Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Greenwood, were acts of flagtant injustice and cruelty, and v ill stand as monuments of disgrace to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, as durable as time. Upon this part of our English history, the judicious Rapin observes, That the queen hearkened to the suggestions of the clergy, who represented the puritans as seditious persons; who rebelled against the laws, and, by their disobedience, shook the foundations of the government This is not the only time, nor is England the only state, where disobedience in point of religion, has been confounded with rebellion against the sovereign. There scarcely a Christian state, where the prevailing sect will suffer the least division, or the least swerving from the established opinions; no, not even in private. Shall I venture to say, it is the clergy chiefly who support tui strange principle of non-toleration, - so little agreeable to Christian charity ? The severity of which, from this tirne began to bo exercised upon the nonconformists in England, produced terrible effects in the following reigns, arid occasioned troubles and factions which remain to this.day.+ Mr. Greenwood published A Briefe Refutation of Mr. George Gifford; and An Answer to George Gifford' pretended Defence of Read-Prayers and Devised Liturgies; in the titles of which, be calls himself Christ's poor afflicted Prisoner in the Fleet, for the Truth of th Gospel. William Smyth was born about the year 1563, and educated, most probably, in the umvcrsity of Cambridge On his entrance upon the sacred function, he was ordained by the Bishop of Coventry and Lichn'eld, and licensed to preach by the Bishop of Sarum, when he became minister at Bradford in Wiltshire. Having continued in this situation for some time, he went to London, attended the private assemblies of...