ABSTRACT
It is clear from the preceding causes that church courts were unpopular, and what made them unpopular was their attempt to enforce moral standards of conduct. When Robert Harrison proposed their abolition in 1604, Stoughton recommended that they should become secular courts, that civil lawyers be appointed to hear and determine ecclesiastical causes, and that no officers of these courts ought to have the right to excommunicate anyone. 1 From the mid-sixteenth century there was a steady increase in correction business dealt with by the church courts, a move that continued into the seventeenth century.
