334 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. uncommon erudition, and entirely devoted to literary pur- suits, but totally ignorant of the world. He was innocent, harmless, and careless, and lived principally on the bene- factions of friends, particularly the celebrated Mr. Selden. He died at Canterbury in September, 1652.. JOHN ROBINSON.-This celebrated puritan was born in the year 1575, educated in the university of Cambridge, and beneficed near Yarmouth. In the year 1602, a number of people in that part of the country, finding their minis- ters urged with illegal subscription, or silenced, and them- selves grievously oppressed in the ecclesiastical courts ; and discovering, at the same time, numerous popish relics and superstitions retained in the church of England, they were led to a total separation from the ecclesiastical estab- lishment, and to organize churches according to their views of the model laid down in the New Testament. They entered into a covenant with each other, " to walk with God and one another, in the enjoyment of God's ordinances, according to the primitive pattern, whatever it might cost them." Among the ministers who entered into this associa- tion was Mr. Robinson, who became pastor of one of their churches.i- Mr. Robinson and his people having renounced the antichristian yoke, and being resolved to enjoy liberty of conscience, and worship Godwithout the impositions of men, the spirit of persecution came against them with renewed fury. Besides the trial of cruel mockings, theywere watched by officers, and often imprisoned, or obliged to flee from their houses and means of subsistence. Under these cruel oppressions they groaned about seven or eight years, assembling together in private houses as they found oppor- tunity. In this deplorable situation, many of them, wh© were almost ruined in the ecclesiastical courts, resolved, with joint consent, to seek an asylum in Holland, where they understood they could enjoy religious liberty. Hard, indeed, was their lot, to leave their dwellings, their lands and relatives, to become exiles in a strange land ! Though persecuted, they were not destroyed ; though distressed, their zeal and courage, didnot forsake them ; and though in tt Wood's Athena Oxon. vol.d. p. 395.-Bing. Briton. vol. v. p. 179. Edit. 1778. + Morse's American Geog. p. 150. Edit, 1,792.-Morse and Paribit'e New England, p. 6.
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