a simple country gentleman what the Arminians held, answered,
with as much truth as wit, that they held all the best bishoprics
and deaneries in England.

While the majority of the Anglican clergy quitted, in one
direction, the position which they had originally occupied, the
majority of the Puritan body departed, in a direction
diametrically opposite, from the principles and practices of
their fathers. The persecution which the separatists had
undergone had been severe enough to irritate, but not severe
enough to destroy. They had been, not tamed into submission, but
baited into savageness and stubborness. After the fashion of
oppressed sects, they mistook their own vindictive feelings for
emotions of piety, encouraged in themselves by reading and
meditation, a disposition to brood over their wrongs, and, when
they had worked themselves up into hating their enemies, imagined
that they were only hating the enemies of heaven. In the New
Testament there was little indeed which, even when perverted by
the most disingenuous exposition, could seem to countenance the
indulgence of malevolent passions. But the Old Testament
contained the history of a race selected by God to be witnesses
of his unity and ministers of his vengeance, and specially
commanded by him to do many things which, if done without his
special command, would have been atrocious crimes. In such a
history it was not difficult for fierce and gloomy spirits to
find much that might be distorted to suit their wishes. The
extreme Puritans therefore began to feel for the Old Testament a
preference, which, perhaps, they did not distinctly avow even to
themselves; but which showed itself in all their sentiments and
habits. They paid to the Hebrew language a respect which they