PRESBYTERIANS. 



ed, which were all and every one of 

 them thus punishable by fine, imprison- 

 ment, and death. Such was the spirit 

 which at that time influenced those who 

 had caused the press to groan with 

 publications about persecution, liberty, 

 and the rights of private judgment ! The 

 clamours, however, about the divine right 

 of Presbytery at length ceased, and the 

 rights of conscience began to be better 

 understood and more generally allowed. 



Oliver Cromwell, though he, in some 

 degree, favoured the Presbyterians, dis- 

 armed their discipline of its coercive 

 power. Their church censures conse- 

 quently lost their force, and at length 

 were in a measure discontinued. When 

 Richard Cromwell had resigned the pro- 

 tectorate, the period of their sufferings 

 again commenced. Duped by General 

 Monk, and deceived by Charles 11. whose 

 restoration they hud 'effected, and the 

 life of whose predecessor they had en- 

 deavoured to save from the cruelty of 

 the Independents, they were made to 

 discover that their expectations concern- 

 ing the establishment of a Presbyterian 

 government were to be cut off. Although 

 when the King came to Whitehall ten of 

 them were made his chaplains, before 

 the expiration of the year 1660, many 

 of the parochial clergy were prosecuted 

 for not using the book of Common Pray- 

 er ; the justices and others insisting that 

 the laws returned with the King. The 

 sequestered clergy came out of their 

 hiding places, and took possession of their 

 former livings, by which some hundreds 

 of the Presbyterian clergy were at once 

 dispossessed; in short, the Church of 

 England was restored to its former pow- 

 er, except only the peerage of the bi 

 shops. Now it was that the nation be- 

 came as completely deluged with licen- 

 tiousness as it had just before been by 

 enthusiasm and bigotry. The virtues of 

 the Puritans were fox-gotten or despis- 

 ed, and a torrent of vice and irreligion 

 issued from the court, and overwhelm- 

 ed the people. Ancient religious cere- 

 monies were revived, and an evident 

 leaning towards popery manifested it- 

 self. " To appear serious," says Neale, 

 " to make a conscience of one's words 

 and actions, was the way to be avoid- 

 ed as a schismatic; a fanatic, or a sec- 

 tarian. They who did not applaud the 

 revived ceremonies were marked out 

 for Presbyterians, and every Presbyte- 

 rian was a rebel." The vindictive spirit 

 of the restored bishops manifested it- 

 self against these unhappy people in 



every possible way. They were alter- 

 nately elated with hopes of peace and 

 liberty, and sunk tft despair by disap- 

 pointment and abuse. The doctrines of 

 passive obedience and non-resistance 

 were revived, and an open and flagrant 

 persecution of the Presbyterians was 

 commenced, which continued to increase, 

 until the triumph of episcopacy was com- 

 pleted by the Act of Uniformity, which 

 began to be in force on St. Bartholo- 

 mew's day, in the year 1662. By this 

 act two thousand of the worthiest and 

 most learned men of the time were eject- 

 ed from their livings, and exposed to 

 every species of insult, deprivation, and 

 distress. Thus did the hypocritical 

 Charles reward those to whom he was 

 indebted for his restoration to the throne 

 of England ! The Presbyterians had now 

 no hopes of justice left, except what 

 they owed to the King's private attach- 

 ment to the Roman Catholics, and to the 

 exercise of an illegal power in their so- 

 vereign, by which the entire liberties of 

 the country might one day be destroyed. 

 This was called the King's dispensing 

 power, under colour of which he pre- 

 tended to dispense with the execution of 

 the established laws of the realm ; there- 

 by, in effect, creating a power above that-, 

 of the law, and making the monarch art 

 absolute sovereign. It was a painful al- 

 ternative to the Presbyterians, either to t 

 suffer the most shameful deprivations, or 

 countenance the exercise of this usurp- 

 ing power, and thereby endanger the 

 liberties of their country by a kind of un- 

 natural union with the Roman Catholics. 

 In the succeeding reign, when this arti- 

 fice of universal toleration, and the dis- 

 pensing power, was again attempted to 

 betray the Protestant interest, the Pres- 

 byterians manifested the most honoura- 

 ble disinterestedness, and refused to ac- 

 cept any toleration for themselves that 

 might endanger the general interests of 

 rehgion, or give countenance to those 

 popish sentiments, that had so often de- 

 luged their country with the blood of its 

 inhabitants. 



In the year 1666, happened the memor- 

 able fire of London, a calamity so great 

 and humiliating, that the rancour of bi- 

 gotry and persecution was somewhat 

 abated by it. This heavy judgment taught 

 the persecutors some useful lessons of 

 righteousness, and the despised Presby- 

 terians were for a time connived at. They 

 built wooden tabernacles to preach in, and 

 their places of worship were crowded 

 with penitent and devout auditors. In 



