480 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. in four months. By which passages and wicked assertions, he cloth as much as in him lay, scandalize his majesty's sacred person ; his religious, wise, and just government; the person of his royal consort, the queen ; the persons of the lords and p ers of the realm, especially the reverend bishops. 9. " That in another place in the saidbook, endeavouring not only to slander his majesty's'sacred person and govern- ment, but to detract from his royal power, in making laws and canons for ecclesiastical government, he saith, That the church hath its laws from the scripture, and that no kingmay make laws in the houseof God ; for if they might, then the scripture would be imperfect.' 10. "And he is further charged in another place in the said book, with these words following, thinking to salve all with an expression of his sacred majesty : 'What a pity it is,' and indelible dishonour it will be to you, the states repre- sentative, that so ingenuous and tractable a king should be so monstrously abused, to the undoing of himself and his subjects.' ". These ten particulars contain all the charges brought against Dr. Leighton, and we may be sure they were the worst that could be collected out of his book, his ene- mies being judges. The unprejudiced reader here sees the worst part of Leighton's character, and will easily judge what degree of criminality was attached to his conduct. Though some of the above assertions were unjustifiable,, many of them were certainly true, and too glaringly mani- fest in the history of those times. Dr. Leighton, in his answer to the above charges, confessed, that when the par- liament was sitting, in the year 1628, he drew up the heads of his book ; and having the approbation of five hundred persons under their own hands, some ofwhom weremembers of parliament, he went into Holland to get it printed. Also, that he printed betwixt five and six hundred only for the use of the parliament ; but they being dissolved before the work was finished, he returned home, not bringing any of them into the kingdom, but made it his special care to suppress them. He confessed his writing the book, but with no such ill intention as suggested in the information. His only object was to remonstrate against certain grievances in church and state, under which the people suffered, that the parliament might be induced to take them into Rushworth's Collec.vol. R. p. 56, ST.
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