of this party there were many that were pofsefsed of an high degree of fpiritual wickednefs; I mean with an innate, restless, radical pride and malice; I mean not thofe lefser fins which are more visible and more properly carnal, and fins against a man's felf, as gluttony, drunkennefs, and the like (from which, good Lord, deliver us); but fins of a higher nature, because more unlike to the nature of God, which is love, and mercy, and peace, and more like the devil (who is no glutton, nor can be drunk, and yet is a devil); those wickednesses of malice and revenge, and oppofition, and a complacence in working and beholding confufion (which are more properly his work, who is the enemy and difturber of mankind; and greater fins, though many will not believe it); men whom a furious zeal and prejudice had blinded, and made incapable of hearing reafon, or adhering to the ways of peace; men whom pride and felf-conceit had made to over-value their own wisdom, and become pertinacious, and to hold foolish and unmannerly dif putes against thofe men which they ought to reverence, and thofe laws which they ought to obey; men that laboured and joyed to speak evil of government, and then to be the authors of confufion (of confufion as it is confufion); whom company, and converfation, and custom had blinded, and made infenfible that thefe were errors; and at laft became fo reftlefs and fo hardened in their opinions, that like thofe who perifhed in the gainfaying of Korah, fo thefe died without repenting thefe fpiritual wickednesses; of which Coppinger and Hacket', and their adherents, are too fad teftimonies,

If we give credit to the hiftorians of these times, the picture here exhibited is far from being drawn in too ftrong colours. Alas! the love of domination, and an uninterrupted oppofition to the meafures of government, have too faithfully characterifed the manners of thofe Nonconformifis. From the combination of fuch unamiable qualities, what other confequences could be expected than those which actually burft forth with irrefiftible fury? What opinion James I. entertained of them, appears from the following extract from the "Bafilicon Doron:"

Take heed, therefore, my fon, of fuch puritans, very pefts in thẹ church and commonwealth, whom no deferts can oblige, nor promifes bind; breathing nothing but fedition an calumnies; afpiring without measure, 'railing without reason, and making their own ima ginations, without any warrant of the Word, the fquare of their conIciences. I protest before the great God, and fince I am here as upon my teftament, it is no place for me to lie in, that ye fhall never find "with any Highland or Borderer thieves greater ingratitude, and more lies and vile perjuries, than with thefe fanatic fpirits."

I WILLIAM HACKET, illiterate and of the meanest extraction, from habits of the lowett profligacy; and the mofi abandoned wickedness, af fumed the appearance of a faint, pretending to have an inward call, and to be favoured with a fpécial revelation. With him were associated Edmund Coppinger, a perfon of better family, and fome others, who declared themselves chofen vefsels, proclaimed war against the Bishops,

and

And in thefe times, which tended thus to confufion, there were also many others that pretended to tenderness of confcience, refusing to fubmit to ceremonies, or to take an oath before a lawful magiftrate: and yet thefe very men did in their fecret conventicles covenant and swear to each other, to be affiduous and faithful in ufing their best endeavours to fet up a church government that they had not agreed on. To which end there were many felect parties that wandered up and down, and were active in fowing difcontents and fedition, by venomous and fecret murmurings, and a difperfion of fcurrilous pamphlets and libels against the church and flate; but efpecially against the Bifhops: by which means, together with very bold, and as indifcreet fermons, the common people became fo fanatic, as St. Peter obferves there were in his time, fome that "wrefted the Scripture to their own deftruction:" So by these men, and this means, many came to believe the Bishops to be Antichrift, and the only obftructors of God's difcipline; and many of them were at laft given over to fuch defperate delufions, as to find out a text in the " Revelation of St. John," that "Antichrift was to be overcome by the fword," which they were very ready to take into their hands. So that thofe very men that began with tender meek petitions proceeded to print public admonitions; and then to fatirical remonftrances; and at laft (having like David numbered who was not, and who was, for their caufe) they got a fuppofed certainty of fo great a party, that they durft threaten firit the Bishops, and not long after both the Queen and Parliament; to all which they were fecretly encouraged by the Earl of Leicefter, then in great favour with her Majefty, and the reputed cherisher and patrongeneral of thefe pretenders to tendernefs of confcience," whom he used as a facrilegious fhare to further his defign; which was by their means to bring fuch an odium'upon the Bishops, as to procure an alienation of their lands, and a large proportion of them for himself which avaricious defire had fo blinded his reafon, that his ambitious and greedy hopes had almost flattered him into prefent possession of Lambeth-House,

