PREFACE TO THE SECOND VOLUME. For the long interval which has elapsed since the publication of my former volume, I have several satisfactory reasons to assign. To some minds it would, perhaps, be sufficient to state, that by the loss of the best of mothers and firmest of friends, I was nearly disabled for one whole year from bending my mind to any laborious pursuit. I might also plead vexation, arising from particular círcumstances connected with this painful event; ill health, and the necessity laid upon me of directing attention to objects of a different description. The labour also, requisite in preparing the volume now presented, has been far greater than many can readily imagine; greater than, perhaps, I shall obtain credit for; and such, I am confident, as no praise or emolument I am likely to receive, will ever adequately remunerate. It is, however, more important that I should explain to the Public the occasion of my departure from the original proposal of comprising the work within the space of two volumes. This I fully intended to accomplish at the time when the former part of my History was sent forth; but sugges tions imparted by individuals of high eminence and respectability, could not well be disobeyed. It is in compliance with these suggestions that I have introduced the two treatises, on Church Government, and on the Quinquarticular Controversy; which were no more than short sketches in the original manuscript; and that I purpose annexing an Index, a Chronological Table, and a general View of the present State of the English Church, to that part of the History which is yet to appear. As the Unitarians and Methodists, however, are the only two remaining sects, demanding a very extended consideration, and as the ecclesiastical history of England, after the restoration of Charles II. presents, comparatively, few details to the pen of the historian, the work can very easily be completed in a Supplemental Volume. From this alteration in the plan, I cannot help flattering myself, that considerable benefit has been derived. There are certain topics, which it were better not to treat at all, than to dismiss with a superficial consideration. Of this description is a polemical discussion of the principles maintained by any distinguished religious body. The argument must be sifted, if possible, to the bottom; for, otherwise, the advocate will only strengthen the cause of his adversary, by discovering the weakness of his own replies. To the Society, for whom this History was originally sketched, a Society composed exclusively of members of the church, short answers to the tenets of dissenting bodies might have been useful, as compendious recollections of their own stores of learning. But, now that I am come before the bar of the Public,-now that I am throwing myself, as it were, into an arena, where it is not improbable that the disciples of every religious school will consider themselves unfairly used, and may enter the lists against me, it seems necessary, for my own sake, as well as for that of the church which I defend, that I should endeavour to arm myself at all points. To drop the metaphor: had I restricted myself too much in room, I could only have skimmed slightly over a multiplicity of important themes, and presented the Public with a paltry sketch. As it is, I am not without hopes, that I shall be found to have offered a production, satisfactory to some minds harassed by uncertainty, and not wholly discreditable to myself. There is no epoch of church history, to which that maxim of Lord Bacon's, selected as the motto to this work, is more applicable, than to the period treated of in the present volume. During the reigns of the first James and Charles, and under the Protectorate, religion was politics, religion was pleasure, religion was occupation, religion was every thing. Almost every theological question was then ably and fully discussed; and to study these discussions, is to read treatises in Divinity. As a St. John's man, I have certainly felt an esprit de corps, in entering into an ample vindication of Archbishop Laud. It cost me more pains than many may conceive it to have merited: yet there are minds which will deem it not the least interesting part of the work. To vindicate the departed from unjust aspersions, is expedient for preserving the character of history as a register of truth. It is a pleasant labour of the judgment. It is an exercise of Christian benevolence. It is doing as we would be done unto, |