Chap. II. , ?heHIST'ORYof the PURITANS. 487 atCroydon, flatly forbid its being read there. It was certainlyan imprudent KingJames I. project, as well as a grief to all fober proteflants ; and had the-king in- 1618. lifted upon its being read throughout all the churches at this time, I am apt to think it would have produced the fame convulfions, as it did about fifteen years afterwards. It is hard to account for the diftin&ion between lawful añd unlawful Remarks. (ports on the Lord's day : if any fports are lawful, why not all ? What reafon can be given why morrice-dances, revels, may - games, whitfón -ales, wakes, &c. fhould be more lawful than interludes, bull- baiting, or bowls. It cannot arife from their moral nature; for the former have as great a tendency to promote vice, as the latter. But the exceptions to the be- nefit of this declaration are more extraordinary : Could his tnajeftÿ think that the puritans, who were prefent at part of divine fervice, though not at the whole; or that thole who went to other parith churches for their betteredification, would lay hold of the liberty of his declaration, when he knew they believed the morality ofthe fourth commandment, and that too ordinance of man could make void the law of God ? Further, his ma-' jetty debars recufìrnts, [i. e. papifis] from this liberty, which their reli- gion had always indulged them ; but there are now to be refirained The papift is to turn puritan, with regard to the Sabbath, being forbid the ufe of lawful recreations on the Lord's day; and proteftants are to dance and revel, and go to their may-games on that facred day, to, ,preferve them from popery : This fubject will return again in the next reign. This year and the next proved fatal to the proteftant intereft in Germa- State ofebo ny, by the lofs of the palatinate into the hands of the papifis, and the Proteliane re.. ruin of the elector Frederick V. king of Bohemia, who had married the t:gaon to the king's only daughter. This being a remarkable period, relating to the kingdom of ancelors of his prefent majefty king George II. it will be no ufelefs Bohelefs di- em;a... greflion to place it in a proper light. The kingdom of Bohemia was elective, and becaufe their king did not always refide with them, a cer- tain number of perlons were chofen by the flatos, called DEFENDERS, to fee the laws put in execution.. There were two religions eftablifhed by law; one was calledfub-una, the otherfub-utraque; the profef3'ors of the former were roman catholicks, and communicated under one kind ; of the latterhuaf(ites; and fnce the reformation proteßants, who communi- c-ated under both kinds. The emperor Sigifmund, in order to fecure his Rapin, election to this kingdom, granted the hu/Jïtes an edidl in the year 1435. p. 466, Re, . whereby it was decreed that there fhould be no magiftrate or freeman of thecity of Prague, but what was of their religion. This was religioufly obferved till the year 057o. when, by order of the emperorMaximilian a catholick Was made a citizen of Prague, after which time, the edift was frequently.
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