“_Any sort_ of punishment, disproportioned to the offence, or where there is no fault at all, will always be severity, unjustifiable severity, and will be thought so by the sufferers and bystanders.” {52a} However disguised, or modified, or attenuated may be the persecution, they will regard it as persecution still, and will justly apply to its authors, with whatever communion they may be connected, or whatever pretensions they may set up, the language Milton puts into the lips of an archangel, to whom many of the episcopal edifices are dedicated:— “What will they, then, But force the Spirit of grace itself, and bind His consort liberty? What, but unbuild His living temples, built by faith to stand, _Their own faith_, _not another’s_?—for on earth Who, against faith and conscience, can be heard Infallible?” {52b} CHAPTER III. Queen Elizabeth, an intolerant protestant; her measures—Rise of the puritans; their views and position; persecuted; instances in eastern counties—Account of the “prophesyings;” suppressed by the queen—Continued cruelty—Norfolk and Suffolk petitions—Whitgift’s articles—New commission granted—Aylmer—Puritan clergy summoned to London—William Fleming, rector of Beccles; his connexion with corporation differences; testimony to his worth arising out of them; summoned; deprived of the living—Honourable record of his interment—Justifiableness of his nonconformity. THE accession of Elizabeth, once more, revived the hearts of the reformers. Her personal character, indeed, afforded no hope of her being favourable to freedom, though her parentage and education led to the reasonable expectation that she would encourage protestantism. Of all that was safe to be believed and fit to be practised, she deemed herself the competent and supreme judge. Regarding the privilege of dissenting from the state religion as part of her prerogative, she exercised that right herself, and then sternly denied it, alike to the learned and the rude, the conscientious and the careless, among her subjects. Her proclamation prohibited all preaching, until consultation should be had by parliament. In that assembly she was no less absolute than elsewhere. The supremacy of the church of England was again vested in the crown, and a statute {54} passed which was designed to establish uniformity in religion, and required all persons, having no lawful or reasonable excuse, to resort to their parish churches, every Sunday, and on all holidays. Under the authority of the Act of Supremacy, a court was erected, called the court of High Commission, which took cognizance of religious matters, without the aid of a jury. The liturgy was revised, and rendered more palatable to the papists. The clergy were required to comply with all the queen’s injunctions, and at their entrance on their cures, publicly to assent to a declaration of articles of religion, drawn up by the bishops.