ABSTRACT
This document is in Harley MSS. 6848, f. 10 recto. It contains five extracts from Barrow’s A Plaine Refutation and one from his A Brief Discoverie of the False Church. On the question of the role of the magistrate in the reformation of religion there was wide disagreement. Queen Elizabeth, ever concerned about her prerogative in causes ecclesiastical, found it necessary to control Parliament with a strict hand. She lectured her Speakers, berated her committees, and imprisoned those M.P.s who proved too bold, independent, or refractory. The Presbyterian Puritans hoped that Parliament would bring in the new church government, discipline, and liturgy by legal means. Therefore, they petitioned, supplicated, complained, pleaded, lobbied, and preached. Perhaps the high point in their efforts was the presentation of the Bill and Book by Anthony Cope on February 27, 1586/1587. This parliamentary bill and Genevan. Prayer Book embodied the hopes of all the zealous advocates of the true reformed church. In fact, it recommended a thorough-going ecclesiastical revolution. But the Queen was adamant. The bill was suppressed, the leaders were arrested, and the revolutionary fuse sputtered and died.
