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these distinct elements into one mass of disaffection . Our author ' s general object of animadversion is Calvinism , under which sweeping title he includes the whole body of resistance . His description of the religion of the Dissidents from Laud's rule , is couched in courteous terms : < f The religion of the Puritans ! " he exclaims , " what was it ? Rhodomontade , enthusiasm , eternal quihbles on trifles , hatred to the king and government , glooinv Calvinism , zeal for Geneva , intolerance and
obstinacy . " Considering that even down to our own days the church has not settled its accounts between the Calvinists and Arminians , the former might surely have had a little more mercy shewn them by our author . The Calvinists of the reign of Charles I . had some little reason to suppose that their opinions ( the opinions of the great majority of the leading Reformers ) were not wholly inconsistent with the orthodoxy of the Protestant church , and to
think themselves at liberty to consider a little before they followed the fashion of the court , which had just been joining in all the zeal of the Synod of Dort against the Arminian heresy , and now required every one to profess it as the true creed . Mr , Lawson , who has sometimes an ingenious way of helping out his friends , saves James ' s orthodoxy at the expense of his honesty , by saying that he sided with the Synod " merely from political motives , and chiefly from his personal friendship for Prince Maurice , " and this , too , in the same breath with which he numbers " his sincere regard for
religion , " among the «« many virtues" of " this calumniated monarch . "" Novelty in theology is the certain indication of error , " we are assured ; and trying opinions by this test ( the novelty of which may , perhaps , entitle it to the same observation ) , we should be glad to know which had the best presumption in his favour , the Calvinistic Reformer , or the one of Laud ' s school ; passing by the decided superiority , in this respect of the Catholic over both .
Poor Abbot , Laud ' s " violent enemy , " ( violent , apparently , in a passive sense , for no man was more violently and virulently acted upon than Abbot was , till Laud , after managing to grasp all his power while he lived , at last worried him to death , ) comes in for Mr . Lawson's constant and unmeasured vituperation . Abbot had something of the peace-maker about him , and , if Clarendon's account has any truth in it , had succeeded to a great extent in preserving as much harmony as the zeal of the times allowed . The period during which Laud , in fact , exercised the office of viceroy over his primate
is most characteristic of the officious priest ' s meddling spirit , which manifested its unchristian tendencies in unceasing attempts to annoy and oppress all who differed from him , to stir up strife in every thing , to grasp at power in whatever form he could bring it within his reach , and to make every person arid every institution connected with him odious to the people . One of the earliest acts of his public life was the prostration of the liberties of his own university to the cause of theological animosity in the "directions " for the government of the university , levelled , in 1616 , against the Reformers at Oxford ; a measure which our author at once admits to be
* ' not altogether justifiable , inasmuch as they deprived the university of its independence , and subjected it com p letely to the control of the king . " He finds , however , his usual consolation in . * tftfc reflection , however contradictory , ( but this is nothing with Mt . Lawson , who perpetually admits acts to be bad , but asserts Laud to be praiseworthy for doing them , ) that the
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3 / 4 Life and Times of Archbishop Laud .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1829, page 374, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2573/page/6/
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