We regret that a body to whose courage and talents mankind has owed inestimable obligations had not the lofty elegance which distinguished some of the adherents of Charles the First, or the easy good-breeding for which the court of Charles the Second was celebrated.  But, if we must make our choice, we shall, like Bassanio in the play, turn from the specious caskets which contain only the Death’s head and the Fool’s head, and fix on the plain leaden chest which conceals the treasure.

The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of superior beings and eternal interests.  Not content with acknowledging, in general terms, an overruling Providence, they habitually ascribed every event to the will of the Great Being, for whose power nothing was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute.  To know him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was with them the great end of existence.  They rejected with contempt the ceremonious homage which other sects substituted for the pure worship of the soul.  Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on his intolerable brightness, and to commune with him face to face.  Hence originated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions.  The difference between the greatest and the meanest of mankind seemed to vanish, when compared with the boundless interval which separated the whole race from him on whom their own eyes were constantly fixed.  They recognised no title to superiority but his favour; and, confident of that favour, they despised all the accomplishments and all the dignities of the world.  If they were unacquainted with the works of philosophers and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of God.  If their names were not found in the registers of heralds, they were recorded in the Book of Life.  If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of ministering angels had charge over them.  Their palaces were houses not made with hands; their diadems crowns of glory which should never fade away.  On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked down with contempt:  for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime language, nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand.  The very meanest of them was a being to whose fate a mysterious and terrible importance belonged, on whose slightest action the spirits of light and darkness looked with anxious interest, who had been destined, before heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should continue when heaven and earth should have passed away.  Events which shortsighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been ordained on his account.  For his sake empires had risen, and flourished, and decayed.  For his sake the Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pen of the evangelist, and the harp of the prophet.  He had been wrested by no common deliverer from the grasp of no common foe.  He had been ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice.  It was for him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that the dead had risen, that all nature had shuddered at the sufferings of her expiring God.