being loath to lose so many good men, appointed Mr. Stephen Marshall, (a principal zealot at that time in the cause of Presbytery) to call them together, and to absolve them from that oath: Which he performed with so much confidence and authority, that the Pope himself could scarce have done it with the like."

*

What reply do the defenders of the Puritans give to this statement, which is confirmed by that of two eminent historians of that period? One of those defenders says: "This has all the appearance of forgery.-Priestly absolution was as remote as possible from the practices of the Puritans; and they rejected all claims to the power of it, with the utmost abhorrence. The Parliament's army, at the same time, stood in so little need of these prisoners, which were only 150 men, that there is good reason to suspect the whole account to be a falsehood."-What a pitiful evasion! "Because the Puritans rejected priestly absolution, the whole account is a falsehood:" Excellent logician! Yet this is the method adopted by BROOK, in his Laves of the Puritans, to extenuate the crimes of such blood-thirsty fanatics as Marshall. In the absence of all historic testimony even from the greatest admirers of his author, this famous biographer, in his sketch of Marshall's Life, affords us glaring instances of this luminous mode of ratiocination.

This is another: Lord Clarendon had said, in reference to the ministers' petition, presented to Parliament, "The petition itself was cut off, and a new one of a very different nature annexed to the long list of names: And when some of the ministers complained to Mr. Marshall, with whom the petition was lodged, that they never saw the petition to which their names were annexed, but had signed another petition against the canons, Mr. Marshall replied, that it was thought fit, by those who understood the business better than they, that the latter petition should be preferred, rather than the 'former.'" (Hist. i, 239.)-What is Mr. Brook's answer? This, indeed, is a charge of a very high nature, and ought to have been well substantiated. Why did not the ministers complain to the committee appointed by the House of Commons to enquire into their regular methods of procuring hands to petitions? The learned historian answers, that they were prevailed upon to sit still and pass it by: For the truth of which we have only his lordship's word, as nothing of the kind appears in Rushworth, Whitlocke, or any other impartial writer of those times. The whole affair has, therefore, the appearance of a mere forgery, designed to blacken the memory of Mr. Marshall and the rest of the Puritans."

Omitting all animadversion on the expression only his lordship's word, (though for "unbending veracity" Lord Clarendon's name is celebrated throughout Europe,) omitting likewise any allusion to Rushworth and Whitlocke as "impartial writers," one might ask Mr. Brook, if, in our own reforming age, he never read or heard of such an exchange being effected between two petitions" of a very different nature." But if his recollection will not furnish him with fit precedents in the modern history of petitioning, I will furnish him with one of a more ancient date. It is in reference to the famous Presbyterian Testimony to the truth of Jesus Christ, of which some mention has been made, page 305, and concerning which it is said in JACKSON'S Life of John Goodwin: "Very dishonourable collusion was practised in obtaining signatures to this objectionable document. In the copy that was laid before Mr. John Downame, and to which he affixed his name, no mention was made either of Dr. Hammond or of Mr. Goodwin; their reputed errors and heresies being foisted in afterwards. It happened un luckily, that Downame had licensed the Doctor's book for publication, and thus recommended it to general perusal. When he therefore found, that, by a manœuvre of his Presbyterian friends, he was made to condemn as heretical a work to which he had given his public sanction, he complained bitterly of their disingenuous conduct. Others of the subscribers, one would hope for their own credit, were imposed upon in the same manner."

Ou the most flimsy foundation of Mr. Brook's assertion or suspicion, rest many other of his palliations and defences of Mr. Marshall, who might

