Cotton Mather wrote of Parker as "one of the greatest scholars in the English Nation, and in some sort the father of all Nonconformists of our day.
[5] In 1593 he resigned his college fellowship and his position at Patney, and the next year was instituted as Rector of Stanton St. Bernard, Wiltshire, in the patronage of the Crown.
This work, much admired by some,[10] amounted to an open declaration of nonconformism, and caused the bishops to induce King James to issue a proclamation offering a reward for his capture.
[12] Leaving his son to schooling by William Noyes at Cholderton,[13] Parker settled in Leyden, and for four years worked on the treatise De Descensu Christi, published in Amsterdam in 1611.
Thomas Bilson, Bishop of Winchester, had preached at Paul's Cross in 1597 on the subject of Christ's descent into Hell, an article of the Apostles' Creed.
Paget recorded that on his arrival, Parker maintained that Church synods had only an advisory validity, but that he adapted to and participated in the presbyterian discipline.
He became an elder of the congregation, 'and by office sat with us daily to judge and hear the causes of our church, and so became a member of our classical combination.'
After two years he was to have been chosen minister in Amsterdam, but the Burgomasters, not wishing to lose the favour of King James I, forbade his appointment.
William Best and John Davenport, in 1634–35, wrote against Paget, accusing him of tyranny in depriving the Amsterdam church of freedom to appoint its own pastors, and of jealousy towards Parker, who could preach in Dutch.
[22] Paget answered in his own defence[23] and in In Defence of Church Government (1641) gave detailed reference to Parker's incomplete work, De Politeia Ecclesiastica Christi et Hierarchica Opposita, (first published posthumously in Frankfurt in 1616), which Paget claimed to be a representation of presbyterian church organization.
There were various accusations against him arising from his book De Descensu ad Inferos, and he wrote several times to Paget as his friend asking him to help to clear him of false imputations, and thanking him for his efforts.