Sir Christopher Wren: His Family and His Times: With Original Letters and a Discourse on Architecture Hitherto Unpublished. 1585-1723.Phillimore, Lucy
History
Sir Christopher Wren: His Family and His Times: With Original Letters and a Discourse on Architecture Hitherto Unpublished. 1585-1723.
Phillimore, Lucy
Great Britain -- History -- Stuarts, 1603-1714 -- Biography; Wren family; Wren, Christopher, Sir, 1632-1723
Knolles' quaint 'Historie of the Turks' shows that they even made
descents on the western coasts of England and carried off men, women,
and children into slavery. In 1636, with some of the much-grudged
'ship-money,' a very successful expedition was made under Lord
Rainsborough against Sallee, which resulted in the release of large
numbers of captives and a promise from the Moorish king to suppress
Christian slavery. It is significant that the real leader of the
expedition was John Dunton, a reformed renegade taken _off the Isle of
Wight_ in command of a Sallee ship. He was tried and condemned, but
saved his life by offering to show the assailable points of the Barbary
ports, and sailed as master on Lord Rainsborough's ship.[15]
['_RECONCILIATION OF A RENEGADO._']
The 'Form of Penance and Reconciliation of a Renegado or Apostate from
the Christian Religion to Turcism,'[16] which Wren and Laud prepared
together, is a very striking one. First came the solemn excommunication,
then for two Sundays the penitent came to the door of his parish church
in a white sheet carrying a white wand, craving the prayers of all 'good
Christians for a poor wretched renegado;' on the second Sunday he was
allowed to enter and kneel by the font and pray to be 'restored to the
rights and benefits of the blessed sacrament which I have so wickedly
abjured,' and then return to the church porch as before. On the third
Sunday, when the Apostles' creed had been said, after being publicly put
in mind of his sin, and advised 'that a slight and ordinary sorrow is
not enough for so grievous an offence,' the penitent, kneeling eastward,
and bowing to the very pavement, was to confess his sin and declare his
sorrow and repentance, and to ask the prayers of the congregation. Also
to 'thank God for His mercies, especially for the divine ordinance of
His Holy Sacraments, and of His heavenly power committed to His Holy
Priests, in His Church for the reconciliation of sinners unto Himself
and the absolving them from all their iniquity.'
'Then,' says the rubric, 'let the Priest come forth to him, and
stand over him, and laying his hand on his head, say, as is
prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer, thus:--
Our Lord Jesus Christ, who has left power to his Church to absolve
all sinners which truly repent and believe in Him, of His great
mercy forgive thee thine offences; and, by His authority committed
unto me, I absolve thee from this thy heinous crime of
renunciation, and from all thy other sins, in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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