Chap. XI. 7he HIS T 0 R Y of tbe PuRITANS. 753 confcience in a caufe which had nothing in this world to recommend King it but truth, attended with bonds and imprifonment, and the lofs of all Ja~~6.H· thing~. ,_,~ Great were the oppreflions of thofe who frequented tbeJeparate meet- Progrefl of ' ing·s in feveral counties; the informers broke in upon Sir John Hartoppe, t~e perfecu· Mr. Fleetwood, and others at Stoke-Newington, to levy diil:reJT~s for con. ~:~~my, p. venticles, to the value of fix or feven thoufand pounds; the !tke at En- 372, 3 7 3. field, Hackney, and all the neighbouring villages near London. The juf– tices and confiding clergy were equally diligent in their feveral parilhes. In– junCtions were fent out from feveral of the bilhops under the feal of thtir offices, requiring all church-wardens to prefent fuch, as did not re– pair to church, nor receive the facrament at Eajler; which were read pub– licly in the churches of Hertjordjhire, E/fex, &c. And the juries at the ailizes gave it as their opinion, that the di!lenters lhould be effectually profecuted ; but the fcandalous villanies and perjuries of the ir!formers, made wife men abhor the trade; however, fo terrible were the times, that many families and minifiers removed with their effeets to New- Eng– land, and other plantations in America; among whom we may reckon the reverend and worthy Mr. Samuel Lee, the ejected minifier of Bi– Jbot:Jgate, who in his return to his flock, after the revolution, was made prifonF by the french, and carried to St. Maloes, where he perilhed in a dungeon, under the hands of thofe whqfo tender mercies are cruel. Ma– ny minifiers were fined and imprifoned, and great numbers of their mofl: fubfhntial hearers cited into the commoi2S, their names being fixed upon the doors of their pari(h churches, and if they did not appear, an excom– munication and a capias followed, unlefs they found means, by prefents of wine, by gold in the fingers of a pair of gloves, or fome effectual bribe, to get themlelves excufed ; for which among others, the name of Dr. Pi1ifold is famous to this day. The diffent~rs continued t_o take the ~oft prudent meafures, to cover their Methods of private meetlllgs from thetr adverfanes. They afTembled in fmall num- the d!ffinters bers -- they frequently lhifted their places of worlhip, and met toge- to c&n,·eal · ther late in the evenings, or early in the mornings - there were friends :tmr meet- . h d I h h . . f h' d 1/IUS, wit out oars, a ways on t e watc to gtve nol!ce o approac wg angero when the dwellings of diifenters joined, they made windows or holes in the walls, that the preachers voice might be heard in two or three houfes - they had (ometimes private paifages from one houfe to another, and trap dvors for the efcape of the minifier, who went always in difguife, eX'Cept when he was difcharging his office- in country towns and villages they were admitted through back yards and gardens into the houfe, to avoid the obfervation of neighbours and paffengers-'-for the fame reafon they never fung pfalms-and the minifier was placed in fuch an inward part of the houfe, that his voice might not be heard in the ftreets-the doors were alVoL, li, 5 D ways
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