About the same time he married a daughter of Sir Robert Payne of Midloe in Huntingdonshire, and became 'settled minister' of Purleigh in Essex, a valuable living.

A schism arose in his congregation owing to the adoption by a party among them of Anabaptist principles; he wearied of the controversy, and returned to England in 1652.

In 1653 Rogers published two controversial works, Bethshemesh, or Tabernacle for the Sun, in which he assailed the presbyterians, and Sagrir, or Doomes-day drawing nigh, in which he attacked the 'ungodly laws and lawyers of the Fourth Monarchy,' and also the collection of tithes.

The two books indicate the date of his change of views: Bethshemesh is written from the standard Independent standpoint, while in Sagrir he has developed the characteristics of a fifth-monarchy man.

Besides doctrinal differences, he had personal quarrels with prominent members: Sir John Maynard had appeared against him as advocate for the congregation at Purleigh, while Zachary Crofton had anonymously attacked his preaching in a pamphlet.

[2][3] After Cromwell's coup d'état Rogers occupied himself with two long addresses to him, in which he recommended a system of government very similar to that which was actually inaugurated.

His sermon, in which he likened Whitehall to Sodom and demonstrated that Cromwell had broken the first eight commandments (time preventing his proceeding to the last two), procured his arrest and imprisonment in Lambeth.

The fifth-monarchy men followed Sir Henry Vane in opposing Richard Cromwell's succession, and Rogers denounced him vehemently from the pulpit.

Prynne remained true to the older ideal of limited monarchy, while Rogers advocated a republic with Christ himself as its invisible sovereign.

The insurrection of Sir George Booth intervened, and brought him the post of chaplain in Charles Fairfax's regiment.

In October he was nominated to a lectureship at Shrewsbury, but he was again in Dublin by the end of the year, and was imprisoned there for a time by the orders of the army leaders, after they had dissolved the remnant of the Long parliament.