Petition 1 - Page 1

Their Petition to the Council follows.

My Lords of Secret Council,

UNto your Lordships humbly shews: We Noblemen, Barons, Ministers
Burgesses , and Commons; That whereas we were in humble and quiet
manner attending a gracious answer of our former supplications against the
Service-Book imposed upon us, and ready to shew the great inconveniences
which up the introduction thereof must ensue, we are without any known
desert, far by our expectation, surprised and charged by publick Proclamation
to depart out of the town within twenty four hours thereafter, under pain of
Rebellion; by which peremptory and unusual charge, our fears of a more severe
and strict course of proceeding are augmented, and course of our supplication in-
terrupted: wherefore we are constrained, out of the deep grief of our hearts, hum-
by to remonstrate, that whereas the Archbishops and Bishops of this Realm,
being instructed by His Majesty with the government of the affairs of the
Church of Scotland, have drawn up and set forth, and caused to be drawn
up and set forth, injoyned upon the subjects two Books; In the one
whereof, called The Book of Common-Prayer, not only are sown the seeds
of divers Superstitions, Idolatry, and false doctrine, contrary to the true Re-
ligion established within this Realm by divers Acts of Parliament; But also
the Service-Book of England is abused, especially in the matter of Commu-
nion, by additions, substractions, interchanging of words and sentences, falsify-
ing of titles, and misplacing of Collects, to the disadvantage of Reformation,
as the Romish-Mass is, in the more substantial points, made up therein, as we
offer to instruct in time and place convenient, quite contrary unto and for re-
versing the gracious intention of the * Blessed Reformers of Religion in
England. In the other Book called Canons and Constitutions for the
Government of the Church of Scotland, they have ordained, That whoso-
ever shall affirm that the form of Worship inserted in the Book of Common-
Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, (whereof heretofore and now
we most justly complain,) doth contain any thing repugnant to the Scriptures,
or are currupt, superstitious, or unlawful in the service and worship of God,
shall be excommunicated, and not be restored but by the Bishop of the place, or
Archbishop of the Province, after his repentance and publick revocation of this
his wicked errour; besides one hundred Canons more, many of them tending to
the reviving and fostering of the abolished supertitions and errours, and to the
overthrow of our Church-Discipline established by Acts of Parliament, opening
a door for what further invention of Religion they please to make and stopping
the way which Law before did allow unri us for suppressing of errour and super-
stition; and ordaining. That where in any of the Canons there is no penalty
expressly set down, the punishment shall be arbitrary as the Bishop shall think
fittest: all which Canons were never seen nor allowed in any General Assembly,
but are imposed contrary to order of Law, appointed in this Realm for esta-
blishing Constitions Ecclesiastical; unto which two Books, the foresaid Pre-
lates have under trust procured His Majesties Royal Hand and Letters Pa-
tents, for pressing the same upon His Loyal Subjects, and are the contrivers
and devisers of the same, as doth clearly appear by the Frontispiece of the
Book of Common-Prayer, and have begun to urge the acceptance of the same,
not only by injunctions given in Provincial Assemblies, but also by open Pro-
clamation.