[468] See Strype's Parker, i. 465.
[469] These are expressions used in the Account of Twiss.—Clark's Lives, 18.
[470] See Hase, 485.
[471] Bishop Burnet, in the History of his own Times, says of the year 1680, (and his words are true of the times just before), "I was indeed amazed at the labours and learning of the ministers among the Reformed. They understood the Scriptures well in the original tongues, they had all the points of controversy very ready, and did thoroughly understand the whole body of divinity. In many places they preached every day, and were almost constantly employed in visiting their flock. But they performed their devotions but slightly, and read their prayers, which were too long, with great precipitation and little zeal. Their sermons were too long and too dry. And they were so strict, even to jealousy, in the smallest points in which they put orthodoxy, that one who could not go into all their notions, but was resolved not to quarrel with them, could not converse much with them with any freedom." In reference to the French refugees, he observes: "Even among them there did not appear a spirit of piety and devotion suitable to their condition, though persons who have willingly suffered the loss of all things rather than sin against their consciences, must be believed to have a deeper principle in them than can well be observed by others."
Archbishop Trench has drawn an instructive and admonitory parallel between this condition of things on the Continent, in the 17th century, and the picture of the Church at Ephesus in the Book of Revelation.—Commentary on the Epistles to the Seven Churches, 73.
[472] Quoted in Anderson's History of the Colonial Church, i. 25-27.
Worthies of England, Derbyshire, i. 373.
[473] Anderson, i., 46-56.
[474] Advertisement for the Unexperienced Planters in New England, &c., p. 32, quoted in Anderson's Colonial Church, i. 180.
[475] Anderson's History of the Colonial Church, i. 217, 231.
[476] Ibid., i. 267.
Bancroft, i. 178, 206.
Even Mr. Anderson, who praises Virginia for its tolerance, acknowledges, "that if the enactments concerning the Church had been literally enforced, the Puritan would have found no resting-place within its borders."—i. 270.
[477] Anderson, i. 461-2.
[478] See Articles Subscribed by the Colonists.—Ibid., i. 301.
[479] Anderson, i. 308. This was a French translation of Edward the Sixth's Prayer Book. Edward the Sixth's first Prayer Book (1549) was translated into French for the use of the King's subjects in Calais and the Channel Islands, by command of Sir Hugh Paulet, Governor of Calais. This book was corrected, according to the revision of the second Prayer Book, in 1532.—Procter on the Book of Common Prayer, 37.
[480] Anderson, i. 488.
[481] Bancroft, i. 248. Afterwards it was declared that "Holy Church" should enjoy all her liberties and rights.—Bacon's Laws of Maryland.
[482] Ibid., i. 272.
[483] Holme's American Annals, i. 163. Bancroft, i. 305.
[484] Anderson, i. 359.
[485] A copy of the Charter may be found in the State Paper Office, Col. Series, under date 1629, March 4th. An account of it is given in Bancroft, i. 342.
[486] Cotton Mather's Magnalia, i. 66. The distinct origin of the Massachusetts colony has been overlooked by some historians. The Pilgrim Fathers of New England have been confounded with the planters of the neighbouring state.
[487] Baird's Religion of the United States, 107, 108.—Anderson, ii. 156, 157.
[488] Bancroft, i. 349.
The treatment of Roger Williams, who, with all his folly and rashness, blended qualities of the noblest kind,—can never be justified.
[489] Heylyn's Life of Laud, p. 369.
[490] Heylyn's Life of Laud, 276.
[491] Hazard, i. 344. Anderson, i. 412.
[492] December, 1634. State Papers, Colonial.
"The question about the lawfulness of the cross was warmly agitated at the time, and the matter was finally settled by the magistrates commanding that the cross be struck out of the colours for the trained bands, but retained on the banners of the castle and of vessels in the harbour."—Elton's Life of Roger Williams, 23.
[493] 1634, No. 41, State Papers, Colonial; 1637, October 7th and 15th, Ibid.; 1637, No. 73, Ibid. These are all described in Mr. Sainsbury's Calendar, Col. Series, 1574-1660.
[494] 1637, October 6th, State Papers, Colonial.
[495] Ibid.
[496] Anderson, ii. 18.
