Protestantism in Scotland - James Aitken Wylie

the other they threw the court on measures so
desperate by way of defending itself, that they
proved in the end its own undoing.
To silence these Protestant champions, a new
Court of Inquisition was established, styled a
"Commission for Ecclesiastical Affairs." The
members nominated were the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Lord Chancellor Jeffreys, the Earls of
Rochester and Sunderland, the Bishops of
Rochester and Durham, and Lord Chief Justice
Herbert. All the persons named refused from the
first to act upon it, save Jeffreys and the Bishop of
Durham, in whose hands was thus left the business
of the newly-created court. The members of the
commission were empowered to "exercise all
manner of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the fullest
manner " in other words, to put the Church of
England quietly into its grave.
A beginning was made with Dr. Sharp. He was
a learned divine, and an eloquent preacher, and had
distinguished himself by his able defenses of
Protestantism and his vigorous attacks on
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