vii of society.' In this Mr. Hutchinson had been encouraged by his father, whose library subsisted at his family seat of Owthorpe till about the year 1775, and contained a vast number of folio volumes of polemical divinity. A study environed with many dangers! and which led Col. Hutchinson into whatever errors he was guilty of. On another hand the ministers of the established church in those times preached up the prerogative in all its extravagance, apd en, - deavoured to establish jointly and inseparably implicit faith in, and unqualified obedience to, the church and king (still giving the church the precedency); whilst the laymen of their party practised, and even professed, a total dissoluteness of life: so that those who were slaves in principle were libertines in practice; while those who were deemed rebels by the court, and latitudinarians by the hierarchy, were rigorists in religion and morality. This contrariety produced a constant and incessant opposition, augmented the vehemence of antipathy, fortified prejudice, and seemed almost to justify bigotry.' But from this (bigotry) we are bound to exculpate Col. Hutchinson. The Independents, to whose party, if a man of so much candour and liberality can be said to be of any party, he belonged, proceeded upon that principle, which, however general soever it ought to be, is however unfortunately very uncommon, of allowing to all that liberty of conscience they demanded for themselves. Accordingly they began by desiring only an act 'to be passed " for taking away all coercive power, authority, c From the practice of dragging religion or re1igious phraseology into the service of politics none, not even the king, was exempt, who, making a speech to his small army in the year 1642, to animate them, tells them they will have none to encounter but rebels, most of them Brownists, Anabaptists, and Atheists! who would destroy both church and commonwealth. d The flower of the French democrates avoided all such inconsistency and paradox by di scarding at once their king, their God, and their morality. e Articles of the army, Rush worth, vol. vii. p. 731.
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