Chap. VII. The HISTORY of the PURITANS. 293 " ing many had been brought from their ignorance and evil ways to a °¿ueen " better life, to. be frequent hearers of God's word, and their fervants E5S4eh, " were in better order than heretofore. am) " They then give his lordfhip to underftand, that their miniftry was 'e fufpended, and that they were as 'beep without a fhepherd, expofed to " manifold dangers, even to return to their former ignorance and curled " vanities: That the lord had fpoken it, and therefore it muff be true, " that where there is no vifion the people perifh. They therefore pray " his lordfhip, in the bowels of his compaflion, to pity them in their prefent mifery, and become a means that theymay enjoy their preacher " again." Upon this letter, lordBurleigh wrote to the bifhop to reflore him, pro- .4nd the lord mifing that if he troubled the congregation with innovations any more, treafurer, he would join with the bifhop againft him ; but his lordfhip excufed Eut in vain. himfelf, infnuating that he was charged with incontinence ; this occafion- ed a farther enquiry into Dyke's charaéler, which was cleared up by the woman herfelf that secured him, who confeffed her wicked contrivance, and openly afked him forgivenef .. His lordfhip therefore infifted upon his being reflored, forafmuch as the belt clergyman in the world might be thus flandered ; befides, the people at St. Albans had no teaching, hav- ing no curate but an infufficient doting old man. For this favour (lays the treafurer) I (hall thank your lordfhip, and will not folicit you any more, if hereafter he fhould give jolt caufe of publick offence, againft the orders of the church eflabli(hed. But all that the treafurer could fay was ineffeEtual ;. the bifhop of London was as inexorable as his grace of Canterbury. The inhabitants of Efex had a vafl efteem for their miniflers; they could not part from them without tears: When they could not prevail with the bifhop, they applied to the parliament, and to the lords of the privy council. I have before me two or three petitions from the hun- dreds of E/Jex, and one from the county, figned by Francis Barring- tan, Efq; at the head of above two hundred gentlemen and tradefinen, houle-keepers ; complaining in the flrongeft terms, that the greateft num- ber of their prefent minifters were unlearned, idle, or otherwife of fcan- dalous lives; and that thofe few from whom- they reaped knowledge and comfort, were molefted, threatened, and put to filence for fmall mat- ters in the Common Prayer, though they were men of godly lives and converfations.. The bifhop was equally fevere in other parts of his diocefe., The Rev. AP- Mr. Barnaby Beni Ion, a city divine of good learning, had been fufpend- T,°,°fr%uffer ed and kept in prifon ,feveral years, on pretence of fome irregularity in his tl%t; s. penes marriage The bifhop charged, him with being married in an afternoon, me.. and.
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