And in London all the Bishops’ houses were turned to be prisons, and they filled with Divines, that would not take the Covenant, or forbear reading Common Prayer, or that were accused for some faults like these.  For it may be noted, that about this time the Parliament set out a proclamation, to encourage all laymen that had occasion to complain of their Ministers for being troublesome or scandalous, or that conformed not to Orders of Parliament, to make their complaint to a committee for that purpose; and the Minister, though a hundred miles from London, should appear there, and give satisfaction, or be sequestered;—­and you may be sure no Parish could want a covetous, or malicious, or cross-grained complaint;—­by which means all prisons in London, and in some other places, became the sad habitations of conforming Divines.

And about this time the Bishop of Canterbury having been by an unknown law condemned to die, and the execution suspended for some days, many of the malicious citizens, fearing his pardon, shut up their shops, professing not to open them till justice was executed.  This malice and madness is scarce credible; but I saw it.

[Sidenote:  Mr. Thomas Brightman]

The Bishops had been voted out of the House of Parliament, and some upon that occasion sent to the Tower; which made many Covenanters rejoice, and believe Mr. Brightman[22]—­who probably was a good and well-meaning man—­to be inspired in his “Comment on the Apocalypse,” an abridgment of which was now printed, and called Mr. Brightman’s “Revelation of the Revelation.”  And though he was grossly mistaken in other things, yet, because he had made the Churches of Geneva and Scotland, which had no Bishops, to be Philadelphia in the Apocalypse, the Angel that God loved; Rev. iii. 7-13, and the power of Prelacy to be Antichrist, the evil Angel, which the House of Commons had now so spewed up, as never to recover their dignity; therefore did those Covenanters approve and applaud Mr. Brightman for discovering and foretelling the Bishops’ downfall; so that they both railed at them, and rejoiced to buy good pennyworths of their land, which their friends of the House of Commons did afford them, as a reward of their diligent assistance to pull them down.

[Sidenote:  Contentions]

And the Bishops’ power being now vacated, the common people were made so happy, as every Parish might choose their own Minister, and tell him when he did, and when he did not, preach true doctrine:  and by this and like means, several Churches had several teachers, that prayed and preached for and against one another:  and engaged their hearers to contend furiously for truths which they understood not; some of which I shall mention in the discourse that follows.

[Sidenote:  and contradictions]