14th, in his Works, 145.]
them and their victim. Both were equally obstinate, equally infallible,
equally intolerant. As long as Laud ruled in the zenith of his power,
deprivation awaited the non-conforming minister, and imprisonment, fine,
and the pillory were the certain lot of the writer who dared to lash the
real or imaginary vices of the prelacy. His opponents were now lords of
the ascendant, and they exercised their sway with similar severity on the
orthodox clergy of the establishment, and on all who dared to arraign
before the public the new reformation of religion. Surely the consciousness
of the like intolerance might have taught them to look with a more
indulgent eye on the past errors of their fallen adversary, and to spare
the life of a feeble old man bending under the weight of seventy-two years,
and disabled by his misfortunes from offering opposition to their will, or
affording aid to their enemies.[1]
[Footnote 1: I have not noticed the charge of endeavouring to introduce
popery, because it appears to me fully disproved by the whole tenor of his
conduct and writings, as long as he was in authority. There is, however,
some reason to believe that, in the solitude of his cell, and with the
prospect of the block before his eyes, he began to think more favourably
of the Catholic church.
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