Both fleece and carcass, not gi'ing him the fell!
- ↑ "But the Bishops (of the Church of England) who by the impairing and diminution of the true faith, the distresses and servitude of their country, aspire to high dignity, rule, and promotion here, after a shameful end in this life, which God grant them! shall be thrown down eternally into the darkest and deepest gulph of hell, where under the despiteful controul, the trample and spurn of the other damned, who in the anguish of their torture, shall have no other ease than to exercise a raving and beastial tyranny over them, as their slaves and negroes; they shall remain in that plight for ever, the lowermost, the most dejected, most under foot, and trodden down vassals of perdition." Milton's Treatise on Reformation, sub fin vol i. p. 274. Dr. Johnson uses the language of forbearance when, rising from the perusal of this fiendlike cursing, he merely observed, "such was Milton's controversial malignity, that hell grew blacker at his frown."
great man to affirm, that the sheep were better tended, or better fed. To drop the metaphor, it may be said without fear of contradiction, that the church of England at that period, was supplied with a ministry of as much wisdom, learning, and true piety as ever adorned this or any other country since the days of the Apostles.
From Milton, whose malignity to the hierarchy is well known, neither truth nor justice is to be expected on the subject; but some approaches to both may be found in others. "In these times, (says Lilly, the hireling advocate of the Usurpation) many worthy ministers lost their livings or benefices, for not complying with the Directory. Had you seen (O noble Esquire) what pitiful idiots were preferred into sequestrated church-benefices, you would have been grieved in your soul; but when they came before the classes of divines, could those simpletons but only say they were converted by hearing such a sermon of that godly man, Hugh Peters, Stephen Marshall, or any of that gang, he was presently admitted." History of his Life, p. 87.
Such were the successors of Hooker and Sanderson, of Usher and Hammond, of Donne and Herbert, &c. But even Milton lived to change his note—even he who exultingly consigned a virtuous sovereign to the block, and a pious priesthood to everlasting perdition, * lived to call upon an hypocritical usurper, to whom all religion was a jest, to save him from the clergy whose intrusion into the church his own clamours had, at least, promoted.
Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw."
Sonnet to Crom.
