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THIS BOOK PRESENTED BY
T. R. Parker
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Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2010 with funding from
University of Pittsburgh Library System
http://www.archive.org/details/historyofpuritan05neal
THE HISTORY
OF THE
PURITANS,
OR
PROTESTANT NONCONFORMISTS,
FROM THE
DEATH OF KING CHARLES II.
TO THE ACT OF TOLERATION IN THE REIGN OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY, IN THE YEAR 1688.
CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF
THEIR PRINCIPLES; THEIR ATTEMPTS FOR A FURTHER REFORMATION
IN THE CHURCH ; THEIR SUFFERINGS ; AND THE LIVES
AND CHARACTERS OF THEIR PRINCIPAL DIVINES.
IN FIVE VOLUMES.
BY DANIEL NEAL, M. A.
A NEW EDITION,
REVISED, CORRECTED, AND ENLARGED,
BY JOSHUA TOULMIN, D. D.
TO WHICH ARE PREFIXED, SOME MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF THE AUTHOR,
VOL. V.
WITH AN INDEX TO THE FIVE VOLUMES.
This know also, that in the last Days perilous Times shall come.
2 Tim. iii. 1. They shall put you out of the Synagogues : yea, the Time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God Service
John xvi. 2.
PUBLISHED
BY CHARLES EWEU, BOSTON ; AND E. W. ALLEN, KElVBURrPOP.7,
E. W. Allen, Printer, 1817.
TfavT
N333 IS/6
Cop, /
'. '
EDITOR'S ADVERTISEMENT.
THIS edition of Mr, Neal's " History of the Purl- tans," after many interruptions, being at length completed, and the last volume being now presented to the; Public, the Editor embraces this occasion to make his acknowledg- ments to the Gentlemen who have assisted and encourag- ed his design. He feels his obligations to those who by their names and subscriptions have patronized it ; and he is much indebted to some who, by the communication of books and manuscripts, have aided the execution of it — Situated, as he is, at a great distance from the metropolis, and the libraries there open to the studious, he sees not how he could have enjoyed the means of examining Mr., Neal's authorities, in any extensive degree, and of ascer- taining the accuracy of the statements by an inspection of the writers of the last century, had not his Grace the Duke of Grafton most handsomely offered, and most readily supplied, a great number of books necessary to that purpose, from his large and valuable libraries.
Some books of great authority were obligingly handed to him by Henry Wayinouth, Esq. of Exeter. His thanks are also due to the Rev. Josiah Thomson, of Clapham, and to Edmund Calamy, Esq. To the former, for the free use of his manuscript collections, relative to the His- tory of the Dissenting Churches; and to the latter, for the opportunity of perusing a manuscript of his worthy and learned ancestor, Dr. Edmund Calamy, intitled, (( An Historical Account of my own Life, with some reflections on the times I have lived in." He has been likewise much indebted to a respectable member of the society of Quakers, Mr. Morris Birkbeck, of Wanborough, Surry, for his judicious remarks on Mr. Neal, and for furnishing hira with Gough's valuable History of that people.
iv editor's advertisement.
While the Editor makes bis sincere and grateful ac- knowledgments to these Gentlemen, and to all who have favored his undertaking with their approbation and assist- ance ; he begs leave to solicit their further encouragement and aid ; and any communications from others, that can contribute to the accuracy or completion of the work which he has before announced, and which he still has in con- templation, namely, « An History of the Protestant Dis- senters, and of the Progress of Free Enquiry and Re- ligious Liberty from the Revolution to the present Times." H.e cannot ascertain to what extent this work will reach ; but he will aim to comprise the historical, lit- erary, and biographical information, it will include, in as short a compass as possible ; and he proposes, lest life and health should not be enjoyed to finish it, to bring it forward from the press in such detached parts as will cor- respond to the periods into which, he apprehends, it will naturally divide itself, so that each part may form a com- plete historical survey of the subjects it treats of, down to the dme at which it closes.
Mr. Neal's History being voluminous, though as an original work and a book of authority it will retain its val- ue, the Editor, with pleasure, informs his Readers, that liis worthy and much-esteemed friend the Rev. Joseph Cornish, of Colyton, Devon, is preparing for the press, a new, corrected, and much-improved edition of his " Brief and Impartial History of the Puritans," in l&mo, which will be peculiarly adapted for the use of youth, and of those who have not leisure to go through Mr. Neal's lar- ger work, and to assist the recollection of those who are acquainted with it.
Taunton, August 11, 1796.
CONTENTS OF THE FIFTH VOLUME.
CHAPTER I.
From the Ring's Declaration of Indulgence to the Popish Plot.
THE French declare war with the Dutch and ovenm their country, The prince of Orange stadtholder, and the De Wits murdered. Proc- lamation against spreading false news. The beginning of the mer- chants' lecture at Pinners-hall. Death of bishop Wilkins, of Mr. Joseph Caryl and of Mr. Philip Nye. The parliament awakened. Arguments for and against the dispensing power. The house of com- mons vote against it. Alderman Love, in the name of the dissenters, renounces the dispensing power. The king gives up his indulgence, Shaftesbury deserts the Cabal. Bill for the ease of protestant dissent- ers. It miscarries. The commons address against the papists. The test-act brought into the house. Debates about it. It receives the royal assent. The act itself. Remarks. Summary of the penal laws. Consequences of them. The duke of York's second marriage. Fur- ther fruitless attempts for a comprehension. Death of Mr. William "Whitakerand of Mr. Janeway. Severity af the court against the dis- senters revived. Others plundered, imprisoned, and ruined. Peace with the Dutch. Parliament prosecute the papists and the cabal. Death of Mr. John Milton. Archbishop Sheldon's circular Iptter against the dissenters. Attempts for an accommodation frustrated by the bishops. People begin to compassionate the suffererings of non-con- formists. Proceedings of the court to establish arbitrary power. A. bill in the house of lords for that purpose. It is dropt. Remarks. Iosolence of the papists, produces another attempt for toleration. Duke of Buckingham's speech for it. Cry of the danger of the church. Of Sir Roger L'Estrange. Corbet's principles and practices of the •non-conformists. Pamphlets in favor of seperate meetings Of the informers. Their method. Their infamous lives and deaths. They are encouraged by the court and the bishops. Death of bishop Rey- nolds. Dangerous state of the nation. Marraige of the prince of Or- range with the princess Mary. Death of archbishop Sheldon, and promotion ofCompton. Death of Dr. Manton Biographical account of Mr. John Tombes. Death of Mr. John Rowe.
CHAPTER II.
From the Popish Plot, to the Death of King Charles II.
Peace of Nimeguen. The popish plot alarms the nation: not cred- ited at court. Act to qnalify papists to sit in parliament. Occasion
\l CONTENTS.
of dissolving the long parliament. Remarks on the popish plot. Death of Mr. Thomas Vincent and of Mr. Gale. Anew parliament. Meal- tub plot. Death of Mr. Matthew Poole, and of Dr. Thomas Goodwin. Of the petitioners for the sitting of the parliament, and of the Abhor- vers ; which gave rise to Whig and Tory. Of the Whigs. Of the Tories. Proceedings of the parliament. Bill of exclusion brought in a second time. Attempts for a comprehension. Speeches against it. Others in favor of it. It is lost, and a bill for toleration, or easing them from the penalties of the 35th of Elizabeth, introduced : with- drawn by the clerk of the crown. Votes of the commons. Dr. Stil- lingfleet writes against the dissenters. Various answers to his sermon. Death of Mr. Charnoek.
A biographical account of Mr. John Corbet.
The Oxford parliament. They revive the bill of exclusion. Their proceedings about withdrawing the toleration bill. Fitz-Harris' sham plot designed against the dissenters. His libel. He is executed. Sud- den dissolution of the parliament. The king's declaration of reasons for it. Address from the universities of Cambridge. Treatises pub- lished in favor of dissenters. The conduct of the High-church clergy. Sufferings of the non-conformists, and of the quakers. Death of Mr. Thomas Gouge. Contests about election of magistrates. Charter of the city of London forfeited. Remarks. Death of Mr. Case. Mr. Baxter and others severely prosecuted. Rye-house plot. Lord Russel beheaded. The non-conformists charged with the Rye-House plot. The Quakers purge themselves, and declare their sufferings. The Oxford decree. Sufferings of Mr. Delaune, and of Mr. Bampfield ; of Mr. Ralphson, and of Mr. Salkeld, London cases published. Death of Dr. John Owen.
A biographical account of Dr. Benjamin Whichcote.
Further sufferings of the Whigs. The constitution of England giv- en up and destroyed. Mr. Baxter again in prison. Trial of Mr. Rose- well. He is condemned. Sufferings and death of Mr. Jenkyn, and of Mr. Benjamin Woodbridge. Summary of the persecution in Scotland. Character of the Scotch bishops and clergy, and of the people. Pro- ceedings of the government: occasion an insurrection. Of house and field conventicles. Effects of the persecution. King Charles Il's death and character.
SUPPLEMENT to CHAPTERS I and II.
SECT. I.
THE HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS.
CONTROVERSY about laying on of hands. A dispute with the Quakers. Hicks's and Penn's publications: a meeting to hear the charges agaiust Hicks ; a second meeting for the same purpose. The issue of these meetings. The confession of faith published in 1677. The history of it, and of its impressions. Other confessions of faith published, particularly one in 1678. An account of Mr. William Dell
CONTENTS. Vll
<md of Mr. Francis Cornwell} the effect of his visitation sermon. Mr. Blackwood's change of sentiment on the questions relative to baptism. Mr. (Jornvvell's piece written against the ordinance of parliament. An account of Mr. Blackwood and of Mr. Benjamin Cox. Effect of Mr. Tombe's being appointed a trier of candidates for the ministry : and resolution of the triers to own the baptists as brethren.
THE HISTORY OF THE QUAKERS.
THE quakers avail themselves of the declaration of indulgence ; procure the release of their friends in prison, and assist the other dis- senters. A generous declaration of George Whitehead, Sir Orlando Bridgeman's generosity. The quakers & bulwark to the other dissent- ers. Persecution of them renewed. Particular instances. The eccle- siastical laws enforced. The penal statutes rigorously executed. The ease of a poor man, with a wife and live children. Fines levied by dis- traints. Violences of the mobs. Appeals ineffectual. Sufferings in Gloucestershire, at Plymouth, and other places. The parish-officers instigated to severity. A persecution at Bristol. Women insulted. The prisons crouded. Religious meetings held in prison; kept u|> by women and youth. Persecutions at Chester, in Somersetshire, and Lon- don. Assemblies held in the open air at the severest seasons. Sir Christopher Musgrave's reflection. The sufferings of several distin- guished individuals ; viz. George Fox and Thomas Lower ; the gener- osity of the latter ; removed by an habeas corpus; tried at the assizes in 1674; recommitted to prison; bailed; appears to traverse the in- dictment ; imprisoned again : seized with a severe sickness ; his for- titude ; is removed by an habeas corpus ; honorably discharged. Sir Matthew Hale's upright conduct. Fox sued for small tithes ; a seques- tration obtained; his disinterested conduct with regard to his wife's es- tate. The sufferings of George Whitehead and Thomas Burr, at Nor- wich ; the former fined several times. The injustice of the distrainers. Two friends prosecuted for a riot. The amount of the tines levied on the quakers. The case of Richard Vickris. The application of the quakers to the judges An account of sufferings by confiscations laid before the parliament. The application of Fox and others for relief; unsuccessful in England, though he had been heard in Ireland. Rob- ert Barclay's intercession for friends prosecuted in Scotland. George Fox publishes a declaration in defence of himself and friends. The quakers exert themselves to promote liberty of conscience. The grant to William Penn ; the consequences of it. The prognostications of Penn verified.
CHAPTER III.
From the Death of King Charles II. to King James lid's Declaration for Liberty of Conscience.
State of the nation. The king begins his reign with arbitrary and severe methods. His severity towards his enemies. A new parlia-
Vill CONTEXTS.
ment. Persecution revived. Mr. Baxter's trial. Duke of MonmouthV rebellion. Jefferies' and Col. Kirk's cruelties in the West. His severe prosecution of the whigs. The king's speech to his parliament. Some turn from the church to the dissenters. Progress of the persecution. — Methods of the dissenters to conceal their meetings. Progress of popery. Clergy forbade to preach against popery ; but they write against it. Reasons of the dissenters not writing. The clergy's writ- ing begins an open war between the king and church ; and brings lib- erty to the dissenters, by virtue of the dispensing power, which is de- clared by the judges illegal. Non-conformists caressed by the court. The end of the prosecution of the dissenters by the penal laws. Account of the Quaker's. Computation of the number of sufferers, and estimate of the damages sustained by the non-conformists in the two last reigns. Reasons of their numbers not decreasing. A commission of enquiry into the losses the dissenters had sustained by the church party. An ecclesiastical commission erected. A standing army to support it. — • Affairs of Scotland and of Ireland. The bishop of London suspended. The privileges of the university invaded ; and of Magdalen-college, Oxford. Both king and church court the dissenters. The king's speech in couucil for liberty of conscience. His Majesty's declaration of indulgence. Another for Scotland. Remarks. Dissenters admit- ted to serve offices ; but will not acknowledge the dispensing power — Their addresses of thanks. They are nevertheless jealous of the king's conduct. The church in distress apply to the dissenters for assist- ance, with strong promises of favor in better times, by the interest of the prince of Orange. Remarks. A letter to the dissenters. Meas- ures of the court to obtain a legal toleration. The king goes a progress ; changes the magistrates in corporations. Reasons of the dissenters not being for abrogating the penal laws at this time. Behavior of Sir John Shorter, the dissenting lord-mayor. The king goes into rash and violent measures by the advice of his priests. Bishop Parker writes for the court. Protestants displaced, aud Roman-eatholics put in their places. Death of Mr. Clarkson, of Dr. Jacomb. and of Mr. Col- lins. Some account of bishop Pearson and of bishop Fell.
CHAP. IV.
From King James's Declaration for Liberty of Conscience, to the Act of Toleration in the reign of King William and Queen Mary.
The king attempts to convert the princess of Orange to popery.— The princess's reply. He attempts the prince. His Highness's reply by pensionary. The queen declared to be with child. A public form of prayer for her Majesty. A second declaration for liberty of con- science, appointed to be read in all churches; with which some of the bishops comply. Different behavior of others. Their address. The king's answer. Remark. Seven of them sent to the Tower, but ac- quitted. The dissenters courted. Archbishop Sancroft's circular let- ter. Other assurances. Remarks. Suspected birth of the prince of Wales. Prince of Orange's expedition ; of which the king has intel-
CONTEXTS. IX
figenee from Prais and the Hague. His Majesty's proceedings upon it. He applies to the bishops but wavers. Prince of Orange's expe- dition and declaration. The king's preparations to resist him. Con- fusion at court, and in tlse city. Progress of the prince of Orange
Heads of colleges in Oxford send to the prince, arid sign the association. The king leaves the kingdom. An end of the male line of the Stuarts. Interregnum. Address of the clergy to the prince; and of the non- conformist ministers. His highness's answer. The throne declared vacant, and the crown offered to the prince and princess of Orange. Remarks. Address of the dissenting ministers to king William. — The king's answer. Their address to the queen. Her majesty's an- swer. Some bishops refused the oath. His majesty recommends qual- ifying all his protestant subjects for serving the government. Bill for changing the oath. Act of Toleration brought to the house and pass- ed. Bill for a comprehension. An ecclesiastical commission to pre- pare matters for it. Their powers. The legality of them. Reasons against alterations, and for them. Their proceedings. The particu- lar amendments. Proceedings of the convocation. Their disaffection. Remarks. On the account of abolishing episcopacy in Scotland ; which was owing to the Jacobitism of the Scots bishops and clergy; creates disaffection to the government, and to the English dissenters. The king made uneasy by the tories. Their conduct to the dissenters since the revolution. The schism bill; repealed by king Geor»e I. Dissenting ministers who survived the revolution.
Vol. V.
CONTENTS OF THE SUPPLEMENT.
SECTION I.
Aii account of Mr. Abraham Chear, of Mr. Richard Farmer, and of Mr. Thomas Hardcastle History of the baptist congregation in Br>ad-Mead, Bristol. An account of Mr. George Fownes, of Mr. Henry D'Anvers, of Mr. Thomas Wilcox, and of Mr. John Gosnold.
SECTION II.
An account of William Baily, of Isaac Pennington, of Giles Bar- nadiston. of Thomas Taylor, of William Bennet, of Thomas Stordy, and of William Gibson. William Penn's publications; particularly his treatise entitled " England's present interest considered :" his de- scription of the severities of the times. Robert Barclay's apology; its merit and celebrity : his work entitled " the anarchy of ranters. " A schism among the quake rs. Their petition. Their application for the release of their imprisoned friends. Their petition against the in- formers. Proceedings on it. Their address on the king's declaration ; the manner in which it was guarded. Robert Barclay's visit to the bishops in the Tower. The generous conduct of the quakers towards the bishops. Their address for relief in the cases of tithes and of oaths. The death and character of colonel David Barclay; of Wil- liam Dewsbury ; of Rebecca Travers ; and of Ann Downer.
SECTION III.
Reflections on the Revolution, and the Act of Toleration.
The general happiness introduced by the revolution. Doctrines propagated previously to it. The designs of James 11. The Jesuits' memorial; the outlines of the scheme laid down in it for rooting up protestantism ; and circumstances which favored it. The defect of the bill of rights. The defects of the act of toleration. The statute of William and Mary against such as deny the doctrine of the Trinity. The illiberal import of the word Toleration. A general review of the spirit and laws of the times preceding the act of toleration. The bap- tists and quakers advocates for liberty of conscience. The excellence, importance, and influence, of the act of toleration ; its aspect on the stute of Europe, and particularly on the situation of the Vaudois — The origin of the school in Gravel-lane, Southwark. An account of apiece entitled •' a brief History of the Unitarians, called also Soci- nians ;" and one called " a Rational Catechism."
CONTENTS OF THE NOTES
CHAPTER I.
Page 20, Caryl's exposition of Job. p 22. Mr Gough's reflections on the conduct of parliament with respect to the king's declaration. p. 33, An association for the opening of schools, and the distribution of books in Wales, p 36, The cause of the dissolution of parliament. The bill for the new test. p. 40, The authors of Foxes and Firebrands. Character of Sir Roger Le Strange's writings, p. 41 Wood's char- acter of Corbet, p. 42. Death and character of Richard Cromwell's wife. p. 43, A quotation from Sewel. p. 43, Account of bishop Rey- nolds, p. 48, The number of non-conformists, p. 49, The ground of the repeal of the act de herelico comburmdo. The spirit and power of the church, p. 49, 50, The character of archbishop Sheldon ; his ad» Tice to young noblemen. Dr. Grey's censure of Mr. Neal. Charac- ter of bishop Henchman, p. 52, An account of Dr. Manton, and an anecdote of lord Bolingbroke. p. 53, Mr Rowe's learning.
CHAP. II.
Page 53, Sir Edmundbury Godfrey's death and funeral. Great alarm occasioned by the popish plot, p 56, Sir Roger Le Strange, p. 37, The exclusion bill negatived by two votes only. Effects of that alarm about the popish plot. A lecture set up by the dissenters, p. 58, The king's conversation with Sir John Reresby on the plot. p. 59, An account of Mr. Vincent, and a work of his. Anecdotes of Mr. The- ophilus Gale. p. 62-3, Anecdotes of Mr. Matthew Poole ; his meth- od of study ; a liberal scheme formed by him. His ''Synopsis Criti- corum." The continuators' of his annotations, p. 63-4, Particulars concerning Dr. Thomas Goodwin, p. 64, The duke of York recalled. The petitions of the Abhorre.rs. p. 68, Lord Halifax's influence in throwing out the bill of exclusion, and the duke of York's ingratitude. p. 73, Letters of the French presbyterians, relative to episcopacy. Mr. Claude's remonstrance with bishop Compton. p. 74, A particu- lar concerning Mr. Charnock. p. 78, The king's declaration in 1681. p. 84, Mr. Thomas Gouge's character and charity, p. 85, A dispute at Oswestree between bishop Lloyd and Mr. James Owen. p. 87, Par- ticulars concerning Mr. Case. His exhortation to the court-martial, p. 87, Mr. Samuel Clarke's publications; the good effect of his labors at Alcester. p. 89, Mr, Shower's travels and conversation with Turet- tin, concerning the non- conformists, p. 90, Spratt's history of the Rye-house plot. The earl of Essex's death, p. 91, The nature of
Xll CONTENTS.
the manuscript for which Algernon Sydney was condemned. 91,2, An epitaph for him. p. 92, Characters of Dr. Owen and Mr. Mead vin- dicated, p. 94, The effect of the quakers address. The decree of the university of Oxford in favor of passive-obedience, p. 95, The treat- ment Dr. Whitby met with on account of his " Protestant Reconciler." p. 9ii. 7. History of Mr. Dehune ; Dr. Calamy's conduct towards him, and his character, p. 97, The fate of Delaune ; a reflection on the dissenters. Sufferings of the dissenters. An account of Mr. Francis Bumpfield. p. 98, Mr. Salkeld's imprisonment. The demand for Mr. Delaune's " Plea." p. 101, 2, Mr. Wood's character of Dr. Owen. Mr. Granger's remarks on it. Particulars concerning Dr. Owen ; his conversations with the duke of York and the king. The present of the latter to the dissenters, p. 104, The charter of Chester given up. The disinterested eomliict of the dissenters of that city. p. 105, The speech of the public orator at Cambridge to the king. p. 107, Sir John Talbot's interference for Mr. Rosewel, and Jefferie's conduct at and after the. trial, p 108, Particulars concerning Mr. Jenkyn. p- 113, Dr. Warner's character of Charles II. Dr. Sharpe's reflection on his death, p. Ill, A saying concerning Charles II. A design to place a bishop in Virginia.
CHAP. III.
