mercy, and in defiance of the tenderness of her sex, and the benevolence of the religion she professed, burnt them alive in Smithfield.

Towards the puritans also she grew more severe. From serious argument, the two parties recurred to due to his memory. "I understand," says he, "there are some foreigners in England condemned for heretical doctrines, and one or two of them doomed, unless reserved by your clemency, shortly to be burnt. In which I perceive two things to be noticed, the wickedness of their error, and the severity of their punishment. Their error indeed, no sound mind can defend; for I wonder how such monstrous opinions could enter the mind of any Christian. Yet such is the infirmity of human nature, that if divine light be at all withdrawn, into what absurdities do we not rush? I think such errors should by no means be encouraged, but suppressed by suitable restraints. Yet to burn alive the bodies of the miserable creatures with fire and flames, pitch and sulphur, because they have erred, rather by the darkness of their understanding than the impiety of their passions, seems cruelty, more after the example of Rome than the practice of the Gospel; and unless it had originated with Innocent the third, and the spirit of the popes, this brazen bull had never been introduced into the merciful church of Christ. Though I am not pleased with the criminals, nor their errors, yet, as I am a man, I favour the life of men, not that they may be allowed to err, but may have opportunity to repent. I would even spare the brute creation, and never see them slaughtered without uneasiness, aud admiring the mercy of God, that, when he ordered them to be sacrificed, he commanded their blood to be poured out at the foot of the altar, that they might not be tortured by being burnt alive. Allow me, therefore, to intreat your majesty to spare the life of these persons if you can (and what cannot your authority in these cases effect), or at least let their punishment be changed. Might they not be imprisoned, banished, or even hung: but I beseech you, suffer not the long extinguished fires of Smithfield to be again re-kindled. But if that cannot be obtained, I appeal to the compassions of your breast, by every consideration to spare them at least a month or two, that God may recover them from their dangerous errors, lest with the destruction of their bodies their souls also go to eternal perdition." Fuller, book IX. p. 104.

satirical pamphlets, of which those signed Martin Mar Prelate were the most keen, and drew forth the greatest number of replies. Perceiving that the spirit of religion suffered by such hostilities, the respectable puritans condemned this mode of defence. The queen's officers made strict search for the private presses at which these satires were printed, but as they were moved from one town and county to another, they were not easily discovered. The most iniquitous laws were enacted against the liberty of the press; and though the rights of Englishmen were invaded by servile parliaments, frightened by the imperious threats of a woman, yet the severities of the bishops against the puritans outraged all law and equity*. A statute was passed in the thirty-fifth year of Elizabeth for the punishmentof persons obstinately refusing to come to church, which, after three months imprisonment, banishes those who will not conform, and sentences them to death if they escape from banishment. And yet the author of the Confessional, says that Pierce, has fully proved that the bishops out-ran the laws in their severities towards the puritans. At length the dominant party seized the opportunity of drinking the blood of their enemies, for which they had long thirsted. Several puritans were executed†, and though Elizabeth appeared to feel some compunction, when she learned that they died, solemnly declaring their loyalty, and praying for the life and government of the queen; we ask, where is 'the reformation, which is the essential evidence of repentance?

* Warner, vol. II.

P. 442.

Fuller, book IX. p. 169. Pierce's Vindication of Dissenters, p. 145-7.

In addition to the contest concerning the popish habits, the puritans also suffered for differing from the ruling party concerning several doctrines. They denied that Christ descended locally into hell, which the bishops maintained; though, at the present day, even bishops themselves will own that these confessors suffered for being wiser than their contemporaries, and understanding the original language of the Scriptures better than their superiors. They were also persecuted for maintaining the morality of the Christian Sabbath* at a time when all serious persons will own that it needed some advocate, for several lives were lost at a bear-baiting on the Lord's-day, near London. Towards the latter end of this reign, the puritans maintained the ancient doctrines of the reformation against the high church party, who were verging fast towards arminianism.

As the reformation of Scotland was effected by means of presbyterian divines, who formed an establishment suited to their own views, though it happened during this period, its history will be included in that of the presbyterians. We turn to inquire after the state of real religion, amidst all these contentions for forms and doctrines. The mass of the clergy were below contempt. In ten thousand parishes there were but a few hundred preachers. A petition presented to. parliament complained that, to fill up the places of the expelled puritans, the bishops made priests of the basest of the people; not so much for their occupations,

*This will hardly be imputed to them as a fault by those who, on hearing the command, "remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy;" utter response in the liturgy, "Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law."

though they were shoe-makers, barbers, shepherds, and horse-keepers, as for their vices. In a survey of different counties, a large proportion of the clergy are marked as drunkards, dicers, and burnt in the hand for felony. Bishop Sandys observes, that "many people could not hear a sermon for seven years; and while they perished for lack of knowledge, their blood would lie at somebody's door."

Yet amidst this dearth of instruction, when England was fast returning to Rome, Elizabeth prohibited the "prophecyings" of the clergy, for which archbishop Grindall pleaded in a manner honourable to his memory, though to the loss of his credit at court*. To go to a place of worship twice on a Lord's-day, and spend the evening in domestic worship and instruction, was the mark of a puritan; and, indeed, among them real religion took refuge; though we cannot hope that they were all pure in heart. Their zeal against the ceremonies and habits was not all holy fire kindled at the altar of God; yet, when we view the melancholy compound of the hateful with the contemptible, which appeared in the profane bishops †, we cannot wonder that the victims of their tyranny should sometimes hurl on them the indignities which they deserved.

At length Elizabeth departed, to give an account of her administration at a higher tribunal. Warner has justly pronounced her a tyrant, who violated the laws by which she held her crown‡. That the tenderness of her sex had no place in her breast, the cruelties she exercised, the blood she shed, too clearly prove. When she first jested at signing the

*Fuller, book II. P. 123. Warner, vol. II. p. 448. Warner, vol. II. p. 247.

† Pierce, p. 97.

warrant for the execution of Mary queen of Scots, and afterwards mourned most tragically for the death of the unhappy princess, her laughter and her tears were alike profane and detestable*. As to her religion, she abjured nothing in popery but submission to a higher authority than her own, and was no farther a protestant than was necessary to make herself a pope. She had images, a crucifix, and lighted candles, in her own chapel; and when her chaplain preached against the sign of the cross, she called out to him to desist from that ungodly digression, and to go on with his text. An enemy to preaching, she scarcely ever heard a sermon, and used to say, one or two preachers in a county were enough. The exercises which were most calculated to form a useful ministry she suppressed, and broke the heart of Grindall, the best primate that England has known+. That such an idolator of her own prerogative should hate puritans was natural; for they were not the courtly men who could join the priests of the day to call her goddess. A life spent in defiance of the genuine spirit of religion was closed without its consolations; while the gloom which hung over her later days was aggravated by seeing her courtiers turn to worship James, the rising sun: she expired the twenty-fourth of March, sixteen hundred and three, in the seventieth year of her age, and forty-fifth of her reign.

As the successor of Elizabeth was James, king of Scotland, educated in presbyterian principles, the English prelates dreaded what they called the Scotch mist. Nor was it without reason; for to the pres

Robertson's History of Scotland, vol. II. p. 168-178. *Warner, vol. II. p. 447.

Robertson's Hist. of Scotland, vol. II. p. 284.