io8 The H ISTORY of the PURITANS. Chap. IV. Queen popifh habits and ceremonies had been left indifferent, or other decent Elizabeth, ones appointed in their room, the feeds of divifion had been prevented ; j but as the cafe flood, it was next to a miracle, that the reformation had not fallen back into the hands of the papifls; and if fotne of the puritans had not complied for the prefent, in hopes of the removal of thefe griev- ances, in more fettled times, this would have been the fad confequence; for it was impoflible, with all the affi(lance they could get from both uni- verfities, to fill up the parochial vacancies with men of learning and cha- ra&er. Many churches were disfurnifhed fur a confiderable time, and not a few tnechanicks, altogether as unlearned as the molt remarkable of thole who were eje&ed, were preferred to dignities and livings, who being difregarded by the people, brought great difcredit on the reforma- tion, while others of the firft rank for learning, piety, and ufefulnefs in their fun&ions, were laid by in filence. There was little or no preaching all over the country; the bifhop of Bangor writes, .. that he had but M. S. .. two preachers in all his diocefe." It was enough if the parfon could read r 886' the fervice, and fometimes an homily. The bithops were fenfible of the calamity; but inflead of opening the door a little wider, to make room for fome of the more confcientious and zealous reformers to enter, they admitted the meaneft and moll illiterate, who would come up to the terms of the law; and publifhed a fecond book' of homilies for their further aß'iftance. It is hard to fay at this diftance of time, how far the bithops were to blame for their fervile and abje& compliance with the queen ; yet one is ready to think, that thofe who had drunk fo deep of the cup of perfecu- tion, and had feen the dreadful effe&s of it, in the fiery trial of their bre- thren the martyrs, fhould have infifted as one man, upon a latitude for their confcientious brethren in points of indifference; whereas their zeal ran in a quite different channel; for when the fpiritual fword was put into their hands, they were too forward in brandifhing it over the heads of others, and even to out-run the laws, byfufpending, depriving, fining, and imprifoning men of true learning and piety, popular preachers, declared enemies of popery and fuperflition, and of the fame faith with them- felves, who were fearful of a finful compliance with things that had been abufed to idolatry. Geneva All the exiles were now come home, except a few of the puritan Pibte. (lamp that flayed at Geneva, to finial their tranllation of the bible begun in the late reign. The perfons concerned in it were Miles Coverdale, Chrtopher Goodman, 7obn Knox, Anthony Gibbs, Thomas Sampfon, Wil- liam Cole of C. C. C. Oxon, and William Wittingbam: They compared Tyndal's old Engle bible, firfl with the Hebrew, and then with the bell modern tranflations; they divided the chapters into verfes, which the for- mer
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