PAGE 143 Circumstances attending the proclamation of James II. p. 114. The impression made by king James's first speech. A high flight of Dr. Sharp. The genuineness of an address of the quak- ers to James II. disputed, p. 145, The history of Dr. Titus Oates. p. 14G, Character of James's first parliament; reflections on their grant to the king. p. 147, Mr. Long's epitaph for Mr. Baxter. In- scription on sir Henry Wottorrs tomb. p. 148, The history of the printing of the duke of Monmouth's declaration, p. 150, A reference. p. 152. A short account of Dr. Pinfold, p. 154, The writings of the clergy against popery, p. 155, The charge of a license being refused to the writings of dissenters considered and stated, p. 157, Chief jus- tice Jones's speech on being displaced, p. 158, The duplicity of James, p. 159^ An address of the quakers. p. 162, Reflection on Mr. Howe's being driven from this country, and the names of his fellow- refugees, p. 166, The timid conduct of archbishop Sancroft. A vin- dication of Dr. Sprat, the bishop of Rochester, p. 167, The history of Mr. Johnson and of his sufferings, p. 168, The hostility of the Irish catholics to the cause of liberty. An account of bishop Coinp- ton, and his repartee to king James, p. 170, The intrepidity of his spirit, p. I7lj The conduct of Dr. Sprat on some particular occa- sions, p. 172, Licenses of exemption From particular penal statutes. p. 173, The insidious policy of James II. p. 174. The effect of the king's declaration in America. Dr. Increase Mather's voyage and reception at court, p. 170, The king's condescension to the quakers. The strain and number of the addresses from the dissenters. Some
CONTENTS. Xlll
account of Mr Stretton. p. 177, An anecdote of Dr. Williams; and the effect of the determination of the dissenting ministers, p. 178, The address of the London ministers, and the king's answer, p. 179, Some inaccuracies corrected. An apology lor the dissenters' address- es. The flattery of the church-party to Charles II. p. 180, The dis- senters courted, and then forsaken, by the clergy. A conversation between Mr. Howe and Dr. Sherlock, p. 183, The address of the dissenters of Chester. The flattering speech of the recorder of that city. p. 189, Au inaccuracy corrected. The character of Mr. Clark- son, p. 190, Dr. Sherlock's character of Dr. Jaconib. The valuable library of the latter. The affection shewn to Mr. Collins.
CHAPTER IV.
Page 199, Bishop Barlow's advice to his clergy ; his inconsistent conduct, p. 200, The conduct of the clergy, who read the declara- tion, p. 201, Archbishop Sancroft's order and opinion in favor of reading royal declarations in churches, and inconsistent conduct. — p. 202. The people condole with the bishops sent to the Tower; ten non-conforming ministers visit them; and the soldiers drink their health, p. 203, Two remarkable circumstances attending the trial of the bishops. The joy expressed on their acquittal ; and the king's mortification, p. 204, An article of archbishop Sancroft's circular letter to his clergy, p. 201, 11, The singular circumstances of the prince of Orauge's landing, and an application of some lines from Claudian to it. The share of the bishops in inviting over the prince of Orange considered, p. 213, An anecdote of the persons who seized the king at Feversham. p. 217, Scotch commissioners wait ou king William; his scruple about the oath they tendered, p. 220, The lib- eral answer of queen Mary to Dr. Increase Mather, p. 223, A protest of the peers. The same. p. 224, The defectiveness of the act of tol- eration, and Mr. Locke's sentiments concerning it. p. 230, Dr. Jane's speech on opening the convocation : remarks on it. The causes of his election to the prolocutor's chair, and the principles of his conduct, p. 231, Tiie ground of the differences in subsequent convocations, p. 232, The conclusion of bishop Compton's speech in the upper house of convocation. The failure of a design to promote the spirit of devo- tion. Reflections on the design of this convocation miscarrying.
NOTES TO THE SUPPLEMENT.
Page 241, An account of Mr. Ewins. p. 246, An account of Mary Fisher, and her visit to Sultan Mahomet, p. 233, Mosheim's want of candor, p. 257, Account of Mr. Sw inton. p. 286, The liberality of the governments formed by the quakers and baptists, p. 288, The march of the Yaudois, and the remarkable circumstances of it.
CONTENTS OF THE APPENDIX.
Page.
No. I. A Declaration of certain principal Articles of Religion 273
No. H. Letter to the Bishops and Pastors of England, who
have renounced the Roman antichrist 276
No. III. John Fox's Letter to Queen Elizabeth, to dissuade her
from burning two Dutch anabaptists 278
No. IV. A Directory of Church Government, anciently conten- ded for and practised by the first Non-conformists 280
No. V. Letter of the imprisoned Puritan Ministers to her Ma- jesty, in vindication of their innocence 293
No. VI. Articles of Religion agreed upon by the Archbishops,
Bishops. &c. of Ireland 298
No. VII. Articles of the Church of England, revised by the
Assembly of Divines in 1643 314
No. VIII. The Directory for the Public Worship of God, agreed on by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, approved by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and ratified by Parliament in 1645 322
No. IX. The Form of Presbyterial Church Government 349
No. X. The Assembly's Declaration of the falsehood of a lying
scandalous Pamphlet by Mr. Henderson 363
No. XI. A Confession of Faith of seven Congregations or
Churches, commonly but unjustly called Anabaptists 365
No. XII. Robert Barclay's concise View of the Chief Princi- ples of the Christian Religion as professed by the people called Quakers. 379
No. XIII. The Toleration Act 386
No. XIV. The Schism Act 397
No. XV. The Repeal? an Act for strengthening the Protestant
Interest. 40!
HISTORY
N S.
CHAP. 1.
'From the King's Declaration of Indulgence to the Popish Plot in the Year 1678,
107-3.
JLHE French king having prevailed with the English court to break the triple alliance, and make war with the Dutch, published a declaration at Paris, signifying that he could not, without diminution of his glory, any longer dis- semble the indignation raised in him, by the unhandsome carriage of the states-general of the United Provinces, and therefore proclaimed war against them both by sea and. land. In the beginning of May, he drew together an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men, with which he took the principal places in Flanders, and with a rapid fury overran the greatest part of the Netherlands. In the beginning of July betook possession of Utrecht, a city in the heart of the United Provinces, where he held his court,, and threatened to besiege Amsterdam itself. In this ex- tremity the Dutch opened their sluices, and laid a great part of their country under water ; the populace rose, and having obliged the States to elect the young prince of Orange stadtholder, they fell upon the two brothers Cor- nelius and John de Wit, their late pensionary, and tore them to pieces in a barbarous manner. The young prince, who was then but twenty- two years old? used all imagina- ble vigilance and activity to save the remainder of his country ; and like a true patriot, declared he would die in the last dyke, rather than become tributary to any foreign Vol, V. 3
18 THE HISTORY CHAP. f .
power. At length their allies came to their assistance, when the young prince, like another Scipio, abandoning his own country, besieged, and took the important town of Bonne, which opened a passage for the Germans into Flanders, and struck such a surprize into the French, whose enemies were now behind them, that they abandoned all their conquests in Holland, except Maestritcht and Grave, with as much precipitance as they had made them. These rapid conquests of the.French opened peoples mouths against the court, and raised such discontents in England, that his majesty was obliged to issue out his proclamation, to suppress all unlawful and undutiful conversation, threat- ening a severe prosecution of such who should spread false news, or intermeddle with affairs of state, or promote scan- dal against his majesty's counsellors, by their common dis- course in coffee-houses, or places of public resort. He was obliged also to continue the Exchequer shut up, con- trary to his royal promise, and to prorogue his parliament till next year, which he foresaw would be in a flame at their meeting.
During this interval of parliament, the declaration of in- dulgence continued in force, and the dissenters had rest; when the presbyterians and independents, to shew their agreement among themselves, as well as to support the doc- trines of the reformation against the prevailing errors of popery, socinianism, and infidelity, set up a weekly lecture at Pinner's- hall, in Broad-street, on Tuesday mornings, under the encouragement of the principal merchants and tradesmen of their persuasion in the city. Four presbyte- rians were joined by two independents to preach by turns, and, to give it the greater reputation, the principal minis- ters for learning and popularity were chosen as lecturers : as Dr. Bates, Dr. Manton, Dr. Owen, Mr. Baxter, Mr! Collins, Jenkins, Mead, and afterwards Mr. Alsop, Howe, Cole, and others ; and though there were some little mis- understandings at their first setting out, about some high p.sints of Calvinism, occasioned by one of Mr. Baxter's first sermons, yet the lecture continued in this form till the year 1695, when it split upon the same rock, occasioned by the reprinting Dr. Crisp's works. The four presbyte- rians removed to Salter's-hall, and set up a lecture ou ths
£HAI\ I. OF THE PURITANS. l£)
same day and hour. The two independents remained at Pinner's-hali, and when there was no prospect of an ac- commodation, each party filled up their numbers out of their respective denominations, and they are both subsist- ing to this day.
Among the puritan divines who died this year, bishop Wilkins deserves the first place ; he was born at Fawsly in Norths tnptonshire, in the house of his mothers' father, Mr. J. Dod tae dccalogist, in the year 1614, and educated in Magdalen- hall under Mr. Tombes.* He was some time warden of Wad ham college, Oxford, and afterwards mas- t r of Trinity college, Cambridge, of which he was depriv- ed at the restoration, though he conformed. He married a sister of the protector's, Oliver Cromwell, and complied with all the changes of the late times, being, as Wood ob- serves, always puritanically aftected ; but for his admirable abilities, anil extraordinary genius, he had scarce his equal. He was made bishop of Chester 1688 ; and surely, says Mr. Eachard, the court could not have found out a man of greater ingenuity and capacity, or of more universal know- ledge and understanding in all parts of polite learning. Archbishop Tillotson and bishop Burnet, who were his intimates, give him the highest encomium ; as, that he was a pious christian, an admirable preacher, a rare mathema- tician, and mechanical philosopher; and a man of as great a mind, as true judgment, as eminent virtues, and of as great a soul, as any they ever knew. He was a person of universal charity, and moderation of spirit ; and was con- cerned in all attempts for a comprehension with their dis- senters. He died of the stone in Dr. Tillotson's house in Chancery-lane, Nov., 49, i672, in the 59th year of his age
Mr. Joseph Caryl M. A. the ejected minister of St. Mag- nus, London-bridge, was born of genteel parents in London, 1602, educated in Exeter college, and afterwards preacher of Lincoin's-iun ; he was a member of the assembly of di- vines, and afterwards one of the tryers for approbation of ministers ; in all which stations he appeared a man of great learning, piety and modesty. He was sent by the parlia ment to attend the king at Holmby-house, and was one of their commissioners in the treaty of the Isle of Wight. Af- ter his ejectment in 1663, he lived privately in London,,
* Athen. Oxon. p. 507.
SO THE HISTORY CHAP. 1,
and preached to his congregation as the times would per- mit ; he was a moderate independent, and distinguished himself hy his learned exposition upon the hook of Job. f He died universally lamented by all his acquaintance Feb- ruary 7? 16/2-3, and in the sevinty-first year of his age.*
Mr. Piiilip Nye, M. A. was a divine of a warmer spirit : lie was born of a genteel family 1596, and was educated in Magdalen college, f Oxford, where he took the degrees. In 1630 he was curate of St. Michael's Cornhill, and three years after fled from bishop Laud's persecution into Hol- land, but returned about the beginning of the long parlia- ment, and became minister of Kimbolton in Huntingdon- shire. He was one of the dissenting brethren in the as- sembly, one of the fryers in the protector's time, and a prin- cipal manager of the meeting of the congregational messen- gers at the Savoy. He was a great politician, insomuch that it was debated in council, after the restoration, wheth- er he should not be excepted for life ; and it was conclud- ed, that if lie should accept or exercise any office ecclesi- astical or civil, he should, to all intents and purposes in law, stand as if he had been totally excepted. He was ejected from St. Bartholomew behind the Exchange, and preached privately, as opportunity offered, to a congrega- tion of dissenters till the present year, when he died in the month of September, about seventy-six years old, and lies Juried in the church of St. Michael's, Cornhill, leaving be- hind him the character of a man of uncommon depth, and of one who was seldom if ever out-reached. £
When the king met his parliament Feb. % 1673, after a recess of a year and nine months, he acquainted them with the reasonableness and necessity of the war with the Dutch,
t This work was printed in two volumes folio, consisting of upwards of 600 sheets: and there was also an edition in twelve volumes 4to. " One just remark," says Mr. Granger, " has been made on its utility, that is a very sufficient exercise for the virtue of patience, which it was chiefly intended to inculcate and improve." Granger's Hist, of Eng- land, vol. iii. p. 313. Svo. note. Ed.
* Calamy. vol. ii. p. 7. Palmer's Noncon. Mem. vol. i. p. 121.
f Mr. Nye was entered a commoner of Brazen-Nose, July 1613, aged about nineteen years : but making no long stay there, he removed to, Magdalen hall, not Magdalen college. Dr. Grey ; and Wood's Athen, Ojon. vol. ii. p. 308. Ed.
I Calamy, vol. ii. p. 29. Palmer, vol, i. p. 86.
CHAP, i, OF THE PURITANS. 31
and having asked a supply, told thcra, " he had found the good effect of his indulgence to dissenters, but that it was a mistake in those who said, more liberty was given to pa- pists than others, because they had only freedom in their own houses, and no public assemblies ; he should there- fore take it ill to receive contradiction in what he had done; and to deal plainly with you, (said his majesty) I am resAved to stick to my declaration." Lord chancellor Shaftesbury seconded the king's speech, and having vin- dicated the indulgence, magnified the king's zeal for the church of England and the protestant religion. But the house oi co unions declared against the dispensing power* and arg ted, that though the king had a power to pardon offenders, he ijad not a right to authorize men to break the laws, for this would infer a power to alter the government : and if the king could secure offenders by indemnifying them beforehand, it was in vain to make any laws at alU because, according to this maxim, they had no force but at the king's discretion. — But it was objected. on the other side, that a difference was to be made between penal laws in spiritual matters and others ; that the king's supremacy gave him a peculiar authority over these, as was evident by his tolerating the Jews, and the churches of foreign protestauts. — To which it was replied, that the intent of the law in asserting the supremacy was only to exclude all foreign jurisdiction, and to lodge the wdiole authority with tiie king ; but that was still bounded and regulated by law ; the Jews were still at mercy, and only connived at, but the foreign churches were excepted by a particular clause in the act of uniformity ; and therefore, upon the whole, they came to this resolution Feb. 10, " that penal statutes in matters ecclesiastical cannot be suspended but by act of parliament ; that no such power had ever been claimed by any of his majesty's predecessors, and there- fore his majesty's indulgence was contrary to law, and tended to subvert the legislative power, which had always been acknowledged to reside in the king and his two houses of parliament." Pursuant to this resolution, they addressed the king Feb. 19, to recal his declaration. The king answered, that he was sorry they should question his power in ecclesiastics, which bad not been done in the
%% r THE HISTORY CHAP. 1.
reigns of his ancestors ; that he did not pretend to suspend laws, wherein the properties, rights, or liberties of his sub- jects were concerned, nor to alter any thing in the estab- lished religion, but only to take off the penalties inflicted on dissenters, which he believed they themselves would not wish executed according to the rigor of the law.* The commons, perceiving his majesty was not inclined to de- sist from his declaration, stopt the money-bill^ and pre- sented a second address, insisting upon a full and satis- factory assurance, that his majesty's conduct in this affair might not be drawn into example for the future, which at length they obtained.
The parliament was now first disposed to distinguish between protestant dissenters and popish recusants, and to give ease to the former without including the laiter, es- pecially when the dissenters in the house disavowed the dispensing power, though it had been exercised in their favor. Alderman Love, member for the city of London, stood up, and in a handsome speech declared, that he had rather go without his own desired liberty than have it in a way so destructive of the liberties of his country, and the protestc.nt interest ; and that this was the sense of the main body of dissenters. Which surprized the whole house, and gave a turn to those very men, who for ten years to- gether had been loading the non-conformists with one penal law after another : but things were now at a crisis ; pope-
* Eachard, p. 889. Burnet, vol. ii. p. 72, 73. f The remarks of Mr. Gough, here, are just and weighty; "The conduct of the commons in this case hath procured the general voice of our historians in their favor, and it must be acknowledged that they acted consistently with their duty in opposing the infringement of the constitution. — Vet as the king's apparent inclination to have the dis- senters exempted from penal laws would have merited praise, if it had been sincere, and attempted in a legal way, so the opposition of the parliament would have been entitled to the claim of greater merit, if it had not originated, with many of them, in an aversion to (he principles of the declaration (impunity to the non-conformists) as much as the grounds upon which it was published ; and if they had not laid the foundations for this contest in the various penal laws, which, under the influence of party pique, they had universally enacted and received ; and on all occasions manifested a determined enmity to all dissenters from the established religion ; for if they had not au aversion to the principles of the declaration, they had now a fair opportunity of legal- izing it, by converting it into an act of parliament," History of the •Quakers, vol. ii. p. 37 -h.
«HAP. 1. OF THE PURITANS. 2*S
py and slavery were at the door ; the triple alliance broken ; the protestant powers ravaging one another ; the Exche- quer shut up ; the heir apparent of the crown an open pa- pist: and an army encamped near London under popish of- ficers ready to be transported into Holland to complete their ruin. When the dissenters, at such a time, laid aside their resentments against their persecutors, and renounced their own liberty for the safety of the protestant religion, and the liberties of their country ; all sober men began to think, it was high time to put a mark of distinction between them and the Ro.nan catholics.
J3ut the king was of another mind ; yet being in want of money, he was easiiy persuaded by his mistresses to give up his indulgence, contrary to the advice of the CJLB*1L9 who told him, if he would make a bold stand for his pre- rogative, all would be well. But he came to the house M ircii 8, an;! having press*} I the commons to dispatch the money-bill, he added, — " if there be any scruple yet re- maining with you, touching the suspension of the penal laws, I here faithfully promise you, that what has been done in that particular shall not for the future be drawn in- to example and consequence : and as i daily expect from you a bill for my supply, so I assure you I shall as willing- ly receive and pass any other you shall offer me, that may tend io the giving you satisfaction in all your just grievan- ces." Accordingly he called for the declaration, and broke the seal with his own hands, by which means all the licen- ces for meeting-houses were called in. Our historians* observe, that this proceeding of the king made a surprizing alteration in lord Shaftesbury, who had been the soul of the Cabal, and the master-builder of the scheme for making the king absolute ; but that when his majesty was so un- steady as to desert him in the project of an indulgence af- ter he iiad promised to stand by him, he concluded the king; was not to be trusted, and appeared afterwards at the head of the country party.
The non-conformists were now in some hopes of a legal toleration by parliament, for the, commons resolved, nemine contradicente, that a bill be brought in for the ease of hi< majesty's protestant subjects, who are dissenters in matters
*Eachard. p. 89*. f Burnet, vol. ii. p. ~?
Si THE HISTORY dHAP. L
of religion from the church of England. The substance of the bill was,
" 1. That ease be given to his majesty's protestant sub- jects dissenting in matters of religion, who shall subscribe the articles of the doctrine of the church of England, and shall take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy.* 2. That the said protestant subjects be eased from all pains and penalties for not coming to church. 3. That the clause in the late act of uniformity, for declaring the assent and consent, be taken away by this bill. 4. That the said protestant subjects be eased from all pains and penalties, for meeting together for performance of any religious ex- ercises. 5. That every teacher shall give notice of the place where lie intends to hold such his meetings to the quarter-sessions, where in open court he shall first make such subscription, and take such oaths as aforesaid, and receive from thence a certificate thereof, where all such proceedings shall remain upon record. 6. That any such teacher may exercise as aforesaid, until the next respective quarter-sessions, and no longer, in case he shall not first take the oaths, and make such subscription before two of the neighboring justices of peace, and shall first give them notice of the place of his intended meeting, and take a cer- tificate thereof under the said justices' hands, a duplicate whereof they are to return into the next quarter-sessions. 7. The doors and passages of all houses and places where the said dissenters do meet, shall be always open and free during the time of such exercise. 8. If any dissenter re- fuses to take the church-wardens oaths, he shall then find another tit person, who is not a dissenter, to execute that office, and shall pay him for it." But though all agreed in bringing in a bill, there was neither time nor unanimity enough in the house this session, to agree upon particu- lars ; for according to bishop Burnet, it went no farther than a second reading. Mr. Eachard says, it was dropt in the house of lords on account of some amendments, till the parliament was prorogued ; but Mr. Coke says, more tru- ly, that it was because the dead weight of bishops joined with the king aud the caballing party against it.f
While this was depending, the commons addressed th?
* Eachard, p. 889. t Detect, p. 490,
GHAP. 1. OF THE PURITANS. 3$
king against papists and Jesuits, expressing their great con- cern to see such persons admitted into employments and places of great trust and profit, and especially into milita- ry commands, and therefore pray, that the laws against them may be put in execution. Upon which a proclama- tion was issued, though to very little purpose, enjoining all popish priests and Jesuits to depart the realm, and iie laws to be put in execution against all popish recusants. But his majesty making no mention of removing them from places of profit and trust, the commons, knowing where their strength lay, suspended their money bill, and ordered a bill to be brought in, to confine all places of profit and trust to those only who are of the communion of the church of England : this is commonly called the test act, and was levelled against the duke of York and the present ministry, who were chiefly of his persuasion. When it was brought into the house, the court opposed it with all their might, and endeavored to divide the church party, by pro- posing, that some regard might be had to prole stant dissen- ters, hoping by this means to clog the bill, and throw it out of the house : upon which alderman Love, a dissenter, and representative for the city, stood up again and said, he hoped the clause in favor of protestant dissenters would occasion no intemperate heats ; and moved, that since it was likely to prove so considerable a barrier against po- pery, the bill might pass without any alteration, and that nothing might Interpose till it was finished ; and then (says the alderman,) we [dissenters] will try if the parliament will not distinguish us from popish recusants, by soma marks of their favor; but we are willing to lie under the severity of the laws for a time, rather than clog a more necessary work with our concerns. These being the sen- timents of the leading dissenters both in the house and without doors, the bill passed tSie commons with little op- position ; but when it came to be debated in the house of peers, in the king's presence, March (5, the whole court was against it, except the earl of Bristol ; and maintained that it was his majesty's prerogative to employ whom he pleased in his service. Some were for having the king stand his ground against the parliament, The duke of Tot. V, 4
26 THE HISTORY CHAP. I.
Buckingham and lord Berkly* proposed bringing the- army to town, and taking out of both houses the members who made opposition. Lauderdale offered to bring an army from Scotland ; and lord Clifford told the king, that the people now saw through his designs, and therefore he must resolve to make himself master at once, or be for ever sub- ject to much jealousy and contempt. But the earl of Shaftes- bury, having changed sides, pressed the king to give the parliament full content, and then they would undertake to procure him the supply he wanted. This suited the king's easy temper, who, not being willing to risk a second civil war, went into these measures, and out of mere necessity for money, gave up the papists, in hopes that he might af- terwards recover what in the present extremity he was for- ced to resign. This effectually broke the CABAL, and put the Human catholics upon pursuing other measures to introduce their religion, which was the making way for a popish successor of more resolute principles ; and from lience we may date the beginning of the popish plot, which did not break out till I678, as appears by Mr. Coleman's letters. The bill received the royal assent March 25, to- gether with a money-bill of one million two hundred thou- sand pounds ; and then the parliament was prorogued to October 20, after a short session of seven weeks.
