shows us the immense importance of the laity taking timely interest

shows us the immense importance of the laity taking timely interest

3. The last lesson I draw from our subject is this. Laud's history shows us the immense importance of the laity taking timely interest in the condition of the Church of England. Nothing, it is clear to me, preserved the Church of England from returning bodily to Popery, two hundred years ago, but the active interference of the laity. I do not say it would have happened in Laud's time. I do not think he ever meant the Pope at Lambeth to be subject to the Pope at the Vatican. But I do believe that another twenty years of unopposed, systematic, persistent un-Protestantizing would have "educated "a generation of semi-Papists, and paved the way for downright Popery. From this we were not preserved by the bishops and clergy, but by the laity taking up the matter in the House of Commons. I grant their remedies were violent, and their surgery coarse and savage. They let blood profusely, and did great harm in some directions, if they did good in others. But one thing I always maintain was done by Hollis, Dering, Pym, Hampden, and their companions. They prevented the nation going back to Babylon. They stamped out Popery for the time in the Church of England. Even the civil war was better than the return of Popery. I hope the laity of this day will never forget this. They are the real hope of the Church of England. Our future depends greatly on their conduct and line of action. If they sit still and let things take their own course, I see nothing but evil before us. If they arise in their might, like their forefathers, and demand that there shall be no Romish innovations, no un-Protestantizing practices allowed in our communion, there is yet ground for hope. It is not too late to win a battle. Once let the laity raise the old cry, - "Nolumus leges Anglice mutari; We will have a Protestant Establishment or none at all," - and I shall not despair of the Church of England. One thing, in conclusion, is very clear. Whatever we may think about Laud, the Church of England is in a very critical position. Every one who reflects must confess this. Her rowers have brought her into troubled waters.

Rent and torn by conflicting parties, her very existence is in peril. Never was there a Church which had within her pale such totally opposite schools of theology. This state of things cannot last. The question may well rise in many minds, "What shall be the end? We cannot go on as we are. Will the sick man live, or will he die?" As usual in such cases, advice is plentiful, the doctors are many, and the prescriptions abound - some homeopathic and some allopathic. Every one has his "panacea" and his "Eirenicon." "Only use it," he cries, "and the Church will be cured." Wider terms of communion, relaxation of creeds and articles, liturgical revision, synodical action, increase of the Episcopate, union of the Western Churches, - all these are remedies gravely propounded and earnestly thrust on our attention. Each has its advocates, and each is warranted to cure. I have not the slightest faith in any of these healing measures. Two or three of them are downright mischievous. The best of them is not the medicine for the time. I regard them all as utterly beside the mark, and unable to touch the disease. My own mind is thoroughly made up. I know of only one cure and remedy for the ailments of our beloved Church. That remedy is a revival among us of thorough Protestant principles and Protestant theology, - the principles of the glorious Reformation, the theology of Latimer, and Hooper, and Jewel. Whether God will grant us such a revival I cannot tell: perhaps our days are numbered. Without such a revival I have little hope for the future. We shall only fall lower and lower, and at last our candlestick will be removed, like that of Ephesus. Give us such a revival, and I hope everything. The laity would rally round us once more, - the Spirit of God would be poured on our congregations. God, even the Lord God of our fathers, would give us His blessing. I said the laity would rally round us. I say it advisedly. At present a large number of the best of them ride at single anchor, and hold by the Church of England with a very loose hand. They are tired, wearied, and disgusted with the undisturbed growth and progress of

semi-Popery. They see no use in Protestant Bishops and Articles, if Romanism is allowed to sit in the house of God. They may not be deep theologians, or very conversant with Catholic principles and primitive antiquity. But they are not hard to satisfy. They know and feel what does them good. They want plain Protestant worship, and plain Protestant preaching, and if they cannot have these in the Establishment they will soon migrate and swarm off elsewhere. The bulk of our middle classes and educated lower orders in the Church do not want chasubles, copes, dalmatics, birettas, banners, processions, incense, pastoral staffs, crucifixes, incessant bowings, turnings, and genuflections, or any such pernicious trumpery. Such things are mere gaudy toys, which may please children, and satisfy idle young men and women, and the whole herd of the ignorant, the weak-minded, and the superstitious. But they do not meet the wants of the middle-aged, the hard-headed, the hard-working men and women of the middle and lower orders, They want food, - food for heart, and food for conscience; and if they do not find it in the Established Church of England, they will walk off and seek it elsewhere. Give them plain, simple, hearty Bible worship, - plain, simple, hearty Bible preaching, - give them the old, old story of Christ upon the cross, the real work of the Holy Ghost felt and experienced in the inner man, - give them the noble lessons of repentance, faith, holiness, - give them these, and they will never forsake the Church of England.6 I repeat it emphatically. A return to downright Protestant principles and Protestant theology is the Church's want in the present day. It is the only medicine which will heal the Church's disease. I now wind up my paper with a short passage from the pen of a great man, which deserves special attention, partly because of his name and character, and partly because he wrote it with death before his eyes. The man I speak of is Lord William Russell, who was beheaded in Lincoln's Inn Fields on a false charge of treason, in the reign of James the Second, 1683. The book I find it in is the life of Lord W. Russell, written by the late Earl Russell in 1820. The paper in which the passage occurs was given by the noble sufferer to his friends only

a few moments before his execution. He says: "I did believe, and do still believe, that Popery is breaking in upon this nation, and that those who advance it will stop at nothing to carry on their designs. . . . I am heartily sorry that so many Protestants give their helping hand to it. But I hope God will preserve the Protestant religion and this nation, though I am afraid it will pass under very great trials and very great sufferings."

Solemn words these, and painfully prophetic! Well would it be for this country, in the nineteenth century, if English Peers and English Prelates, English Members of Parliament and English Clergymen, saw the danger of Popery "breaking in upon this nation" as clearly as did, in the seventeenth century, the dying patriot, Lord W. Russell.

NOTE. - The following extracts from Mr. Hallam's "Constitutional History of England" appear to me to deserve particular attention. I think so, because they contain the deliberate opinion of a well-read layman, of no extreme theological views, and of one who has justly obtained a world-wide reputation on account of his learning, his correct judgment, and his impartiality: "Laud's talents, though enabling him to acquire a large portion of theological learning, seem to have been by no means considerable. There cannot be a more contemptible work than this Diary; and his letters to Strafford display some smartness, but no great capacity. He managed, indeed, his own defence when impeached with some ability; but on such occasions ordinary men are apt to put forth a remarkable readiness and ability,"…"Though not literally destitute of religion, it was so subordinate to worldly interest, and so blended in his mind with the impure alloy of temporal pride, that he became an intolerant persecutor of the Puritan clergy, not from bigotry, which

in its usual sense he never displayed, but systematic policy. And being subject, as his friends call it, to some infirmities of temper - that is, choleric, vindictive, harsh, and even cruel to a great degree - he not only took a prominent share in the severities of the Star Chamber, but perpetually lamented that he was restrained from going further lengths," - HALLAM'S Constit. Hist. of England, vol. ii. p. 54. "All the innovations of the school of Laud were so many approaches in the exterior worship of the Church to the Roman model. Pictures were set up or repaired; the Communion Table took the name of an altar; it was sometimes made of stone; obeisances were made to it; the crucifix was sometimes placed upon it; the dress of the officiating priests became more gaudy; churches were consecrated with strange and mystical pageantry. These petty superstitions, which would of themselves have disgusted a nation accustomed to despise as well as abhor the pompous rites of the Catholics, became more alarming from the evident bias of some leading Churchmen to parts of the Romish theology. The doctrine of a real presence, distinguishable only by vagueness of definition from that of the Church of Rome, was generally held, Montague, Bishop of Chichester, already conspicuous and justly reckoned the chief of the Romanizing faction, went a 'considerable length towards admitting the invocation of saints. Prayers for the dead, which lead at once to the tenet of purgatory, were vindicated by many. In fact, there was hardly any distinctive opinion of the Church, of Rome which had not its abettors among the Bishops, or those who wrote under their patronage." - Ibid. p. 86, edit. 1832. FOOTNOTES

1 The reader who cares to look into this subject will find a remarkable letter to Whitgift in favour of the persecuted Nonconformists, dated 1583, and signed by Burleigh, Warwick, Howard, Hatton, Shrewsbury, Leicester, Croft, Walsingham - eight leading privy councillors, - See Fuller's "Church History," vol, iii, p, 37, Tegg's Edition.

2 Hall's "Letters:" Decade III. Epist, 5.

3 Laud appears to have taken the living of Crick after he became Bishop of St. David's. - See his "Diary."

4 What Laud really thought about the Lord's Table may be seen in a very painful extract from a speech afterwards delivered by him in the Star Chamber, on the occasion of the prosecution of Prynne in 1637. He there says, "The altar" (a word, we must remember, never used in the Prayer-book), "the altar is the greatest place of God's residence upon earth. I say the greatest, yea, greater than the pulpit; for there it is, 'This is my body,' but in the pulpit it is, 'This is my word,' And a greater reverence, no doubt, is due to the body than to the word of our Lord; and so to the throne where His body is actually present, than to the seat where His word useth to be proclaimed."

5 Hackett's story is corroborated by one told by Bishop Burnet. "I have heard," says Bishop Burnet, "my own father relate it from the mouth of old Sir William Armourer, who was of King James the First's court, being bred up from a page, that his Majesty, as Laud (then only Bishop of St. David's) walked by, but at some distance, took Prince Charles by the arm, and in his Scottish dialect said to him, 'Son, ken [see] you yon knave Laud? He has a restless head: he'll ne'er ha' done till he has lost his own head and endangered yours.'" - Memorials of Princess Sophia, pp. 54, 55.

6 "The Times "of March 29, 1869, says most truly, "Ritualistic services may attract curious or admiring crowds, but they neither bring the poor to church nor bring religion into the homes of the poor."

RICHARD BAXTER

THERE are subjects about which it is well to look behind us. There are matters in which a knowledge of the past may teach us wisdom for the present and the future. The history of religion is preeminently such a subject and matter. Steam, electricity, railways, and gas, have made a wonderful difference in the temporal condition of mankind in the last two hundred years. But all this time the Bible and the hearts of men have remained unaltered. That which men did and thought in religious matters two hundred years ago, they are capable of doing and thinking again. What they thought and did in England in the seventeenth century it is well to know. And just as there are subjects about which it is wise to look behind us, so also there are times long gone by which deserve our special attention. There are times when the character of a nation receives an indelible impression from events which take place in a single generation. There have been times when the dearest privileges of a people have been brought to the birth, and called into vigorous existence, through the desperate agony of civil war and religious strife. Such, I take leave to say, were the times of which I am about to speak in this biography. To no times are Englishmen so deeply indebted for their civil and religious liberty as the times in which Baxter lived. To no body of men do they owe such an unpaid debt of gratitude as they do to that noble host of which Baxter was a standard bearer: I mean the Puritans. To no man among the Puritans are the lovers of religious freedom under such large obligations as they are to Richard Baxter. I am fully sensible of the difficulties which surround the subject. It is a subject which few historians handle fairly, simply because they do not understand spiritual religion. To an unconverted man the religious differences of the day of the Puritans must necessarily

appear foolishness. He is no more qualified to give an opinion about them than a blind man is to talk of pictures. It is a subject which no clergyman of the Church of England can approach without laying himself open to misrepresentation. He will be suspected of disaffection to his own Church if he speaks favourably of men who opposed Bishops. But it is a subject on which it is most important for Englishmen to have distinct opinions, and I must ask for it a patient hearing. If I can correct some false impressions, if I can supply a few great principles to guide men in these perilous times, I feel I shall have done my readers an essential service. And if I fail to interest them in "Baxter and his Times," I am sure the fault is not in the subject, but in me. The times in which Baxter lived comprehend such a vast amount of interesting matter, that I must of necessity leave many points in their history entirely untouched. My meaning will be plain when I say that he was born in 1615, and died in 1691. Nearly all his life was passed under the dynasty of a house which reigned over England with no benefit to the country and no credit to itself: I mean the Stuarts. He lived through the reign of James I., Charles I., Charles II., and James II., and was buried in the reign of William III. He was in the prime of life and intellectual vigour all through the days of the Commonwealth and the civil wars. He witnessed the overthrow of the Monarchy and the Church of England, and their subsequent re-establishment. He was a contemporary of Cromwell, of Laud, of Strafford, of Hampden, of Pym, of Monk, of Clarendon, of Milton, of Hale, of Jeffreys, of Blake. In his days took place the public execution of an English Monarch, Charles I.; of an Archbishop of Canterbury, Laud; and of a Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Strafford. Within the single period of his life are to be found the plague, the fire of London, the Westminster Assembly, the Long Parliament, the Savoy Conference, and the rejection of two thousand of the best ministers of the Church of England by the Act of Uniformity. Such were the eventful times in which Baxter lived. I cannot, of course, pretend to enter fully into

them. Their history forms a huge picture, like the moving panorama of the Mississippi, which it is utterly impossible to take in at a glance. I shall simply try to fix attention on a few of the leading features of the picture, and I shall choose those points which appear to me most likely to be useful in the present day. (a) One remarkable feature in the history of Baxter's times is the move backward from the principles of the Protestant Reformation, which commenced in his youth. Doctrines and practices began to be maintained, both by preachers and writers in the Church of England, which Latimer and Jewell would never have sanctioned. Sound Evangelical teaching was decried and run down, under the specious name of "Calvinism." Good bishops, like Davenant, were snubbed and reprimanded. Bad bishops, like Montague and Wren, were patted on the back and encouraged. Preaching and lecturing were depreciated, and forms and ceremonies were exalted. The benefits of Episcopacy were extravagantly magnified. Candlesticks and crosses, and all manner of Popish ornaments, were introduced into some of the churches. The sanctity of the Lord's Day was invaded by the abominable "Book of Sports," and common people were encouraged to spend Sunday in England as it is now spent in France. The communion tables, which up to this time had stood in the middle of the chancel, were removed to the east end of the churches, put behind rails, and profanely called "altars." Against all these sapping and mining operations some, no doubt, protested loudly; but still the sappers and miners went on. The prime agent in the whole movement was Archbishop Laud. Whether that unhappy man really intended to re-unite the Church of England with the Church of Rome is a question which will probably never be settled till the last day. One thing is very certain; - no one could have played the game of Rome more thoroughly than he did. Like many a mischief-maker before and since, Laud pulled the house in which he lived upon his own head. He raised a storm at length, before which the Church, the Throne, and the bishops, all went down

together, and in the midst of which he himself was put on trial and lost his life. But the Church of England received an injury in Laud's days from which it has never entirely recovered. Since his time there never has been wanting a succession of men amongst its ministers who have held most of Laud's principles, and occasionally have boldly walked in his steps. So true are the words of Shakspeare,

"The evil that men do lives after them."

