e attacked on account of
innovations.[***] Cozens, who had long been obnoxious, was exposed
to new censures. This clergyman, who was dean of Peterborough, was
extremely zealous for ecclesiastical ceremonies: and so far from
permitting the communicants to break the sacramental bread with their
fingers, a privilege on which the Puritans strenuously insisted, he
would not so much as allow it to be cut with an ordinary household
instrument. A consecrated knife must perform that sacred office, and
must never afterwards be profaned by any vulgar service.[****]

Cozens likewise was accused of having said, "The king has no more
authority in ecclesiastical matters, than the boy who rubs my horse's
heels."[v] The expression was violent: but it is certain that all
those high churchmen, who were so industrious in reducing the laity
to submission, were extremely fond of their own privileges and
independency, and were desirous of exempting the mitre from all
subjection to the crown.

* Clarendon, vol. i. p. 237.

** Whitlocke, p. 45.

*** Rush. vol. v. p. 351.

**** Rush. vol. v. p. 203.

v Parl. Hist. vol. vii. p. 282. Rush. vol. v. p. 209.

A committee was elected by the lower house as a court of inquisition
upon the clergy, and was commonly denominated the committee of
"scandalous ministers." The politicians among the commons were apprised
of the great importance of the pulpit for guiding the people; the bigots
were enraged against the prelatical clergy; and both of them knew that
no established government could be overthrown by strictly observing the
principles of justice, equity, or clemency. The proceedings, therefore,
of this famous committee, which continued for several years, were
cruel and arbitrary, and made great havoc both on the church and the
universities. They began with harassing, imprisoning, and molesting the
clergy; and ended with sequestrating and ejecting them. In order to
join contumely to cruelty, they gave the sufferers the epithet of
"scandalous," and endeavored to render them as odious as they were
miserable.[*] The greatest vices, however, which they could reproach
to a great part of them, were, bowing at the name of Jesus, placing the
communion table in the east, reading the king's orders for sports on
Sunday, and other practices which the established government, both in
church and state, had strictly enjoined them.

It may be worth observing, that all historians who liv