BOOK IV. OF PERSECUTIONS AMONGST PROTESTANTS.

After the world had groaned for many ages under the insupportable bondage of Popish superstition and cruelty, it pleased God, in his own good Providence, to take the remedy of these evils into his own hands; and after several ineffectual attempts by men, at last to bring about a reformation of religion by his own wisdom and power. The history of this great event hath been very particularly and faithfully given by many excellent writers, to which I must here refer my readers; and it must be owned, that the persons employed by Almighty God, to accomplish this great work, were, many of them, remarkable for their great learning and exemplary piety. I am sure I have no inclination to detract from their worth and merit. One would indeed have imagined, that the cruelties exercised by the papists upon all who opposed their superstitions in worship, and their corruptions in doctrine, should have given the first reformers an utter abhorrence of all methods of persecution for conscience-sake, and have kept them from ever entering into any such measures themselves. But it must be confessed, that however they differed from the church of Rome, as to doctrines and discipline, yet, that they too generally agreed with her, in the methods to support what they themselves apprehended to be truth and orthodoxy; and were angry with the papists, not for persecuting, but for persecuting themselves and their followers; being really of opinion that heretics might be persecuted, and, in some cases, persecuted to death. And that this was their avowed principle, they gave abundant demonstration by their practice.

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SECT. I. Luther’s opinion concerning Persecution.

Luther, that great instrument, under God, of the reformation in Germany, was, as his followers allow, naturally of a warm and violent temper, but was however in his judgment against punishing heretics with death. Thus, in his account of the state of the Popish church, as related by Seckendorf, he says:^[292] “the true church teaches the word of God, but forces no one to it. If any one will not believe it, she dismisses him, and separates herself from him, according to the command of Christ, and the example of Paul in the Acts, and leaves him to the judgment of God: whereas our executioners and most cruel tyrants teach not the word of God, but their own articles, acting as they please, and then adjudge those who refuse to believe their articles, and obey their decrees, to the fires.” The same author gives us many other strong passages to the same purpose. Particularly, in one of his letters to Lineus, who asked his opinion about the punishment of false teachers, Luther says:^[293] “I am very averse to the shedding of blood, even in the case of such as deserve it: and I the more especially dread it in this case, because, as the Papists and Jews, under this pretence, have destroyed holy prophets and innocent men; so I am afraid the same would happen amongst ourselves, if in one single instance it should be allowed lawful for seducers to be put to death. I can therefore, by no means, allow that false teachers should be destroyed.” But as to all other punishments, Luther seems to have been of Austin’s mind, and thought that they might be lawfully used. For, after the before-mentioned passage, he adds, 287“it is sufficient that they should be banished.” And in another place^[294] he allows, that “heretics may be corrected, and forced at least to silence, if they publicly deny any one of the articles received by all Christians, and particularly that Christ is God; affirming him to be a mere man or prophet.” “This,” says he, “is not to force men to the faith, but to restrain from public blasphemy.” In another place he goes farther and says,^[295] that “heretics are not indeed to be put to death, but may however be confined, and shut up in some certain place, and put under restraint as madmen.” As to the Jews, he was for treating them more severely;^[296] and was of opinion, that “their synagogues should be levelled with the ground, their houses destroyed, their books of prayer, and of the talmud, and even those of the old testament, be taken from them; their rabbies be forbid to teach, and forced, by hard labour, to get their bread; and if they would not submit to this, that they should be banished, as was formerly practised in France and Spain.”

^[297]This was the moderation of this otherwise great and good man, who was indeed against putting heretics to death, but for almost all other punishments that the civil magistrates could inflict: and agreeably to this opinion, he persuaded the Electors of Saxony not to tolerate in their dominions, the followers of Zuinglius, in the opinion of the sacrament, because he esteemed the real presence an essential or fundamental article of faith; nor to enter into any terms of union with them, for their common safety and defence, against the endeavours of the papists to destroy them. And accordingly, notwithstanding all the endeavours of the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, to get them included in the common league against the papists, the Elector would never allow it, being vehemently dissuaded from it by Luther, Melancton, and others of their party, who alledged, “That they taught articles contrary to those received 288in Saxony; and that therefore there could be no agreement of heart with them.”

In one of his conferences with Bucer, he declared, that there could be no union, unless Zuinglius and his party should think and teach otherwise; cursing all phrases and interpretations that tended to assert the figurative presence only; affirming, that ^[298]“either those of his own opinion, or those of Zuinglius, must be the ministers of the devil.” On this account, though Luther was for treating Zuinglius and his followers with as much christian friendship as he could afford them, yet he would never own them for brethren, but looked on them as heretics, and pressed the Electors of Saxony not to allow them in their dominions. ^[299]He also wrote to Albert Duke of Prussia, to persuade him to banish them his territories. Seckendorf also tells us, that the Lutheran lawyers of Wirtemburg condemned to death one Peter Pestelius, for being a Zuinglian; though this was disapproved by the Elector of Saxony. Several also of the anabaptists were put to death by the Lutherans, for their obstinacy in propagating their errors, contrary to the judgment of the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, who declared himself for more moderate measures, and for uniting all sorts of protestants amongst themselves.^[300]

SECT. II. Calvin’s Doctrine and Practice concerning Persecution.

John Calvin, another of the reformers, and to whom the christian world is, on many accounts, under very great obligations, was however well known to be in principle and practice a persecutor. So entirely was he in the persecuting 289measures, that he wrote a treatise in defence of them, maintaining the lawfulness of putting heretics to death. And that by heretics he meant such who differed from himself, is evident from his treatment of Castellio and Servetus.

The former, not inferior to Calvin himself in learning and piety, had the misfortune to differ from him in judgment, in the points of predestination, election, free-will and faith. This Calvin could not bear, and therefore treated Castellio in so rude and cruel a manner, as I believe his warmest friends will be ashamed to justify. In some of his writings he calls him “Blasphemer, reviler, malicious barking dog, full of ignorance, bestiality and impudence; impostor, a base corrupter of the sacred writings, a mocker of God, a contemner of all religion, an impudent fellow, a filthy dog, a knave, an impious, lewd, crooked-minded vagabond, beggarly rogue.” At other times he calls him “a disciple and brother of Servetus, and an heretic.” Castellio’s reply to all these flowers, is worthy the patience and moderation of a Christian, and from his slanderer he appeals to the righteous judgment of God.

But not content with these invectives, Calvin farther accused him of three crimes; which Castellio particularly answers. The first was of theft, in taking away some wood, that belonged to another person, to make a fire to warm himself withal: this Calvin calls “Cursed gain, at another’s expence and damage;” whereas, in truth, the fact was this. Castellio was thrown into such circumstances of poverty by the persecutions of Calvin and his friends, that he was scarce able to maintain himself. And as he dwelt near the banks of the Rhine, he used at leisure hours to draw out of the river with an hook, the wood that was brought down by the waters of it. This wood was no private property, but every man’s that could catch it. Castellio took it in the middle of the day, and amongst a great number of fishermen, and several of his own acquaintance; and was sometimes paid money for it by the decree of the senate. This the charitable Calvin magnifies into a theft, and publishes to the world to paint out the character of his Christian brother.

290But his accusations ran farther yet; and he calls God to witnesswitness, that whilst he maintained Castellio in his house, “He never saw any one more proud or perfidious, or void of humanity; and it was well known he was an impostor, of a peculiar impudence, and one that took pleasure in scoffing at piety, and that he delighted himself in laughing at the principles of religion.” These charges Castellio answers in such a manner, as was enough to put even malice itself to silence. For, notwithstanding Calvin’s appeal to God for the truth of these things, yet he himself and two of his principal friends, who were eminent preachers in Savoy, pressed Castellio, even contrary to his inclination, to take the charge of a school at Stratsburg; and therefore, as he says to Calvin, “With what conscience could you make me master, if you knew me to be such a person when I dwelt in your house? What sort of men must they be, who would commit the education of children to such a wicked wretch, as you appeal to God you knew me to be.”

But what is yet more to the purpose, is, that after he had been master of that school three years, Calvin gave him a testimonial, written and signed with his own hand, as to the integrity of his past behaviour; affirming, amongst other things, “That he had behaved himself in such a manner, that he was, by the consent of all of them, appointed to the pastoral office.” And in the conclusion he adds, “Lest any one should suspect any other reason why Sebastian went from us, we testify to all wheresoever he may come, that he himself voluntarily left the school, and so behaved himself in it, as that we adjudged him worthy this sacred ministry.” And that he was not actually received into it, was “non aliqua vitæ macula,” not owing to any blemish of his life, nor to any impious tenets that he held in matters of faith, but to this only cause, the difference of our opinions about Solomon’s Songs, and the article of Christ’s descent into hell. But how is this testimonial, that Castellio had no “macula vitæ,” was unblameable as to his life, reconcileable with the appeal to God, that he was proud and perfidious, and void of humanity, 291and a professed scoffer at religion, whilst he dwelt at Calvin’s house? If this charge was true, how came Calvin and his friends to appoint him master of a school, and judge him worthy the sacred ministry? Or if he was of so bad a character once, and afterwards gave the evidence of a sincere repentance by an irreproachable behaviour, what equity or justice, what humanity or honour was there in publishing to the world faults that had been repented of and forsaken? Castellio solemnly protests that he had never injured Calvin, and that the sole reason of his displeasure against him was because he differed from him in opinion. On this account he endeavoured to render him every where impious, prohibited the reading of his books; and, what is the last effort of enmity, endeavoured to excite the civil magistrate against him to put him to death. But God was pleased to protect this good man from the rage of his enemies. He died at Basil, in peace; and received an honourable burial, the just reward of his piety, learning, and merit.

