Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland : with a view of the primary causes and movements of the Thirty Years' War, 1618-19

This was not It so happened that there were some English Puritans living at that moment in Leyden. They formed an independent society by themselves, which they called a Congregational Church, and in which were some three hundred communicants. The length of their residence there was almost exactly coeval with the Twelve Years' Truce. They knew before leaving England that many relics of the Roman ceremonial, with which they were dissatisfied, and for the discontinuance of which they had in vain petitioned the crown--the ring, the sign of the cross, white surplices, and the like--besides the whole hierarchical system, had been disused in the Reformed Churches of France, Switzerland, and the United Provinces, where the forms of worship in their view had been brought more nearly to the early apostolic model. They admitted for truth the doctrinal articles of the Dutch Reformed Churches. They had not come to the Netherlands without cause. At an early period of King James's reign this congregation of seceders from the establishment had been wont to hold meetings at Scrooby in Nottinghamshire, once a manor of the Archbishop of York, but then the residence of one William Brewster. This was a gentleman eligious creed and observances of the English Puritans were identical with that of the Contra- Remonstrants, whom King James had helped to their great triumph. This was not very difficult to prove. It so happened that there were some English Puritans living at that moment in Leyden. They formed an independent society by themselves, which they called a Congregational Church, and in which were some three hundred communicants. The length of their residence there was almost exactly coeval with the Twelve Years' Truce. They knew before leaving England that many relics of the Roman ceremonial, with which they were dissatisfied, and for the discontinuance of which they had in vain petitioned the crown--the ring, the sign of the cross, white surplices, and the like--besides the whole hierarchical system, had been disused in the Reformed Churches of France, Switzerland, and the United Provinces, where the forms of worship in their view had been brought more nearly to the early apostolic model. They admitted for truth the doctrinal articles of the Dutch Reformed Churches.