therewith, and testified against it, as flowing from that blasphemous
supremacy and absolute power, which the king had assumed, were most
severely handled, and their assemblies for public worship interdicted
under the highest pains. A second indulgence was framed in the year
1672, in which net they expected to inclose such as the first had not
caught. By this, liberty was granted to a number of non-conformed
ministers, named by the council, not yet indulged, to exercise their
ministry in such places as the council thought fit to ordain and appoint
them, conforming themselves to the rules given by the council to those
that were formerly indulged, besides other restrictions, wherewith this
new liberty was clogged. And, as one special design of the court, in
granting both the first and this second indulgence, was to put an
effectual stop to the meetings of the LORD'S people, ludicrously called
by them field conventicles, so they took occasion, on account of their
contempt of this their indulgence and liberty, to prosecute all such as
kept, or attended on, these meetings, in a more merciless and furious
manner. This indulgence was accepted by many ministers; and part
thereof, by others, represented as a grievance, and redress required.
But although nothing of this kind was obtained, yet it was fallen in
with and accepted by most of those who subscribed the remonstrance
against it; and those few who rejected it, and continued faithfully to
discharge their official trust in the open fields, without coming under
any of these sinful restrictions, became, more especially, the butt of
their enemies' malice and tyranny, were more vigorously prosecuted, and
such as were suspected or convicted of attending on their field
meetings, were fined in an exorbitant manner, and ministers imprisoned,
when they could be apprehended. And because these field meetings, the
great eye-sore of the prelates, still increased, they prevailed with the
council 1674, to take more special notice of the preachers at said
meetings, who appointed a committee for that effect, and ordered their
chancelor to send out parties to apprehend certain of them, according to
their direction. And the same year, a bond was imposed, binding and
obliging tenants, that if they, their wives, or any of their children,
cottars or servants, should keep or be present at any conventicles,
either in houses or fields, that every tenant laboring land be fined for
each house conventicl