for going on obstinately in mischief, because he who compounded the poison was on his repentance pardoned.--But thus does party and prejudice speak on.

all occasions.

Ch. vii. p. 405. "Professed reverence for the established church."-When the Puritans write against the Bishops, [p. 403] they call the established church an hierarchy, that never obtained till the approach of Antichrist. Yet here to the council profess to reverence it, and see no necessity of separating from the unity of it.

P. 459. "But now if the whole," &c.-The very nature of the supremacy (placed in the sovereign in a state, where the legislative power is shared between the sovereign and the states) hath in time brought the supremacy to that equitable condition the author speaks of.

P. 464. "He erected a kind of Judicatory." The Archbishop [p. 396] publishes articles, which, because they were not under the Great Seal, though by the Queen's direction, the author pronounces against lawbecause against the Puritans. Here the Bishop of Lichfield, without the Queen's direction, erects a kind of Judicatory, which he reckons to be agrecable to lawbecause in favour of the Puritans.

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P.466. The writer of Hooker's Life," &c.-It was disingenuous to quote the quaint trash of a fantastical life-writer, as he knew the words, thus separate, would be understood in a sense the life-writer never meant, namely, that Mr. Hooker was only a tool or creature of the Archbishop: whereas that immortal man spoke no language but that of truth, and dictated by conscience.

P. 470. "Mr. Hooker concludes," &c.-This answer of his is one of the greatest master-pieces for purity and elegance of language, eloquence, and dignity of discourse, clearness and strength of reasoning, that ever was written.

P. 481. This Bill offered to the House was such an insolent mutinous action in the Puritan ministers, that one would wonder a writer of this author's good sense could mention them without censure, much more that he should do it with commendation. It was no wonder the Queen should except from a general pardon men so ready to oppose authority. A bill for toleration for

themselves

themselves had been just and reasonable, and pérhaps, in the temper of the House of Commons in their favour, they had succeeded-but a bill to establish themselves, and impose their discipline upon others, was an insuffer-` able insolence. But it proceeded from that wretched principle, which the author would conceal in his friends, but is always ready, on every occasion, to exclaim against in his adversaries; namely, "that error is not to be tolerated, without the guilt of partaking in other men's "sins."

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P. 482. "To prove his doctrine of Popery," &c.— This is the general fault of controversial Divines, and has been so in every age since the apostolic times. In combating one extreme, they run into another; and, while they are opposing their enemies on the right hand, give advantages to those on their left. This is often the mishap even of the more cautious, who are combating honestly for what they think the truth. Others, who are fighting only for their party, their reputation, and advancement, act like mere engineers, who never inquire whose ground it is they stand upon, while they are erecting a battery against their enemies.

P. 483. For relief."-What relief? Toleration? No: an establishment. To this the author would say, all they first wanted, was to be let alone and not persecuted. Yes, but it was to bring in their discipline by degrees; 1st, to quarrel with surplices and square caps, then to cavil at the Common Prayer, and lastly to condemn Episcopacy. All this time, indeed, they were for continuing in the church. But what was this, but aiming to establish their discipline, on the ruins of the Episcopal church? Had they, on their first persecution, left the church, we had seen all they desired was toleration: but persevering to continue in it to reform it, it is plain they wanted an establishment.

P. 488. “It has been easy at this time," &c.Was it not distressing the government and the hierarchy, to revile them in the bitterest language, on the eve of an invasion from Spain, when the only security that government had was the people's love, and consequently attachment to church and state? Did not these pamphlets abate the people's love and reverence for both,

in

in which they were told that the government was unjust and tyrannical; and the hierarchy, Antichristian?

P. 491. "They assumed no authority," &c.-What is meant by this? They assumed no authority. Did not they expel from their society all who would not observe their decrees? Yes. But they exercised no coercive power. How could they? This belongs only to the civil state, and is derived from thence to the established church only. Why, this is not what they would be at. They were for being the established church. This is the reason why they were for wiping off the calumny of schism, by communicating, as they pretended, with the church, which this author makes a matter of great merit in them.

P. 495. "It will then follow."-This is a very pitiful sophism, as may be seen by only changing names. If priests by God's ordinance are superior governors over the deacons, it will follow that her Majesty is not supreme governor over the deacons.

P. 496. "But this is a quite different thing to say," &c. It is not a different thing, as Hooker has shewn, who has proved that a difference in the legislature makes no difference in the essence of things.