The Doctor afterwards states the varied success of each of the parties in the subsequent campaign, the failure of the Oxford treaty, and the excesses of the soldiery in defacing the cathedral churches of Winchester, Canterbury, Rochester, and Chichester. He then adds: "The King lost Reading in thespring, received the Queen triumphantly into Oxon within a few weeks after, by whom he was supplied with such a considerable stock of arms and other necessaries, as put him into a condition to pursue the war. This summer makes him master of the North and West; the North being wholly cleared of the enemy's forces, but such as seemed to be imprisoned in the Town of Hull. And having lost the cities of Bristol and Exon, no towns of consequence in the West remained firm unto them, but Pool, Lime, and Plymouth: so that the leading members were upon the point of forsaking the kingdom; and had so done, (as it was generally reported, and averred for certain,) if the King had not been diverted from his march to London, upon a confidence of bringing the strong city of Gloucester to the like submission. This gave them time to breathe a little, and to advise upon some course for their preservation; and no course was found fitter for them, than to invite the Scots to their aid and succour, whose amity they had lately purchased at so dear a rate. But that which proved the stongest temptation to engage them [the Scots] in it, was assurance of reducing the Church of England to an exact conformity. in government and forms of worship, to the Kirk of Scotland; and gratifying their revenge and malice, by prose

easily be convicted on the sole unbiassed testimony of his own sermons and letters, of being, what Echard styles him, "a famous incendiary, and "assistant to the Parliamentarians; their trumpeter in their fasts, their "confessor in their sickness, their counsellor in their assemblies, their "chaplain in their treaties, and their champion in their disputations!"

says:

Hear Master Robert BAYLIE, minister at Glasgow, and one of the Scottish Commissioners to the Assembly of Divines at Westminster,-a man in every respect worthy of being associated with his intolerant compeer RUTHERFORD, whose doctrines of co-ercion have been so ably exposed in Bishop HEBER'S edifying Life of Dr. Jeremy Taylor.-In the First Part of his Dissuasive from the Errors of the Times, published BY AUTHORITY in 1645, Baylie "But so long as Divine dispensation besets our habitations both spiritual and temporal, the Church no less than the State, with great numbers of daring and dangerous adversaries, we must be content, according to the call of the prophet Joel in another ease, to prepare war, to beat our ploughshares into swords, and our pruning-hooks into spears;' in this juncture of time the faint must take courage, 'and the weak say, I am strong.'-It seems that yet for some time the servants of God must earnestly contend for many precious truths, which erroneous spirits do mightily impugn: for the help and encouragement of others in that warfare, I, though among the weakest of Christ's soldiers, do offer these my endeavours."

He then depicts the flourishing state of the Church, provided she would cordially embrace the Presbyterian discipline: "Let England once be countenanced, by her superior powers, to enjoy the just and necessary liberty of Consistories for congregations, of Presbyteries for Counties, of Synods for larger shires, and National Assemblies for the whole land,-as Scotland hath long possessed these by the unanimous consent of King and Parliament without the

cuting the Arch-bishop of Canterbury to the end of his tragedy. For compassing which ends, a solemn league and covenant is agreed between them; first taken and subscribed to, by the Scots themselves; and afterwards by all the Members in both Houses of Parliament; as also, by the principal officers of the army, all the Divines of the Assembly, almost all those which lived within the lines of communication, and in the end by all the subjects which either were within their power, or made subject to it.* Now by this covenant the party was to bind himself, amongst other things, first, that he would endeavour, in his place and calling, to preserve the Reformed ' religion in Scotland, in doctrine, discipline, and government: That he would endeavour, in like manner, the reformation of ' religion in the kingdoms of England and Ireland, according to 'the word of God, and the example of the best reformed 'churches; but more particularly, to bring the churches of God in all the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, &c. Secondly, That without respect of persons they would endeavour to extirpate Popery and Prelacy; &c. And thirdly, That he would endeavour the disleast prejudice to the civil State, but to the evident and confessed benefit thereof; or as the very Protestants in France, by the concession of a Popish State and King, have enjoyed all these four spiritual courts the last fourscore years and above :-Put these HOLY and DIVINE INSTRUMENTS in the hand of the Church of England; by the blessing of God thereupon, the sore and great evil of so many heresies and schisms shall quickly be cured, which now not only troubles the peace and welfare, but hazards the very subsistence both of church and kingdom. Without this mean, the State will toil itself in vain about the cure of such spiritual diseases."

