The case was this. Parliament, which, ever since the first meeting of it, had shown a marked disaffection to Surplices at Allhallowtide and ‘monuments of Superstition and Idolatry,’ and passed Order after Order to put them down,—has in August last come to a decisive Act on the subject, and specifically explained that go they must and shall.[1] Act of Parliament which, like the previous Orders of Parliament, could only have gradual partial execution, according to the humour of the locality; and gave rise to scenes. By the Parliament’s directions, the Priest, Churchwardens, and proper officers were to do it, with all decency: failing the proper officers, improper officers, military men passing through the place, these and suchlike, backed by a Puritan populace and a Puritan soldiery, had to do it;—-not always in the softest manner. As many a Querela, Peter Heylin’s (lying Peter’s) History, and Persecutio Undecima, still testifies with angry tears. You cannot pull the shirt off a man, the skin off a man, in a way that will please him!—Our Assembly of Divines, sitting earnestly deliberative ever since June last,[2] will direct us what Form of Worship we are to adopt,—some form, it is to be hoped, not grown dramaturgic to us, but still awfully symbolic for us. Meanwhile let all Churches, especially all Cathedrals, be stript of whatever the general soul so much as suspects to be stage-property and prayer by machinery,—a thing we very justly hold in terror and horror, and dare not live beside!—
Ely Cathedral, it appears, had still been overlooked,—Ely, much troubled with scandalous ministers, as well as with disaffected trainbands—and Mr. Hitch, under the very eyes of Oliver, persists in his Choir-service there. Here accordingly is an official Note, copies of which still sleep in some repositories.
- ↑ 28th August 1643 (Scobell, i. 53; Commons Journals, iii. 220): 2d November 1642 (Commons Journals, and Hushands, ii. 119): 31st August 1641): 23d January 1641 (Commons Journals, in diebus).
- ↑ Bill for convocation of them, read a third time, 6th January 1642-3 (Commons Journals, ii, 916); Act itself, with the Names, 13th June 1643 (Scobell, i. 42-4).