The Test Act is entitled, an act to prevent (Hungers which happen from popish recusants. It requires, " that all per- sons bearing any office of trust or profit, shall take the baths of supremacy and allegiance in public and open court, and shall also receive the sacrament of the Lord's supper, according to the usage of the church of England, in some parish church, on some Lord's day, immediately after di- vine service and sermon, and deliver a certificate oS having so received the sacrament, under the hands of the respec- tive ministers and church-wardens, proved by two credible witnesses upon oath, and upon record in court. And that all persons taking the said oaths of supremacy and allegi- ance shall likewise make and subscribe this following dec- laration, I A. II do declare, that 1 believe there is no tran- substantiatwn in the sacrament of the Lord's supper, or in the elements of bread and wine, at or after the consecration
* Burnet, vol. ii. p. 75, &.
CHAP. 1. C»F THE PURITANS. £7
thereof by any person whatsoever. The penalty of breaking through this act, is a disability of suing in any court of law, or equity, being guardian of any child, executor or admin- istrator to any person, or of taking any legacy, or deed of gift, or of bearing any public office ; besides a fine of five hundred pounds."
Mr. Eachard observes well, that this act was principal- ly, if not solely, levelled at the Roman catholics, as ap- pears from the title ; and this is further evident from the disposition of the house of commons at this time, to ease the protestant dissenters of some of their burdens. If the dissenters had fallen in with the court measures, they might have prevented the bill's passing. But they left their own liberties in a state, of uncertainty, to secure those of the nation. However, though the intention was good, the act itself is, in my opinion, very unjustifiable, because it founds dominion in grace. A man cannot be an excise- man, a custom-house officer, a lieutenant in the army or navy, no not so much as a tide-waiter, without putting on the most distinguishing badge of Christianity, according to the usa°:e of the church of England. Is not this a strong, temptation to profanation and hypocrisy ? Does it not per- vert one of the most solemn institutions of religion, to pur- poses for which it was never intended ? And is it not easy to find securities of a civil nature, sufficient for the preser- vation both of church and state ? When the act took place the duke of York, lord high admiral of England ; lord Clifford, lord high treasurer ; and a great many other po pish officers, resigned their preferments ; but not one pn> testant dissenter, there not being one such in the adminis- tration : however, as the church party shewed a noble zeal for their religion, bishop Burnet observes, that the dissen- ters got great reputation by their silent deportment ; though the king and the court bishops resolved to stick in their skirts.*
This being the last penal law made against the non-con- formists in this reign, it may not be improper to put them altogether, that the reader may have a full view of their distressed circumstances ; for besides the penal laws of queen Elizabeth, which were confirmed by (his parlia
* Vol. si. p. 80.
£8 THE HISTORY CHAP. 1.
merit; one of which was no less than banishment', and another a mulct on every one for not coming to church.
'! here were in force,
1st. An act for well governing and regulating corpo- rations, 13 Car. II. ch. 1. Whereby all who hear office in any city, corporation, town, or borough, are required to take the oaths and subscribe the declaration therein men- tioned, and to receive the sacrament of the Lord's supper according to the rites of the church of England. This ef- fectually turned the dissenters out of the government of all corporations.
&<]. The act of uniformity, 14 Car. II. ch. 4. Whereby all parsons, vicars, and ministers, who enjoyed any prefer- ment in the church, were obliged to declare their unfeign- ed assent and consent to every thing contained in the book of common-prayer, &e. or be ipso facto deprived : and all school-masters and tutors are prohibited from teaching youth without license from the archbishop or bishop, under pain of three months imprisonment.
3d. An act to prevent and suppress seditious conventi- cles. 16 Car. II. ch. 4. Whereby it is declared unlawful to be present at any meeting for religious worship, except according to the usage of the church of England, where iive besides the family should be assembled ; in which case the first and second offences are made subject to a cer- tain fine or three mouths imprisonment, on conviction be- fore a justice of peace on the oath of a single witness ; and the third offence, on conviction at the sessions, or before the justices of assize, is punishable by transportation for seven years.
4th. An act for restraining non- conformists from in- habiting in corporations, 17 Car. II. ch. 2. Whereby all dissenting ministers, who would not take an oath therein specified against the lawfulness of taking up arms against the king on any pretence whatsoever, and that they would never attempt any alteration of government in church and state ; are banished five miles from all corporation towns, and subject to a fine of forty pounds, in case they should preach in any conventicle.
5th. Another act to prevent and suppress seditious con- venticles, %% Car JI, ch. §. Whereby any persons who teach
eilAP. i. OF THE PURITANS, $9
in such conventicles, are subject to a penalty of twenty pounds for the first, and forty pounds for every subsequent offence ; and any person who permits such a conventicle to be held in their house, is liable to a fine of twenty pounds ; and justices of peace are empowered to break open doors where they are informed such conventicles are held, and take the offenders into custody.
6th. An act for preventing dangers which may happen from popish recusants, commonly called the test act, where- by (as afore- mentioned) every person is incapacitated from holding a [date of trust under the. government, without tak- ing the sacrament according to the rites of the church of England.
By the rigorous execution of these laws, the non-conform- ist ministers were separated from their congregations, from their maintenance, from their houses and families, and their people reduced to distress and misery, or obliged to wor- ship God in a manner contrary to the dictates of their con- sciences, on penalty of heavy fines, or of being shut up in a prison among thieves and robbers. Great numbers retir- ed to the plantations : but Dr. Owen, who was shipping off" his effects for New-England, was forbid to leave the king- dom by express orders from king Charles himself. If there had been treason or rebellion in the case, it had been jus- tifiable ; but when it was purely for non-conformity to cer- tain rites and ceremonies, and a form of church government, it can deserve no better name than that of persecution.
Tiie house of commons, from their apprehensions of the growth of popery and of a popish successor to the crown, petitioned the king against the duke's second marriage with the princess of Modena, an Italian papist, but his ma- jesty told them they were too late. Upon which the Com- mons stopt their money-hill, voted the standing army a grievance, and were proceeding to other vigorous resolu- tions, when the king sent for them to the house of peers, and with a short speech prorogued them to January 7» af- ter they had sat only nine days. In the mean time the Auke' 's marriage was consummated, with the consent of the French king, which raised the expectation of the Roman catholics higher than ever.
This induced the more zealous protectants to think of a
30 THE HiSTORY CHAP. 1.
firmer union with the dissenters ; accordingly Mr. Baxter, at the request of the earl of Orrery, drew up some proposals for a comprehension, agreeably to those already mention- ed.* ■• He proposed that the meeting-houses of dissenters should be allowed as chapels, till there were vacancies for them in the churches — and that those who had no meeting- houses should be school- masters or lecturers till such time — that none should be obliged to read the. apocrypha — that parents might have liberty to dedicate their own children in baptism — that ministers might preach where somebody else who had the room might read tha common prayer— that ministers be not obliged to give the sacrament to such as are guilty of scandalous immoralities, nor to refuse it to those who scruple kneeling — that persons excommunicated may not be imprisoned and ruined — and that toleration be given to all conscientious dissenters — ." These propos- als, being communicated to the earl of Orrery, were put in- to the, hands of bishop Morley,J who returned them with- out yielding to any thing of importance. The motion was also revived in the house of commons ; but the shortness of the sessions put a stop to its progress. Besides, the court bishops seemed altogether indisposed to any concessions.!
This year put an end to the lives of two considerable non-conformist divines ; Mr. William Whitaker, the eject- ed minister of St. Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey, son of Mr. Jer. Whitaker, a divine of great learning in the orien- tal languages. He was an elegant preacher, and a good man from his youth. While he was at Emanuel college, he was universally beloved ; and when he came to London, generally esteemed for his sweet disposition. He was first preacher at Hornchurch, and then at the place from whence he was ejected. He afterwards preached to a separate congregation as the times would permit, and died in the year 1673.§
Mr. James Janeway, M. A. was born in Hertfordshire, and student of Christ church, Oxford. He was afterwards tutor in the house of Mr. Stringer at Windsor ; but not be- ing satisfied with conformity, he opened a separate meeting
* Baxter, part iii. p. HO. | Page 109. f Baxter, part iii. p. 140.
§ Calamy, vol. ii. p. 35. Palmer, vol. i. p. 12T,
«";HAP. 1. OF THE PURITANS. 3i
in llotherhithe, where lie preached to a numerons congre- gation with great success. || He was a zealous preacher, and fervent in prayer, but being weakly, his indefatigable labors broke his constitution, so that he died of a consump- tion March 16 1673-4, in the 38th year of his age.
The revocation ot the indulgence, and the displeasure of the court against the dissenters, for deserting them its, their designs to prevent the passing the test act, let loose the whole tribe of informers. The papists being exclud- ed from places of trust, the court had no tenderness for protectant non-conformists ; the judges therefore had or tiers to quicken the execution of the laws against them. — The estates of those of the best quality in each county were oruered to be seized. The mouths of the high church pulpiteers were encouraged to open as loud as possible: one in his sermon before the house of commons told them, that the non-conformists ought not to be tolerated, but to be cured by vengeance. He urged them to set fire to the faggot, and to teach them by scourges or scorpions, and open their eyes with gall. The king himself issued out a proclamation for putting the penal laws in full execu- tion ; which had its effect.*
Mr. Baxter was one of the first upon whom the storm fell, being apprehended as he was preaching his Thursday lecture at Mr. Turner's. He went with a constable and Keting the informer to Sir William PuUeney's, who de- manding the warrant, found it signed by Henry Montague, jtsq. bailiff of Westminster. Sir William told the con stable, that none but a city justice could give a warrant to apprehend a man for preaching in the city, whereupon lie was dismissed. J Endeavors were used to surprise Dr. Mauton, and send him to prison upon the Oxford or five- mile act, but Air. Bedford preaching for him was accident- ally apprehended in his stead ; and though he had taken the oath in the five mile act, was fined twenty pounds, and the place forty pounds, which was paid by the hearers.
The like ravages were made in most parts of England ; Mr, Joseph Svvaiiield, of Salisbury, was seized preaching
ijCalaoiy, vol. ii. p. 838. anil Palmer, vol. p. 634.
* State Tracts, vol. iii. p, i2. Baxter, part iii. p. 153.
f Ibid, part i;i. p. io5. § Oof. Flea, part iv, p. T5.
33 THE HISTORY CHAP. I*
in his own house, and hound over to the assizes, and im- prisoned in the county gaol almost a year. Twenty -five persons, men and women, were indicted for a riot, that is, for a conventicle, and suffered the penalty of the law.§ The informers were Roman catholics, one of whom was executed for treason in the popish plot. — At East- Sal - comh, in Devonshire, lived one Joan Boston, an old hlind widow, who, for a supposed conventicle held at her house, was fined twelve pounds, and for non-payment of it threat- ened with a gaol. After some weeks the officers hroke open her doors, and carried away her goods to above the value of the fine. They sold as many goods as were worth thirteen pounds for fifty shillings; six hogsheads valued at forty shillings for nine shillings; and pewter, feather- beds, &c. for twenty shillings ; besides the rent which they demanded of her tenants. — Mr. John Thompson, min- ister in Bristol, was apprehended, and refusing to take the Oxford oath was committed to prison, where he was seized with a fever through the noisomeness of the place : A physician being sent for, advised his removal; and a bond of five hundred pounds was offered the sheriff for his security : Application was also made to the bishop without success ; so he died in prison March 4. declaring, that if he had known when he came to prison that he should die there, he would have done no otherwise than he did. — Numberless examples of the like kind might be produced during the recess of the parliament. But the kiug's want of money, and the discontents of his people, obliged him to put an end to the war with the Dutch, with no other ad- vantage than a sum of two or three hundred thousand pounds for his expences.
His majesty was unwilling to meet his parliament, who were now full of zeal against popery, and began to consid- er the uon-conformists as auxiliaries to the protestant cause ; but necessity obliged him to convene them ; and as soon as they met Jan. 7? 1674, they addressed his majesty to banish all papists, who were not house-keepers nor me- nial servants to peers, ten miles from London ; and to ap- point a fast for the calamities of the nation. They attack- ed the remainiug members of the cabal, and voted an ad-
§ Conf. Plea, part iv. p. 75.
<>HAP. 1. OF THE PURITANS. 3d
dress for removing them from his majesty?s council ; upon, which the king prorogued them for above a year, after they had sat six weeks, without giving any money, or passing one single act; which was an indication of ill blood be- tweeu the king and parliament, and a certain forerunner of vengeance upon the dissenters. But to stiile the clam- ors of the people, his majesty republished his proclama- tion,* forbidding their meddling in state affairs, or talk- iug seditiously in coffee-houses ; and then commanded an order to be made public, •• that effectual care be taken for the suppressing of conventicles ; and whereas divers pre- tend old licences from his majesty, and would support themselves by that pretence, his majesty declares, that all his licences were long since recalled, and that no conven- ticle has any authority, allowance,, or encouragement from him. '"I
This year put an cm] to the life of that great man John Milton, born in London, and educated in Christ-college, Cambridge, where lie discovered an uncommon genius, which was very much improved by his travels. He was Latin secretary to the long parliament, and wrote in de- fence of the murder of king Charles I. against Salmatius and others, with great spirit, and in a pure and elegant Latin stile. He was afterwards secretary to the protector Cromwell, and lost the sight of both his eyes by hard study„ At the Restoration some of his books were burnt, and him- self in danger, but he was happily included in the act of indemnity, and spent the remainder of his life in retire- ment. He was a man of an unequalled genius, and ac- quired immortal fame by his incomparable poem of Para- dise Lost ; in which he manifested such a sublimity of thought, and such elegance of diction, as perhaps were never exceeded in any age or nation of the world. His daughters read to him, after he was blind, the Break poets, though they understood not the language. He die I in mean circumstances at Buuhill near Loudon, in the 6/th year of his age. J
* Gazette, No. 8S3. f Ibid. No. 962, 965.
\ It is but a piece of justice to the memory and virtues of some of the most distinguished characters of the conformists and non-confor- mists of this period, to record here their pious exertions fur the reli-
Vol. V. 5
34 THE HISTORY (THAP. i*
'* Though the protestant religion stood in need of the united strength of all its professors against the advances of popery, and the parliament had moved for a toleration of protestant dissenters, yet the hishops continued to pros- ecute them in common with the papists. Archbishop Shel- don directed circular letters to the bishops of his province, enjoining them to give directions to their archdeacons and commissaries, to procure particular information from the churchwardens of their several parishes on the following enquiries, and transmit them to him after the next visita- tion : 1. What number of persons are there, by common estimation, inhabiting within each parish subject to your jurisdiction? %. What number of popish recusants, or persons suspected of recusancy, are resident among the inhabitants aforesaid? 3. What number of other dissent- ers are there in each parish of what sect soever, which ei- ther obstinately refuse, or wholly absent themselves from the communion of the church of England, at sueh times as by law they are required ? — Some of the clergy were griev- ed at these proceedings, and Dr. Tillotson and Stiliing- fleet met privately with Dr. Manton, Bates, Pool, and Baxter, to consider of terms of accommodation, which, when they had agreed upon and communicated to the bish- ops, they were disallowed ; so that when Tillotson saw
gious instruction of the Welch. A subscription was opened, and an association was formed, for the distribution of bibles, testaments, and practical treatises, and for opening schools, in the principality of Wales At the head of this institution was Dr. Tillotson, then dean of Canterbury. The gentlemen who were the chief contributors to this design were Whichcott, Ford. Bates. Outram, Patrick, Durham, Stillingfleet, Meritou, Burton, Baxter, Gouge, Poole, Fowler, New- man, Reading, Griffith, Short, Gape, and the beneficent Firmin. — From Midsummer 1674 to Lady-day 1675, they had distributed thirty- two Welsh bibles, which were all that could be procured in Wales or London ; 2-1,0 new testaments, and 300 Whole Duty of Man, in Welch. In the preceding year 812 poor children had. by the charity of others, been put to school in 5t of the chief towns in Wales. The distribu- tion of these books provoked others to that charitable work, so that the children placed at schools by these gentlemen, and others, from their own purse, amounted to 1650. It appears as if this undertaking gave birth to an edition of the bible and liturgy in the Welch tongue, in which, Mr. Gouge had a principal concern, and to which Dr. Til- lais n gave SOl. The impression extended tn S000 copies. Life of Mr. James Owen, p. 10, 11, 12, and Life of Mr. Thomas Firmin, p> CO. 'Ed. ».*-■■»■.*»■'
Chap, i* o* the puritans. 35
how things were going, he cautiously withdrew from the odium, and wrote the following letter to Mr. Baxter, April 11, 1673 : "That he was unwilling his name should he made public in the affair, since it was come to nothing: not Jjut that I do heartily desire an accommodation, (says he) and shall always endeavor it ; but I am sure it will he a prejudice to me, aud signify nothing to the effecting the tiling, which, as circumstances are, cannot pass in either house without the concurrence of a considerable part of the bishops, and the countenance of his majesty, which at pre- sent 1 see little reason to expect."]*
But the bishops' conduct made them unpopular, and drew on them many mortifications. People's compassion began to move towards their dissenting brethren, whom they fre- quently saw carried in great numbers to prison, and spoil- ed of their goods, for no other crime but a tender conscience. The very name of an informer became as odious as their behavior was infamous. The aldermen of London often went out of the way when they heard of their coming; and some denied them their warrants, though by the act they forfeited one hundred pounds. Alderman Forth bound over an informer to his good behavior, for breaking into his chamber without leave. * When twelve or thirteen bish- ops came into the city to dine with Sir Nathaniel Heme one of the sheriffs of London, and exhorted him to put the laws in execution against the non-conformists, he told them plainly, they could not trade with their fellow-citizens one day, and put them in prison the next.
The moderate churchmen shewing a disposition to unite with the non-conformists against popery, the court resolved to take in the old rauting cavaliers, to strengthen the oppo- sition ; for this purpose Morley and some other bishops were sent for to court, and told, it was a great misfortune that the church party and dissenters were so disposed to unite, and run into one ; the court was therefore willing to make the church easy, and to secure to the king the alle- giance of all his subjects at the same time ; for this purpose a bill was brought into the house of lords, entitled, an act to prevent the dangers that may arise from persons disaf- fected to the government ; by which all such as enjoyed any
t Baxter, part iii. p. 157, 58. * CompI, Hiitory? p. 33?
36 THE HISTORY CHAP, i
beneficial office or employment, ecclesiastical, civil, or mil- itary ; all who voted in elections of parliament men ; all privy counsellors, and members of parliament themselves, were under a penalty to take the following oath, being the same as was required by the jive -mile act ; / A. B. do de- clare, that it is not lauful upon any pretence whatsoever, to take up arms against the king: and that I do abhor that traiterous position of taking arms by his authority against his person, or against those that are commissioned by him in pursuance of such commission. And I do swear, that I will not at any time endeavor the alteration of the govern- ment either in church or state. So help me God. The de- sign of the bill was to enable the ministry to prosecute their destructive schemes against the constitution and the prot- estant religion, without fear of opposition even from the parliament itself.* The chief speakers for the bill wre, the lord treasurer and the lord keeper, lord Danby and Finch, with bishop Morley and Ward ; but the earl of Shaftesbury, duke of Buckingham, lord Hollis, and Hali- fax, laid open the mischievous designs and consequences of it : it was considered as disinheriting men of their birth- right, to shut them out from the right of election by an ensnaring oath, as well as destructive of the privilege of parliament, which was to vote freely in all cases without any previous obligation ; that the peace of the nation would be best secured by making good laws ; and that oaths and tests without these, would be no real security ; scrupulous men might be fettered by them, but that the bulk of man- kind would boldly take any test, and as easily break through it, as had appeared in the late times. The bill was com- mitted, and debated paragraph by paragraph, but the heats occasioned by it were so violent, that the king came unex- pectedly to the house June 9, and prorogued the parlia- ment 5$ so the bill was dropt ; but the debates of the lords
* Baxter's Life, part iii. p. Ifi7. Burnet, vol. ii. p. 130-34. ■j: The immediate occasion of the kind's breaking up the sessions, was a dispute concerning privilege between the two bouses, to which anoth- er question gave birth, while the bill for the new test was pending. Of this bill it was justly said. "'No conveyancer could have drawn up a dissettlement of the whole birthright of England in more compendi- ous terms."' The debate on it lasted five several days, in the House of Lords, before the bill was committed to a committee of the whole
CUAP. 1. OF THE PURITANS. 37
upon the intended oath being made public, were ordered to oe burnt. Two proclamations were re-published on this occasion; one to prevent seditious discourses in cof- fee-houses, the other to put a stop to the publishing sedi- tious libels.
