Note 378 — Chapter XIII
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Pym defended himself against imputations on his religious character, by saying that he had ever been a faithful son to the Protestant religion, without the least relation in his belief to the gross errors of Anabaptism or Brownism. He had sought a reformation of the Church of England—but not its overthrow. Neither envy nor private grudge against the bishops, who were personally inimical to him, made him averse to their functions, but only his zeal for religion, which he saw injured by the too extended authority of the prelates, who should have been upright and humble, "shearing their flocks and not flaying them."—Rushworth, v. 378.
Marshall in his Sermon and Baxter in his Saint's Rest would not have spoken of Pym as they did, had they not been satisfied that charges against his moral character were utterly untrue. Marshall includes chastity in the catalogue of his virtues. I can find no proof of anything improper in his intimacy with the Countess of Carlisle. For extracts from Marshall's Sermons, and the Diurnals, see Forster's British Statesmen, vol. ii. 294-302.