CHAPTER III.

CAUSES THAT PROMOTED THE SETTLEMENT OF NEW-ENGLAND.HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS CONTINUED.

THE persecutions of the Puritans raged with its wonted vielence, under the administration of Bishop Laud, against all non-conformists; and in 1632, a standard was raised against all the conforming Puritans, for their hypocrisy. This persecution led, not only to the judgment of the life in overt acts, but to the judgment of the heart. The following examples may serve as specimens of the spirit of the times, and shew what instruments God was pleased to raise up, to carry forward the great work of planting his church in his modern Canaan, in the wilds of New-England.

Amongst the reverend divines, whose zeal led them to censure the images and paintings in the Church of England, was Mr. John Hayden, who was immediately obliged to abscond, to escape persecution; but was apprehended in the diocese of Norwich by Bisbop Harsenet, who stripped him of his horse, money, papers, &c, and caused him to be imprisoned for thirteen weeks, then sent him up to the Court of High Commission, who stripped him of his ministry and orders, and set a fine upon him, for preaching against decorations and images in churches. In 1634, Mr. Hayden, venturing to preach again. without being restored, was apprehended again and sent to the gate house, by Arch-Bishop Laud, and from thence to bridewell, where he was whipt and kept to hard labour: here he was confined in a cold dark dungeon, for a whole winter, being chained to a post in the middle of a room, with irons on his hands and feet, having no other food but bread and water, and a pad of straw to lie on. To obtain his release, he was obliged to take an oath, and give a bond that he would preach no more; but depart the kingdom in thirty days, and never return. This needs no comment.

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Henry Sheerfield, Esq. a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn, and recorder for the city of Sarum, was tried in the Star-Chamber, May 20, 1632, for taking down some painted glass, out of one of the windows of St. Edmond's Church, in Salisbury, in which were seven pictures of God the Father, in form of a little old man in a blue and red coat, with a pouch by his side. One represents him creating the sun and moon, with a pair of compasses, others as working on the six day's creation, and at last he sits in an elbow chair at rest. Many simple people, as they went in and out, did reverence to this window, (as they said,) because the Lord their God was there. This gave such offence to the recorder, who was a justice of the peace, that he moved the parish, at the vestry, to take down the window, and set up a new one of white glass, which was accordingly granted, six justices of the peace being present. An information was filed against him in the Court of Star-Chamber"That being evil affected to the discipline of the church, he the said Henry Sheerfield, did with certain confederates, without the consent of the bishops, deface and pull down, a fair and costly window in the church, containing a history of the creation, which had stood there some hundreds of years," &c.

Mr. Sheerfield plead the facts, and supported them; but upon motion of Bishop Laud he was fined 1000 which was afterward reduced to 500l. and removed from his office of recorder, and committed close prisoner to the fleet, until he should pay his fine. Hundreds, or even thousands of instances of the like persecutions might be cited, to shew how the little church in the wilderness was strengthened, and peopled by the persecutions of the mother church in England; one more instance shall suffice.

"Dr. Alexander Laughton, a Scots divine, and father of the famous prelate of that name, so highly commended by the Bishop Burnet, published a sermon during the last session of Parliament, entitled an Appeal to the Parliament, or Zion's Plea against prelacy. This was a warm sermon, for which the Doctor was indicted and tried in the Court of Star Chamber, and sentenced to imprisonment for life on board the fleet, pay

ten thousand pounds, sit in the pillory at Westmister during the session of the court, be whipt, be set in the pillory again, and have one of his ears cut off, one of his nostrils slit, and be branded on the cheek with a double S S, for a sower of sedition; then be carried back to prison, and after a few days be pilloried again, in Cheapside, and be then likewise whipt, have the other side of his nose slit, his other ear cut off, and then be shut up in close prison for the remainder of his life. Bishop Laud pulled off his cap while this merciless sentence was pronouncing, and gave God thanks."

Bishop Laud has entered in his diary that this sentence was faithfully executed. The Doctor was released from prison ten years afterward by the Long Parliament.