The harm that Queen Mary did to the Church of England was nothing compared to the harm done by Laud. We must never underrate the mischief that one bold, bad man can do, and especially in matters of religion. The seeds of error are like thistle-down. One head of a thistle scattered by the wind will sow a whole field. One Tom Paine can rear up infidels all over the world. One Laud can leaven generations with untold mischief. Never let us suppose that extreme Ritualism is a legitimate child of the Church of England. It is not so. It was scarcely heard of till the time of the Stuarts. Never let us suppose that Tractarianism, or Ritualism, so called, is a new invention of these latter days. It is not so. It is more than 200 years old. The father of extreme Ritualists is Archbishop Laud. Let us remember these things, and we shall have learned something from Baxter's times. (b) Another remarkable feature in the history of Baxter's times is the famous civil war between Charles I. and his Parliament. All war is an evil - a necessary evil sometimes - but still an evil; and of all wars, the most distressing is a civil war. It is a kind of huge family quarrel. It is a struggle in which victory brings no glory, because the strife has been the strife of brethren. Edge Hill, and Newbury, and Marston Moor, and Naseby, and Worcester, are names which call up none but painful reflections.

The victors in each battle had spilt the blood of their own countrymen, and lessened the general strength of the nation. But there is a point of view in which the civil war between Charles I. and his Parliament was peculiarly distressing. I allude to the striking fact, that the general irreligion and immorality of the King's party did more to ruin his cause than all the armies which the Parliament raised. There were hundreds and thousands of steady, quiet men, who, at the beginning of the war, were desirous to be still, and help neither side. But when they found that a man could not read his Bible to his dependents and have prayer in his family without being persecuted as a Roundhead, they felt obliged, in self-defence, to join the Parliamentary forces. In plain words, the wickedness and profligacy of many of the Cavaliers drove godly men into the ranks of their enemies. That there was plenty of hypocrisy, fanaticism, and enthusiasm on the Parliamentary side, I make no question. That there were some good men among the Cavaliers, such as Lord Falkland, I do not deny. But, after every allowance, I have no doubt there was far more true religion among those who fought for the Parliament than among those who fought for the King. The result of the civil war, under these peculiar circumstances, never need surprise any one who knows human nature. The drinking, swearing, roistering troopers, who were led by Prince Rupert, and Wilmot, and Goring, proved no match for the praying, psalmsinging, Bible-reading men whom Cromwell, and Fairfax, and Ireton, and Harrison, and Fleetwood, and Desborough, brought into the field. The steadiest men will in the long run make the best soldiers. A side which has a strong religious principle among its supporters will seldom be a losing one. "Those who honour God, God will honour; and they that despise Him shall be lightly esteemed." I shall dismiss the subject of the civil war with one `general remark and one caution.

My general remark is, that, deeply as we must regret the civil war, we must in fairness remember that we probably owe to it the free and excellent Constitution which we possess in this country. God can bring good out of evil. The oscillations of England between despotism and anarchy, and anarchy and despotism, for many years after the breach between Charles I. and the House of Commons, were certainly tremendously violent. Still we must confess, that great political lessons were probably imprinted on the English mind at that period, of which we are reaping the benefit at this very day. Monarchs were taught that, like planets in heaven, they must be content to move in a certain orbit, and that an enlightened people would not be governed and taxed without the consent of an unfettered House of Commons. Nations were taught that it is a far easier thing to pull to pieces than to build, and to upset an ancient monarchy than to find a government which shall be a satisfactory substitute. Many of the foundations of our choicest national privileges, I make no doubt, were laid in the Commonwealth times. We shall do well to remember this. We may rest satisfied that this country owes an immense debt of gratitude to Brooke, and Hampden, and Eliot, and Whitelock, and Pym. The caution I wish to give respects the execution of Charles I. We shall do well to remember that the great bulk of the Puritans were entirely guiltless of any participation in the trial and death of the King. It is a vulgar error to suppose, as many do, that the whole Parliamentary party are accountable for that wicked and impolitic act. The immense majority of the Presbyterians protested loudly against it. Baxter tells us expressly in his autobiography, that, together with many other ministers, he declared his abhorrence of it, and used every exertion to prevent it. The deed was the doing of Cromwell and his immediate adherents in the army, and it is at their door that the whole guilt must lie. That the great body of the Puritans espoused the Parliamentary side there is no doubt. But as to any abstract dislike to royalty, or assent to King Charles's death, the Puritans are entirely innocent. Let us remember this, and we shall have learned something from the history of Baxter's times.

(c) The next feature in the history of Baxter's times, to which I shall venture to call attention, is the rise and conduct of that remarkable man, Oliver Cromwell. There are few men on whose character more obloquy has been heaped than Oliver Cromwell. He has been painted by some as a monster of wickedness and hypocrisy. Nothing has been too bad to say of him. Such an estimate of him is simply ridiculous. It defeats the end of those who form it. They forget that it is no compliment to England to suppose that it would so long tolerate the rule of such a monster. The man who could raise himself from being the son of a brewer at Huntingdon to be the most successful general of his age, and absolute dictator of this country for many years, must, on the very face of facts, have been a most extraordinary man. For my own part I say frankly, that I think we ought to consider the estimate of Cromwell, which Carlyle and D'Aubigne have formed, to be a near approach to the truth. I own I cannot go the lengths of the latter writer. I dare not pronounce positively that Cromwell was a sincere Christian. I leave the question in suspense. I hazard no opinion about it, one way or the other, because I do not find sufficient materials for forming an opinion. If I were to look at his private letters only, I should not hesitate to call him a converted man. But when I look at some of his public acts, I see much that appears to me quite inexplicable. And when I observe how doubtfully Baxter and other good men, who were his contemporaries, speak of him, my hesitancy as to his spirituality is much increased. In short, I turn from the question in a state of doubt. That Oliver Cromwell was one of the greatest English-men that ever lived I feel no doubt at all. No man, perhaps, ever won supreme power by the sword, and then used that power with such moderation as he did. England was probably more feared and respected throughout Europe, during the short time that he was Protector, than she ever was before, or ever has been since. His very name carried

terror with it. He declared that he would make the name of an Englishman as great as ever that of a Roman had been. And he certainly succeeded. He made it publicly known that he would not allow the Protestant faith to be insulted in any part of the world. And he kept his word. When the Duke of Savoy began to persecute the Vaudois in his days, Cromwell interfered at once on their behalf, and never rested till the Duke's army was recalled from their villages, and the poor people's goods and houses restored. When certain Protestants at Nismes, in France, were threatened with oppressive usage by the French government, Cromwell instructed his ambassador at Paris to insist peremptorily, that proceedings against them should be dropped, and in the event of a refusal, to leave Paris immediately. In fact, it was said that Cardinal Mazarin, the French Minister, would change countenance when Cromwell's name was mentioned; and that it was almost proverbial in France, that the Cardinal was more afraid of Cromwell than of the devil. As for the Pope, he was so dreadfully frightened by a fleet which Cromwell sent into the Mediterranean, under Blake, to settle some matters with the Duke of Tuscany, that he commanded processions to be made in Rome, and the Host to be exposed for forty hours, in order to avert the judgments of God, and save the Church. In short, the influence of English Protestantism was never so powerfully felt throughout Europe as it was in the days of Oliver Cromwell. I will only ask my readers to remember, in addition to these facts, that Cromwell's government was remarkable for its toleration, and this, too, in an age when toleration was very little understood, - that his private life was irreproachable, - and that he enforced a standard of morality throughout the kingdom which was, unhappily, unknown in the days of the Stuarts. Let us remember all these things, and then I think we shall not lightly give way to the common opinion that Cromwell was a wicked and hypocritical man. Let us rest assured that his character deserves far better treatment than it has generally received hitherto. Let us regard him as one who, with all his faults, did great things for our country. Let not those faults blind our eyes to the real greatness of his character. Let us give him a high place in the

list of great men before our mind's eye. Let us do this, and we shall have learned something from Baxter's times. (d) There is one more feature in the history of Baxter's times which I feel it impossible to pass over. I allude to the suicidal blindness of the Church of England under the Stuarts. I touch on this subject with some reluctance. I love the Church of which I am a minister, heartily and sincerely. But I have never found out that my Church lays claim to infallibility, and I am bound to confess that in the times of the Stuarts she committed some tremendous mistakes. Far be it from me to say that these mistakes were chargeable upon all her members. Abbot, and Carlton, and Davenant, and Hall, and Prideaux, and Usher, and Reynolds, and Wilkins, were bright exceptions among the bishops, both as to doctrine and practice. But, unhappily, these good men were always in a minority in the Church; and the manner in which the majority administered the affairs of the Church is the subject to which I wish to call attention. We ought to know something about the subject, because it serves to throw immense light on the history of our unhappy religious divisions in this country. We ought to know something of it, because it is one which is intimately bound up with Baxter's life. One part of the suicidal blindness of the Church to which I have referred, was its long-continued attempt to compel conformity, and prohibit private religious exercises, by pains and penalties. A regular crusade was kept up against everybody who infringed its canons, or did anything contrary to its rubrics. Hundreds and thousands of men, for many years, were summoned before magistrates, fined, imprisoned, and often ruined; not because they had offended against the Gospel or the Ten Commandments, not because they had made an open attack on the Churches; but merely because they had transgressed some petty ecclesiastical by-law, more honoured in the breach than in the observance; or because they tried by quiet, private meetings to obtain some spiritual edification over and above that

which the public services of the Church provided. At one time we read of good men having their ears cut off and their noses slit, for writing unfavourably of bishops! This was the fate of the father of Archbishop Leighton! At another time we read of an enactment by which any one present at a meeting of five or more persons, where there was any exercise of religion in other manner than that allowed by the Liturgy of the Church of England, was to be fined, or imprisoned for three months for the first offence, six months for the second offence, and for the third, transported for seven years! Many were afraid to have family prayer if more than four acquaintances were present! Some families had scruples about saying grace if five strangers were at table! Such was the state of England in the seventeenth century under the Stuarts. The result of this miserable policy was just exactly what might have been expected. There arose a spirit of deep discontent on the part of the persecuted. There sprung up among them a feeling of disaffection to the Church in which they had been baptized, and a rooted conviction that a system must necessarily be bad in 'principle which could bear such fruits. Men became sick of the very name of the Liturgy, when it was bound up in their memories with a fine or a gaol. Men became weary of episcopacy, when they found that bishops were more frequently a terror to good works than to evil ones. The words of Baxter, in a striking passage on this subject in his autobiography, are very remarkable: "The more the bishops thought to cure schism by punishment, the more they increased the opinion that they were persecuting enemies of godliness, and the captains of the profane." And who that knows human nature can wonder at such a state of feeling? The mass of men will generally judge an institution by its administration, more than by its abstract excellencies. When plain Englishmen saw that a man might do almost anything so long as he did not break an ecclesiastical canon; - when they saw that people might gamble, and swear, and get drunk, and no one made them afraid, but that people who met after service to sing psalms and join

in prayer were heavily punished; - when they saw that godless, ignorant, reprobate, profligate spendthrifts, sat under their own vines and fig-trees in peace, so long as they conformed and went to their parish churches, but that humble, holy, conscientious, Biblereading persons, who sometimes went out of their parishes to church, were severely fined; - when they found that Charles the Second and his boon companions were free to waste a nation's substance in riotous living, while the saints of the nation, like Baxter and Jenkyn, were rotting in gaols; - I say, when plain Englishmen saw these things, they found it hard to love the Church which did them. Yet all this might often have been seen in many counties of England under the Stuarts. If this was not suicidal blindness on the part of the Church of England, I know not what is. It was helping the devil, by driving good men out of her communion. It was literally bleeding herself to death. The crowning piece of folly which the majority in the Church of England committed under the Stuarts, was procuring the Act of Uniformity to be enacted in the year 1662. This, you must remember, took place at the beginning of Charles the Second's reign, and shortly after the re-establishment of the Monarchy and the Church. This famous act imposed terms and conditions of holding office on all ministers of the Church of England which had never been imposed before, from the time of the Reformation. It was notoriously so framed as to be offensive to the consciences of the Puritans, and to drive them out of the Church. For this purpose it was entirely successful. Within a year no less than 2,000 clergymen resigned their livings rather than accept its terms. Many of these 2,000 were the best, the ablest, and the holiest ministers of the day. Many a man, who had been regularly ordained by bishops, and spent twenty or thirty years in the service of the Church without molestation, was suddenly commanded to accept new conditions of holding preferment, and turned out to starve because he refused. Sixty of the leading parishes in London were at once deprived of their ministers, and their congregations left like sheep without a shepherd. Taking all

