thought peculiarly opposed to popery, the court began to cherish arminianism, and now Laud, of infamous memory, was made bishop of St. David's*. The king being at the same time engaged in disputes with his parliaments, who refused to submit to his prerogative as paramount to all law, those members who maintained, with most zeal, the rights and liberties of Britons were branded with the name of state puritans. These may be considered as the first whigs, the fathers of that party in the legislature which has ever since espoused the popular branch of our constitution, in opposition to those who would render the prerogative or influence of the crown absolute.

A preacher at Oxford having maintained in his sermon the right of the people to resist a tyrannical king, the university passed a decree," that it is not lawful for subjects to appear in arms against their king, on the score of religion, or on any other account." "But to bind the nation down for ever to such slavish principles," says Warner, "all the graduates were obliged to swear, that they will always continue of the same opinion.' Was there ever so unreasonable and so absurd an oath devised t?" It seems to have been the determined resolution of archbishop Bancroft to crush at once the religion of the puritans, and the liberties of the nation ‡.

While secretly conniving at popery, in defiance of the most solemn protestations to his parliament, and fostering that religion to the serious terror of his subjects; while giving vogue to the new doctrines of arminianism, in opposition to his own education, * Warner, vol. II. p. 504.

+ Ibid, p. 503.

Ibid, p. 493.

and the system of the English and Scotch churches; James yet pretended to be such a zealot for the ancient creed, that he burnt alive an arian whom he could not confute. Shortly after, another endured the same horrid fate. A third would have followed to the flames, but the deaths of the former having produced an impression on the public mind, contrary to what was intended, he was suffered to wait for death in the silence and gloom of a prison*.

But the supreme Governor of the world, watchful for our country, opposed some checks to the ruinous tendency of affairs. The furious Bancroft was succeeded in the see of Canterbury by Abbot, whose benevolent disposition adorned his ministry, while his generous attachment to the liberties of his country, endeared him to those who had not learned to bow to the yoke of unlimited prerogative. He had ever treated the puritans as mildly as he dared; and at length he openly opposed the court, by forbidding his clergy to read the declaration for Sunday sports, and by opposing the new theology of Laud and his party, But having had the unhappiness to kill a man, by accident, while hunting in the new forest of Hampshire, he retired from public life, and not suiting the court, he was in future neglected †.

Prince Henry, the eldest son of James, was snatched from the fond hopes of a nation, whose partiality for the virtuous, intelligent, and magnanimous youth, roused the jealous father to ask, "will you bury me alive?" But after his death, the king's daughter, Elizabeth, was married to the elector Palatine of the Rhine, from whom descended the illus *Fuller, book X. p. 64. + Ibid,

trious dynasty which now sways the British sceptre*. It would almost seem that the puritans had some prescience of the blessings which their successors, the modern dissenters, should enjoy under the house of Hanover; for no words can express the high satisfaction which they felt in the match, or the affliction they endured, when their favourite princes were driven from the throne of Bohemia and from the electorate, by the house of Austria. While James, who was courageous only to oppress the unresisting, rendered himself contemptible by the pusilanimous desertion of his daughter and her husband, the dissenters of that day urged their restoration to the throne by the arms of Britain, and promoted, with patriotic liberality, subscriptions for their relief and support t.

Contrary to the fears of pious men, the measures of James's reign were rather favourable than injurious to religion. Those who retained an attachment to calvinism, which was considered as the doctrine of the reformation, and those who were friends to the constitution, in opposition to the absolute power of the king, were thrown into one common mass, called puritans, who were, by the impolitic measures of James, daily becoming more numerous and popular. The independent gentlemen' of the country received the persecuted puritans into their houses, as tutors to their children, by which was formed a generation, which, in the ensuing reign, maintained that struggle against tyranny, which overturned both the throne and the altar. The puritans, who fled from the cruelties of Bancroft, imitated the Christians, at the persecution, * Warner, p. 498.

Neale's History of the Puritans, vol. II. p. 94.

which arose about Stephen, by diffusing their principles to the ends of the earth. The sentiments of the presbyterians and independents, travelled with the exiles to the continent of America, and thus acquired an extension far beyond that of the church of England*.

At length James yielded to the king of terrors, not without strong suspicions of poison t. His character has appeared too evident for his fame. While under the wholesome discipline of the Scotch kirk, he was decent in his conduct, but when converted, to the English establishment, he abandoned himself to luxury and licentiousness. His language was obscene, and his actions very often lewd and indecent. He was both a swearer and a drunkard; but when he recovered from his intoxication, he wept like a child, and said, he hoped God would not impute to him his infirmities.

His deep-rooted hatred to a presbyterian church is no inexplicable mystery, when we read in the minutes of one of the assemblies at Edinburgh, that three ministers were sent to confer with his majesty on the following subjects: "that they are grieved to find that the reading of the word at his table, and the saying of grace before and after meat is omitted; that they request his majesty to resort to sermons on week-days; and that he would forbear to talk with others during the sermon; they recommend to his majesty privy meditations with God and his conscience, as he is blotted with swearing, and the courtiers imitate his example §." While the absurdity of at

* Burnet's Own Times, vol. I. p. 17. † Warner, vol. III. p. 507.

Mosheim, cent. 17. sect. 1.

§ Burnet's History of his Own Times, p. 8.

tempting to drill a whole nation into the appearance of a Christian church, on which the presbyterians of the north were bent, became apparent by their success with his majesty and the court, Burnet owns, that they had peculiar reasons for treating James with jealous vigilance*. Indeed no enemy to his memory could wish him to appear in a worse light than that in which he is placed by this moderate prelate.

Charles the first succeeded to the ungrateful inheritance of contracted views, arbitrary principles, an exhausted treasury, and a dissatisfied people. His father had sharpened for him the fatal axe, of which he knew not how to avert the stroke. But as men love to worship the rising sun, it is no wonder that a prince of five and twenty, interesting in his appearance, ascended the throne with popular applause. He was at first thought to favour the puritans, as Dr. Preston, the head of that party, came up to London in the coach with him on his accessiont; but this was soon proved to be a mistake, for he married a daughter of the king of France, a seducing papist, whose entrance into the kingdom, says bishop Kennet, was more fatal than the plague+.

Differences early arose between the king and the parliament. Mr. Montague had, in the preceding reign, pretended to repel the attack of a popish priest; but in the opinion of all zealous protestants, his book had betrayed the church of England, and defended nothing but arminianism. This drew upon him the