I may add to this account, Calvin’s treatment of one Jerom Bolsec,^[301] who from a Carmelite monk had embraced the reformed religion, but held the doctrine of free-will and predestination upon the foresight of good works. Calvin was present at a sermon preached by him at Geneva, upon these articles; and the sermon being ended, publicly opposed him in the congregation. When the assembly was dismissed, poor Bolsec was immediately apprehended, and sent to prison; and soon after, by Calvin’s counsel, banished for sedition and Pelagianism from the city, and forbid ever to come into it, or the territories of it, under pain of being whipped, A. C. 1551.

But Calvin’s treatment of the unfortunate Servetus was yet more severe. His book, entitled, “Restitutio Christianismi,” which he sent in MS. to Calvin, enraged him to that degree, that he afterwards kept no temper or measures with him; so that as Bolsec and Uytenbogaert relate, in a letter written by 292him to his friends Viret and Farrel, he tells them,^[302] that “If this heretic (Servetus) should ever fall into his hands, he would take care that he should lose his life.” Servetus’s imprisonment at Vienne, soon gave him an opportunity to shew his zeal against him: for, in order to strengthen the evidence against him, Calvin sent to the magistrates of that city the letters and writings which Servetus had sent to him at Geneva. This is evident from the sentence itself against him; in which those writings, as well as his printed book, are expressly mentioned, as containing the proofs of his heresy. Whether Calvin sent them of his own accord, or at the desire of the magistrates of Vienne, I shall not presume to determine. If of his own accord, it was a base officiousness; and if at the request of those magistrates, it was a most unaccountable conduct in a Protestant to send evidence to a Popish court to put a Protestant to death; especially considering that Servetus could not differ more from Calvin than Calvin did from the Papists, their common adversaries, and who certainly deserved as much to be burnt, in their judgment, as Servetus did in Calvin’s.

Besides this, Servetus farther charges him with writing to one William Trie, at Lyons, to furnish the magistrates of that city with matter of accusation against him. The author of the Bibliotheque before-mentioned, says this is a mere romance, dressed up by Servetus. I confess it doth not appear to me in so very romantic a light; at least Calvin’s vindication of himself, from this charge, doth not seem to be altogether sufficient. He says, “It is commonly reported that I occasioned Servetus to be apprehended at Vienne; on which account it is said, by many, that I have acted dishonourably, in thus exposing him to the mortal enemies of the faith, as though I had thrown him into the mouth of the wolves. But, I beseech you, how came I so suddenly into such an intimacy with the pope’s officers? It is very likely, truly, that we should correspond 293together by letters; and that those who agree with me, just as Belial doth with Jesus Christ, should enter into a plot with their mortal enemy, as with their companion: This silly calumny will fall to the ground, when I shall say, in one word, that there is nothing in it.” But how doth all this confute Servetus’s charge? For whatever differences soever there might be between Calvin and the Papists in some things, yet, why might he not write to the Papists at Vienne to put Servetus to death for what was equally counted heresy by them both, and when they agreed as the most intimate friends and companions in the lawfulness of putting heretics to death? What Calvin says of the absurdity of their intimacy and conspiracy with him their mortal enemy, is no absurdity at all. Herod and Pontius Pilate, though enemies, agreed in the condemnation of the Son of God.

Besides, it is certain, that the magistrates at Vienne had Servetus’s Manuscripts sent to them from Geneva, either by Calvin, or the magistrates of that city; and when Servetus was afterwards apprehended at Geneva, the magistrates there sent a messenger to Vienne, for a copy of the process that had been there carried on against him; which that messenger received, and actually brought back to Geneva. So that nothing is more evident, than that there was an intimacy and conspiracy between the Protestants of Geneva and the Papists at Vienne, to take away the life of poor Servetus; and that, though they were mortal enemies in other things, and as far different from one another as Christ and Belial, yet that they agreed harmoniously in the doctrine and practice of persecution, and were one in the design and endeavour of murdering this unhappy physician. And though Calvin is pleased magisterially to deny his having any communication by letters with the Papists at Vienne, yet I think his denial far from sufficient to remove the suspicion. He himself expressly says that many persons blamed him for not acting honourably in that affair; and the accusation was supportedsupported by Servetus’s complaint, and by what is a much stronger evidence, the original papers and letters which Servetus had sent to Calvin, 294which were actually produced by the judges at Vienne, and recited in the sentence as part of the foundation of his condemnation. And as Calvin himself never, as I can find, hath attempted to clear up these strong circumstances, though he owed it to himself and his friends, I think he cannot well be excused from practising the death of Servetus at Vienne, and lending his assistance to the bloody Papists of that place, the more effectually to procure his condemnation.

But he had the good fortune to make his escape from imprisonment, and was, June 17, 1553, condemned for contumacy, and burnt in effigy by the order of his judges; having himself got safe to Geneva, where he was re-condemned, and actually burnt in person, October 27, of the same year 1553. He had not been long in this city before Calvin spirited up one Nicholas de la Fountain, probably one of his pupils, to make information against him; wisely avoiding it himself, because, according to the laws of Geneva, the accuser must submit to imprisonment with the party he accuses, till the crime appears to have a solid foundation and proof. Upon this information Servetus was apprehended and imprisoned. Calvin ingenuously owns, that this whole affair was carried on at his instance and advice; and that, in order to bring Servetus to reason, he himself found out the party to accuse him, and begin the process against him. And therefore, though, as the fore-mentioned author of the Bibliotheque, for January, &c. 1729, observes, the action, after its commencement, was carried on according to the course of law; yet, as Calvin accused him for heresy, got him imprisoned, and began the criminal process against him, he is answerable for all the consequences of his trial, and was in reality the first and principal author of his death; especially as the penal laws against heretics seem at that time to have been in force at Geneva, so that Servetus could not escape the fire upon his conviction of heresy.

When he was in jail, he was treated with the same rigour as if he had been detained in one of the prisons of the inquisition. He was stripped of all means of procuring himself the conveniences and supplies he needed in his confinement. 295They took from him ninety-seven pieces of gold, a gold chain worth twenty crowns, six gold rings, and at last put him into a deep dungeon, where he was almost eaten up with vermin. All this cruelty was practised upon a protestant in the protestant city of Geneva. Besides this, he could never get a proctor or advocate to assist him, or help him in pleading his cause, though he requested it, as being a stranger, and ignorant of the laws and customs of the country. Calvin, at the request of the judges, drew up certain propositions out of Servetus’s books, representing them as blasphemous, full of errors and profane reveries, all repugnant to the word of God, and to the common consent of the whole church; and, indeed, appears to have been acquainted with, and consulted in the whole process, and to have used all his arts and endeavours to prevent his coming off with impunity.

It is but a poor and mean excuse that Calvin makes for himself in this respect, when he says; ^[303]“As to the fact, I will not deny, but that it was at my prosecution he was imprisoned:—But that after he was convicted of his heresies, I made no instances for his being put to death.” But what need of instances? He had already accused him, got him imprisoned, prosecuted in a criminal court for the capital crime of heresy, and actually drew up forty articles against him for heresy, blasphemy, and false doctrine. When he was convicted of these crimes, the law could not but take its course; and his being burnt to death was the necessary consequence of his conviction. What occasion was there then for Calvin to press his execution, when the laws themselves had adjudged him to the flames? But even this excuse, poor as it is, is not sincerely and honestly made: for Calvin was resolved to use all his interest to destroy him. In his letter to Farrel, he expressly says, “I hope, at least, they will condemn him to death, but not to the terrible one of being burnt.” And in another to Sultzer, “Since the papists, in order to vindicate 296their own superstitions, cruelly shed innocent blood, it is a shame that Christian magistrates should have no courage at all in the defence of certain truth.—However, I will certify you of one thing, that the city treasurer is rightly determined, that he shall not escape that end which we wish him.” And in another to the church at Franckfort,^[304] “The author (Servetus) is put in jail by our magistrates, and I hope he will shortly suffer the punishment he deserves.”deserves.” There was but one way possible for him to escape; and that was by bringing his cause from the criminal court, where he was prosecuted, before the council of the two hundred. And this Calvin vigorously opposed and reflected on the syndic himself for endeavouring it. He says, “that he pretended illness for three days, and then came into court to save that wretch (Servetus) from punishment; and was not ashamed to demand, that the cognizance of the affair should be referred to the two hundred. However he was unanimously condemned.” Now, what great difference is there between a prosecutor’s endeavouring to prevent the only method by which a criminal can be saved, and his actually pressing for his being put to death? Calvin actually did the former, and yet would fain persuade us he had no hand in the latter.

It is much of a piece with this, his desiring that the rigour of Servetus’s death might be mitigated; for as the laws against heretics were in force at Geneva, the tribunal that judged Servetus could not, after his conviction of heresy, absolve him from death, nor change the manner of it, as Calvin says he would have had it; and therefore his desiring that the rigour of it might be abated, looks too much like the practice of the inquisitors, who when they deliver over an heretic to the secular arm, beseech it so to moderate the rigour of the sentence, as not to endanger life or limb.

