-by these local statutes, the treasurer was to provide a sufficient number of wax-lights for the service of the choir during the winter season; that there was never above two fair candles set upon the communion-table; that there were no more candles used upon a Candlemas-night than in the Christmas-holidays; and that the number of them was lessened or increased in proportion to the congregation. 7. That Cosins never forbade singing the metre Psalms in the church, but used to sing them himself with the people at morning prayer. 8. That he was so far from directing the singing an anthem to the three kings of Cologne, that, at his first coming to Durham cathedral, he ordered this superstitious hymn to be cut out of the old song-books belonging to the choristers' school that no such anthem had been sung in the choir during his being there, nor-as far as his inquiry could reach -for three-score years before, and upwards. 9. That the knife used for cutting the bread at the communion was never consecrated. 10. That, in Smart's sermon, there were several propositions not to be reconciled either to the laws of God or his Church, or the statutes of the realm; that Cosins reported some of these passages, and appealed to the lords for the justice of the censure passed upon him. 11. And, lastly, that the complainant had swelled the account of what he suffered; that he never paid his fine; that the value of his Church preferments, lost by his obstinacy, was over and above made good to him by the contributions he received upon the score of his lying under censure; but that the parliament gave him no damages, nor ordered Cosins or any other person Smart complained of to pay him a farthing by way of reparation. On the 10th of March a bill was brought into the house of of Commons commons, and passed, "That no bishop should have any vote for taking in parliament, any judicial power in the Star-chamber, or any bishops' votes authority in temporal affairs; and that no clergyman should be in parliain commission of the peace." This bill had many abettors in away the ment, &c. I. the house of lords, where it was afterwards thrown out. The CHARLES earl of Essex and other malcontents observed, that they seldom could carry any thing which crossed directly upon the king's interest, by reason of the overbalance of the bishops, who generally voted unanimously for the crown. Notwithstanding the bringing in of this bill, the bishops were not without friends in the lower house. To take off these, the other party suggested the impossibility of supporting the hierarchy in its present condition; that there was a great combination throughout the kingdom against the government of the Church; that the Scotch were in a concert with the English for this purpose; that they publicly declared a firm peace between the two nations was impracticable, unless the bishops were taken away. That, notwithstanding these menaces of the Scots, if this bill were once passed, the majority of both houses would be so well satisfied, that the violent party would never be able to carry their point. These reasons, it seems, made an impression upon a great many members well affected to the Church, and Lord Clabrought their vote for the bill. But of this more afterwards. Five days forward, a committee for religion was settled in the Reupper house; it was formed of ten earls, ten bishops, and 4 committee ten barons. And thus, as archbishop Laud remarks in his for religion. diary, the lay votes shall be double to the clergy. "This committee," continues the archbishop, "will meddle with doctrine as well as ceremonies, and call some divines to them to consider and countenance the business.' That this was their intention, might be collected from a letter sent by the bishop of Lincoln to some clergymen to attend this service. Upon the whole, the archbishop was of opinion this committee would put on a more solemn face, and pass for a national synod, to the great dishonour of the Church. the rendon's History of bellion. Hist. of the Troubles, Laud, p. 61. At the same time the lords appointed a sub-committee to &c. of prepare matters. They had likewise an authority to call Archbishop several bishops and divines to their assistance to consult upon a reformation of what was amiss, and bring things to a better settlement. Williams, bishop of Lincoln, was chairman in both these committees. Those who assisted were, Usher, bishop of Armagh, Morton, bishop of Durham, Hall, bishop of Exeter, Dr. Samuel Ward, Dr. John Prideaux, Dr. William Twisle, Dr. Robert Sanderson, Dr. Daniel Featlye, Dr. Ralph Brownrig, Dr. Richard Holdisworth, Dr. John Hacket, Dr. |