PURITANS, a name given to the Pro testant exiles who returned to England upon the accession of Queen Elizabeth These exiles were no sooner come to their native country, than they set about to carry on the work of reformation, even further than it had been done by the ec clesiastical laws of Elizabeth. This prin cess, with those that had weathered the storm at home,, were only tor restoring King Edward's liturgy ; but the majority of the exiles were for the worship and discipline of the foreign churches, and refused to conform to the usages of the old establishment, declaiming loudly against the popish habits and ceremonies. For a time the Queen connived at their noncon formity; but no sooner did she find her self firmly establighed on the throne, than she gave the Puritans, as the reform ing exiles were reproachfully called, a specimen of her proud spirit, and the na tion a proof of her secret attachment to the principles and many of the ceremonies of the Romish faith. A Puritan, at that time, was a man of severe morals, a Cal vinist in doctrine, and a non-conformist to the ceremonies and discipline of the church. As they did not avowedly sepa rate from the church, they seem to have acted, in this particular, somewhat like the Wesleyan Methodists of the present day.
The aversion which Queen Elizabeth conceived against the Puritans induced her to act against them in the most creel and rigid manner. " For," says Neal, "besides the ordinary courts of the bi shops, her Majesty erected a new tribu nal, called the High Commission, which suspended and deprived men of their livings, not by the verdict of twelve men upon oath, but by the sovereign determi nation of three commissioners of her Ma jesty's own nomination, founded not upon the statute laws of the realm, but upon the bottomless deep of the canon law; and instead of producing witnesses in open court to prove the charge, they as sumed a power of administering an oath ex officio, whereby the prisoner was obliged to answer all questions the court should put to him, though never so pre judicial to his own defence ; if he refused to swear, he was imprisoned for con tempt ; and if he took the oath, he was convicted upon his own confession." Such are the ingenious intricacies which a spirit of intolerance can invent to puzzle and embarrass its victims ! Having already, in some degree, antici pated the history of the Puritans, in the article PRESBYTERIANS, it is almost un necessary to enlarge in this place.
Mr. Hum; whom no one will accuse of an unwarrantable prejudice for the prin...., ciples of civil and religious liberty, dia: serves, when speaking of the conduct of Elizabeth, " so absolute was the authority of the crown, that the precious spark of ' liberty had been kindled, and was pre served by the Puritans alone, and it was to this sect, whose principles appear so frivolous, and habits so ridiculous, that the English owe the whole freedom of their constitution." 'When it is consider ed who it is that thus speaks of the Puri tans, and when it is also considered what ' is meant by " the whole freedom of the English constitution," it will be thought that we, of the present day, are debtors, of no small magnitude, to the zeal and perseverance of the ancient Puritans. It must, however, be granted, that when the persecutions carried on against the Puritans, during the reign of Eliza beth and the Stuarts, had driven the Puritans once more to seek refuge abroad, they now, in their turn, persecuted others who dissented from them. Those who formed the colony of Massachusett's Bay, having never relinquished the principle of a national church establishment, were less tolerant than those who settled at Plymouth, at Rhode Island, and at Pro vidence plantations. The consequence was, they did not fail to discover that their sufferings and trials had not fully taught them the lessons of christian for bearance and universal toleration. Hap. pity for the peace and security of man kind, those lessons are now better under stood ; and little remains of the offensive parts of Puritanism, besides what is to be found in the genius of high Calvinism, still unhappily possessing the minds of some of the sectaries of our own time. We may, however, fairly hope that the time is fast approaching, when the true principles of liberty shall be not only ac knowledged, but fully acted upon ; and the spirit of enthusiasm and bigotry known only to be execrated, and remem. bered only to be avoided. See Dr. Toulmin's edition of Neal's History of the Puritans, and Palmer's Nonconformist's Memorial; two works of considerable merit, and fraught with information, on the history and principles of the Puritans. See also the articles, No N-Co Nroamrs PRESBYTERIANS, PROTESTANTS, and REFORMATION.