SIR,—I am honoured by your long editorial note appended to
my letter on the above subject in last week's issue. I may say that I have read several Lives of Oliver Cromwell, and am fairly well acquainted with Milton's career; also I know some- thing of Colonel Hutchinson's Memoirs. I should hardly consider either the great Protector or he " who rode sublime upon the seraph wings of ecstacy " genuine Puritans; but allowing, causd argumenti, that they were such, how does that affect my contention ? Are the men of " the Terror " to be acquitted of fiendish crimes because Robespierre was in- corruptible and Danton lost his head by inclining to mercy ? Besides, Sir, my attack was mainly directed against the hideous theology of the Puritans, with its horrible selfish- ness, condemning the vast majority of mankind to eternal torment, not even for evil done, but because He who made men so willed it. How can I admire men who could believe such a doctrine P It is the laudation of Puritanism and its identification with Christianity which have driven many to Socinianism, more to open flagrant atheism.—I am, Sir, &c.,
RICHARD F. Jupp.
15 Clifton Avenue, West Hartlepool.
P.S.—I grant that Cromwell's military saints were splendid fighting men ; but so were the archers of Crecy, and the bill- men of Agincourt,—nay, also our army which "swore so terribly in Flanders."
[To THY EDITOR 07 THE "SPECTATOR."]
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