are not our sins as great? And, are there not as great sins in us as were in Jerusalem that was carried away captive? Are we better than other churches? than our brethren, that have drunk so deeply of the cup of God's wrath? what are we? I will tell you: we are a burden to God; he cannot bear us; he will think his pains well over when he hath destroyed us. You know all men are glad when their pains are over; so it is with God, we are a pain and trouble to him; and why should God go continually in pain and trouble with us who are worthy to be destroyed? If his decree once come forth, then shall England seek peace,' and shall not find it; as in Ezek. vii. 25. Ah, brethren, what a heavy curse is it when a merciful God doth show himself unmerciful; when a patient God will be impatient! O beloved, there is a hard time befalling us of England, yet we consider it not: lamentable is our time. God wept over Jerusalem a long time, 'Oh that thou hadst known, in this thy day, the things that belong to thy peace! but now they are hid from thy eyes: so may I say to England, The Lord hath wept over it in mercy and patience a long time, but it hath not been taken notice of; God hath 'hid' it from our eyes, what shall we do when his mercy is turned into fury, and his patience into frowning? What shall we do when we have leisure to consider what once we did enjoy? We can never prize God's patience till that we find the great want of it. Thus then, the poor soul will say, There was a time when we might have been at peace with this patient God, but now it is hid' from our eyes: I might have had mercy, but now the gate is shut, and not only shut, but locked and barred too. Thus when people refuse mercy he sends the contrary judgment, and then it will grieve and wound our souls to think what once we did enjoy; but that man that will bid God welcome to his heart may go singing to his grave!

"Fourthly: You must be importunate with him to stay and to continue, and count it a great favour that he will yet be intreated: Jacob 'wrestled' with God, and thus must we do if we mean to keep him. You that live under the means and will not walk in them, what great condemnation will be to you over them that have not the means! As it is said of Capernaum, so say I to England, Thou England, which wast lifted up to heaven with means, shalt be abased, and brought down to hell; for if the mighty works which have been done in thee' had been done in India or Turkey, they would have repented ere this! Therefore Capernaum's place is England's place; which is the most insufferable torment of all. And mark what I say, the poor native Turks and infidels shall have a cooler summer-parlour in hell than you; for we stand at a high rate; we were highly exalted, therefore shall our torments be the more to bear.

"The Lord write these things in our hearts with the finger of his own Spirit, for Christ's sake, under whom we are all covered."

Before the year 1630 closed, it was made notorious in the annals of Prelatical and Judicial atrocity, by the infliction of the vindictive sentence passed in the Star Chamber upon Dr. Leighton, whose case is already brought before the reader in this chapter. There is seen, from a Luke xix. 42. < Matt. xi. 23.

b Gen. xxxii. 24.

the book itself, what gave rise to this atrocious butchery. "The punishment actually inflicted upon him was horrible! And it was not only an act of inhumanity, but a most egregious indiscretion:" so says even one of Laud's laudators, who might have informed himself better, by consulting the book before he hazarded the remark that Leighton was, previously to writing his book, "nearly a maniac;" which, if true, should have moved compassion, if any had been, in the breasts of those who chose rather to make him "a severe example." How "severe," let it be recorded here and elsewhere, in perpetuam memoriam rei.

