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: least mark of regret or compunction, addressed to their own friends, and in three cases out of the four, set forth and published by those friends without the least hint of disapprobation. If he duly considers this point, he will, I think, acquit me of any want of justice or charity towards either the individuals or their sect; and will not wonder or blame me if I proceed to inquire what effect the doctrine thus developed had on some of those writers who, whether formally or not, are in fact the Historians of the Reformation. ESSAY III. PURITAN STYLE. No. I. BALE. What kindled and fanned the fires of Smithfield ? What raised and kept alive the popish persecution in the days of Queen Mary ? Was it her own sanguinary disposition ? or was she the slave of her husband's cruel superstition ? or were both the tools of foreigners, who certainly hated the English because they were heretics, but more deadly hated the heretics because they were Englishmen? Was it "wily Winchester," or was it " bloody Bonner," or was it something in the spirit of the church of which both were zealous members ? Whatever may be said on any or on all of these points, there was undoubtedly one other cause; which, if it be too much to say that it has been studiously concealed or disguised, has certainly never occupied that prominent place to which it is entitled in such an inquiry. I mean, the bitter and provoking spirit of some of those who were very active and forward inpromoting the progress of the Reformation—the political opinions which they held, and the language in which they disseminated them—the fierce personal attacks which they made on those whom they considered as enemies—and, to say the least, the little care which was taken by those who were really actuated by religious motives, and se...