to the Calvinistic worship had begun to regard with
dislike the Calvinistic metaphysics; and this feeling was very naturally
strengthened by the gross injustice, insolence, and cruelty of the party
which was prevalent at Dort. The Arminian doctrine, a doctrine less
austerely logical than that of the early Reformers, but more agreeable
to the popular notions of the divine justice and benevolence, spread
fast and wide. The infection soon reached the court. Opinions which
at the time of the accession of James, no clergyman could have avowed
without imminent risk of being stripped of his gown, were now the best
title to preferment. A divine of that age, who was asked by a simple
country gentleman what the Arminians held, answered, with as much truth
as wit, that they held all the best bishoprics and deaneries in England.

While the majority of the Anglican clergy quitted, in one direction, the
position which they had originally occupied, the majority of the
Puritan body departed, in a direction diametrically opposite, from the
principles and practices of their fathers. The persecution which the
separatists had undergone had been severe enough to irritate, but not
severe enough to destroy. They had been, not tamed into submission, but
baited into savageness and stubborness. After the fashion of oppressed
sects, they mistook their own vindictive feelings for emotions of piety,
encouraged in themselves by reading and meditation, a disposition to
brood over their wrongs, and, when they had worked themselves up into
hating their enemies, imagined that they were only hating the enemies
of heaven. In the New Testament there was little indeed which, even when
perverted by the most disingenuous exposition, could seem to countenance
the indulgence of malevolent passions. But the Old Testament contained
the history of a race selected by God to be witnesses of his unity and
ministers of his vengeance, and specially commanded by him to do many
things which, if done without his special command, would have been
atrocious crimes. In such a history it was not difficult for fierce
and gloomy spirits to find much that might be distorted to suit their
wishes. The extreme Puritans therefore began to feel for the Old
Testament a preference, which, perhaps, they did not distinctly avow
even to themselves; but which showed itself in all their sentiments and
habits. They paid to the Hebrew language a respect which they refused
to that tongue in whi