a Leighton survived to write “An Epitome, or Brief Discovery, from the Beginning to the Ending, of the many and great Troubles that Dr. Leighton suffered in his Body, Estate, and Family, for the Space of Twelve Years and upwards: Wherein is laid down the Cause of those Sufferings: namely, That Book called Sion's Plea against the Prelacy;' together with the warrantable Call that he had to the Work, and also, the hard and heavy Passage of the Prelates' Proceedings against him in the High Commission and Star Chamber; and lastly, their Invective Speeches in the said Court and Star Chamber; from the Impeachment whereof, and the Accusations charged upon him, he Vindicates Himself by a just Defence.-Philip. i. 29; Rev. vii. 14.—Lond. 1646." 4to. pp. 93. Álluding to Laud, he writes, "This man of tongue, spake what he would without controlment, and made up his conclusion with concurring to that heavy and bitter censure which was hatched and brought out, as his servants and others could tell, before my cause came to trial. But to his conclusion he added an apology for his presence and assistance in this great service, where he confessed that, by canon-law, no ecclesiastical person ought to be present or assist in such a judicature where there is loss of life or member. But,' said he, [and the style is evidently Laud's] to take away the ear is not the loss of hearing, and so no member lost: neither is the slitting of the nose loss of smelling, and so no member lost: so for burning the face, or whipping, no loss of life or member. And, therefore, he concluded he might assent to the Censure.' I have set down his own words as they were related unto me." p. 65. Well might Leighton call him, in p. 67. 'the parpóxnλoç, or great and angry Bishop indeed, with a dangerous sting!" In the next page he writes, "I have heard that the Lord Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Strafford, used many violent and virulent expressions against me; but it was no wonder, for he and his ghostly father, the Prelate, were upon the way of a more dangerous conjunction; the ill effects whereof the three kingdoms have felt, and when they shall have an end, the Lord only knoweth. A man of eminent quality told me that the book, and my sufferings, did occasion their combination; for the Prelate seeing that the book struck at the root and branch of the hierarchy, and Strafford [having] perceived that the support and defence of the hierarchy would make him great, they struck a league, like sun and moon, to govern day and night, Religion and State. And, if others should be terrified by my dreadful sufferings, then they might trample on their estates, their necks, bodies, and souls, and make them the most artificial slaves under the sun-which are worse than natural slaves, but if any should stand up for the Truth, they meant so exquisitely to torture them, as they did indeed, that all that feared the Lord-though to their great woe and grief-should quit the land, and give [up] all for lost; and this, they had brought to a high pitch, but blessed be the Lord of Hosts, who hath cut their cords [Psal. cxxix. 4] and delivered poor souls from the snare of the hunter." "The Censure was," he writes, p. 77, " to cut my ears, to slit my nose, to brand me in the face, to whip me at a post, to stand in the pillory; ten thousand pounds fine, and perpetual imprisonment. And all these upon a dying man, by appearance. Instant morientibus ursæ. The Censure thus past, the Prelate off with his cap, and holding up his hands, gave thanks to God, who had given him the victory over his enemies.- -O curva in terris anima!" In his Petition to Parliament, Leighton tells them, sup. p. 89, "Nothing

CHAP. XXIX.

THE CLERGY, AND ST. PAUL'S CHURCH.-BURTON.-CLARENDON.— PRYNNE, BASTWICK, AND BURTON.-BOOK OF SPORTS revived. CANNE.

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HUME begins his relation of the proceedings of the year 1631 with a paragraph, the first part of which condemns the latter he says, "In order to gratify the Clergy with a magnificent fabric, subscriptions were set on foot, for repairing and rebuilding St. Paul's;" and, "it

