588, The HISTORY of` the PuRITAr*s. Chap. V°' K. Charles I. This book was no (ooner publifhed, than the Scots prefhyters declare& 1635, peremptorily againft it ; their objections were of two forts; they difliked Remarks. the matter of the canons, as inconfifent with their kirk government, and Cotlyer'r feverer in Come particulars than thofe of the church of England: they Éc.764- rít. protefaed alto again-ft the manner of impofng them, without confent of P. parliament orr general afl"embly. It was thought intolerable vafTalage, by a people who had afferted the independent power of the church to con- vene affemblies of the clergy, and who had maintained that their decrees were binding, without the confirmationof the crown ; to have the king and a few. foreign bishops diftate canons to them, without fo much as afk,ing their advice and confent. Such an high difplay of the fupremacy could not fail of being highly relented by a church; that had never yielded it to the king in the latitude in which it had been claimed and exercifed in England. Befides:it was very prepofterous to publifh the book of ca- nons before the book of common prayer, and to require fubmifìi'on and fubfcription to things that had no exiftence ;: for who could foretel what . might be inferted in the common-prayer-book? or what kind of fervice might be impofed upon the kirk ? This looked too much like pinning the_ faith of a whole nation on the lawn ficeves. Death and To return to England; towards the end of this year it pleafed God to rharater of remove out of this world the reverend Dr. Richard Sibbes,- one of the LQr.,Sibbes. moll celebrated preachers of this time. He was born at Sudbury 1579. and educated in St. 7oha's.College Cambridge, where he went through alt the degrees. Having entered into the miniflry, he was firft chofen . lecturer of Trinity church in Cambridge, where his miniftry was very fuc- cefsful, to the converfiou and reformation of his hearers. About the year 16I8. he was. appointed preacher to the honourable fociety of Gray's- Inn London, in which flation he became fo famous, that befides the law-. yers of the houfe,. many of the nobility and gentry frequented his fermons.. In the year 1625, he was chofen matter of Katherine Hall in the univer- fity of Cambridge, the government of which-he made a fhift to continue to his death, though he was turned out of his fellowfhip- andleclure in the univerfity for non-conformity, and.often cited before the high commifion.. He was á divine of good learning, thoroughly. acquainted with the fcrip- tures, a burning and fhining light, and of a moll humble charitable dil- pofition; but all,thefe talents could not Ikreen him from the fury of the tunes. His works difcover him. to have been of an heavenly evangelical fpirit, the comforts of whichhe enjoyed at his death, which happened the latter end of this fummer in the fifty-ninth year of his age. The archbi= To aggrandize the church yet further, the archbifhop refolved to bring ,lhoppromotes rt of the bufinefs of We min erHall into the ecclefiaflical courts. The the ba fnefi of l'.', the ectleja- civilian;bad boldly and unwarrantably oppofed-and protefted- againft'pro. Meal courts. bibitionS
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