[187] Neal (p. 632) has printed these canons imperfectly. They may be found at length in Nalson, i. 542. It is remarkable that the seventh canon expressly denies a corporal presence in the eucharist, which is quite contrary to what Laud had asserted in his speech in the star-chamber. His influence does not seem to have wholly predominated in this particular canon, which is expressed with a moderation of which he was incapable.
[188] Clarendon; Parl. Hist. 678, 896; Neal, 647, 720. These votes as to the canons, however, were carried nem. con. Journals, 16th Dec. 1640.
[189] Neal, 709. Laud and Wren were both impeached Dec. 18: the latter entirely for introducing superstitions. Parl. Hist. 861. He lay in the Tower till 1659.
[190] Neal says that the major part of the parliamentarians at the beginning of the war were for moderated episcopacy (ii. 4), and asserts the same in another place (i. 715) of the puritans, in contradiction of Rapin. "How this will go," says Baillie, in April 1641, "the Lord knows; all are for the creating of a kind of presbytery, and for bringing down the bishops in all things spiritual and temporal, so low as can be with any subsistence; but their utter abolition, which is the only aim of the most godly, is the knot of the question."—i. 245.
[191] Neal, 666, 672, 713; Collier, 805; Baxter's Life, p. 62. The ministers' petition, as it was called, presented Jan. 23, 1641, with the signatures of 700 beneficed clergymen, went to this extent of reformation. Neal, 679.
[192] Parl. Hist. 673; Clarendon, i. 356; Baillie's Letters, 218, etc. Though sanguine as to the progress of his sect, he admits that it was very difficult to pluck up episcopacy by the roots; for this reason they did not wish the house to give a speedy answer to the city petition. P. 241. It was carried by 36 or 37 voices, he says, to refer it to the committee of religion. P. 245. No division appears on the Journals.
The whole influence of the Scots commissioners was directed to this object; as not only Baillie's Letters, but those of Johnstone of Wariston (Dalrymple's Memorials of James and Charles I., ii. 114, etc.) show. Besides their extreme bigotry, which was the predominant motive, they had a better apology for interfering with church-government in England, with which the archbishop had furnished them: it was the only sure means of preserving their own.
[193] Rushworth; Nalson.
[194] Parl. Hist. 814, 822, 828. Clarendon tells us, that being chairman of the committee to whom this bill was referred, he gave it so much interruption, that no progress could be made before the adjournment. The house came, however, to a resolution, that the taking away the offices of archbishops, bishops, chancellors, and commissaries out of this church and kingdom, should be one clause of the bill. June 12. Commons' Journals.
[195] Lord Hertford presented one to the Lords, from Somersetshire, signed by 14,350 freeholders and inhabitants. Nalson, ii. 727. The Cheshire petition, for preserving the Common Prayer, was signed by near 10,000 hands. Id. 758. I have a collection of those petitions now before me, printed in 1642, from thirteen English and five Welsh counties, and all very numerously signed. In almost every instance, I observe, they thank the parliament for putting a check to innovations and abuses, while they deprecate the abolition of episcopacy and the liturgy. Thus it seems that the presbyterians were very far from having the nation on their side. The following extract from the Somersetshire petition is a good sample of the general tone: "For the present government of the church we are most thankful to God, believing it in our hearts to be the most pious and the wisest that any people or kingdom upon earth hath been withal since the apostles' days; though we may not deny but, through the frailty of men, and corruption of times, some things of ill consequence, and other needless, are stolen or thrust into it; which we heartily wish may be reformed, and the church restored to its former purity. And, to the end it may be the better preserved from present and future innovation, we wish the wittingly and maliciously guilty, of what condition soever they be, whether bishops or inferior clergy, may receive condign punishment. But, for the miscarriage of governors, to destroy the government, we trust it shall never enter into the hearts of this wise and honourable assembly."