ECCLESIASTICAL
HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
The Church of the Restoration.
BY
JOHN STOUGHTON, D.D.
IN TWO VOLUMES—VOL. I.
London:
HODDER AND STOUGHTON,
27, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
MDCCCLXX.
UNWIN BROTHERS, PRINTERS,
BUCKLERSBURY, AND CANNON ST. E.C.
ADVERTISEMENT.
The object of my former volumes upon the Ecclesiastical History ofEngland was to state facts and to draw conclusions, without seeking togratify any particular party, and by such a method to promote the causeof Christian truth and charity. Acknowledgments of success to someextent, expressed by public critics, and by private friends, holdingvery different ecclesiastical opinions, encourage me to proceed in myarduous but agreeable task; and I now venture to lay before the publicanother instalment of my work.
To account for its appearance so soon after its predecessor, itis but fair to my readers and myself to state, that it became thedream and desire of my life, a quarter of a century ago, to write anEcclesiastical History of my own country; and that, ever since, myreading and my reflections have been directed very much into thischannel. For many years past, I have been engaged in studying theaffairs of the Church from the Commonwealth to the Revolution; andtherefore, whatever may be the imperfections of these volumes, theyare not, at any rate, a hasty compilation, but the result of long andlaborious research.
It may be well to indicate the sources from which my materials aredrawn.
The printed Journals of the Lords and Commons,—the ParliamentaryHistory of England,—Cardwell's Synodalia,—Thurloe's StatePapers,—and other similar collections, which did not exist in thedays of Kennet, Collier, and Neal,—supply, together with Burnet'sand Baxter's contemporary accounts, the backbone of the followingnarrative. Journals, diaries, and biographies of the period, withnewspapers and tracts, of which extraordinarily rich collections arefound in the British Museum and in Dr. Williams' Library, have helpedto clothe the skeleton. But the sources of illustration, upon which Irest some slight claim to originality, are found in certain unpublishedMSS. which it has been my privilege to examine and employ.
I. Amongst these the first place belongs to the Collection of Papersin the Record Office. Besides the assistance furnished by thepublished calendars of Mrs. Green, extending from 1660 to 1667, I havebeen favoured with the use of that lady's unpublished notes down tothe close of 1669; these helps have greatly facilitated my inquiriesinto the history of the first decade embraced within these volumes.From that period to the Revolution, I have been left with no other cluethan the Office catalogue of the books and bundles chronologicallyarranged; and all the documents which I could find bearing on domesticaffairs—and they amount to many hundreds—I have carefully examined.Although