This was the part that Calvin acted in the affair of Servetus, which I have represented in the most impartial manner, as it 297appears to me; and am sorry I am not able to wipe off so foul a stain from the memory of this otherwise excellent and learned reformer. But when his enemies charge him with acting merely from principles of malice and revenge in this matter, I think it an evident abuse and calumny. He was, in his own judgment, for persecuting and destroying heretics, as appears from the treatise he published in vindication of this practice, entitled, “A declaration for maintaining the true faith, held by all Christians concerning the Trinity of persons in one only God, by John Calvin, against the detestable errors of Michael Servetus, a Spaniard. In which it is also proved, that it is lawful to punish heretics; and that this wretch was justly executed in the city of Geneva.” Geneva, 1554.

This principle was maintained by almost all the fathers and bishops of the church since the three first centuries, who esteemed heresy as one of the worst of impieties, and thought it the duty of the civil magistrates to employ their power for the suppression of it, and for the support and establishment of the orthodox faith. And though the first reformers abhorred the cruelty of the papists towards the protestants, they had nevertheless the same abhorrence of what they counted heresy that the papists had, and agreed with them in the lawfulness of suppressing it by the civil power. So that Calvin acted in this affair from a principle, though a mistaken principle of conscience, and had the encouragement and approbation of the most learned and pious reformers of the times he lived in.

Melancton, in a letter to Bullinger, says^[305] “I have read also what you have written concerning the blasphemies of Servetus, and I approve your piety and judgment. I think also, that the senate of Geneva have done right, that they have put to death that obstinate person, who would not cease to blaspheme; and I wonder that there are any who disapprove that severity.” He affirms the same also in another letter to Calvin himself. Bucer also said publicly in his sermon, that 298“He ought to have his bowels pulled out, and be torn in pieces,” as Calvin relates in his letter to Sultzer. Farrel in a letter to Calvin, says, that “He deserved to die ten thousand deaths; that it would be a piece of cruelty, and an injustice to Christ, and the doctrine of piety, for magistrates not to take notice of the horrible blasphemies of that wicked heretic. And he hoped God would so order it that as the magistrates of Geneva were very praise-worthy for punishing thieves and sacrilegious persons, so they would behave themselves well in the affair of Servetus, by putting him to death, who had so long obstinately persisted in his heresies, and destroyed so many persons by them.”

^[306]The pastors of the church at Basil, in their letter to the syndics and senate of Geneva, express their joy for the apprehension of Servetus, and advise them first to “Use all endeavours to recover him; but that if he persisted in his perverseness, they should punish him according to their office, and the power they had received from God, to prevent his giving any disturbance to the church, and lest the latter end should be worse than the first.” ^[307]The ministers of the church of Bern were of the same opinion; and in their letter to the magistrates of Geneva say, “We pray the Lord that he would give you the spirit of prudence, counsel and strength, to remove this plague from the churches, both your own and others,” and advise them “to neglect nothing that may be judged unworthy a Christian magistrate to omit.” ^[308]The ministers of Zurich give much the same advice, and thought that there was need of a great deal of diligence in the affair; “especially as the reformed churches were evil thought of, amongst other reasons for this, as being themselves heretical, and favourers of heretics. But that, as the Providence of God had given them an opportunity of wiping off so evil a suspicion, and preventing the farther spreading of so contagious a poison, they did not doubt but their excellencies would be careful to improve it.” ^[309]Those of Scaffhusen subscribed to the judgment 299of those of Zurich, and declare, that they did not doubt, but that their prudence would put a stop to the attempts of Servetus, lest his blasphemies, as a canker, should eat up the members of Christ; adding these remarkable words, “That to endeavour to oppose his dreams by a train of reasoning, what would it be, but to grow mad with a madman?”

These extracts, which are taken out of the letters printed at the end of Calvin’s Institutions, clearly demonstrate that he acted seriously and deliberately in the affair of Servetus; and that he consulted the neighbouring churches, and had their opinion of the lawfulness and expediency of putting him to death for his heresies. And though it doth not wholly excuse his fault, yet it ought in justice to be allowed as an abatement and extenuation of it; and, I think, evidently proves, what his enemies are very unwilling to allow, that he was not transported by rage and fury, and did not act merely from the dictates of envy and malice, but from a mistaken zeal against what he accounted blasphemy and heresy, and with the concurrent advice of his brethren in the ministry, and fellow-labourers in the great work of the reformation. And I think his eminent services to the church of God, both by his preaching and writings, ought, notwithstanding all his failings, to secure to his memory the honour and respect that is due to it: for he deserved well of all the reformed churches, and was an eminent instrument in the hand of Providence, in promoting the great and glorious work of saving men from the gross errors, superstitions and idolatries of the Romish church. And as I thought myself obliged impartially to represent these things as they appeared to me, I hope all who love to distinguish themselves by Calvin’s name, will be careful not to imitate him in this great blemish of his life, which, in reality, hath tarnished a character, that would otherwise have appeared amongst the first and brightest of the age he lived in.

In the year 1632, after Calvin’s death, one Nicholas Anthoine was condemned also by the council of Geneva, to be first hanged, and afterwards burnt; because, that having forgotten 300the fear of God, he had committed the crime of apostacy and high treason against God, by having opposed the Holy Trinity, denied our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, blasphemed his holy name, renounced his baptism, and the like.

SECT. III. Persecutions at Bern, Basil, and Zurich.

Valentinus Gentilis,^[310] a native of Cosentia in Italy, had the misfortune also to fall into some heterodox opinions concerning the Trinity, and held that the Father alone was αυτοθεος, God of himself, αγεννητος, unbegotten, Essentiator, the giver of essence to all other beings; but that the Son was Essentiatus, of a derived essence from the Father, and therefore not αυτοθεος, or God of himself, though at the same time he allowed him to be truly God. He held much the same as to the Holy Ghost, making them three eternal Spirits, distinguished by a gradual and due subordination, reserving the monarchy to the Father, whom he stiled the one only God. Being forced to fly his native country, on account of his religion, he came to Geneva, where there was a church of Italian refugees, several of whom, such as G. Blandrata, a physician, Gribaldus, a lawyer, and Paulus Alciatus, differed from the commonly received notions of the Trinity. When their heterodoxes came to be known at Geneva, they were cited before the senators, ministers, and presbyters, and being heard in their own defence, were refuted by Calvin, and all subscribed to the orthodox faith.

But V. Gentilis having after this endeavoured to propagate his own opinions, he was again apprehended, and forced by 301Calvin and others to a public abjuration, and condemned anno 1558, to an exemplary penance, viz. “That he should be stripped close to his shirt, then barefoot and bare-headed should carry in his hand a lighted torch, and beg God and the court’s pardon on his knees, by confessing himself maliciously and wickedly to have spread abroad a false and heretical doctrine; but that he did now from his heart detest and abhor those abominable, lying, and blasphemous books, he had composed in its defence; in testimony of which he was to cast them, with his own hands, into the flames, there to be burnt, to ashes. And for more ample satisfaction, he was injoined to be led through all the streets of Geneva, at the sound of trumpet, in his penitentialpenitential habit, and strictly commanded not to depart the city without permission.” And this penance he actually underwent.

But having found means to make his escape, he came at last to Gaium, a prefecture, subject to the canton of Bern, where he was seized and imprisoned by the governor, who immediately sent an account of his apprehension to the senate of Bern, who ordered him to be brought prisoner to that city, where they put him in jail. After they had seized all his books and papers, they collected several articles, with the heads of an indictment out of them to be preferred against him. Amongst others these were two, 1. “That he dissented from us, and all the orthodox, in the doctrine of the Trinity.” And 2. “That his writings contained many impious blasphemies concerning the Trinity.” And because he continued obstinate in his opinions, notwithstanding the endeavours of the divines to convert him, he was condemned by the senate, for his blasphemies against the Son of God, and the glorious mystery of the Trinity, to be beheaded; which sentence was executed on him in September, anno 1566.

^[311]At Basil, also, heresy was a crime punishable with death, since the reformation, as appears from the treatment of the 302dead body of David George, an enthusiastical anabaptist. Having left Holland he went to Basil, and settled there as one that was banished out of his country for the sake of his religion, propagating his own doctrines by letters, books, and messengers in Holland. But his errors being discovered after his death, he was taken out of his grave, and together with his books and pictures burnt to ashes, by order of the magistrates, at the place of execution, without the walls of Basil, May 13, 1559. His opinions were first extracted from the printed books and manuscript papers found in his house, and himself declared an arch heretic.

^[312]Zurich also furnishes us with an instance of great cruelty towards an anabaptist. A severe edict was published against them, in which there was a penalty of a silver mark, about four shillings English money, set upon all such as should suffer themselves to be-rebaptized, or should withhold baptism from their children. And it was farther declared, that those who openly opposed this order, should be yet more severely treated. Accordingly one Felix was drowned at Zurich, upon the sentence pronounced by Zuinglius, in these four Words, “Qui interum mergit, mergatur:“ He that re-dips, let him be drowned. This happened in the year 1526. About the same time also, and since, there were some more of them put to death. ^[313]From the same place, also, Ochinus was banished, in his old age, in the depth of winter, together with his children, because he was an Arian, and defended polygamy, if Beza’s account of him be true.

