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to the varying hour . Of those doctrines , that of the civil magistrate ' s power of the sword in spirituals , they have always been among the first to assert and the
latest to abandon . Nor , whatever pretensibns may have been made , in this comparatively liberal age , can it be shewn , from any satisfactory evidence , that a Protestant , any more than a Papal , established church was ever tolerant till
toleration had become the policy of the state . The moral purity of Elizabeth ' s character , a favourite theme of her panegyrists , has been by historians justly disputed , nor has her religion been esteemed less problematical . The character of her
sister is better ascertained . Mary appears in morals unexceptionable , but in religion a priest-led , persecuting Papist , who killed and thought she did God service .
Elizabeth can scarcely be esteemed more than a political Protestant , During the reign of Mar } ' she had temporized , accordingto her learned Annalist Camden , who says , Cc The lady Elizabeth now governing herself as it were a ship in storttiy weather , both heard divine service after the Romish manner , and was often confessed ; yea , at
the rigorous instances and menaces of Cardinal Pole , professed herself , for fear of death , a Romish Catholic- " ( P . 9 ) Osborn , who wrote his 6 * Traditional Memoirs
of the Reign of Elizabeth / ' by the help of information derived from personal intercourse with her courtiers , mentions her dislike of Luther , to whose memory the queen
had an unappeasable feud , ever since he upbraided her father with the repudiation of Charles the Fifth ' s sister . " He proceeds to
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describe the queen as " rather thrown , than of herself fallen , from the obedience of Rome . " This opinion he deduces " from the
ceremonies used at her maug 7 iratiori ) all purely Catholic , and the retention of the ring , cross , and surplice , contrary to the grain of her strongest assertors . From ,
whence her aim may be guessed as not pointing at a greater dissent from the doctrine of Rome than her father ' s proceeding had chalked her out ; commanding the
Common Prayer Book ( which contains most of the Mass in English ) to be publicly read , and its opposers the BrownistSy Anabaptists ^ Family of Love , with a number of other
crawling errors , the unnatural heat of Luther ' s disputes had produced over all Germany , to be restrained under no slighter penalty than death or imprisonment / ' ( Works , 1673 , pp . 411 , 12 . ) It is certain that Elizabeth
discovered no eagerness to abolish the ceremonies of Popery . Dr . Warner ( Ecc . Hist . ii . 4 > 27 ) as quoted by Dr . Toulmin ( Neale 1 . 158 ) says , " When the Dean of St .
Paul ' s , in a sermon at court , spoke with some dislike of the sign of the cross , her Majesty called aloud to him from her closet , commanding him to desist from that ungodly digression , and to return to his
text . At another time , when one of her chaplains preached a sermon on Good Friday , in defence of the real presence , which , without guessing at her sentiments , he would scarcely have ventured on , she openly gave him thanks for his
pains and piety . " Burnet says , " The queen had been bred up from her infancy with a hatred of the Papacy and a love to the Reformation . But yet , as her fiyst
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Sketch of English Protestant Persecution . —Letter VII . 309
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vol .. viix . % «
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1813, page 309, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2428/page/25/
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