ion, from
any intention to relax the golden reins of discipline, as they called
them, or to grant any toleration;[*] and the enemies of the church
were so fair from the beginning, as not to lay claim to liberty of
conscience, which they called a toleration for soul-murder. They openly
challenged the superiority, and even menaced the established church with
that persecution which they afterwards exercised against her with such
severity. And if the question be considered in the view of policy,
though a sect, already formed and advanced, may, with good reason,
demand a toleration, what title had the Puritans to this indulgence, who
were just on the point of separation from the church, and whom, it might
be hoped, some wholesome and legal severities would still retain in
obedience?[**] [15]

* Nalson, vol. ii. p. 705.

** See note O, at the end of the volume.

Whatever ridicule, to a philosophical mind, may be thrown on pious
ceremonies, it must be confessed that, during a very religious age, no
institutions can be more advantageous to the rude multitude, and tend
more to mollify that fierce and gloomy spirit of devotion to which they
are subject. Even the English church, though it had retained a share of
Popish ceremonies, may justly be thought too naked and unadorned, and
still to approach too near the abstract and spiritual religion of
the Puritans. Laud and his associates, by reviving a few primitive
institutions of this nature, corrected the error of the first reformers,
and presented to the affrightened and astonished mind some sensible,
exterior observances, which might occupy it during its religious
exercises, and abate the violence of its disappointed efforts. The
thought, no longer bent on that divine and mysterious essence, so
superior to the narrow capacities of mankind, was able, by means of the
new model of devotion, to relax itself in the contemplation of pictures,
postures, vestments, buildings; and all the fine arts which minister to
religion, thereby received additional encouragement. The primate, it is
true, conducted this scheme, not with the enlarged sentiments and cool
reflection of a legislator, but with the intemperate zeal of a sectary;
and by over looking the circumstances of the times, served rather to
inflame that religious fury which he meant to repress. But this blemish
is more to be regarded as a general imputation on the whole age,
than any particular failing of Laud's; and it is