INTRODUCTION. Vicars was apprehended by a pursuivant, cast into prison, fined, and deprived of his living; and Mr. George Walker was prosecuted in the star-chamber, sequestered, and cast into prison, where he remained till the meeting of the long parliament. Dr. Pierce, bishop of Bath and Wells, at the same time persecuted the nonconformists without mercy. He drove all the lecturers out of his diocese, and put down their lectures, as factions, and nurseries of puritanism. Upon a reflection on what he had done, he said, " I thank God, I have not one lecturer left in my diocese," hating the very name. He suspended Mr. Davenish of Bridgewater, for preaching a lecture in his own church on a market-day ; and having absolved him upon his promise to preach no more, he said, Go thy way, and sin no more, lest a worse thing befal thee. He suspended Mr. Cornish for preaching a funeral sermon in the evening ; and he questioned Mr. Thomas Erford for preachingon a revel-day, saying " his textwas scandalous to the revel." He sharply reprimanded other ministers for explaining the questions and answers in the catechism, and said, " That was as bad as preaching." For this practicehe enjoined Mr. Barret, rector of Barwick, to do public penance.. Dr. Conant, rector of Limington, received muchmolestation from this prelate.t Mr. Richard Allein, fifty years minister of Dichiat, endured great sufferings under him. And Dr. Chambers was silenced, sequestered, and cast into prison, being harassed several years.t Bishop Wren of Norwich, having ordered the commu- nion tables in his diocese to be turned into altars, fencing them about with rails, many of the people, to avoid super- stition and idolatry, refused to kneel before them. And though they presented themselves on their knees in the chancel, they were refused the communion; and afterwards, for not receiving it, they were excommunicated by this prelate.§ His lordship had no mercy on the puritans. He suspended, deprived, excommunicated,o or otherwise cen- suredno lessthan fifty able and pious ministers, to the ruin of themselves, their wives, and their children. Among this Prynne's Cant. Doome, p. 377, 378. + Palmer's Noncon Mem. vol. i. p. 229. Calamy's Account, vol. ii. p. 580, 754. Nalson's Collections, vol. ii. p. 399. A minister's son was excommunicated for only repeating the sermon of his father, who had been excommunicated.--Bushwarth's Cs!kc. vol. p. 181.
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