30 INTRODUCTION. Mr. Stroud, minister of Yalding, in Kent, was cast into prison, excommunicated, deprived of his ministry, reduced to extreme poverty, and obliged to enter upon the employ- ment of correcting the press for his support. Other puri- tans, denominated peaceable nonconformists, obtained for some time a connivance or toleration. These were Drs. Sampson, Humphrey, Wyburn, Penny and Coverdale, with Messrs. Fox, Lever, and Johnson.. . About the year 1570, other oppressions were inflicted upon certain London ministers: Mr.Crane and Mr. Bonham were both silenced and cast into prison for nonconformity. The former was afterwards for the same crime committed to Newgate ; where, after languishing a long time under the hardships of the prison, he was delivered by death from all his afflictions. Mr. Axton, an excellent divine, for refusing the apparel, the cross in baptism, and kneeling at the Lord's supper, was convened before the Bishop of Lichfield, and Coventry, and, after a lont; examination, was deprived and driven to seek his bread in a foreign land. The celebrated Mr. Cartwright, of Cambridge, was cited - before Dr. Whitgift and others, when he was deprived of his public ministry, expelled from the university,and forced to depart out of the kingdom. Innumerable, indeed, were the hardships under which the puritans groaned. By the rigorous proceedings of the ruling prelates, the church was deprived ofmany of its brightest ornaments ; and nearly all its faithful pastors were ejected; especially in Northampton- shire, Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Norfolk, and Suffolk.f While these ravages were made upon the church of Christ, several thousands of ministers of inferior character, such as common swearers, drunkards, gamesters, whoremongers, and massing priests, only because they were conformable, continued in their offices, enjoyed their livings, and ob- tained preferment. Most of the bishops having endured persecution and banishment in the days of QueentiMary, and being now exalted by promotion, honour, and wealth, forgot their former condition, and persecuted their brethren of the same faith, who could not come up to the standard of conformity$ At this period, there was considerable variety in the kind of bread used in the Lord's supper : some ministers, in conformity to the papists and the queen's injunctions,' used the wafer bread ; but others, in conformity to scripture Strype's Parker, p. 243. t MS. Register, p. 147. t. Parte of a Register, p. 2-9.
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