Lubieniecius,^[314] a Polish Unitarian, was, through the practices of the Calvinists, banished with his brethren from Poland, his native country; and forced to leave several protestant cities of Germany, to which he had fled for refuge, particularly, Stetin, Frederickstadt, and Hamburg, through the practices of the Lutheran divines, who were against all 303toleration. At Hamburg he received the orders of the magistrates of the city to depart the place on his death-bed; and when his dead body was carried to Altenau to be interred, though the preachers could not, as they endeavoured, prevent his being buried in the church, yet they did actually prevent the usual funeral honours being paid him. John Sylvanus,^[315] superintendant of the church of Heidelberg, was put to death by order of Frederick Elector Palatine, anno 1571, being accused of Arianism.

SECT. IV. Persecutions in Holland, and by the Synod of Dort.

If we pass over into Holland, we shall also find that the reformers there were most of them in the principles and measures of persecution, and managed their differences with that heat and fury, as gave great advantages to the Papists, their common enemies. In the very infancy of the reformation the Lutherans and Calvinists condemned each other for their supposed heterodoxy in the affair of the sacrament, and looked upon compliance and mutual toleration to be things intolerable. These differences were kept up principally by the clergy of each party. The Prince of Orange, and States of Holland, who were heartily inclined to the reformation, were not for confining their protection to any particular set of principles or opinions, but for granting an universal indulgence in all matters of religion, aiming at peace and mutual forbearance, and to open the church as wide as possible for all Christians of unblameable lives; whereas the clergy being biassed by their passions and inclinations for those masters, in whose writings they had been instructed, endeavoured with all their might to 304establish and conciliate authority to their respective opinions; aiming only at decisions and definitions, and shutting up the church by limitations in many doubtful and disputable articles; so that the disturbances which were raised, and the severities which were used upon the account of religion, proceeded from the bigotry of the clergy, contrary to the desire and intention of the civil magistrate.

Before the ministers of the reformed party were engaged in the controversy with Arminius,^[316] their zeal was continually exerting itself against the anabaptists, whom they declared to be excommunicated and cut off from the church, and endeavoured to convert by violence and force, prohibiting them from preaching under fines, and banishing them their country, upon account of their opinions. And the better to colour these proceedings, some of them wrote in defence of persecution; or, which is the same thing, against the toleration of any religion or opinions different from their own; and for the better support of orthodoxy, they would have had the synods ordain, that all church officers should renew their subscriptions to the confession and catechism every year, that hereby they might the better know who had changed their sentiments, and differed from the received faith. This practice was perfectly agreeable to the Geneva discipline; Calvin himself, as hath been shewn, being in judgment for persecuting heretics; and Beza having wrote a treatise, anno 1600, to prove the lawfulness of punishing them. This book was translated from the Latin into the Low Dutch language by Bogerman, afterwards president of the synod of Dort, and published with a dedication, and recommendation of it to the magistrates. The consequence of this was, that very severe placarts were published against the anabaptists in Friesland and Groningen, whereby they were forbidden to preach; and all persons prohibited from letting their houses and grounds to them, under the penalty of a large fine, or confinement to bread and water for fourteen days. If 305they offended the third time, they were to be banished the city, and the jurisdiction thereof. Whosoever was discovered to re-baptize any person, should forfeit twenty dollars; and upon a second conviction to be put to bread and water, and then be banished. Unbaptized children were made incapable of inheriting; and if any one married out of the reformed church, he was declared incapable of inheriting any estate, and the children made illegitimate.

But the controversy that made the greatest noise, and produced the most remarkable effects, was that carried on between the Calvinists and Arminians. Jacobus Arminius, one of the professors of divinity at Leyden, disputing in his turn about the doctrine of predestination, advanced several things differing from the opinions of Calvin on this article, and was in a few months after warmly opposed by Gomarus his colleague, who held, that “It was appointed by an eternal decree of God, who amongst mankind shall be saved, and who shall be damned.” This was indeed the sentiment of most of the clergy of the United Provinces, who therefore endeavoured to run down Arminius and his doctrine with the greatest zeal, in their private conversations, public disputes, and in their very sermons to their congregations, charging him with innovations, and of being a follower of the ancient heretical monk Pelagius; whereas the government was more inclinable to Arminius’s scheme, as being less rigid in its nature, and more intelligible by the people, and endeavoured all they could to prevent these differences of the clergy from breaking out into an open quarrel, to the disturbance of the public peace. But the ministers of the predestinarian party would enter into no treaty for peace: the remonstrants were the objects of their furious zeal, whom they called mamelukes, devils, and plagues; animating the magistrates to extirpate and destroy them, and crying out from the pulpits, “We must go through thick and thin, without fearing to stick in the mire: we know what Elijah did to Baal’s priests.” And when the time drew near for the election of new magistrates, they prayed 306to God for such men, “as would be zealouszealous even to blood, though it were to cost the whole trade of their cities.” They also accused them of keeping up a correspondence with the Jesuits and Spaniards, and of a design to betray their country to them.

These proceedings gave great disturbance to the magistrates, especially as many of the clergy took great liberties with them, furiously inveighing against them in their sermons, as enemies to the church, and persecutors; as libertines and free-thinkers, who hated the sincere ministers of God, and endeavoured to turn them out of their office. This conduct, together with their obstinate refusal of all measures of accommodation, and peace with the remonstrants, so incensed the magistrates, that in several cities they suspended some of the warmest and most seditious of them, and prohibited them from the public exercises of their ministerial function; particularly Gezelius of Rotterdam, and afterwards Rosæus, minister at the Hague, for endeavouring to make a schism in the church, and exhorting the people to break off communion with their brethren. Being thus discarded, they assumed to themselves the name of the persecuted church, and met together in private houses, absolutely refusing all communion with the remonstrant ministers and party, in spite of all the attempts made use of to reconcile and unite them.

What the ministers of the contra-remonstrant party aimed at, was the holding a national council; which at length, after a long opposition, was agreed to in the assembly of the States-General, who appointed Dort for the place of the meeting. Prince Maurice of Orange, the Stadtholder, effectually prepared matters for holding the said assembly; and as he declared himself openly for the contra-remonstrant party, not for that he was of their opinions in religion, being rather inclined to those of Arminius, but because he thought them the best friends to his family, he took care that the council should consist of such persons as were well affected to them. In order to this his excellency changed the government of 307most of the towns of Holland, deposed those magistrates who were of the remonstrant persuasion, or that favoured them in the business of the toleration, and filled up their places with contra-remonstrants, or such as promoted their interests; making use of the troops of the states, to obviate all opposition.

The consequence of this was the imprisonment of several great men of the remonstrant persuasion, such as the advocate Oldenbarnevelt, Grotius, and others; and the suspension, or total deprivation of a considerable number of the remonstrant clergy, such as Vitenbogart, of the Hague, Grovinckhovius, of Rotterdam, Grevius, and others, by particular synods met together for that purpose, and to prepare things, and appoint persons for the ensuing national one at Dort. The persons fixed on were generally the most violent of the contra-remonstrant party, and who had publicly declared, that they would not enter into communion with those who differed from them, nor agree to any terms of moderation and peace. There were also several foreign Divines summoned to this council, who were most of them in the Calvinistic scheme, and professed enemies to the Arminians.

The lay commissioners also, who were chosen by the States, were most of them very partial contra-remonstrants; and two or three of them, who seemed more impartial than the others, were hardly suffered to speak; and if they did, were presently suspected, and represented by letters sent to the states, and Prince Maurice, at the Hague, as persons that favoured the remonstrants; which was then considered as a crime against the government, insomuch, that by these insinuations, they were in danger of being stripped of all their employments.

The session and first opening of this venerable assembly,^[317] was Nov. 13, 1618. John Bogerman was chosen president of it; the same worthy and moderate Divine, who had before translated 308into Low Dutch Beza’s Treatise, to prove the lawfulness of punishing heretics, with a preface recommendatory to the civil magistrate; chosen not by the whole synod, but by the Low Country divines only, the foreigners not being allowed any share in the election.

At the fifth session the remonstrants petitioned the synod, that a competent number of their friends might have leave to appear before them, and that the citation might be sent to the whole body, and not to any single person, to the end that they might be at liberty to send such as they should judge best qualified to defend their cause; and particularly insisted, that Grovinckhovius and Goulart might be of the number. One would have thought that so equitable a request should have been readily granted. But they were told, that it could not be allowed that the remonstrants should pass for a distinct body, or make any deputation of persons in their common name to treat of their affairs; and agreeably to this declaration, the summons that were given out were not sent to the remonstrants as a body or part of the synod, but to such particular persons as the synod thought fit to choose out of them; which was little less than citing them as criminals before a body of men, which chiefly consisted of their professed adversaries.^[318] When they first appeared in the synod, and Episcopius in the name of the rest of them talked of entering into a regular conference about the points in difference, they were immediately given to understand, that no conference was intended; but that their only business was to deliver their sentiments, and humbly to wait for the judgment of the council concerning them.