things into consideration, a more impolitic and disgraceful deed never disfigured the annals of a Protestant Church. It was a disgraceful deed, because it was a flat contradiction to Charles the Second's own promise at Breda, before he came back from exile. He was brought back on the distinct understanding that the Church of England should be re-established on such a broad and liberal basis as to satisfy the conscientious scruples of the Puritans. Had it not been for the assistance of the Puritans he would never have got back at all. And yet as soon as the reins of power were fairly in the King's hands his promise was deliberately broken! It was a disgraceful deed, because the great majority of the ejected ministers might easily have been retained in the Church by a few small concessions. They had no abstract objection to episcopacy, or to a liturgy. A few alterations in the prayers, and a moderate liberty in the conduct of Divine worship, according to Baxter's calculation, would have satisfied 1,600 out of the 2,000. But the ruling party were determined not to make a single concession. They had no wish to keep the Puritans in the Church. When some one observed to Archbishop Sheldon, the chief mover in the business, that he thought many of the Puritans would conform, and accept the Act of Uniformity, the Archbishop replied, "I am afraid they will." To show the spirit of the ruling party in the Church, they actually added to the number of apocryphal lessons in the Prayer-book calendar at this time. They made it a matter of congratulation among themselves that they had thrust out the Puritans, and got in Bel and the Dragon! It was a disgraceful deed, because the ejected ministers were, many of them, men of such ability and attainments, that great concessions ought to have been made in order to retain them in the Church. Baxter, Poole, Manton, Bates, Calamy, Brooks, Watson, Charnock, Caryl, Howe, Flavel, Bridge, Jenkyn, Owen, Goodwin, are names whose praise is even now in all the Churches. The men who turned them out were not to be compared to them. The names of the vast majority of them are hardly known. But they had power on their side,

and they were resolved to use it. It was a disgraceful deed, because it showed the world that the leaders of the Church of England, like the Bourbons in modern times, had learned nothing and forgotten nothing during their exile. They had not forgotten the old bad ways of Laud, which had brought such misery on England. They had not learned that conciliation and concession are the most becoming graces in the rulers of a Church, and that persecution in the long run is sure to be a losing game. I dare not dwell longer on this point. I might easily bring forward more illustrations of this sad feature in Baxter's times. I might speak of the infamous Oxford Act, in 1665, which forbade the unhappy ejected ministers to live within five miles of any corporate town, or of any place where they had formerly preached. But enough has been said to show that when I spoke of the suicidal blindness of the Church of England, I did not speak without cause. The consequences of this blindness are manifest to any one who knows England. The divided state of Protestantism in this country is of itself a great fact, which speaks volumes. Against the policy of the ruling party in the Church of England, under the Stewarts, I always shall protest. I do not feel the scruples which Baxter and his ejected brethren felt about the Act of Uniformity. Much as I respect them, I think them wrong and misguided in their judgments. But I think that Archbishop Sheldon, and the men who refused to go one step to meet them, were far more wrong and far more misguided. I believe they did an injury to the cause of true religion in England, which will probably never be repaired, by sowing the seeds of endless divisions. They were the men who laid the foundation of English dissent. I believe they recklessly threw away a golden opportunity of doing good. They might easily have made my own beloved Church far more effective and far more useful than she ever has been by wise and timely concessions. They refused to do this, and, instead of a healing measure, brought forward their unhappy Act of Uniformity. I

disavow any sympathy with their proceedings, and can never think of them without the deepest regret. I cannot leave the subject of Baxter's times without offering one piece of counsel to my readers. I advise you, then, not to believe everything you may happen to read on the subject of the times of the Stewarts. There are no times, perhaps, about which prejudice and party-spirit have so warped the judgment and jaundiced the eye-sight of historians. If any one wants a really fair and impartial history of the times, I strongly advise him to read Marsden's "History of the Puritans." I regard these two volumes as the most valuable addition which has been made to our stock of religious history in modern times.

I now turn from Baxter's times to Baxter himself. Without some knowledge of the times, we can hardly understand the character and conduct of the man. A few plain facts about the man will be more likely than anything I can write to fasten in our minds the times. Richard Baxter was the son of a small landed proprietor of Eaton Constantine, in Shropshire, and was born, in 1615, at Rowton, in the same county, where Mr. Adeney, his mother's father, resided. He seems to have been under religious impressions from a very early period of his life, and for this, under God, he was indebted to the training of a pious father. Shropshire was a very dark, ungodly county in those days. The ministers were generally ignorant, graceless, and unable to preach; and the people, as might be expected, were profligate, and despisers of them that were good. In Eaton Constantine, the parishioners spent the greater part of the Lord's Day in dancing round a Maypole near old Mr. Baxter's door, to his great distress and annoyance. Yet even here grace triumphed over the world in the case of his son, and he was added to the noble host of those who "serve the Lord from their youth." It is always interesting to observe the names of religious books,

which God is pleased to use in bringing souls to the knowledge of Himself. The books which had the most effect on Baxter were, Bunny's "Resolution;" Perkins "On Repentance, on Living and Dying well, and on the Government of the Tongue; "Culverwell "On Faith;" and Sibbs's "Bruised Reed." Disease and the prospect of death did much to carry on the spiritual work within him. He says in his Autobiography, "Weakness and pain helped me to study how to die. That set me on studying how to live, and that on studying the doctrines from which I must fetch my motives and my comforts." At the age of twenty-two he was ordained a clergyman, by Thornborough, Bishop of Worcester. He had never had the advantage of an University education. A free-school at Wroxeter, and a private tutor at Ludlow, had done something for him; and his own insatiable love of study had done a good deal more. He, probably, entered the ministry far better furnished with theological learning than most young men of his day. He certainly entered it with qualifications far better than a knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. He entered it truly moved by the Holy Ghost, and a converted man. He says himself, "I knew that the want of academical honours and degrees were like to make me contemptible with the most. But yet, expecting to be so quickly in another world, the great concernment of miserable souls did prevail with me against all impediments. And being conscious of a thirsty desire of men's conscience and salvation, I resolved, that if one or two souls only might be won to God, it would easily recompense all the dishonour which, for want of titles, I might undergo from men." From the time of his ordination to his death, Baxter's life was a constant series of strange vicissitudes, and intense physical and mental exertions. Sometimes in prosperity and sometimes in adversity, - sometimes praised and sometimes persecuted, - at one period catechising in the lanes of Kidderminster, at another disputing with bishops in the Savoy Conference, - one year writing the "Saint's Rest," at the point of death, in a quiet country house, another year a marching chaplain to a regiment in Cromwell's army,

- one day offered a bishopric by Charles II., another cast out of the Church by the Act of Uniformity, - one year arguing for monarchy with Cromwell, and telling him it was a blessing, another tried before Jeffreys on a charge of seditious writing, - one time living quietly at Acton in the society of Judge Hale, at another languishing in prison under some atrocious ecclesiastical persecution, - one day having public discussions about infant baptism, with Mr. Tombes, in Bewdley Church, another holding the reading-desk of Amersham Church from morning to night against the theological arguments of Antinomian dragoons in the gallery, - sometimes preaching the plainest doctrines, sometimes handling the most abstruse metaphysical points, - sometimes writing folios for the learned, sometimes writing broad-sheets for the poor, - never, perhaps, did any Christian minister fill so many various positions; and never, certainly, did any one come out of them all with such an unblemished reputation. Always suffering under incurable disease, and seldom long out of pain, - always working his mind to the uttermost, and never idle for a day, - seemingly overwhelmed with business, and yet never refusing new work, - living in the midst of the most exciting scenes, and yet holding daily converse with God, - not sufficiently a partisan to satisfy any side, and yet feared and courted by all, - too much of a Royalist to please the Parliamentary party, and yet too much connected with the Parliament and too holy to be popular with the Cavaliers, - too much of an Episcopalian to satisfy the violent portion of the Puritan body, and too much of a Puritan to be trusted by the bishops, - never, probably, did Christian man enjoy so little rest, though serving God with a pure conscience, as did Richard Baxter. In 1638 he began his ministry, by preaching in the Upper Church at Dudley. There he continued a year. From Dudley he removed to Bridgnorth. There he continued a year and three-quarters. From Bridgnorth he removed to Kidderminster. From thence, after two years, he retired to Coventry, at the beginning of the Commonwealth troubles, and awaited the progress of the civil war. From Coventry, after the battle of Naseby, he joined the Parliamentary

army in the capacity of Regimental Chaplain. He took this office in the vain hope that he might do some good among the soldiers, and counteract the ambitious designs of Cromwell and his friends. He was obliged by illness to give up his chaplaincy in 1646, and lingered for some months between life and death at the hospitable houses of Sir John Coke of Melbourne, in Derbyshire, and Sir Thomas Rotas of Rouslench, in Worcestershire. At the end of 1646 he returned to Kidderminster, and there continued labouring indefatigably as parish Minister for fourteen years. In 1660 he left Kidderminster for London, and took an active part in promoting the restoration of Charles II., and was made one of the King's Chaplains. In London, he preached successively at St. Dunstan's, Black Friars', and St. Bride's. Shortly after this he was offered the Bishopric of Hereford, but thought fit to refuse it. In 1662 he was one of the 2000 ministers who were turned out of the Church by the Act of Uniformity. Immediately after his ejection he married a wife who seems to have been every way worthy of him, and who was spared to be his loving and faithful companion for nineteen years. Her name was Margaret Charlton, of Apley Castle, in Shropshire. After this he lived in various places in and about London, - at Acton, Totteridge, Bloomsbury, and at last in Charterhouse Square. The disgraceful treatment of his enemies made it almost impossible for him to have any certain dwelling-place. Once, at this period of his life, he was offered a Scotch Bishopric, or the Mastership of a Scotch University, but declined both offices. With few exceptions, the last twenty-nine years of his life were embittered by repeated prosecutions, fines, imprisonment, and harassing controversies. When he could he preached, and when he could not preach he wrote books; but something he was always doing. The revolution and accession of William III. brought him some little respite from persecution, and death at last removed the good old man to that place "where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest," in the year 1691, and the seventy-sixth year of his age. Such is a brief outline of the life of one of the most distinguished Puritans who lived under the Stewarts, and one of the most devoted

ministers of the Gospel this country has ever seen. It is an outline which, we may readily believe, might be filled up to an indefinite length. I cannot, of course, pretend to do more than direct attention to a few leading particulars. If I do not tell more, it is not from want of matter. But if any one wishes to know why Baxter's name stands so high as it does in the list of English worthies, I ask him to give me his attention for a few minutes, and I will soon show him cause. For one thing, Baxter was a man of most eminent personal holiness. Few men have ever lived before the eyes of the world for fifty or sixty years, as he did, and left so fair and unblemished a reputation. Bitterly and cruelly as many hated him, they could find no fault in the man, except "concerning the law of his God." He seems to have been holy in all the relations of life, and in all the circumstances in which man can be placed: holy as a son, a husband, a minister, and a friend, - holy in prosperity and in adversity, in sickness and in health, in youth and in old age. It is a fine saying of Orme, in his admirable life of him, that he was, in the highest sense, a most "unearthly" man. He lived with God, and Christ, and heaven, and death, and judgment, and eternity continually before his eyes. He cared nothing for the good things of this world: a bishopric, with all its emoluments and honours, had no charms for him. He cared nothing for the enmity of the world: no fear of man's displeasure ever turned him an inch out of his way. He was singularly independent of man's praise or blame. He could be bold as a lion in the presence of Cromwell or Charles II., and his bishops; and yet he could be gentle as a lamb with poor people seeking how to be saved. He could be zealous as a Crusader for the rights of conscience, and yet he was of so catholic a spirit that he loved all who loved Jesus Christ in sincerity. "Be it by Conformists or by Nonconformists," he would say, "I rejoice that Christ is preached." He was a truly humble man. To one who wrote to him expressing admiration for his character, he replied, "You admire one you do not know: knowledge would cure your error." So fair an epistle of Christ, considering the amazing trials of patience he had to go through, this country has seldom seen as Richard Baxter. Let us remember this point in Baxter's character.

No argument has such lasting power with the world as a holy and consistent life. Let us remember that this holiness was attained by a man of like passions with ourselves. Let Baxter be an encouragement and an example. Let us remember the Lord God of Baxter is not changed. For another thing, Baxter was one of the most powerful preachers that ever addressed an English congregation. He seems to have possessed all the gifts which are generally considered to make a perfect "master of assemblies." He had an amazing fluency, - an enormous store of matter, - a most clear and lucid style, - an unlimited command of forcible language, - a pithy, pointed, emphatic way of presenting truth, - a singularly moving and pathetic voice, - and an earnestness of manner which swept everything before it like a torrent. He used to say, "It must be serious preaching which will make men serious in hearing and obeying it." Two well-known lines of his show you the man:

"I'll preach as though I ne'er should preach again, And as a dying man to dying men."

Dr. Bates, a contemporary, says of him, "He had a marvellous felicity and copiousness in speaking. There was a noble negligence in his style. His great mind could not stoop to the affected eloquence of words. He despised flashy oratory. But his expressions were so clear and powerful, so convincing to the understanding, so entering into the soul, so engaging the affections, that those were as deaf as an adder who were not charmed by so wise a charmer." The effects that his preaching produced were those which such preaching always has produced, and always will. As it was under the pulpit of Latimer and Whitfield, so it was under the pulpit of Baxter. At Dudley the poor nailers would not only crowd the church, but even hang upon the windows and the leads without. At Kidderminster it became necessary to build five new galleries, in

order to accommodate the congregation. In London the crowds who attended his ministry were so large that it was sometimes dangerous, and often impossible, to be one of his hearers. Once, when he was about to preach at St. Lawrence, Jewry, he sent word to Mr. Vines, the minister, that the Earl of Suffolk and Lord Broghill were coming in a coach with him, and would be glad to have seats. But when he and his noble companions reached the door, the crowd had so little respect for persons, that the two peers had to go home again because they could not get within hearing. Mr. Vines himself was obliged to get up into the pulpit, and sit behind the preacher, from want of room; and Baxter actually preached standing between Mr. Vines' feet. On another occasion, when he was preaching to an enormous crowd in St. Dunstan's, Fleet Street, he made a striking use of an incident which took place during the sermon. A piece of brick fell down in the steeple, and an alarm was raised that the church, an old and rotten building, was falling. Scarcely was the alarm allayed, when a bench, on which some people were standing, broke with their weight, and the confusion was worse than ever. Many crowded to the doors to get out, and all were in a state of panic. One old woman was heard loudly asking God forgiveness for having come to the church at all, and promising, if she only got out safe, never to come there again. In the midst of all the confusion Baxter alone was calm and unmoved. As soon as order was restored, he rose and said, "We are in the service of God to prepare ourselves that we may be fearless at the great noise of the dissolving world, when the heavens shall pass away, and the elements melt with fervent heat." This was Baxter all over. This was the kind of thing he had not only grace, but gifts and nerve, to do. He always spoke like one who saw God, and felt death at his back. Such a man will seldom fail to preach well. Such a man will seldom be in want of hearers. Such a man deserves to be embalmed in the memory of all who want to know what God can do for a child of Adam by His Spirit. Such a man deserves to be praised.

