Ecclesiastical History of England, Volume 2—The Church of the CommonwealthStoughton, John
History
Ecclesiastical History of England, Volume 2—The Church of the Commonwealth
Stoughton, John
Great Britain -- Church history
the method adopted by Sanderson. He advised that when the whole Liturgy
could not be read, as much of it should be used as possible without
any alteration.[352] One of his papers, dated 1656, preserved in the
Westminster Chapter Library, contains an argument against communicating
with the Presbyterian or other sects: most uncharitably and unjustly
he inferred--from their doctrine of justification by faith, which
he quite misunderstood--that they could not "think themselves tied
to live as Christians," or, as he added, to repent and return to
that Christianity which they had forfeited. And beside this--fearing
that the sects would swallow up the Church, which they had broken
in pieces--he warned Churchmen against in any way owning Puritan
teachers or frequenting Puritan sermons, whatever danger there might
be of temporal penalties in pursuing a different path, or whatever
"difficulty of finding what course to take."[353]
[Sidenote: _Evelyn's Diary._]
As to the inner life of persecuted Episcopalianism, "Evelyn's Diary"
affords information beyond, perhaps, any other contemporary production.
A sequestered and learned minister preached in Evelyn's parlour and
administered the blessed sacrament, when, according to Episcopal usage,
it was "wholly out of use in the parish churches." He heard once the
Common Prayer read[354] ("a rare thing in those days") in St. Peter's,
at Paul's Wharf, London; and in the morning of the same day he listened
to the preaching of "the Archbishop of Armagh--that pious person and
learned man, Ussher--in Lincoln's Inn Chapel." On a Christmas day there
was no sermon anywhere, no church being permitted to be open, so the
diarist observed it at home. The next day he went to Lewisham, where
"an honest Divine delivered a discourse."[355]
Now and then an "honest orthodox man" ascended the pulpit of Evelyn's
parish church, and although the Incumbent was "somewhat of the
Independent," yet "he ordinarily preached sound doctrine and was a
peaceable man, which was an extraordinary felicity in that age." Once
Evelyn heard a person who "had been both chaplain and lieutenant to
Admiral Penn, and who thus, as he says, used "both swords."[356]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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