"And to that end, the presbyterian party of this nation did again, in the year 1643, invite the Scotch covenanters back into England: and hither they came marching with it gloriously upon their pikes, and in their hats with this motto, For the Crown and Covenant of both Kingdoms! This I saw and suffered by it. But when I look back upon the ruin of families, the blood-shed, the decay of common honesty, and how the former piety and plain dealing of this now sinful nation is turned into cruelty and cunning! when I consider this, I praise God that he prevented me from being of that party which helped to bring in this covenant, and those sad confusions that have followed it." WALTON'S Life of Sanderson.

+ The reader will by this time have become acquainted with the implied signification of these expressions. To give him a better view of this subject, I copy the following paragraph from the Remonstrance of the Commons, 1628" And as our fear concerning change or subversion of religion, is grounded upon the daily increase of Papists,...... so are the hearts of your good subjects no less perplexed, when with sorrow they behold a daily growth and spreading of the faction of the Arminians, that being, as your Majesty well knows, a cunning way to bring in Popery, and the professors of those opinions [are] the common disturbers of the Protestant churches, and incendiaries in those states wherein they have gotten any head, being Protestants in show but Jesuits in opinion..... Who, notwithstanding, are much favoured and advanced, not wanting friends even of the clergymen to your Majesty, namely, Dr. Neale, Bishop of Winchester, and Dr. Laud, Bishop of Bath and Wells, who are justly suspected to be unsound in their opinions that way. And it being now generally held the way to preferment and promotion in the church, many scholars do bend the course of their studies to maintain those errors.'

⚫covery of such as have been, or shall be incendiaries, malig'nants, and evil instruments, either in hindering the reformation of religion, or in dividing between the King and his 'people, &c.' Of which three articles, the two first tended to the setting up of their dear Presbyteries; the last, unto the prosecution of the late Arch-bishop, whom they considered as their greatest and most mortal enemy.*

"The terror of this covenant, and the severe penalty imposed on those which did refuse it, compelled great numbers of the Clergy to forsake their benefices, and to betake themselves to such towns and garrisons as were kept under the command of his Majesty's forces; whose places were in part supplied by such Presbyterians who formerly had lived as lecturers or trencher-chaplains: or else bestowed upon such zealots as flocked from Scotland and New-England, like vultures and other birds of rapine, to seek after the prey. But finding the deserted benefices not proportionable to so great a multitude, they compelled many of the [Episcopal clergy to forsake their houses, that so they might avoid imprisonment or some worse calamity. Others they sent to several gaols, or shut

The authors of this Remonstrance must have been cunning men indeed to know in what single European State the Arminians, at that period, (1628) "had gotten any head." I know of none, except England; and what their condition was in this country, will be the subject of a subsequent inquiry.

"And about this time the bishop of Canterbury having been by an unknown law condemned to die, and the execution suspended for some days, many citizens, fearing time and cool thoughts might procure his pardon, became so maliciously impudent as to shut up their shops, professing not to open them till justice was executed.' This malice and madness is scarce credible, but I saw it." ISAAC WALTON.

"July 23, 1643. The Covenant being pressed, I absented myself; but finding it impossible to evade the doing very unhandsome things, 1 obtained a licence of his Majesty, dated at Oxford and signed by the King, to travel again." EVELYN's Diary.

"For myself, addressing myself to Norwich, whither it was his majesty's pleasure to remove me, I was at the first received with more respect, than in such times I could have expected. There I preached the day after my arrival to a numerous and attentive people; neither was sparing of my pains in this kind ever since, till the times, growing every day more impatient of a bishop, threatened my silencing. There, though with some secret murmurs of disaffected persons, I enjoyed peace till the ordinance of sequestration came forth, which was in the latter end of March following. Then when I was in hope of receiving the profits of the foregoing half year, for the maintenance of my family, were all my rents stopped and diveried, and in the April following came the sequestrators, viz. Mr. Sotherton, Mr. Tooly, Mr. Rawly, Mr. Greenewood, &c. to the palace, and told me that by virtue of an ordinance of parliament they must seize upon the palace, and all the estate I had, both real and personal, and accordingly sent certain men appointed by them, (whereof one had been burned in the hand for the mark of his truth,) to apprize all the goods that were in the house, which they accordingly executed with all diligent severity, not leaving so much as a dozen of trenchers, or my children's pictures out of their curious inventory. Yea they would have apprized our very wearing clothes, had not Alderman Tooly and Sheriff Rawley declared their opinion to the contrary. These goods, both library and household stuff of all kinds, were appointed to be exposed to public sale. Much enquiry there was when the goods should be brought

