break through the Divine establishment, fly in the face of MARY. authority and law, and lay kingdoms in blood and ashes? Those who suggest such flagitious courses have generally some selfish design at the bottom. They would make the people tools for their ambition; their business is interest and power; and all this false zeal is either to gratify their pride or their pocket. It is granted, a state of persecution is not to be wished. However, when Providence pleases to bring it upon us, we ought not to avoid it by applying to unlawful means. To take such rash steps would be falling under the imputation with which Job was unjustly taxed; it would be "choosing iniquity rather than affliction." To which it may be added, that religion loses no ground by persecution. Integrity has never so fair a trial as under hard usage. Which way can the faith of a Christian be said to suffer, when disinterestedness and resignation are most clearly discovered; when all the moral and evangelical virtues have the best opportunities, and are set in the fairest light? Farther: when people live under a prince of a different religion, they ought to be particularly careful in their behaviour; they ought not to show the least sign of disaffection; they ought to serve him with all the zeal and cheerfulness imaginable. This is the way to make their honesty shine out, to recommend their belief, and gain proselytes to their Church. To abet a prince's right of a different communion, and acquiesce under the disadvantages which may happen, is a noble instance of steady unmercenary loyalty. Here passive obedience appears with all the lustre imaginable. Nothing but regard to justice and the other world can keep people right under such circumstances. Suffering either present or in prospect is a creditable test of integrity and honour. It is a glorious opportunity to show we are Christians, and ought never to be lost. It is likewise the most probable method to soften a prince to good humour, and abate the rigour of his government 1. It is to be wished Fox had declared his abhorrence of this rebellion, and spent some of his vehemence upon the occasion. His satire could never have been better employed than against Wyat and his party. It is true he calls it a rebellion; but afterwards slides gently over it without farther censure. I am sorry to see his passions so calm, and his pen so smooth under taken in his For mis remarks. This is perhaps the most eloquent passage in our author's history. MER, p. 30. CRAN such provocation. But instead of declaiming against the Abp. Cant. Wickedness of these gospellers, and lashing the insurrection, he falls foul on the duke of Suffolk's servant. He calls him a false traitor, for discovering his master and putting him in the hands Fox, vol. 3. of justice. It is true this man had promised the duke to conceal him; but then this engagement was something like that of Herod's, he could not keep it without failing against a prior obligation. For every subject is bound by his natural allegiance to discover the enemies of the government, especially such as break out in rebellion, and point directly at dethroning the prince. It is true the duke's servant had something of a hard case upon him. His master had, no doubt of it, been kind, and cast himself upon his secresy; but since the duke was so highly criminal, since the keeper promised more than was in his power, it is plain he could not be true to his master without breach of duty and being false to the queen and government. 363. Id. p. 37. Fox is somewhat unhappy in another remark upon judge Morgan. He states that his passing sentence upon the lady Jane, at Guildhall, was judicially punished with madness: but this looks like a censorious and ill-founded inference. For what crime could it be to discharge his office, to maintain the constitution, and give judgment on a person notoriously guilty of high treason? The indictment was confessed, and the judge was to govern himself by the directions of law. As to the lady Jane's being overruled into the usurpation by her parents, or misled by the long robe, these considerations were to be wholly referred to the queen's mercy, and the judge had nothing to do with them upon the bench. It has been already observed that Stow reports Poinet, bishop of Winchester, in Wyat's army, and abetting the insurBp. Burnet, rection. This, one of our learned Church historians affirms, is pt. 2. p. 270. certainly false. It is generously done to attempt the throwing off so black an imputation, but his proof falls something short of his affirmation. He says, had this story been true upon Poinet, it would have been discovered by the prisoners. And how does it appear it was not so discovered? Stow, who lived at the same time, is positive for the matter of fact and this historian, it is well known, is neither reckoned an over-credulous nor romantic writer. That some of the reformed were well-wishers to Wyat's revolt is past all doubt. For instance, there was a book published at Geneva about this time by Christopher Goodman. The design of this tract is to show how far superior magistrates are to be obeyed. It is stuffed with a great deal of scandalous invective against the queen, and her subjects are incited to rebellion. He makes no scruple to embalm Wyat's memory, and flourishes upon the insurrection in these words :"Wyat," says he, " did but his duty, and it was but the duty justification of all others that professed the Gospel to have risen with him of What's for the maintenance of the same. His cause was just, and they were all traitors that took not part with him. O noble Wyat! thou art now with God and those worthy men that died in that happy enterprise." Goodman's rebellion. Heylin's p. 34. The letters are these, R. W. tenets of a Short To give another instance. There was a book printed Q. Mary, towards the latter end of this reign, but neither the precise year nor place are mentioned. It is entitled, "A Short Treatise of Politic Power, &c. with an Exhortation to all true natural Englishmen." There are some initial letters upon the titlepage designed to point out the author. This book was put into my hands for Poinet's, but I hope the gentleman was mis- D. I. P. B. informed. However, it was certainly written by some reformed Englishman, and by