74 INTRODUCTION. suspended, excommunicated, condemned in costs of suit, cast into prison, and obliged to make a public recantationat three different places. Mr. CrOwder was committed close prisoner to Newgate for sixteen weeks, then deprived of his living, without there being any charge, witness, or other proof brought against him. Many others were pro- secuted and deprived. Bishop Laud being made chan- cellor of Oxford, carried his sewrities to the university. He caused Mr. Hill to make a public recantation ; Messrs. Ford, Thorne, and Hodges to be expelled from the univer- sity ; the proctors to be deprived for receiving their appeal; and Drs. Prideaux and Wilkinson to be sharply admo- nished. Mr. William Hobbs, fellow of Trinity college, having preached against falling from grace; and Mr. Thomas Cook of Brazen-nose college, having in his Latin sermon used certain expressions against the Arininians, they were both enjoined public recantations. Dr. Prideaux, Dr. Burgess, Mr. White, Mr. Madye, with some others, suffered on the same account+ By the unfeeling persecutions of the bishops, the puri- tans were driven from one diocese to another, and many of them obliged to leave the kingdom, and seek their bread in a foreign land. Messrs. Higginson, Skelton, Wil- liams, Wilson, Wheelwright, Philips, Lathorp, Hooker, Stone, Cotton, with many others, fled to New England. Many of these divines, previous to their departure, were harassed, prosecuted, and cruelly censured by the ruling prelates. The distressed puritans who remained at home, pre- sented a petition to his majesty, in which they say, " We are not a little discouraged and deterred from preaching those saving doctrines of God's free grace in election and predestination which greatly confirm our faiths of eternal salvation, and fervently kindle our love to God, as the - seventeenth article expressly mentioneth. So we are brought into great strait, either of incurring God's heavy displeasure if we do not faithfully discharge our embassage, in declaring the whole council of God ; or the danger of being censured as violaters of your majesty's acts, if we preach these constant doctrines of our church, and confute the opposite Pelagian and Arminian heresies, both boldly preached and printed without the least censure."f This V.'harton's Troubles of Laud, vol. i. p. 519. + Prynne's Cant. Dootne, p. 173, 176.-Rushworth's Collect. vol. hi. p. 283. Prynne's.Cant. Dome, p. 165.
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