escaping the common calamity of mortality-having set my cottage in order, which was quickly done, (little, I thank my good friends, being left unto me,) and having bequeathed my wife and children, and all my stock and substance, to the benediction of the grand Creator and sovereign Preserver of all things, and my spirit into the hands of my blessed Redeemer, nothing solicitous for my body, (now none of mine own,) and being most assured of a happy meeting and sweet conjunction, though we have tasted here of much bitterness, and forced to a violent separation-having, I say, thus ordered all things, I gave up myself, being then full of devotion, to the meditation of the vanity of all things here beneath, and to the contemplation of celestial blessedness; in the comparing of which two things together, I found such a surpassing excellency and transcending beauty in the one, as the other seemed nothing but mere deformity to it. I began then exceedingly to rejoice at mine own condition, and to think it none of the smallest beatitudes in this life to meet with adversities, and to be confined to solitude in the midst of peril. For it was as tinder and fuel, for the kindling and cherishing of all good motions, and a most excellent means of the soul's retiration from the love of these sublunary things, the desire of which makes men restlessly miserable. To speak the truth, in this privacy of mine, in the apparitions of my heart, methought I was in the suburbs of the empyrean paradise, enjoying the beatifical vision. But reflecting my eye from this surpassing beauty and excellency, and looking again into the glass of the creature, I saw the perpetual revolution of all things, and the inevitable inconstancy of the same; by which my affections began more to abhor them, and more inflamedlier to love the place of permanent and glorious immortality. Withal, I came there to discover which were the best creatures, which were the worst, which were the most subject to their Maker, which were most disloyal, which were the most useful, which were the most noisome, which were the most to be beloved, and which were most to be abominated."

The heavenly musings of enthusiasts are very liable to be tinctured by the notions and the passions which they have imbibed in their intercourse with the present world. The lusty Mahomet, in his visions of celestial bliss, was delighted by the charms of his houris; and our Danish ancestors gratified their intemperate, their warlike and revengeful, dispositions, in fondly imagining that, after death, their prowess would be rewarded by copious draughts of ale, drained from the sculls of their enemies. On the same principle, the peep which Bastwick took into the empyrean kingdom seems to have exacerbated his spirit against the priestly domination under which he was suffering, and to have confirmed him in his opinion, that of all noisome animals with which the earth was infested, Bishops were the most abominable. In his contempt of their assumptions, he assailed them with a notable pun, "They, forsooth,' saith he, "must be recorded among the nobles, and called Mag

nates Eoclesia; and the verity of the matter is, they are magne nates Ecclesia." He declared that they were "God's rebels and enemies, both by the law of God and the land, to God and the king, and, like the giants of old, engaged in warfare against the clouds." He affirmed that, He affirmed that, "so far from being the pillars, they were the caterpillars of the church, inasmuch as they devoured the church of God, and eat up his people like bread." In opening upon them what he is pleased to call his "cataracts of Greek and Roman oratory," he thus described their worldly pomp and magnificence, which he, of course, held to be incompatible with that primitive simplicity of dress and equipage which became the ministers of the gospel.

-SO

"I pray, good Madam, again consider their magnificent and stately palaces and buildings, their great revenues, their retinue, the delicacy, variety, and deliciousness of their fare; the pomp and state they wallow in by the mere goodness of the king, surpassing the eminency of the greatest of the most ancient nobility; and take notice of the sumptuosity of their service at their meals, their dishes being ushered in with no less reverence than the king, their lord and master's; their server and servants going before, and crying out, Gentlemen, be uncovered, my lord's meat is coming up,' that all are forced to stand bare to his platters, and no more state can there be in a king's house. Yea, nobody, without penalty, may **** within the compass of their yards and courts; and if any chance so to do, he is constrained either to pay for it, or else he is hailed and drawn into the porter's lodge as a prisoner, and tormented with those knaves, as a delinquent; and this daily experience can witness. So that in the court itself, and king's family, there is no such grandeur and state, nor in none of the king's houses; and yet they cry out, the poor despised church and clergy.