them up in ships whom they exposed to storms and tempests, and all the miseries which a wild sea could give to a languishing stomach. And some again they sequestered under colour of

to the market; but in the meantime Mrs. Goodwin, a religious good gentlewoman, whom yet we had never known or seen, being moved with compassion, very kindly offered to lay down to the sequestrators that whole sum which the goods were valued at; and was pleased to leave them in our hauds for our use, till we might be able to repurchase them; which she did accordingly, and had the goods formally delivered to her by Mr. Smith, and Mr. Greenewood, two sequestrators. As for the books, several stationers looked on them, but were not forward to buy them; at last Mr. Cook, a worthy divine of this diocese, gave bond to the sequestrators, to pay to them the whole sum whereat they were set, which was afterwards satisfied out of that poor pittance that was allowed me for my maintenance.

"Yet still I remained in my palace though with but a poor retinue and means; but the house was held too good for me: many messages were sent by Mr. Corbet to remove me thence. The first pretence was, that the committee, who now was at charge for an house to sit it in, might make their daily session there, being a place both more public, roomy, and chargeless. Out we must, and that in three weeks' warning, by midsummer-day then approaching, so as we might have lain in the street for ought I know, had not the providence of God so ordered it, that a neighbour in the close, one Mr. Gostlin, a widower, was content to void his house for us.

"This hath been my measure, wherefore I know not; Lord, thou knowest, who only canst remedy, and end, and forgive or avenge this horrible oppression."-Bishop HALL'S Hard Measure.

"Dr. William Beal, master of St. John's College, Cambridge, being active in gathering the University plate for his Majesty, was (with the excellent Dr. Sterne, now Lord Archbishop of York) sent, surrounded in their respective colleges, carried to London in triumph, in which persecution there was this circumstance remarkable:-That though there was an express order from the Lords for their imprisonment in the tower, which met them at Tottenham high-cross, (wherein, notwithstanding, there was no crime expressed,) yet they were led captive through Bartholomew-fair, and so as far Temple-bar, and back through the city into the tower, on purpose that they might be hooted at or stoned; and so for three years together hurried from prison to prison, (after they were plundered and sequestered, two words which signify an undoing,) without any legal charge against them, or trial of them; it being supposed surely that they would be famished at land, and designed that they should be stifled when kept ten days under deck at sea, or, all failing, to be sent as galley-slaves to Algiers, till this worthy person was exchanged, and had liberty to go to Oxford to serve his Majesty there, as he had done here, by a good example, constant fasts and prayers, exact intelligence, convincing and comfortable sermons, as he did all the while he lived; till his heart broke to see (what he always feared, and endeavoured in vain to persuade the moderate part of the other side of) his Majesty murdered, and he died suddenly with these words in his mouth, (which the standers-by understood with reference to the state of the public, as well as the condition of his own private person,) I BELIEVE THE RESURRECTION. When Dr. Edward Martin was Master of Queen's College, he was as much persecuted by the faction for six or seven years from Cambridge to Ely house, thence to ship-board, and thence to the Fleet, with the same disgrace and torment I mentioned before in Dr. Beal's life, for being active in sending the University plate to the King, and in undeceiving people about the proceedings of the pretended parliament, that is, in sending to the King that which should have been plundered by his enemies; and preaching as much for him as others did against him. His sufferings were both the smarter and the longer, because he would not own the usurpation so much as to petition it for favour, being unwilling to own any power they had to imprison him, by any address to them to release him.

"And when in a throng of other prisoners he had his liberty, he chose to be an exile beyond sea at Paris, rather than submit to the tumult at home at

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