460 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. proper to decline the proposal ; and here the affair ended.. Upon his majesty's declaration of indulgence, in 1671, granting liberty to the dissenters to meet and worship God according to the light of their consciences, without re- straint or disturbance, provided their teacherswere licensed, their doors set open, and they refrained from all sedition ; Mr. Grantham and another person were appointed by the baptists in Lincolnshire to wait upon the king with their humble address to his majesty. In this address, after offer- ing praise to Almighty God; with thanks to his majesty for his late indulgence, they set forth wherein they thought his royal declaration infringed upon that liberty which they deemed the birthright ofall christians : they beseeched him to leave them to the light of scripture, in all the exercises of - christian worship ; and they signified that they should continue in this practice till they should obtain his per- mission, assuring his majesty that no less liberty than the scriptures expressed would satisfy the church of God, They then concluded with thanks to his majesty for all his lenity ; praying that God would magnify his grace in his princely soul, that, while he reigned heie on earth, lie might excel in all true honour ; and, after this life, enjoy a crown of immortality, and a throne of glory in the kingdom of heaven, It does not appear what effect this bold address produced upon' the mind of the king. Mr. Grantham and his brethren had many enemies, who endeavoured to oppress them to the uttermost. He therefore wrote a vindication df them, in a piece that was never published, entitled, " The Baptists' Complaint against the Persecuting Priests; in the introduction to which he thus expressed himself: " Although we acknowledge ourselves sundry ways obliged to honour many of the learned of the church of England ; yet, seeing some of them are so evidently of a persecuting spirit as that they daily seek our utter ruin, both by per- secuting us themselves, and by stirring up those that are in authority to trouble us, by imprisonment and seizure of our goods, we are therefore constrained to exhibit this our just complaint ; and the rather, becausewe have faithfully endeavoured to obtain peace and brotherly concord with them, both by our friendly deportment and by proposing, in a more public manner, such things in our ' Friendly * Crosby's Baptists, vol. ii. p. 241-244.
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