bloody persecution in the temple of redeeming love. As,however, the lust of domination over conscience is not confined to one communion of Christians, though ina state establishment it has more scope for its exercise, but is the universal consequence of the pride and selfishness of the human heart; we have had occasion to hold up to infamy this hell-begotten temper among different denominations who profess the Christian faith. If, on these occasions, we have uttered the language of empassioned abhorrence, we deem it a sufficient apology to say, that by persecution for conscience sake, the highest honours of God, our Saviour, are invaded, and the dearest interests of the human race endangered.

As the dissenters rose into existence at a period when the constitution, which is the glory of our country, was not yet formed, it is our province to glance at the struggles against arbitrary power, which terminated favourably for the liberties of Englishmen, in the glorious revolution of the year one thousand six hundred and eighty-eight. But this necessarily involves in it the censure of kings. The characteristic pride and bigotry of the Stewarts offended by the presumption of subjects, who dared to think themselves qualified to choose for themselves a religion, which they judged better than that of their sovereign, gave rise to measures of oppression and persecution, which, as advocates for the rights of

conscience, and the liberty of religion, we could not but condemn. From the rise of the puritans to the reign of William, it is our painful duty to record a succession of princes who were unwise enough to suffer some of the jewels to be torn from their diadem, that others might shine with unrivalled lustre : thus, by sacrificing a part of their subjects to the bigotry of the rest, they threw away the glory of being the common parents of the whole. This has left us few opportunities of paying the tribute of applause to the memory of departed royalty. But let it be remembered, that the princes on whom our censure falls, are those from whom our forefathers conquered their liberties, and our present constitution. Those who are recorded by the civil historian in the black catalogue of tyrants, hostile to the rights of Britons, appear in our pages on the crimson list of persecutors of the saints. The unhappy monarch who ordered Jeffries' last campaign against the dissenters, is the same over whom our nation annually exults, when the established church chaunts the liturgy for the festival of the glorious revolution. As was observed concerning the fall of the first Charles, the oppressor of the puritans, it may be said that our nation, each fifth of November, exults over the second James, in the sublime language of the inspired prophet. "How hath the oppressor ceased! The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the

rulers. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, thou that didst weaken the nations. For thou hast said in thy heart I will ascend into heaven (to rule in the church), I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the most high (to give law to conscience); yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, "is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that made the world as a wilderness, that opened not the house of his prisoners? All the kings of the land, even all of them, lie in glory, in Westminster, the cemetery of kings, every one in his own house or sepulchre. But thou art cast out of thy grave, like an abominable branch, as a carcase trodden under feet, thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, but die in a foreign land, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people: the seed of evil doers shall never be renowned *"

By those who deem servility the only loyalty, who can see no difference between the throne of the house of Hanover, founded on the free choice of the people, and that of the Stewarts, built on the dark cloud of a pretended divine right, our animadversions on the exiled family may, perhaps, be perversely interpreted, as concealing a hostile mind towards the princes who

* Isaiah xiv. 4-20.

have ever proved themselves the guardians of the toleration act, which is the magna charta of dissenters. If ignorance so stupid, or suspicions so malevolent, deserved a reply, we should say

Utinamque oculos in pectora posses

Inserere et patrias intus deprendere curas.

But when the British constitution was established, by the enlightened and magnanimous policy of William the great, a new scene opened, and, in the princes of a free state, the dissenters hailed their faithful patrons, the guardians of their sacred liberties, and the objects of their grateful attachment. It will then be evident that, while we scorn to applaud the mandate," which says to our soul, bow down that we may go over it," while we know not how to lick the iron hoof which would tread our religion in the dust, we can gratefully appreciate the liberality of a patriot prince, who may be attached to a different communion, and honour the memory of those who secure to their subjects the undisturbed enjoyment of their religious rights.

We anticipate another source of objections. It is not improbable that some of our readers may be disappointed in not meeting with minute occurrences of local interest, the records of a particular church, or the name of a favourite minister, in our work. But though we are apt to attach excessive importance to that of which we ourselves form a part, and Christians

may, from amiable causes, esteem a certain minister above all others in the world, history takes a more comprehensive glance, and reduces persons and events to their true proportions. It was our province to inquire, what influence each circumstance, or individual, had upon the affairs of the whole body, and to choose, amidst a multiplicity of objects, those which had the fairest claim to make a prominent figure in the work. Hence we were compelled, though reluctantly, to omit many names which our partialities would have recorded with honour. At the first and the last of the periods, into which our history is divided, we were called to make the most frequent sacrifices to historic propriety. Among the two thousand ministers ejected by the act of uniformity, there are many names dear to learning, to religion, and the dissent, whose eventful lives and apostolic labours would have furnished many an instructive page. But those of them who died before the revolution, did not belong to our history; and though we might have claimed the right of making the fullest use of the memoirs of such as departed after that period, we did not choose to appear to multiply books to no purpose, by merely transcribing that noble list of confessors contained in the Non-conformist's Memorial. We have, however, for particular reasons given biographical sketches of four or five ministers, whose names are recorded in that useful work.