Page images
PDF
EPUB

good courage, and let us play the men, for the cities of our God and the Lord do that which seemeth him good" (2 Sam. x. 12.). In place of separating Politics from Religion-the actions of erring legislators

66

The manner of obtaining an accomplishment of their fell and impious designs, we can best describe, in the language of one of the greatest of our English historians and statesmen, and a spectator of that melancholy period-the Lord Chancellor Clarendon, who has immortalized this, the blackest stain of our annals, in his incomparable History of the Rebellion." The Presbyterian clergy, who were the principal fomentors of this execrable and unnatural rebellion, are thus described by Lord Clarendon-“I must not forget, though it cannot be remembered without much horror, that this strange wild-fire among the people (i. e. the imprisonment of most of the loyal nobility, joined with every invention that cruelty and inhumanity could suggest, insomuch that all the prisons about London were quickly filled with persons of honour, and new prisons made for their reception, and very many of very good quality, both of the Clergy and Laity were committed to Prison on board the ships in the Thames' attended with every species of the most ferocious barbarity) was not so much and so furiously kindled by the breath of the Parliament, as of their Clergy, who both administered fuel, and blowed the coals in the houses too. These men having creeped into, and at last driven all learned and orthodox men from the pulpits, had infused seditious inclinations into the hearts of men against the present Government of the Church, with many libellous invectives against the State. But since the raising an army, and rejecting the king's last overture of a treaty, they contained themselves within no bounds; and as freely and without controul, inveighed against the person of the king, as they had before against the worst malignant; profanely and blasphemously applying whatsoever had been spoken and declared by God himself, or the Prophets, against the most wicked and impious kings, to incense and stir up the people against their most Gracious Sovereign. There are monuments enough in the seditious sermons at that time printed, and in the memories of men, of others not printed, of such wresting and perverting of Scripture, to the odious purposes of the Preacher, that pious men will not look over without trembling" (Ld. Clarendon's History, Book vi.). Clarendon then enumerates several of those horridly blasphemous perversions, by which these hateful and diabolical hypocrites, incited their auditories to persecution, proscription, rebellion, plunder, and murder. "Pronouncing (says Clarendon) God's own curse against all those, who came not, with their utmost strength, to destroy and root out all the malignants (i. e. the defenders of the Church and Monarchy), who in any degree opposed the Parliament"-again "reproving those who gave any quarter to the king's (Charles I.) soldiers." “It would fill a volume (adds the historian) to insert all the impious madness of this kind, so that the complaint of the prophet Ezekiel, might most truly, and seasonably

from the instructions of unerring oracles-and the morality of the nation from the precepts of Christianity, let us uprear the standard of the Cross upon the loftiest pinnacles, that all may be brought within its have been applied -"There is a conspiracy of her Prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey, they have devoured souls, they have taken the treasure, and precious things, they have made her many widows in the midst thereof" - Ezek. xxii. 25. (Ibid. Book vi.). We need not then be surprized at Clarendon's observation, in a subsequent part of his history, that Cromwell "looked upon the Presbyterian humour as the best incentive to Rebellion, and therefore no man was more a presbyterian; he sung all Psalms with them to their Tunes, and loved the longest sermons as much as they!" (Ibid. Book x.). It is well known, that these gentry and particularly Hugh Peters, Cromwell's own favourite chaplain, frequently preached from the following text-"Let the high praises of God be in the mouths of his saints, and a two-fold sword in their hand, to execute vengeance upon the heathen and punishments upon the people; to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron; to execute upon them the judgment written: this honour have all his saints"--Ps. cxlix. 6-9. (Hume's England, Charles I. chap. lix. Notes.). In justice to such remarkable Saints, it is but fair to give them credit for the assiduity, with which the Presbyterian clergy in Scotland, endeavoured to promote the spiritual interests of the Royal Martyr's son-" who were in such a continual attendance about him, that he was never free from their importunities, under pretence of instructing him in Religion and so they obliged him to their constant hours of their long prayers, and made him observe the Sundays with more rigour than the Jews accustomed to do their Sabbath; and reprehended him very sharply if he smiled on those days, and if his looks and gestures did not please them, whilst all their prayers and sermons, at which he was compelled to be present, were libels, and bitter invectives against all the actions of his father, the idolatry of his mother, and his own malignity!" (Clarendon's Rebellion, Book xiii.). Our readers. can decide on the utility, of such sage instructions, to a Prince, whose father had been told by the organs of this very party-" that if he did not consent to the utter abolition of Episcopacy, he would be damned" (Hume's England, lix.), and by whose Parliament also, he was positively refused the use of the Common Prayer, or any other Liturgy, in his own private chapel! (Ibid.). That these worthies laboured hard to improve also the religion of the kingdom, may be easily known by their severe censure, passed on the observance of Christmas-day--by the crusade which they carried on against profane and superstitius vanity"! of eating minced-pies at Christmas -by the war which even the Parliament waged against the heathenish vanity!" of May-poles-and by the regular meetings which were held on Thursdays, for resolving cases of consciences, and conferring about their progress in grace, and fixing the precise

[ocr errors]

the

influence, and yield to its heavenly guidance. Then we shall not have to mourn, in the bitterness of conscious shame, over the violation of solemn treatiesthe merited scorn of our more virtuous allies-the self-accusing reproaches of outraged faith-and the treacherous smiles of deluding friends. The sanctions of our holy faith, will then exert their salutary influence, as well in our proudest palaces, as in the humblest cottage.

