"Upon the 3rd day of the eleventh month, commonly called January, the Church did, by election and holding up of hands, and by fasting and prayer, ordain Thomas Taylor, a publick preacher and member of the Church, after neare two yeares tryall and experience, unto the office of a pastor, and John Hayward, a member of the same Church, unto the office of a Deacon, at a very solemn and publick meeting, where were present the messengers sent from nine generall Churches, viz.: 1, Coggeshall, in the county of Essex; 2, Sudbury, that whereof Saml. Crossman is pastor; 3, two Churches in Ipswich, meeting at St. Peters (?) and Hellens; 4,——ham (?); 5, Weston; 6, Rattlesden; 7, Pulham; 8, H——en, both in the county of Norfolk; in which meeting the Church did also make a publick profession of their faith according to the foregoing copy, and had the unanimous, clear, and full concurrence of the spirits, judgments, and approbation of all the messengers, both as to their confession of faith, church-state, and order, not one dissenting; and did, at the same meeting, receive the right hand of fellowship from the Churches of Rattlesden, Weston, and Coggeshall: and the messengers from H——en and Pulham declared that the Church had formerly received the right hand of fellowship from them, at or soone after their first sitting down together in fellowship; and the messengers from ——ham, Sudbury, and Hellens, in Ipswich, promised, on the behalf of those Churches, that they would make report of our faith and order unto the Churches to whom they did belong, and to give us the right hand of fellowship at some convenient time, but could not then doe it because they had received no such power from the Church."

Additional Note on Ritualism.

The whole of this work was prepared and much of it printed before the present controversy on Ritualism arose. This will account for the omission in the early part of the first volume of any comparison between the Ritualism of Anglo-Catholics under the Stuarts, and the Ritualism of Anglo-Catholics at the present day. Judging from ceremonial worship now performed in certain quarters, and from the publications of persons who represent the party, we may say that Archbishop Laud never attempted to go so far in the adoption of Roman Catholic rites and vestments as his modern successors have done.


INDEX.

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