The Council of State, 1649, were informed, by a petition of the congregation of Nansamund, in Virginia, that their minister, Mr. Harrison, an able man of unblameable conversation, had been banished the Colony because he would not conform to the Prayer Book. The Prayer Book being prohibited by Parliament, the Council directs that Mr. Harrison be restored, unless there be a cause for his removal satisfactory to Parliament.—State Papers, Colonial, October, 1649; Entry Book, cxv. p. 482.
In the Bermudas, or Somers Isles, Puritanism had become prevalent in 1642. Richard Norwood, a Puritan minister, writes thence, February 28th:—"We have seen an experiment here of that which very few, I suppose, in England have seen, namely, of the superiority or government of ministers, or an assembly of ministers esteeming the government to be theirs, who have the most sway in it." He expects the Government at home will receive complaints of arbitrary proceedings. The same writer, May 14th, 1645, speaks of "diversity of opinions touching ecclesiastical discipline." There were two parties, he says, one under Mr. White, adhering to the Independent way; the other, and the larger number, holding to the former discipline used there until Parliament should order otherwise.
Again, in May, 1647, he speaks of "bitter acrimony" between the two Independents and two Presbyterian ministers. The reins of government were slack.—State Papers, Colonial, under dates.
[497] Anderson, i. 373.
[498] Anderson, ii. 57-59.
[499] This Act, passed in 1649, may be seen in Bacon's Laws.
[500] Bancroft, i. 421.
[501] Ibid., i. 432.
[502] Bancroft, i. 448.
[503] Ibid., 441. See also his preceding pages.
[504] See Scobell, July the 27th, 1649, p. 66.
[505] Some in New England held back from this kind of missionary work,—Anderson, ii. 195.
Just on the eve of the Restoration this entry occurs in the minutes of the synod at Sion College, the 19th March, 1659-60.
"There was then propounded by some of the Corporation for New England that our help should be administered for the printing of the Bible in the Indian languages. It was then ordered that the design propounded was eminently acceptable, and that the ministers would engage that they would promote the design to their utmost capacity."
[506] Bancroft, i. 445.
[507] Thurloe, v. 147. We can trace this Gookin in the Colonial State Papers as admitted a patentee under a grant from the New England Company (July the 5th, 1622); as praying Charles I. for a patent in the capacity of planter and adventurer (March the 1st, 1631); as receiving a warrant to export to New England powder and shot (July the 24th, 1650); as receiving £300 to defray charges of service (September the 21st, 1655); and as passing from Jamaica to New England on board the Fraternity (December the 19th, 1655).
[508] Life of Williams, 111.
[509] Bancroft, i. 425.
[510] Bancroft, i. 428.
[511] Whitelocke, 474.
[512] Scobell, 1650, Oct. 3rd.
[513] State Papers. Colonial. Feb. 1st, 1651.
[514] Ibid. Colonial. Oct. 31st, 1651.
[515] State Papers. Colonial. Nov. 13th, 1651.
[516] Ibid., Dec. 14th, 1651.
[517] State Papers. Colonial. Dec. 27th, 1651.
[518] State Papers. Colonial. 1651, Dec. 26th: 1652, Jan. 9th.
[519] Ibid. 1653, Aug. 28th, Sept. 19th. Calendar, 408.
A large mass of correspondence respecting Barbadoes may be found in the Record Office. Barbadoes had been a place of banishment for the Irish taken at Drogheda, and thither were also sent the Royalists who were made prisoners at Exeter and Ilchester. In a Royalist pamphlet entitled, England's Slavery, or Barbadoes Merchandize, (1659,) a melancholy account is given of the barbarous treatment of seventy-two freeborn Englishmen who uncondemned had been sold into slavery.
[520] State Papers. Colonial. Sept. 26th, 1651. Thurloe, i. 197.
[521] Anderson, ii. 19-21.
"In Virginia's Cure the Colony is represented as bearing a great love to the stated constitutions of the Church of England in her government and public worship, which gave us (who went thither under the late persecution of it) the advantage of liberty to use it constantly amongst them, after the naval force had reduced the Colony under the power (but never to the obedience) of the usurpers."—Quoted in Wilberforce's History of the American Church, 38.