P. 498. "Most of the Clergy," &c.-This is most true. The great Hooker was not only against, but laid down principles that have entirely subverted it, and all prétences to a divine unalterable right in any form of church government whatsoever. Yet, strange to say. his book was so unavoidable a confutation of Puritanical principles, which by the way claimed their Presbytery as of divine right, that the churchmen took the advantage of the successes of their champion, and now began to claim a divine right for Episcopacy on the strength of that very book, that subverted all pretences to every spécies of divine right whatsoever.

p.

Ch. viii. 508. "Mr. Udall," &c.-This is unworthy a candid historian, or an honest man. Udall, we see, p. 519, did not suffer death (which in common English signifies dying by the hand of the executioner), but died in prison; he says, indeed, heart-broken: but there is as much difference between an historian's pronouncing a man heart-broken, and actual breaking on a wheel, as between

3

between a priest's pronouncing an excommunicate damned, and actual damnation.

P. 574. Remarks:-In one part of these remarks, he appears not to have understood Hooker; in another, he draws consequences which do not follow from Hooker's principles; and in the third he argues against church power from the abuse of it.

P. 575."Must I then," &c.-He either mistakes. or misrepresents Hooker. What that great author affirms is this, that whoever is born in a church where the true doctrine of Christ is taught and professed, is obliged to submit to those laws of the society, without which no society can subsist. Just as he who is born in a civil society, founded on the principles of natural liberty, is bound to submit to those laws of the society, without which civil society cannot subsist.

P. 575. "But all those of Rome."-How so? Does it follow, that, because I have a right to the use of a power, I have a right to the abuse of it? The church of Rome, that of England,. and every other Christian church of one denomination, may as a society make laws of order and discipline. The church of Rome abuses this right-therefore the church of England shall not use it.

P. 579. "Blew up their liberties."--Blow up a fool's head. This proceeded from the natural perversity of the populace, which will always oppose authority, when they can with safety, even though they deprive themselves of all their other satisfactions.

P. 581. "Articles."-I would fain know how these men could speak worse of the evil being himself. How deplorable are the infirmities of human nature! See here the feverish state of a puritanical conscience. These men could set church and state in a flame for square caps, surplices, and the cross in baptism; while they swallowed, and even contended for, these horrible decrees; the frightful and disordered dreams of a crude, sour-tempered, persecuting bigot, who counterworks his Creator, and makes God after man's image, and chooses the worst model he can find, himself.

Ibid. The Puritans, by Dr. Reynolds in the name of the brethren at the Hampton Court conference, desired VOL. XII.

Сс

that

that these godly articles might be inserted among the thirty-nine. See p. 15, 2d. vol.

P. 583. This went upon the true puritan principle, that whatever was popish was false.

P. 584. Their case was indeed more sad than their historian intended to suggest. It was the common infirmity of churchmen to persecute, when in power; but to persecute as the Puritans here did, while under oppression, shews the extreme depravity of the heart.

P. 584. "Lambeth articles."-There is something very spiteful in this, not to be content to abuse Lambeth for passing doctrines contrary to theirs, but to abuse them for espousing their favourite decrees. But Lambeth, like Rome, can do nothing right.

SP. 587. "With hypocrites."-Notwithstanding this protestation, it appears as clear as the day, from Harsnet's detection, that this affair was a vile imposture, and as fairly charged on the Puritan Divines, as a like imposture, carrying on at the same time, and detected by the same able writer, in the popish quarter, was fairly chargeable on the mass-priests.

P. 589. "Of those that have."-This weak speech an able historian should not have quoted, for the sake of his party. They were indicted as acting against law, not against the Gospel; and the judge, if a good lawyer, was qualified to try them, let his knowledge in divinity be what it would the rest the legislature was to

answer.

Ibid: "The foundations of discipline."-i.e. Were not disposed to overturn the constitution of the church. We see by this what was aimed at, an establishment, not a toleration. There was too much pretence therefore to treat them as seditious subjects.

P. 594. “Erastian principles.”—It is true that Erastus's famous book De Excommunicatione was purchased by Whitgift of Erastus's widow in Germany, and put by him to the press in London, under fictitious names of the place and printer. This Selden discovered, and has published the discovery in his book De Synedriis. Had the author known this, it had been a fine ornament to his history.

VOL. II.