For another thing, Baxter was one of the most successful pastors of a parish and congregation that ever lived. When he came to Kidderminster he found it a dark, ignorant, immoral, irreligious place, containing, perhaps, 3,000 inhabitants. When he left it, at the end of fourteen years, he had completely turned the parish upside down. "The place before his coming," says Dr. Bates, "was like a piece of dry and barren earth; but, by the blessing of heaven upon his labour, the face of Paradise appeared there. The bad were changed to good, and the good to better." The number of his regular communicants averaged 600. "Of these," Baxter tells us, "there were not twelve of whom I had not good hope as to their sincerity." The Lord's Day was thoroughly reverenced and observed. It was said, "You might have heard an hundred families singing psalms and repeating sermons as you passed through the streets." When he came there, there was about one family in a street which worshipped God at home. When he went away, there were some streets in which there was not more than one family on a side that did not do it; and this was the case even with inns and public houses. Even of the irreligious families, there were very few which had not some converted relations. "Some of the poor people became so well versed in theology that they understood the whole body of divinity, and were able to judge difficult controversies. Some were so able in prayer that few ministers could match them in order, fulness, apt expressions, holy oratory and fervour. Best of all, the temper of their minds and the innocency of their lives were much more laudable even than their gifts." The grand instrument to which Baxter used to attribute this astounding success, was his system of household visitation and regular private conference with his parishioners. No doubt this did immense good, and the more so because it was a new thing in those days. Nevertheless, there is no denying the fact that the most elaborate parochial machinery of modern times has never produced such effects as those you have just heard of at Kidderminster. And the true account of this I believe to be, that no parish has ever had

such a wonderful mainspring in the middle of it as Baxter was. While some divines were wrangling about the divine right of Episcopacy or Presbytery, or splitting hairs about reprobation and free-will, Baxter was always visiting from house to house, and beseeching men, for Christ's sake, to be reconciled to God and flee from the wrath to come. While others were entangling themselves in politics, and "burying their dead" amidst the potsherds of the earth, Baxter was living a crucified life, and daily preaching the Gospel. I suspect he was the best and wisest pastor that an English parish has ever had, and a model that many a modern rector or vicar would do well to follow. Once more I say, have I not a right to say such a polished instrument as this ought not to be allowed to rust in oblivion? Such a man as this deserves to be praised. For another thing, Baxter was one of the most diligent theological writers the world has ever seen. Few have the slightest idea of the immense number of works in divinity which he wrote in the fifty years of his active life. It is reckoned that they would fill sixty octavo volumes, comprising not less than 35,000 closely-printed pages. These works, no doubt, are not all of equal merit, and many of them probably will never repay perusal. Like the ships from Tarshish, they contain not only gold, and silver, and ivory, but also a large quantity of apes and peacocks. Still, after every deduction, the writings of Baxter generally contain a great mass of solid truths, and truths often handled in a most striking and masterly way. Dr. Barrow, no mean judge, says "That his practical writings were never mended, and his controversial ones seldom confuted." Bishop Wilkins declares "That he had cultivated every subject he had handled, that if he had lived in the primitive times he would have been one of the Fathers of the Church, and that it was enough for one age to produce such a man as Mr. Baxter." That great and good man, William Wilberforce, says, "His practical writings are a treasury of Christian wisdom;" and he adds, "I must beg to class among the brightest ornaments of the Church of England this great man, who was so shamefully ejected from the Church in 1662."

No one man has certainly ever written three such books as Baxter's three master-pieces, "The Saint's Rest," "The Reformed Pastor," and "The Call to the Unconverted." I believe they have been made blessings to thousands of souls, and are alone sufficient to place the author in the foremost rank of theological writers. Of "The Call to the Unconverted," 20,000 were printed in one year. Six brothers were converted at one time by reading it. Eliot, the missionary, thought so highly of it that he translated it into the Indian language, the first book after the Bible. And really, when we consider that all Baxter's writings were composed in the midst of intense labour and fierce persecution, and often under the pressure of heavy bodily disease, the wonder is not only that he wrote so much, but that so much of what he wrote should be so good. Such wonderful diligence and redemption of time the world has never seen. Once more I say, have I not a right to say such a man deserves to be praised? For another thing, Baxter was one of the most patient martyrs for conscience' sake that England has ever seen. Of course I do not mean that he was called upon to seal his faith with his blood, as our Protestant Reformers were. But there is such a thing as "wearing out the saints of the Most High" by persecutions and prisons, as well as shedding the blood of the saints. There is a "dying daily," which, to some natures, is worse even than dying at the stake. If anything tries faith and patience I believe it to be the constant dropping of such wearing persecution as Baxter had to endure for nearly the last twenty-nine years of his life. He had robbed no one. He had murdered no one. He had injured no one. He held no heresy. He believed all the Articles of the Christian faith. And yet no thief or felon in the present day was ever so shamefully treated as this good man. To tell you how often he was summoned, fined, silenced, imprisoned, driven from one place to another, would be an endless task. To describe all the hideous perversions of justice to which he was subjected would be both painful and unprofitable. I will only allow myself to give one instance, and that shall be his trial before Chief Justice Jeffreys.

Baxter was tried before Jeffreys in 1685, at Westminster Hall, on a charge of having published seditious matter, reflecting on the bishops, in a paraphrase on the New Testament, which he had recently brought out. A more unfounded charge could not have been made. The book is still extant, and any one will see at a glance that the alleged seditious passages do not prove the case. Fox, in his history of James II's reign, tells us plainly "that the real motive for bringing him to trial was the desire of punishing an eminent dissenting teacher, whose reputation was high among his sect, and who was supposed to favour the political opinions of the Whigs." A long and graphic account of the trial was drawn up by a bystander, and it gives so vivid a picture of the administration of justice in Baxter's days that it may be useful to give a few short extracts from it. From the very opening of the trial it was clear which way the verdict was intended to go. The Lord Chief Justice of England behaved as if he were counsel for the prosecution, and not judge. He condescended to use abusive language towards the defendant, such as was more suited to Billingsgate than a court of law. One after another the counsel for the defence were browbeaten, silenced, and put down, or else interrupted by violent invectives against Baxter. At one time the Lord Chief Justice exclaimed: "This is an old rogue, who hath poisoned the world with his Kidderminster doctrine. He encouraged all the women and maids to bring their bodkins and thimbles to carry on war against the King of ever blessed memory. An old schismatical knave! A hypocritical villain!" By and by he called Baxter "an old blockhead, an unthankful villain, a conceited, stubborn, fanatical dog. Hang him!" he said, "this one old fellow hath cast more reproaches on the constitution and discipline of our Church than will be wiped off for this hundred years. But I'll handle him for it, for he deserves to be whipped through the city."

Shortly afterwards, when Baxter began to say a few words on his own behalf, Jeffreys stopped him, crying out, "Richard, Richard, dost thou think we'll hear thee poison the Court? Richard, thou art an old fellow, an old knave; thou hast written books enough to load a cart, every one as full of sedition, I might say treason, as an egg is full of meat. Hadst thou been whipped out of thy writing trade forty years ago, it had been happy. Thou pretendest to be a preacher of the Gospel of peace, and thou hast one foot in the grave: it is time for thee to think what kind of an account thou intendest to give. But leave thee to thyself and I see thou wilt go on as thou hast begun; but, by the grace of God, I will look after thee. I know thou hast a mighty party, and I see a great many of the brotherhood in corners, waiting to see what will become of this mighty dove; but, by the grace of God Almighty, I'll crush you all! Come, what do you say for yourself, you old knave? Come, speak up!" All this, and much more of the same kind, and even worse, went on at Baxter's trial. The extracts I have given form but a small portion of the whole account. It is needless to say, that in such a court as this Baxter was at once found guilty. He was fined five hundred marks, which it was known he could not pay; condemned to lie in prison till he paid it, and bound over to good behaviour for seven years. And the issue of the matter was, that this poor, old, diseased, childless widower, of threescore years and ten, lay for two years in Southwark gaol! It is needless, I hope, to remark in this present century that such a trial as this was a disgrace to the judicial bench of England, and a still greater disgrace to those persons with whom the information originated, understood commonly to have been Sherlock and L'Estrange. Thank God! I trust England, at any rate, has bid a long farewell to such trials as these, whatever may be done in other lands! Wretched, indeed, is that country where low, sneaking informers are encouraged; - where the terrors of the law are directed more against holiness, and Scriptural religion, and freedom of thought, than

against vice and immorality; - and where the seat of justice is used for the advancement of political purposes, or the gratification of petty ecclesiastical spite! But it is right that we should know that under all this foul injustice and persecution, Baxter's grace and patience never failed him. "These things," he said, in Westminster Hall, "will surely be understood one day, what fools one sort of Protestants are made to prosecute the other." When he was reviled, he reviled not again. He returned blessing for cursing, and prayer for ill-usage. Few martyrs have ever glorified God so much in their one day's fire as Richard Baxter did for twenty years under the ill-usage of so-called Protestants! Once more, I say, have I not a right to tell you such a man as this deserves to be remembered? Such a man surely deserves to be praised. And now I hope I have proved my case. I trust it will be allowed that there are men who lived in times long gone by whose character it is useful to review, and that Baxter is undeniably one of them: a real man - a true spiritual hero. I do not ask men to regard him as a perfect and faultless being, any more than Cranmer, or Calvin, or Knox, or Wesley. I do not at all defend some of Baxter's doctrinal statements. He tried to systematise things which cannot be systematised, and he failed. You will not find such a clear, full gospel in his writings as in those of Owen, and Bridge, and Traill. I do not think he was always right in his judgment. I regard his refusal of a bishopric as a huge mistake. By that refusal he rejected a glorious opportunity of doing good. Had Baxter been on the episcopal bench, and in the House of Lords, I do not believe the Act of Uniformity would ever have passed. But in a world like this we must take true Christians as they are, and be thankful for what they are. It is not given to mortal man to be faultless. Take Baxter for all together, and there are few English ministers of the Gospel whose names deserve to stand higher than

his. Some have excelled him in some gifts, and some in others. But it is seldom that so many gifts are to be found united in one man as they are in Baxter. Eminent personal holiness, - amazing power as a preacher, - unrivalled pastoral skill, - indefatigable diligence as a writer, - meekness and patience under undeserved persecution, - all meet together in the character of this one man. Let us place him high in our list of great and good men. Let us give him the honour he deserves. It is no small thing to be the fellow-countryman of Richard Baxter. And here let me remark that few bodies of men are under greater obligation to Baxter and his friends than the members of voluntary religious societies in the present day. We are allowed to associate together upon Evangelical principles and for religious ends, and no one hinders us. We are allowed to meet in large numbers, and take sweet counsel with one another, and strengthen one another's hands in the service of Christ, and no one interferes to prevent us. We are allowed to assemble for devotional purposes, to read the Word of God, and stir one another up to perseverance in the faith, and no one dares to prohibit us. How great are all these privileges! How incalculable the benefit of union, conference, sympathy, and encouragement to Christians who are voyaging over the stormy waters of this evil world, and trying to do good. Blessed is the labour of those by whose care and attention these societies are kept together! They are sowing precious seed. They may sow with much toil and discouragement, but they may be sure they are sowing seed which shall yet bear fruit after many days. But never let us forget to whom we are indebted for all this liberty of conference and association which we enjoy. Never let us forget that there was a time when informers would have tracked all our steps - when constables and soldiers would have rudely broken up our gatherings at Exeter Hall, and when our proceedings would have entailed upon us pains, penalties, fines, and imprisonments. Never let us forget that the happy and profitable freedom which we enjoy

was only won by long-continued and intense struggles, by the blood and sufferings of noble-minded men, of whom the world was not worthy; and never forget that the men who won this freedom for us were those much-abused men - the Puritans. Yes! we all owe a debt to the Puritans, which I trust we shall never refuse to acknowledge. We live in days when many are disposed to run them down. As we travel through life, we often hear them derided and abused as seditious, rebellious levellers in the things of Caesar, and ignorant, fanatical, hypocritical enthusiasts in the things of God. We often hear some conceited stripling fresh from college, puffed up with new-fledged views of what he calls "apostolical succession," and proud of a little official authority, depreciating and sneering at the Puritans, as men alike destitute of learning and true religion, while, in reality he is scarcely worthy to sit at their feet and carry their books. To all such calumnies and false statements, I trust we shall never give heed. Let us settle it down in our minds that for sound doctrine, spirituality, and learning combined, the Puritans stand at the head of English divines. With all their faults, weaknesses, and defects, they alone kept the lamp of pure, Evangelical religion burning in this country in the times of the Stuarts, - they alone prevented Laud's Popish inclinations carrying England back into the arms of Rome. It was they who fought the battle of religious freedom, of which we are reaping such fruits. It was they who crushed the wretched spirit of inquisitorial persecution which misguided High Churchmen tried to introduce into this land. Let us give them the honour they deserve. Let us suffer no man to speak lightly of them in our presence. Let us remember our obligations to them, reverence their memory, stand up boldly for their reputation, and never be afraid to plead their cause. It is the cause of pure, Evangelical religion. It is the cause of an open Bible and liberty to meet, and read, and pray together. It is the cause of liberty of conscience. All these are bound up with Baxter and the Puritans. Let us remember this, and give them their due.

