the intemperance of those
who, for the merest trifles, quarrelled with the establishment, who
rejected even apostolical usages, because they had been practised by the
catholics, who, instead of allowing Rome to be a church in error, denied
that its followers could be saved, and thus raised the dark cloud of
schism against the sun of the reformation; their rashness,
uncharitableness, and fastidious scruples, in purifying what they owned
to be non-essentials, have, I say, imped the dragon's wings, and placed
the scarlet abomination, as ye call it, in a tower of strength, which
the artillery of your covenant, lighted as it is by the flame of treason
and civil commotion, can never overthrow.--The champions of these sects
in the reign of Elizabeth, countenanced by that most flagitious courtier
and tyrannical governor, the Earl of Leicester, accused Hooker, the
great bulwark of the Protestant cause, of leaning towards popery,
because he refused to consign the souls of our ancestors to perdition;
and a most uncharitable outcry was raised against a Bishop for the same
bias, because he trusted that the grandmother of our good King would
experience the mercies of our Saviour, on whose merits, in her last
moments, she declared she relied.--Thus did these ill-advised persons,
by a breach of that charity and unity, which Scripture every where
enjoins, prevent the Protestant church from exhibiting the surest marks
of Christian verity. Instead of alluring people to come out of the
mystical Babylon, these most lamentable divisions and controversies
about trifles have driven thousands into the perilous labyrinths of a
persuasion, which admits no difference of opinion, or into the yet more
dreary dungeons of Atheism, whose most formidable objection to our
faith, is the ill blood which it foments. Never have these enemies to
God and man made such progress, as since the time when spiritual pride,
turbulence and ambition, united under the name of perfect reformation,
to pluck down an edifice constructed in moderation, defended by the
doctrines, beautified by the labours, and cemented by the blood of its
founders."

The fiery zeal of Davies would not permit Dr. Beaumont to finish his
harangue. "And ye planted in your edifice," said he, "a poisonous scion,
an abominable branch of the tree of evil; but our friend Humphreys
speaks not unadvisedly, or at peradventure. Your Anti-christian bishops
are all sent to prison; they are caged vultures,