BRADBOURN. refutation of it, entitled, " A Treatise of the Sabbath-day : containing a Defence of the Orthodoxall Doctrine of the Church of England, against Sabbatarian Novelty," 1635; which he dedicated to the archbishop. In this dedication he gives the following account of Mr. Bradbourn :-" A. certain minister in Norfolk," says he, "proceeding after the' rule of the presbyterian principles, among which this was the principal : That all religious observations and actions, and the ordaining and keeping of holy days, must have a special warrant and commandment in holy scripture, other- wise the same is superstitions ;' concluded, that the seventh day of every week, having an express command in the decalogue, by a precept simply and perpetually moral; and the Sunday being not commanded, either in the lawor the gospel ; therefore the Saturday must be the christian's weekly sabbath, and the Sunday ought to be a working day. " This man," his lordship adds, " was exceeding confi- dent in his way, and defied his adversaries, loading them with much disgrace and contempt. He dedicated his book to the king's' majesty himself, and implored his princely aid to set up the ancient sabbath. 1-le likewise admonished the reverend bishops of the kingdom, and the temporal state, to restore the fourth commandment of the decalogue to its original possession. He professed that he would suffer martyrdom, rather than betray such a worthy cause, so firmly supported by thecommon principles of all who have in preaching or writing treated of the sabbath. While he was in this heat, crying in all places where he came, victory, victory, he chanced to light upon an unkind accident : which was to be convened and called to an ac- count beforeyour grace (meaning Laud) and the honourable court of high commissioners. At his appearance, your grace did not confute him with fire and fagot, with halter, axe, or scourging; but according to the usual proceedings of your grace, and of that court, with delinquents who are overtaken with error in simplicity. There was yielded unto him a deliberate, patient, and full hearing, together with a satisfactory answer to all his main objections. " The man perceiving," his lordship further observes, " that the principles which the sabbatarian dogmatists had lent him, were not orthodox; and that all who were present at the hearing approved the confutation of his error ; he began to suspect that the holy brethren who had lent him his principles, and yet persecuted his conclusion, might perhaps be deceived in the first, as he had been in the last.
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