to their liberties, than the
submission made to Henry VIII., or so great a one as the seizure of
their lands? The Reformation owed nothing to the good intentions of K.
Henry: He was only an instrument of it, (as the logicians speak) by
accident; nor doth he appear through his whole reign to have had any
other views than those of gratifying his insatiable love of power,
cruelty, oppression, and other irregular appetites. But this kingdom as
well as many other parts of Europe, was, at that time, generally weary
of the corruptions and impositions of the Roman court and church, and
disposed to receive those doctrines which Luther and his followers had
universally spread. Cranmer the archbishop, Cromwell, and others of the
court, did secretly embrace the Reformation; and the King's abrogating
the Pope's supremacy, made the people in general run into the new
doctrines with greater freedom, because they hoped to be supported in it
by the authority and example of their prince, who disappointed them so
far that he made no other step than rejecting the Pope's supremacy as a
clog upon his own power and passions, but retained every corruption
beside, and became a cruel persecutor, as well of those who denied his
own supremacy, as of all others who professed any Protestant doctrine.
Neither hath any thing disgusted me more in reading the histories of
those times, than to see one of the worst princes of any age or country,
celebrated as an instrument in that glorious work of the Reformation.

The Bishop having gone over all the matters that properly fall within
his Introduction, proceeds to expostulate with several sorts of
people;[47] First with Protestants who are no Christians, such as
atheists, deists, freethinkers, and the like enemies to Christianity.
But these he treats with the tenderness of a friend, because they are
all of them of sound Whig principles in church and state. However, to do
him justice, he lightly touches some old topics for the truth of the
Gospel; and concludes by wishing that the freethinkers would consider
well, if (_Anglice,_ whether) they think it possible to bring a nation
to be without any religion at all, and what the consequences of that may
prove; [48] and in case they allow the negative, he gives it clearly for
Christianity.

[Footnote 47: Page 56.]

[Footnote 48: Page 59.]

Secondly, he applies himself (if I take his meaning right) to Christian
papists "who have a taste of liberty," and desir