Note 730 — Chapter XXV

Mystery and Iniquity of Nonconformity, 1664. A curious tract entitled The Ceremony-Monger, his Character, in Six Chapters, describes "bowing to the altar, implicit faith, reading dons of the pulpit, reading the Psalms, &c., alternately, bowing at the name of Jesus, unlighted candles on the altar, organs, church music, and other popishlike and foppish ceremonials," all of which are unmercifully ridiculed. The author is E. Hickeringhill, Rector of the Rectory of All Saints, in Colchester. There is no date to the publication, but from abundant internal evidence, it must have been written after the Act of Uniformity. Hickeringhill is justly described by Chalmers as "a half crazy kind of writer." He was a pensioner of St. John's, Camb., in 1650; junior Bachelor of Gonville and Caius; Lieut. in the English army in Scotland, and Captain in Fleetwood's Regiment. He took orders in 1661 or 1662, being ordained by Bishop Sanderson; became Vicar of Boxted, Essex, in October, 1662, and about the same time, Rector of All Saints, Colchester. In reference to the Act of Uniformity, he says it is an unnatural, impossible, irrational, wicked, and vain attempt. "Go teach God," he says, "to make a new heaven, with uniformity of stars and skies,—teach Him to make men uniform," &c. Hickeringhill wrote The Second Part of Naked Truth, and A Vindication of it. The copy of it which I have seen is in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. The Bishop of London brought an action against him, in March, 1682, for slander. A report of the trial may be found in the same Library, Political Tracts, Y 24. Hickeringhill held his Rectory until his death in 1708.