Those who stayed at home went on to that rebellion
against Church and King, which ended in the Scottish Calvinists
betraying King Charles, and the English Independants putting him
to death for upholding the Bishops, after Archbishop Laud had been
beheaded. For nearly eleven years the Bishops were put down, the clergy
persecuted, and the use of the Prayer-Book forbidden in England, while
all sorts of sects rose up and explained the Bible as they pleased.
When, at length, Charles II. came back, and the Church was
re-established in England, many more went to the colonies; and though
there was a Church settlement in Virginia, the great mass of the North
American colonists were Calvinists or Presbyterians, as they are called,
because presbyters are their highest order of their ministry, though
they cannot be really commissioned priests, never having been ordained
by Bishops come down from the Apostles.
The English began to spread fast on every side, as their nation grew
stronger and more numerous. They conquered several of the West-Indian
Isles, and the Church was there established; but, to their disgrace,
they carried on the slave-trade, to supply the settlers with workmen.
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