ed to the established discipline and worship; though
the episcopal clergy in England, during that age, seem to have been,
as they are at present, sufficiently learned and exemplary. An address
against episcopacy was presented by twelve clergymen to the committee of
religion, and pretended to be signed by many hundreds of the Puritanical
persuasion. But what made most noise was, the city petition for a total
alteration of church government; a petition to which fifteen thousand
subscriptions were annexed, and which was presented by Alderman
Pennington, the city member.[*] It is remarkable that, among the many
ecclesiastical abuses there complained of, an allowance given by the
licensers of books to publish a translation of Ovid's Art of Love, is
not forgotten by these rustic censors.[**]

Notwithstanding the favorable disposition of the people, the leaders in
the house resolved to proceed with caution. They introduced a bill
for prohibiting all clergymen the exercise of any civil office. As a
consequence, the bishops were to be deprived of their seats in the house
of peers; a measure not unacceptable to the zealous friends of liberty,
who observed with regret the devoted attachment of that order to the
will of the monarch. But when this bill was presented to the peers, it
was rejected by a great majority;[***] the first check which the commons
had received in their popular career, and a prognostic of what they
might afterwards expect from the upper house, whose inclinations and
interests could never be totally separated from the throne.

* Clarendon, vol. i. p. 203. Whitlocke, p. 37. Nalson, vol.
i. p. 666.

** Rush. vol. v. p. 171.

*** Clarendon, vol. i. p. 237.

But to show how little they were discouraged, the Puritans immediately
brought in another bill for the total abolition of episcopacy; though
they thought proper to let that bill sleep at present, in expectation of
a more favorable opportunity of reviving it.[*]

Among other acts of regal executive power which the commons were every
day assuming, they issued orders for demolishing all images, altars,
crucifixes. The zealous Sir Robert Harley, to whom the execution of
these orders was committed, removed all crosses even out of streets and
markets; and, from his abhorrence of that superstitious figure, would
not any where allow one piece of wood or stone to lie over another at
right angles.[**]

The bishop of Ely and other clergymen wer