The court had reason to desire the passing this bill, be- cause the oath had been already imposed upon the non- conformists ; and the court clergy had been preaching in their churches, for several years, that passive obedience and non-resistance were the received doctrines of the church of England ; the bishops had possessed the king and his brother with the belief of it, and if it had now- passed into a law, the whole nation had been bound in chains, and the court might have done as they pleased. — But the parliament saw through the design ; and Dr. Bur- net says,* he opened the reserve to the duke of York, by telling him, " that there was no trusting to disputable opin- ions ; that there were distinctions and reserves in those who had maintained these points ; and that when men saw a visible danger of being first undone, and then burnt, they would be inclined to the shortest way of arguing, and save themselves the best way they could ; interest and self-preservation being powerful motives.". This might be wholesome advice to the duke, but implies such a secret reserve as may cover the most wicked designs, and is not fit for the lips of a protestaut divine, nor even of an hon- est man.
The daring insolence of the papists, who had their reg- ular clergy in every corner of the town, was so great, that they uot only challenged the protestaut divines to disputa- tions, but threatened to assassinate such as preached open- ly against their tenets ; which confirmed the lords and commons in their persuasion, of the absolute necessity of entering into more moderate and healing measures with protectant dissenters, notwithstanding the inflexible stead- house, and eleven or twelve days afterwards : and the house sat many days till eight or nine at night, and sometimes till midnight. But, through t lie interruption given to it, by the matter just mentioned, the bill was never reported from the committee to the house ; a most hap- py escape! Burnet's History, vol. ii. p. 133, and Dr. Calamy's Histor- ical Account of his own Life, -MS. p. 63. Ed,
* Burnet, p. 91.
*JS THE HISTOUY CHAP. 1.
iness of the bishops against it. Upon this occasion the duke of Buckingham, lately commenced patriot, made the following speech in the house of lords, which is in- serted in the commons journal. " My Lords, there is a thing called liberty, which (whatsoever some men may think) is that the people of England are fondest of, it is that they will never part with, and is that his majesty in Ids speech has promised to take particular care of. This, my lords, in my opinion, can never be done without giving an indulgence to all protestant dissenters. It is certainly a very uneasy kind of life to any man, that has either christian charity, humanity, or good-nature, to see his fel- low-subjects daily abused, divested of their liberty and birth-rights, and miserably thrown out of their possessions aud freeholds, only because they cannot agree with others in some opinions and niceties of religion, which their con- sciences will not give them leave to consent to, and which, even by the confession of those who would impose them, are no ways necessary to salvation.
" But, my lords, besides this, and all that may be said Upon it, in order to the improvement of our trade and in- crease of the wealth, strength, and greatness of this na- tion, (which, with your leave, I shall presume to discourse of some other time) there is, methinks, in this notion of persecution, a very gross mistake, both as to the point of government and the point of religion : there is so as to the jpoint of government, because it makes every man's safety depend upon the wrong place, not upon the governors, or man's living well towards the civil government establish- ed by law, but upon his being transported with zeal for every opinion that is held by those that have power in the church that is in fashion ; and I conceive it is a mistake in religion, because it is positively against the express doc- trine and example of Jesus Christ. Nay, my lords, as to our protestant religion, there is something in it yet worse, for we protestants maintain that none of those opinions which christians differ about are infallible, and therefore in us it is somewhat an inexcusable conception, that men ought to be deprived of their inheritance, and all the cer- tain conveniences and advantages of life, because they will not agree with us in our uncertain opinions of religion-
CHAP. U OF THE PURITAN^. 39
" My humble motion therefore to your lordships is, that you will give leave to bring in a bill of indulgence to all protectant dissenters. I know very well, that every pee» in this realm has a right to bring into parliament any hill he conceives to be useful to his nation ; but 1 thought it more respectful to your lordships to ask your leave before ; and I cannot think the doing it will be any prejudice to the bill, because i am confident the reason, the prudence, and the charitableness of it, will be able to justify it to this bouse, and to the whole world." Accordingly the house gave his grace leave to bring in a bill to this purpose ; but this and some others were lost by the warm debates which arose in the house upon the impeachment of the earl of Danby, and which occasioned the sudden prorogation of the parliament June 9. without having passed one public bill s after which his majesty, upon further discontent, prorogu- ed them for fifteen months, which gave occasion to a ques- tion in the ensuing session, whether they were not legally dissolved.
From this time to the discovery of the popish plot, par- liaments were called and adjourned (says Mr. Coke) by order from France or French ministers and pensioners, to carry on the design of promoting the catholic cause in mas- querade.* The king himself was a known pensioner of Lewis XIV. who had appropriated a fund of twenty mil- lions of livres for the service of these kingdoms, out of which the duke of York, and the prime ministers and lead- ers of parties, received the wages of their commission, ac- cording as the French ambassador represented their merit The pensioners made it their business to raise the cry of the church's danger, and of the return offtrty-one. This was spread over the whole nation in a variety of pamphlets, and news-papers, &c. written by their own hirelings ; and if they met with opposition from the friends of the coun- try, the authors and printers were sure to be fined and im- prisoned. A reward of fifty pounds was offered for the printer of a pamphlet, supposed to be written by Andrew Marvel, entitled, .in account of the growth of power, and a seasonable argument to all grand juries ; and one hun- dred pounds for the person who conveyed it to the press.
* Detect, p. .100.
40 THE HISTORY CHAP, 14
No man could publish any thing on the side of liberty and the protestant religion, but with the hazard of a prison, and a considerable fine ; nor is this to be wondered at, consider- ing that Sir Roger I/Estrange was the sole licenser of the press.
This gentleman was a pensioner of the court, and a cham- pion for the prerogative ; he was a younger son of Sir Ham- mond U Estrange of Norfolk, who, having conceived hopes of surprising the town of Lynn for his majesty in the year 1644, obtained a commission from the king for that purpose, but being apprehended and tried by a court-martial, for coming into the parliament's quarters as a spy, he was con- demned and ordered to be executed in Smithiield, Jan. 2f 17*4-5, but by the intercession of some powerful friends he was reprived, and kept in Newgate several years. His sufferings made such an impression on his spirit, that on the king's restoration, he was resolved to make reprisals on the whole party. He was master of a fine English style, and of a great deal of keen wit, which he employed without any regard to truth or candor, in the service of popery and ar- bitrary power, and in vilifying the best and most undoubted patriots. Never did man fight so, to force the dissenters into the church, (says Coke) and when he had got them there, branded them for trimmers, and would turn them out again. He was a most mercenary writer, and had a pen at the service of those who would pay him best. Forty- one was his retreat against all who durst contend against him and the prerogative. Sir Roger observed no measures with his adversaries in his Weekly Observators, Citt and Bumpkin, Foxes and Firebrands,* and other pamphlets ; and when the falseness of his reasoning, and insolence of his sarcasm, were exposed, like a second Don Quixot, he called aloud to the civil magistrate to come in to his aid.
* Dr. Grey says, that Sir Roger L'Estrauge was not the author of this work ; that the first part was written by Dr. Nalson, and the oth- er parts, if he mistook not, by Mr. Ware, the son of Sir James Ware, the great antiquarian. The most valuable of Sir Roger L'Estrange's publications is reckoned to be his Translation of Josephus. His stile, which Mr. Neal commends, has been severely censured by other wri- ters. Mr. Gordon says, that his productions are not fit to be read by any who have taste and good breeding : they are full of technical terms, of phrases picked up in the streets, from apprentices and porters, and
fcllAr. 1. OF THE PURITANS. 4&.
He represented the religion of the dissenters, as a medley of folly and enthusiasm; their principles and tempers as turbulent; seditious, and utterly inconsistent with the peace of the state ; their pretences as frivolous, and often hypo- critical. He excited the government to use the utmost se- verities to extirpate them out of the kingdom.* He fur- nished the clergy with pulpit materials to rail at them, which they improved with equal eagerness and indiscretion 5 so that popery was forgot, and nothing so common in their muutlis as forty-one. L'Estrange published some of the incautious expressions of some of the dissenters in the late times, which he picked out of their writings, to excite the populace against the whole party, as if it had not been easy to make reprisals from the ranting expressions of thetories of this reign : for these exploits he was maintained by the court, and knighted ; and yet when tiic tide turned in the reign of King James II. he forgot his raillery against the principles of the non-conformists, and wrote as zealously for liberty of conscience, on the foot of the dispensing pow- er, as any man in the kingdom.
But in answer to the invectives of this venal tribe, a pam- phlet was published with the approbation of several minis- ters, entitled, the Principles and Practices of several Non- conformists, shelving that their religion is no other than what is professed in the church of England. The authors declare, f "that they heartily own the protestant reforma- tion in doctrine, as contained in the articles of the church
nothing can be more low and nauseous." Mr. Granger observes, that L'Estrange was one of the great corrupters of our language, by ex- cluding vowels and other letters commonly pronounced, and introducing 46 pert and affected phrases." lie was licenser of the press to Charles and James II. and died lltli December, 1701. JE.L S3. Queen Mary, we are told, made this anagram on his name : — " Roger L'Estrange, " Lying Strange Roger." British Biography, vol. vi. p 317. Granger's History of England, vol. iv. p. 70. Ed.
* Burnet, vol. ii. p. 2.32. Rapiu. f To discredit Mr. Corbet's piece. Dr. Grey refers to Anthony Wood's character of him, as a preacher of sedition, and a vilifier of the king and his party. But with such writers every sentiment, that docs not breathe the spirit of passive obedience, is seditious. Besides, Mr. Cor- bet's vindication turned on notorious facts. Ed.
Vol. V. G
4$ f HE HISTORY CHAF. tt
of England that they are willing to embrace bishop
Usher's model of church government, which King Charles
1. admitted -they hold it unlawful, by the constitution
and laws of this kingdom, for subjects to take arms against the king, his office, authority, or person, or those legally commissioned and authorized by him ; nor will they en- deavor any alteration in church or state by any other means than by prayer to God, and by petitioning their superiors they acknowledge the king's supremacy over all per- sons, &c. within his dominions they declare that their
doctrine tends to no unquietness or confusion, any more than the doctrine of the church of England. And they think it not fair dealing in their adversaries, to repeat and aggravate all intemperate passages vented in the late times, when impetuous actings hurried men into extremities ; and they apprehend it would not tend to the advantage of the conforming clergy, if collections should he published of all their imprudences and weaknesses, as has been done on the other side they abhor seditious conventicles, and af- firm, that insurrections were never contrived in their meet- ings, nor in any whereof they are conscious. Experience (say they) hath witnessed our peaceableness, and that dis- loyalty or sedition is not to be found among us, by the most inquisitive of our adversaries. — They desire the church of England to take notice, that they have no mind to promote popish designs ; that they are aware of the advantage that papists make of the divisions of protestants — that the in- vectives thrown out against them, are made up only of big and swelling words, or of the indiscretions of a few with which they are not chargeable — they do not pretend to be courtiers or philosophers, but they teach their people to fear trod and honor the king; to love the brotherhood, to bridle their tongues, to be meek and lowly, and do their own work with quietness."*
* On the 15th of January, 1675-6, died Dorothy the wife of Richard Cromwell, in the 4'Jth yearof her age ; who, it is thought, never saw her husband after he retired into France. She was the daughter of Richard Mayor. Esq. of Hursly in Hampshire, where she was married on the 1st of May 1649. The character given of her is, " that she was a prudent, godly, practical christian." So far, it is observed, this lady has been happy, that amongst the illiberal things that have been level- led against the proiectoral house of Cromwell, her character is almost the only one, that scandal has left untouched. Biographia Britan. 2d ed. voh iv. p. 538.
CHAP. 1. OP THE PURITANS. 43'
Though the persecution continued very fierce, the non- conformists ventured to assemble in private, and severe! pamphlets were published about this time [1676] in their defence; as, the Peaceable Design ; or, an account of the Non-conformist meetings; by some London ministers : de- signed, says Dr. Stilliugfieet, to be presented to parliament. Reasons ivkich prevailed with the dissenters in Bristol to continue their meetings, however prosecuted or disturbed — Separation no Schism — A rebuke to informers ; with a plea for the Ministers of the Gospel called Non-conformists, and their meetings ; with advice to those to whom the in- formers apply for assistance in their undertaking.
Informers were now become the terror of the non-con- formists, and the reproach of a civilized nation.* They went about in disguise, and, like wandering strollers, liv- ed upou the plunder of industrious families. They are a select company (says the Conformists1 Plea for the Non- conformists J whom the long-suffering of God permits for a time ; they are of no good reputation ; they do not so much as know the names or persons in the country whom they molest, but go by report of their uuder-servants and accomplices., They come from two or three counties off, to set up this new trade ; whether they are papists or nom- inal protestauts, who can tell? They never go to their parish churches, nor any other, but lie in wait and ambush for their prey ; their estate is invisible, their country un- known to many, and their morals are as bad as the very dregs of the age : these are the men who direct and rule many of the magistrates ; who live upon the spoil of bet- ter christians and subjects than themselves, and go away with honest men's goods honestly gotten. f — -They are gen- erally poor, (says another writer) as are many of the jus- tices, so that they shared the booty belonging to the king as well as the poor among themselves ; by which means the king and the poor got but little. %
Their practice was to insinuate themselves into an ac-
* Conform. Plea, part iii. p. S, 9, 10. f Sewel. p. 403.
\ Dr. Grey is angry with Mr. Neal for not quoting the remainder of the paragraph from Sewel : in which that writer owns that some hon- est justices discouraged the practices of the informers, and availed themselves of any defect or failure in their evidence, to clear those against whom they informed. IkL
44 THE HISTORY GHAP. 1.
quaintance with some under-servants, or lodgers in a non- conformist family, under the cloak of religion, in order to discover the place of their meeting. They walked the streets on the Lord's day, to observe which way any sus» pected persons went. They frequently sat down in offee- Louses, and places of public resort, to listen to conversa- tion. They could turn themselves into any shape, and counterfeit any principles to obtain their ends. When they had discovered a conventicle, they immediately got a warrant from some who were called confiding justices, to break open the house. If the minister was in the midst of his sermon or prayer, they commanded him in the king's name, to come down from his pulpit ; and if he did not immediately obey, a file of musqueteers was usually sent up to pull him down by force, and to take him into cus- tody ; the congregation was broke up, and the people guarded along the street to a magistrate, and from him to a prison, unless they immediately paid their fines : the goods of the house were rifled, and frequently carried off, as a security for the large fine set upon it.
This was a new way of raising contributions, but it sel- dom or never prospered ; that which was ill-gotten was as ill-spent, upon lewd women, or in taverns and ale-houses, in gaming, or some kind of debauchery. An informer "was but one degree above a beggar ; thera was a remark- able blast of providence upon their persons and substance : most of them died in poverty and extreme misery; and as they lived in disgrace, they seemed to die by a remarkable hand of God. Stroud and Marshal, with all their plun- der, could not keep out of prison ; and when Keting, an- other informer, was confined for debt, he wrote to Mr. Baxter to endeavor his deliverance, confessing he believ- ed God had sent that calamity upon him, for giving him so much trouble. Another died in the Compter for debt ; and great numbers by their vices came to miserable and untimely ends.
But as some died off, others succeeded, who by the insti- gation of the court disturbed ail the meetings they could find. The king commanded the judges and justices of Lon- don to put the penal laws in strict execution ; and Sir Jos. Sheldon, lord-mayor,, and kinsman to the archbishop, did
CHAP. 1. OF THE PURITANS. 45
not fail to do his part. Sir Tho. Davis issued a warrant to distrain on Mr. Baxter for 501. on account of his lecture in New-street; and when he had built a little chapel in Ox- enden-street, the doors were shut up alter he had preached in it ouce. In April this year, [(676] he was disturbed by a company of constables and officers, as he was preach- ing in Swallow-street, who beat drums under the wiudows, to interrupt the service, because they had not a warrant to break open the house.
The court bishops, as has been observed more than once, pushed on the informers to do all the mischief they could to the non-conformists ; " the prelates will not suffer them to be quiet in their families,* (says a considerable writer of these times) though they have given large and ample testimonies, that they are willing to live quietly by their
church neighbors »" The dissenting protestants have
been reputed the only enemies of the nation, and therefore only persecuted, (says a noble writer) while the papists remain undisturbed, being by the court thought loyal, and by our great bishops not dangerous. Mr. Locke, bishop Burnet, and others, have set a mark upon the names of archbishop Sheldon, bishop Morley, Gunning, Hench- man, Ward, &c. which will not be easily erased; but I mention no more, because there were others of a better spirit, who resided in their dioceses, and had no concern with the court.
Among these we may reckon Dr. Edward Reynolds, bishop of Norwich, born in Southampton 1599, and edu- cated in Merton college, Oxford ; he was preacher to the society of Lincoln's-Inn, and reckoned one of the most el- oquent preachers of his age, though he had some hoarse- ness in his voice. I In the time of the civil wars he took part with the parliament, and was one of the assembly of divines. In the year 1646, he was appointed one of the preachers to the university of Oxford, and afterwards a visitor. Upon the reform of the university, he was made dean of Christ-church, and vice-chancellor. After the king's death he lost his deanery for refusing the engage- ment, but complied with all the other changes till the
* State Tracts, vol. ii. p. 54, 55. Vol. iii. p. 43, &e. i Wood's A then. Oxon. vol. ii. p. 420.
4i6 THE HISTORY CHAP. 1.
king?s restoration, when he appeared with the presbyteri- ans, but was prevailed with to accept a bishopric on the terms of the king's declaration, which never took place. He was a person of singular affability, meekness, and hu- mility, and a frequent preacher.^ He was a constant re- sident in his diocese, and a good old Puritan, who never concerned himself with the politics of the court. He died, at Norwich Jan. 16, 1676, aitatis seventy-six.
[On May the 2%<\. I676, died, aged 73, the pious and learned Mr. John Tombes, B. D. ejected from the living of Leominster, in Herefordshire. He was born, in 1603, at Bewdley in Worcestershire. At fifteen years of age, having made a good proficiency in grammar learning, he was sent to Magdalen- hall, Oxford ; where he studied under the celebrated Mr. William Pemble ; upon whose decease he was chosen, though but twenty-one years of age, such was the reputation of his parts and learning, to succeed him in the catechetical lecture in that hall. He held this lecture about seven years, and then removed first to Worcester, and then to Leominster; in both places he had the name of a very popular preacher ; and of the lat- ter living he was, soon after, possessed ; and as the emol- ument of it was small, lord viscount Scudamore, out of respect to Mr. Tombes, made an addition to it. In 1611 he was, through the spirit of the church party, obliged to leave this town ; and fled to Bristol, where general Fien- jt.es gave him the living of All- Saints. The city being taken by the king's party, his wife and children being plundered, and a special warrant being out to apprehend him, he escaped with difficulty, and got to London with his family, Sept. 22, 1643. Here he was sometime min- ister of Fehchurch, till his stipend was taken away for not practising the baptism of infants. He was then chosen preacher to the honorable societies at the Temple, on con- dition that he would not touch on the controversy about it in the pulpit. Here he continued four years, and was then dismissed for having published a treatise on the subject.
$ " He was universally allowed," says Mr. Granger, " to be a man of extraordinary parts, and discovers in his writings a richness of fan- cy as well as a solidity of judgment." He was buried in the new chapel belonging to his palace, which he built at his own expeuce.— « History of England, vol. iii. p. 241,
CHAP. 1. OF THE PURITANS. 47
He, was, after this, chosen minister in the town of his na- tivity, and had also the parsonage of Hosse given him, but he gave up his interest in the latter, to accept the master- ship of the hospital at Ledbury. When the affections of the people at Bewdiey were alienated from him, on ac- count of his sentiments on baptism, he was restored to his living at Leominster, in lf>53, he was appointed a tryer for candidates for the ministry. After the Restoration he; quitted his places, and laid down the ministry, and went to reside at Salisbury ; from whence he had not long be- fore married a rich widow, and conformed to the church. as a lay -communicant. He was held iti great respect by lord chancellor Hyde, bishop Sanderson, bishop Barlow., and Dr. Ward, bishop of Salisbury, whom, during his res- idence in that city, he often visited. Mr. Wood says, " that there were few better disputants in his age than he was.'7 Mr. Wall speaks of him as "a man of the best parts in our nation, and perhaps in any." Dr. Calamy represents hiui as one, £i whom all the world must own to have been a very considerable man and an excellent scholar." And it per- petuates his memory with honor, that the lords, in their conference with the commons, in 1705. on the bill to pre- vent occasional conformity, supported their argument, that receiving the sacrament in church did not necessarily im- port an entire conformity, by an appeal to his example: " There was a very learned and famous man," said they, "that lived at Salisbury, Mr. Tombes, wiio was a very zealous conformist in all points but in one, infant baptism.'* Mr. Tombes was one of the first of the clergy of his i\>iy9 who attempted a reformation in the church, and to remove
all human inventions in the worship of God : with this view
i
he preached a sermon, which he was commanded by the house of commons to print. So early as the year 1027, be- ing led in the course of his lectures to discuss the subject of baptism, he was brought into doubts concerning the au- thority for that of infants, which for some years he contin- ued to practice only on the ground of the apostle's words. 1 Cor. vii. 14". But the answer he received to that argu- ment from an ingenious baptist at Bristol, put him to a stand as to that text. When he was in London, he consulted some of the learned ministers "here on the question, and at
4£ tHE HlSTORt CHAP. i„-
a particular conference debated the matters with them ; but it broke up without obviating his objections. He afterwards laid his reasons for doubting the lawfulness of the common practice in Latin before the Westminster assembly : after waiting many months, though he had been informed that a committee was to be appointed to consider the point, he could obtain no answer, nor hear that it was so much as admitted to a debate ; but his papers were tossed up and down from one to another to expose him. On being dis- missed from the Temple, he printed his apology ; of which Mr. Batchiler says, ''having perused this mild Apology, I conceive that the ingenuity, learning and piety, therein contained, deserve the press." He repeatedly took up his pen in this controversy, of which he was judged to be a perfect master, and he was often drawn into public dispu- tations on it, particularly with Mr. Baxter, at Bewdley. — i " The victory, as usual," says Mr. Nelson, »' was claimed on both sides : but some of the learned, who were far from approving his cause, yielded the advantage both of learn- ing and argument to Mr. Tombes."* He wrote more books on the subject than any one man in England ; and, continuing minister of the parish of Bewdley, he gathered a separate church of those of his own persuasion ; which, though not large, consisted of some members distinguished for their piety and solid judgment ; and three, who were af- terwards eminent ministers of that persuasion, were trained up in it, viz. Mr. Richard Adams, Mr. John Eccles, and Captain Boylston. It continued till about the time of the king's restoration. Crosby's History of the Baptists, vol. i. p. 278 — 293. Palmer's Non-conformist Memorial, vol. ii. p. 33—37 ; and Nelson's Life of bishop Bull, p. 249— 353.] Ed.
