July, 1656. There was a dispute about the use of Wells Cathedral. It had been ordered that the cathedral should be used for public worship by the inhabitants of the parish of St. Cuthbert, but this was impeded by Dr. Cornelius Burgess, who had got himself into the actual possession of the church, locking and barring the doors, so that no entrance could be obtained; in consequence of which many gentlemen had refused to pay subscriptions promised for the repair of the cathedral.—State Papers Dom. Interreg. Council Book.
[220] Arrangements made with regard to Westminster Abbey at an earlier period appear in the first volume. There are entries in the minute book of the Parliamentary Committee preserved in Sion College Library, relating to the appointment of Obadiah Sedgwick, December, 1649, in the room of Mr. Marshall; to the payment of arrears of salary to Nye as Sunday morning Lecturer, Term Lecturer, and Weekly morning Lecturer, and to Mr. Strong as minister of the abbey. It is to be remembered that Owen, Goodwin, and Baxter preached on certain occasions in the same edifice.
[221] Foxe.
[222] Strype's Annals, iii., part ii. 106.
[223] Ivimey's History of the Baptists, i. 109.
[224] Tracts on Liberty of Conscience, ii. 24, 51.
[225] I have introduced this letter, and other particulars, from the "Yarmouth Corporation Records," because, so far as I am aware, they have never before been published.
[226] Mr. Gould, in the introduction to his Report of St. Mary's Chapel Case, supplies an interesting instance in his account of the Church at Norwich. See p. xv.
[227] Helwisse, (or Helwys), the author of this document, was at the time living in Holland. Soon afterwards, Crosby tells us he and his Church left Amsterdam, and removed to London.—History of English Baptists, i. 272. They are believed to have constituted the first Arminian or general Baptist Church in England.—Evan's Early English Baptists, i. 225. These persons do not appear to have regarded immersion as the proper and only mode of administering the ordinance. Robinson's Works, iii. 461. Two sorts of Baptists are alluded to in the Mercurius Rusticus, the Aspersi and the Immersi.—Evans, ii. 53.
[228] Crosby, vol. i., appendix 7, gives 1646 as the date, but at p. 66 he says it was published in 1644. A second edition appeared in 1646, from which, probably, Crosby took his copy.