This spoken in defence of those scurrilous libels which Job Throgmorton, Penry, Fenner, and the rest of the Puritan rabble published in print against the Bishops, anno 1588, thereby to render them ridiculous both abroad and at home."

The whole passage is as follows: "Some precise men of that side thought these jeering pens well employed. For having formerly, as they say, tried all serious and sober means to reclaim the Bishops, which hitherto proved ineffectual, they thought it not amiss to try this new way, that whom they could not in earnest make odious, in sport they might render ridiculous. Wits will be working, and such as have a satirical vein, cannot better vent it than in lashing of sin. Besides, they wanted not a warrant (as they conceived) in Holy Writ; where it was no solæcism to the gravity of Eliah to mock Baal's priests out of their superstition; chiefly, this was conceived would drive on their design, strengthen their party by working on the people's affections, which were marvellously taken with the reading thereof.

"But the more discreet and devout sort of men, even of such as were no great friends to the hierarchy, upon solemn debate then resolved, (I speak on certain knowledge from the mouths of such whom I must believe) that for many foul falsehoods therein suggested, such books were altogether unbeseeming a pious spirit, to print, publish, or with pleasure peruse; which, supposed true both in matter and measure, charity would rather conceal than discover. The best of men being so conscious of

their own badness, that they are more careful to wash their own faces, than busy to throw dirt on others. Any man may be busy in a biting way, and those that have the dullest brains have commonly the sharpest teeth to that purpose."

In the same groundless and disgraceful manner Heylyn charged our author with being an extremist in regard of the Sabbath. + Heylyn was indeed an extreme anti-sabbatarian, reckoning (in his Life of Laud) the strict observance of the Lord's Day as one of the leading causes of the distractions of the reign of Charles.

* B. ix. p. 193.

The Appeal, Pt. II. p. 92.

CHAPTER XVII.

The Church-History of Britain.

E come now to the reigns of James and Charles the First. In regard of that of James, Heylyn charged Fuller with uncharitableness toward the memory of Mark Antony de Dominis. Let the reader of that very remarkable person's history judge for himself whether the truth lay not here again on the side of our author? That prelate who asked for York, was it not likely, as Fuller saith, that he secretly promised himself Canterbury.*

Fuller had recorded the panic occasioned by the unhappy policy of King James, in endeavouring to ally the Prince with the Infanta of Spain; Heylyn's veneration for the Roman Communion would not pass over this indication of true Protestant feeling in silence. "Ten thousand persons of quality," replies Fuller, "are still alive, who can and will attest, that a panic fear for that match invaded the nation." +

*Appeal, Pt. II. p. 100.

T

+ Ibid.

Heylyn, in his Life of Laud, to instance the disloyalty of the Puritans, tells that on a birth in the royal family, they stood aloof from the rejoicings, saying that they looked toward the Bohemian branch, that branch which now flourishes, whilst divine providence has swept away the Stuarts from the throne of this kingdom. Thus the Puritans were true prophets; they knew that a family which had united itself to an idolatrous interest was not in the way of blessing; they knew better than their opponents the essential evils, the spiritual mystery of Romanism; I speak of the rightminded amongst them; of men, who, like Dr. Sibbes, were far better judges in such questions than Laud or than Jeremy Taylor.

66

In the reign of Charles, the first point of importance that gave rise to animadversion on the part of Heylyn was the moderation of Bishop Andrewes. "This," says Fuller, was the constant practice of Dr. Andrewes, successively Bishop of Chichester, Ely, and Winchester, who never urged any other ceremonies than those which he found there. Now whereas the Animadvertor saith, that if this should be true, he is not able to commend it in him; the matter is not much, seeing the actions of Bishop Andrewes are able to commend themselves." Heylyn suspected Fuller of passing here an indirect censure upon Laud. Fuller denies that this was his intention, but admits that he had another prelate in his eye, related to Bishop Andrewes. He probably designed Wren, whom Bishop Andrewes early patronized, and who certainly could lay no claim to any of his patron's moderation.

In March 1640, certain divines were appointed to prepare an account of such ecclesiastical and other topics relating to the church, as might be subjected to regulation with a view to the peace and good order of the church. "First," says our author, "they took the innovations of doctrine into consideration, and here some complained, that all the tenets of the Council of Trent had (by one or other) been preached and printed, abating only such points of state-popery against the King's supremacy made treason by the statute. Good works made co-causes with faith, by justification; private confession, by particular enumeration of sins, needful necessitate medii (i. e. as means indispensable) to salvation; that the oblation (or as others, the consumption) of the elements in the Lord's supper, holdeth the nature of a true sacrifice; prayers for the dead; lawfulness of monastic vows; the gross substance of Arminianism, and some dangerous points of Socinianism.

"Secondly, they inquired into præter-canonical conformity, and innovations in discipline: advancing candlesticks in parochial churches in the day-time, on the altar so called: making canopies over, with traverses of curtains (in imitation of the veil before the Holy of Holies) on each side, and before it, having a credentia, or side-table, as a chapel of ease to the mother-altar for divers uses in the Lord's supper: forbidding a direct prayer before sermon, and ministers to expound the catechism at large to their parishioners; carrying children (when baptized) to the altar, so called, and there offering them up to God, pretending for some of these in