Episcopius, in the name of his brethren, declared, that they did not own the synod for their lawful judges, because most of that body were their avowed enemies, and fomenters and promoters of the unhappy schism amongst them; upon which they were immediately reprimanded by the president, for impeaching 309and arraigning their authority, and presuming to prescribe laws to those whom the States-General had appointed for their judges. The Divines of Geneva added upon this head, “That if people obstinately refused to submit to the lawful determinations of the church, there then remained two methods to be used against them; the one, that the civil magistrate might stretch out his arm of compulsion; the other that the church might exert her power, in order to separate and cut off, by a public sentence, those who violated the laws of God.”God.” After many debates on this head, between the synod and the remonstrants, who adhered to their resolution of not owning the synod for their judges, they were turned out of it, by Bogerman the president, with great insolence and fury; to the high dissatisfaction of many of the foreign Divines.

After the holy synod had thus rid themselves of the remonstrants, whose learning and good sense would have rendered them exceeding troublesome to this assembly, they proceeded to fix the faith; and as they had no opposition to fear, and were almost all of one side, at least in the main points, they agreed in their articles and canons, and in their sentence against the remonstrant clergy, who had been cited to appear before them; which was to this effect: “They beseeched and charged in the name of Christ, all and singular the ministers of the churches throughout the United Netherlands, &c. that they forsake and abandon the well-known five articles of the remonstrants, as being false, and no other than secret magazines of errors.—And whereas some, who are gone out from amongst us, calling themselves remonstrants, have, out of private views and ends, unlawfully violated the discipline and government of the church—have not only trumped up old errors, but hammered out new ones too—have blackened and rendered odious the established doctrine of the church with impudent slanders and calumnies, without end or measure; have filled all places with scandal, discord, scruples, troubles of conscience—all which heinous offences ought to be restrained and punished in clergymen with the severest censures: therefore this national synod—being assured of its own authority—doth 310declare and determine, that those ministers, who have acted in the churches as heads of factions, and teachers of errors, are guilty, and convicted of having violated our holy religion, having made a rent in the unity of the church, and given very great scandal: and as for those who were cited before this synod, that they are besides guilty of intolerable disobedience—to the commands of the venerable synod: for all which reasons the synod doth, in the first place, discharge the aforesaid cited persons from all ecclesiastical administrations, and deprive them of their offices; judging them likewise unworthy of any academical employment.—And as for the rest of the remonstrant clergy, they are hereby recommended to the provincial synods, classes, and consistories—who are to take the utmost care—that the patrons of errors be prudently discovered; that all obstinate, clamorous, and factious disturbers of the church under their jurisdiction, be forthwith deprived of their ecclesiastical and academical offices.—And they the said provincial synods are therefore exhorted—to take a particular care, that they admit none into the ministry who shall refuse to subscribe, or promise to preach the doctrine, asserted in these synodical decrees; and that they suffer none to continue in the ministry, by whose public dissent the doctrine which hath been so unanimously approved by all the members of this synod, the harmony of the clergy, and the peace of the church may be again disturbed—And they most earnestly and humbly beseech their gracious God, that their High Mightinesses may suffer and ordain this wholesome doctrine, which the synod hath faithfully expressed—to be maintained alone, and in its purity within their provinces—and restrain turbulent and unruly spirits—and may likewise put in execution the sentence pronounced against the above mentioned persons—and ratify and confirm the decrees of the synod by their authority.”

The states readily obliged them in this christian and charitable request; for as soon as the synod was concluded, the old advocate Barnevelt was beheaded, who had been a zealous and hearty friend to the remonstrants and their principles, 311and Grotius condemned to perpetual imprisonment; and because the cited ministers would not promise wholly, and always to abstain from the exercise of their ministerial functions, the states passed a resolution for the banishing of them on pain, if they did not submit to it, of being treated as disturbers of the public peace. And though they only begged a respite of the sentence for a few days, to put their affairs in order, and to provide themselves with a little money to support themselves and families in their banishment, even this was unmercifully denied them, and they were hurried away next morning by four o’clock, as if they had been enemies to the religion and liberties of their country.

Such was the effect of this famous presbyterian synod, who behaved themselves as tyrannically towards their brethren, as any prelatical council whatsoever could do; and to the honour of the church of England it must be said, that they owned their synodical power, and concurred by their deputies, Carleton Bishop of Landaff, Hall, Davenant, and Ward, in condemning the remonstrants, in excommunicating and depriving them, and turning them out of their churches, and in establishing both the discipline and doctrines of Geneva in the Netherlands. For after the council was ended, the remonstrants were every where driven out of their churches, and prohibited from holding any private meetings, and many of them banished on this very account. The reader will find a very particular relation of these transactions, in the learned Gerard Brandt’s History of the Reformation of the Low Countries, to which I must refer him.

SECT. V. Persecutions in Great-Britain.

If we look into our own country, we shall find numerous proofs of the same antichristian spirit and practice. Even our first reformers, who had seen the flames which the papists 312had kindled against their brethren, yet lighted fires themselves to consume those who differed from them. Cranmer’s hands were stained with the blood of several.^[319] He had a share in the prosecution and condemnation of that pious and excellent martyr John Lambert, and consented to the death of Ann Askew, who were burnt for denying the corporal presence; which, though Cranmer then believed, he saw afterwards reason to deny.

In the year 1549, Joan Bocher was condemned for some enthusiastical opinions about Christ, and delivered over to the secular power. The sentence being returned to the council, King Edward VI. was moved to sign a warrant for her being burnt, but could not be prevailed with to do it. Cranmer endeavoured to persuade him by such arguments, as rather silenced than satisfied the young king: so he set his hand to the warrant with tears in his eyes, saying to the archbishop, that if he did wrong, since it was in submission to his authority, he should answer for it to God. Though this struck Cranmer with horror, yet he at last put the sentence in execution against her.

About two years after one George Van Pare, a Dutchman, was accused, for saying, “That God the Father was only God, and that Christ was not very God.” And though he was a person of a very holy life, yet because he would not abjure, he was condemned for heresy, and burnt in Smithfield. The Archbishop himself was afterwards burnt for heresy; which, as Fox observed, many looked on as a just retaliation from the providence of God, for the cruel severeties he had used towards others.

The controversy about the Popish habits was one of the first that arose amongst the English reformers. Cranmer and Ridley were zealous for the use of them, whilst other very pious and learned Divines were for laying them aside, as the badges of idolatry and antichrist. Amongst these was Dr. 313Hooper, nominated to the bishoprick of Gloucester; but because he refused to be consecrated in the old vestments, he was by order of council first silenced, and then confined to his own house; and afterwards, by Cranmer’s means, committed to the Fleet prison, where he continued several months.

^[320]In the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, A. C. 1559, an act passed for the uniformity of common prayer, and service in the church, and administration of the sacraments; by which the queen and bishops were empowered to ordain such ceremonies in worship, as they should think for the honour of God, and the edification of his church. This act was rigourously pressed, and great severities used to such as could not comply with it. Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, made the clergy subscribe to use the prescribed rites and habits; and cited before him many of the most famous Divines who scrupled them, and would allow none to be presented to livings, or preferred in the church, without an intire conformity. He summoned the whole body of the London pastors and curates to appear before him at Lambeth, and immediately suspended 37, who refused to subscribe to the unity of apparel; and signified to them, that within three months they should be totally deprived, if they would not conform. So that many churches were shut up; and though the people were ready to mutiny for want of ministers, yet the archbishop was deaf to all their complaints, and in his great goodness and piety was resolved they should have no sacraments or sermons without the surplice and the cap. And in order to prevent all opposition to church tyranny, the Star Chamber published a decree for sealing up the press, and prohibiting any person to print or publish any book against the queen’s injunctions, or against the meaning of them. This decree was signed by the bishops of Canterbury and London.

This rigid and fanatical zeal for habits and coremonies, caused the Puritans to separate from the established church, 314and to hold private assemblies for worship. But the queen and her prelates soon made them feel their vengeance. Their meetings were disturbed, and those who attended them apprehended, and sent in large numbers, men and women, to Bridewell, for conviction. Others were cited into the spiritual courts, and not discharged till after long attendance and great charges. Subscriptions to articles of faith were violently pressed upon the clergy, and about one hundred of them were deprived, anno 1572, for refusing to submit to them. Some were closely imprisoned, and died in jail, through poverty and want.

And that serious piety and christian knowledge might gain ground, as well as uniformity, the bishops, by order of the queen, put down the prophesyings of the clergy, anno 1574, who were forbid to assemble as they had done for some years, to discourse with one another upon religious subjects and sermons; and as some serious persons of the laity were used to meet on holidays, or after they had done work, to read the scriptures, and to improve themselves in christian knowledge, the parsons of the parishes were sent for, and ordered to suppress them.

Eleven Dutchmen, who were anabaptists, were condemned in the consistory of St. Paul to the fire, for heresy; nine of whom were banished, and two of them burnt alive in Smithfield. In the year 1583, Copping and Thacker, two Puritan ministers, were hanged for non-conformity. It would be endless to go through all the severities that were used in this reign upon the account of religion. As the queen was of a very high and arbitrary temper, she pressed uniformity with great violence, and found bishops enough, Parker, Aylmer, Whitgift, and others, to justify and promote her measures; who either entered their sees with persecuting principles, or embraced them soon after their entrance, as best befitting the ends of their promotion. Silencings, deprivations, imprisonments, gibbets, and stakes, upon the account of religion, were some of the powerful reasonings of those times. The bishops rioted in power, and many of them abused it to the most cruel 315oppressions. The cries of innocent prisoners, widowed wives, and starving children, made no impression on their hearts. Piety and learning with them were void of merit. Refusal of subscriptions, and non-conformity, were crimes never to be forgiven. A particular account of these things may be seen in Mr. Neal’s history of the Puritans, who hath done some justice to that subject.