Baxter's last days were almost as remarkable as any in his life. He went down to his grave as calmly and peacefully as the setting sun in summer. His death-bed was a glorious death-bed indeed. I like to know how great men die. I am not satisfied with knowing that men are great Christians in the plenitude of riches and honour. I want to know whether they were great in view of the tomb. I do not want merely to know how men meet Kings and Bishops and Parliaments; I want to know how they meet the king of terrors, and how they feel in the prospect of standing before the King of kings. I suspect that greatness which forsakes a man at last. I like to know how great men die, and I must be allowed to dwell for a few moments upon Baxter's death. Few death-beds, perhaps, were ever more truly instructive than that of this good old Puritan. His friend, Dr. Bates, has given a full description of it, and I think a few facts drawn from it may prove a suitable conclusion to this biography. Baxter's last illness found him quietly living in Charterhouse Square, close to the meeting-house of his friend, Dr. Sylvester. Here for the four years preceding his death, he was allowed to enjoy great quietness. The liberty of preaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, no man forbidding him, was at length fully conceded. "Here;" says Dr. Calamy, "he used to preach with great freedom about another world, like one that had been there, and was come as a sort of express to make a report of it." The storm of persecution was at length over. The winds and waves that had so long burst over him were at last lulled. The saintly old Puritan was mercifully allowed to go down to the banks of Jordan in a great calm. He continued to preach so long, notwithstanding his wasted body, that the last time he almost died in the pulpit. When disease compelled him to give over his beloved work, and take to his dying bed, it found him the same man that he had been for fifty years. His last hours were spent in preparing others and himself to meet God.

He said to the friends who visited him, "You come hither to learn to die. I am not the only person that must go this way. Have a care of this vain, deceitful world, and the lust of the flesh. Be sure you choose God for your portion, heaven for your home, God's glory for your end, God's Word for your rule, and then you need never fear but we shall meet again with comfort." Never was penitent sinner more humble, and never was sincere believer more calm and comfortable. He said, "God may justly condemn me for the best duty I ever did; and all my hopes are from the free mercy of God in Christ." He had often said before, "I can more readily believe that God will forgive me, than I can forgive myself." After a slumber, he waked, saying, "I shall rest from my labours." A minister present said, "And your works will follow you." He replied, "No works; I will leave out works, if God will grant me the other." When a friend comforted him with the remembrance of the good many had received from his writings, he replied, "I was but pen in God's hand, and what praise is due to a pen?" When extremity of pain made him long for death, he would check himself and say, "It is not fit for me to prescribe: when Thou wilt - what Thou wilt - how Thou wilt!" Being in great anguish, he said, "How unsearchable are His ways!" and then he said to his friends, "Do not think the worse of religion for what you see me suffer." Being often asked by his friend how it was with his inward man, he replied, "I have a well-grounded assurance of my eternal happiness, and great peace and comfort within; but it is my trouble that I cannot triumphantly express it, by reason of extreme pain." He added, "Flesh must perish, and we must feel the perishing; and though my judgment submit, sense will make me groan." Being asked by a nobleman whether he had great joy from his believing apprehension of the invisible state, he replied, "What else,

think you, Christianity serves for?" And then he added, "that the consideration of the Deity, in His glory and greatness, was too high for our thoughts; but the consideration of the Son of God in our nature, and of the saints in heaven whom we knew and loved, did much sweeten and familiarise heaven to him." The description of heaven in the 12th chapter of Hebrews, beginning with the "innumerable company of angels," and ending with "Jesus the Mediator, and the blood of sprinkling," was very comfortable to him. "That scripture," he said, "deserves a thousand thousand thoughts! "And then he added, "Oh, how comfortable is that promise, 'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, the things God hath laid up for them that love Him!'" At another time he said, that "he found great comfort and sweetness in repeating the words of the Lord's Prayer, and was sorry that some good men were prejudiced against the use of it; for there were all necessary petitions for soul and body contained in it." He gave excellent counsel to young ministers who visited him on his death-bed. He used to pray earnestly "that God would bless their labours, and make them very successful in converting many souls to Christ." He expressed great joy in the hope that God would do a great deal of good by them, and that they would be of moderate, peaceful spirits. He did not forget the world he was leaving. He frequently prayed "that God would be merciful to this miserable, distracted world; and that he would preserve His Church and interest in it." He advised his friends "to beware of self-conceitedness, as a sin likely to ruin this nation." Being asked at the same time whether he had altered his mind in controversial points, he replied, "Those that please may know my mind in my writings. What I have done was not for my own reputation, but the glory of God." The day before he died, Dr. Bates visited him; and on his saying

some words of comfort, he replied, "I have pain: there is no arguing against sense; but I have peace: I have peace!" Bates told him he was going to his long-desired home. He answered, "I believe: I believe." He expressed great willingness to die. During his sickness, when the question was asked how he did, his reply was, "Almost well!" or else, "Better than I deserve to be, but not so well as I hope to be." His last words were addressed to Dr. Sylvester, "The Lord teach you how to die l" On Tuesday, the 8th of December, 1691, Baxter's warfare was accomplished; and at length he entered what he had so beautifully described: - "the saint's everlasting rest." He was buried at Christchurch, amidst the tears of many who knew his worth, if the world and the Established Church of that day did not. The funeral was that kind of funeral which is above all in real honour: "devout men carried him to his grave, and made great lamentation over him." He left no family, but he left behind him hundreds of spiritual sons and daughters. He left works which are still owned by God in every part of the world to the awakening and edification of immortal souls. Thousands, I doubt not, will stand up in the morning of the resurrection, and thank God for the grace and gifts bestowed on the old Puritan of Shropshire. He left a name which must always be dear to every lover of holiness, and every friend of religious liberty. No Englishman, perhaps, ever exemplified the one, or promoted the other, more truly and really than did Richard Baxter. Let me conclude by quoting the last paragraph of Dr. Bates' funeral sermon on the occasion of Baxter's death: "Blessed be the gracious God, that He was pleased to prolong the life of His servant, so useful and beneficial to the world, to a full age, and that He brought him slowly and safely to heaven. I shall conclude this account with my own deliberate wish: May I live the short remainder of my life as entirely to the glory of God as he lived; and when I shall come to the

period of my life, may I die in the same blessed peace wherein he died; may I be with him in the kingdom of light and love for ever.

WILLIAM GURNALL

William Gurnall, Rector of Lavenham, in Suffolk, and author of "The Christian in Complete Armour," is a man about whom the world possesses singularly little information. Perhaps there is no writer who has left a name so familiar to all readers of Puritan theology, but of whose personal history so little is known. Except the three facts, that he was a Puritan divine of the seventeenth century, - that he was Minister of Lavenham, - and that he wrote a well-known book of practical divinity, most persons know nothing of William Gurnall.

This dearth of information about so good a man appears at first sight extraordinary and unaccountable. Born, as he was, in a seaport town of no mean importance, - the son of parents who held a prominent position in the town, - educated at Cambridge, at one of the best known colleges of the day, - the contemporary of leading divines of the Commonwealth times, - minister of the largest church in West Suffolk for the uninterrupted period of thirty-five years, - author of a work which, from its first appearance, was eminently popular, - Gurnall is a man, we naturally feel, of whom more ought to be known. How is it then that more is not known? How shall we account for the absence of any notice of him in the biographical writings of his day?

I believe that these questions admit of a very simple answer. That answer is to be found in the line of conduct which Gurnall followed in the year 1662, on the passing of the unhappy Act of Uniformity. He did not secede from the Church of England! He was not one of the famous two thousand ministers who gave up their preferment on St. Bartholomew's Day, and became Nonconformists. He retained his position, and continued Rector of Lavenham. Puritan as he undoubtedly was, both in doctrine and practice, he did not do what many of his brethren did. When Baxter, Manton, Owen, Goodwin, and a host of other giants in theology, seceded from the Church of

England, Gurnall stood fast, and refused to move. He did not act with the party with which he had generally acted, and was left behind.

The result of this line of conduct can easily be imagined. Whatever opinions we may hold about Gurnall's conformity, we must all allow that the course he took was not likely to make him a favourite with either of the two great religious parties into which England at that time was divided. A neutral is never popular in a season of strife and controversy. Both sides suspect him. Each party is offended at him for not casting his weight into their scale. This, I suspect, was precisely Gurnall's position. He was a Puritan in doctrine, and yet he steadfastly adhered to the Church of England. He was a minister of the Church of England, and yet a thorough Puritan both in preaching and practice. In fact, he was just the man to be disliked and slighted by both sides.

I throw out the conjecture I have made with considerable diffidence. It is undoubtedly nothing but a conjecture. But I look at the broad fact that the biographical writers who have handled Gurnall's age, have chronicled scores of names of far less weight than his, and have refused to say a word about the author of "The Christian in Complete Armour." Calamy, Clarke, Neal, and Brooke have written hundreds of pages about men for whom the world cares nothing now, but not a page about Gurnall! I leave it to others to offer a better explanation of this fact, if they can. I must be allowed to retain my own settled conviction, that we should know far more about Gurnall if he had not submitted to the Act of Uniformity in 1662, and retained the pulpit of Lavenham parish church.

To supply a correct history of this good man and his times is the object of the biography I am now writing. Ever since I read "The Christian in Complete Armour" I have felt that the author of such a book was a man whose life ought to be known. From the day that I was transplanted into the Eastern Counties, and became a Suffolk incumbent, I have made it my business to study the lives of eminent

Suffolk divines. None of them all appears to deserve excavation from undeserved oblivion so much as Gurnall.

Almost the only source of information about Gurnall which we now possess is a small volume, published in 1830, by a writer named M'Keon, entitled, "An Inquiry into the Birthplace, Parentage, Life, and Writings of the Rev. William Gurnall, formerly Rector of Lavenham, in Suffolk, and author of 'The Christian in Complete Armour.'" This book was printed and published for the author at Woodbridge, in Suffolk, and not in London. It is owing to this circumstance, perhaps, that it seems to have attracted little notice, and to have become comparatively unknown.

Mr. M'Keon was an inhabitant of Lavenham, and likely to procure information about Gurnall, if any one could. He was undoubtedly a painstaking man, and an antiquarian of considerable research. His accuracy and correctness are worthy of all commendation. There is hardly a single date or fact in his book which I have not taken the trouble to verify by inquiry and investigation; and there is hardly one, I feel bound to say, in which I have found him wrong. But it cannot be said that his "Inquiry" is written in a popular and attractive style. In accumulating facts he was most successful; in arranging and exhibiting them to the reading public I certainly think he failed.

However, whatever may be the faults of Mr. M'Keon's book, it is certainly the only attempt at any account of Gurnall which has hitherto existed. A funeral sermon, to be sure, was preached by Gurnall's friend and neighbour, the well-known commentator Burkitt; but the information it contains is comparatively very small. I must therefore frankly avow that I am indebted to Mr. M'Keon's work for the greater part of the facts about Gurnall which 1 have brought together in the following pages. I have tried to re-arrange these facts. I have endeavoured to present them to the reader in an attractive form, by illustrating them with some cross lights from the history of Gurnall's times. I have added a few facts which Mr.

M'Keon was probably unable to obtain. But I think it only fair to state that Mr. M'Keon's book is the principal mine from which the biographical account of Gurnall now presented to the reader has been drawn. If I have added

anything of interest to his work, it is almost always by following up clues which his volume indicated or put into my hand.

William Gurnall was born at Lynn, in the county of Norfolk, in the year 1616, and was baptized at St. Margaret's church in that town, on the 17th of November, 1616. His father and mother were married at St. Margaret's church on the 31st of December, 1615, and the subject of this memoir was therefore their eldest child.*

It has often been observed that the mothers of great men, and especially of great divines, have been remarkable for strong mind and force of intellect. Mothers have been found, as a general rule, to influence children's character far more than fathers. How far this was true in the case of Gurnall we have, unfortunately, no means of judging. We only know that his mother's maiden name was Catherine Dressit, and that in all probability she was a native of Lynn.

Gregory, the father of William Gurnall, appears to have been one of the principal inhabitants of Lynn. At any rate he was an Alderman of his native town in the year when his son was born, and was Mayor of the borough eight years afterwards, in 1624 Nothing is known of his calling or occupation. The fact that his son died possessed of certain landed property at Walpole, a country parish not far from Lynn, makes it highly probable that Gregory Gurnall was a landed proprietor. But on this point again nothing certain is known.

* Mr. Hankinson, once Rector of St. Margaret's, Lynn, informed me that the name "Gurnall," to the best of his knowledge, is no longer known in Lynn. But he says that the name "Curling" is not uncommon, and that he has little doubt it was originally "Gurnal."

He adds, "I find an entry of baptism in 1799, where the name is 'Gurnell or Gurling.'" In Suffolk, the names of "Girling" and "Grinling," as I happen to know from the parish register of Stradbroke, are very common.

Gurnall had the misfortune to lose his father when he was only fifteen years old. His death is recorded in the register of St. Margaret's, Lynn, as having taken place on the 14th of October, 1631. He was buried in S%. Margaret's church, and a tomb was erected to his memory, with a curious inscription. This tomb is no longer extant, as the spire of St. Margaret's church was blown down in a violent hurricane in the year 1741, and, falling on the body of the church, destroyed a large portion of the building. Mackerell's History of Lynn, published about four years before the hurricane, records the inscription. If epitaphs were worth anything, the language of Gregory Gumail's epitaph might lead us to the conclusion that he was a godly man. But unhappily it is too well known that tombstones are not always to be trusted.

How long Gurnall's mother survived his father there is no evidence to show. M'Keon conjectures that she married again. It is certainly a curious fact that Burkitt, the commentator, in his funeral sermon on William Gurnall, uses the following language: "How great was that tribute of veneration and respect which he constantly paid to the hoary hairs of his aged parents!" Considering that his father died when he was only fifteen years old, these words can hardly be supposed to apply to Gregory Gurnall. Unless therefore the word " parents " in Burkitt's sermon is a printer's mistake for "parent," it seems a very probable idea that Gurnall's mother married again, and that he had a kind and loving step-father. But who he was, and how long his mother lived, we do not know.

