uded with
a prayer for release from an imprisonment, which had then lasted
more than three years, for certain theological opinions
"committed to a minister (a supposed friend) for his judgment and
advice only." This minister was the Rev. Roger Leys, who
infamously betrayed the trust reposed in him, and made public the
frankness of private conversation.

Best had been imprisoned in the Gatehouse for certain expressions
he was supposed to have used about the Trinity; and before he
wrote this pamphlet the House of Commons had actually voted that
he should be hanged. Justly, therefore, he wrote: "Unless the
Lord put to His helping hand of the magistrate for the manacling
of Satan in that persecuting power, there is little hope either
of the liberty of the subject or the law of God amongst us." And
if he was not orthodox, he was sensible, for he says: "I cannot
understand what detriment could redound either to Church or
Commonwealth by toleration of religions."

His heresy consisted in thinking that pagan ideas had been
imported into, and so had corrupted, the original monotheism of
Christianity. "We may perceive how by iniquity of time the real
truth of God hath been trodden under foot by a verbal kind of
divinity, introduced by the semi-pagan Christianity of the third
century in the Western Church." He certainly did not hold the
doctrine of the Trinity in what was then deemed the orthodox way,
but his precise belief is rather obscurely stated, and is a
matter of indifference.

One is glad to learn that he escaped hanging after all, and was
released about the end of 1647, probably at the instance of
Cromwell. He then retired to the family seat in Yorkshire, where
he combined farming with his favourite theological studies for
the ten remaining years of his life. His career at Cambridge had
been distinguished, as might also have been his career in the
world but for that unfortunate bent for theology, and the use of
his reason in its study, that has led so many worthy men to
disgrace and destruction.

But, in spite of the Assembly of Divines, the air was thick with
theological speculation; and only a few weeks after the
condemnation of Best's _Mysteries_, the House condemned to a
similar fate Bidle's _Twelve Arguments drawn out of Scripture,
wherein the Commonly Received Opinion touching the Deity of the
Holy Spirit is Clearly and Fully Refuted_.

Bidle, a tailor's son, must take high rank among the martyrs of
learni