I shall only add, that the court of high commission established in this reign, by the instigation of Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, by which the commissioners were impowered to inquire into all misdemeanors, by all such ways and means as they could devise, and thought necessary; to examine persons upon oath, and to punish those who refused the oath by fine or imprisonment, according to their discretion, was an high stretch of the prerogative, and had a very near resemblance to the courts of inquisition; and the cruelties that were practised in it, and the exorbitant fines that were levied by it in the two following reigns, made it the universal abhorrence of the nation, so that it was dissolved by parliament, with a clause that no such court should be erected for the future.

^[321]King James I. was bred up in the kirk of Scotland, which professed the faith and discipline of those called Puritans in England; and though he blessed God, “For honouring him to be king over such a kirk, the sincerest kirk in the world,” yet, upon his accession to the English throne, he soon shewed his aversion to the constitution of that kirk; and to their brethren, the puritans in England. These were solicitous for a farther reformation in the church, which the bishops opposed, instilling this maxim into the king, ^[322]“No Bishop, no King;” which, as stale and false a maxim as it is, hath been lately trumped up, and publicly recommended, in a sermon on the 30th of January. In the conference at Hampton Court, his Majesty not only sided with the bishops, but assured the puritan ministers, who were sent for to it, that 316“he had not called the assembly together for any innovations, for that he acknowledged the government ecclesiastical, as it then was, to have been approved by God himself;” giving them to understand, that “if they did not conform, he would either hurry them out of the kingdom, or else do worse.”^[323] And these reasonings of the king were so strong, that Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, with an impious and sordid flattery said, “He was verily persuaded that the king spoke by the spirit of God.”

It was no wonder that the bishops, thus supported by an inspired king, should get an easy victory over the puritans; which possibly they would not have done, had his majesty been absent, and the aids of his inspiration withdrawn; since the archbishop did not pretend that himself or his brethren had any share of it. But having thus gotten the victory, they strove by many methods of violence to maintain it; and used such severities towards the non-conformists, that they were forced to seek refuge in foreign countries. The truth is, this conference at Hampton Court was never intended to satisfy the puritans, but as a blind to introduce episcopacy into Scotland, and to subvert the constitution and establishment of that church.

His majesty, in one of his speeches to his Parliament, tells them, that “he was never violent and unreasonable in his profession of religion.” I believe all mankind will now acquit him of any violent and unreasonable attachment to the protestant religion and liberties. He added in the same speech, it may be questioned whether by inspiration of the spirit, “I acknowledge the Roman church to be our mother church, although defiled with some infirmities and corruptions.” And he did behave as a very dutiful son of that mother church, by the many favours he shewed to the papists during his reign, by his proclamations for uniformity in religion, and encouraging and supporting his bishops in their persecutions of such as differed from, or could not submit to them.

Bancroft, promoted to the Archbishoprick of Canterbury, 317was, as the historian^[324] calls him, “A sturdy piece,” a cruel and inflexible persecutor, treating the non-conformists with the greatest rigour and severity; and who, as Heylin tells us, ^[325]“was resolved to break them, if they would not bow.” He put the canons and constitutions agreed on A. C. 1603, furiously into execution, and such as stood out against them, he either deprived or silenced. And indeed, as the aforementioned author says, ^[326]“Who could stand against a man of such a spirit, armed with authority, having the law on his side, and the king to his friend? During his being archbishop he deprived, silenced, suspended, and admonished, above three hundred ministers. The violencies he and his brethren used in the high-commission courts, rendered it a public grievance.”grievance.” ^[327]“Every man must conform to the episcopal way, and quit his hold in opinion or safety. That court was the touchstone, to try whether men were metal for their stamp; and if they were not soft enough to take such impressions as were put upon them, they were made malleable there, or else they could not pass current. This was the beginning of that mischief, which, when it came to a full ripeness, made such a bloody tincture in both kingdoms, as never will be got out of the bishop’s lawn sleeves.”

But nothing displeased the sober part of the nation more, than the publication of the Book of Sports, which the bishops procured from the king, and which came out with a command, enjoining all ministers to read it to their parishioners, and to approve of it; and those who did not, were brought into the high commission, imprisoned, and suspended; this book being only a trap to catch some conscientious men, that they could not otherwise, with all their cunning, ensnare.

^[328]“These, and such like machinations of the bishops,” says my author, “to maintain their temporal greatness, ease, and plenty, made the stones in the walls of their palaces, and the beam in the timber, afterwards cry out, moulder away, and 318come to nothing; and caused their light to go out offensive to the nostrils of the rubbish of the people.”people.”

Indeed many of the king’s bishops, such as Bancroft, Neal, and Laud, who was a reputed papist in Oxford, and a man of a dangerous turbulent spirit, were fit for any work; and as they do not appear to have had any principles of real piety themselves, they were the fittest tools that could be made use of to persecute those who had. Neal, when he was Bishop of Litchfield and Coventry, prosecuted one Edward Wightman, for broaching erroneous doctrine, and having canonically condemned him, got the king’s warrant for his execution; and he was accordingly burnt in Litchfield. One Legat also was prosecuted and condemned for heresy, by King Bishop of London, and expired in the flames of Smithfield. He denied the divinity of our Saviour, according to the Athanasian mode of explaining it; but as Fuller tells us, he was excellently skilled in scripture, and his conversation very unblameable. But as these sacrifices were unacceptable to the people, the king preferred, that heretics hereafter, though condemned, should silently and privately waste themselves away in prison, rather than to amuse others with the solemnity of a public execution.

In the reign of the Royal Martyr,^[329] the church grew to the height of her glory and power; though such is the fate of all human things, that she soon sickened, languished, and died. Laud, carried all before him, and ruled both church and kingdom with a rod of iron. His beginning and rise is thus described by Archbishop Abbot, his pious and worthy predecessor.

^[330]“His life in Oxford was to pick quarrels in the lectures of the public readers, and to advertise them to the then Bishop of Durham, that he might fill the ears of King James with discontents against the honest men that took pains in their places, and settled the truth, which he called puritanism, in their auditors.

319“He made it his work to see what books were in the press, and to look over epistles dedicatory, and prefaces to the reader, to see what faults might be found.

“It was an observation what a sweet man this was like to be, that the first observable act he did, was the marrying the Earl of Devonshire to the Lady Rich, when it was notorious to the world that she had another husband, and the same a nobleman, who had divers children then living by her. King James did for many years take this so ill, that he would never hear of any great preferment of him: insomuch that the Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. Williams, who taketh upon him to be the first promoter of him, hath many times said, that when he made mention of Laud to the King, his Majesty was so averse from it, that he was constrained oftentimes to say, that he would never desire to serve that master, who could not remit one fault to his servant. Well, in the end he did conquer it, to get him to the Bishoprick of St. David’s; which he had not long enjoyed, but he began to undermine his benefactor, as at this day it appeareth. The Countess of Buckingham told Lincoln, that St. David’s was the man that undermined him with her son. And verily, such is his aspiring nature, that he will underwork any man in the world, so that he may gain by it.it.”

^[331]He had a peculiar enmity to Archbishop Abbot, a man of an holy and unblameable life, because he had informed King James that Laud was a reputed papist in Oxford, and of a dangerous, turbulent spirit; and as James I. was wrought up into an incurable animosity against the puritans, “this was thought to be fomented by the papists, whose agent Bishop Laud was suspected to be: and though the king was pleased with asservations to protest his incentive spirit should be kept under, that the flame should not break out by any preferment from him; yet getting into Buckingham’s favour, he grew into such credit, that he was thought to be the bellows which 320blew those flames that were every where rising in the nation.

“For the papists used all the artifices they could to make a breach between the king and his people; and to accomplish this, amongst other methods, they sowed the seeds of division betwixt puritan and protestant; for all those were puritans, with this high grown Armenian popish party, that held in judgment the doctrine of the reformed churches, or in practice live according to the doctrine publicly taught in the church of England. And they attributed the name of protestant,

“1. To such papists, as either out of policy, or by popish indulgence, held outward communion with the church of England.

“2. To such protestants, as were either tainted with, or inclinable to their opinions.

“3. To indifferent men, who embrace always that religion, that shall be commanded by authority. Or,

“4. To such neutrals as care for no religion, but such as stands with their own liking; so that they allow the church of England the refuse both of their religion and ours.”

Thus far Wilson: and though Laud might be, as the same historian relates, of “a motley form of religion” by himself, yet the whole course of his tyrannical administration gave but too just reason for suspicion, that his strongest inclinations were towards Rome and Popery.^[332] The first parliament of Charles I. re-assembled at Oxford in 1625, complained that Popery and Arminianism were countenanced by a strong party in the kingdom; and Neal Bishop of Winchester, and Laud, then of St. David’s, were chiefly looked upon as the heads and protectors of the Arminians, nay, as favourers of Popery.

