MILLAIN-BONHAM. 175 cuting prelates. In the year 1569, he and Mr. Nicholas Crane, another puritan minister, were licensed to preach by Bishop Grindal. Their licenses are said to have been granted on- condition that they should avoid all conven- tides, and all things contrary to the order established in this kingdom. Accordingly, they made the following pro- mise, signed with their own hands :-" I do faithfully " promise, that I will not, any time hereafter, use any " public preaching, or open reading, or expounding of the " scriptures ; nor cause, neither be present at, any private " assemblies of prayer or expounding of the scriptures, or " ministering the communion in any house, or other place, " contrary to the state of religion now by public authority " established, or contrary to the laws of this realmof Eng- " land. Neither will I inveigh against any rites or cere- " monies used or received by common authority within " this realm. "* Such were the conditions on which these divines entered the sacred function ! But, surely, if the church of England, so lately separated from the church of Rome, had come immediately from heaven, and been as infallible as its natural parent, the mother church, pretended, it would have been too wisely constructed to require such tyrannical promises of the Lord's servants. The two divines, were afterwards apprehended and cast into prison for nonconformity, where they remained more than twelve months, and then they were released. But persisting in the same practice, and not keeping to the exact order established in the church of England, Mr. Bonham was again committed to prison, and Mr. Crane was silenced from preaching within the diocese of London ; but it does not appear how long they continued under these eccle- siastical oppressions.) Mr; Bonham was a zealous man in the cause of the reformation. Being concerned for the restoration of a purer ecclesiastical discipline, he, in- 1572, united withhis brethren in the formation of the presbyterial' church at Wandsworth in Surrey.) Our divinewas afterwards called to endure fresh trials. Mr. Bonham and Mr. Nicholas Standen, another puritan minister, were brought under the tyrannical power of the high commission, and cast into prison for non- conformity. After having continued under confinement a long time, and being deeply afflicted with the sickness of Strype's Grindal, p. 156. -1- Ibid. p. 153-155.-MS. Chronology, vol. ii. g. 405. (6) l'uller's Church Hist, b. ix. p. 103.
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