The persecuting statutes which they passed against Papists and Puritans are extremely contrary to the genius of freedom; and by exposing such multitudes to the tyranny of priests and bigots, accustomed the people to the most disgraceful subjection.

Their conferring an unlimited supremacy on the queen, or, what is worse, acknowledging her inherent right to it, was another proof of their voluntary servitude.
The law of the twenty-third of her reign, making seditious words against the queen capital, is also a very tyrannical statute; and a use no less tyrannical was sometimes made of it.

The case of Udal, a Puritanical clergyman, seems singular even in those arbitrary times.

This man had published a book, called a Demonstration of Discipline, in which he inveighed against the government of bishops; and though he had carefully endeavored to conceal his name, he was thrown into prison upon suspicion, and brought to a trial for this offence.

It was pretended, that the bishops were part of the queen's political body; and to speak against them, was really to attack her, and was therefore felony by the statute.