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might prevent a greater . The king was prevailed upon with difficulty ; and , bursting into tears , lamented his sister ' s obstinacy , and that he must suffer her to continue in so abominable a way of worship as he esteemed the mass . * ' Ridley ' s Life . p . 331 .
Though Edward was thus warm - ly intent on inflicting the persecution of restraint , yet , as I shall have occasion to shew , he was ¦ v ery hardly persuaded to shed blood on account of religious opinions . His council had no such scruples . Whatever they had refonned in doctrine , they fully retained the spirit of the Antichri ^ rian church . Cranmer , who bore a piiucipal part among them , in ecclesiastical affairs , seems to havf possessed a natural disposition peculiarly forbearing and to have exercised a Christian spirit on every subject , but religion . Shakespeare makes his Henry the Eighth , * ay of him , * as the common voice , "
Do my Lord of Canterbury A shrewd turn , and he is your friend for ever . Yet Craniner was as staunch a perstcuLor , under the gentle Edward , as when he had approved lundcr his imperious master Henry , / the burnino Oi Lambert and Anne
Aacue , Mr . Gilpin , in his Life of the Archbishop , ( p . 59 ) says , far too mildly , 4 * that the spirit of popery was not yet wholly repressed / 1 The Reformers would have
abhorred the impiety of repressing that spirit . Nor is there any good reason to doubt that they would have anticipated a Marian persecution and burned the worshippers with their images , had not the jxovyer of the . papists instanced in
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formidable insurrections , discou * raged the attempt . I have , before me , the < 4 Life and martyrdom of Rowland Taylor , published in l 682 , and
written by one who appears to have justly admired the pious Rector of Hadleigh . Dr . T . is described
as accosting in the following terms a Romish Priest , whom soon after the accession of Mary , he found officiating in his church : Thou devil incarnate , who made thee so audacious as to enter this church , to defile and profane it with thy abominable idolatry ? J command theey thou popish wolf ^ in ttte name
of God , to depart hence , and not to presume thus to poison the flock of L ^ hrist . The Priest appears to advantage in his reply to this harsh greeting , on the principle common to both , the magistrate ' s
right of controul in religion . He " . said to Dr . Taylor , " Thou traitor ^ what makes you come hither to lett and disturb the Queen ' s proceedings ? In an age wuen persecution , to . death , was in vogue could Di \ T . want any thing but power , to burn the 4 i popish wolf /' which had intruded into his fold ?
This is a fair conjecture , but there is on record a damning proof of the sanguinary spirit which now possessed the English Reformers . Fox , in his Latin Book of Martyrs which I have not had an opportunity
of consulting but as translated , no doubt faithfully , in Peiree ' s Vindication of th < e Dissenters , ( 2 d ed . p . 30 ) , charges the Reformers with a design against the life of Hooper , if he had not submitted to the
habits , and adds " which unless he had done there are those who think the bishops would have endeavoured to take away his life ; for
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220 Sketch of English Protestant Persecution , — 'Letter IL
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1812, page 220, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1747/page/12/
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