[522] Anderson, ii. 20-23.
Bancroft paints a glowing picture of Virginia under the Commonwealth.—i. 224.
[523] Mr. Anderson, in his History of the Church of England in the Colonies, ii. 36, speaks of the paucity of his materials respecting the Bermudas. The particulars given above are picked out of the State Papers, Colonial Series (see Calendar), 1652, Jan. 1st; 1653, June 25th; 1656, Oct. 7th, Nov. 18th; 1658, March 25th, Sept. 7th. It is stated in the Report, 1656, Oct. 7th, that the islands for the most part were naturally fortified or otherwise secured by four forts with sixty guns and five companies; 1,500 men were able to bear aims. About 3,000 inhabitants were without a minister. The charges of Government were £500 a year, and the tobacco duties amounted to £800.
[524] Thurloe, ii. 126.
[525] State Papers. Colonial. July 25th, 1657.
[526] Thurloe, iii. 497. Long's Hist. of Jamaica, i. 239, quoted by Anderson, ii. 75.
[527] State Papers. Colonial. Sept. 26th, 1655.
[528] Thurloe, iii. 650, iv. 4.
[529] There are several letters by D'Oyley in Thurloe.
[530] See papers in Thurloe, v. 482-487.
Puritan emigrants from Virginia are charged with fomenting quarrels in Maryland.—Leah and Rachel, quoted in Anderson, ii. 32.
[531] The persecution of the Roman Catholics in England has been noticed already. We may add, that in 1656-57, a new oath of adjuration was prescribed for discovering Papists, and a penalty of £100 was to be inflicted on any one who attended mass. The ordinance altogether was very severe.—Scobell, 443. Butler, (Rom. Cath., ii. 407,) mentions the execution of a priest for the exercise of his functions.
[532] Thurloe., iv. 55. Bancroft, i. 261, on the authority of Chalmers.
[533] Bancroft, i. 263.
In a pamphlet, entitled Hammond versus Heamans, preserved in the State Paper Office, there is published what is said to be "His Highness's absolute (though neglected) command to Richard Bennet, late Governor of Virginia, and all others, not to disturb the Lord Baltimore's plantation in Maryland."—1655, vol. xii. 59.
[534] Vol. i. p. 340.
[535] Anderson, ii. 272.
[536] Ibid., 271.
[537] Durie gives long and amusing accounts of his conversations with Archbishop Laud. Laud promised to use his influence with the King to procure him a living. He did so, and Durie went down into Devonshire, where the living was situated, to take possession, but he found it occupied by some one else. Laud paid Durie's travelling expenses. The letters are given in Mr. Bruce's interesting preface to the Cal. Dom., 1633-1634.
[538] Calendar Dom., 1633-34, 525.
[539] Calendar, Dom., 1633-34, p. 562.
[540] Ibid., p. 565, 566.
[541] Calendar Dom., 1634-35, p. 148.
A number of other interesting letters from or respecting Durie are condensed by Mr. Bruce in his Calendar.—See pp. 89, 96, 195, 204, 530.
[542] Harris's Cromwell, 304.
[543] See letters illustrative of Durie's efforts abroad in Vaughan's Protectorate of Cromwell, i. 48, 104, 117.
[544] Notices of Durie may be found in Bayle's Dict., in Biog. Brit., in Brook's Lives, and in Herzog's Encycl.
[545] Vaughan's Protectorate, i. 136.
[546] Thurloe, iii. 362.
[547] Vaughan, i. 169, 170, 175.
[548] Original Papers illustrative of the life and writings of John Milton, Camden Society; the translation is taken from the Athenæum, Dec. 17th, 1859.
[549] Thurloe, iii. 476.
[550] Ibid., 558-568.
[551] Ibid., 623.
This, however, was an exaggeration. See page 498.
[552] The names of the Committee are given, including Nye, Caryl, Calamy, Jenkyn. Additions were afterwards made by order of his Highness and the Council, including the names of Lockier and Sterry.
[553] All the foregoing particulars on this subject are found in a bundle of papers relative to the Vaudois, preserved in the State Paper Office.—Dom. Interreg.
[554] Vaughan, i. 260.
