place; and indeed God and Nature did not intend me for contentions,
but for study and quietness. My Lord, my particular contests with Mr.
Travers here have proved the more unpleasant to me, because I believe
him to be a good man; and that belief hath occasioned me to examine
mine own conscience concerning his opinions; and, to satisfy that, I
have consulted the Scripture, and other laws, both human and divine,
whether the conscience of him, and others of his judgment, ought to be
so far complied with, as to alter our frame of Church-government,
our manner of God's worship, our praising and praying to him, and our
established ceremonies, as often as his, and other tender consciences
shall require us. And in this examination, I have not only satisfied
myself, but have begun a Treatise, in which I intend a justification
of the Laws of our Ecclesiastical Polity; in which design God and his
holy angels shall at the last great Day bear me that witness which my
conscience now does; that my meaning is not to provoke any, but rather
to satisfy all tender consciences: and I shall never be able to do
this, but where I may study, and pray for God's blessing upon my
endeavours, and keep myself in peace and privacy, and behold God's
blessings spring out of my mother earth, and eat my own bread without
oppositions;[24] and therefore, if your Grace can judge me worthy of
such a favour, let me beg it, that I may perfect what I have begun."

[Sidenote: Rector of Boscombe]

[Sidenote: Prebend of Salisbury]

About this time the Parsonage or Rectory of Boscum, in the Diocese of
Sarum, and six miles from that City, became void. The Bishop of Sarum
is patron of it; but in the vacancy of that See,--which was three
years betwixt the translation of Bishop Pierce to the See of York, and