their lives by such opinions as are not only less probable but less safe than the direct contrary are? But these are the methods, these are the arts of the Roman Church to draw men into their Church; to allow them liberty to please themselves, to do the things that are most pleasing though least safe; to gratify sinful inclinations though to the prejudice of their souls. By these liberties they fill their Church with numerous proselytes and disciples, and gain authority to themselves to put them upon the foulest actions by teaching them that it is lawful for them to follow the judgment of their teachers though it seems false to themselves; which is, to rob every private person of his conscience, reason, and understanding, and to oblige them to follow others, who, as appears from these particulars, have nothing at all of conscience in them.

II. ADD HEREUNTO another principle taught and maintained in the Roman Church concerning the rectifying of the intention; which is, that a man may lawfully do such things as are materially evil, provided always that he direct the intention of his mind unto a good and honest end. As, for example, that a man may lawfully smite with a sword when he hath received a blow with the hand and is secure from further prejudice, provided he do it "not for revenge, but to repair his reputation"." Or as Father Escobar hath expressed it: "One may lawfully kill another who hath given him a box on the ear though he run away for it, provided he do it not out of hatred or revenge." In short, that a man may do any evil to him that hath offered him an affront, in case he do it not out of malice or to revenge himself upon him, but only to repair his credit and defend his honour and reputation. But if this be true Christian doctrine what shall we say to the precept of Christ, "I say unto you that ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek turn to him the other also?" That is to say, if any injury passed upon thee, leave thee secure of life and limb, if it only touch thy reputation, as this is measured among men by vulgar judgments and opinions, do thou patiently bear the injury, and be content to expect a reward hereafter for it; whatsoever becomes of thy reputation.

IN THE MEANTIME let it be observed how the teachers in

Guimen, pp. 199, 200.

4 Letters Provincial, p. 143.

the Church of Rome loosen the reins to the lusts of men, indulge their vain unchristian humours, while they teach them to value their reputation, and that in the eyes of vulgar judges, more than the very lives of men. While they allow them to preserve the esteem of vain men by spilling of their neighbour's blood; as though his life was of less value than the opinion of such persons.

TWO THINGS further I shall observe: first, that this doctrine of good intention justifying actions of this kind is, in effect, no other than that of "doing of evil that good may come;" or of the using of evil means for the attaining a good end; doctrine most severely censured in Romans iii. 8. And then, further, that a good intention justifies an indifferent action, a thing that is lawful in itself; but never justifies things unlawful. In these things it hath no place, but in indifferent things it hath.

NOW THEN TO conclude what I have to say; seeing evil principles do not only leave us exposed to sin, but also encourage us thereunto; seeing they expose us to death eternal by so doing; let us have a care of such persons and of such a Church as teach and promote such principles. Let us be stedfast in that Church where the saving doctrines of Christianity is faithfully taught and offered to us. We have no other certain helps against the most pernicious evils to secure us from the foulest sins, but firm principles, faith and holiness, assisted by the grace of God. These are the things that must preserve us against our natural inclinations, against our depraved and corrupt affections; these are the things that must secure us against the temptations of the world and recover us if we chance to fall through human frailty and infirmity. He that commits a sin by principles hath nothing to retrieve him from it, and to recover him from his fall, while such a principle remains in him. But he that falls through inadvertency, may be soon recovered by good principles. He will remember, he hath done amiss, his conscience will check and smite him for it; these checks will send him to his prayers to beg the pardon of what is past, and a greater vigilance, a greater assistance of God's grace for the time to come, and so recover him from his fall, and restore him to his former station.

THE PLAGUE SPOT;

SKETCHES OF PAPAL AND PURITAN HISTORY.

AS NEALE says the objection to wearing the surplice was a fundamental principle of the puritan religion, so a great portion of his book is devoted to record their indecent squabbles about "the habits." With that want of patriotism which is so characteristic of their parent popery, the puritans kept up a constant system of appeal to foreigners. So that the Church of England has been nearly as much oppressed by the bondage of Geneva, as by the tyranny of Rome: she has in fact, as her martyr Laud asserted with truth, been crushed betwixt the upper and the nether milstone of popery and puritanism. The papists placed an idolatrous and superstitious reliance on their ecclesiastical dresses; and the Jesuits instructed the puritans to run to the opposite extreme. Every one who has read any part of English history since the Reformation must have a nauseating acquaintance with the bitter, the uncharitable, and the unchristian opposition which the puritans made to the surplice and other habits of the Church; which with equal effrontery and falsehood they designated remnants of popery, dregs of the devil, and rags of the whore of Babylon. Even the stained glass windows in the churches were denounced as emblems of superstition and popish corruptions; and one George Withers, in his sermon, excited the people to attack the stained windows in Cambridge; "whereupon" says Strype, "followed a great destruction of them, and the danger of a greater from some zealots there."

