How has Laud been held up to execration for an entry in his Diary, recording minutely the punishment of Leighton! which I believe to be Prynne's cold-blooded interpolation! But let us remark Burton's own pious curiosity in witnessing the execution on Nayler:

"This day B. and I went to see Nayler's tongue bored through, and him marked in the forehead. He was pale when he came out of the pillory, but high-coloured after the tongue-boring!"

So soon did Independency attain its ne plus ultra of intolerance; and, having attained this point, a saner sense of religion succeeded; for the weathercock turned round, almost instanter, to the opposite quarter.

In fact, fanaticism invariably leads the way to licentiousness! To show how soon after the cruelties on Nayler, a directly contrary spirit began to prevail, we may mention that, in 1658, the Latin play of "Ignoramus was re-printed, with its coarse, pedantic jokes, which had so much delighted James the First. Who would now have read the sublapsarian subtleties of Davenant? or his irrefragable answer to a writer who "thought God MIGHT have mercy?" From a MS. Diurnal of the Parliament, 1658, in the possession of the descendant of Clement Walker, John Walker Heneage, of Comptonhouse, I am able to show that, besides Anthony Wood's concert at Oxford, in the year 1658 "the Opera" was first mentioned. This document is singular:

Thursday, Feb. 5, 1658. - The Lords being acquainted that, notwithstanding the Laws against stageplays and interludes, yet there are stage-plays, interludes, and things of the LIKE NATURE, called "OPERA,” acted, to the scandal of Religion and the Government,Ordered a Committee." I cannot make out the names of the Committee, except Lord Claypole.

So, the "phylacteries " of the Presbyterians being "olipped," INDEPENDENCY, under the great Cromwell, fretted its hour on the stage, till it sunk down exhausted. Then the Cathedrals again echoed the sublime anthem, and the old parishioner welcomed with tears of affection his pastor, who had haply survived exile, and poverty, and persecution.

PROGRESS AND DOMINATION OF

PURITANIC INTOLERANCE.

I have stated, as a matter of historical proof, that Laud never resorted to any measures of severity, as far as he was concerned, till his life WAS IN DANGER!*

* Before he had moved a step, a nephew of Archbishop Abbot preached against him, from the Oxford pulpit, whilst he was present, and the charge was that he would not speak with sufficient violence against Papists: "If they do at any time speak against the Papists, they beat a little upon the bush, and that softly too, for fear of disquieting the birds within."

"I came time enough," says Laud, in a Letter to the Bishop of Lincoln, "to be at the rehearsal of this sermon, upon much persuasion, when I was fain to sit patiently and hear myself abused almost an hour together, being pointed at as I sat. For this present abuse, I would have taken no notice of it, but that the whole University apply it to me; and my friends tell me I shall sink my credit if I answer not Dr. Abbot in his own. Nevertheless, in a business of this kind, I will not be swayed from a patient course: only I desire from your Lordship some directions."

Of Archbishop Abbot's Christian feelings we may judge by his remonstrance to King James the First: "Your Majesty hath proposed a TOLERATION! By your Act you labour to set the most damnable and heretical doctrine of the Church of

up

It was indeed alleged, prior to 1628, that he was "suspected of Arminianism!" To be "suspected" of Arminianism is not to be an Arminian, and, if he was, it was not high-treason to maintain his own conscientious sentiments on a question of theology.

Who, then, first opposed the "RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE?" I affirm, Pym and Cromwell, when in Parliament, they assumed the power which the stern Leaders of the Reformation had wrung from the infallible Church of Rome, and claimed it for the INFALLIBLE Church of Geneva!

November 27, 1628, Pym in Parliament lays down this Law: "It belongs to PARLIAMENT TO ESTABLISH TRUE RELIGION, and to PUNISH FALSE!" Cromwell, now for the first time spoke in Parliament, and he echoed the infallible Presbyterian :

"Mr. Oliver Cromwell" informed them "that the Bishop of Winchester "did countenance flat Popery!* &c. If these be the steps to Church-preferment what may we expect!" says this Parliamentary "Defender of the Faith," afterwards "our Lord Protector."

The Parliament, so early as 1628, came to the following definite, and tolerant conclusion!

"Whoever shall seem to extend Arminianism, OR ANY

-

Rome-the WHORE OF BABYLON!" Laud answered Fisher by Scriptural arguments, and yet Laud was a Papist; and he was condemned to be "hanged, drawn, and quartered," among other charges, for having been heard to say "The Pope was not Antichrist!" What should I suffer,

who hesitate not to avow my sincere belief that the WHORE of Geneva has been as well versed in the infallible principles of persecution as the "Whore of Babylon!"

* Rushworth.

OTHER OPINION DISAGREEING WITH THE TRUTH, and ORTHODOX Church, shall be reputed a capital enemy to the Kingdom and COMMONWEALTH!"

This fact is singular, from its being the first symptom of that spirit of ruthless domination, which, under these leaders, Pym and Cromwell, one Presbyterian and the other Independent, subverted the Altar and the Throne and now for the first time "the COMMONWEALTH" is spoken of in Parliament!

But let us analyse a little this "infallible" decision! "He shall be reputed a CAPITAL enemy to the Kingdom and Commonwealth, who shall seem to extend any other opinion disagreeing from TRUTH and the ORTHODOX CHURCH!" Under this infallible scale who might hope for toleration? For who might not "seem to extend" any opinions "disagreeing from the truth,” according to the "truth" of the Puritans of 1628!

Laud hitherto had not shown any kind of severitybut he was the impugner of "TRUTH," that is, of Calvinism, in doctrine and discipline! His life was now threatened! Dr. Lamb, at eighty years of age, had been almost literally torn to pieces for being the Duke of Buckingham's conjurer! The Duke of Buckingham's Bishop was the next object; and he felt that the general tone of the people against him was expressed by the billet found in the Deanery-yard of St. Paul's:

"Laud, look to thyself!-assure thyself neither GOD nor the world can endure such a vile counsellor and whisperer TO LIVE!"

The storm of hate and religious fanaticism was now deepening over his head. He was indeed panic-struck by the various signs of this popular deadly hate; and his Diary, at this time, showed at once his terror and

the consciousness of innocence. In his Diary of 1632 appears this entry: "Lord, I beseech thee to deliver me from those who hate me without a cause!" The first person whom he censured, and that for the most personal invectives, in a sermon on " Idolatry" was the Minister of Ware! Did his ruthless Diocesan deprive him? Suspend him! No-he was requested to write a submission, in Latin! The charges of "dust thrown in the air"—the "kneeling"-the " bowing"- the "repairing painted windows" - I disdain to answer.

*

I cannot conclude without noticing the vote in Parliament at the time when the Speaker was held forcibly in the chair. This vote was, "the Parliament ought to establish the true religion, and PUNISH the FALSE!" what they pronounced false was indeed afterwards punished in the true spirit of such Legislators of the "Truth!" Parliament by this vote signed the death-warrant of the King, who, on the same day in which he signed the death-warrant of Strafford, and the perpetuity of Parliament, signed his own death-warrant.

* Leighton was sentenced by the Star-Chamber, 1633.Rushworth.