During the twelve first years of Bishop Laud, more than four thousand pilgrims were driven into the wilderness, by the persecutions of their suffering country. These carried with them about 200,000l. in money and valuables; this, added to what

had gone before, amounted at this time, 1632, to about 500,000l. beside a weight of character and talents in the pilgrims, of incomparably greater value, either to the Church of England or the church in the wilderness. Never was another instance, since the days ot Pharaoh, in which God had fitted an instrument more conspicuously adapted to his purposes, in carrying forward the great designs of providence, than the administration of Arch Bishop Laud. During this period of his administration, the colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts-Bay, progressed rapidly in their settlements, and were strengthened by a host of the first worthies that ever blest a people. Men renowned for their piety, religion, and literature. Men who fled from the persecutions of a Bishop Laud, and others. Men who were the fit instruments of carrying forward his work, in planting his church in the wilderness, and planting his modern Canaan in the wilds of America. Could it have been possible, without a special miracle, the corruptions of England and her church, might have been reformed by these men; her tyrannical and depotic government corrected, and the liberties and the virtues of the church in the wilderness, might have been disffused and

enjoyed in England; but this was not the purpose of the divine plan; they had shed the blood of saints and prophets, and God had decreed that they should have blood to drink, before they should be prepared to drink of the cup of his blessings, which he had prepared for his faithful, who delight to do his will.

CHAPTER IV.

CAUSES THAT PROMOTED THE SETTLEMENT OF NEW-ENGLANDHISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS CONTINUED.

UPON the death of Arch-Bishop Abbot, 1633, Bishop Laud was advanced to the See of Canterbury, and continued as primate, as well as persecutor of the Puritans.

The Puritans were ever noted for their strict observance of the sabbath; to revenge upon them, Arch-Bishop Land granted a free tolerance for the enjoyment of revels, games, and sports, of every description, on the Lord's day. The judges of the realm, with Lord Chief Justice Richardson and Baron Denham at their head, attempted to suppress the wakes, and sports, and other excesses on the sabbath, but they were soon humbled by the primate, and taught to refrain from all interference in spritual concerns. The clergy rendered these sports popular with the people, and the courts were constrained to desist; the sports went on. griefs that befel the Puritans, and drove hundreds of them into a,voluntary banishment, that they might no longer witness such impious profanation of the holy sabbath.

This was one of the greatest

This year 1635, the king went down into Scotland, and ordered the bishops to make out a book of canons and liturgy, and send them up to London, to be revised by Arch-Bishop Laud, and others, in order to bring the kirk into a uniformity of worship with the Church of England. This kindled a fire, as it had done in the reign of James I. which was not extinguished during this reign. Arch-Bishop Land attempted to aggrandize the church, by a union of temporal with the spiritual power, and combine the business of Westminster-Hall with the ecclesias

tical courts. This alarmed the civilians, and gave great of fence. His Grace next prevailed with the king, to allow bishops to hold ecclesiastical courts in their own names, and by their own seals, without the king's patent, under the great seal. He obtained also of the king, the right to visit the two universities, Jure Metropolitico. And last of all, that the bishops should frame new articles of visitation in their own names, without the king's seal and authority, and administer the oath of enquiry into the church warden's concerning them. All these stretches of power, were contrary to special statutes, expressly made and provided, and which remained unrepealed. Such was the unbounded ambition of Arch-Bishop Laud, and such his influence over the king.

In 1636, Dr. Juxon, Bishop of London, was declared Lord High-Treasurer of England, which is the next office in benefit, to that of Arch-Bishop,

The church was now in the zenith of her power; but the resentments of the nation were kindling fast into a flame, and the church in the wilderness was reaping a rich harvest of character and wealth, from this field of persecution. The injunction of St. Mathew, x. 23, was now literally complied with. "When they persecute you in one city flee ye into another." This stretch of ecclesiastical power, as above, increased the insolent despotism of the Courts of Star: Chamber and High Commission, and multiplied their bitter persecutions. The sentences of those courts to deprive clergymen of their livings, cut of their ears, whip, pillory, and brand them, together with enormous fines and imprisonment for life, became common and multiplied. In some cases, where the punishment of cutting off the ears had been executed at a former punishment, these courts decreed that the old stumps should be pared off, at the second punishment, and these severeties were borne; but the day of vengeance was ripening in the nation—“ Vèngeance is mine, I will repay saith the Lord." The bishop of Lincoln, one of the Hierarchy, as well as one of Laud's best friends, for one unguarded expression, in which he said" the Puritans were some of the king's best subjects, that they would.