The above narrative points to the difficulties surrounding the controversy, when lifted out of the sphere of abstract truth, as studied by divines and philosophers in their closets, into the arena of political and financial debate; where practical men have to deal not only with first principles, or even with statute laws and long established usages; but also with a large amount of property which for generations the State has held in trust for religious uses.
[57] See Clarendon's statements in his Hist. of Rebellion, 795, and those of Baxter, in his Life and Times, i. 70. The question with regard to a Commission of Triers is thus unfairly represented by the latter: "It was put to the vote whether all the parish ministers of England should at once be put down or no. And it was but accidentally carried in the negative by two voices." Clarendon goes so far as to say: "They resolved the function itself to be antichristian, and the persons to be burdensome to the people."
[58] It was mooted at Norwich "whether it be fit to draw a petition to the Parliament that the cathedral may be given to the city for a stock for the poor."—Corporation Records, date 19th March, 1650.
From an extract of a petition in Manship's History of Yarmouth, p. 394, it appears that the townspeople "begged such a part of the lead and other useful material of that vast and altogether useless cathedral in Norwich, towards building a workhouse, to employ our starving poor, and repairing our piers."
[59] See Thurloe, i. 519, 523. We must leave the political historian to describe how far Cromwell influenced the resignation.
[60] Sterry was one of Cromwell's chaplains.
[61] Thurloe, i. 621.
[62] Cunningham's Handbook of London.
[63] State Papers, Dom., Interreg., Dec., 1653.
[64] Thurloe, i. 641. It is added in a postscript: "I am just now assured, and from one that you may believe, that Harrison, Vavasour Powell, and Mr. Feake, have been all this day before his highness and council; and that Powell and Feake are this evening sent to prison, and Harrison hath his commission taken from him."