ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



Cromwell from the Quakers lying in Horsham gaol namely, Thomas 

 Patching, Bryan Wilkason, and John Fursby. committed for having certain 

 books written by Quakers ; Ninian Brockett, imprisoned for not swearing at 

 the county sessions ; Nicholas Rickman, committed by the mayor of Arundel 

 for writing a copy of a certain paper, and Rickman's wife the commissioners, 

 Methuselah Turner, Richard Eccleston, and John Fenton, appointed to 

 inquire into the matter declared the commitments to be contrary to law, 

 especially ' because the whole process seemeth to be a prejudice received for 

 matter of opinion in worship.' 289 



The Restoration of Charles II in 1660, though it brought no relief to 

 the Quakers, 290 caused many of their late oppressors to suffer in their turn. 

 The number of Sussex ministers who were ejected or resigned their livings 

 on or before St. Bartholomew's Day, 1662, rather than accept the Act of 

 Uniformity was very large, being over sixty, or something like a quarter of 

 the beneficed clergy in the county. 291 Noteworthy amongst them was 

 Dr. Cheynell, who has been already mentioned as head of the Sussex 

 Puritan ministry, and who obtained an unpleasant notoriety by his un- 

 charitable and insulting words at the funeral of his great opponent William 

 Chillingworth, when the latter died at Chichester as the result of privations 

 suffered during the siege of Arundel ; Cheynell's behaviour on this occasion 

 may probably be attributed to one of the fits of mental aberration to which 

 he was subject. 292 John Stonestreet, ejected from Lindfield, was one of the 

 Congregational ministers who met at the Savoy in 1658 to draw up their 

 ' confession of Faith ' ; another Congregational was Walter Postlethwayt, of 

 St. Michael's, Lewes, who ' was in the fifth Monarchy notion,' but conformed 

 in i66o. 293 Many of the ministers on losing their livings started schools, 

 as William Wilson of Billingshurst, Edmund Thorp of Sedlescombe, who 

 had the education of the sons of three conforming clergy one of his 

 pupils subsequently attaining notoriety as the infamous Titus Gates 

 and Joseph Bennet of Brightling, who so gained the goodwill of the people 

 by standing by them in 1665 during the outbreak of the Plague, when 

 the incumbent fled from the parish, that no one would execute upon him 

 the Act requiring ejected ministers to live not less than five miles from 

 their old cures. 



The above-mentioned Thorp and Bennet appear to have been the first 

 persons 29 * in Sussex to avail themselves of the Act of 1672 by which penalties 

 for nonconformity were suspended, and meetings for divine service permitted 

 in houses for which licences had been obtained. A considerable number of 

 these licences were applied for in this county, nineteen being for Presbyterians, 

 eleven for Congregationalists and Independents, and four for Baptists. 296 The 

 Quakers, not considering it lawful to apply to the State for permission to 

 worship, did not profit by this Act, which was repealed in 1673 under pressure 

 from the orthodox clergy. 



*" S. P. Dam. Interregnum, cliii, 11-16. 



190 One of the best known, the celebrated William Penn, who married a Sussex woman and lived for some 

 time at Warminghurst, had to invoke the earl of Dorset's protection against two justices, Henry Goring and 

 Col. Alford, who were trying to make his living in Sussex une.isy, in 1671 ; Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. iv, 298. 

 91 For list and particulars see Calamy, Lift of Baxter, ii, 673 et seq. 



W1 See Suss.drch. Coll. xxxi, 184. >M Calamy, op. cit. 675. 



194 They applied for licences in April, 1672 : Cal. S.P. Dam. 1672, p. 319. 



195 Cal. S.P. Dam. 1672-3, pref. xliii, xliv. 



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