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Untitled Article
James seems to have appointed the absurdly called "Conference" * at Hampton Court , that he might have the contemptible satisfaction of heaping * upon the Puritans a series of contumelious insults—insults which they could not escape and dared not resent .
It is impossible , however , to believe that they consented to intrust their cause to the courtly advocates who were feigned to represent them at this meeting . True it is , that the nonconforming doctors did not attempt to win over the weak monarch with
the gross and idolatrous flattery which the bishops employed ; yet Reynolds did not scruple to admit the royal disputant ' s supremacy , and Sparke afterwards wrote to persuade the Puritans to submit to the
ecclesiastical authority of the king . James took this opportunity of abusing Presbyterian principles , ( which in 1590 he declared he would ever support , ) and told his hearers that" a Scottish Presbytery agrees as well with monarchy as God and the devil . " He said to
the bishops that " he knew what would become of his supremacy" if he let the Puritans get the upper hand , and asserted that the church had better want the labours of ministers , however learned and pious , than suffer her orders to be broken by their
Nonconformity . He assured them , he had disliked the opinions of the Puritans ever since he was ten years old , and that ; he " had determined to have only one doctrine and one discipline , one religion in substance and in ceremony . " After repeatedly
interrupting the Puritan ministers , and dictating most dogmatically to them , he had the impudence to exclaim , "If this be all your party hath to say , I will make them conform themselves , or else I will harrie them out of the land ,
or else do worse ; " ( Mrs . Macaulay adds , 1 know not her authority , ) u only hang them , that ' s all . " At the end of the discussions , James cried out , " Let them conform , and that shortly , or they shall hear of - it " The Catholic Hudibras s ^ ys , |{
* During the discussions , the mitred advocates requested the king to remember that it was an old decree of the church , that " no schismatics should be heard against their bishops . " II England R ' s Reformation , Vol . II . p . 79 .
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"His 6 tner arguments were few , Some thjnk but one and some say two , If three , the last a curled brow ; For his * I will , '—and « I will not / When with an awful forehead put , * 'Gainst Reynolds and the Whig's prevaiTd , Whenall the bishopsMogic faiPd . "
James was so delighted with the result of the Conference , that he wrote to one of his Scottish correspondents , ( Mr . Blake , ) " The Puritans so fled from argument to argument without
giving me any direct answer , ( ut est eorum moris , ) that I was forced to tell them , that if they had not disputed better when boys , their master would have applied the rod to their buttocks . " * Noble triumph I of"
infallible artillery" over an adversary bound hand and foot . The high party had anticipated the result of these assemblies , when they asked the " Homunciones miserrimi" how they dared dispute before so wise and learned a kiug . j
This is in something of a similar spirit to that manifested by the " victorious party" during the debate , who ( seeing their opponents alarmed at the threats of the king , ) defined a Puritan to be " a Protestant frightened out of his wits . §
Some efforts were made by the liberal Dr . Rudd , at the Convocation in 1604 , to obtain a candid construction for the motives , and a toleration for the opinions " of those very many learned men whose consciences ( he said ) were not in our custody , nor to be disposed of at our devotion , ' * || but
in vain . Far from encouraging any of the great principles of Protestantism , the bias of the king ' s mind was decidedly towards Popery , and he would willingly have made not a few concessions to have again introduced it into his kingdom , if Andhere be it allowed me to remark as a reason
rather than an excuse for the neverconcealed hatred which the Puritans bore to the Papists , that the latter ( besides being the advocates of intolerance and persecution ) were disposed to allow unlimited power to the
* Neal , II . 20 . J See Address of the Cambridg-e University , Neal , II . 9 » ^ Hampton Court Conference , printed 1604 . || Neal , II . 30—34 . Peirce ^ s Vindication , I . 158 . . % Ramu , 2 G 1 .
Untitled Article
On the Opinioris of the Puritans respecting Civil and Religious XdbePtir * 117
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1818, page 117, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2473/page/37/
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