The reasons of this suspicion were many. He was drove on by a rigid, furious, and fanatical zeal for all the ceremonies of the church of England, even for such as seemed the least 321necessary. And not content with these, he promoted and procured the introduction of many others, which never had been enjoined by lawful authority.

January 16, 1630, he consecrated, as Bishop of London, St. Catharine Creed Church, with all the fopperies of a popish superstition. ^[333]“AtAt the bishop’s approach to the west door, some that were prepared for it, cried with a loud voice, “Open, open, ye everlasting doors, that the king of glory may enter in.” Immediately enters Laud. Then falling down upon his knees, with his eyes lifted up, and his arms spread abroad, he cried out “This place is holy: the ground is holy: in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I pronounce it holy.” Then he took up some of the dust, and threw it up into the air several times, in his going up towards the chancel. When they approached near to the rail, and communion table, the bishop bowed towards it several times; and returning, they went round the church in procession, singing the 100th psalm; after that the 19th psalm; and then said a form of prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, &c.” concluding, “We consecrate this church, and separate it unto thee as holy ground, not to be profaned any more to common use.”

“After this the bishop being near the communion table, and taking a written book in his hand, pronounced curses upon those that should afterwards profane that holy place, by musters of soldiers, or keeping profane law courts, or carrying burdens through it; and at the end of every curse he bowed towards the east, and said, “Let all the people say,” Amen. After this he pronounced a number of blessings upon all those who had any hand in framing and building of that sacred and beautiful church, and those that had given, or should hereafter give any chalices, plate, ornaments, or utensils; and at the end of every blessing he bowed towards the East, saying, “Let all the people say,” Amen.

322“After this followed the sermon; which being ended, the bishop consecrated and administered the sacrament in manner following.

“As he approached the communion table, he made many lowly bowings, and coming up to the side of the table, where the bread and wine were covered, he bowed seven times; and then, after the reading of many prayers, he came near the bread, and gently lifted up the corner of the napkin wherein the bread was laid; and when he beheld the bread, he laid it down again, flew back a step or two, bowed three several times towards it; then he drew near again, and opened the napkin, and bowed as before. Then he laid his hand on the cup, which was full of wine, with a cover upon it; which he let go, then went back, and bowed thrice towards it. Then he came near again; and lifting up the cover of the cup, looked into it, and seeing the wine, he let fall the cover again, retired back, and bowed as before. Then, he received the sacramentsacrament, and gave it to some principal men; after which many prayers being said, the solemnity of the consecration ended.”

In this manner have I seen high mass celebrated pontifically. And from whence did the pious Laud learn all these kneelings, bowings, throwings of dust, cursings, blessings, and adorations of the sacramental elements; from the sacred scriptures, or the writings of the primitive fathers? No: it was an exact copy of the Roman Pontifical, which was found in his study; and though he alledged in his defence that it was a form communicated by Bishop Andrews to him, it was ridiculous, since Andrews himself had it from the same pontifical.

^[334]The next year, 1632, Henry Sherfield, Esq. recorder of Sarum, was fined in the Star Chamber £500. on the following occasion. There was in the city of Salisbury a church called St. Edmund’s, whose windows were painted with the history of the creation; where God the Father was represented 323in the form of an old man, creating the world during the first six days, but painted sitting on the seventh, to denote the day of rest. In expressing the creation of the sun and moon, the painter had put in God’s hand a pair of compasses, as if he was going to measure them. The recorder was offended with this profaneness; and, by an order of vestry, took down those painted glasses, and broke some of the panes with his stick, and ordered others to be put up in their room. Upon this an information was exhibited against him in the Star Chamber, by the attorney-general; where Sherfield was for this reason charged with being ill-affected to the discipline of the Church of England, and the government thereof by bishops, because he had broken excellent pictures of the creation, and fined for his crime in the sum above mentioned, committed to the Fleet, removed from his recordership, and bound to his good behaviour. Nor was Laud ashamed, in justification of such pictures, to urge, as the papists continually do, that place in Dan. vii. 9, in which God is described as “the ancient of days;” shewing himself a worse divine, or a more popishly affected one, than the Earl of Dorset, who then sat with him in the court, and said, that by that text was meant “the eternity of God, and not God to be pictured as an old man, creating the world with a pair of compasses. But I wish” added the Earl, “there were no image of the Father, neither in the church, nor out of the church; for, at the best, they are but vanities and teachers of lies.”

In 1633,^[335] Laud was made Archbishop of Canterbury; and having observed that the placing the communion table in the body of the church, or at the entrance of the chancel, was not only a prostitution of the table to ordinary and sordid uses, but the chancel looked like an useless building, fit only for a schooling and parish-meeting, though originally designed for the most solemn office of religion; to redeem these places, as he termed it, from profaneness, and restore them to 324the primitive use of the holy sacrament, the archbishop used his utmost diligence to remove the communion table from the body of the church, and fix it at the upper end of the chancel, and secure it from the approach of dogs, and all servile uses, by railing it in, and obliging the people to come up to those rails to receive the sacrament with more decency and order. This affair, says Lord Clarendon, he prosecuted more passionately than was fit for the season, and created disputes in numberless places;^[336] so that the high commission had frequent occasions to punish the ministers, who were suspected of too little zeal for the Church of England. And as since the reformation the altars were changed into communion tables, and placed in the middle of the chancel, to avoid superstition; many imagined, and that with too much reason, the tables were again turned into altars with intent to revive a superstitious worship.

In the year 1634,^[337] he set up and repaired Popish images in the glass windows of his chapel at Lambeth; particularly one of God the Father, in the form of a little old man. This Laud himself owned, that he repaired the windows at no small cost, by the help of the fragments that remained, and vindicated the thing. He introduced also copes, candlesticks, tapers, and such like trumperies. So that L’Estrange, whom no man will charge with partiality against the archbishop, says of him: ^[338]“The Archbishop of Canterbury stands aspersed, in common fame, as a great friend at least, and patron of the Romish Catholics, if he were not of the same belief. To which I answer by concession: true it is, he had too much and long favoured the Romish faction—though not the Romish faith. He tampered indeed to introduce some ceremonies, bordering upon superstition, disused by us, and abused by them. From whence the Romanists collected such a good disposition in him to their tenets, as they began not only to hope, but in good earnest to cry him up for their proselyte.”proselyte.”

325Under the year 1635,^[339] the author of the notes to the Complete History tells us, that one of the great offences taken by wise and good men against the archbishop, was the new attempt of reconciling the Church of England to the Church of Rome. The design was to accommodate the articles of the Church of England to the sense of the Church of Rome, for the reconciliation of the two churches. Davenport, an English Franciscan Friar, published a book to this purpose, under the name of Franciscus de Sancta Clara, which was dedicated to the king, and said to have been directed to Archbishop Laud. And it was an article objected against him, that for the advancement of popery and superstition in this realm, he had wittingly and willingly harboured and relieved divers popish priests and jesuits, and particularly Sancta Clara, who hath written a popish and seditious book, wherein the thirty-nine articles of the Church of England are much traduced and scandalized, the said archbishop having divers conferences with him, while he was writing the said book. The archbishop did not seem to deny his acquaintance with the man, nor with the design of the book; but was rather afraid the book would not answer the design.

The same author farther adds, that the best observations on this matter were made by Mr. Rous, in a speech against Dr. Cosin, March 16, 1640, “A second way by which this army of priests advanceth this popish design, is the way of treaty. This hath been acted both by writings and conference. Sancta Clara himself says, ‘Doctissimi eorum, quibuscunque egi.’‘Doctissimi eorum, quibuscunque egi.’ So it seems they have had conference together. And Sancta Clara, on his part, labours to bring the articles of our church to popery, and some of our side labour to meet him in the way. We have a testimony that the great arch-priest himself hath said: ‘It were no hard matter to make a reconciliation, if a wise man had the handling of it.’”‘It were no hard matter to make a reconciliation, if a wise man had the handling of it.’”

Such was the good opinion which the papists had of Laud, 326and of his inclinations to popery, that it is certain they offered him a cardinal’s cap. Eachard and others say he refused it.

^[340]But the Lord Wiquefort, as cited by Mr. Oldmixon, informs us, in his Treatise of the Ambassador and his Function, that Laud treated with Count Rosetti, the popish agent in England, for a pension of 48,000 livres a year; which if the Pope would have settled upon him, he would not only have accepted the cardinal’s cap, but have gone to Rome, and have dwelt with the Pope and his cardinals as long as he lived.

The bitter and relentless fury with which he treated the puritans, and others, who were friends to the Church of England, and some of the best protestants in the kingdom, is a demonstration that he was more papist than protestant. Of the puritans he used to say, as Heylin tells us, that “they were as bad as the papists;” and indeed he used them in a much worse manner.

