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    monarch in civil matters , and looked with malignant eyes and revengeful hearts , on those especially in whom the same spirit which had freed us

    from the Romish yoke , yet " lived and glowed , ' The love of despotic sway was the " family virtue" of the Stuarts , and those who would most patiently submit , and most unreservedly recommend submission , would be chosen of

    course for James ' s favourites and friends . Too high-minded to conceal , to 6 virtuous lo abandon their convictions , the Puritans became the objects of his unrelenting severity . Extinct in others , they alone preserved and cherished the principles of the Reformation ; they alone fostered and fanned the embers of Civil Liberty , and from

    among them its flame burst forth . The whole of James ' s reign was a struggle between his arbitrary will and the growing liberality of the times . The Commons allowed the

    king to storm and talk most imperially of his omnipotence , while they constantly checked his absurd preten ^ sions ;* arid he was so annoyed by their resistance , that he recommends his son in his Basilicon Doron , to neglect parliaments as much as possible . || Blind and baneful council ! yet not more so than the intolerant advice with respect to the Nonconformists :

    " Take heed therefore ( my sonne ) of such Puritanes , very pests in church and state , whom no deserts can oblige , neither oaths nor promises bind , breathing nothing but sedition and calumnies , aspiring without measure , railing without reason , and making

    their own imaginations ( without any warrant of the word ) the square of their conscience . I protest before the great God , and since I am here as upon my testament , it is no place for me to ly in , that you shall never find in any highland or borderer thieves ,

    greater ingratitude , and more lyes and vile perjuryes , than with these phanaticall spirits , and suffer them riot to brooke your land , if you like to sit at rest , except you would keep them for trying your patience , as Socrates did an evill wife . 'H Such was the

    ? Rapin , 321 . Hume , xltr . <—* xlriii . ? P . 28 . 8 vo . Edition . Basilicon Doron . Bvo . Edition , 41 , 42 . See also his Letter to all Christian MonarchV &c . p . 45 .

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    language held by the high party , of which I shall give you another example from the works of one of the king ' s favourite authors , who recommended him to become independent , and to make laws without consulting any parliament . * ' They ( the Puritans )

    pretend gravity , reprehend severely , speake gloriously , and all in hypocrisie ; they daily invent new opinions and run from error to error ; their wilfulness they account constancy 5 . their deserved punishment persecution . * * * * a beast proud without learning , presumptuous without authority ,

    zealous without knowledge , holy without religion , and in briefe a most dangerous and malicious hypocrite , and was therefore banished from amongst us in Queen Elizabeth ' s days , but now deserve it farre better , being more dangerous because more numerous . ' * James ' s controversy with Vorstius f well illustrates his character . He

    was hunting when Vorstius ' s book , De Deo , was brought to him , but within an hour after receiving it he hurried off an ambassador to the Hague with a catalogue of the heretical propositions he had discovered in the volume . $ He hinted that the States would do well to burn the

    " wretched V orstius ; " || and sent messenger after messenger till he had obtained his expatriation . James published a book on the subject , as " Defender of the faith , " ^ which Vorstius answered with temper and with respect . James in the latter part of his * Dr . Cowell , C . xv . p . 212 .

    -f Bayle says be died a 8 ociiiian a fact worth the trouble of ascertaining * . In the decree of the Dort Synod , which drove him from the professor's chair at Ley den , they charge him with " clandestinely opening a gate to instil the wicked and impious

    heresies of Socijius and others , and consequently to seduce and deceive the world under the specious pretext of a search for truth . " " The disciples of Socinus , " says ilie British ambassador , do seeke him for tlieir master , and are ready to embrace him "

    § See the King- * * account of the matter in the Declaration , pp . 3 ~~ 8 . 4 tO , 1612 . H Declaration , p . 20 , " No heretic « y ^ f Declaration * pp * 4 and 23 , Jam ** calls Vorstius " a prodigious monster , " " » viper ; " * ' a pestilent heretic , '> « a blasphemous monster . "

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    118 On the Opinions af the Puritans respecting Civil and Religious Liberty

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1818, page 118, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2473/page/38/