the Papists. Oh! noble earl, be our patron and stay in this behalf, that we may not lose that liberty, that hitherto by the queen's benignity we have enjoyed." Other letters were written to the same purpose; and all made what friends they could among the couriers.

The nobility were divided, and the queen herself seemed to be at a stand, but the archbishop spirited her forward; and having received her majesty's letter, authorizing him to proceed, he entered upon the unpleasing work with vigour and resolution. The bishops Jewel and Horn preached at Paul's cross to reconcile the people to the habits. Jewel said, he did not come to defend them, but to shew that they were indifferent, and might be complied with. Horn went a little farther, and wished those cut off from the church, that troubled it about white or black garments, round or square caps. The Puritans were not allowed to preach against the habits, but they expostulated with the bishops, and told them, that in their opinions, those ought rather to be cut off, which stopped the course of the gospel, and that grieved and offended their weak brethren, by urging the remnants of antichrist more than God's commandments, and by punishing the refusers of them more extremely than the breakers of God's laws.

The archbishop, with the bishops of London, Ely, Winchester, and Lincoln, framed sundry articles to enforce the habits, which were afterward published under the title of Advertisements. But when his grace brought them to court, the queen refused to give them her sanction. The archbishop, chafed at the disappointment, said that the court had put him upon framing the Advertisements; and if they would not go on, they had better never have done any thing; nay, if the council would not lend their helping hand against the Nonconformists, as they had done heretofore in Hooper's days, they should only be laughed at for all they had done. But still the queen was so cold, that when the bishop of London came to court, she spoke not a word to him about the redressing the neglect of conformity in the city of London, where it was most disregarded. Upon which the archbishop applied to the secretary, desiring another letter from the queen, to back their endeavours for conformity, adding, in some heat, "If you remedy it not by * Life of Parker, p. 159.

letter, I will no more strive against the stream, fume or Ichide who will."

But the wearing the Popish garments being one of the grand principles of nonconformity, it will be proper to set before the reader the sentiments of some learned perfromers upon this controversy, which employed the pens of the most judicious divines of the age.

We have related the unfriendly behaviour of the bishops Cranmer and Ridley towards Hooper; and that those very prelates who once threatened his life for refusing the habits, if we may credit Mr. Fox's Latin edition of the Book of Martyrs, lived to see their mistakes and repent:* for when Brooks bishop of Gloucester came to Oxford, to degrade bishop Ridley, he refused to put on the surplice, and while they were putting it on him, whether he would or no, he vehemently inveighed against the apparel, calling it foolish, abominable, and too fond for a vice in a play." Bishop Latimer also derided the garments; and when they pulled off his surplice at his degradation, "Now (says he) I can make no more holy water."

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In the articles against bishop Farrar in king Edward's reign, it was objected, article forty-nine, that he had vowed never to wear the cap, but that he came into his cathedral with a long gown and hat; which he did not deny, alleging he did it to avoid superstition, and without any offence to the people.

When the Popish vestments were put upon Dr. Taylor, the martyr, in order to his degradation, he walked about with his hands by his sides, saying, "How say you, my lord, am I not a goodly fool? If I were in Cheapside, would not the boys laugh at these foolish toys and apish trumpery?" And when the surplice was pulled off, "Now (says he) I am rid of a fool's coat."

When they were pulling the same off from archbishop Cranmer, he meekly replied, " All this needed not, I myself had done with this gear long ago."

Dr. Heyler testifies, that John Rogers the protomartyr peremptorily refused to wear the habits unless the Popish priests were enjoined to wear upon their sleves, by way of distinction, a chalice with a host. The same he asserts concerning Philpot, a very eminent martyr; and concern

* Fox's Book of Martyrs, vol. 3. p. 500. Strype's Ann. vol. 2. p. 555.

ing one Tyms a deacon, who was likewise martyred in queen Mary's reign.

The holy martyr John Bradford, as well as Mr. Sampson and some others, excepted against the habits at their entrance into holy orders, and were ordained without them.

Bucer and Peter Martyr, professors of our two famous universities, were both against the habits, and refused to wear them. Bucer being asked, why he did not wear the square cap, answered, Because his head was not square.* And Martyr, in one of his letters after his return home, says, "When I was at Oxford, I would never use those white garments in the choir, though I was a canon in the church; and I am satisfied in my own reasons for what I did."+ In the same letter, Bucer says he would be content to suffer some great pain in his body, upon condition that these things were utterly taken away. And, in such case as we are now [1550], he willeth that in no case they should be received. He adds, in his letter from Cambridge to a friend beyond sea, dated 12th January 1550, that no foreigner was consulted about the purity of ceremonies, " de puritate rituum scito hic neminem extraneum de his rebus rogari." And though both he and Peter Martyr thought they might be borne with for a season; yet in our case, he would not have them suffered to remain.