The murmurs of the people against the government, in- creased rather than diminished. When the parliament met, they addressed the king to enter into an alliance with the Dutch, and other confederates, for preserving the Spanish Netherlands, as the only means to save Great- Britain from popery and slavery. f But his majesty de-
* Nelson's Life of bishop Bull, p. 251. t Notwithstanding this alarm, on a calculation that was made, in the preceding year, the Non-conformists of all sorts, and Papists in-
CHAP. i. OF THE PURITANS. 49
clared, he would not suffer his prerogative of making war and peace to be invaded, nor be prescribed to as to his al- liances. However, he consented to a separate peace with the Dutch, and then prorogued the parliament to the mid- dle of July, by which time the French had almost com- pleted their conquests of the Spanish Flanders. The chief thing the parliament could obtain, was the repeal of the popish act de hceretico comburendo.*
.But when the campaign was over, his majesty did one of. the most popular actions of his reign, which was marry- ing the princess Mary, eldest daughter of the duke of York, to the prince of Orange. The king imagined he cotild oblige the Dutch, by this family alliance, to submit to a disadvantageous peace with the French ; but when the prince declare 1 roundly, that he would not sacrifice his honor, nor the liberties of Europe, for a wife, his majesty said, he was an honest man, and gave him the jjrincess without any conditions, to the great joy of all the true friends of their country, who had now a protectant heir to the crown in view, though at some distance. The nuptials were solemnized Nov. 4, 16/7* a»d the royal pair soon after embarked privately for Holland.
This year died archbishop Sheldon, one of the most in- veterate enemies of the non-conformists, a man of persecut- ing principles, and a tool of the prerogative, who made a
eluded, were found to he in proportion to (he members of the church of England, as one to twenty : " which was a number." says bishop Sher- lock, k' too small to hurt the constitution." His Test Act vindicated, as quoted by Dr. Calamy ; Own Life, p. 63, MS. Ed.
* This writ was taken away, on the principle of the wisdom of pre- vention, under the apprehension of popery, " to preclude the risk of being burnt themselves, not to exempt others from the possibility of be- ing burnt." The conduct of administration, in this instance. " was the. effect of fear, not of general and enlarged principles." Iiobhouse's Treatise on Heresy, p 29. note.
Another modern writer observes, that "though the state, in this in- stance, shewed some moderation, neither then, nor at any subsequent. time, has any alteration been made in the constitution of the Church." It still assumes exclusively to itself alt truth, and may persecute some sectaries as Heretics, and punish them by " excommunication, degrada- tion, and other ecclesiastical censures, not extending to death." Jt is not clear, that ecclesiastical judges may not, even now. doom them to the flames, though the civil power will not execute the sentence.-— High-Church Politics, p. 61. Ed. Vol. V. 7'
P? THE HISTORY CHAP. t4
jest of religion, any farther than it was a political engine of s-tate.f He was succeeded by Dr. Saucroft, who was deprived for jac.obltism at the revolution.* Dr. Comptou was promoted to the see of London, in the room of Dr. Henchman, a man of weak but arbitrary principles, till ifc came to his turn to be a sufferer4 Many of the bishops
t " I scarce believe. " says Dr. Grey, " that the moderate the impar- tial, the peaceable Mr. Neal, could write down so many untruths, ire one paragraph, without blushing." The Doctor expresses himself in another place, vol. ii. p. 320, displeased with Mr. Neal for saying, that Dr. Sheldon '•• never gave any great specimens of his piety or learning to the world." vol. iii. p 425. In reply to this he quotes bishop Burnet, who allows that Sheldon " was esteemed a learned man before the wars." Here the doctor refers to bishop Kennet, who says that Sheldon " withdrew froai all state affairs some years before his death ;" and to Eachard. who extols his learning and piety, as well as bis munificent benefactions, which we have specified, vol. iii. p. 451, note. Dr Samuel Parker, who had been his chaplain, says, "'he was a man of undoubted piety ; but though he was very assiduous at prayers, yet he did not set so great a value upon them as others did, nor re- garded so much worship as the use of worship, placing the chief point of religion in (he practice of a good life." Mr. Granger represents him as "meriting, by his benevolent heart, public spirit, prudent con- duct, and exemplary piety, the highest and most conspicuous station in the church." These characters of his grace appear to contradict Mr. Neal. On the other hand, he is supported by the testimony of bishop Burnet, who says. " He seemed not to have a deep sense of religion, if anv at all, and spoke of it most commonly as of an engine of govern- ment, and a matter of policy :" and the facts, adduced above, shew his intolerant spirit. But all agree in describing him as a man whose generous and munificent deeds displayed a benevolent and liberal mind, and whose pleasantness and affability of manner were truly ingratiat- ing. ki His conversation." as Dr. Parker draws his character, "was easy ; he never sent any man away discontented : among his domes- tics he was both pleasant and grave, and governed his family with au- thority and courtesy." His advice to young noblemen and gentlemen, who, by the order of (heir parents, daily resorted to him, deserves to be mentioned. It was always this : " Let it be your principal care to become honest men, and afterwards be as devout and religious as you will. Mo piety will be of any advantage to yourselves or any body else, unless you are honest and moral men " Granger, vol. iii. p. 230. British Biogr. vol. v. p. 25,26, note; and Burnet, vol. i. p 257. Ed.
* " The bare mention of this is sufficient to expose Mr. Neal's sneer upon one of the greatest, the best, and most conscientious prelates." Dr. Grey, vol. iii. p. 376. Ed.
t Dr. Grey affects to doubt, whether Mr. Neal designed this charac- ter for bishop Henchman or bishop Compton ; though Henchman is the immediate antecedent, whose character more properly follows the men-
CttATP. i. OF THE PURITANS* 31
waited on the king this summer, for his commands to put the penal laws into execution, which they did with so much diligence, that Mr. Baxter says, he was so weary of keep- ing his doors shut against persons who came to distrain his goods for preaching, that he was forced to leave his house, to sell his goods, and part with his very hooks.* About twelve years (says he) I have been driven one hundred miles from them, and when I had paid dear for the car- riage, after two or three years I was forced to sell them. This was the case of many others, who, being separated from their families and friends, and having no way of sub- sistence, were forced to sell their books, and household fur- niture, to keep them from starving.
This year [167/] died the Rev. Tho. Manton, ejected from Coven t- garden ; he was born in Somersetshire 1(520, educated at Tiverton school, and from thence placed at Wadham college, Oxon. He was ordained by Dr. Hall, bishop of Exeter, when he was not more than twenty years of age : his first settlement was at Stoke-Newington near London, where he continued seven years, being generally esteemed an excellent preacher, and a learned expositor of scripture. Upon the death or resignation of Mr. Obadiah Sedgwick, he was presented to the living of Covent-garden by the duke of Bedford, and preached to a numerous con- gregation. The doctor was appointed one of the protectors chaplains, and one of the triers of persons' qualifications for the ministry ; which service he constantly attended. In the year 1660, he was very forward, in concert with the presby- terian ministers, to accomplish the king's restoration, and was one of the commissioners at the Savoy conference ; he was then created doctor of divinity, and offered the deanery
tion of his death. The doctor appeals from Mr. Neal to Mr. Eachard, who commends bishop Henchman's wisdom and prudence, and his ad- mirable management of the king's escape after the battle of Worcester. Mr. Neal, in speaking of his arbitrary principles, till he was pinched, undoubtedly refers to his conduct, when the declaration for liberty of conscience was published. On this occasion he was much alarmed, and strictly enjoined his clergy to preach against popery, though it of- fended the king. This prelate was lord almoner, and he was the edi- tor of the " Gentleman's Calling,"' supposed to be written by the author of the" Whole Duty of Man." Granger, vol. iii. p. 2-i-i. Bishop Compton's character will appear in the succeeding part of (his hist<$» ry. Ed. * Baxter, part iii. p. 171, 173,
%% THE HISTORY CiHAP. 1.
of Rochester, but declined it. After he was turned out of his living in 1662, he held a private meeting in his own house, but was imprisoned, and met with several disturb- ances in his ministerial work. He was consulted in all the treaties for a comprehension with the established church, and was high in the esteem of the duke of Bedford, earl of Manchester, and other noble persons. At length, finding his constitution breaking, he resigned himself to God's wise disposal, and being seized with a kind of lethargy, he died October 18, 1677? i« the 57th year of shis age, and was buried in the chancel of the church of Stoke-Newington.* Dr. Bates in his funeral sermon says, he was a divine of a rich fancy, a strong memory, and happy elocution, improv- ed by diligent study. He was an excellent christian, a fervent preacher, and every way a blessing to the church of God.* His practical works were published in five vol- umes in folio, at several times after his death, and are m great esteem among the dissenters to this day.f
About the same time died Mr. John Howe, M. A. born in the year 1620, and educated for some time at Cambridge, but translated to Oxford about the time of the visitation in the year 1618. Here he was admitted M. A. and fellow of Corpus- Ghristi college. He was first lecturer at Witney in Oxfordshire; afterwards preacher at Tiverton in JJevon-
* Calamy, vol. ii. p. 42; and Palmer's Noncon. Mem. vol.i. p. 138.
t Dr. Manton was also in great estimation for his activity and address in the management of public affairs, and was generally in Iheehairin meet- ing* of the dissenting ministers in the city. Dr Grey questions the truth of Mr. Neal's assertion, that he was ordained at the age of twenty years, especially as he ghes no authority for it. "Bishop Hall" he s«ys, " was too canonical a man to admit any person into deacon's orders at that age." If the fact be misstated, he must be destitute of all candor who can impute this to a wilful falsification. Archbishop Usher used to call Or. Manton a voluminous preacher, meaning that he had the art of reducing the substance of volumes of divinity into a narrow compass. But it was true in the literal sense, he was voluminous as an author: for his sermons run into several folios, one of which contains 190 ser- mons on the 119th psalm. The task of reading these, when he was a youth, to his aunt, had an unhappy effect on the mind of lord Boling- broke. In a lettt r to Dr. Swift, he writes, "My next shall be as long as one of Dr. Matron's sermons, who taught my youth to yawn, and pre- pared me to be a high churchman, that I might never hear him read, nor read him more." Granger's History, vol. iii. p. 304, note. Ed.
CHAP. i. OF THE PURITANS. 53
shire, and one of the commissioners for ejecting ignorant and insufficient ministers in that county. Upon -the death of Mr. William Strong, in the year 1654s he was called to succeed him in the abbey church of Westminster : at which place, as in all others, his sermons were very much attended to by persons of all persuasions.* On the 14th of March 1659, he was appointed one of the approvers of ministers by act of parliament ; but on the king's restora- tion he gave way to the change of the times, and was silen- ced with his brethren by the act of uniformity. He was a divine of great gravity and piety ; his sermons were judi- cious and well studied, fit for the audience of men of the best quality in those times. After the Bartholomew act, he continued with his people, and preached to them in Bar- tholomew-Close, and elsewhere, as the times would permit, till his death, which happened October i%, 1677, in the fifty-second year of his age. He lies buried in Buuhill- iields under an altar monument of a brick foundation. f The words with which he concluded his last sermon were these: We should not desire to continue longer in this world than to glorify God, to finish our work, and to be ready to say, Farewell, time; welcome, blessed eternity; even so come Lord Jesus !
* Mr. Rowe was a good scholar, and v.'ell read in the Fathers ; and had such a knowledge of Greek, that he began very young to keep a diary in that language ; which he continued (ill his death ; but he burnt most of it in his last iilness. Palmer. Ed.
t Calamy, vol. ii. p. 39. Palmer's Noncon. Mem. vol. i. p. Ii2.
5* THE HISTORY CHAP. S.
CHAP. II.
From the Popish Plot to the Death of King Charles tlw Second, in the Year l68db-5.
4678.
THE king having concluded a peace with the Dutch, became mediator between the French and the confederates, at the treaty of Nimcguen ; where the former managed the English court so dexterously, that the emperor and Span- iards were obliged to buy their peace, at the expence of the best part of Flanders.
From this time to the end of the kind's reign, we meet with little else but domestic quarrels between the king and liis parliament ; sham plots, And furious sallies of rage and revenge, between the court and country parties. The non- conformists were very great sufferers by these contests ; the penal laws being in full force, and the execution of them in the hands of their avowed enemies.
No sooner was the nation at peace abroad, but a formid- able plot broke out at home, to take away the king's life, to subvert the constitution, to introduce popery, and to ex- tirpate the protestant religion root and branch. It was called the popish plot, from the nature of the design, and the quality of the conspirators, who were no less than pope Innocent XI. cardinal Howard his legate ; and the gener- als of the Jesuits in Spain and at Rome.* When the king was taken off, the duke of York was to receive the crown as a gift from the pope, and hold it in fee. If there hap- pened any disturbance, the city of London was to be fired, and the infamy of the whole affair to be laid upon the jpresbyterians void fanatics, in hopes that the churchmen, in the heat of their fury, would cut them in pieces, which would make way for the more easy subversion of the pro- testant religion. Thus an insurrection, and perhaps a sec-
* Eachard, p. 934v
CHAP. 3. OF THE PURITANS* 55
ond massacre of the protestauts, was intended ; for this purpose they had great numbers of popish officers in pay? and some thousands of men secretly listed to appear as oc- casion required : as was deposed by the oaths of Bedloe^ Tongue, Dr. Gates, and others.
The discovery of this plot, spread a prodigious alarm over the. nation, and awakened the fears of those who had been lulled into a fatal security. The king's life was the more valuable because of the popish successor, who was willing to run all risks for the introducing his religion,, The murder of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey* at this juncture,
*The death of this gentleman, an able magistrate ami of a fair char- acter, was deemed a much stronger evidence of the reality of the plot., than the oath of Oates. The foolish circumstance of his name being an- agramatized to '• t find murdered by rogues." helped to confirm the opinion of his being murdered by papists. His funeral was celebrated with the most solemn pomp. Seventy-two clergymen preceded the corpse, which was followed by a thousand persons, most of whom were of eminence and rank. Granger's Hist, of England, vol. iii. p. 400. Svo.
This shews the interest which the public took in this event. So great was the alarm this plot raised, that posts and chains were put up in all parts <>f the city, and a considerable number of the trained bands drawn out night after night, well armed, and watching with as much care as if a great insurrection were expected before the morning. The general topics of conversation were designed massacres, to be perpe- trated by assassins ready for the purpose, and by recruits from abroad, A sudden darkness at eleven o'clock, on the Sunday after the murder of Sir Edmunhury Godfrey, so that the ministers could not read their Botes in tbe pulpits without caudles, was looked upon as awfully omin- ous. The minds of people were kept in agitation and terror by dismal stories and frequent executions Youngand old quaked with fear. Not a house was unprovided with arms. jSo one went to rest at night with- out the apprehension of some tragical event to happen before the morn- ing. This state of alarm and terror lasted not for a few weeks only, hut montbs. The pageantry of mock processions, employed on this oc- casion, heightened tbe aversion to popery, and inflamed resentment against the conspirators. In one of these, amidst a vast croud of spec- tators, who filled the air with their acclamations, and expressed great satisfaction in the show, there were carried on men's shoulders, through the principal streets, the effigies of tbe pope and the representative of the devil behind him, whispering in his ear and caressing him. (thoug-h. he afterwards deserted him, before he was committed to the flames to- gether with the likeness of the dead body of Sir Kdmunbury Godfrey, carried before hina by a man on horseback, to remind the people of bis execrable murder. A great number of dignitaries in their copes, with crosses, of monks, friars, Jesuits, and popish bishops with their mitres, trinkets, and appurtenances, formed the rest of the procession.
Dr. Calamy's own Life, MSS. p. 67-8. Ed.
^6 THE HISTORY GHAP. &.
a zealous and active protestant justice of peace, increased men's suspicions of a plot, and the depositions upon oath of the aboveraentioned witnesses, seemed to put it beyond all doubt; for upon their impeachment, Sir G. Wakeman the queen's physician, Mr. Ed. Coleman the duke of fork's secretary, Mr. Richard Langhorne, and eight other Romish priests and Jesuits, were apprehended and secured. When the parliament met, they voted that there was a damnable hellish plot contrived and carried on by popish rescusants against the life of the king and the protestant religion. Five popish lords were ordered into custody, viz. lord Stafford, Powis, Arundel, Petre, and Bellasys. A proclamation was issued against papists ; and the king was addressed to remove the duke of irork from his per- son and councils.
Though the king gave himself no credit to the plot, yet finding it impracticable to stem the tide of the people's zeal, he consented to the execution of the law upon several of the condemned criminals; Mr. Coleman, and five of the Jesuits, were executed at Tyburn, who protested their in- nocence to the last ; and a year or two forward lord Staf- ford was beheaded on Tower-hill. But the court party turned the plot into ridicule ; the king told lord Halifax, f< that it was not probable that the papists should conspire to kill him, for have I not been kind enough to them? (says his majesty.") Yes, (says his lordship) you have been too kind indeed to them ; but they know you will only trot, and they waut a prince that will gallop." The court employed their tool Sir Roger L'Estrange,* to write a weekly paper against the plot; and the country party encouraged Mr. Car to write a weekly packet of advice from Rome, discovering the frauds and superstitions of that court ; for which he was arraigned, convicted, and fined in the court of King's-bench, and his papers forbid to be printed. An admirable order for a protestant court of judicature !
But it was impossible to allay the fears of the parliament, who had a quick sense of the danger of popery, and there-
* This person of whom we have already spoken, formerly called "Oliver's Fidler," was now the admired "Buffoon of High-church." He called the shows, mentioned in our last note, " Hobby-horsing pro- cessions." Calamy's JMSS, p* 67. Ed.
CHAP. £. OF 1'HE PURITANS. 57
fore passed a bill, to disable all persons of that religion from sitting in either house of parliament, which is still in force, being accepted out of the act of toleration.* The act requires all members of parliament to renounce by oath the doctrine of trail substantiation, and to declare the worship of the virgin Mary, and of the saints, practised in the church of Rome, to be idolatrous. Bishop (running argued against charging the. church of Rome with idolatry ; but the house paid him little regard ; and when the bill was passed he took the oath in common with the rest.
The duke of York got himself excepted out of the bill,t but the fears of his accession to the crown were so great, that there was a loud talk of bringing a bill into the house, to exclude him from the succession as a papist, upon which the king came to the house November 9, and assured them, that he would consent to any bills for securing the protes- tant religion, provided they did not impeach the right of succession, nor the descent of the crown in the true line, nor the just rights of any protestant successor. But this not giving satisfaction, his majesty towards the end of De- cember, first prorogued and then dissolved the parliament, after they had been chosen almost eighteen, years.
It may be proper to observe concerning the popish plot,^ that though the king's life might not be immediately struck at, yet there was such strong evidence to prove the reality
* Burnet, vol. ii. p. 211.
t This point was carried in favor r>i* the duke by no more than two votes. Had it been negatived, lie would, in the next place, have been voted away from the king's presence. Sir John Reresby's Memoirs, p. 72. Ed.
t It was an happy effect of the discovery of this plot, that while it raised in the whole body of the English protestants alarming appre- hensions of the dangers to which their civil mid religious liberties were exposed, it united them against their common enemy. Mutual prejudices were softened ; animosilies subsided: (he dissenters were regarded as the true friends of their country, f.ud their assemblies be- gan to be more public and numerous. At this time an evening lecture was set up in a large room of a coffee-house, in Exchange-Alley: it was conducted by Mr. John Shower. Mr. Lambert, Mr. Dorrington, and Mr. Thomas Goodwin ; and it was supported and attended by some of the principal merchants, and by several who afterwards tilled the most eminent posts in the city of London.
Toner's Life of Shower, p. 17,18. Ed. Vol. V. 8
3$ THE HISTORY CHAP. &
of a plot to subvert the constitution and introduce popery, that no disinterested person can doubt it. Mr. Rapiu, who had carefully considered the evidence, concludes th&t there was a meditated design, supported by the king and the duke of York, to render the king absolute, and introduce the popish religion ; for this is precisely what was meant by the plot : the design of killing the king was only an appen- dage to it, and an effect of the zeal of some private persons, who thought the plot would be crowned with the suree success, by speedily setting the duke of York upon the throne. Bishop Burnet adds,* that though the king and lie agreed in private conversation, that the greatest part of the evidence was a contrivance, yet he confesses it appear- ed by Coleman's letters, that the design of converting the nation, and of rooting out the northern heresy, was very near being executed. f To which I beg leave to add, that though the design of killing the king did not take place at this time, his majesty felt the effects of it, in his violent death, four or five years afterwards.
This year died Mr. Thomas Vincent, M. A. the ejected minister of Milk-street, born at Hertford, May 1634, and educated in Christ-Church, Oxford.4 He was chaplain tc* Robert earl of Leicester, and afterwards minister of Milk- street, London, till the act of uniformity took place. He was an humble and zealous preacher, of moderate princi- ples, and an unspotted life. He continued in the city throughout the whole plague, the awfulness of which gave him a peculiar fervency and zeal in his ministerial work. On this occasion he published some very awakening trea-
* This corresponds with his declarations to Sir John Reresby ; whom at one time he told, in the presence of the lord treasurer, at the duch- ess of Portsmouth's lodgings, " He took it to be some artifice, and that lie did not believe one word of the whole story." At another time his majesty said to him, " Bedloe was a rogue, and that he was satisfied he had given some false evidence concerning the death of Sir Edmund- bury Godfrey." Memoirs, p. 67, 72.
Dr. Grey refers to Eachard and bishop Burnet, as fully discrediting Mr. NeaS's account of this plot; and with f his view gives a long pas- sage from Carte's History of the duke of Ormond, vol. ii. p. 517.
