The loyalists : $b an historical novel, Vol. 1-3West, Jane
History
The loyalists : $b an historical novel, Vol. 1-3
West, Jane
Great Britain -- History -- Civil War, 1642-1649 -- Fiction
He applied to Justice Morgan for redress, who, anxious to disprove the
suspicions that were circulated of his disposition to favour
disorganizing principles, enjoined Jobson to obey his master, and
reproved him for thinking that his soul could be endangered by following
the example of so many great men, who had taken the covenant. It
inopportunely happened, that at this moment Jobson recollected a sermon
of Dr. Beaumont's, against the sin of following a multitude to do evil,
in which every man's responsibility for his own offences, and the
attention of Omniscience to individual transgressions, were illustrated
by proofs drawn from the minute watchfulness of Providence, which
superintends the heedless flight of the sparrow, and adorns the lilies
of the field with more than regal magnificence. In reply to Morgan's
enumeration of the Dukes, Marquisses, Lords and Squires, Godly Ministers
and staunch Common-wealth men, who had taken the covenant, Jobson shook
his head, and said, none of them would answer for his soul. "I heard,"
said he, "last Sunday in church, that all the Princes of a great nation
worshipped a golden image, and three men would not, so every body went
against these men, and threw them into a burning furnace. But the men
were right after all in the end of the story; and so, please Your
Worship, I'll not sign the Devil's bond for any body."
Davies, who was present at the examination, now remarked that Jobson had
not only forfeited his wages as an hireling, by his disobedience to a
believing master, but deserved to be committed for slandering the holy
covenant; and Morgan, though he knew this had not yet been made an
offence by statute, yet relying on the temper of the parish, the
ignorance of the culprit, and the protection he would be sure to meet
from a faction, whose violence had driven the King from his capital, and
usurped the government, made out a Mittimus. Some remaining sense of
justice, and a dislike of oppression when exercised against one of their
own rank, induced the peasants to shew their disapprobation. A crowd
collected around Morgan's door, determined to exercise their rights and
to rescue the prisoner. The tears and cries of his wife and children had
just roused them to the assumption of that summary mode of vengeance, so
gratifying to an English mob, when the appearance of Dr. Beaumont
suspended their fury. The long-formed associations of habitual reverence
were not so intirely abrogated as to allow them to continue their
riotous conduct under the influence of that mild eye, which had often
silently reproved their faults, or that benevolent countenance, which
had pitied their wants, and confirmed their virtues; they stood in
suspence, involuntarily waiting for his opinion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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