The first fifteen years of Gurnall's life appear to have been spent in his native town of Lynn. There is, at any rate, no doubt that he was educated at the Free Grammar School of that town up to the time

when he went to Cambridge. The fact is recorded in the books of the school.

The first fifteen years of life have often so much weight in the formation of a man's character, that it would be very interesting to find out the influences under which William Gurnall spent his early years. Unhappily we possess no materials for doing this. Ambrose Fish was appointed Master of Lynn Grammar School in 1626, in the place of Mr. Robinson, deceased, and Robert Woodmansea was appointed Master in 1627. But we know nothing of these men. I can only point out two things which appear to me deserving of attention.

For one thing, we may probably trace up to Lynn Gurnall's Puritan predilections and opinions. Lynn was one of the chief towns of the most thoroughly Protestant district in England in the seventeenth century. In the days of Queen Mary and Elizabeth the inhabitants of Norfolk and Suffolk were famous for their deep attachment to the doctrines of the Reformation. In the days of the Stuarts and the Commonwealth they were no less famous for their steadfast adherence to Puritan principles. In no part of England were High Church opinions so thoroughly disliked as in the diocese of Norwich, and in no diocese were the minds of people so continually exasperated by vexatious persecutions of Nonconformists.* Brought up in a large market town like Lynn, we cannot doubt that the religious atmosphere m which young Gurnall moved was essentially Puritan. If, as it seems not unlikely, from a comparison of dates, the famous John Arrowsmith and Samuel Fairclough were Ministers at Lynn during Gurnall's school days, we get an additional ray of light thrown on the source of his doctrinal opinions. To hear men like Arrowsmith and Fairclough preach every Sunday, and perhaps to be solemnly catechized or examined by Arrowsmith on stated public occasions, were just the things likely to produce an indelible impression on a mind like Gurnall's.

Samuel Fairclough was born at Haverhill in 1594, and was educated at Queen's College, Cambridge. He was appointed Lecturer at Lynn

by the Mayor and Aldermen in 1619, and continued there, according to Samuel Clarke, who gives a long and most interesting account of him, "for some time." The opposition and persecution of Harsnet, Bishop of Norwich, obliged him to resign this lecture. He was afterwards Lecturer at Clare, in Suffolk, and was then appointed Rector of Keddington, by Sir N. Barnardiston. He resigned this living in 1662, on account of the Act of Uniformity. He died in retirement in 1677, aged 84. Though a retiring man, and not known by any writings, he seems to have been a man of singular gifts and graces. There is an interesting tablet in Heveningham Church, erected by his daughter, wife of Mr. Jones, Rector of Heveningham. He lived at Heveningham for two years, but died at Stowmarket.

For another thing, we probably owe to Gurnall's early residence at Lynn his remarkable familiarity with the sea, sailors, and shipping. I was once puzzled to make out the reason why nautical illustrations so frequently occur in his writings. It did not surprise me to find an author like Gurnall, who delighted in illustrations, pressing everything in town and country into his service. I could understand the man who was Rector of a Suffolk town for thirty-five years drawing comparisons from shops, and farms, and streets, and fields, and horses, and cattle, and corn, and grass, and flowers. I could understand the minister who lived through the bloody wars of the Commonwealth times using abundant imagery from the habits of soldiers, and from the battle-field. But I never could understand Gurnall's familiarity with the sea and shipping, until I found out that he was born and bred in Lynn, fie knew well what a sailor's life was. He had seen the quaint-looking craft which carried on the coasting trade of Lynn. He had doubtless talked with sailors who could tell the perils of "the Wash," the Lincolnshire coast, the Norfolk Sands, and the Voyage to the Humber. Hence came his nautical illustrations in Lavenham pulpit. How true it is that all knowledge is useful to a minister of Christ! The man of God makes everything he has seen become serviceable to his Master's cause.

The next thing that we know about Gurnall is his connection with Cambridge as a pensioner of Emmanuel College. It appears that Lynn Corporation had two Scholarships at Emmanuel in its gift, connected with the Grammar School of the town. To one of these Gurnall was presented by the Corporation, in December, 1631, not long after his father's death. A correspondent of M'Keon, at Lynn, says, "I find, on reference to the Corporation books, that on the 2nd December, 1631, William Gurnall, son of Gregory Gurnall, Alderman there, lately deceased, and one of the scholars of Lynn School, was nominated to one of the Scholarships in Emmanuel College, Cambridge, called Lynn Scholarship, or Mr. Titley's Scholarship; and that on the 11th of June, 1632, the nomination, dated 29th March, then last, passed the Corporation seal."

Of Gurnall's history during his residence at Cambridge we know literally nothing, with the exception of the following bald facts. The College books record that William Gurnall, pensioner, of Norfolk, was admitted March 29, 1632, was B.A., 1635, and M.A., 1639. It is certain that he was never elected a Fellow of his College, and as the Lynn Scholarship was only tenable for seven years, it is highly probable that he ceased to reside at Cambridge in the year 1639, when he took his degree as M.A, and received no further assistance from his Scholarship.

It would, no doubt, be highly interesting, if we knew something of Gurnall's history during the seven years of his University life. The character of a young man is generally moulded for life during the period between sixteen and twenty-three, and the author of the "Christian in Complete Armour," was probably no exception to this rule. Who were his friends and companions? Who were his tutors and lecturers? Was he a reading man? Whom did he walk with, and talk with? What great preachers did he hear in the University pulpit? What were his habits and ways of employing his time? What side did he espouse in the mighty controversies of the day? All these are questions which it would be very pleasant to have answered. The answers would throw great light on many a passage in his after-life

and writings. But the answers, unhappily, are not forthcoming. The only light that we can throw on Gurnall's University life consists of a few facts about his College, and the general state of England between 1632 and 1639.

The College to which Gurnall belonged was always famous in the seventeenth century for its theological tendencies. It was eminently a Puritan College.

Sir Walter Mildmay, of Chelmsford, in Essex, was the founder of Emmanuel College, and even from its very foundation in 1585, it seems to have been notorious for its attachment to Puritan principles. Fuller, in his History of Cambridge, relates that on "Sir Walter Mildmay coming to Court, soon after he had founded his College, Queen Elizabeth said to him,'Sir Walter, I hear you have erected a Puritan foundation.' 'No, madam,' saith he, 'far be it from me to countenance anything contrary to your established laws; but I have set an acorn, which, when it becomes an oak, God alone knows what will be the fruit thereof.' Sure I am (adds Fuller, writing about 1650) at this day it hath overshadowed all the University, more than a moiety of the present Masters of Colleges being bred therein."

The number of leading divines of the seventeenth century who were educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, is certainly extraordinary. Beside Bishop Hall and Bishop Bedell, we find in the list of its members the names of Stephen Marshall, Jeremiah Burroughs, Thomas Sheppard, Thomas Hooker, Ezekiel Culverwell, Ralph Cudvvorth, Samuel Crooke, John Cotton, John Stoughton, Anthony Burgess, Laurence Chaderton, John Preston, Anthony Tuckney, Lazarus Seaman, Matthew Poole, Samuel Clarke, Ralph Venning, Thomas Watson, Stephen Charnock, William Bridge, Peter Sterry, Samuel Cradock. Any one familiar with Puritan divinity will see at a glance that this catalogue embraces the names of some of the most eminent Puritan writers. Some of them, no doubt, were contemporaries and fellow-students of Gurnall himself.

From inquiries which I have made, I have succeeded in obtaining some information about Emmanuel College between the years 1632 and 1639, which I think will not be devoid of interest to all admirers of Gurnall. At any rate it will show who were at Emmanuel when he was there, both as an undergraduate and a graduate, and with what kind of minds he was associated.

The Masters at Emmanuel in Gurnall's time were (1) William Sancroft, uncle of the Archbishop, who held the office from 1628 to 1637; and (2) Holdsworth, who held the office from 1637 to 1645, when he was ejected by the Earl of Manchester. He was a zealous advocate of the King, and attended him during his confinement in the Isle of Wight, and soon after, according to Neal, died of grief.

The reason why Gurnall was never elected Fellow of his College was probably, if I may venture a conjecture, the high character and attainments of his competitors. According to the books of Emmanuel, Ralph Cud worth was elected Fellow in 1639, Worthington (afterward Master of Jesus) in 1641, and Sancroft (afterward Archbishop of Canterbury) in 1642.

The Fellows of Emmanuel between 1632 and 1639 were the following: - Walter Foster, Richard Clarke, John Ward, Thomas Ball, Ezekiel Wright, Thomas Hill Nicholas Hall, William Bridge, Samuel Bowles, Henry Salmon, David Ensigne, Anthony Burgess, Thomas Holbeck, Thomas Horton, Malachi Harris, R. Sorsby, Benjamin Whiehcot, John Henderson, John Almond, R. Weller, Peter Sterry, Laurence Sarson, John Saddler, Ralph Cud worth.

"All the Fellows," says a member of Emmanuel, "appear to have been tutors in their day, though some had more pupils than others. As far as our books lead us to infer, Hill, Hall, Burgess, Holbeck, Ensigne, Salmon, Whiehcot, all seem to have been most popular tutors in their day. We have no tutors' books which tell us under whom Gurnall was admitted."

When I add to the above information the fact that Horrox, the astronomer, was admitted at Emmanuel in 1632, the same year as Gurnall, and that Archbishop Sancroft, the famous nonjuror, was admitted in 1633, I shall have exhausted all the stock of information that 1 have been able to scrape together about Gurnall's College life and his contemporaries.

Seven years spent at a College like Emmanuel could not fail to have an effect on Gurnall's mind. Brought up from his boyhood to honour and reverence the Puritans as the excellent of the earth, at Lynn, - trained afterwards at a College where the whole atmosphere was peculiarly Puritan, - it would have been strange indeed if Gurnall had grown up without decided Puritan opinions.

The state of England during the seven years of Gurnall's University life was very peculiar. It was the crisis of the troubled period between the Reformation and the Commonwealth times. The suicidal and blind misgovernment of Charles I. was rapidly paving the way for the destruction of the throne. The undisguised Romish tendencies and bitter persecutions of Archbishop Laud, and his fellow-workers, were doing the same for the Church of England. From one end of the country to the other there were discontent, murmuring, controversy, bitterness, and party spirit. On every side there were symptoms of a coming break-up, or a violent conflict both in Church and State.

Cambridge, we need not doubt, had its full share of all the troubles and discomfort of this stormy period. The following passage from Fuller's History of Cambridge records things which happened there in 1632, the very year that Qurnall entered Emmanuel, - things which, no doubt, he saw with his own eyes and heard with his own ears: -

"This year," says Fuller, "a grave divine, preaching before the University at St. Mary's, had this passage in his sermon: 'That as at the Olympian games he was counted the conqueror who could drive his chariot wheels nearest to the mark, yet so as not to hinder his

running, or stick thereon, so he, who in his sermons could preach near Popery, and yet no Popery, there was your man.' And, indeed, it now began to be the complaint of most moderate men, that many in the University, both in school and pulpit, approached the opinion of the Church of Rome more than ever before.

"Mr. Bernard, Lecturer of St. Sepulchre's in London, preached at St. Mary's in the afternoon of May 6th, his text, 1 Sam. iv. 21: 'The glory is departed from Israel,' etc. In handling whereof he let fall some passages which gave distaste to a prevalent party in the University, as for saying: (1) That God's ordinances, when blended and adultered with innovations of men, cease to be God's ordinances, and He owneth them no longer. (2) That it is impossible any should be saved, living and dying without repentance, in the doctrine of Rome, as the Tridentine Council hath decreed it. (3) That treason is not limited to the blood royal; but that he is a traitor against a nation that depriveth it of God's ordinances. (4) That some shamefully symbolize in Pelagian error and superstitious ceremonies with the Church of Rome. Let us pray such to their conversion or to their destruction, etc.

"Dr. Cumber, Vice-Chancellor, gave speedy notice hereof to Dr. Laud, Bishop of London, though he (so quick his University intelligence) had information thereof before. Therefore he was brought into the High Commission, and a recantation tendered to him, which he refused to subscribe, though professing his sincere sorrow and penitency, in his petition and letter to the Bishop, for any oversight and unbecoming expression in his sermon. Hereupon he was sent back to the new prison, where he died. If he was miserably abused therein by his keepers, as some have reported, to the shortening of his life, He that maketh inquisition for blood, either hath, or will be, a revenger thereof."

This deplorable affair took place, let us remember, in the year 1632, the very year that Gurnall came up to reside at Emmanuel. How much stir it would excite among the undergraduates of a thoroughly

Puritan College we can easily imagine. All who know anything of an English University, know how ready undergraduates are, as a body, to sympathize with the persecuted and oppressed, and to side with the minority.

It was during Gurnall's residence at Cambridge that Dr. Ward, one of the representatives of the Church of England at the Synod of Dort, gave the following unsatisfactory description of the state of the University, in a letter to Archbishop Usher, dated 1634. He says, "It may be you are willing to hear of our University affairs. I may truly say I never knew them in worse condition since I was a member thereof, which is almost forty-six years." •

It was during Gurnall's residence at Cambridge that the infamous sentence on Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton, was passed in the Court of Star Chamber. For publishing certain alleged libels on the Church of England these unfortunate men were condemned to stand in the pillory, and have their ears publicly cut off. The sentence was actually carried into effect, June 30, 1637, in Palace Yard. Bastwick was a physician, who had been educated at Emmanuel College. We can easily imagine the sensation which his punishment would create within the walls of his old College.

It was during Gurnall's residence at Cambridge that the famous disturbances in Scotland arose, out of Archbishop Laud's attempt to introduce the notorious Scotch Liturgy, with its Popish Communion Office, into the Churches of Edinburgh. The well-known riot in St. Giles' Church, when a stool is said to have been thrown at the Bishop of Edinburgh's head, by a zealous woman called Jenny Geddes, took place on Sunday, July 23, 1637.