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and fcrupled not menace the fafety of the Queen herself, unless the promoted their schemes of reform. The madness of fanaticism has no bounds. Hacket was at length announced by his followers (minifters of the Geneva difcipline) to be "the fupreme raonarch of the world, "from whom all the Princes of Europe held their fceptres, to be a greater prophet than Mofes or John Baptift, even Jefus Chrift, who was come with his fan in his hand to judge the world." He was apprehended and convicted, and, after uttering the most horrid blafphe mies, was hanged by the common executioner. Coppinger fiarved himself in prifon. The contagion quickly fpread on all fides, whilft ecclefiaftical authority was rudely opposed and trampled under foot.

(See Kennet's History of England, Vol. II. p. 563; and Carte's Hist. Vol. III. p. 537; and Strype's Annals, Vol. III. p. 68.)

And to thefe ftrange and dangerous undertakings the Nonconformists of this nation were much encouraged and heightened by a correfpondence and confederacy with that brotherhood in Scotland; fo that here they became fo bold, that one told the Queen openly in a fermon, "She was like an untamed "heifer, that would not be ruled by God's people, but obftructed his difcipline." And in Scotland they were more confident, for there they declared her an Atheist", and grew to fuch a height as not to be accountable for any thing fpoken against her; no, nor for treason against their own King, if fpoken in the pulpit; fhowing at last fuch a disobedience even to him, that his mother being in England, and then in diftrefs and in prifon, and in danger of death, the church denied the King their prayers for her; and at another time, when he had

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Mr. EDWARD DERING, a puritan, the author of a book written in defence of Bishop Jewel's "Apology," against Harding. He dates this work, April 2, 1568, from Chrit's College, Cambridge, and dedicates it to Thomas Wotton, his countryman, a perfon then of great learning and religion, as well as wealth, in Kent." (Strype's Annals.)— He is commended as a truly religious man, whofe happy death was fuitable to the purity and integrity of his life. (Granger's Biogr. Hist. Vol. I. p. 215.)" Once preaching before Queen Elizabeth, he told her, that when in perfecution under her fifter Queen Mary, her motto was tanquam ovis,' as a fheep; but now it might be tanquam in"domita juvenca,' as an untamed heifer. But furely the Queen still retained much of her ancient motto 'as a fheep,' in that the patiently "endured fo public (and conceived caufelefs) reproof, in inflicting no "punishment upon him, fave commanding him to forbear further "preaching at the Court." (Fuller's Church History.)

"The Bishops have long deceived and feduced her Majefty and "her people." (Martin's Epistle X. 53.) The Queen was compared to Jeroboam, Ahab, Jehoram, Ahaz, Gideon, Nadab, Saul, Jehu, Afa, and Jehofaphat, in those points whereby they offended God, and the was threatened by their examples, in that having begun fo well, she did not proceed to fet up Chrift's kingdom thoroughly.

The cafe is famous of Mr. David Blake, minifter of St. Andrews, who had faid in his fermon, "that the King had difcovered the treachery "of his heart in admitting the Popish Lords into the country: that all kings were the devil's bairns; that the devil was the Court and in "the guiders of it." And in his prayer for the Queen he used these words: "Wemuti pray for her for fashion's fake, but we have no caufe, "the will never do us any good." He faid that "the Queen of Eng"land (Queen Elizabeth) was an Atheift; that the Lords of the Sefsion "were mifcreants and bribers; that the Nobility were degenerated, godlefs, difsemblers, and enemies to the church; that the Council "were holliglaises, cormorants, and men of no religion."

(A fair Warning to take heed of the Scottish Discipline, &c. 1649, p. 13, 14. See also Spotswood's History of the Church of Scotland, p. 420.)

See "Bishop Spotfwood's Hiftory of the Church of Scotland," p. 422, &c.

appointed a day of feafting, their church declared for a general faft, in oppofition to his authority".

To this height they were grown in both nations, and by thefe means there was distilled into the minds of the common people fuch other venomous and turbulent principles, as were inconfiftent with the safety of the church and state; and these vented fo daringly, that, befide the lofs of life and limbs, the church and state were both forced to use fuch other severities as will not admit of an excufe, if it had not been to prevent confufion and the perilous confequences of it; which, without fuch prevention, would in a fhort time have brought unavoidable ruin and misery to this numerous nation.