The reader may see the evidence both for and against it fully and fairly stated by Dr. Harris. Life of Charies II. vol. ii. p. 137-157. Ed,
t Page 193—214. t Cal. cont. p. 30.
CH/Ll'. ®. OF THE PURITAXS, &$
tises ; as,*# spiritual antidote for a dying soul ; and God's terrible voice in the city.* He not only preached in pub- lic, but visited all the sick who sent for him in their in- fected houses, being void of all fear of death. He contin- ued in health during the whole of that dreadful calamity, and was afterwards useful, as the times would permit, to a iiumarons congregation, being generally respected by men of all persuasions ; but his excessive labors put an end to his life October 15, I678, in the forty-fifth year of his age.f
Mr. Tlicophilus (rale, M. A. and fellow of Magdalen college, Oxford, was ejected from Winchester, where he had been stated preacher for some time ; after which he travelled abroad as tutor to the sons of Philip lord Whar- ton. Upon his return, he settled with Mr. John Howe as an assistant, in which station he died. The Oxford his- torian allows, that he was a man of great reading, an ex- act philologist and philosopher, a learned and industrious divine, as appears by his Court of the Gentiles, and the vanity of Pagan Philosophy. He kept a little academy for tne instruction of youth, and was well versed in the fathers, being at the same time a good metaphysician, and school divine. J: He died of a consumption this year? £1678] in the forty-ninth year of his age.§
* Cnlaniy, vol. ii. p. 32. Palmer's Nonconf. Mem. vol. i. p. 125, t Mr. Thomas Vincent had the whole New Testament and Psalms by heart. He took this pains, as he often said, s; not knowing hut they who took from him his pulpit, might in time demand his bible also.** Cilamy. Besides his publications enumerated by this writer, Mr. Vincent, on occasion of an eruption of Mount ./Etna, published a book, entitled *' Fire and Brimstone : i. From heaven in the burning of Sod- om and Gomorrah formerly. 2. From earth, in the burning of Mount iEttia lately. 3. From hell, in burning of the wicked eternally."-— lo*70, Svo. Granger's History, vol. iii. p. 329, note. Ed.
t Mr. Gale was a frequent preacher in the university and a conside- rable tutor: bishop Hopkins was one of his pupils. He left all his real and personal estate fur the education and benefit of poor students, and his library to the college in New-England, except the philosophi- cal part, which he reserved for the use of students in England. The world had like to have lost his great and learned work, " The Court of the Gentiles," in the lire of London. A friend, to whose care he left. his desk while he was travelling, threw it into the cart merely to make t!i? load, when he was removing his own goods. Palmer, p. 190.— British Biography, vol. v. p. 182 — tSG. Ed.
§ Calamy, vol. ii, p. fii. Palmer, vol. L p, IS'J.
60 THE HISTORY 6HAP. 3.
The king having summoned a new parliament to meet in March, all parties exerted themselves in the elections ; the non-conformists appeared generally for those who were for prosecuting the popish plot, and securing a proiestant succession : these being esteemed patriots and friends of liberty, in opposition to those who made a loud cry for the church, and favored the arbitrary measures of the court, and the personal interest of the duke of York. The elec- tions in many places were the occasion of great heat, but "were carried almost every where against the court. Mr. Hapin says, that the presbyterians, though long oppress- ed, were still numerous in corporations. The semi-con- formists, (as Mr. Eachard calls the moderate churchmen) and the dissenters, were on one side, and the high church- men and papists on the other. Before the parliament as- sembled, the duke of York was sent out of the way to Flanders, but with this positive assurance, that his majesty would consent to nothing in prejudice of his right of suc- cession. And further to ingratiate himself with the peo- ple, and make a shew of moderation, a new privy council was chosen out of the low church party ; but this not sat- isfying as long as the duke's succession was in view, the commons, soon after the opening the sessions, ordered in a bill to disable the duke of York from inheriting the im- perial crown of England, and carried it through the house with a high hand. Upon which his majesty came to tiie house, and dissolved them, before they had sat three months. This threw the nation into new convulsions, and produced a great number of pamphlets against the govern- ment, the act for restraining the press being lately expired.
The popish plot having fixed a brand of infamy and in- gratitude on the whole body of Roman catholics, the cour- tiers attempted to relieve them, by setting on foot a sham jprotestant plot, and fathering it upon the presbyterians :* tor this purpose spies and other mercenaries were employ- ed, to bring news from all parts of the town, which was then full of cabals. At length a plot was formed by one Dangerfield, a subtle and dangerous papist, but a very vil- lain, who had been lately got out of gaol by the assistance of one Mrs. Cellier, a midwife, a lewd woman who car-
* Burnet, vol. ii. p. 272. Rapin, vol. ii. p. 711.
CHAP. 2. OF THE PURITAN, 61
ried him to the countess of Powis, whose husband wag in tne Tower for the popish plot; with her he formed his scheme, and having got a list of the names of the chief pro- testant nobility and gentry, he wrote treasonable letters to them, to be left at the houses of the non-conformists and other active protestants in several parts of England, that search being made upou some other pretences, when the letters were found, they might be apprehended for treason. At the same time, he intruded into the company of some of the most zealous enemies of popery about town, and inform- ed the king and the duke of York, that he had been invit- ed to accept of a commission ; that a new form of govern- ment was to be set up ; and that the king and royal family were to be banished. The story was received with plea- sure, and Dangerfield had a present, and a pension of three pounds a week, to carry on his correspondence. Hav- ing got some little acquaintance with colonel Mansel in Westminster, he made up a bundle of seditious letters, with the assistance of Mrs. Cellier, and having laid them in a dark corner of ManseFs room behind the bed, he sent for officers from the Custom-house, to search for prohibited, goods while he was out of town, but none were found, ex- cept the bundle of letters, which, upon examination of the parties concerned, before the king and council, were prov- ed to be counterfeit ; upon which the court disowned the plot, and having taken away Dangeriield's pension, sent him to Newgate. Search being made into Mis. Cellier's house, there was found a little book in a meal-tub, written very fair, and tied up with ribbands, which contained the whole scheme of the fiction. It was dictated by lady Pow- is, and proved by her maid to be laid there by her order, from whence it obtained the name of the meal-tub plot. Dangerfield, who was a notorious lyar, finding himself un- doue if he persisted in what he could not support, made an ample confession, and published a narrative, wherein he declared that he was employed by the popish party ; and chiefly by the popish lords in the Tower, with the countess of Powis, to invent the meal-tub plot, which was to have thrown the popish plot wholly upon the presbyterians. It was printed by order of the house of commons in the year 1680. Dan-erfield being pardoned, went out of the way
(>& THE HISTORY CHAP. 3.
into Flanders ; but returning to England in King James's reign, lie was tried for it, and sentenced to be whipt at the cart's tail from Newgate to Tyburn ; in his return from whence he was murdered by one Frances in the coach. Mrs. Cellier was tried June 11, 1680, before lord chief jus- tice Scroggs, and acquitted for want of evidence. But the discovery, instead of relieving the papists from the charge of the popish plot, turned very much to their disadvantage ; for when the next parliament met, the house of commons resolved, that Sir Robert Can be expelled the house, and sent to the Tower, for declaring publicly in the city of Bris- tol, that there was no popish but a presbyterian plot.* Sir .Robert Yeomaus was sent for into custody on the same ac- count ; and Mr. Richard Thompson, a clergyman, was im- peached for decrying the popish plot in his sermon, Jan. 30, 1679, and for turning the same upon the protestants ; for which, and for preaching against the liberty and proper- ty of the subject, and the privileges of parliament, the house declared him a scandal and reproach to his profession.
This year [16/9] died the reverend and learned Mr, Matt. Pool, M. A. the ejected minister of St. Michael's Querne ; he was born in the city of York, and educated in Emanuel college, Cambridge, a divine of great piety, char- ity, and literature. He was indefatigable in his labors, and left behind him (says the Oxford historian) the char- acter of a most celebrated critic aud casuist. After ten years close application, he published his Synopsis Critico- vuui;t in Ave folios. He afterwards entered on a commen-
* State Tracts, vol. ii. p. 217.
| " The plan of this work." says Mr. Granger, " was judicious, and the execution more free from errors than seems consistent with so great a work, finished in so short a time, by one man." It includes not only an abridgment of the " Critici Sacri," and other expositors, but extracts from a great number of treatises and pamphlets, that would have been otherwise lost. It was undertaken by the advice of the learned bishop Lloyd : it was encouraged and patronized by Tillotson, and the king granted a patent for the privilege of printing it. Mr. Pool formed ami completed a scheme for maintaining young men of eminent parts at the university of Cambridge, for the study of divinity : and by his solicita- tions, in a short time, raised 900l. a year for that purpose. The scheme sunk at the Restoration; but to it the world is said, in some measure, to owe Dr. Sherlock, afterwards dean of St. Paul's. While he was
CHAP. 2. OF THE PURITANS. trS
tary upon the whole bible, bat proceeded no further than the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah : however,the design, being valuable, was carried on, and completed by other hands. Mr. Fooi published several excellent treatises, as The nul- lity of the Romish faith, &c. for which he was threatened to be assassinated ;* his name being in Dr. Gates's list r, he therefore retired to Holland, but died (as it is thought) by poison at Amsterdam, "in the month of October, 1(571)^ mtat. fifty-six.
Dr. Thomas Goodwin, born at Rolisby in Norfolk, and educated in Catherine-hall, Cambridge. He was a great admirer of Dr. Preston, and afterwards himself a famous preacher in Cambridge. In 1634, he left the university., being dissatisfied with the terms of conformity. In 1839, he went into Holland, and became pastor of an indepen- dent congregation at Jlnihcim. He returned to Loudon about the beginning of the long parliament, and was one of the dissenting brethren in the assembly of divines.-— After the king's death he was made president of Magdalen college, and one of the iryers of ministers. He was in high esteem with Oliver Cromwell, and attended him on his death-bed. | In the common register of the university
drawing tip his Synopsis, it was his custom to rise at three or four o'clock, and take a raw esc^ about eight or nine, and another about twelve; then to continue his studies till the afternoon was far advanc- ed, lie spent the evening at some friend's house. particularly alder- man AshurstTs, and would be exceedingly but innocently merry: when it was nearly time to go home, he would give the conversation a seri- ous turn, saying, " Let us sow cai! for a reckoning." His « Annota- tions" were completed by other hands; the 59th and 60th chapters of Isaiah by Mr. Jackson of Moulsey. Dr. Collinges wrote the notes ont the remainder of that prophet, on Jeremiah, Lamentations, the four Evangelists, the Epistles to the Corinthians aud (jalatiasis, to Timo- thy, Titus, and Philemon, and on the book of Revelations. The An- notations on Ezekiel and the minor prophets were drawn up by Mr. Hurst, aud on Daniel, by Mr. Win. Cooper. Mr. Vinke commented on the Aets. Mr. Mayo on the Romans. The notes on the Ephesians? and the epistles of James, Peter and Jude, were composed by Mr. Veil ; on Philippians and Colossians, by Mr. Thomas Adams; on the Thessalonians by Mr. Barker; on the Hebrews by Mr. Obad. Hughes. Mr. Howe undertook the three Epistles of John. C al amy and Palmer. ut supra. Granger's History, vol. iii. p. 311, and Birch's Life of Tii- lotson, p. 3f>. Ed.
* Calamy, vol. is. p. ti. Palmer's Nonconf. Mem. vol. i. p. 133.
t On which occasion ho was overheard by Dr. Tillotson to express
61 THE HISTOBY «HAP.i
he is said to be, in sciptis theologicis quam plarimis orbi notus, i. e. well known to the world by many theological writings. After the Restoration he resigned his presi- dentship, and retired to London, where he continued the exercise, of his ministry till his death, which happened Feb. 23, L 679 -80, in the eightieth year of his age. He was a good scholar, an eminent divine and textuary. His works are siuce printed in five folios. f
The last parliament being dissolved abruptly, a new one was convened for Oct. 17, 1680, in which the elections went pretty much as in the last, the cry of the people be- ing, J\To popery, no pensioners, no arbitrary government. But the king prorogued them from time to time for above a twelve-month, without permitting them to finish any busi- ness. His majesty falling sick in the summer, the duke of York returned immediately to court without the king's leave, \ which alarmed the people, and made them eager for the sitting of the parliament to regulate the succession.^ This gave rise to sundry petitions,\\ signed by a great
himself, boldly and enthusiastically confident of the Protector's recove- ry; and when lie found himself mistaken, to exclaim, in a subsequent address to God, "Thou hast deceived us, and we were deceived" Ho was a man much addicted to retirement and deep contemplation, which dispose the mind to entbusiastical confidence. He and Dr. Owen are called by Wood, " the two Atlasses and Patriarchs of Independency." In the fire of London he lost half of his library, to the value of 5001. but he was thankful that the loss fell on the books of human learning only, those ou divinity being; preserved. He is supposed to be the in- dependent minister and head of a college described by the " Specta- tor," No. 494. Birch's Life of Tillotson, p. 16. Grey, vol. i p. 183. Granger, vol. iii. p. 303. Ed.
f Calamy's Account, vol. ii. p. 61. Palmer's Non. Mem. vol. i. p. 183.
I If we may credit Sir John Reresby, who says he had the whole story from Feversham, to whose intervention the revocation of the duke was principally owing; the king's illness was pretended, and the duke was sent for with his privity, though not above four persons knew any thing of the matter. The duke of Monmouth, who thought he had the king to himself, knew nothing of it, till his highness actually^arrived at Wiudsor : " So close and reserved," says Sir John, " could the king bef when he conceived it to be necessary." Memoirs, p. 97, 8. Ed. § Eachard, p. 982, 987.
|| Dr. Grey, by a quotation from Hornby's " Caveat against the Whigs," hrintfs a charge'against these petitions, that the signatures were •btaiued by bribes and impositions. Such practices, if truly stated in this
CHAP. 2. OF THE PURITANS. 65
number of hands both in city and country, which the king received with the utmost displeasure, telling the petition- ers, that he was sole Judge of what was fit to be done: you would not take it well (says he) if I should meddle with your affairs* and I desire you would not meddle with mine. After this the king issued out his proclamation, de- claring them to be illegal, and forbidding his subjects to promote any subscriptions, or to join in any petitions of this kind, upon peril of the utmost rigor of the law. \\ arrants were issued against several of the petitioners, and indict- ments preferred against others. But at the next sessions of the common-council of London, Jan. 2i, the court agreed that no such petition should be presented from them ; and the king returned them thanks for it.* Upon which ad- dresses were procured from divers parts of the nation, ex- pressing their detestation and abhorrence of the seditious practice of the late petitioners, and referring the sit- ting of the parliament absolutely to the king's sovereign pleasure, from whence they obtained the name, of abhor- rers. lu these addresses, they offer their lives and for- tunes for the preservation of his majesty's person and gov- ernment, and for the succession of the duke of York. They renounce the right of the subjects, petitioning, or intermed- dling in affairs of state, and lay their liberties at the feet of the prerogative, promising to stand by it, and to be obe- dient without reserve to his majesty's commands; which addresses were printed in the Gazettes, and dispersed over the kingdom. 'These proceedings threw the people into a ferment; several of the privy-council deserted their stations, and desired to be excused their attendance at council ; some in the admiralty resigned, and because they might not petition, an association was formed by sundry persons, and copi- ed after the example of that in Queen Elizabeth's time, for the defence of his maj est if s person, and the security of the protectant religion, and to revenge his majesty's death upon the papists, if he should come to any violent death. A model of which was said to be found among the earl of
instance, have not been confined to that occasion, or those limes : but it is not easy to conceive, $!iat a man of integrity, in any party, can have recourse to them. The proposal of adopting them ought to be rejected with contempt and indignation. Ed. * Burnet, vol. ii. p. 276.
Vol. V*. fl
66 THE HISTORY CHAP. &
Shaftesbury's papers. This was resented very highly at court, as done without the royal authority, and produced the next year another set of ranting addresses from all parts of the kingdom, in which their lives and fortunes were given up to the king, and the association branded with the names of damnable, cursed, execrable, traiterous, seditious, and a bond of rebellion, which they detest and abhor from their very souls; in most of which, the mm-coufor mists arc marked as enemies of the king and his government, and their conventicles as the encouragement and life of the as- sociations. They promise to stand by the duke's succes- sion, and to choose such members for the next parliament as shall do tiie king's business according to his mind. But notwithstanding the utmost efforts of the court, the near approach of a popish successor awakened men's fears, and kept them upon their guard.
The petitioners- for the sitting of the parliament, and their adversaries, the abhorkeks of such petitions, gave rise to the two grand parties which have since divided the nation, under the distinguishing names of whig and tory.
The Whigs or low churchmen were the more zealous protestants, declared enemies of popery, and willing to re- move to a farther distance from their superstitions : they were firm to the constitution and liberties of their country x and for an union, or at least a toleration, of dissenting prot- estants. The clergy of this persuasion were generally men of larger principles, and therefore were distinguished by the name of Latitudinariun Divines ; their laity were re- markable for their zeal in promoting the bill of exclusion, as the only expedient to secure the protestant establish- ment in this kingdom. They were for confining the roy- al prerogative within the limits of the law, for which rea- son their adversaries charged them with republican prin- ciples, and gave them the reproachful name of whigs or sour milk, a name first given to the most rigid Scots cov- enanters.
The tories or high churchmen stood on the side of the prerogative, and were for advancing the king above law; they went into all the arbitrary court measures, and adopt- ed into our religion, (says Dr. Welwood*) a Mahometan
* Memoirs, p. ±25.
.CHAP. & OF THE PURITANS. 6/
principle under the names of passive obedience and ??(?;*- resistance, which since the times of that impostor, who first broached it, has been the means to enslave a great part of the world. These gentlemen leaned more to a coalition with the papists, than with the presbyterians.* They cried up the name and authority of the church, and were for forc- ing the dissenters to conformity, by all kinds of coercive methods : but with all their zeal, they were many of them persons of lax and dissolute morals, and would risk the whole protestant religion rather than go into any measures of exclusion, or limitation of a popish successor. Most of the clergy (says a member of parliament) are infected with the Laudean principles of raising money without parlia- ment; one or two bishops give measures to the rest, and they to their clergy, so that all derive their politics from one or two, and are under the influence of an over-awing power. No men did more to enslave the nation, and in- troduce popery into the establishment than they : their ad- versaries therefore gave them the name of Tories, a title first given to Irish robbers, who lived upon plunder, and were prepared for any daring or villainous enterprize.
The non-conformists fell in unanimously with the whigs or low churchmen, in all points relating to liberty and the civil constitution, as they must always do if they are con- sistent with themselves ; but these with their allies were not a sufficient balance for the tories, the road to preferment lying through the territories of power ; but they were kept in heart with some secret hopes, that by a steady adherence to the constitution they should one time or other obtain a legal toleration. But the superior influence of the tories above the whigs, was the occasion of the severities which befel the non-conformists in the latter part of this reign.
When the parliament met Oct. 21, 16S0, the commons were very warm in maintaining the protestant religion and the privileges of parliament. f They asserted the rights of the people to petition for the sitting of parliaments, and voted the abhorrers betrayers of the liberties of the nation. Among other grievances they complained, that the edge of
* Burnet, Collect. Debates, p. 163. t Rapin, vol. ii. p. 714. Eachard, p. 995.
68 THE HISTORY CHAP. &.
the penal laws was turned against protectant dissenters, while the papists remained in a manner untouched — That the test act had little effect, because the papists, either by dispensations obtained from Home, submitted to those tests, and held their offices themselves ; or those put in their 2^1 aces were so favorable to the same interest, that popery itself had rather gained than lost ground by that act. They declared for that very association, to revenge the king's death upon the papists, if his majesty should happen to be assassinated, which the tories had abhorred; and in the month of November revived the bill to disable the duke of York from inheriting the imperial crown of these realms. It was introduced by lord Russel, and passed the com- mons by a great majority, but was thrown out of the house of lords by a majority of thirty voices,* noes 63, yeas 33, the bench of bishops being in the negative, and the king present during the whole debate. It has been said, king Charles came into the bill at first, the favorite mistress having prevailed with him to abandon bis brother, for a large sum of money, and for an act of parliament to ena- ble him to dispose of the crown by will, under certain re- strictions ; but a foreign popish court offering more money, be opposed it to the last.f
The parliament being inclined to relieve the non-con- formists, appointed a committee, Nov. 18, who agreed up- on a comprehension with the dissenters, upon much the same terms with those already mentioned ; they were to subscribe the doctrinal articles of the church ; the surplice was to be omitted, except in cathedrals and the king's chapel ; the ceremonies to be left indifferent. And as for such protectants as could not be comprehended within these terms, they were to have a toleration, and freedom from
* Lord Halifax, a man of the clearest head, finest wit, and fairest eloquence, who was in judgment against the bill, appeared as leader in opposition to it, and made so powerful a defence, that he alone, by the confession of all, influenced the house, and persuaded them to throw out the bill. " One would have thought," says Sir John Reresby, " that so signal a piece of service had been of a degree and nature nev- er to be forgotten.*' But when the duke afterwards came to be king, he removed 1'nd Halifax from the privy seal to the presidency of the council, purely to make room for another, and in the end quite laid him aside. Mem. p. 10>, 5. Ed. t Welwood's Memoirs, p. 127.
CHAP. 2. OF THE PURITANS. 69
the penal statutes, upon condition of subscribing a decla- ration of allegiance, &c. and of assembling with open doors. Bishop Burnet says, the bill for a comprehension was of- fered by the episcopal party in the house of commons, but that the friends of the disseuters did not seem forward to promote it, because (as Mr. Baxter observes) they found the bill would not go ; or if it had passed the commons, it would have been thrown out by the bishops in the house of lords ; the Clergy (says Kennet) being no further in earn- est than as they apprehended the knife of the papists at their throats.