moment of their conversion or new birth; for whoever could not accurately fix this, was considered to have no claim to saintship! (Wood's Fasti Oxoniensis, p. 740.). The special refinement of these disgusting hypocrites, in changing their heathenish names for those of the Sacred Scriptures, provokes our smiles and frowns (Hume's Eng. Cromwell, chap. Ixi. Notes.). Who can now fail, in espying the strict aptitude to those times, of the keen satire of a cotemporary Poet

"Of these that undermine

The Church and all that is Divine,
Is prick-ear'd Presbyterian Jack.
A King he hates tho' for no reason
But for the love he bears to treason;
The very best of God's Vicegerents,
By him are represented Tyrants:
All Loyalty, but flatt'ring knav'ry,
And true allegiance, down-right slav'ry.
Yet none can more imperious be,
Or claim more reverence than he.
To Bishops he's a foe most spiteful,
The very name to him is frightful;
And lawn he scorns, because his merit,
He knows can never reach to wear it.
So he that travels thro' the streets
On foot, derides the coach he meets,
Not for its rattling thro' the town,
But 'cause himself has ne'er a one.
The only doctrine that he preaches,
Is loudly railing 'gainst his betters,
And binding Kings in chains and fetters,
That all within his Holy Place
May suck rebellion in ********
And when occasion serves, be ready
To pull down Sov'reign Lord or Lady.
The Church he wickedly blasphemes,
And shews his malice in extremes.
His morals are entirely such

As held and practis'd by the Dutch,

Extracted from Geneva College,

Where callow Saints improve their knowledge,

And learn, when young, to cover base

Opinions with a godly face:

And as some wise observers tell us,

To be religiously rebellious,

And misapply, like mad divines

The Word of God to bad designs."-Butler.

(To be continued.)

STRICTURES,

On The Outrage Offered To Public Morals, In Respect To Portugal.

[The same Subject concluded.]

Ar the present day, when we daily witness. attempts, proceeding from quarters that excite our surprize no less than our indignation, not only to separate the Politics of a professedly Christian State from the Morals of the unalterable precepts of the unchanging God of all truth; but likewise hear of the inculcation of the most unsound and pernicious principles, under the guise of Christian sincerity, and from the lips of the Teachers of morality, yea, some of the very Standard-Bearers of our Apostolic Church, we cannot but apprehend effects injurious to the best interests of society, and derogatory to the glory of the Most High. Is it not a sufficiently mischievous error to separate public from scriptural morality? Is it not enough to concede to the enemies of truth and Religion, that the influences of neither

(Continued from Note, p. 170.)

It is but a reasonable subject for inquiry, to investigate impartially, what were the effects, that the heterogeneous and venomous brood of Puritanism, produced, in their heroic achievements for obtaining li berty of conscience liberty of Religion and liberty of civil dominion. The tame sobriety of established history supplies us with copious, undeniable facts. It is our part, invariably, to adopt the maxim, contained in the German proverb-"To see the future,

have any jurisdiction-any voice over the Government of nations ? Is it not in their estimation, a sufficient and satisfactory gratification, to have Religion banished from the exalted beacon of publicity, to the lowly retreat of privacy? We had certainly deemed

we must look at the past: the prophet's mirror hangs behind him." If we in truth avail ourselves of the only advantageous end of history-a treasury of facts, on which we may with a prophetic foresight act and think, we cannot then fail to admire and venerate the admirable institutions of our pious ancestors, which so long, and so powerfully conduced, to repel the invasions of all the machinations of our enemies, and to secure the sacred barriers of truth, from the contagious atmosphere of blasphemy-from the degrading alliance of idolatry-from the withering blight of superstition--and from the factious, innovating spirit of human impatience and stubborn pride. Our readers are free to compare the blessings, providentially, secured up to the present apostate age, by the wisdom of our forefathers-with the curses, by which our land was so grievously affected, and so oppressively weighed down, in consequence of the brazen-faced impudence, and sanctified villanies, of that noxious and rebellious spawn of Presbyterians, Independents, and other such Sectaries and Vision-mongers, who have forsaken the divinely governed temple, and the anciently and universally acknowledged truth of God, to follow the bleating of Jeroboam's calves in Dan and in Bethel; and who have set up as idols, to which every knee must bow-the imagined holiness of their Conventicles, against the sacred and apostolically ordained Priesthood,—and the power of the people, against the temporal supremacy and protection of their King. Let not any true Christian be surprised at such insidious and malignant engines being thus permitted, to harass and calumniate the sacred constitutions of our excellent Church. We find numerous precedents of such licentious looseness, even from the very beginning of the world. There have been always found some-yea, many, who professing to "eat bread," do nevertheless "lift up their heel" against their God (John, xiii. 18.). The plague of faction, liberty, and schism, has long infused its infectious virulence among the inconstant and unwary. If we seek the spiritual guidance of God's unerring oracles, and remember their precepts, we are assured that such things must be, for the trial and probation of the faithful, in all ages of the Church. That spirit which infallibly "searcheth the deep things of God," has for our admonition, warned us in the most striking characters, that we should "remember that mockers will arise in the last time, walking after their own ungodly lusts ;" (Jude, v. 18.)—“ despising dominion, (Id. v. 8.) i. e. "despising authority, and speaking scornfully and disgracefully of all those who are in dignity and eminence above them." (Bp. Hall.). We are similarly instructed, that such mockers will "speak evil of those things which they know not; " (Id. v. 10.) " separating themselves, sensual, having not the spirit;" (Id. v. 19.) i. e. “making schisms and

« PreviousContinue »