362 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. NICHOLAS CRANE was educated at Cambridge, a divine of great learning, and a zealous nonconformist. He was minister of Roehampton in Surrey, but falling under the displeasure of the prelates, he was more than once cast into prison, and atlast he died in Newgate, for nonconformity. In the year 1569, Mr. Crane, and Mr. William Bonham, were licensed to preach by Bishop Grindal. Their licenses are said to have been granted upon condition that they should avoid all conventicles, and all other things contrary to the order established in this kingdom. Afterwards, the two divines were apprehended and cast into prison for nonconformity, where they remained more than twelve months, and werethen released. But persisting in their nonconformity, and not keeping to the exact order established in the church of England, Mr. Crane was silenced from preaching within the diocese of London, and Mr. Bonhamwas again committed to prison ;* but it does not appear how long they continued under the ecclesiastical eensure.+ Mr. Crane was a leading man among the nonconformists of his time, and, in the year 1572, unitedwith his brethren in the erection of the presbyterian church at Wandsworth in Surrey.t His exceptions against subscription to the Book of CommonPrayer, are still on record. Theywere delivered most probably upon his appearance before the ecclesiastical commissioners, and were chiefly the follow- ing Heexcepted against reading the apocryphal books in public worship, to the exclusion of someparts ofcanoni- cal scripture :-Against that part of the ordination service, receive the HolyGhost, SfC. :-Against the interrogatories in baptism proposed to infantswho cannot give any answer :- Against the cross in baptism, which has been often used to superstitious purposes :-Against private baptism, which the Book of CommonPrayer allows to be administered by persons not ordained :-Against the gospel appointed to be read the sabbath after Easter, which is taken from the mass book, and is manifestly untrue when compared with scripture. He concludes by observing, that if these and some other things equally erroneous, were reformed, it would please Almighty God ; the ministers of Christ would be more firmly united against their common enemy, the papists ; many of God'sministers and people now weeping, See Art. Bonham. Strype's Grindal, p. 153-155.--MS. Chronology, vol, ii, p. 405. (6.) Fuller's Church Hist. b. ix, p. 103.
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