Commissioners must content themselves to give "some means of subsistence to feed and clothe them, with some small sum of money to those whose houses have been burnt, to enable them to provide timber against the spring time, that they may build them some small cottages to shelter."—Public Intelligencer, October 13th, 1655.
"The last letters out of Dauphine advise that there is a provincial synod of them of the reformed religion, where, after they had taken a view of their own particular affairs, it was resolved that they would send a deputation to their brethren of the valleys of Piedmont, consisting of four ministers, two of which are to be of the most eminent, learned, and zealous men of that province, to be joined with two younger, and two gentlemen of the country most noted for their affection to the Protestant religion, and for purity of life and conversation, who are to go as deputies to see to the distributing of the moneys collected in this kingdom for relief of our poor brethren according to the necessity of their conditions and families."—Ibid., October 15th to 22nd.
[555] Milton's Prose Works, ii. 220.
In an Order Book (State Paper Office) there is, under date May 18th, 1658, an order for £3,000 to be paid to the suffering Vaudois.
[556] Upon the 2nd of September, 1658, £3,700 was ordered to be paid to the merchant adventurers at Hamburgh on behalf of the Polish Protestants.
A petition for assistance by Polish exiles appears under date November 18th, 1658, with the endorsement:—"I know this petition to be true, and know the petitioners to be very deserving, learned, godly persons, members of the Churches for whom the collection was made, as are also some others living with us on our charity, in the same condition with those petitioners. John Owen."
The bundle in the State Paper Office, containing the documents from which we have taken the foregoing particulars, is endorsed, Papers relative to the Protestant Exiles from Poland and Bohemia, &c., 1657, 1658.
[557] Clarendon's Hist., 863, and Burnet's Hist. of his Own Times, i. 77.
[558] Ibid. Stoupe was minister of the French Reformed Church in London, and was sent to Geneva in 1654 to negotiate affairs relative to Protestantism. There are several allusions to him in Pell's Correspondence. In one letter he is spoken of as a man "with good zeal, but little policy."—Vaughan's Protectorate, i. 48.
[559] King James's College, at Chelsea, was founded by Dr. Matthew Sutcliffe, Dean of Exeter, "to this intent, that learned men might there have maintenance to answer all the adversaries of religion."—Alleyn's Life, quoted in Cunningham's Hand-Book of London.
[560] The Public Intelligencer, of December 10th-17th, 1655, speaks of "a conference held concerning the Jews in a withdrawing-room, in the presence of his Highness, between the Committee of the Council and the ministers and other persons approved by his Highness. Among these present Mr. Bridge was one." There is a letter on the subject of the Jews in Thurloe, iv. 321.
[561] Even Burnet thought Cromwell meant to employ the Jews as spies.
[562] Samuel Brett has left "a Narrative (dated 1655) of the proceedings of a great council of Jews assembled in the plain of Ageda, in Hungaria, about thirty leagues distant from Breda, to examine the Scriptures concerning the Messiah." The narrative is in the British Museum.
[563] In addition to what has been stated before on this subject, notice may be taken of a conversation which Cromwell had with a minister named John Rogers (see Brook's Lives, iii. 328), who spoke against a National Church—calling it anti-Christian—applying what he said to the Commonwealth. Cromwell answered that the Commonwealth Church was not a National Church, "for a National Church endeavoured to force all into one form."—See also Wood's Ath. Ox., ii. 594.
[564] Yet Bates, the physician, who says this, also says she often mentioned the blood her father spilt. How did he know this, if nobody was near enough to hear what was said? We cannot help thinking that imagination has been very busy with the latter part of Cromwell's life. Elizabeth Claypole has been represented as having pleaded with her father to spare Dr. Hewit's life. However that might be, certainly this very lady, in her own handwriting, within two months of her death, expressed her satisfaction at the discovery of the plot, as of one which, had it taken effect, would have ruined her family and the whole nation.—Thurloe, vii. 173.
[565] Thurloe, vii. 320; Ludlow's Memoirs, i. 609.