It was during Gurnall's residence at Cambridge that John Hampden began the unhappy struggle between the. King and his subjects by refusing to pay ship-money. The decision of the Chief Justice was given against him on the 9th of June, 1637.

I mention these facts and dates in order to give the reader some idea of the times in which Gurnall passed through his University career. We cannot doubt that his character and opinions must have been strongly influenced by them. No one could be at Cambridge from 1632 to 1639 without seeing and hearing things which would leave a mark on his memory for life, and without coming across a stream of conflicting opinions which he would remember to his dying day. No doubt Gurnall became acquainted with some of the best specimens of the Puritan divines. No doubt also he saw in the heart of a Puritan College enough to make him feel that all Puritans were not perfect men. I venture the conjecture that his after-life at every step was greatlv influenced by the recollection of what he saw at Emmanuel, Cambridge.

The five years of Gurnall's life immediately after he left Cambridge, in 1639, are a period in his history of which nothing whatever seems to be known. I must honestly confess that I can throw little light upon it, and can only offer surmises and conjectures. He disappears from our notice on leaving Emmanuel, in 1639. He does not appear again till he is made Rector of Lavenham, in 1644. But how, and where, and in what manner, and in what official capacity he spent the intervening interval of five years we have no certain record.

It would be difficult to name five years of English history in which so many important events occurred, as between 1639 and 1644. Within these five years the famous Long Parliament commenced its sittings, the no less famous Westminster Assembly of divines was convened, Lord Strafford was beheaded, Archbishop Laud committed to prison, and the Courts of High Commission and Star Chamber abolished. Within these five years the civil war between the King and the Parliament actually broke out, the standard was raised at Nottingham, the battles of Edgehill, Newbury, and Marston Moor were fought, and Hampden, Pym, and Lord Falkland were all laid in their graves. Last, but not least, the "Solemn League and Covenant" was subscribed by the adherents of the Parliament side, in which, among other things, they pledged themselves to "endeavour the

extirpation of Popery and Prelacy: that is, Church government by archbishops, bishops, their chancellors and commissaries, deans and chapters, archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical officers depending on that hierarchy."

And what was Gurnall doing all these five years? We cannot tell. Perhaps he was staying quietly with his friends at Lynn. Perhaps he was hearing and learning what he could in London. Perhaps he was turning to account his University education by acting as tutor to some noble or wealthy family, as many young divines did in that day. These are idle conjectures after all. There are only two facts that we know about him. One is that he must have been ordained some time between 1639 and 1644. The other is that he must have preached at Sudbury within this period. This last point is made clear by his own words, in a letter addressed to Sir Symond D'Ewes, in which he speaks of the Sudbury people making difficulties about his removal to Lavenham.

The subject of Gurnall's entrance into the ministry is shrouded in complete obscurity. There is no one point in his personal history about which we know so little. When he was ordained, where he was ordained, to what cure of souls he was ordained, by whom he was ordained, whether he was first ordained by Episcopal or by Presbyterian ordination, are things about which we are entirely in the dark. After a good deal of troublesome research and investigation into the subject, I must honestly confess that I can find out nothing about it. T have only discovered, by the kindness of the present Bishop of Norwich and the late Bishop of Ely, that his name does not appear in the ordination registers of Norwich and Ely between 1639 and 1644. It is, of course, possible that he was ordained by the bishop of some other diocese, though even then it is certain that he was only ordained deacon. But it is far more probable that he entered the ministry without receiving Episcopal orders at all. Most likely he was set apart for the work as a Presbyterian Minister, by "the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery."

1 am not disposed to waste the reader's time by entering into any discussion of the comparative merits of Episcopal and Presbyterian orders, though, of course, I have my own opinions as a conscientious Episcopalian. I only venture the remark, that we have no right to infer anything as to Gurnall's opinions about Episcopacy, from his want of Episcopal orders. We must remember the peculiar times in which he entered the ministry. There was probably no alternative left to him. He must either have been ordained by Presbyterian ordination, or not have been ordained at all.

The plain truth is, that the times when Gurnall entered the ministry were times of disorder and confusion. It was a period of transition. Everything that had been settled and established in Church and State was being pulled to pieces. They were strange times, and strange things happened in them. We may well expect to find that there were all sorts of irregularities and diversities of practice about ordination.

Bishop Hall, in his famous account of himself, called "His Hard Measure," makes the following statement, which deserves the more notice because he was Bishop of Norwich, and Lavenham was then in his diocese. He says, "After the Covenant was appointed to be taken (September 26, 1643), and was generally swallowed . of both clergy and laity, my power of ordination was with some violence restrained. For when I was going on in my wonted course, which no law or ordinance had inhibited, certain forward volunteers in the city, banding together, stirred up the mayor, and aldermen, and sheriffs (of Norwich), to call me to an account for an open violation of their Covenant.

"To this purpose, divers of them came to my gate at a very unseasonable time, and knocking very vehemently, required to speak with the Bishop. Messages were sent to them to know their business; nothing would satisfy them but the Bishop's presence. At last I came down to them, and demanded what the matter was; they would have the gate opened, and then they would tell me. I answered that I would know them better first; if they had anything to say to me I was

ready to hear them. They told me they had a writing for me from the Mayor and some other of their magistrates. The paper contained both a challenge of me for breaking the Covenant, in ordaining ministers, and withal required me to give in the names of those which were ordained by me both then and formerly since the Covenant. My answer was that the Mayor was much abused by those who had misinformed him and drawn that paper from him; that I would the next day give a full answer to the writing. They moved that my answer might be my personal appearance at the guildhall. I asked them when they ever heard of a Bishop of Norwich appearing before a Mayor. I knew mine own place, and would take that way of answer which I thought fit, and so dismissed them, who had given out that day, that had they known before of mine ordaining, they would have pulled me and those whom I ordained out of the chapel by the ears." (Hall's Works, vol. i., p. 54. P. Hall's Edition.)

Let us add to this curious testimony the following passage from Neal, the well-known historian of the Puritans. He says, "From the time of taking the Covenant (September 28, 1643), we may date the entire dissolution of the hierarchy, though it was not as yet abolished by an ordinance of Parliament. There were no ecclesiastical courts, no visitations, no wearing the habits, no regard paid to the canons or ceremonies, or even to the Common Prayer." He says immediately afterwards: "Upon the sitting of the Assembly of Divines all church worship went through their hands. The parishes elected their ministers. The Assembly examined and approved of them, and the Parliament confirmed them in their benefices without any regard to the Archbishop or his vicar. Thus the Earl of Manchester filled the vacant pulpits in the associated counties." (Neal's History, vol. iii. pp. 79, 80. Toulmin's Edition.)

After reading these passages we may well understand why there is no record of Gurnall's ordination as Deacon in the Registers of Norwich or Ely. He began his ministry in the diocese of Norwich, and was an inhabitant of one of the most thoroughly Puritan districts of the seven "associated counties." Whether be desired Episcopal

Ordination or not we do not know, though his subsequent ordination by Bishop Reynolds, at a later period of his ministry, ought not to be forgotten. But it is highly probable that at the time when be entered the ministry he could not have received Episcopal Ordination even if he had wished it.

The matter, after all, is not one of primary importance. The Divine right of Episcopacy, to the exclusion of all other forms of Church government, and the absolute necessity of Episcopal Ordination to make a right minister of Christ, are positions that cannot be established from Scripture. The 23rd Article of the Church of England has exhibited a wise moderation in handling the whole question. It says: "It is not lawful for any man to take upon him the office of public preaching, or ministering the Sacrament in the congregation, before he be lawfully called and sent to execute the same." But the Article cautiously avoids defining too closely what are valid orders. It goes on: "Those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent, which be chosen and called to the work by men who have public authority given unto them in the congregation to call and send ministers into the Lord's vineyard." This, we need not doubt, was Gurnall's position. Episcopal Ordination he probably did not receive on entering the ministry, and most likely could not have obtained it. But that he was "lawfully called and sent into the Lord's vineyard" we need not doubt, though in all probability it was only " by laying on of the hands of the Presbytery."

We now come to the most important event in Gurnall's life, and the one which fixed him down in one spot for the remaining thirty-five years of his life. That event was his appointment to be Minister of the parish of Lavenham, in Suffolk. This, it appears, happened about the month of December, 1644, when he was twenty-eight years old.

The manner of Gurnall's appointment was somewhat singular, and curiously illustrative of the strange and troublesome times in which it took place. Sir Symond D'Ewes, the famous antiquary, was patron of the living of Lavenham, and chief proprietor in the parish. It

appears that he gave the living to Gurnall at the request of the parishioners, and the appointment was ratified by order of the House of Commons.

The order of the House of Commons is so peculiar a document, that I venture to transcribe it whole and entire, as M'Keon gives it, from an extract from the Journals of the House, furnished to him by the Clerk of the Journals.

"16°- Decembris, 1644, 20 Car. 1. Lavenham \ Whereas the Church of Lavenham, in the Rectory. J county of Suffolk, lately became void by the decease of Ambrose Coppinger, Doctor of Divinity, and that Sir Symond D'Ewes, patron of the said Church, hath conferred the advowson of the same upon William Gurnall, Master of Arts, a learned, godly, and orthodox divine: It is ordered by the House of Commons that the said William Gurnall shall be, and continue, Rector and Incumbent of the same Church during the term of his natural life, and shall have, receive, and enjoy all such tithes, as other Rectors and Incumbents of same Church before him have had, received, and enjoyed. Provided always that the same William Gurnall do pay upon his avoidance all such first fruits and tithes unto his Majesty, as by the laws of this realm are, and shall be due from time to time." (Vol. iii. p. 725.)*

A careful reader can hardly fail to notice some amusing points in this document. The right of Sir Symond D'Ewes to present is stated and allowed, and yet the presentation must be ratified by the order of the House of Commons! Gurnall's qualifications are broadly stated. The House declares him to be "learned, godly, and orthodox!" The King's name is carefully brought in (though the Parliament was at open war with him), and provision is inserted for the payment of first fruits to his Majesty! The name, office, and authority of the Bishop of Norwich, in whose diocese Lavenham was, are as utterly ignored as if they had never existed! Truly we may say that Gurnall lived in strange times!

What chain of providential circumstances led Gurnall to a town in the south-west corner of Suffolk, after leaving Cambridge, we do not know. Why the good man should turn up at Sudbury and Lavenham, five years after leaving Emmanuel, is a point which must be left to conjecture. We know nothing certain about it. It is, however, not unworthy of notice, that there was a certain James Gurnall living at Lavenham in 1644, who had a daughter baptized there on the 4th of September in that year. It is by no means improbable, as M'Keon suggests, that this James Gurnall was a relative of the Gurnalls of Lynn, and that the relationship was the cause of William Gurnall visiting Lavenham, and becoming known in the neighbourhood. It is also worthy of notice that Henry Coppinger, who died Rector of Lavenham in 1622, and was father of Gumail's predecessor, Ambrose Coppinger, was connected by marriage with Gurnall's native piacft, Lynn. It is stated on a monument erected to his memory in Lavenham Church, that he married Ann, daughter of Henry Fisher, of Lynn, in Norfolk. Lynn was not so large a place that the families of Gurnall and Mr. Coppingei would not be acquainted with one another, and this may have been another cause of his settling in Lavenham These are, of course, only conjectures, but I think them worth mentioning, and they must be taken for what they are worth.

How Gurnall became acquainted with Sir Symond D'Ewes, and whether he was appointed by him to the Rectory of Lavenham on public or private grounds, we have no means of ascertaining. A statement, quoted by M'Keon from a manuscript in Herald's College, by Mr. Appleton, about Suffolk, is manifestly a mistake. He says Sir Symond D'Ewes "freely and very willingly gave the Rectory of Lavenham unto Mr. William Gurnall, now Incumbent there, although to him then unknown, at the request of the parish, which hath been much for the benefit of the town in many ways." Appleton was clearly misinformed here. There is a correspondence extant in the Harleian MSS. between Gurnall and Sir Symond D'Ewes, of which the first letter is dated March, 1644. Beside this, Sir Symond was elected M.P. for Sudbury in 1640, and resided in the parish of

Lavenham, so that he could hardly fail to know something about Gurnall.

The correspondence between Gurnall and Sir Symond D'Ewes, to which reference has been made, is a curiosity in its way. It consists of eight Latin letters, composed in the most approved classical style, and affording evidence that Gurnall was a tolerably good Latin scholar. Judged by the standard of modern times the matter of these letters is not much to be admired. There is a tone of obsequiousness and flattery about them which to our eyes seems very unworthy of a Christian, and very unlike what we should have expected from a Puritan. But it is only fair to remember the fashion of Gurnall's age. Dedications and letters to public men in the seventeenth century are often stuffed with high-flown language and hyperbolic compliments. It was as common to write in such a strain as it is for us to sign ourselves "your obedient servant." The words meant nothing, and were only used because it was the custom to use them. If Gurnall had not written his Latin letters to Sir Symond D'Ewes in a very verbose, extravagant, and complimentary style, he would probably have been set down as an illiterate and unpolished man.

Some account of the contents of these eight letters will perhaps be found interesting. They throw a little light, at any rate, on Gurnall's presentation to Lavenham; and if we knew the meaning of the allusions which they contain, we should understand a good deal better than we do now the history of his settlement in the place with which his name is inseparably connected.*

The first letter is dated Lavenham, March 26, 1644. It is a petition on behalf of a man who had been wounded in the service of the State and appears to have been bearer of the letter. It contains some general remarks on the discredit thrown upon religion when wounded soldiers are neglected, and on the duty of providing them with comfortable maintenance. Beside this, there is nothing worth notice.