a person that had lost a considerable post for non-compliance; as plainly appears by several passages. As to the performance, it is a most pestilent discourse: it makes all government precarious, and lays it wholly in a manner at the mercy of the people. The author declaims Some of the against absolute authority as the invention of the devil. He book intitled cites the ephori in Sparta and the Roman tribunes as a pre-Treatise of cedent for calling the prince to an account for mal-administra- Politic tion and that, as he words it, "in all Christian realms and dominions God has ordained means that the heads, the princes, and governors, should not oppress the people after their lusts." And, therefore, he charges the states and inferior magistracy with negligence and breach of trust, for not rising upon crowned heads, and rescuing the people from tyranny. And to apply his reasoning, and make it bear upon England, he runs a great length of satire against the government; makes popery as bad as heathenism, and glances not unintelligibly upon the queen. He presses the expedient of deposing princes: and, which is more, he wrests the Scripture to justify his doctrine, recommends assassination from several places in the Old Testament, and misapplies the instances in a horrible Power." CRAN MER, manner. Besides the scandal of the matter, he is frequently Abp. Cant. gross in his railing, and sometimes indecent in his levities. In the close he addresses particularly to the English, and tells them, that all the plagues of the present reign, of which he had already given a tragical account, that all these plagues had fallen upon them "for cleaving to the pope and his traditions, and maintaining such a sort of hypocrites and enemies of God and the realm;" meaning papists. And that" the rest of the judgments threatened in Deuteronomy would overtake them, unless they behaved themselves better," that is, unless they took arms against the government, and threw out popery by force. Bp. Burnet. pt. 2. p. 271. A proclamation for quit the kingdom. After a recital of these wretched principles, the book ought not to be charged upon Poinet without plain evidence: and, therefore, I am willing to acquiesce in our historian's next reason for his vindication. He concludes, that if Poinet had been concerned in Wyat's rebellion, Gardiner would have gotten him attainted in the next parliament. And that this being not done, is a sufficient justification of that prelate. To take leave of this rebellion. After the principal conspirators were executed, about five hundred of the peasants that followed Wyat were brought before the queen with halters about their necks, begged their lives, and were pardoned. About this time the queen set forth a proclamation, comforeigners to manding foreigners to depart the kingdom. To prevent the imputation of rigour, it is said in the proclamation, that a great many foreigners, guilty of murder, treason, robbery, and other horrible crimes, had fled from justice, and taken shelter in her majesty's realm. That they had infected her subjects with heresy, abetted the late rebellion, and still continued the same practice, endeavouring to dispose her subjects to another insurrection. For this disaffection and misbehaviour they are ordered to depart the kingdom within twenty-four days, under the penalty of imprisonment, forfeiting their effects, and being Fox, vol. 3. put into the hands of their respective princes. p. 39, 40. It was upon this proclamation, as Fox reports, that not only Peter Martyr, and John Alasco, but likewise the English exiles already mentioned, transported themselves into Germany, Geneva, and Switzerland. The government being now secured by crushing the rebel 6 364. the bishops. lion, the court thought fit to make use of the opportunity, with MARY. reference to the Church; for now they were in no apprehension of mutiny and opposition. At this favourable juncture, articles were drawn up, and sent into every diocese, with letters to the bishops to see them carefully executed. The purport of the articles is to the sense following:-" That all bishops, and Articles sent down by the others having ecclesiastical jurisdiction, shall, with all possible queen to all expedition, put the canons and ecclesiastical laws in execution, which were formerly used in the reign of king Henry VIII., provided they are not directly contrary to the laws and statutes of the realm. That no bishop, or ecclesiastical officer, shall in any instrument or process, insert the clause, Regiâ authoritate fulcitus.' That the oath of primacy or succession, that is, the oath of supremacy, should not be imposed on the clergy at ordination, or admissions to benefices. That bishops and their officers should be particularly careful not to admit any person to any ecclesiastical function or benefice, who lay under the imputation of heresy, or any other great crime: and that the bishops should put a stop, as far as in them lay, to the passing or confirming unreasonable leases. That all bishops and ecclesiastical officers should do their utmost towards the suppressing of heresy, and other scandalous crimes, especially with respect to the clergy. They were likewise to discountenance and censure scandalous books and ballads, and to inspect the conduct of schoolmasters and preachers: that they might not misbehave themselves, and mislead their charge. That all bishops and others, having ecclesiastical jurisdiction, should proceed summarily, and with all possible dispatch, deprive, and remove all such persons from their spiritual promotion, who have married and cohabited with their wives, or given themselves the liberty of any other remarkable disorder: and that hanging the process, the profits of their preferments should be sequestered. And here those clergymen, whose wives were dead, were to be more gently used. Those priests, likewise, who, with the consent of their wives, declared against cohabitation for the future, before the bishop, might, after penance, if the bishop thought fit, be restored to their function upon another cure, and have a pension assigned them out of their first preferment, at the ordinary's discretion. That those who had formerly been professed in any monastic order, and afterwards married, should be formally divorced, and |