A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



Thedwastre, with Bury St. Edmunds, meeting at Bury; (12) the Hundred 

 of Cosford with certain parishes of Babergh Hundred, meeting at Bilston ; 

 (13) the rest of the Hundred of Babergh, with Sudbury, meeting at Laven- 

 ham ; and (14) the Hundred of Risbridge, meeting at Clare. 



It soon, however, becomes quite clear that though Presbyterianism 

 predominated in many parts of the county, this elaborate scheme for regu- 

 lating religious worship, with its stern form of discipline, existed chiefly on 

 paper. The ' sectaries ' had succeeded in upsetting for a time church 

 government, but their attempts to build up any generally accepted substitute 

 in its place were complete failures. The Independents or Congregationalists 

 began to make headway, and in many parishes there was a resolute under- 

 current in favour of the old episcopacy. 



The melancholy petition of the ministers of the counties of Suffolk 

 and Essex concerning church government was presented to the Houses of 

 Parliament on 29 May, 1646. It was ordered by the Lords to be printed, 

 together with the respective answers of both Lords and Commons; it 

 appeared in a small quarto form of eight pages on i June, I646. 1 The 

 petition took a singularly gloomy view of the state of religion and morals, 

 notwithstanding the abolishment of episcopacy and the stripping of the 

 churches. 



The pressing miseries of the orthodox and well-affected ministers and people in the 

 county cry aloud to your honours for a settling of church government according to the 

 Word. From the want of this it is that the name of the most high God is blasphemed, 

 his precious truths corrupted ; his Word despised, his ministers discouraged, his ordinances 

 vilified. Hence it is that schisme, heresie, ignorance, prophanenesse, and atheisme flow 

 in upon us, seducers multiply, grow daring and insolent, pernicious books poyson many 

 souls, piety and learning decay apace, very many congregations ly waste without pastours, 

 the Sacrament of Baptisme by many neglected and by many reiterated, the Lord's Supper 

 generally disused or exceedingly prophaned, confusion and ruine threatening us in all our 

 quarters. 



The petitioners therefore prayed for the establishment by civil sanction 

 of a form of church government ' according to the Word of God, and the 

 example of the best reformed churches,' and that all schismatics, heretics, 

 and soul-subverting books be effectually suppressed. 



To this petition the names of 163 Suffolk ministers were attached, or 

 less than a third of the whole number, supposing each parish had a minister. 

 Those who signed probably represented the full number of Suffolk ministers 

 sincerely attached to a Presbyterian form of worship. Parliament replied 

 to this petition in a few set phrases of thanks, and stated that the objects 

 the petitioners had in view were under their consideration. The only 

 apparent result was the printing, under the signature of Manchester, in the 

 following April of elaborate lists of ministers and elders nominated for each 

 of the fourteen classic divisions. 



In pursuance of various ordinances of the Parliament a complete survey 

 of all benefices was made in 1650 by special commissioners. Most of these 

 surveys are preserved at Lambeth Library, where they are bound up in 

 twenty-one large folio volumes. The returns for Suffolk contain a variety 



1 B. M. King's Pamphlets, E. 339. 

 44 



