imprisoned till he
had paid a sum of L500 (1676). But this did not finish the man,
for in 1681 he wrote his _Letter to Colonel Phaire_, the language
of which is perhaps unsurpassed for repulsiveness in the whole
range of religious literature. Muggleton's writings in short read
as a kind of religious nightmare. In their case the fire was
rather profaned by its fuel than the books honoured by the fire.

CHAPTER V.

BOOK-FIRES OF THE RESTORATION.

With the Restoration, the burning of certain obnoxious books
formed one of the first episodes of that Royalist war of revenge
of which the most disgraceful expression was the exhumation and
hanging at Tyburn of the bones of Cromwell and Ireton. And had
Goodwin and Milton not absconded, it is probable that the revenge
which had to content itself with their books would have extended
to their persons.

John Goodwin, distinguished as a minister and a prolific writer
on the people's side, had dedicated in 1649 to the House of
Commons his _Obstructours of Justice_, in which he defended the
execution of Charles I. He based his case, indeed, after the
fashion of those days, too completely on Biblical texts to suit
our modern taste; but his book is far from being the "very weak
and inconclusive performance" of which Neal speaks in his
history of the Puritans. The sentiments follow exactly those of
Rutherford's _Lex Rex_; as, for example, "The Crown is but the
kingdom's or people's livery. . . . The king bears the relation
of a political servant or vassal to that state, kingdom, or
people over which he is set to govern." But the commonplaces of
to-day were rank heresy in a chaplain to Cromwell.

There seems to be no evidence to support Bishop Burnet's
assertion that Goodwin was the head of the Fifth-Monarchy
fanatics; and his story is simply that of a fearless, sensible,
and conscientious minister, who took a strong interest in the
political drama of his time, and advocated liberty of conscience
before even Milton or Locke. But his chief distinction is to have
been marked out for revenge in company with Milton by the
miserable Restoration Parliament.

Milton's _Eikonoklastes_ and _Defensio Populi Anglicani_ rank, of
course, among the masterpieces of English prose, and ought to be
read, where they never will be, in every Board and public school
of England. In the first the picture of Charles I., as painted in
the _Eikon Basilike_, was unmercifully torn to pieces. Charles'