nishment ought to be executed on none but subjects, and not stretched to princes independent of the government. In the second place it is observed, that Saul lost God's protection, and had the crown transferred from his family, for sparing Agag, King of the Amalekites, [1 Sam. xv.] But here the author forgot to take notice, that Saul had an express command to destroy the Amalekites, without exception of persons. The third reason affirms, that every good prince ought to pursue those to death, who endeavour to debauch the people of God in their religion, and mislead them to idolatry. This is endeavoured to be made good from Deuteronomy xiii. where the nearest relations are commanded to be delated, and executed for such apostasy. In answer to this I observe, First, that there is no drawing a parallel between Popery and Paganism. Secondly, there is no arguing from the Old to the New Testament. The gospel is a much gentler dispensation than the law. And therefore the disciples who went upon the precedent of Elias, and called fire upon those of a different religion, are reprimanded by our Saviour, and charged with ignorance.

"The instance of Joshua's killing the five kings dragged out of a cave [Josh. x.] is miserably misapplied for the Queen of Scots was neither enemy nor prisoner of war. She came into England upon Q. Elizabeth's invitation, and in confidence of protection.

Elijah's killing the prophets of Baul [1 Kings xviii.] is alledged as another reason for dispatching the Queen of Scots. But this Princess, notwithstanding the clamour made against her, had done nothing that might bring her to so scandalous a parallel. Besides, Elijah was under a supernatural direction, and had a warrant from God Almighty for these extraordinary proceedings. That he did nothing without an immediate commission from God, appears by his bringing down fire upon the sacrifice in so miraculous a manner.

"The paper has several other arguments; but what has been observed may sufficiently show the unwarrantableness of the principles it goes upon."-However, from Scrip ture thus shamefully distorted, and thus miserably misapplied, Elizabeth, it seems, was induced to sacrifice to her own more than human perfidiousness, perhaps as accomplished a Princess, as ever wore a diadem.

I shall not mortify the reader or myself, with attempting, in this place, a description of the last act of this most shocking and deplorable tragedy. The sight of Majesty in distress, and in the last distress, has something in it above

the power of language to describe, or the energy of words to express! Let us, then, draw the veil over this melancholy scene, and let it suffice to be told,

"That the manner of this Queen's death, her resignation to the will of God, her greatness of spirit, which seemed supported by some other power than the common assistance of natural courage, have recommended her name to the veneration of future ages, and covered the authors of this barbarous cruelty with indelible infamy and reproach."

§ 18. The Difference of Q. Elizabeth's Behaviour towards the Catholics and Puritans.

WHICH of these two parties bid the fairest for court-favours in Q. Elizabeth's reign, D. Heylin has determined in his History of the Reformation (p. 302), where he informs us, that "The Presbyterians had many powerful friends at court, in which the Papists had scarce any but mortal enemies. Spies and intelligencers were employed to attend them, and to observe all their words and actions; so that they could not stir without a discovery. But all men's eyes were shut up as to the other party; so that they might do what they liked, without observation."

But this is only a sketch of Elizabeth's favour to one party, and of her aversion to another. We shall therefore, for the reader's farther satisfaction, endeavour to fill up the outlines, and finish the picture. And to begin with the Catholics.

Hard was the fate of these men, against whom the sword of persecution raged with uncommon fury, from the beginning to the end of this long reign! Nothing less than their utter ruin and destruction seems to have been determined on at court, and devised by the parliament! Then bloody penal laws were first enacted, and pushed to execution against the Catholics. Then racks and tortures were made use of, to force them to confess plots that were never by them concerted, and treasons which they never dreamed of. "Leicester, Walsingham, and others, who had already tasted the sweetness of confiscations, designed to make that (i. e. the Catholic) party desperate by ill usage, in hopes that they would rebel, and forfeit their estates; but when truth enough could not be found against them, + Ibid. p. 218.

+ Short View, p. 224,

Walsingham, by counterfeit letters, and confessions extorted by the pains and terrors of the rack, tumultuated the people with chimerical dangers!

But these dangers, as chimerical as they were, gave birth, however, to real tragedies. All the jails and prisons in the nation were crowded with Popish Priests and Popish Recusants; of whom, such as escaped the gallows, were doomed to suffer a languishing imprisonment for life, or to submit to the inconveniences of a perpetual banishment. It is needless to particularize or enlarge upon the woful subject of persecution. I take no pleasure in ripping up old sores, or repeating grievances long since complained of, and I wish I could say, forgot. If the reader requires any farther satisfaction in this matter, he will find it in a work lately published, and entitled, Memoirs of the Missionaries. It is sufficient, in this place, to take notice, that the Profession of the Catholic Religion was actually accounted a state-crime, and that Elizabeth's penal laws 'made it high treason to pray to God after the old fashion, or to serve him as her and their ancestors had done before them!

