Many puritan ministers who had livings in Suffolk were prosecuted for neglect or variations in the performance of the public service. Upon this some of the justices of the peace, and other gentry in that county, made a complaint to the privy council; thus declaring their grievance: “We see, right honourable, by too long and lamentable experience, that the state of the church (_especially in our parts_) groweth every day more sick than other; and they whom it most concerneth have been so careless in providing the means, as the hope of her recovery waxeth almost desperate . . . These towers of Zion, the painful pastors and ministers of the word, by what malice we know not,—they are marshalled with the worst malefactors, presented, indicted, arraigned, and condemned, for matters, as we presume, of very slender moment.” {64b} Valuable testimony, since it was borne by men who, nevertheless, avowed, in the very same document, their detestation of the name and heresy of puritanism. The translation of Dr. Whitgift to the see of Canterbury, {65a} was the signal for augmented rigour. He was charged by the queen to restore religious uniformity, which she confessed, notwithstanding all her precautions, had “run out of square.” {65b} Canute had rebuked the profanity and folly of those who desired him to attempt the repression of the flowing tide. Elizabeth challenged to herself the right to bind, with the fetters of a statute, the immortal spirit. Losing sight of the true nature of religion, and regarding it only as a piece of state machinery, she sought to bend it to her despotic will, and wondered that it continually escaped from her grasp, and scorned her fury. His Grace forthwith furnished the bishops of his province with certain articles for the government of their dioceses, by which all preaching, catechising, and praying in private families, where any were present besides the family, were prohibited; and it was required, that all preachers should wear the habits prescribed, and that none should be admitted to preach, or execute any part of the ecclesiastical function, unless they subscribed the three following articles:— “1. That the queen hath and ought to have the sovereignty and rule over all manner of persons born within her dominions, of what condition soever they be; and that none other power or potentate hath or ought to have any _power_, _ecclesiastical_ or civil, within her realms or dominions. “2. That the Book of Common Prayer, and of ordaining bishops, priests, and deacons, _containeth nothing contrary to the word of God_, but may be lawfully used, and that _he himself will use the same_, _and none other_, in public prayer and administration of the sacraments. “3. That he alloweth the Book of Articles agreed upon in the convocation holden at London in 1562, and set forth by her Majesty’s authority; and he believeth _all the articles_ therein contained _to be agreeable to the word of God_.” {67a}