"To say nothing of the Bishop of London, that was put into his office with such supreme dignity and incomparable majesty, as he seemed a great king, or mighty emperor, to be inaugurated and installed in some superlative monarchy; rather than a priest, having all the nobility and the glory of the kingdom waiting upon him, all which proceeded from the overflowing bounty and debonerity of a most excellent and clement prince, and for his mere favour and gracious donation. But see the Prelate of Canterbury in his ordinary garb, riding from Croydon to Bagshot, with forty or fifty gentlemen, well mounted, attending upon him; two or three coaches, with four or six horses apiece in them, all empty, waiting on him; two or three dainty steeds of pleasure, most rich in trappings and furniture, likewise led by him; and wherever he comes his gentlemen ushers and servants crying out, room! room for my lord's grace! Gentlemen! be uncovered, my lord's grace is coming! Now what, I pray, could be done more to the king's majesty, or queen, or the prince of Wales, or to the royal blood.

"Behold him, I beseech you again, not only in his journies, but in his hourly passing from Lambeth to the court; and look upon his

attendance and train, and the reverence the king's household, and all men, give unto him; and listen to the crying out of his waiters to the people, for the making of his way, and to be uncovered, and you would think it were the king himself, if you saw not the priest."

“Again, if you should meet him coming daily from the Starchamber, and see what pomp, grandeur, and magnificence he goeth in, the whole multitude standing bare wherever he passeth, having also a great number of gentlemen and other servants waiting on him, all uncovered, some of them carrying up his tail, others going before him and calling to the folk before them to put off their hats, and to give place, crying, 'room! room! my lord's grace is coming;' tumbling down and thrusting aside the little children a playing there; flinging and tossing the poor costermongers, and souce wives' fruit and puddings, baskets and all, into the Thames, (though they hindered not their passage,) to shew the greatness of his state, and the promptitude of their service, to the utter undoing and perishing of those already indigent creatures. I say you would think, seeing and hearing all this, and also the speed and haste they make, that it were some mighty proud Nimrod, or some furious Jehu, running and marching for a kingdom, rather than a meek, humble, and grave priest; which spectacle, though in itself merciless, yet one can scarce keep from laughter to see the drollery of it; and considering the whole passages of the business with the variety of the actions, hearing on the one side, the noise of the gentlemen, crying room!' and, on the other side, seeing the wailing, mourning, and lamentation the women make, crying out, save my puddings," save my codlings, for the Lord's sake;' the poor tripes and apples, in the mean time, swimming like frogs about the Thames, making way for his grace to go home again; on the other side, hearing the diversity of all men's discourse, concerning the pride, arrogancy, barbarousness, and cruelty of the prelate; it would, I say, move laughter to men, though disposed otherwise to seriosity. Most certain it is, his most excellent majesty goeth not in greater state, neither doth he suffer such insolency to be done to his poor subjects, wherever he cometh. And this, I say, is the ordinary deportment of the prelate.

But how magnificent and glorious will this man be, think you, good madam, when he goeth in state and great power to Cambridge and Oxford, in his metropolitical rogation and perambulation, and with a rod in his hand, in the schools, to whip those naughty scholars that will not well learn their lesson of conformity, and those lewd and wicked boys that will not be reverend at devised service, nor will not cringe to the altar, nor turn their faces to the east, nor worship the communion table, nor cap and crouch at the naming of the letters and syllables of Jesus, and do all other ecclesiastical and tumultuous drudgeries I am persuaded there will be mighty state, and crying out, ' room for my lord's grace! gentlemen and scholars, be uncovered put off your hats and caps, and be hanged; my lord's grace is coming -my lord's grace sees you.'"

