292 LIVES OF TEE PURITANS. cerneth are the worse to be liked, for the -good testimony here given of them." Mr. Paget was one of the ministers in whose behalf the letter was written, and being present at the reading of it, the bishop immediately required his argu- ments against the use of the cross in baptism ; that, as he then boasted, he might instantly discover their weakness and folly in refusing to conform. Mr. Paget and his brethren at first declined all disputation, partly because their errand was not to dispute, but to obtain their release from the high commission ; and because the bishop was to be the sole judge ; so that they might bring themselves into danger. However, the bishop continuing to urge them in the pre- sence of many persons of quality, lest they should seem to betray a good cause by total silence, Mr. Paget at length entered upon a disputation with his lordship ; who, in the conclusion, ingenuously acknowledged his own neglect to study the controversy, but resolved in future to direct his attention more that way. And, besides releasing them from the high commission, he frankly owned, that he found in them more learning than he expected. But, in order to bring them to 'conformity, he commanded each of them to produce in writing, three arguments against the cross in baptism, the use of the surplice, and kneeling at the Lord's supper, and bring them to him in the space ofa month. His order was accordingly obeyed; but it failed of the success which his lordship expected. Soon after, several of the ministers were again cited into the high commission court, and used with great cruelty. Mr. Paget himself met with much unkind treatment, and was under the necessity of making three journies of sixty miles each, within the space of fourteen days, the bishop and other commissioners still deferring the consideration of his case to a future court-day. The bishop's officers treated him with much vile and abusive language, attended with blasphemous cursing and swearing, declaring he should assuredly be damned. On a day appointed, the good man again appeared before the commission at Chester; when the bishop expostulated with him a full hour, concerning the observance of the ecclesiastical ceremonies, and signified that his own remissness in prosecuting the nonconformists, had hindered his preferment to the bishopric of Lincoln. In the conclusion, his lordship being in a violent passion, threatened to suspend, excommunicate, and degrade him, and to make the land too hot for him,; and asked him what he would then do. Mr. Paget meekly replied, in thewords of
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