During the reign of Elizabeth, when Camden wrote, and when the reformation had arrived at full maturity, though the civil state of the realm was better regulated, yet in private life, as Dr. Milner observes, “the vices of individuals in every rank rose to the same height of profligacy as before.” In corroboration of this he refers to contemporary protestant testimonies. _Stubbs_, the author of a piece entitled “Motives to Good Works,” with an epistle dedicatorie to the lord major of London, an. 1596, asserts, among other things, that the observation of Luther, (quoted above, p. 628,) still holds good: and he further says; “For good works who sees not that they (the papists of former times) were far beyond us, and we far behind them.” p. 44. To the same effect speaks _R. Jeffery_, in his sermon at Paul’s Cross, an. 1604. Many other writers, particularly of the puritan party, have given similar testimonies in reference to the reign both of Elizabeth and also of her successor James. {664} From the preceding facts or premises we may venture to affirm that the effects of the reformation on those who first embraced it were not such as might be expected, or such as would have appeared, had the religion which the reformers introduced been of divine origin, or the same with that which the apostles promulgated, and which is contained in the New Testament. The latter, like a good tree, produced good fruit; and its effects, wherever it prevailed, or was heartily received, were very different from those above described, and of the very opposite character. It must follow therefore, that the religion of the reformers was so radically and materially defective as not to be adapted to answer some of the chief or most important ends which the religion of Christ was designed to promote—and even that its whole scope and tendency were actually subversive of those very ends. This will not appear very wonderful when it is considered what manner of spirit the reformers were of, or how their religion was constituted, and that they appear to have paid far more attention to the sayings and dictates of Athanasius and Jerom, Ambrose and Austin, and the rest of those old women called _fathers_, than they did to those of the apostles and evangelists, or even of Jesus Christ himself. Nothing therefore very good and excellent could be expected from them; nor indeed any thing superior to, or better than such a farrago as they did produce, or such articles, creeds, confessions, directories, formulas, &c. as they thought proper to impose on their disciples and followers. To have produced what was right good, and excellent, they must have drawn from a purer fountain, and partaken of another and very different spirit.