When the above-mentioned bill was brought iuto the house December 21, entitled An act for uniting his majes- ty's protestant subjects, the first gentleman of the court par- ty who spoke against it observed, " that there were a sort of men who would neither be advised nor over-ruled, but under the pretence of conscience break violently through all laws whatsoever, to the great disturbance both of church and state ; therefore he thought it more convenient to have. a law for forcing the dissenters to yield to the church, and not to force the church to yield to them — ?? Another said, lie was afraid, that if once the government should begin to yield to the dissenters, it would be as in forty-one, nothing would serve hut an utter subversion ; the receiving of one thing would give occasion for demanding more ; and it would be impossible to give them any satisfaction without laying all open, and running into confusion.'** This was the common language of the tories. And there has been a loud cry against the dissenters, for their obstinacy and perverse ness, though not a single concession had been of- fered since the Restoration, to let the world see how far they would yield ; or by receiving a denial, to get an op- portunity to reproach them with greater advantage. But in favor of the bill it was urged by others, " that it was in- tended for the preservation of the church, and the best bill that could be made in order thereto, all circumstances con- sidered— If we are to deal with a stubborn sort of people, who in many things prefer their humor before reason, or their own safety, or the public good, this is a very good time to see whether they will be drawn by the cords of love
* Eachard p. 999.
70 THE HISTORY CHAP. &
or no. The bill will be very agreeable to the christian charity which our church professes ; and it may be hoped, that in the time of this imminent danger, they will consid- er their own safety, and the safety of the protestant relig- ion, and no longer keep a-foot the unhappy divisions anion* us, on which the papists ground their hopes; but when they see the church so far condescend, as to dispense with the surplice, and those other things they scruple, that, th^y will submit to the rest which are enjoined by law, that so we may unite against the common enemy. But if this bill should not have the desired effect, but on the contrary, the dissenters should continue their animosities and disobedi- ence to the church, I think still the church will gain very much hereby, and leave the party without excuse—77 This seems agreeable to reason.
Although the bill for a comprehension was committed, it did not pass the house, being changed for another, enti- tled, An act to exempt his majesty' s protestant subjects, dis- senting from the church of England, from the penalties imposed upon the papists by the act of 35th Eliz.* By which act non-conformists wrere adjudged to perpetual im- prisonment, or obliged to abjure (that is, depart) the realm never to return. This terrible law had lain dormant al- most eighty years, but was now revived, and threatened to be put in execution by the tories. The repeal passed the bouse of commons with a high hand, out went heavily through the house of lords ; the bishops apprehending that the terror of the law might be of some use; but when it should have been offered the king for the voyol assent at the close of the session, it was missing, and never heard of any more, the clerk of the crown having withdrawn it from the table by the king7s particular order. The king (says Burnetf) had no mind openly to deny the bill, but less mind to pass it, and therefore this illegal method was taken, which was an high offence in the officer of the house, and would have been severely punished in the next session, if the parliament had not been abruptly dissolved. Thus the non- conformists were sawn to pieces between the king, the bishops, and the parliament; when one party was willing to give them relief, the other always stood in the
* Burnet, vol. ii. p. 300. t Ibid.
CHAP. S. OF THE PURITANS. yl
way. The parliament was their enemy for about twelve, years, and now they are softened, the king and the court bishops are inflexible ; and his majesty will rather sacrifice the constitution to his despotic will, than exempt them from an old law which subjected them to banishment and death. However, the morning before the house was prorogued, January 10, two votes were passed of a very extraordinary nature. " 1. Resolved, nemine contradicente, That it is the opinion of this house, that the acts of parliament made in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James against popish recusants ought not to be extended against protest- tant dissenters. 2. Resolved, That it is the opinion of this house, that the prosecution of protectant dissenters upon the penal laws is at this time grievous to the subject, a weakening ike protestant interest, an encouragement to popery, and dangerous to the peace of the kingdom. Bish- op Burnet* says these resolutions were thought an inva- sion of the legislature, when one house pretended to sus- pend the execution of the laws, which was to act like dic- tators in the state. But with all due submission I should think that tills cannot he construed a suspension of those laws, and that a house of commons, which is not suffered, to sit and repeal laws, or when they have repealed them have their bills withdrawn illegally by the crown, may have liberty to declare their judgment that the continuance of those laws is burthensome to the state. They must do so, (says Mr. Gokef) in order to a repeal. If the bill for the repeal of the old popish act de hmretico comburendo, for burning heretics, which the parliament were afraid might be revived in a popish reign, had been lost in this manner, might not the parliament have declared the execu- tion of that law a weakening to the protestant interest, or dangerous to the peace of the kingdom ?
While the parliament was endeavoring to relieve the dis- senters, and charging the miseries of the kingdom upon the papists, many of the bishops and clergy of the church of England were pleased to see the court inclined to prose- cute the non-conformists. The clergy in general, (says llapinj) were attached to the court; men of doubtful re- ligion were promoted, and there was reason to charge then?.
* Burnet 301. t Page 561. \ Page 7ii.
^2 THE HISTORY CHAP. ft.
with leaning to popery. Even some able champions against popery went so far into the court measures as to impute the calamities of the times to the non-conformists, and to raise the cry of the populace against them. Dr. Edward Stil- lingfleet, who had written an Irenicum in favor of liberty, and against impositions, in his sermon before the lord-may- or, May 2 this year entitled, the Mischief of Separation, condemned all the dissenters as schismatics ; and very gravely advised them not to complain of persecution. — When the sermon was published, it brought upon the doc- tor several learned adversaries, as Mr. Baxter, Mr. Alsop, Mr. Howe, Mr. Barret, and Dr. Owen ; from which last divine, who wrote with great temper and seriousness, I will venture to transcribe the following passage, without enter- ing into the argument :* " After so many of the non-con- formists have died in common gaols, (says the doctor) so many have endured long imprisonments, not a few being at this day in the same durance; so many driven from their habitations into a wandering condition, to preserve for a while the liberty of their persons ; so many have been re- duced to want and penury, by the taking away their goods, aud from some the very instruments of their livelihood. — After the prosecution that has been against them in all courts of justice in this nation, on informations, indictments, and suits, to the great charge of all who have been so per- secuted, and the ruin of some. After so many ministers and their families have been brought iuto the utmost out- ward straits which nature can subsist under ; after all their perpetual fears and dangers wherewith they have been ex- ercised and disquieted, they think it hard to be censured for complaining, by them who are at ease." The doctor endeavored to support his charge by the suffrage of the French presbyterians ; aud Com p ton bishop of London ap- plied to monsieur Le Moyne, and several others, f for their opinions ; as if truth were to be determined by numbers ; or as if the English presbyterians could pay a vast defer- ence to their judgments, who had so deceived them at the Restoration. The ministers, bred up in French complais- ance and under French slavery, after high strains of com- pliment to the English bishops, declared, that they were of
* Page 53, 54. t CoIIyer, p. 900.
CHAP. 2. OF THE PURITANS. 7^
opinion, their brethren might comply ;* and that they ivere not for pushing things to extremity only fur a different form of government. Which the doctor and his friends interpreted as a decision in their favor. But did not the bishops exasperate the spirits of their dissenting brethren, by enforcing the sanguinary laws? Were these, protestant methods of conversion, or likely to bring them to temper? The French ministers complained sufficiently of this about five years after, at the revoc ition of the edict of Nantz. — Bishop Burnet remarks of D:. Stillingfleet on this occa- sion,!- that he not only retracted his Lrenicum, bat went into the humors of the high sort of people beyond what be- came him. perhaps beyond his own sense of things.
This year [1680] died Mr. Stephen Oharnock, B. I). first of Emanuel-college, Cambridge; and afterwards fel- low of New-college, Oxford. He was chaplain to Henry Crowiweil, lieutenant of Ireland, anil was much respected by persons of the best quality in the city of Dublin for his polite behavior. After the Restoration he returned into England, and became pastor of a separate congregation in London, where he was admired by the more judicious part of his hearers, though not popular, because of his disad- vantageous way of leading with a glass : he was an eini-
* Mr. Neil, it seems, has fallen into a mistake, by supposing that the French presbytericuis favored English episcopacy- Their auswers were complaisant, hut wary. Yet Stiiiiugiieet published their letters as suffrages for episcopacy, and annexed them to his Treatise on Schism. Mr. Claude, one of those written to, complained of this treat- ment; hat the letters which contained these complaints were conceal- ed tilt iiis death, when his son printed them. In one of them to bish- o;> Compton, April lfiSl. he freely told him, that the bishops Avere. blamed for their eagerness to persecute others by penal laws, fir their arbitrary and despotic government : for their rigid attachment to of- fensive ceremonies; for requiring foreign protestant ministers to be re- ordained; and for not admitting any to the ministry without making an oath that episcopacy is of divine right, which Mr. Claude called a cruel rack for conscience. He solemnly called on the bishops, in the name of God, to remove these grounds of complaints, to give no cause, no pretext for separation, to do all in their power to prevent it. and itjstead of chafing and irritating people's minds, by all gentle methods to conciliate them. This was excellent adviee: but the public were not informed, that it had been given by those to whom it was address- ed. Robinson's Life of Claude, prefixed to his translation of an Essay on the Composition of Sermons, p. fi5 — 67. Ed.
t Vol. i. p. 27&> Vol. V. 10
74 THE HISTORY CHAP, g,
nent divine, and had a good judgment, a curious imagina- tion, and a strong manner of reasoning, as appears by his works printed since his death in two volumes folio, which were no other than his common sermons transcribed from his notes ;* his stile is manly and lofty, and his thoughts sublime : his love and charity were very extensive, and tliere was no part of learning to which he was a stranger, f He died July 26, 1680, aged 62.
[On December 26t'h, 1680, died, at London, where he came to be cut for the stone, with which he was many years afflicted, Mr. John Corbet, ejected from Bramshot in llaiiis ; a man every way great. He was a uative of the city of Gloucester, and a student in Magdalen -hall, Oxon. He began his ministry in the place of his nativity, and lived many years there, and during the civil wars, of which he was a spectator. He wrote the history of the siege of the city, and is thought to have given as good an insight into the rise and springs of the civil war as can be met with in so narrow a compass. He removed from thence to Chichester, and then to the living from which he was ejected. After this he lived privately in and about Lon- don, till king Charles's indulgence in 1671? when part of his flock invited him to return to Chichester, where he con- tinued his ministrations with great assiduity and success. It was during his residence there that bishop Gunning gave a public challenge to the Presbyterians, Indepen- dents, Baptists, and Quakers. (See chapter viii. p. 449 of this volume.) Mr. Corbet accepted it on behalf of the first; but, after the bishop had fired his own volley of in- vectives, Mr. Corbet was not permitted to enter into a de- fence ; nor, though he proposed to do it at any other time, and waited on the bishop at his palace, could he, after- wards, obtain an hearing. He was a man of great mode- ration, a lover of peace, an advocate for catholic commun- ion and union of saints, and of blameless conversation. — He saw some things to approve, and some things to dis-
* Calamy, vol. ii. p. 56. Palmer's Non. Mem. vol. i. p. 159.
t Mr. Johnson, who preached his funeral sermon, says, " he never knew a man in all his life, who had attained near to that skill Mr. Charnock had, in the originals of the Old and New Testament, except Mr. Thomas Cawton." Granger, vol. iii. p. 308. Ed.
CHAP. &, OF THE PURITANS. 7»
like in all parties, aud valued not the interest of a party or faction. True to his conscience, he had no worldly de- signs to carry on, but was eminent in self-denial, and man- aged his ministry with faithfulness and prudence. He was tender of the reputation of his brethren, and rejoiced in the success of their labors as well as of his own. Nor was lie apt to speak against those by whom he suffered. He was very free in acknowledging by whom he profited, and preferring others before himself. He was much in the study of his own heart, had the comfort of sensible im- provements in faith and holiness, humility and heavenly- mindedness, and died at last in gr^at serenity and peaic He had a considerable hand in compiling Mr. Rushworth'g first volume of Collections, which is reckoned by good judges a master-piece of the kind. His " Self employ- ment in secret," an excellent small piece, recommended lately by Mr. Bulkley in his "Christian Minister," has gone through various editions. Mr. Howe wrote a pre- face to it. Dr. Wright reprinted it in 17^1? and the Rev. William Unwin, rector of Stock cum Ramsden-B/ihouse, Essex, published it again in 1773, with the encomiums of a celebrated minister of the church of England upon it, as 6i the best manual he knew for a christian or a minister, furnishing excellent materials for addressing conscience, and directing men to judge of their spiritual state." Cal- amy, vol. ii. p. 333. Palmer's Noncon. Mem. vol. ii. p„ *. Ed.]
The king having parted with his last parliament in dis- pleasure, without being able to obtain a;»y money, resolved once more to try a new one;* and apprehending that the male-contents were encouraged by the neighborhood of the city of London, he summoned them to meet at Oxford : the same representatives being re-chosen for London, had a paper put into their hands by four merchants, in the name of all the citizens then assembled in the common hall, con- taining a return of their most hearty thanks for their faith- ful and unwearied endeavors in the two last parliaments, to search into the depth of the popish plot, to preserve the protestant religion,to promote an union among his majesty's protestant subjects, to repeal the 35th of Elizabeth, aud the
*Eachard, p. 1003. Rapin, vol. ii. p. 720.
76 THE HISTORY CHAP. 2.
corporation act, and to promote the bill of exclusion, and to request their continuance of the same. The members be- ins; afraid of violence, were attended to Oxford with a nu- merous body of horse, having ribbons in their hats, with this motto, JVo popery ; no slavery; the citizens having promised to stand by them with their lives and fortunes. Many other papers of the like nature were presented to the members in the several counties. The king, in his speech at the opening the sessions, March %i, rejected se- verely on the last parliament, and said, he was re olv-d to maintain the succession of the crown in the right line, and for quieting people's fears, he was willing to put the ad- ministration into the hands of n protest ant rege nt ; bui the commons rejected the proposal, to the inexpressible joy of the duke's party, and ordered the bill of exclusion to be brought in again. In the mean time a motion was made to consider of the loss of the bill in favor of the dissenters last parliament. Sir William Jones said, "the bill was of great moment and service to the country, and might be to their lives, in the time of a popish successor; but be the bill what it will, the precedent was of the highest con- sequence ; the king has a negative to all bills, but surely the clerk of the parliament has nut. — If this way be found out. that bills shall be thrown by, it may hereaf'er be said, they were forgot and laid by, and so we shall never know whether the king would pass them or no : if this be suf- fered, 'tis in vain to spend' time here — " In conclusion this affair was referred to a conference with the house of lords, which was frustrated by the hasty dissolution of the parliament.
They next went upon the libel of one Fitz-IIarris, an Irish papist, which was a second meal-tub plot, promoted in the name of the non-conformists ;* the libel was to be sent by penny-post letters to the lords who had protested in favor of the bill of exclusion, and to the leading men in the house of commons, who were immediately to be ap- prehended and searched. Everard, who was Fiiz-Harris's confident, and betrayed the secret, affirmed that the king himself was privy to it, as Fitz-Harris's wife averred to a person of worth many years alter ) that his majesty had
* Burnet, p. 303, 4.
WW
CHAP. 2. OF THE PURITANS. 77
given Fitz Harris money, and promised hi 01 more if it met with success. The libel was to traduce the kins; and the royal family as papists, and arbitrarily affected from the beginning, and says, that King Charles I. had a hand in the Irish rebellion ; — that the act forbidding to call the king a papist, was only to stop men's mou.hs, and that it was as much in the power of the people to depose a pop- ish possessor as a popish successor. It was iutitled The True Englishman speaking plain English; and adds, (i If James be conscious and guilty, Charles is so too; believe me these two brothers in iniquity are in confedera- cy with the pipe and the French, to introduce popery and arbitrary government, and to cast off parliaments, magna charta, and the liberty of the subject, as heavy yokes, and to be as arbitrary as tiie king of France — Let the English move and rise as one man to s.df-defence ; blow the trum- pet, stand on your guard, and withstand them as bears and tygers — Thrust to your swords in defence of your lives, liberties and religion, like the stout ear] of old, who told his king, if he could not be defended by magna charta, he would be relieved by longa spada" He goes on to re- proach the king with the breach of his Scots oaths, Breda promises, p rot estant profession, liberty of conscience ; as designed only to delude protectants ; and puts him in mind of all ids political and moral vices, as intended to debauch the nation, to promote the popish religion and arbitrary government, &c. Thus were the non-conformists to be ex- posed again to the. resentments of the nation ; but when the sham was discovered to the house of commons by Sir William Waller, he received the thanks of the house, and Fitz Harris, though impeached in parliament, was tried by a jury, and executed with Dr. Plunket, the titular primate of Ireland. The whigs would have saved Fitz- Harris, though a papist, in hopes of his being an evidence in the popish plot; but the court was resolved to dispatch him outof the way, that he might tell no more tales.
His majesty, hearing that the bill of exclusion was to be brought into the house again, went suddenly, and not very decently, (says Burnet*) to the house of lords in a sedan, with the crown between his feet, and having put on his
* Burnet, p. 3vJ6.
7® THE HISTORY CHAP. 3.
robes in haste, called up the commons, and dissolved his fifth and last parliament, after they had sat only seven days. As soon as his majesty got out of the house, he posted away in all haste to Windsor, as one that was glad he had got rid of his parliament, which was the last that he ever con- vened ; though he lived three or four years after. And here was an end of the constitution and liberties of Eng- land for the present ; all that followed to the king's death was no more than the convulsions and struggles of a dying man. The king raised what money he wanted without par- liaments ; he took away all the charters of England, and governed absolutely by dint of prerogative. April the 8th, the king published a declaration* to all his loving subjects, touching the causes and reasons that moved him to dissolve the two last parliaments ; and ordered it to be read in ail the churches and chapels throughout England. It contains a recital of his majesty's condescensions for the security of the protestant religion, as far as was consistent with the succession of the crown in the lineal descent ; and a large rehearsal of the unsuitable returns of the commons. But notwithstanding all this, (says his majesty) let not these men, who are laboring to poison our people with common- wealth principles, persuade any of our subjects that we in- tend to lay aside the use of parliaments, for we still de- clare, that no irregularities in parliaments shall make us out of love with them ; and we are resolved by the bless- ing of God, to have frequent parliaments ;'? although he never called another. Several anonymous remarks were made upon this declaration, to weaken its influence. But the court used all its iuterest among the people to support its credit : addresses were sent from all parts, thanking his majesty for his declaration, promising to support his' person and government with their lives and fortunes. Most of them declared against the bill of exclusion, and for the duke's succession! (as has been observed.) Some ventur- ed to arraign the late parliament as guilty of sedition and
* It was observed, Dr. Calamy says, that " this declaration was known by M. Barillon, the French ambassador, and by the duchess of Mazarine, sooner than by the king's council, and that it was evidenced to be of French extraction by the gallicisms in it; and withal it had no broad seal to it, and was sigued only by a clerk of the council." Own Life, MS. p. 74. Ed. f Burnet, vol. ii. 308-9.
CHAP. 2. OF THE PURITANS, 7<J
treason, aud to pray his majesty to put in execution the statute of 85 Eliz. against the non-conformists. The grand juries, the justices at their session, divers boroughs and corporations, the companies in towns, and at last the very apprentices, sent up addresses. Those who presented or procured them were well treated at court, and some of thetn knighted. Many zealous healths were drank, and in their cups thelswaggeriugs of the old cavaliers seemed to be revived. One of the most celebrated addresses was from the university of Cambridge, presented by Dr. Grower master of St. John's, which I shall give the reader as a specimen of the rest. It begins thus : " Sacred Sir ! We your majesty's most faithful and obedient subjects have long, with the greatest and sineerest joy, beheld tha gen- erous emulation of our fellow-subjects, contending who should best express their duty to their sovereign at this time, when the seditious endeavors of unreasonable men have made it necessary to assert the ancient loyalty of the English nation. — It is at present the great honor of this your university, not only to be stedfast and constant in our duty, but to be eminently so, and to suffer for it as much as the calumnies and reproaches of factious and malicious men can iikiict upon us. And that they have not proceed- ed to sequestration and plunder, as heretofore, next to the over-ruling providence of almighty God, is only due to the lxvyal care and prudence of your most sacred majesty, who gave so seasonable a check to their abitrary and insolent undertakings. — West-ill believe and maintain, that our Jeiiigs derive not their power from the people, but from God; that to him only they are accountable ; that it be- longs not to subjects either to create or censure, but to hon- or and obey their sovereign, who comes to be so by a funda- mental, hereditary right of succession, which no religion, no law, no fault or forfeiture can alter or diminish ; nor will we abate of our well-instructed zeal for the Church of England as by law established. — Thus we have learned our own, and thus we teach others their duty to God and the king.'' — His majesty discovered an unusual satisfaction on this occasion, aud after having returned them thanks, was pleased to add, that no other church in the world taught and practised loyalty so conscientiously as they did-,
SO THE HISTORY CHAP. %.
As such abject and servile flattery could not fail of pleas- ing the king, it must necessarily draw down vengeance on the non-conformists, who joined in none of their addresses, but were doomed to suffer under a double character, as wkigs, and as dissenters. ik This (says bishop Burnet*) was set on by the papists, and it was wisely done of them, for they knew how much the non-confjrmists were set against them. They made use also of the indiscreet zeal of the high church clergymen to ruin them, which they knew would render the clergy odious, and give the papists great advantage when opportunity offered." The times were boisterous and stormy ; sham plots were contrived, and warrants issued against the leaders of the whig party for seditious language ; Shaftesbury, now called the pro- testant earl, was sent to the Tower, and Stephen College, the protestant joiner, was carried to Oxford, and hanged, after the grand jury in London had brought in a bill of indictment against him ignoramus. Witnesses were im- ported from Ireland, and employed to swear away men's lives. " The court intended to set them to swear against all the hot party, which was plainly murder in them who believed them false witnesses, (says Burnetf) and yet made use of them to destroy others.'' Spies were planted in all coffee-houses, to furnish out evidence for the wit- nesses. Mercenary justices were put into commission all over the kingdom ; juries were packed ; and with regard to the non-conformists, informers of the vilest of the people were countenanced to a shameful degree, insomuch that the gaols were quickly tilled with prisoners, and large sums of money extorted from the industrious and conscien- tious, and played into the hands of the most profligate wretches in the nation.
