firfl Volume of the H1ory of the Puritans; 883; from the conforming clergy in the late reigns, without daring to corn- plain. Angry and paflionate men among all parties, will fir up finie and contention, and it is difficult to prevent it. But furely 'tis poilible to difcountenance railing andevilPeaking without opprefing the inno- cent : The prefent toleration of proteftant diflenters is a fuflicient demon - ftration of this truth. CHAP IV.. U R author goes on in his Taft chapter, to vindicate the queen's goOur author's vernment in infliéting (harppunilhments upon the puritans [i. e.]further vin hanging, burning, abjuration, confifeation, imprifonment, lofi offate, liberty, he goverf and life. And Mr. N. is defired particularly to obferve, that the difputemeat in in- with him under this head is not upon PRINCIPLES but upon FACTS ;,Plaiting /harp and yet throughout this whole chapter there is hardly aJzhl about which PuneJhments we differ. Mr. N. Pays the behaviour of the puritans was peaceable and fánthe purl- fubmitlìve, with regard to the civilgovernment under which they lived ; vindic. and this writer has not detested them in any plot, nor convicted them of P. r8ow joining with the queen's enemies in any at ofrebellion. He has fpent a great many pages in proving, that their writingsagain) the HIERARCHY, &c. were (harp andprovoking, and their behaviour ofen)ve. And has Mr. N. denied it? Has he commended their intemperate zeal for their platform of difcipline, or their unmannerly language to their fuperiors? But if Mr. N. has come fhort in Petting the failings of the puritans in the ftrongeft light, this writer has fupplied the defect, andwithout taking no- tice of the many provocations they received from the bithops, or of their long and illegal imprifonments iffuing in the ruin of their numerous fami- lies, has loaded their principles (which were no other than thofe now efta blifhed in the church of Scotland) with the molt dangerous confequences to the fate ; and their attempts for a further reformationof the hierarchy, . as deferving the(harp punifhments inflicted upon them. The lord chan- cellor KING would willingly have call a veil over tbefe proceedings, which he looks upon asfpots and blemilhes in the reign of that great and glorious, queen, but this writer willjuftify them to the world, which he may do without any difturbance fromMr. N. who as an hiftorian has no con- cern but with the facts. I fhall only remark upon this occafion, that it is no unufual thing for 4,4100f the arbitrary governors to declare that confcience exceeds its bounds,when it does puritans to not yield an abfolute fubmiffion to their will arad pleafure; and that the green. it grows intofablion and difloyalty, when it gives any difturbance of their lawlefs power ; but it ought to be remembered, that all thofe puritans who fuffered the extremity of an unrighteous law in this reign, went out of
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