would serve Dr. Laud but the highest Censure that was [then] past in that Court." And he adds, that he was apprehended "on the 17th of February, 1629, gone ten years.' The 26th of November, he proceeds, "Your Petitioner's hands being tied to a stake, besides all other torments he received thirty-six stripes with a terrible cord. After which he stood almost two hours on the pillory, in cold, frost, and snow, and suffered the rest, as cutting off the ear, firing the face, and slitting the nose; so that he was made a theatre of misery, to men and angels !" Laud mentions some of these inflictions, drily, in his Diary!" Returning to the gaol, after much harsh and cruel usage for the space of eight years, paying more for a chamber than thrice the worth of ithaving not a bit of bread, nor drop of water allowed: .. divers contrivances were laid for taking away your petitioner's life, as shall manifestly appear... To enumerate the rest of your petitioner's heavy pressures would take up a volume; with which he will not burden your Honours till further opportunity... Eleven years, not suffered to breathe in the open air. To which, give him leave to add his great sufferings in all those particulars some sixteen years ago, for publishing a book called The Looking-glass of Holy War.'.. Now in the 72nd year [of his age.]" P. 90. With the design of extenuating this particular enormity of the "wise and holy" Prelate, who became at length virtually "pontiff-andprince"-see back, p. 397, Professor Le Bas, his latest biographer, writes, p. 142, "It is a remarkable circumstance, that this enormity was never laid to the charge of Laud, in the days when heaven and earth were ransacked for matter of impeachment against him." Suffice it then, that it is recorded in the Commons' Journal, April 21st, 1641, besides six other articles, "Resolved. 4. That the Archbishop of Cant. then Bishop of London, ought to give satisfaction to Dr. Leighton, for his damages sustained by fifteen weeks' imprisonment in Newgate, upon the said Bishop's Warrant.-8. That Dr. Leighton ought to have good reparation and satisfaction for his great sufferings and damages sustained by the illegal sentence in the Star Chamber." And, June 11th it was ordered, "That he be restored to the practice of physic as formerly." His fine was remitted, and the following year he was made keeper of Lambeth House; so even Laud calls it, in his Diary, Nov. 24th, 1642. Edit. 1694. p. 65. We must not pass over the slur annexed to this fact by the Laudean, who penned as follows, "By way of compensation for his sufferings, he was made keeper of Lambeth Palace, then converted into Lambeth jail!" The Professor could not have suffered so complete a lapse of historical recollection, as to have forgotten entirely the notoriety which will ever attach to that "jail" in Lambeth. Witness the Lollard's tower, and the rings, or chains, with other relics of a once indomitable hierarchy! In this "House," Leighton died, but not without leaving on record, in his Epitome, p. 92, “My wrongs were recognized and adjudged, my cause cleared and justified; and that by so noble, judicious, just, and impartial a Committee as any State could afford. The inquiry was exact, the examination punctual, the censure just, the report entirely faithful, the order of the Honourable House answerable to the premises, and the transmission to the Lords very just and equal. Lastly, They caused the Warden of the Fleet, with much ado, to deliver up my bail-[bond]; so that after twelve years' hard imprisonment, I was delivered out of the 'pit' wherein there was no water.'"

must be remembered, that the Puritans were extremely averse from the raising of this ornament to the capital." But what, we ask, had Heylyn said upon this matter? Citing the author of a History of King Charles, to show that he had affirmed, that "many had no fancy to the work" because Laud "promoted it;" this Archbishop's panegyrist affirms that, "on the contrary, it is known that, had not he promoted it, there were not many would have had the fancy to a work of that nature: some men, in hope of favour and preferment from him; others, to hold fair quarter with him; and not a few, for fear of incurring his displeasure; contributing more largely to it than they had done otherwise; if otherwise, they had contributed at all!"b This should seem to imply that others, esteemed more conformable than Puritans, had also an aversion from Laud's project, though they might not so loudly have "inveighed against it."

As we took occasion, in a former chapter,d to comment upon a treatise subservient to the right understanding of an important incident in the Episcopal Church; and, to show from another production of the same author's the peculiar bent and drift of his mind; which pieces emanated from him whose personal character and conduct are peculiarly involved in the christian cause and denomination we espouse; so, another opportunity being afforded for communicating some further insight into his mind and temperament previously to becoming a vindicator of those Churches on whose best interests we are no less intent than was he, attention is required accordingly to be bestowed upon "The Law and the Gospel reconciled: Or, The Evangelical Faith, and the Moral Law, How they stand together in the State of Grace. A treatise, Showing the perpetual use of the Moral Law, under the Gospel, to Believers: In answer to a Letter written, by an Antinomian, to a faithful Christian. Also, How the Morality of the Fourth Commandment is continued in the Lord's-day,-proved the Christian Sabbath, by Divine Institution. [With] a brief Catalogue of the Antinomian Doctrines. By Henry Burton. 1 Tim. i. 5. Lond. 1631." 4to. pp. 70.

