n many civil, Laud, bishop of
London, had great influence over the king. This man was virtuous, if
severity of manners alone, and abstinence from pleasure, could deserve
that name. He was learned, if polemical knowledge could entitle him
to that praise. He was disinterested; but with unceasing industry he
studied to exalt the priestly and prelatical character, which was his
own. His zeal was unrelenting in the cause of religion; that is, in
imposing by rigorous measures his own tenets and pious ceremonies on
the obstinate Puritans, who had profanely dared to oppose him.
In prosecution of his holy purposes, he overlooked every human
consideration; or, in other words, the heat and indiscretion of his
temper made him neglect the views of prudence and rules of good manners.
He was in this respect happy, that all his enemies were also imagined
by him the declared enemies to loyalty and true piety, and that every
exercise of his anger by that means became in his eyes a merit and
a virtue. This was the man who acquired so great an ascendant over
Charles, and who led him, by the facility of his temper, into a conduct
which proved so fatal to himself and to his kingdoms.

The humor of the nation ran at that time into the extreme opposite to
superstition; and it was with difficulty that the ancient ceremonies
to which men had been accustomed, and which had been sanctified by the
practice of the first reformers, could be retained in divine service:
yet was this the time which Laud chose for the introduction of new
ceremonies and observances. Besides that these were sure to displease
as innovations, there lay, in the opinion of the public, another very
forcible objection against them. Laud, and the other prelates who
embraced his measures, were generally well instructed in sacred
antiquity, and had adopted many of those religious sentiments which
prevailed during the fourth and fifth centuries; when the Christian
church, as is well known, was already sunk into those superstitions
which were afterwards continued and augmented by the policy of Rome. The
revival, therefore, of the ideas and practices of that age, could not
fail of giving the English faith and liturgy some resemblance to the
Catholic superstition, which the kingdom in general, and the Puritans in
particular, held in the greatest horror and detestation. Men also were
apt to think, that, without some secret purpose, such insignificant
observances would not be imposed wit