BUT OPPOSITION to lawful authority in the matter of the habits was a fundamental principle of their religion. In short, they made every thing an occasion of dispute and dissension; and the spirit of innovation was in full effulgence. Both the form and the kind of bread used at the Holy Communion were made subjects of the most acrimonious controversy. The canonical rule, however, was that in administering the sacrament the principal minister was to wear a cape, but at all other prayers the surplice; at first the bread was wafer bread; but a rubric was afterwards added to the office which still remains there, directing that the best wheaten bread be used.

1

The puritans made a friend and partisan of the Earl of Leicester, the queen's favourite; but the queen herself was very unfriendly to them. She was of opinion that there was very little difference in their principles betwixt them and the Jesuits. She issued a proclamation peremptorily requiring uniformity in the habits: and the London clergy were summoned to meet Archbishop Parker, March 26, 1561. They were informed that it was the Council's pleasure that they should keep the unity of apparel; those who were disposed to obey, were required to sign, when sixty-one out of a hundred complied. The residue immediately exclaimed “ We shall be killed in our souls for this pollution of ours." thirty-nine who refused were suspended, and informed that if they did not conform within three months, they were to be deprived. "These travelled up and down the counties from church to church preaching where they could get leave.”

The

MOST OF THESE puritan ministers were secretly popish priests, who had conformed in outward appearance only and in hypocrisy after the accession of Elizabeth. Although they objected to the canonical dress as rags of popery; yet they clung to a popish door of entrance to the ministry which had been opened by Pope Alexander VI. He granted a liberty to the University of Cambridge to license twelve priests annually, to preach anywhere throughout England, inde pendent of the bishop of the diocese. The puritan ministers, therefore, albeit they called the pope antichrist, took advantage of this relic of popery, and traversed the kingdom exciting the people to oppose their lawful clergy, and instilling puritan heresies among them. With wonderful effrontery Neal alleges, that "the very bread of life was taken from the people, for the sake of a few trifling ceremonies.” But the converse of this assertion is the truth. From a sense→ less opposition to lawful authority and decent apparel the puritans deprived their hearers of that preaching which they presumed blasphemously to call "the bread of life,” CHRIST is the BREAD of LIFE. But the puritans are condemned out of their own mouths for in their letter to Parker, "they protest before God what a bitter grief it was to them that there should be such dissensions about a cap and surplice among persons of the same faith." They con

stantly reminded the authorities that these things about which they excited such bitter animosities were merely things of indifference. Nevertheless they would not yield to indifferent things; but required those in authority to yield to them, In short, they claimed everything; but would yield nothing. However indifferent a matter it may be to wear a surplice or a Geneva cloak, it was no longer a matter of indifference when it was commanded to be worn by Church authority ; but it then became a matter of duty.

As their appeal to the people, through their advertizing medium the pulpit, had not been sufficiently successful to arouse them into seditious insubordination, the puritans published their “Case” in 1566 wherein they allege what is not truth, “that neither the prophets in the Old Testament nor the apostles in the New were distinguished by their garments.” The surplice was not worn for the same factious reasons that the puritans refused it, as a grand principle of religion; but it was prescribed for decency and reverence in the worship of God, as ‚as He Himself had prescribed holy garments for Aaron for “glory and for beauty." He appointed certain garments to be "upon Aaron and upon his sons when they came into the Tabernacle of the congregation, or when they came near to the altar to minister in the holy place: that they bear not iniquity and die. It shall be a statute for ever unto him, and his seed after him,” both natural and spiritual. The calling of Aaron was the pattern for the vocation of the Christian priesthood which has succeeded to him and his sons; and as God appointed garments for him for glory and for beauty; and “holiness unto the Lord" being as incumbent on their successors as on them; so is a proper sacerdotal dress necessary, not as the puritan's principle of religion, but for decent reverence, as an emblem of purity and an apt representation of that innocence and righteousness with which we daily pray that Christ's ministers may be clothed.

UP TO THIS PERIOD the puritans had not separated from the Church of England; but had been mining within her, festering and corrupting the Church like a moth fretting a garment. Their pharisaical conduct now brought some severities on them from the Government; and they were at loss whether or not to remain in the Church and do more mischief, or create