ust be silenced; and y^e poore people were so
vexed with apparators, & pursuants, & y^e comissarie courts, as truly
their affliction was not smale; which, notwithstanding, they bore
sundrie years with much patience, till they were occasioned (by y^e
continuance & encrease of these troubls, and other means which the Lord
raised up in those days) to see further into things by the light of y^e
word of God. How not only these base and beggerly ceremonies were
unlawfull, but also that y^e lordly & tiranous power of y^e prelats
ought not to be submitted unto; which thus, contrary to the freedome of
the gospell, would load & burden mens consciences, and by their
compulsive power make a prophane mixture of persons & things in the
worship of God. And that their offices & calings, courts & cannons, &c.
were unlawfull and antichristian; being such as have no warrante in y^e
word of God; but the same y^t were used in poperie, & still retained. Of
which a famous author thus writeth in his Dutch co[=m]taries.[I] At the
coming of king James into England; _The new king_ (saith he) _found
their established y^e reformed religion, according to y^e reformed
religion of king Edward y^e 6. Retaining, or keeping still y^e
spirituall state of y^e Bishops, &c. after y^e ould maner, much varying
& differing from y^e reformed churches in Scotland, France, & y^e
Neatherlands, Embden, Geneva, &c. whose reformation is cut, or shapen
much nerer y^e first Christian churches, as it was used in y^e Apostles
times._[J]

[6] So many therfore of these proffessors as saw y^e evill of these
things, in thes parts, and whose harts y^e Lord had touched w^th
heavenly zeale for his trueth, they shooke of this yoake of
antichristian bondage, and as y^e Lords free people, joyned them selves
(by a covenant of the Lord) into a church estate, in y^e felowship of
y^e gospell, to walke in all his wayes, made known, or to be made known
unto them, according to their best endeavours, whatsoever it should cost
them, the Lord assisting them. And that it cost them something this
ensewing historie will declare.

These people became 2. distincte bodys or churches, & in regarde of
distance of place did congregate severally; for they were of sundrie
townes & vilages, some in Notingamshire, some of Lincollinshire, and
some of Yorkshire, wher they border nearest togeather. In one of these
churches (besids others of note) was Mr. John Smith, a man of able
gifts, & a good preacher,