These errors and animofities were fo remarkable, that they begot wonder in an ingenious Italian, who being about this time come newly into this nation, writ fcoffingly to a friend in his own country, "That the common people of England were "wifer than the wifeft of his nation; for here the very women "and fhopkeepers were able to judge of predeftination, and "determine what laws were fit to be made concerning church68 government; then, what were fit to be obeyed or abolished. "That they were more able (or at least thought fo) to raise and "determine perplexed cafes of confcience, than the most learned "Colleges in Italy. That men of the flighteft learning, and "the most ignorant of the common people were mad for a new, "or fuper, or re-reformation of religion; and that in this they appeared like that man, who would never ceafe to whet and "whet his knife till there was no fteel left to make it useful." And he concluded his letter with this obfervation, "that those "very men that were most bufy in oppofitions, and difputa"tions and controverfies, and finding out the faults of their

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y" In the year 1582 Monfieur le Mot, a Knight of the Order of the "Holy Ghoft, with an associate, were fent ambassadors from France "into Scotland. The minifters of Edinburgh approving not his message. "though merely civil, inveigh in their pulpits bitterly against him, calling his white crofs the badge of Antichrift,' and himself the "ambafsador of a murderer.' The King was afhamed, but did not "know how to help it. The Ambassadors were difcontented, and "defired to be gone. The King, willing to preferve the ancient amity "between the two crowns, and to difmifs the Ambafsadors with content, "requires the Magifirates of Edinburgh to feaft them at their departure: "fo they did; but to hinder this feaft, upon the Sunday preceding, the "minifters proclaim a faft to be kept the fame day the feaft was appointed; and to detain the people all day at church, the three "preachers make three fermons, one after another without intermifsion, "thundering out curfes against the Magiftrates and Noblemen which "waited upon the Ambassadors by the King's appointment. Neither flayed they here, but purfued the Magiftrates with the cenfures of the "church for not obferving the faft by them proclaimed."

(A fair Warning to take heed of the Scottish Discipline, &c. p. 25. See also Spotswood's History, p. 324.).

governors, had ufually the leaft of humility and mortification, or of the power of godlinefs.'

And to heighten all these difcontents and dangers, there was alfo fprung up a generation of godlefs men; men that had fo long given way to their own lufts and delufions; and had fo often and fo highly oppofed the blessed motions of the blessed Spirit, and the inward light of their own confciences, that they had thereby finned themselves to a belief of what they would, but were not able to believe: into a belief which is repugnant even to human nature (for the heathens believe there are many gods); but thefe have finned themfelves into a belief, that there is no God; and fo finding nothing in themselves, but what is worse than nothing, began to wifh what they were not able to hope for, "that they should be like the beafts that perifh ;" and in wicked company (which is the Atheist's fanctuary) were fo bold as to fay fo: though the worst of mankind, when he is left alone at midnight, may wifh, but cannot then think it. Into this wretched, this reprobate condition, many had then finned themselves.

And now, when the church was pestered with them, and with all thefe other irregularities; when her lands were in danger of alienation, her power at least neglected, and her peace torn in pieces by feveral fchifms, and fuch herefies as do ufually attend that fin; when the common people feemed ambitious of doing those very things which were attended with most dangers, that thereby they might be punished, and then applauded and pitied; when they called the fpirit of opposition a tender confcience, and complained of perfecution, because they wanted power to perfecute others; when the giddy multitude raged, and became reftlefs to find out mifery for themfelves and others; and the rabble would herd themselves together, and endeavour to govern and act in fpite of authority. In this extremity, fear, and danger of the church and state, when to fupprefs the growing evils of both, they needed a man of prudence and piety, and of a high and fearless fortitude, they were blefsed in all by John Whitgift his being made Archbishop of Canterbury; of whom ingenious Sir Henry Wotton (that knew him well) hath left this true character 2; "That "he was a man of a reverend and facred memory, and of the "primitive temper; a man of fuch a temper, as when the "church by lowlinefs of fpirit did flourish in highest examples "of virtue."

And though I dare not undertake to add to his character, yet I fhall neither do right to this difcourfe, nor to my reader, if I forbear to give him a further and fhort account of the life and manners of this excellent man; and it shall be short, for I