Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 2.djvu/47

 CROFTON. 43 a controversy with Bishop Gauden, about the obligation of the solemn league and covenant, for which he zealously pleaded, not as binding a man to rebellion, or to any thing unlawful, but as imposing an additional obligation on every one who took i t , t o forward the reformation o f morals, the propagation o f truth, and the confutation o f error. By the boldness and freedom which h e displayed i n the controversy, h e provoked the indignation o f the bishops and court, and was accordingly sent t o the Tower, where h e was detained a long time, a t a great expense, notwithstanding h e had a wife and seven small children depending upon him for their support. He attempted t o get out b y a writ o f habeas corpus; but o n being threatened with farther severity, i f h e persevered, h e dropped that method, and petitioned for his liberty, which was a t last granted him. He then went into Cheshire, where h e was again harrassed b y imprisonment, and when released, h e was obliged, i n order t o maintain his family, t o keep a grocer's shop. From that county h e afterwards removed t o a small farm i n Bedfordshire, whence i n 1667 h e re turned t o London, and s e t up a school i n the parish o f Aldgate, where his well-known virtue, &c. procured him much encouragement. I n this situation h e died i n 1672. During the time h e was i n the Tower, h e regularly fre quented the chapel, being averse t o separation from the parish churches, notwithstanding the conformity o f the clergy i n points which h e disappproved o f . I t cannot b e too much regretted, that the ill-judged policy o f the ecclesiastical and political rulers o f the times, should have insisted o n a rigid conformity from conscientious men like Mr. Crofton. I t would have been quite sufficient t o exact i t from a l l future candidates for holy orders, o r eccle siastical promotion, and i f the scrupulous clergy had been allowed t o live quietly i n their charges till death, much cruelty would have been prevented, and such a formidable body o f dissenters would not have been produced. Few o f the ejected clergy adopted Mr. Crofton's principles o f submission o r communion with the church, and he was