The real and
undoubted ability and scholarship of Jeffreys only made his wickedness
the more awful, and his whole career the greater curse both to those
whose tool he was, and to those whose blood he drank daily. Jeffreys
drank brandy and sang lewd songs all night, and he drank blood and cursed
and swore on the bench all day. Just imagine the state of our English
courts when a judge could thus assail a poor wretch of a woman after
passing a cruel sentence upon her. 'Hangman,' shouted the ermined brute,
'Hangman, pay particular attention to this lady. Scourge her soundly,
man. Scourge her till the blood runs. It is the Christmas season; a
cold season for madam to strip in. See, therefore, man, that you warm
her shoulders thoroughly.' And you all know who Richard Baxter was. You
have all read his seraphic book, _The Saints' Rest_. Well, besides being
the Richard Baxter so well known to our saintly fathers and mothers, he
was also, and he was emphatically, the peace-maker of the Puritan party.
Baxter's political principles were of the most temperate and
conciliatory, and indeed, almost royalist kind.
Pages:
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257