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they are the property of every English christian, who is undepraved by habit, or unse'duced by interest. At the period, of which we are writing, their influence was almost universally acknowledged. Numbers, terrified and shocked by Laud's violences, fled over the Atlantic, and planted, in the deserts of New England, the standard of civil and of religious freedom. Numbers, reserving themselves for more propitious times and not despairing of their country, sought a temporary asylum in the bosom of Europe; and still greater numbers remained in sullen and formidable inaction at home, either protected by their own situation, as laymen, or sheltered, if ministers, in the families of the nobility; and all solicitously waiting for the moment of reformation or revenge.

This was now arrived, and they exulted at its presence. The King's embarrassments, defeated, as he was, by the Scots, in consequence of the disaffection of the English, and in the midst of political gloom, which was hourly condensing and growing blacker, compelled him, averse as he might be from the measure, to have recourse, in earnest, to a parliament. This parliament, as Lord Clarendon witnesses, was formed wholly of members, who were friendly to the govern

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ment and to the Church of England, and who wished not to overthrow, but who, disgusted and frightened by the spectacle which had been presented to them, were resolute to redress and ardent to reform. The power, which present circumstances threw into their hands, enabled them to cut off, with an immediate and effectual stroke, much of the existing mischief in its pernicious source. In the second month of their sitting, they impeached the unfortunate primate; they rescued his victims from their dungeons; they recalled his exiles to behold his fall; they released the press from its "horrid silence," and permitted it to pour its long imprisoned torrent on the heads of the oppressor and his party.

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The returning Puritans might have exulted over their prostrate persecutor in nearly the same strains of triumph, which Isaiah, in his two-fold character of prophet and of poet, so nobly ascribes to the exiles of Israel on the fall of the King of Babylon." How hath the oppressor ceased!-He, who mote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hindereth.— All they shall speak, and say unto thee-Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the ground, and the noise of thy viols.-They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble? that did shake kingdoms?-that opened not the house of his prisoners?" The Star Chamber and High Commission Courts were abolished by an act of the legislature on July 5, 1641.

On Milton's return from the continent, he found, as he informs us, the clamour loud and general against the bishops; some complaining of their tyranny, and some protesting against the existence of the mitred hierarchy itself. It was now beginning to be safe to talk; but, the Parliament not yet being convened, the public indignation was forced still to wait, for a short interval, before it could diffuse itself from the press. When this rapid propagator of opinions and best guardian of truth was at last liberated, the prelatical party was assailed on all sides with argument and learning; with virulence and reproach. Our author, as I believe, was, on this occasion, the leader of the attack; the first who became the organ of his own, and of the popular resentment against the rulers of the church. His beloved tutor, Young, had been one of the victims of the primate's intolerance; and the new polemic entered on his career with the blended feeling of public and of private wrong, with the zeal of a sanguine, and with the emotion of an injured

man.

His two books, "of Reformation touching Church-Government in England,” addressed to a friend, discover earnestness and integrity; and are the produce of a forci

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ble and acute, a comprehensive and richlystored mind." And here withal," he “I invoke the Immortal Deity, revealer and judge of secrets, that wherever I have in this book, plainly and roundly, (though worthily and truly) laid open the faults and blemishes of fathers, martyrs, or christian emperors, or have inveighed against error and superstition with vehement expressions, I have done it neither out of malice, nor list to speak evil, nor any vain glory; but of mere necessity to vindicate the spotless truth from an ignominious bondage." The reformation in our Church had not proceeded, as he thought, to the proper extent; and the suspension of its progress he attributes principally to its prelates," who though they had renounced the Pope, yet hugged the popedom, and shared the authority among themselves." He gives a minute history of the Church of England from its birth; and, explaining the causes of what he deemed to be its imperfect separation from that of Rome and its halting at a distance behind the other reformed churches, he pays no great respect to the venerable names of our early reformers, who attested the purity of their motives with their blood. Though excellent, they were still, indeed,

• Of Reformation, &c. P.W. vol. i. 8.

fallible men; and, admitting that their example or their doctrine could be employed as the shield of error, every true Christian would join with our author in exclaiming, "more' tolerable it were for the Church of God that all these names (of Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, &c.) were utterly abolished, like the brazen serpent, than that men's fond opinions should thus idolize them, and the heavenly truth be thus captivated.”

His language, in these tracts, is every where original, figurative, and bold: but his sentences are either not sufficiently or not happily laboured. His words, attentive only to sense, appear to rush into their places as they can; and whenever their combination forms an harmonious period, the effect looks like the result of chance, unconcerted and unheeded by the writer. Force is that character of style which he principally affects, and, that he may obtrude his mind with weight and impression on the mind of his reader, he scruples not to avail himself of the coarsest images and expressions. His object is to array himself in strength; and, not satisfied with making us to understand his meaning, he must, also, make us to feel it. His matter and his manner are often

f Of Reformation, &c. P.W. vol. i. 8.

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