e
ceremony with their presence, and "antichrist" was thrown into the flames,
while the bells of St. Peter's rang a merry peal, the city waits played
melodious tunes on the leads of the church, the train bands discharged
volleys of musketry, and the spectators celebrated the triumph with
acclamations of joy.--Parl. Chron. 294, 327.]

the benefit of the nation; and that by the name of papist should be
understood all persons who, within a certain period, had harboured any
priest, or had been convicted of recusancy, or had attended at the
celebration of mass, or had suffered their children to be educated in the
Catholic worship, or had refused to take the oath of abjuration; an oath
lately devised, by which all the distinguishing tenets of the Catholic
religion were specifically renounced.[1]

II. A still more important object was the destruction of the episcopal
establishment, a consummation most devoutly wished by the saints, by all
who objected to the ceremonies in the liturgy, or had been scandalized by
the pomp of the prelates, or had smarted under the inflictions of their
zeal for the preservation of orthodoxy. It must be confessed that these
prelates, in the season of prosperity, had not borne their facilities with
meekness; that the frequency of prosecutions in the ecclesiastical courts
had produced irritation and hatred; and that punishments had been often
awarded by those courts rigorous beyond the measure of the offence. But
the day of retribution arrived. Episcopacy was abolished; an impeachment
suspended over the heads of most of the bishops, kept them in a state of
constant apprehension; and the inferior clergy, wherever the parliamentary
arms prevailed, suffered all those severities which they had formerly
inflicted on their dissenting brethren. Their enemies accused them of
immorality or malignancy; and the two houses invariably sequestrated their
livings, and assigned the profits to other ministers, whose sentiments
accorded better with the new

[Footnote 1: Journals, Aug. 17, 1643. Collections of Ordinances, 22.]

standard of orthodoxy and patriotism admitted at Westminster.

The same was the fate of the ecclesiastics in the two universities, which
had early become objects of jealousy and vengeance to the patriots. They
had for more than a century inculcated the doctrine of passive obedience,
and since the commencement of the war had more than once advanced
considerable sums to the king. Oxford, indeed