This his "old Servant" tells "The High and Mighty Prince, Charles," in a Dedication couched in terms as respectful and loyal as his Majesty could have desired, that "These lawless Antinomians, enemies to God, to Kings and States, would rob Christian Kings of this blessed Book of God's Law, that so, if they could strip them of the grace and fear of God in their hearts, letting loose the reins of all honesty and conscience, they might usurp a government after the lust of man, not after the love of God; and so precipitate inevitable ruin to princes and commonweals. For, take away God's law, and what law of man can bind the conscience, either in point of obeying or of commanding ?"

In the treatise, Burton writes, "The occasion of our taking this task upon us is this, There is a new sprung-up opinion, which, not only in this city, but in some parts of the country, spreading like a cancer or gangrene, hath infected many; poisoning them with such a schismatical spirit; and not only alienating their minds from, but "By H. L." [H. L'Estrange.] P. 221. c Ib. p. 222. d Chap. xxvii.

opening their mouths against our Congregations and Ministers; so as they scoff, and scandalize even the soundest and sincerest preaching of the Word of God... If Ministers preach and press the duties of Sanctification, these Antinomians jeer at them; yea, and rail on them, to their very faces; calling them Anabaptists,' and telling them that they preach the dead faith,' and that such goodly doctrines are good for nothing but to carry men to hell!' And for my part, I should not have believed there had been such mouths of blasphemy in the world, had not my ears been witnesses of them. And for a further proof hereof, to make it evident to others also-besides other writings which the ringleaders of this Antinomian or lawless sect of Belial convey and scatter among their disciples-a Letter, written with the chief Ringleader's own hand, for ex ungue leonem, but consigned or subscribed with the name of one of his prime she-disciples, and sent to one Mr. T., may suffice to manifest their virulent spirits to all the world." a

"But now," he says, "it being brought to the upshot, whether he or we have the true living faith;' he must permit us perforce-we bringing our warrant from God-to make a privy search, and to rifle his cabinet, to see whether he have this pearl of the kingdom; yea, or no. Nor are we engaged to do this, in regard only of our faith towards God, as we are Christians; but also of our fidelity and loyalty to our King, the Lord's anointed, as we are subjects: forasmuch as he challengeth all men, that he that will be a loyal Subject to his Protestant King, ought to embrace this doctrine of faith; which he only, the A-per-se Doctor,b doth teach."c The mode of the allusion to the King, in this passage, will have attracted the attentive reader's notice. The next paragraph exhibits a fair sample of Burton's orthodoxy, while it shows what was his "adversary's" position regarding it.

"Wherein then," asks Burton, "is the main difference between us, that makes his the only true lively justifying faith,' and ours the blind, zealous, dead faith? Surely in this, that his faith is so 'lively,' active, vigorous and potent, perfect and complete, that of itself it produceth all the fruits of Sanctification without having anything to do with the Word of God-especially the moral law-as a rule of our actions, or as a glass of our imperfections! Whenas we, on the other side, acknowledge that our faith, at the best estate during this life, is not so perfect and everyway complete but [that], as a lamp, it needeth the continual supply of the holy oil of God's Spirit of grace, to cause it to flame forth the more in the works of Sanctification; which grace of the Spirit is ministered and applied unto us by the Ministry of the Word of God, as the oil-pipe through which it runneth. And, forasmuch as in the state of grace and faith we know but in part, and prophesy in part; and, consequently, our faith is imperfect, being mingled with much ignorance; therefore we have need of the moral law, whereof both the Old and New Testament are a large commentary, both as a rule whereby to frame our thoughts, words, and works, and also as a glass wherein, looking [at] the face of our souls and b Tobias Crisp, D.D.

a P. 3.

© P. 19.