The justices of Middlesex shewed great forwardness, and represented to his majesty in Dec. " that an intimation of his pleasure was necessary at this time, to the putting the laws in execution against conventicles, because when a charge was lately given at the council-board to put thelaws in execution against popish recusants, no mention was made of suppressing conventicles." Upon this his majesty commanded the lord- mayor, aldermen, and justices, to
* Page 306. tP. 315.
CHAP. 3. OF THE PURITANS. 8t
use their utmost endeavor to suppress all conventicles and unlawful meetings, upon pretence of religious worship, for it was his express pleasure, that the laws be effectually put in execution against them, both in city and cuuutry. Ac- cordingly the justices of peace at their sessions at Hickes's- hall, January, 13, ordered, "that whereas the constables and church- wardens, &c. of every parish and precinct with- in the said county, had been enjoined Last sessions to make a return the first day of this, of the names of the preachers in conventicles, and the most considerable frequenters of the same within their several limits; which order not be- ing obeyed, but contemned by some, it was therefore by the justices then assembled desires', that the lord bishop of London will please to direct those officers which are under his jurisdiction, to use their utmost diligence, that all such persons may be excommunicated, who commit crimes de- serving the ecclesiastical censure ; and that the said ex- communications may be published in the parishes where the persons live, that they may be taken notice of, and be obvious to the penalties that belong to persons excommu- nicate, fviz.J not to be admitted for a witness, or returned upon juries, or capable of suing for any debt." They further ordered at the same time, " that the statute of the first of Eliz. and third of King James, be. put in due execu- tion, for the levying twelve-pence per Sunday upon such persons who repaired not to divine service and sermons at their parish or some other public church." All which (says Mr. Eachard) made way for all sorts of prosecutions both in city and country, which in many places were car- ried on with great spite and severity, where there never wanted busy agents and informers, of which a few were sufficient to put the laws in execution ; so that the dissent- ers this year and much longer, (says he) met with cruel and unchristian usage ; which occasioned great complaints among the people, and some severe reflections on the king himself.
It was not in the power of the chnrch-whigs to relieve the non- conformists, nor screen them from the edge of the pe- nal laws, which were in the hands of their enemies. All that could be done was to encourage their constancy, and to write some compassionate treatises to move the people
Vol. V. 11
83 THE HISTOKY CHAP. %.
in their favor, by shewing them, that while they were plun- dering and destroying their protestant dissenting neigh- bors, they were cutting the throat of the reformed religion, and making way for the triumphs of popery upon its ruins. Among other writings of this sort, the most famous was, the Conformists Plea for the Non-conformists, in four parts, by abeneficed minister and a regular son of the church of England. In which the author undertakes to shew, 1. The greatness of their sufferings. %. The hardships of their case. 3. The reasonableness and equity of their pro- posals for union. 4. The qualifications and worth of their ministers. 5. Their peaceable behavior. 6. Their agree- ment with the church of England in the articles of her faith. 7« The prejudice to the church by their exclusion : and then concludes, with an account of the infamous lives, and lamentable deaths, of several of the informers. It was a sensible and moving performance, but had no influence on the tory justices, and tribe of informers. There was no stemming the tide; every one who was not a furious tory (says Kapin) was reputed a presbyterian.
Most of the clergy were with the court, and distinguish- ed themselves on the side of persecution. The pulpits ev- ery where resounded with the doctrines of passive obedi- ence and non-resistance, which were carried to all the heights of King Charles I. iNo eastern monarch (accord- ing to them) was more absolute than the king of England.* They expressed such a zeal for the duke's succession, as if a popish king over a protestant country had been a spe- cial blessing from heaven. They likewise gave themselves such a loose against protestant non -conformists, as if noth- ing was so formidable as that party. In all their sermons, popery was quite forgot, (says Burnet) and the force of th<*ir zeal was turned almost wholly against protestant dis- se :ters. In many country places the parson of the parish, who could bully, and drink and swear, was put into the commission of the peace, and made a confiding justice, by Which means he was both judge and party in his own cause. If any of bis sober parishioners did not appear at church, they were sure to be summoned, and instead of the mild- ness and gentleness of a christian clergyman, they usual-
* Rapin, p. 723. Burnet, p. 309,
GHA.P. 2. OF THE PURITANS. S3
1 . met with haughty and abusive language, and the ut- most rigor the law could inflict. There was also a great change made in the commissions throughout England. A set of confiding magistrates was appointed; and none were left on the bench, or in the militia, that did not declare for the arbitrary measures of the court : and such of the cler- gy as were averse to this fury were declaimed against as betrayers of the churchy and secret favorers of the dissen- ters ; but the truth is, (says the bishop) the number of the sober honest clergymen was not great, for where the car- case is, there will the eagles be gathered together. The scent of preferment will draw aspiring men after it. Upon the whole, the present times were very lowering, and the prospect under a popish successor still more threatening.
It would fill a volume, to enter into all the particulars of these unchristian proceedings, which even the black regis- ters of the spiritual courts cannot fully unfold. The rev- ereud Mr. Edward liury, assisting at a private fast, on account of the extraordinary drought, was apprehended June 1*, and fined twenty pounds; and refusing to pay it because he did not preach, they look away his goods, books, and even the bed he lay upon. The reverend Mr. Philip Henry was apprehended at the same time, and lined forty pounds, and for non-payment they carried away thirty- three loads of corn which lay cut upon the ground, together with hay, coals, and other chattels. The informers took the names of one hundred and fifty more, who were at the meeting: they fined the master of the house twenty pounds? and five pounds more as being constable that year, and ex- acted five, shillings a head from all who were present. — ■ Examples of this usage in Londou, Middlesex, and most of the couuties of England, are innumerable.
The cjuakers published a narrative of the sufferings of their friends since the restoration, by which it appeared, that great numbers had been fined by the bishop's courts, robbed of their substance, and perished in prison.* Many had been so beaten and wounded for attending their meet- ings, that they died of their wounds. An account was also published, of the unjust proceedings of the informers, shewing, that at their instance many had been plundered
•Sewel, p. 57*, 3Si.
M THE HISTORY CHAP. 2.
without a juridical process; that seven hundred of them were now in prison in several parts of England, and es- pecially about Bristol ; but remonstrances and complaints availed nothing.
In the midst of this furious persecution, the famous Mr. Thomas Gouge, son of Dr. Gouge of Black-friars, and the ejected minister of St. Sepulchre's, was taken out of this world : he was born at Bow near Stratford, 1605. bred at Eaton school, and educated in King's college, Cambridge.* He settled at St. Sepulchre's in the year 1(538, and for twenty-four years discharged all the parts of a vigilant and faithful pastor. He was a wonder of piety, charity, humil- ity, and moderation, making it his study to keep a con- science void of offence towards God and man. Mr. Bax- ter says, he never heard any man speak to his dishonor, except that he did not conform. He was possessed of a good estate, and devoted the chief of it to charity. He set- tled schools to the number of three or four hundred, and gave money to teach children to read in the mountainous parts of Wales, where he travelled annually, and preach- ed, till he was forbid by the bishops, and excommunicated, though he still went as a hearer to the parish churches. — He printed eight thousand Welsh Bibles, j* a thousand of which were given to the poor, and the rest sent to the prin- cipal towns of Wales, to be sold at an under rate. He printed five hundred of the Whole Duty of Man in Welsh, and gave them away ; two hundred and forty JSTew Testa- ments ; and kept almost two thousand Welsh children at school to learn English. Archbishop Tillotson, in his
* Tillotson's Works, vol. i. p. 265. t In those charitable works, as we have seen before, he was assisted by his friends. The great business or his life was to do good. He annually travelled over Wales, inspecting (he schools and instructing the people both in public and private, till he was between sixty and seventy years of age. He sustained great loss by the fire of London, and after the death of his wife and the settlement of his children, his fortune was reduced to 1301. per annum ; out of which lie constantly expended tool, in works of charity. He had a singular sagacity and prudence in devising the most effectual ways of doing good : and his example gave the first hint to Mr. T. Firmin of that plan of furnishing the poor with employment, which he so extensively and generously pur- sued. His funeral sermon was preached by Doctor, afterwards Arch* bishop Tillotson. Palmer. Ed,
CHAT. 2. OF THE PURITANS. 85
funeral sermon, says, that, all things considered, there has not since the primitive times of Christianity been many among the sons of men, to whom that glorious character of the Son of God might be better applied, that he went about doing good.* He was a divine of a cheerful spirit, and went away quietly, in his sleep, October 29, 1681, in the seventy-seventh year of his age.j-
Wliile fhe tories and high-church clergy were ravaging the dissenters, the court was intent upon subverting the constitution, and getting the government of the city into their hands. June 24, 1683, there was a contest about the election of sheriffs, which occasioned a considerable tumult. And when the election of lord- mayor came on at Michael- mas, the citizens were again in an uproar, the lord-mayor pretending a right to adjourn the court, while the sheriffs, to whom the right belonged, continued the poll till night; "when the books were cast up, each party claimed the ma- jority according to their respective books. The contest rose so high, that Sir William Pritchard, lord-mayor, was afterwards arrested at the suit of Mr. Papillon and Du- bois, and detained prisoner in Skinner's-hall till midnight. But when the affair came to a trial, the election was va- cated, Papillon and Dubois were imprisoned, and the leading men of the whig party, who had distinguished themselves in the contest, were fined in large sums of mo- ney, which made way for the loss of the charter.
* Calamy, vol. ii. p. 8 t The learned and excellent Dr. William Lioyd, then bishop of St. Asaph, who endeavored by argument to remove the scruples of the dis- senters, and to bring them back into the church by mild and christian methods, after some private conferences, called on Mr. James Owen, to produce his reasons tor preaching without ordination by diocesan bish- ops, at the public hull of Oswestree, on the 27th of September, of (he year 1681. The bishop was attended by the learned Mr. Henry Dod- well ; Mr. Owen's supporters were. Mr. Philip Henry, Mr. Jonathan Roberts of Slainvair, in Denbigshire, an excellent scholar and warm disputant. The dispute began at two in the afternoon, and ended be- tween eight and nine. Several points, connected with (he main ques- tion, " concerning the necessity of ordination by diocesan bishops, in uninterrupted succession from (lie apostles," were debated. The effects of ibis discussion were various: but no converts were made by it. — The bishop procured respect by his exemplary candor ; and Mr Philip Henry, by his prudent and primitive temper, and (he mildness of his manner, recommended himself to ihp high esteem of the prelate and the company. Mr. James Owen's Life, p. 29—35. Ed,
86* THE HISTORY (illAP. 2.
The court would have persuaded the common-council to make a voluntary surrender of it to the crown, to put an end to all contests for the future ;* but not being able to prevail, they resolved to condemn it by law ; accordingly a quo war- ranto was issued out of the court of King's bench, to see whether its charter had been duly observed, because the common-council, in one of their addresses, had petitioned for the sitting of the parliament, and had taxed the proro- gation as a delay of justice: and because they had laid taxes on their wharves and markets contrary to law. After trial upon these two points, the chief justice delived it as the unanimous opinion of the court, that the liberties and fran- chises of the city of London had been forfeited, and might he seized into the king's hands, but judgment was not to be entered till the king's pleasure was further known. In the mean time the lord-mayor and common-council, who are the representatives of the city, agreed to submit to the king's mercy, and sent a deputation to Windsor, June 18, 1683, to beg pardon ; which the king was pleased to grant on con- dition that his majesty might have a negative in the choice of all the chief magistrates — that if his majesty disapproved of their choice of a lord-mayor they should choose another within a week — and that if his majesty disapproved their second choice he should himself nominate a mayor fur the year ensuing ; and the like as to sheriffs, aldermen, &c.f When this was reported to the common-council, it was put to the vote, and upon a division, one hundred and four were for accepting the king's regulation, and eighty-six against it ; but even these concessions continued no longer than a year. The charter of London being lost, the cities and corporations in general were prevailed with to deliver up their charters, and accept of such new ones as the court would grant, which was the highest degree of perfidy and baseness in those who were entrusted with them, especially when they knew, that the design was to pack a parliament, in order to make way for a popish successor.
Thus the liberties of England were delivered up to the crown ; and though the forms of law remained, men's lives
* Burnet, p. 354-— 357". Rapin, p. 727. + Burnet, vol. ii. p. 403. Gazette, No. 1835.
CHAP. 2. OF THE PURITANS. 8f
and estates were at the mercy of a set of profligate crea- tares, who would swear any thing for hire. Juries (says Burnet*) were a shame to the nation, and a reproach to religion, for they were packed and prepared to bring ira verdicts as they were directed, and not as matters appear ed upon the evidence. Zeal against popery was decried as the voice of a faction, who were enemies to the king and his government. All rejoicings on the fifth of No- vember were forbid, and strict orders given to all consta- bles and olher officers to keep the peace ; but the popu- lace not being so orderly as they should have been, several London apprentices were fined twenty marks for a riot9 and set in (he pillory. These were the triumphs ofatory and popish administration.
A little before this died old Mr. Thomas Case, M. A. educated in Christ-church, Oxford, and one of the assem- bly of divines ; he was peculiarly zealous in promoting the morning exercises, but was turned out of his living of St Mary Magdalen, Milk-street, for refusing the engagement, and imprisoned for Mr. Love's plot; he was afterwards rector of St. Giles's, and waited on the king at Breda. f He was one of the commissioners at the Savoy, and si- lenced with his brethren in 1663. Re was an open, plain- hearted man, an excellent preacher, of a warm spirit, and a hearty lover of all good men. He died May 39, 1683. aged 844
Mr. Samuel Clarke, the ejected minister of St. Bene't Fink, was an indefatigable student, as appears by his Mar- tyrology, his Lives of eminent Divines, and other histori- cal works ; he was a good scholar, and had been an use-
*Page 330. j Calamy, vol. ii. p. 13. Palmers Non. Mem. vol. i. p. 124, t tfe survived every one of (he disseuiers that sat in (he assembly of divines. Mr. Baxter styles him " a holy, faithful servant of God." It is painful, however, to reflect, that a man whose character appears, in general, to have been venerable and amiable, should be so transport- ed by the heat of the times, as, in a sermon preached before the '• court- martial" in' 1644, to say ; " Noble Sirs, imitate God, and be merciful to none that have sinned of malicious wickedness ;" meaning the roy- alists, who were frequently el vied malignants. This, as Mr. Grander observes, is sanguinary. It may be added, that it conveyed also a false idea of the divine clemency, which extends ils exercise, on repentance, to all characters ; to sins of malignity as well as of infirmity. Gran- ger's History of England, vol. iii. p. 317,18. Ed,
88 THE HISTORY €,HAI\ %
ful preacher in Cheshire and Warwickshire, before he came to London ; he was one of the commissioners at the Savoy, and presented the presbyterian minister's address of thanks to the kins for his declaration concerning ecele- siastical affairs ; and though he could not conform as a preacher, he frequently attended the service of the church as a hearer and communicant. He died December 25, 1(585, cutatis eighty.* *
While the liberties of England lay bleeding, the fury of the court raged higher than ever against the non-confor- mists, as inflexible enemies of their arbitrary measures. f Mr. Baxter was surprised in his own house, by a compa- ny of constables and other peace-officers, who arrested bin for coming within five miles of a corporation, and brought warrants to distrain upon him for five sermons, amounting to 1951. They took him out of his bed, to which he had been confined for some time, and were carrying him to a;aol ; but I)t*. Cox the physician, meeting him in the way, went and made oath before a justice of peace, that he could not be removed to prison without danger of his life, so he was permitted to go home again to bed ; but the officers rifled his house, took away such books as he had, and sold even the bed from under him. Dr. Annesley, and several
* When Mr. Clarke was ejected, he had been forty years in the min- istry, during which time he had been seven or eight years a governor, and two years a president of S ton-college. The, most valuable of his numerous works r.re reckoned to be " Lives of the Puritan Divines and other persons of note." "The author and the bookseller," says Mr. Granger, " seem to have been thoroughly informed of this secret, that a taking title-page becomes much more taking, with an engraved fron- tispiece before it ; and that little pictures, in the body of the book, are great embellishments to style and matter." He was more a compiler than an author. His name was anagrammatised to Su (c) kail Cream, alluding to his taking the best part of those books from which he. col- lected. One is sorry to find, in the list of his publications, "A Dis- course against Toleration." Me enjoyed about nine years the living of Aleester in Warwickshire, where his preaching was very useful, and the town became exemplary for sobriety, which had borne the charac- ter of drunken Aleester. He met death with a lively sense of eternity upon his mind, and a comfortable assurance of his own title to future blessedness. Palmer's Noncon. Mem. vol. i. p. 88, &c. Granger's History, vol. iii. p. 321. Ed.
Mr. Clarke was the great-grandfather of Dr. Samuel Clarke of St. Alban's. the patron of Dr. Doddridge's youthful studies. Ed. t Part iii. p. 191.
CHAP. %. OF THE PURITANS, 89
other ministers, had their goods distrained for latent con- victions ; that is, upon the oaths of persons they never saic, nor received summons to answer for themseves before a justice of peace. This was stabbing men in the dark. Some were imprisoned on the corporation act. The rev- erend Mr. Vincent was tried and convicted at the Surry assizes on the 3jth of Q teen Elizabeth, already mention- ed : he lay in prison many months, but was at last releas- ed by the intercession of some great men. The dissenting laky were harrassed every where in the spiritual courts, Warrants were signed for distresses in the village of Hack- ney alone, to the sum of fourteen hundred pounds ; one of which was five hundred. The reader will then judge what must have been the case of the interest in general.*
But in the midst of this oppression and violence, the court found that the spirit of English liberty was not easily to be subdued : there were a set of patriots who stood in their way, and were determined to hazard their lives and for- tunes for the constitution; these were therefore to be re- moved or cut off, by bringing them within the compass of some pretended plot against the government. Some, who were more zealous than prudent, met together in clubs at the taverns and other places, to talk over tiie common dan- ger, and what might be done to secure their religion and liberties in case of the king's death ; but there was no formed design in any of them against the king or the pre- sent government. The court however laid hold of this oc- casion, and, as Mr. Coke says, set on foot three plots, one to assassinate the king and duke as they came from New- market ; another to seize the guards : and a third was call- ed the Blaekheath plot ; in all which, for ought I can find, (says he) t\i& fox was the finder. Dr. Welwood adds,|
* The temper of the court and church at this time inclined Mr. John Shower, to attend the nephew of Sir Samuel Barnardiston mi his trav- els, in compliance with the earnest request of his uncle,- in company with several other gentlemen, which we mention here to introduce the following passage. When they were at Geneva, where they continued for some time, they contracted an acquaintance with Turretin the young- er. On their Hist conversation they found this learned divine and the rest of the city possessed with very unfavorable sentiments concerning the English Non-conformists. But when Mr. Shower and his compan- ions had stated their ease, and the terms required of them, Turretin and
t Memoirs, p. 132,
Vol. V. 12
90 THE HISTORY CHAP. &
that the shattered remains of English liberty were attacked on every 9ide, and some of the noblest blood in the nation offered up a sacrifice to the manes of popish martyrs. Swearing came into fashion, and an evidence office was set up at Whitehall ; the witnesses were highly encouraged, and, instead of judges and juries that might boggle at half evidence, care was taken to pick out such as should stick at nothing to serve a turn. The plot which the court made use of was called the Iiyehouse plot,\ from the name of the house were the two royal brothers were to be shot; it was within two miles of Hodsdon in Hertfordshire, and was first discovered by one Keeling ate anabaptist ; after him Goodenough, Humsey and West, made themselves witnes- ses, and framed a story out of their own heads, of lopping off the two brothers, as they came from Newmarket; and having heard of conferences between the duke of Mon- mouth, lord Russel, and others, concerning securing the protestant religion upon the king's decease, they impeach- ed them to the council, upon which lord Russel, Algernon Sidney, the earl of Essex, and Mr. Houblon, were appre- hended and sent to the Tower. Warrants were issued out for several others, who, knowing that innocence was in these times no sufficient protection, absconded, and went out of the way ; but several were tried, and executed upon the court-evidence ; as Mr. Rumbold, the master of the house where the plot was to take place, who declared at his execution in King James's reign, that he never knew of any design against the king ; as did Captain Walcot and Sir Thomas Armstrong, Rouse, and the rest. Lord Russel was condemned, and beheaded, for being within the hearing of some treasonable words at Mr. Shepherd's, a wine-cooper in Abchurch-lane.J Tlie earl of Essex's throat was cut in the Tower§> during lord Russel's trial ;*
the others declared themselves well satisfied with the grounds of their dissent, and treated them, during the remainder of their residence in the city, with a very particular respect. Tong's Life of Shower, p. 4S. Ed, t Baruet, vol. ii. p. 368-73. ' \ P. 382.
§ Dr. Grey censures Mr. Neal's account of the Eye-house plot as very fauity. if not false ; " as appears," he says, " from the very best of our historians, and tJ*e confession of several that suffered for it." The his- torians to whom the doctor refers are Eachard, Kennet, &e. and prin- * Welwood's Memoirs, p. 161,
CKAP. Q. ©F THB PURITANS. 9i
and Algernon Sidney was executed for having a seditious libel in his study ;| of the injustice of which the parliament at the revolution was so sensible, that they reversed the judgments. A proclamation was issued out against the duke of Monmouth, though the king knew where he was ; and after the ferment brought him to court. Mr. Kachard observes, that some have called this the fanatic, the pro- tectant, the whigish, or presbyterian plot ; others have called i^ with more justice, a piece of state policy, and no better than an imposture, for it had no other foundation than the rash and imprudent discourse of some warm whigs, which, in so critical a conjuncture, was very hazardous ; but no scheme of a plot had been agreed upon, no preparations made, no arms nor horses purchased, nor persons appoint- ed to execute any design against the king or government.^ However, the court had their ends in striking tenor into the whole party.
eipally bishop Sprat's "History of the Rye-house Plot." As to this work, the most partial to it must own it detracts greatly from its cred- it ; that it was drawn up to please the court, by one that was wholly in that interest ; aud the