Woryofthe Puritans, examin'd. 3 a their kind Reception had done. This Petition ' was gracioufly receiv'd, all the Aldermen knight- ' ed, and the Court within a Day or two remov'd ' to Whitehall.' Neal, p. 522. The Petitions againf the Bops, were confronted with others out of the Country in teeir favour. November i 8. The humble Petition ofthe Knights, Efquires, Gentlemen [and Houíholders in the County of Rutland, in behalfof themfelves and Families; omitted] and of the Parfons, Vicars and Citrates in Rutlandthire ; was prefented to the Houfe, praying for the continuance of Epifcopacy, as the only Government of Apoflolical Inflitution, fealed with the Blood of Martyrs, admirably fuited to the Civil Go- vernment of this Kingdom, and affirming, That no Presbyter laid on Hands without theBop. TheWords of the Petition ; * ' We humbly beg ' of you to leave us in that State the Apoftles left the Church in, that the three Ages of Martyrs were govern'd by, that the thirteen Ages lince them ' have always gloried in, by their Succeffion of ( Bithops fence the Apof les ; proving themfelves Members of the Apoflolick and Catholick Church ; , that our Laws have eftablifh'd, fo many Kings, and Parliaments have protedted; into which we were baptized, as certainlyAooiiolical, as the Ob- fervation of the Lord's-Day ; as the diftindion of Books Apocryphal and Canonical, as that fuch ' Books were written by fuch Evangelifts and Apo- files, as the Confecration of the Eucharift by Pref-. byters ; as any thing which you will do by the ' upholding of the Government of the Church by ' BJhops, which we again and again beg of you to do, having pity on our Confciences, and not for- cing us to leek Communion as yet we know not where. This Petition was fign'd by Knights, * A Colleaion of Petitions, printed for William Sbeares, í64r' r. if. Penes me. Nafon's Colieétions, Vol. II. p. 60. X 4 ' ]uftices,
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