These were the sentiments of our first reformers in the reign of king Edward VI. and queen Mary.

Upon restoring the Protestant religion under queen Elizabeth, the same sentiments concerning the habits prevailed among all the reformers at first, though they disagreed upon the grand question, whether they should desert their ministry rather than comply.

Mr. Strype, in his Life of Archbishop Parker, a most cruel persecutor of the Puritans, says, that he was not fond of the cap, the surplice, and the wafer-bread, and such-like injunctions, and would have been pleased with a toleration; that he gloried in having been consecrated without the Aaronical garments; but that his concern for his prince's honour made him resolute that her royal will might take place.

Dr. Horn bishop of Winchester, in his letter to Gualter, * Life of Parker, Appendix, p. 41. + Hist. Ref. p. 65.

Ann. Ref. vol. 2. p. 554, 555.

says, "that the act of parliament which enjoined the vestments, was made before they were in office, so that they had no hand in making it ;* but they had obeyed the law, thinking the matter to be of an indifferent nature; and they had reason to apprehend, that if they had deserted their stations on that account, their enemies might have come into their places; but he hoped to procure an alteration of the act in the next parliament, though he believed it would meet with great opposition from the Papists." Yet this very bishop a little after wished them cut off from the church that troubled it about white or black garments.

Bishop Jewel calls the vestments "the habits of the stage, the relics of the Amorites, and wishes they may be extirpated to the roots, that all the remnants of former errors, with all the rubbish, and even the dust that yet remained, might be taken away." But he adds, the queen is fixed; and so was his lordship soon after, when he refused the learned Dr. Humphreys a benefice within his diocess on this account, and called all the Nonconformists men of squeamish stomachs.+

Bishop Pilkington complains " that the disputes which began about the vestments were now carried farther, even to the whole constitution; that pious persons lamented this, atheists laughed, and the Papists blew the coals; and that the blame of all was cast upon the bishops. He urged that it might be considered, that all reformed churches had cast away Popish apparel with the pope; that many ministers would rather leave their livings than wear them; and he was well satisfied that it was not an apparel becoming those that profess godliness. I confess (says he) we suffer many things against our hearts, groaning under them; but we cannot take them away, though we were ever so much set upon it. We are under authority, and can innovate nothing without the queen; nor can we alter the laws; the only thing left to our choice is, whether we will bear these things, or break the peace of the church."§

Bishop Grindal was a considerable time in suspense, whether he should accept a bishoprick with the Popish vestments. He consulted Peter Martyr on this head, and says, that all the bishops that had been beyond the sea had

* Pierce's Vindication, p. 44. Parker, p. 154. MS. p. 873.

+ Hist. Ref. vol. 3. p. 289. 294. Life of Hist. Ref. vol. 3. p. 316.

dealt with the queen to let the habits fall; but she was inflexible. This made them submit to the laws, and wait for a fit opportunity to reverse them. Upon this principle he conformed and was consecrated; and in one of his letters, he calls God to witness, that it did not lie at their (the bishops') door, that the habits were not quite taken away.

Dr. Sandys bishop of Worcester, and Parkhurst of Norwich, inveigh severely against the habits, and they with the rest of the bishops threaten to declaim against them, "till they are sent to hell from whence they came."* Sandys, in one of his letters to Parker, says, "I hope we shall not be forced to use the vestments, but that the meaning of the law is, that others in the meantime shall not take them away, but that they shall remain for the queen."

Dr. Guest bishop of Rochester wrote against the ceremonies to secretary Cecil, and gave it as his opinion, "that having been evil used, and once taken away, they ought not to be used again, because the Galatians were commanded, to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free; and because we are to abstain from all appearance of evil. The gospel teaches us to put away needless ceremonies, and to worship God in spirit and truth; whereas these ceremonies were no better than the devices of men, and had been abused to idolatry. He declares openly against the cross, against images in churches, and against a variety of garments in the service of God. If a surplice be thought proper for one (says his lordship), it should serve for all divine offices.-The bishop is for the people's receiving the sacrament into their hands, according to the example of Christ and the primitive church, and not for putting it into the people's mouths: and as for the posture, that it should be rather standing than kneeling; but that this should be left to every one's choice."+

Not one of the first set of bishops after the Reformation approved of the habits, or argued for their continuance from Scripture, antiquity, or decency, but submitted to them out of necessity, and to keep the church in the queen's favour. How much are the times altered! our first reformers never ascribed any holiness or virtue to the vestments, but

* Bishop Barnet quotes this as concerning the corruptions of the spiritual courts, vol. 3. T.

+ MS. p. 891. Strype's Annals, vol. 1. p. 38. Appendix, no. 14.

Strype's Annals, vol. 1. p. 177.