[566] The account which follows is taken from "A Collection of Several Passages concerning his Late Highness Oliver Cromwell in the Time of his Sickness, written by one that was then groom of his bedchamber." The gentlemen of the bedchamber were Mr. Charles Harvey and Mr. Underwood. This pamphlet is in the British Museum. There is also another copy of it, with a somewhat different title, as follows: "An Account of the Last Hours of the Late Renowned Oliver, Lord Protector—drawn up and published by one who was an eye and ear witness of the most part of it."
"The Portraiture of his Royal Highness Oliver in his Life and Death," contains no information respecting his sickness. It has a curious frontispiece, exhibiting Cromwell's effigy crowned, and clothed in royal robes.
[567] "As near as I can remember them," says the writer of the Collection, &c.
[568] Fox's Journal, i. 477.
[569] Journal, 485. Fox says, immediately afterwards:—"From Kingston I went to Isaac Pennington's, in Buckinghamshire, where I had appointed a meeting, and the Lord's truth and power were preciously manifested amongst us." This was the celebrated Isaac Pennington repeatedly noticed in the first volume of this history.
[570] Thurloe, vii. 354.
[571] Bates' Elenchi, ii. 215.
Fleetwood and Thurloe both speak of divine assurances of Cromwell's restoration.—Thurloe, vii. 355, 364.
[572] The Royalist historians abound in stories of Cromwell's terror lest he should be assassinated, and of frightful remorse mixed with that terror. Yet Clarendon, (Hist., p. 861,) most inconsistently says: "He never made the least shew of remorse;" and Ludlow, the republican, remarks: "He manifested little remorse."—Memoirs, ii. 612.
[573] The letters are in Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, ii.
[574] This is stated on the authority of Eachard. Neal adopts it, (Hist. iv. 188.) I must confess I do not feel much confidence in such a report of Cromwell's last sayings.
[575] Neal mentions Goodwin as the person who said this, (Hist. iv. 197,) and in so doing he is followed by Godwin and others. But Goodwin was not a chaplain of Cromwell's, nor was he likely to say what is thus ascribed to him. Neal gives no authority for his story. Baxter makes no mention of such an incident. Foster, in his Life of Cromwell, says it was Sterry who answered Cromwell, and he refers generally to the Collection of Passages; but in that collection Sterry's name does not occur, nor is there one word about this conversation. Baxter states that an Independent praying for Cromwell, said: "We ask not for his life, for that we are sure of, but that he may serve Thee better than ever he had done."—Life and Times, part i. 98. The author adds in the margin, "as it is currently reported without any contradiction that ever I heard of." There is no allusion to any such circumstance in the Collection of Passages. Ludlow, (Memoirs, ii. 610,) ascribes the prayer to Goodwin, but Ludlow was evidently prejudiced against both Cromwell and Goodwin. Tillotson, according to Birch, (Life, 16,) and also according to Burnet, (Hist. of his own Times, i. 82,) reported that he heard Goodwin say, a week after Cromwell's death: "Thou hast deceived us, and we were deceived." Tillotson also alluded to Goodwin's pretended assurance in prayer, before Cromwell expired. Tillotson would not fabricate the report, but might he not misunderstand what Goodwin meant? Eachard and Kennet, in relating the story, do not supply any corroboration of it. Tillotson is the only authority.
[576] Carlyle, iii. 151.
[577] Collection of several Passages, &c.
[578] "He did not mean," says the author of the Collection, "that it was safe to sin. No, the laying hold of the Covenant implies faith and repentance, which the Gospel requires with new obedience."—p. 6.
Throughout this paragraph we adhere to the words in the Collection.
[579] P. 7.
[580] P. 12.
[581] "Some variation," says the writer of the Collection of Passages, "there is of this prayer, as to the account divers give of it, and something is here omitted. But this is certain, that these were his requests, wherein his heart was so carried out for God and his people, yea for them who had added no little sorrow to his grief and afflictions, that at this time he seems to forget his own family and nearest relations."—13.
The statement that Sterry exclaimed after Cromwell's death, that he was of great use to the people of God whilst he lived, and that he would be much more so interceding for them at the right hand of Christ, rests mainly on the authority of Ludlow (Memoirs, ii. 612) who was not present, and in this instance could only repeat a rumour. He was as prejudiced against Cromwell and his court as any Royalist could be.