"These severe laws," says a modern historian, "drove the Catholicks here to very great straits. Many of them stole out of the kingdom; and if the laws had been put in full execution against them, in all probability we should not have had one ancient Popish Family residing in it at this day."-For, as he farther observes, (and it is an observation which other historians have made before him) "There never was a Parliament summon'd during this long reign, wherein the Catholicks were not remarkably struck at."-To such a prodigious height did this revengeful Queen carry her im. placable resentment and malice against them!

"But there was another party in the kingdom, whom it was necessary to guard against, and that was the Puritans. The Queen was very well acquainted with their principles; but the nobler game of Popery being then in full cry, these were tolerated.-And not only tolerated, but encouraged and caressed too: undoubtedly for their nimble joining with the rest of the pack then in full cry against Popery. This was their great, and indeed their only merit. This was the very thing that procured them a considerable number of abettors in the House of Commons, and not a few friends at the council board. Among the latter were the

↑ Parliamentary Hist. of Eng. Vol. IV. p. 260,
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Idem, ibid.

Earl of Leicester, Lord Burleigh, Sir Francis Walsingham, Sir Francis Knowles (sometime a disciple of Calvin at Geneva) and Robert Beal, Esq. clerk of the council, and a fiery Puritan, whose character D. Heylin (H. R. p. 302) has drawn in miniature as follows: "This Beal was in himself a most eager Puritan, trained up by Walsingham to draw dry-foot [i. e. to hunt like a blood-bound] after Priests and Jesuites, his extreme hatred to these men being looked upon as the only good quality which he could pretend to."

ces.

Add to this, that not a few of the clergy who were well known to be puritanically inclined, were admitted to church-preferments and fat livings. To give some instanThe famous bigotted Puritan John Fox was made a Prebendary of Salisbury. Whittingham was advanced to the Deanry of Durham. Humphreys, Coverdale, and others, had gentle usage. Their preaching was overlooked, and they were suffered to hold their preferments. Packhurst, Sandys, and Pilkington, Bishops of Norwich, Worcester, and Durham, leaned very much to the Dissenters' side. And the chair of Canterbury (upon Parker's demise) was filled with the person of Doctor Grindal, translated from York: a man very zealously affected to the name of Calvin, says D. Heylin.

It is true, indeed, that some of Q. Elizabeth's prelates, (and Archbishop Whitgift above all the rest) were very sanguine and severe against the Nonconformists.

The obstinacy of these men (says D. Heylin, H. R. Q. E. p. 144) in matter of ceremony, prompted the bishops to make trial of their orthodoxy in points of doctrine. Whereupon the Articles of Religion lately agreed upon were required to be subscribed to in all places, with threatening no less than deprivation to such as wilfully refused. Many there were that boggled at it, but yet not so perversely, nor in such great numbers, as when their faction was growa strong, and improved to multitudes.

"Some stumbled at it, in regard of the first clause added to the twentieth article about the Authority of the Church. Others in reference to the thirty-sixth, touching the Con secration of Archbishops and Bishops. Some thought they attributed more Authority to the Supreme Magistrate over all persons and causes, both ecclesiastical and civil, than could consist with that Independency which Calvin arrogated to his Presbyters. And others looked upon the homilies as beggarly rudiments, scarce milk for babes but

by no means to be looked upon as meat for a stronger stomach. In general, thought by the Genevans and Zuinglian gospellers to have too much in them of the Pope, and too little of Calvin ;' and therefore no way to be subscribed to. "Of which number, none so much remarkable as Father John Fox, the Martyrologist, who had before appeared in the schism at Frankfort, and left that church, when Cox had got the better in it, to retire to Geneva: who being called upon to subscribe, he is said to have appeared before the Bishop carrying the New Testament in Greek with him; before whom he spoke these words: To this Book will I subscribe; and if this will not serve, take my Prebend at Salisbury, the only preferment which I hold in the Church of England; and much good may it do you.' But, notwithstanding this refractory answer, so much kindness was shewed him, that he kept both his resolution and his place together."

It is also true, that Q. Elizabeth, in the 42d year of her reign, issued out special commissions to both the provinces of Canterbury and York, to suppress the Puritans and their conventicles; but without effect. For it was too late to begin to curb them, when they were effectually grown too high and mighty for the High-Commission-Court itself to reach them. But for this the Queen might thank herself. Her Majesty, it seems, was so eagerly bent upon the total extirpation of the Catholic party, as to connive at and neglect all along the visible increase of the Puritans ; who, to testify their gratitude for such distinguishing favours, cut out work enough for her to the end of her reign. After whose death, augmenting in numbers as well as power, it was not long before they found themselves strong enough to bring on another Revolution in the Church, which ended in a total subversion of Episcopacy and the Common-Prayer,

§ 19.-Conclusion of the First Part.

We shall conclude the first part of these Memoirs with a brief inquiry into the motives that influenced the commencement, and the methods pursued in the management of the great business of reforming the Religion of England. And with regard to the first:

It plainly appears from impartial history, that the motives: which animated the first projectors of a Reformation, were

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