Having thus held up the bishops as objects of public scorn

and reproach, the imprisoned polemic proceeded to vilify the ornaments and ceremonies of the church, and to state the objections which were usually maintained by the Puritans against the use of the established liturgy in divine worship. "Ceremonies," he observed, "with the prelates, are laymen's books, and little better than the idols among the papists, which they set up for the same purpose." He demurred to the obligation of their observance, as imposed by human authority. And as to the prescribed habiliments of the clergy, he heaped upon them every species of indignity. With great shrewdness he remarked, "that when John the Baptist came forth to announce the coming of the Messiah, he preached in the wilderness, in his ordinary habit, made of camel's hair, with a leathern girdle about his loins,-" and what," says he, "shall we say now to this business? Here we see the simplicity of John the Baptist. He preacheth and baptizeth in his ordinary habit; but to do so now were an heinous offence, and would cost him his living.” It is very much to be marvelled at, that this staunch advocate of ancient simplicity did not propose, in imitation of the Baptist, to feed the priesthood on locusts and wild honey. For the plainness of clerical attire, he, moreover, found a precedent in the practice of the apostles. "Now that they are forbid to take two coats," he argues," this shews the simplicity of the administration of the gospel ordinances and sacraments, in Christ's and the apostles' times, who, by Christ's own appointment in their divine service and offices, are confined to their ordinary habits, both in preaching and administering of the sacraments, and all ministerial functions, which is evidently manifest; for they had but one coat apiece, and they either preached and administered the sacraments in that, or naked."

As a Puritan, Bastwick might be expected to prefer the pouring out of the spirit in extempore prayer, to the use of a printed form of public devotion; and when we remember that the established church of one of his majesty's kingdoms has adopted and long practised the former mode of worship, it would be presumptuous to deny that it may admit of a question, which of these two modes is to be preferred. The point is an important one, and admits of a great extent of argumentation. But the enthusiasm of our medical polemic did not condescend to argue. He, at once, proscribed the liturgy as devised service, and man's, or devil's, invention." He branded it as "a linsey-woolsey service, a mere translation of Latin superstition into English superstition."

a

In descanting upon the thraldom imposed upon the spirit, in binding the ministers of religion to the use of prescribed forms of prayer, he states this grievance in the following homely terms:

"In this they tie God to his ordinary and allowance. He gets not a bit more of prayers than his stint, except it be for the love of some saint, and on his day, or some great festival time: then, perhaps, he shall have a collect more, or a cantle of a gospel, or a shred of an epistle, or, it may be, a joule of the apocrypha, and some two or three little prayers, with the often repetition of the Lord's prayer; and if they be merrily disposed, he may also get an anthem, and a little music; and then this is high service. And if there be some extraordinary rain, or wet weather, that they fear their tythes will not come well in, and their paunches be well filled, then, upon this occasion, they will come forth with, Thou, that with rain once destroyed'st the world,' &c.—and this also is a settled allowance, upon all such occasions; neither must they vary from it, or give a bit more; neither may the people look for better provision."

In further discussing, or rather deciding on this topic, he observes,

"God hath given unto all Christians their themes of praying unto him, with the rule of direction to pray aright. And he hath also given them his holy spirit to guide them in prayer, and dictate unto them; and he expects that they should not always use a primer, or another to make prayers for them: for it would be ridiculous in a very beggar to sit begging at any man's door, by book, and reading all his beggary out of it. Nay, it would be an occasion to make a man kick him from his door, rather than to give him an alms. So, in like manner, we may suppose that God as little takes delight in such kind of service and prayers made unto him, when they must always have their books in their hand, to tell them what they must ask, and what they have need of."

The publication of this curious farrago of abuse against the whole system of the church establishment, in the estimation of Laud, filled the cup of Dr. Bastwick's iniquities to overflowing. The culprit was contumaciously obstinate in offence, and the archbishop was determined to bring him to a severe reckoning. He accordingly caused an information against him to be exhibited in the Star Chamber, for the publication of his Apology and Letany. This instrument was filed in that Court on the 11th day of March, 1637; and, on his petition, Bastwick was allowed to confer with his counsel on the subject of his answer thereto. At the same time, proceedings of a similar nature were taken against the celebrated William Prynne, for his Histrio-Mastix, and against the Rev. Dr. Burton, for preaching and publishing two seditious sermons; and carried on, pari passu, with those taken against Bastwick. The legal ingenuity of Prynne suggested to him the bold measure of filing a cross bill against the archbishop and others, in which he charged