same time placed under the special care of the bishops of the dioceses in which they settled, who, in some cases at least, as we have seen in the instance of Grindal, became their official superintendents. By this means they became amenable to the authority of the Ecclesiastical Commission; and at this time this authority took occasion to redress certain disorders among the Dutch Protestants in London, to compel certain members who had revolted from it to return, and to decree ' that the said Dutch Church should continue in its lirst constitution, under its own discipline hitherto accustomed, and in its conformity with other the Reformed Churches, confirming the ministers, elders, and deacons of the same Church in their ministries and administrations.' It then exhorted all strangers abiding in the City of London who professed Christ and His Gospel, to join themselves to that Church and submit to its holy appointments; and further declared all such as had made a defection from this Church, and had caused the late disturbance in it, to be unquiet and stubborn persons, until by repentance they had returned and gave satisfaction to God and His Church—reserving to themselves the further restraint and correction of them.[1]
- ↑ Strype, Annals, vol i. pt. ii. p. 250. Strype quotes this decree as given under the seal of the Commissioners on December 19, 1567.
He refers also to an instrument of Bishop Kinff, of London, nearly fifty years later, in which, after much laudation of the same body, and of a similar Church at Colchester, he enjoins that no member of the same churches that had offended, and thereby deserved their censures, should depart from these congregations and join themselves to any parish church, before he had either been censured for his offence, or had otherwise reconciled himself with his respective congregation.
A similar instance may be quoted from the State Papers for 1621, under dates January 21, September 25, and October 10, from which we learn that a certain Denis l'Ermite, a freeman of the city of Norwich, had left the Walloon congregation and attended an English church, and declined
