Page:The History of the Church & Manor of Wigan part 2.djvu/188

Rh He then proceeds to make his report upon the dioceses of Chester and Carlisle, as to which he says that, having last summer visited those dioceses himself, he finds them to be in a less satisfactory state than their bishops had represented them to be; and he mentions the following particulars:

1. "Many men never admitted into Holy Orders permitted to serve cures in chappells of ease, where indeed the stipend is so small that no man of sufficiencie will accept thereof; but all these, through both dioceses, are interdicted, and the inhabitants required either to provide a minister in Orders to serve them, or else to make their repayr to the parish church. 2. The publick prayers of the church is generally neglected, as if all religion were but in a sermon. 3. The Booke of Common Prayer is neglected, & abused in most places by chopping, changing, altering, omitting, and adding, at the minister's owne pleasure, as if they were not bound to the forme prescribed. In sundry places the Booke of Common Prayer was so unregarded that many knew not how to reade the service according to the Booke. And as in ye publick prayers, so likewise in the administration of the Sacraments, the formes rites and ceremonies prescribed, very much neglected; and many were found that thought themselves well-deserving & conformable men, though they observed not ye Booke & orders prescribed, so long as they did not oppose them. The most of wch have ben made to see & acknowledge their faults; & many of them upon promise of reformacion craved pardon for yt wch was past, and have undertaken to make due certificate of their performance of that amendment they have promised. Some others are suspended; and some of them are bound over to answere their offences at ye High Commission at Yorke; and some have left the country. 4. It was found that in ye performance of your majestie's commandment for catechising the catechisme of ye Booke of Common Prayer hath ben in many places neglected, and divers other new-fangled catechismes, no way authorized, brought into ye church. But order is geven for ye use of the Catechisme of ye Booke of Common Prayer, & none other. 5. In many places such as heretofore went under the title of Lecturers,