as go abowt to take away the glory of hym that was the builder of the temple?

"If Moises be commended by the scripture for striking an Egyptian, that did injury to one of the people of God; how may he be justly blamed, which did but spyt at hym, that doeth such injury and sacrilege to the Son of God, as to pluck hym from his eternal and proper Godhede ?-Who may heare with patience the right ways of the Lord perverted by thes divelish holly Arians, and hold his peace? A lyvely faith is not dumb, but is alwais redy to resist the gainsaiers, as David saith, I have beleved, and therfor have I spoken. Speak, then, you that have tongues to praise and confesse God against thes Arians: Exalt your voice lyke a trompet; that simple men may beware of their pharisaical vermyn, and be not deceived, as now many are unawares, of simplicitie: Suffer them not to passe by you unpoynted at; yea, if they be so stowte, that they will not cease to speak against God owr Saviour, and Christ, as they are all new baptized enemies thereto, refrayne not to spyt at such inordinate swyne, as are not ashamed to tred under their feet the precious Godhed of owr Saviour Jesus Christ. Owr God is a jealous God, and requireth us to be zelous in his cause. If we cannot abyde owr owne name to be evil spoken, without great indignation; shal we be quiet to heare the name of owr God defaced, and not declare any sign of wrathe against them? It is written, Be angry and sinne not: A man then may show tokens of anger, in a cause which he ought to defend, without breach of charitye. The prophet David saith, Shall I not hate them, O Lord,

that hate thee, and upon thyne enemies shall I not be wrathfull: I will hate them with a perfect hatred : They are become myne enemies. Aaron, because he was not more zelous in God's cause, when he perceived the people bent to idolatry, he entred not into the land of promise. God loveth not lukewarme soldiours in the batil of faith, but such as be earnest and violent shall inherit his kyngdome.

"I exhort you, not to judge that evill, which God highly commendeth; but rather pray, that God wil give you zele to withstand the enemies of the Gospell, neither to have any maner of felowship with thes Antichrists.

"As their corrupt faces bashe not to deny the eternal Son of God, so are they not ashamed to deny the Holy Ghost to be God; their forehed is lyke the forehed of a whore, hardned with counterfeted hypocrisye. The Lord confound them. The Lord conserve his elect from their damnable poison. The Lord open all Christian eyes to beware of them. The Lord geve al his church an uniforme zele and mynde to abhor them, and to cast from them. You that be of the trewth, and have any zele of God in you, store it up, and bend it against thes enemics of owre livynge God, which is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; to whom be all honour, praise, and glory forever."*

The Rev. Theophilus Lindsey, in his "Historical View of the State of the Unitarian Doctrine from the Reformation to our own Times,"† has made copious extracts from this "Apology," and has comA Catalogue of Originals, pp. 145–157. † Ch. ii. pp. 95—151.

mented upon them at considerable length, pointing out the gratuitous assumptions, the false reasonings, and the perversions of scriptural language, in which they abound. Its author, who was "otherwise," as Mr. Lindsey admits, "a good man," laboured under the very common infirmity of believing himself to be in the right, and all the rest of mankind, except those who had the good fortune to agree with him, in the wrong. He was, too, as Strype very justly remarks, "a man of strong affections.' He had but little of the spirit of Christian meekness in his composition. IIis hostility to the Roman Catholics as well as to the Unitarians was bitter and uncompromising; but his temerity in denouncing the opinions of the former cost him his life; for he was burned at Smithfield on the 18th of December, 1555.† At his eleventh examination, he told his Judges, that, except in the article of the Trinity, they were corrupt in all things, and sound in nothing; and at his thirteenth examination, he maintained, that he was right, and the Papists and all heretics wrong, "by the spirit of God which he had, and they had not, and by the word of God, which he knew to be on his side, and against them."‡

Among the Unitarians, who abjured in the reign of Mary, A.D. 1556, were WILLIAM POWLING;S JOHN SIMMS; and ROBERT KING. Of each of these Strype gives some account in his "Ecclesiastical

Memorials."* When the commission was appointed, which led to the disclosure of their opinions, there were many Christian professors, who were adverse alike to Popery, and to that peculiar form of Protestantism, which was embodied in the Articles of Edward VI. Some rejected the divinity of Christ, and some his humanity. Some believed in the impersonality of the Holy Spirit; or, admitting that the Holy Spirit was a person, denied his supreme godhead. Some, again, called in question the truth of the doctrines of Original Sin, Election and Predestination, Justification by Faith, and Christ's Descent into Hell. Some denied the validity of Infant Baptism; and some condemned the use of things indifferent in religion. Such, indeed, was the variety of opinions which prevailed at this time, that many felt themselves called upon to draw up, and publish summary Confessions of Faith; lest it should be thought, in after times, that they secretly entertained these opinions. †

A similar feeling led others to publish attacks upon such opinions. Wood mentions one Dr. Bartholomew Traheron, who had been the Royal Librarian, and Dean of Chichester, during the short reign of Edward VI.; and who, among other things, wrote "An Exposition of Part of St. John's Gospel, made in sundry Readings in the English Congregation against the Arians."+ Dr. Traheron, the author of these readings, was one of a party of English exiles, who left their country on the accession of Mary,

• Vol. III. Ch. xli. pp. 332, 333.

† Ch. xlvii. p. 363. Athenæ Oxonienses, Ed. 1721, Vol. I. No. 158, f. 137.

and settled at Frankfort. They retained the use of the Book of Common Prayer, set forth in the reign of Edward; and opened a seminary, or college, for the advancement of learning. The lecturers, or readers, were Dr. Horn for Hebrew, Dr. Mullins for Greek, and Dr. Traheron for Divinity; and among Dr. Traheron's other readings, or lectures, were some upon the Proëm of John's Gospel, expressly directed against the Antitrinitarians, whose opinions were then beginning to find many advocates, especially among Protestants. The lectures were ten in number, and were printed abroad; but on the return of Dr. T., after the death of Mary, were reprinted in England, A. D. 1558.†

Wood also mentions a clergyman, of the name of John Pullayne, who published a "Tract against the Arians;" and who, on the accession of Elizabeth, was made Archdeacon of Colchester.‡

The Protestants who had taken refuge abroad, during the reign of Mary, returned to England on the accession of Elizabeth; but, for the most part, in a state of great destitution. Those Ministers, who could conscientiously conform, joined the Established Church, in which many of them obtained high and honourable preferment; but others, who were more scrupulous, after being permitted to preach for a time, were suspended, and ultimately deprived.

Strype's Eccles. Mem. Vol. III. Ch. xli. p. 333. † Athen. Oxon. ubi supra.

No. 168, f. 148.