When Lathrop was present before the Commissioners, the Bishop, after having asked some very insulting questions, demanded, "Where are your orders?" to which Lathrop replied--"I am a minister of the Gospel of Christ, and the Lord hath qualified me." "Will you lay your hand on the book, and take your oath?" enquired the Court; to which question the minister returned a distinct negative. The following curious conversation between the Commissioners and certain accused parties is worth being transcribed. Eaton, together with "two women and a maid," appeared, and were asked by the Court why they were assembled in a conventicle, when others were at church? [Sidenote: _Persecution of Congregationalists._] _Eaton._ "We were not assembled in contempt of the magistrate." _London._ "No! it was in contempt of the Church of England." _Eaton._ "It was in conscience to God (may it please this Honourable Court); and we were kept from church, for we were confined in the house together by those that beset the house, else divers would have gone to church, and many came in after the sermons were done." _London._ "These were first discovered at Lambeth, and then at other places, and now taken here; they have in their meetings books printed against the Church of England." _Archbishop of Canterbury._ "Where were you in the mornings before you came hither to this house?" [_Eaton._] "We were in our own families." _Canterbury._ "What did you?" _Eaton._ "We read the Scriptures, and catechised our families; and may it please this honourable Court to hear us speak the truth, we will shew you what was done, and (free us of the contempt of authority) we did nothing but what you will allow us to do." _London._ "Who can free you? These are dangerous men; they are a scattered company sown in all the City, and about St. Michael of the Querne, St. Austin's, Old Jury, Redriffe, and other remoter places. Hold them the book." _Eaton._ "I dare not swear, nor take this oath, though I will not refuse it; I will consider of it." _Sir Henry Marten._[454] "Hear, hear! You shall swear but to answer what you know, and as far as you are bound by law. You shall have time to consider of it, and have it read over and over till you can say it without book if you will; when you have first taken your oath that you will make a true answer." [Sidenote: 1632, May.] _Eaton._ "I dare not; I know not what I shall swear to." _King's Advocate._[455] "It is to give a true answer to articles put into the Court against you, or that shall be put in touching this conventicle of yours, and divers your heretical tenets, and what words and exercises you used, and things of this nature." _Eaton._ "I dare not." _Archbishop of Canterbury._ "What say you, woman?" _Sara Jones._ "I dare not worship God in vain." _Bishop of London._ "Will you not swear and take an oath when you are called to it by the magistrate?"