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life , however , leagued with the Artninians , and became ( if not a Catholic ) an A rnainian himself ; but here he declares that " Arminianism is a newborn heresy , — . an atheism damnable to the hell from whence it canoe , and if tolerated God ' s malediction would fall on the tolerators . "
The king ' s intemperance was perhaps surpassed by his treachery . On one occasion he requested that a deputation of ten Puritans might attend the council . They had no sooner appeared than he committed them to prison . *
I have lingered much longer than I intended on this period of history , because a system was pursued which it was vainly hoped would effect the extinction of a noble and increasing body of Christians and Patriots , who
were rescuing their country from slavery and their religion from corruption ; and in order to shew how wrong an estimate had been formed by the king * of the character of the Puritans , acid how mistaken and absurd was
the system of coercion he pursued for their extirpation . His conduct was not induced by a dread of schism , " the ecclesiastical scare-crow , " ( as Mr . Bales calls it , ) but by an
impatience of contradiction , a love of despotic sway , and a barbarous notion of his prerogative * || During his reign the principles of freedom made wonderful way , and prepared the storm which burst over his successor . Mr .
Knight , in a sermon preached before the University of Oxford , in 162 % , maintained , " that a monarch might lawfully be opposed by force if he acted tyrannically , if he imposed into *
lerable burdens , forced blasphemy or idolatry on his people , or encroached on their liberties and rights of conscience /'§ Charles before he came to the
* Winwood ' s Memorials , II . 36 , 48 . l | Whatever James was thought of at home , he seems to have been thoroughly despised abroad . Jfcapin gives the following jeu tPesprit as circulated on the continent :
Tandis qu » Elizabeth fut Roy VAnglais fut < T Espag-nfe PeifrOi ; Maintenant devfoe et fcaqtieit * R ^ g i par la Btiiu * Jactuttte .
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throne , had ( like James ) given tfee Puritans ^ reat reason to , hope for better days . He had often expressed his disgust at the lewd and drunken habits of his father , and had appeared to respect and honour the rigidity of morals and attention to their
ecclesiasastical duties , which even Buruet admits * distinguished the Puritans ; but if history had only brought down to us the characters of Jg tickiflghain , Straffbrd and Laud , and told us they were the advisers and the favourites of this unhappy monarch , enough
would have been recorded to stamp his character «* with blackest shame . " It did , indeed , but too soon appear that there was no way left of purifying the church , but by revolutionizing the government ; and it was prophetically said
< When God shall purge the land with soap and nitre , Woe be to the crown , woe be to the mitre . " f ¦ ** And truly herein we glory and with our adversaries' good leave reckon 'twill turn to our everlasting honour
that our ministers undertook the vindication of the laws and liberties of their country , " J Whether Burke is right in calling Protestant Dissent " an uniformly democraticsystem , " § I
pretend not to determine . Thus much at least I may venture to say , that it is a system friendly to the rights and the freedom and the dignity of man , and has almost universally leagued itself with liberty and with patriotism .
If we expect that the breaking up of the kingly authority gave utterance to the spirit of liberty , we shall not 1 b * disappointed . We find in the writings of the Independents of this period , sentiments which would do honour to any cause and to arty ag £ . || " There have been more books writ * ( says Edwards , ^[) sermons preached *
? Hist . O . T . 1 . 21 . f Simple Cobbler of Aggawam , p . 34 L % Peirce ' s Vindrcatian , p . 187 . 5 Letter to Sir Hercules Langviahe .
j | " liberty of conscience is the natural rig-ht of every mau , and u no opinion * * re cognizable hy the magistrate unless tbey are inconsistent with tbe peace of the civil government . " 4 d 4 rl ** to the Xoadou Ci « rgy lfy& . ^ Q * ngmn * > p . 12 ^ .
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On iht Opinions of the Puritans re $$ t&ing Civil and Religious Liberty . 11 Q
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1818, page 119, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2473/page/39/
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