In the Considerations he presented to the King, “Anno 1629, for the better securing the Church Government,” he prayed his Majesty, amongst other things, that Emanuel and Sydney Colleges in Cambridge, which are the nurseries of puritanism, may from time to time be provided of grave and orthodox men for their governors. In the several accounts of his province, which he sent to the King, we read almost of nothing but conformity and non-conformity to the church, refractory people to the church, peevish and disorderly men, for preaching up the observation of the sabbath, breach of church canons, wild, turbulent preachers, for preaching against bowing at the name of Jesus, and in disgrace of the common prayer book; and in consequence of these things, presentments, citations in the high commission court, censures, suspensions from preaching, and other like pious methods, to reduce and reform them.^[341] And so grievous and numerous were the violencies he exercised on these and the like occasions, in the star chamber, high commission, and spiritual 327courts, that many excellent and learned men were forced to leave the kingdom, and retire to the West-Indies. And yet even this was unmercifully forbidden them. For in the year 1637, a proclamation was issued to stop eight ships going to New England; and another warrant from the council, of which Laud was one, to the Lord Admiral, to stop all ministers unconformable to the discipline and ceremonies of the church, who frequently transport themselves to the summer islands, and other plantations; and that no clergyman should be suffered to go over, without approbation of the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishop of London. These prohibitions, as the Complete Historian observes, increased the murmurs and complaints of the people thus restrained, and raised the cries of a double persecution, to be vexed at home, and not suffered to seek peace or refuge abroad.

But how were the papists treated all this while? why with brotherly mildness and moderation. For whilst these severities were exercising against protestants, there were many pardons and indulgencies granted to popish offenders. The papists were in reality his favourites and friends.

On July 7, 1626,^[342] Montague’s books, intitled, “An Appeal to Cæsar,” and “A Treatise of the Invocation of Saints,” were called in question by the House of Commons, and reported to contain false, erroneous, papistical opinions. For instance: “That the Church of Rome hath ever remained firm, upon the same foundation of sacraments and doctrines instituted by God. That the controverted points (between the Church of England and that of Rome) are of a lesser and inferior nature, of which a man may be ignorant, without any danger of his soul at all. That images may be used for the instruction of the ignorant, and excitation of devotion. ^[343]That there are tutelar saints as well as angels.” The House of Commons voted his books to be contrary to the established articles; to tend to the King’s dishonour, and to 328the disturbance of church and state. And yet this zealous protestant Bishop Laud was, as the Complete Historian assures us, “a zealous friend to the person and opinions of Mr. Montague;”Montague;”^[344] and made this entry in his diary on this affair. “Jan. 29. Sunday. I understand what D. B. had collected concerning the Cause, Book, and Opinions of Richard Montague, and what R. C. had determined with himself therein. Methinks I see a cloud arising, and threatening the Church of England;” viz. because the popish opinions of this turbulent priest were censured as contrary to the established articles of the church of England. He was fit to be made one of Laud’s brethren; and accordingly was preferred to the Bishoprick of Chichester, anno 1629.

^[345]The author of the Remarks on the Complete Historian farther tells us, under the year 1632, that great prejudice was taken against some of Bishop Laud’s churchmen, by one of them protesting to die in the communion of the Church of Rome; Dr. Theodore Price, prebendary of Winchester, and sub-dean of Westminster. Mr. Prynne affirmed, that this man, very intimate with the archbishop, and recommended by him specially to the King to be a Welch Bishop, in opposition to the Earl of Pembroke, and his chaplain Griffith Williams, soon after died a reconciled papist, and received extreme unction from a priest. The remarker adds, “It is strange partiality in the Oxford Historian, to question this matter, when Laud himself, in his MS notes upon that relation given by Mr. Prynne, doth by no means deny the fact, but excuses the using his interest for him; and says, ‘he was more inward with another bishop, and who laboured his preferment more than I.’”I.’”

In the same year, 1632,^[346] Mr. Francis Windbank was made secretary of state by the interest of Bishop Laud, who hath entered it in his Diary. “1632. June 15. Mr. Francis Windbank, my old friend, was sworn Secretary of State; 329which place I obtained for him of my gracious master King Charles.” He proved so much a creature of the queen’s, and such an advocate and patron of all suffering papists and jesuits, that he had the character of a papist, and brought a very great odium upon Laud who preferred him. That which created him the more envy, was the turning out the old secretary, Sir John Coke, who was displaced by Laud “for his honest firmness against popery,” as the author of the remarks on the complete historian assures us, and for his hatred and opposition to the jesuits. This job was labouring for three years’ space and at last obtained by Laud’s influence on the King.

These instances, and many others which might be mentioned, are sufficient to discover what sort of a protestant Laud was, and how he stood affected to the church of Rome. I shall now consider his character for piety, which was exactly of a piece with his protestantism.

He was a creature of the Duke of Buckingham, who was one of the lewdest men in the kingdom.kingdom. This man, as Archbishop Abbot said of him, was the only inward counsellor with Buckingham; “sitting with him sometimes privately whole hours, and feeding his humour with malice and spite.” His marrying the Earl of Devonshire to the Lady Rich, though she had another husband, is a glorious argument of his regard to the laws of God, and particularly of his reverence for the seventh commandment.

He gave, also, notable proofs of his zeal to maintain the honour of the fourth. The liberties taken at Wakes, or annual feasts of the dedication of churches, on Sundays, were grown to a very high excess, and occasioned great and numerous debaucheries. The lord chief justice Richardson,^[347] in his circuit, made an order to suppress them, Laud complained of this to the king, as an intrusion upon the ecclesiastical power; upon which Richardson was severely reprimanded, 330and forced to revoke the order. The justices of the peace upon this drew up a petition to the king, shewing the great inconveniences which would befal the country, if those revels, church-ales and clerk-ales, upon the Lord’s-day, were permitted. But before the petition could be delivered, Laud published by the king’s order, the declaration concerning recreations on the lord’s-day, “out of a pious care for the service of God,” as that declaration expresses it towards the conclusion of it. However, this “pious care” of Laud and the king was resented by the soberest persons in the nation, as irreligious and profane, as those revels had been the occasion of an “infinite number of inconveniences;” and the declaration for publishing the lawfulness of them through all parish-churches, ^[348]“proved a snare to many ministers, very conformable to the church of England, because they refused to read the same publicly in the church, as was required: For upon this many were suspended, and others silenced from preaching.” An instance of great piety, unquestionably this; first to establish the profanation of the Lord’s-day by a public order, and then to persecute and punish those ministers who could not, in conscience, promote the ends of “so godly a zeal,” by reading the king’s order for wakes and revels on the Lord’s-day out of that very place, where perhaps they had been just before publishing the command of the most high God, not to profane but to keep it holy.

His treatment of Mr. Prynne may also be added, as another instance of this prelate’s exemplary love of virtue, and pious zeal for the service of God. ^[349]That gentleman published in the year 1632 his Histrio-Mastix, or book against stage-plays; in which, with very large collections, he exposed the liberties of the stage, and condemned the lawfulness of acting. Now, because the court became greatly addicted to these entertainments, and the queen was so fond of them, as meanly to submit to act a part herself in a pastoral; therefore this treatise 331against plays “was suspected” to be levelled against the court and the queen; and it “was supposed an innuendo,” that in the table of the book this reference was put, “women actors notorious whores.” Now mark the christian spirit, the burning zeal of the pious Laud. Prynne was prosecuted in the star chamber by Laud’s procurement, who shewed the book to the king, and pointed at the offensive parts of it; and employed Heylin to pick out all the virulent passages, and “N. B. to give the severest turn to them;” and carried these notes to the attorney general for matter of information, and urged him earnestly to proceed against the author.

Prynne was accordingly prosecuted; and being sufficiently convicted by suspicions, suppositions, and innuendoes, he was sentenced, Laud sitting as one of his judges, to have his book burnt in the most public manner; to be himself put from the bar, and made for ever incapable of his profession; to be excluded from the society of Lincoln’s Inn, and degraded in Oxford; to stand in the pillory in Westminster and Cheapside, and lose both his ears, one in each place; with a paper on his head, declaring his offence to be “an infamous libel” against both their majesties, the state and the government; to pay a fine of five thousand pounds, and to suffer perpetual imprisonment. Good God! what cruelty and barbarity is here? what insolent sporting with men’s fortunes, liberties, and bodies? What was the occasion of this bloody severity? A gentleman’s writing against the abuses of plays. Who ordered the prosecution against him for writing against plays? Archbishop Laud. Who sat at the head of his judges, who pronounced this infamous sentence? Archbishop Laud. Excellent archbishop! how christian, how commendable his zeal! How gloriously must religion flourish under his archiepiscopal inspection, and by his becoming “the most reverend” abettor, encourager, and great patron of plays on week days, and revels on sundays?

^[350]’Tis true, he was for building colleges, repairing churches, 332settling statutes for cathedrals, annexing commendams to small bishoprics, settling of tithes, building hospitals, aggrandizing the power, and encreasing the riches of the clergy; and these things may be esteemed arguments of his piety, and of “the greatness of his soul above the ordinary extent of mankind:” This I do not take on me to deny; but it puts me in mind of the Carthusian monk, mentioned by Philip de Comines, in his “Commentaries of the Neapolitan war:” CominesComines was looking on the sepulchre of John Galeacius, first duke of Milan of that name, in the Carthusian church of Pavia, who had governed with great cruelty and pride, but had been very liberal in his donations to the church and clergy. As he was viewing it, one of the monks of the order commended the virtue, and extolled the piety of Galeacius. Why, says Comines, do you thus praise him as a saint? You see drawn on his sepulchre the ensigns of many people, whom he conquered without right. “Oh,” says the monk, “it is our custom to call them saints, that have been our benefactors.”

But let us pass on from his piety to his christian tenderness and compassion, of which there are many very remarkable instances on record.