THE HISTORY OF THE PURITANS; OR, PROTESTANT NONCONFORMISTS; FROM THE REFORMATION IN 1517, TO THE REVOLUTION IN 1688; COMPRISING AN ACCOUNT OF THEIR PRINCIPLES; THEIR ATTEMPTS FOR A FARTHER REFORMATION IN THE CHURCH; THEIR SUFFERINGS; AND THE LIVES AND CHARACTERS OF THEIR MOST CONSIDERABLE DIVINES. BY DANIEL NEAL M. A. A NEW EDITION, IN FIVE VOLUMES; REPRINTED FROM THE TEXT OF DR. TOULMIN'S EDITION, WITH HIS LIFE OF THE AUTHOR AND ACCOUNT OF HIS WRITINGS. REVISED, CORRECTED, AND ENLARGED, VOL. IV. LONDON: PRINTED FOR WILLIAM BAYNES AND SON, PATERNOSTER ROW. THE NEW YORK 205282 ASTOR, LENOX AND G-BROWN-GOODE COLLECTION Printed by J. F. Dove, St. John's Square. THE PREFACE. THIS volume brings the History of the Sufferings of the Puritans down to its period;* for though the Protestant dissenters have since complained of several difficulties and discouragements, yet most of the penal laws have been suspended; the prosecutions of the spiritual courts have been considerably restrained by the kind interposition of the civil powers, and liberty of conscience enjoyed without the hazard of fines, imprisonments, and other terrors of this world. The times now in review were stormy and boisterous; upon the death of king Charles I. the constitution was dissolved: the men at the helm had no legal authority to change the government into a commonwealth, the protectorship of Cromwell was a usurpation, because grafted only on the military power, and so were all the misshapen forms into which the administration was cast till the restoration of the king. In order to pass a right judgment upon these extraordinary revolutions, the temper and circumstances of the nation are to be duly considered; for those actions which in some circumstances are highly criminal, may in a different situation of affairs become necessary. The parties engaged in the civil wars were yet living, and their resentments against each other so much inflamed, as to cut off all hopes of a reconciliation; each dreaded the other's success, well knowing they must fail a sacrifice to those who should prevail. All present views of the king's recovering his father's throne were defeated at the battle of Worcester, the loyalists being then entirely broken and dispersed; so that if some such extraordinary genius as Cromwell's had not undertaken to steer the nation through the storm, it had not been possible to hold The reader will observe that the period here referred to is the passing the act of toleration, with which Mr. Neal's fourth volume concludes. But the additions to the original work, by notes and supplements in this edition, have necessarily extended it to a fifth volume, which comprehends the author's two last chapters, the papers that form the Appendix to each of his volumes, and other papers. ED. 1 the government together till Providence should open a way for restoring the constitution, and settling it on its legal basis. The various forms of government (if they deserve that name) which the officers of the army introduced after the death of Cromwell, made the nation sick of their frenzies, and turned their eyes towards their banished sovereign; whose restoration after all could not be accomplished without great imprudence on one part, and the most artful dissimulation on the other. The Presbyterians, like weak politicians, surrendered at discretion, and parted with their power on no other security than the royal word, for which they have been sufficiently reproached; though I am of opinion, that if the king had been brought in by a treaty, the succeeding parliament would have set it aside. On the other hand, nothing can be more notorious than the deep hypocrisy of general Monk, and the solemu assurances given by the bishops and other loyalists, and even by the king himself, of burying all past offences under the foundation of the Restoration; but when they were lifted into the saddle, the haste they made to shew how little they meant by their promises, exceeded the rules of decency as well as honour. Nothing would satisfy, till their adversaries were disarmed, and in a manner deprived of the protection of the government; the terms of conformity were made narrower and more exceptionable than before the civil wars, the penal laws were rigorously executed, and new ones framed almost every sessions of parliament for several successive years; the Nonconformist ministers were banished five miles from all the corporations in England, and their people sold for sums of money to carry on the king's unlawful pleasures, and to bribe the nation into Popery and slavery; till the house of commons, awakened at last with a sense of the threatening danger, grew intractable, and was therefore dissolved. His majesty, having in vain attempted several other representatives of the people, determined some time before his death to change the constitution, and govern by his sovereign will and pleasure; that the mischiefs which could not be brought upon the nation by consent of parliament, might be introduced under the wing of the prerogative; but the Roman Catholies, not satisfied with the slow proceedings of a disguised Protestant, or apprehending that the discontents of the people and his own love of ease might induce him some time or other to change measures, resolved to have a prince of their own religion, and more sanguine principles on the throne, which hastened the crisis of the nation, and brought forward that glorious revolution of king William and queen Mary, which put a final period to all their projects. The nature of my design does not admit of a large and particular relation of all the civil transactions of these times, but only of such |