Note 12 — THE CRYSTAL GOBLET.

Footnote 12: We are sorry that this remark should come from the historian of Whalley; but our respect for the author even will not suffer us to let it pass unnoticed. The passage, indeed, refutes itself, and we need refer to none other than the very terms of the accusation. The circumstance of Bath "going out under the Bartholomew Act," that master-movement of spiritual tyranny, issued by an ill-advised and sensual monarch, when two thousand and upwards of conscientious clergymen were driven from their flocks and deprived of their benefices in one day, is a sufficient denial of what the learned doctor has insinuated, as it respects complying "with all changes" from mere self-interest and worldly lucre. For what could have hindered this conscientious and self-denying minister from conforming to the terms of the act, and securing his goodly benefice thereby, if it were not a zealous and honest regard to the vows he had taken, and the future welfare of his flock; which the very fact of his subsequent preaching to crowded auditories at his own house sufficiently corroborates. We know the persecutions, the malice, and the poverty, which would assail this unlicensed administration of ordinances; and nothing but a reverential awe for the sacred and responsible functions he had undertaken could have stimulated him to "endure the cross and despise the shame," when a very different line of conduct would have left him in the undisturbed possession of both wealth and patronage. But, we are afraid, the unpardonable offence of preaching in the church under the authority and protection of the Commonwealth, and his leaving her pale and preaching to "crowded auditories," when the wicked decree of St Bartholomew went forth, is ungrateful to the spirit of many, who ought not to stigmatise as sectaries and malignants all who have dared to think for themselves, and at anytime to oppose "spiritual wickedness" in "high places." The very principles which made Bath an outcast for conscience' sake are those which originated and led on the work of our Protestant Reformation, and placed the historian of Whalley where his sacred functions should have led him to respect the rights and consciences even of those from whom he might differ, and not hold them up to unmerited obloquy and reprehension. [12]