The second letter is dated July 24,1644. It is endorsed «' to the Right Worthy Sir Symond D'Ewes, at his lodgings in Margaret's, Westminster." The place from which it is written is not stated. In this letter for the first time the subject of Gurnall's appointment to Lavenham is mentioned. There seems to have been some difficulty about the matter, which at this distance of time we cannot, of course, explain. The letter was evidently written while the difficulty was pending. It contains the following passage, which I give in M'Keon's translation in its entirety: -

"I have received your letter breathing nothing but love, and should immediately have answered it, had I not been called into Norfolk on public business. On my return I promised myself some certain grounds for a reply. But alas! the knot which I left to be untied I found still more perplexed and involved, so that I appeared, like the ship of St. Paul, to have 'fallen into a place where two seas met.' While my mind is fixed on Lavenham, there threatens a storm at Sudbury, which accuses me of being lured by a golden bait. But were I to refuse this Providence held out to me by your hands, I might, not unjustly, appear disobedient to God, and ungrateful to you who offer it to me. In such a storm a skilful pilot (I mean Solomon) suggested to me,' in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.' Most willingly, therefore, did I submit the hearing and determining the whole cause to certain ministers in my neighbourhood. If I must die, I could wish it should be in the hands of the most skilful physicians; if I must err, I should wish it to be among men most famous for their learning and piety. In a short time I hope to finish this whole business, and then I will write again to your honour."

This is a curious letter. One would like to know what was the knotty point which Gurnall could not untie, and who were the "certain ministers" whom he consulted^ One thing, at any rate, it helps to confirm. It seems to indicate that Gurnall was a minister at Sudbury before he was Rector of Lavenham. Yet it is a singular fact, that at the present time no inhabitant of Sudbury, to whom I have applied, seems to know anything about Gurnall's connection with the town.

The third letter is dated Sudbury, September 1, 1644. At the time when it was written it was evidently a settled thing, that Gurnall should have the living of Lavenham, though the appointment was not yet completed. Amidst a quantity of verbose and fulsome compliments, which can only be excused by the customs of Gurnall's day, the following paragraphs are worth quoting: -

"I firmly believe, most worshipful, that the only happiness which you hope or wish for in this filthy world is that of doing good. In this humble and grateful disposition, therefore, you may triumph that the numerous population of Lavenham now enjoy under your shadow the Gospel." -

"If God should bless my slender labours, whatever they may be, as many as may be imbued with Divine light, or cherished with its dew, will be a solace, and even a crown to you, under whose shield I fight. Happy indeed, still more and more, might we have had the English nation, which we now see so universally torn by civil wars, if with the same care with which you have laboured, all our patrons had striven in the propagation of the Gospel. But, alas, many make market of the souls of others while they peril their own! This will redound to your great honour. Not less do you strive to give than others to sell the priesthood."

The postscript to this letter is curious. Gurnall says, "One thing at the end of your letter I had almost forgot. You therein just mention the Bishop. My doubts increase as to the propriety of going to him, particularly since the opinions both of the clergy and of the people have become known to me."

The fourth letter is dated Lavenham, October 26, 1644. It is a complimentary letter written on the occasion of Sir Symond D'Ewes giving Gurnall a copy of some antiquarian work he had lately published. It contains no allusion to the subject of the living of Lavenham, and there is nothing in it worth quoting.

The fifth letter is dated Lavenham, November 21,1644, and is one of the most important of the whole series. I shall therefore give it entire.

"Right worshipful Sir, - At length my frail bark, after a difficult navigation, has safely reached the port of Lavenham. Nothing now remains for me but to return my thanks to you, under whoso shadow I enjoy this happiness, and with sound principles to imbue, and with paternal care to instruct, the numerous people which you have committed to me, particularly in times like these, fermenting with many errors, when, like Rome of old, who borrowed gods from all parts of the world, we also borrow errors which have already been buried, and yet after burial again revive. My only solace in this world will now be to preserve, by earnest and continued prayer, this my congregation, pure and unspotted amongst so many corruptions.

"By your letter to Henry Coppinger, I find that certain of the Sudbury people, in your hearing, have said that some new agreement had been entered into between us. I wonder from whence this fable has taken its origin. I do not admit one atom of it. It is nothing new for the sweetest wine of love sometimes to degenerate into vinegar. I hope, however, in a short time that my Sudbury friends will be restored to their former serenity, although like the troubled sea they are now in a state of considerable agitation. With respect to the Bishop, I hope he will find some other way of instituting me, or else your most honourable House will do it. And all the inhabitants of Lavenham most humbly congratulate you, right worshipful, for that in this affair you have left no stone unturned "We also earnestly desire that the matter may, if possible, be completed within these six months, which are now fast wearing away. I would willingly go to London in order that whatever remains to be done may receive the finishing stroke. May the great and good God pour His blessing on thee and thine, and may He continue to be thy sun and shield. So prays mast earnestly your very humble servant in Christ, William GURNALL."

The matter referred to in the letter can, of course, only be explained by conjecture. It certainly seems to indicate that Gurnall was once a popular minister at Sudbury, and that his removal to the Rectory of Lavenham was not approved by the Sudbury people. The six months mentioned most probably mean the six months immediately following the last Rector's death. The precise date of the death of Coppinger, Gurnall's predecessor, is not known.

The sixth letter is dated Lavenham, January 6th, 1645. It is clear from its contents, that whatever may have been the difficulties which stood in the way of his appointment to Lavenham, they were now all overcome, and he was finally settled in possession of the living. He says, "Honoured Sir, most opportunely have I received the order of your honourable House. By your care and exertion alone has it been obtained; and all your favours toward me have, by this fresh proof of your kindness, been brought to a completion - this last having given perfection to the rest. What is a presentation without orders? What are orders without institution? Successfully, however, have you finished all these things so that my thanks are due to you, not only as patron, but as ordainer and institutor, for under your auspices all these things have been performed. I well know how much of your time is occupied by public business, while the arduous affairs of the nation are under consideration, and also with what indefatigable labour you pursue more severe studies. The weight therefore of this your favour is so much the more increased, when we see that among matters of greater importance you still find leisure to attend to these our affairs, trifling indeed in comparison, but such as would, I believe, from our want of skill, have been a complete snare to us, had we not been speedily delivered from them by your prudence."

About the matters referred to in this letter, we know nothing more than what Gurnall tells us. His expressions certainly seem to imply that he owed his ordination, by whatever hands he was ordained, to the interest of Sir Symond D'Ewes.

The seventh letter is dated Lavenham, March 20, 1647. It contains nothing worth quoting, and is entirely occupied with lamentations over the troublous times which the nation was passing through, and words of devout encouragement to Sir Symond D'Ewes, whose position in Parliament was probably not a very easy one at this period.

The eighth and last letter is dated October 30, 1648, and was evidently written in reply to an order of the House of Commons, calling on Gurnall to preach before the House. He says, among other things, "Your letter reached me yesterday as I was descending from the pulpit, thoroughly fatigued; and to-day, having finished one sermon, I am preparing another for to-morrow. You will therefore, I trust, readily pardon both the brevity and unpolished style of my answer. As to the affair mentioned in your letter to me, that I have been, by an order of the House, appointed to preach before you on the 29th of November next, it is a burden much too weighty for my shoulders, particularly at this time, when so many infirmities oppress me, that I can scarcely, without danger to my health, remain a short time in the open air. Much less, therefore, could I undertake so long a journey in so winterly a season. I am persuaded that the gentlemen who have proposed this know not the shattered state of my body, and have scarcely considered the distance of the place. Most humbly and earnestly, therefore, I entreat that, by your persuasion, which I know to be unparalleled, and in that honourable House most weighty, this burden may be laid on other shoulders; for, under it, in my infirm state of health, I must of necessity sink."

This letter is interesting on more than one account. It shows the high esteem in which Gurnall was held as a preacher. None but the most eminent and gifted divines of the day were summoned to preach before the House of Commons. It also shows the weak state of health in which Gurnall was at a comparatively early period of his ministry at Lavenham. To this state of health we may perhaps attribute the retired life which he seems to have lived, and the comparatively small information which we possess about him.

Having now brought Gurnall to the place where he lived and exercised his ministry for no less than thirty five years, some information about Lavenham will probably be interesting to most readers.

Lavenham is a small town in the south-west corner of Suffolk, lying in a rural parish of about 2,800 acres, and containing at this time about 1,800 people. In Gurnall's time it was in the diocese of Norwich. It is now in the diocese of Ely. It had once a market; and before the invention of the steam - engine, was famous for the manufacture of blue cloth and serge, for the better regulation of which three guilds, or companies, of St. Peter's, Holy Trinity, and Corpus Christi, were established. Its manufactures have now dwindled down into one silk-mill, and its market is no longer held. The market-place, with an ancient cross in the centre, exists still. The De Veres, Earls of Oxford, were once the principal proprietors of Lavenham, and had a large park here, comprising nearly half the parish. In the reign of Elizabeth, Edward, then Earl of Oxford, sold his property at Lavenham, together with the advowson of the living, to Paul D'Ewes, Esq., father of Sir Symond D'Ewes, the patron of William Gurnall, and to this sale, therefore, the good man's connection with Lavenham must be traced.

The living to which Gurnall was appointed was, no doubt, a very valuable one. At this day the tithes are commuted at £850 a year, and there are 140 acres of glebe attached to the Rectory. Allowing for the difference in the value of money two hundred years ago, the Rector of Lavenham must have been comparatively very well off. It is, however, a curious fact, recorded by Fuller in his "Church History," that in the year 1577 the living of Lavenham had a narrow escape of being reduced to half its value, and was only saved by the firmness of the Rector. The whole transaction is worth reading, as illustrating the disorders and irregularities in ecclesiastical matters which great laymen too often attempted to perpetrate in the sixteenth century, and too often with success.

Fuller says, "In the year 1622, Henry Coppinger, formerly Fellow of St. John's College in Cambridge, Prebendary of York, once Chaplain to Ambrose, Earl of Warwick (whose funeral sermon he preached), made Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, by his Majesty's mandates, though afterwards resigning his right at the Queen's request (shall I call it?), to prevent trouble, ended his religious life. He was the sixth son of Henry Coppinger, Esq., of Buxhall, in Suffolk, by Agnes, daughter of Sir Thomas Jermyn. His father, on his death-bed, asking him what course of life he would embrace, he answered he intended to be a divine. 'I like it well,' said the old gentleman,'otherwise what shall I say to Martin Luther when I shall see him in heaven, and he knows that God gave me eleven sons, and I made not one of them a minister?' An expression proportionable enough to Luther's judgment, who maintained, some hours before his death, that the saints in heaven shall knowingly converse one with another.

"Lavenham living fell void, which both deserved a good minister, being a rich parsonage, and needed one, it being more than suspected that Dr. Reynolds, late Incumbent, who ran away to Rome, had left some superstitious leaven behind him. The Earl of Oxford being patron, presents Mr. Coppinger to it, but adding withal, that he would pay no tithes of his park, being almost half the land of the parish. Coppinger desired to resign it again to his lordship, rather than by such sinful gratitude to betray the rights of the Church. 'Well!' said the Earl,' if you be of that mind, then take the tithes; I scorn that my estate should swell with Church goods.' However, it afterwards cost Mr. Coppinger sixteen hundred pounds in keeping his questioned, and recovering his detained right, in suit with the agent for the next minor Earl of Oxford and others; all which he left to his church's quiet possession, being zealous in God's cause, but remiss in his own.

"He lived forty and five years the painful parson at Lavenham, in which market-town there are about nine hundred communicants, among whom, all +his time, no difference did arise which he did not

compound. He had a bountiful hand and plentiful purse (his paternal inheritance by death of elder brothers, and other transactions descending upon him), bequeathing twenty pounds in money, and ten pounds per annum, to the poor of the parish; in the chancel whereof he lieth buried under a fine monument, dying on St. Thomas' day, in the threescore and twelfth year of his age."

The lawsuit referred to by Fuller seems, at any rate, not to have prevented Henry Coppinger being succeeded by his son Ambrose as Rector of Lavenham, at whose death Gurnall was appointed to the living. The Henry Coppinger referred to by Gurnall in one of his letters to Sir Symond D'Ewes, was, no doubt, a member of the family of Gurnall's predecessor, and a descendant of the Rector whose firmness preserved half the tithes of Lavenham from the Earl of Oxford's shameful attempt to deprive the living of them.

The parish Church of Lavenham, in which Gurnall preached for thirty-five years, must naturally possess much interest in the eyes of all true admirers of his works. The pulpit in which the good man preached the substance of "The Christian in Complete Armour" no longer exists. But the fabric of the church is, in all probability, exactly what it was two hundred years ago.

Lavenham Church is one of the finest and handsomest ecclesiastical buildings in the county of Suffolk. "It stands at the west end of the town, and was erected on the site of the ancient fabric, in the loth and early part of the 16th centuries, chiefly at the cost of the Earl of Oxford, and the wealthy family of Spring, whose arms are to be seen in many parts of the building. It is in the later style of decorated English architecture, and is constructed of freestone, curiously ornamented with flint, a material commonly used in Suffolk churches, from the scarcity of stone. It is 156 feet long and 68 broad. The tower, which is of singular beauty, is 141 feet high and 42 in diameter, and contains an excellent peal of eight bells, of which the tenor weighs 23 cwt., and was cast in 1625. In the interior the roof is richly carved, and two pews, formerly belonging to the Earls of

Oxford and the Springs, though now somewhat decayed, are highly finished specimens of Gothic work, in the elaborate style of Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster. In the windows are considerable remains of ancient stained glass, and the porch is of highly ornamental architecture, adorned with armorial bearings." The above account is principally extracted from White's "History of Suffolk," and I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the details it contains At the present day there can be no doubt that Lavenham is a far less important place than it was two hundred years ago. The county in which it is situated no longer occupies the position it once occupied among the counties of England. Without mines or manufactures, or large seaport towns, the eastern counties have stood still in material prosperity, while the rest of England has moved on. The village towns, with which Suffolk is rather thickly dotted, are almost all in a decaying or stationary condition. The old glory of such places as Eye, Framlingham, Bungay, Orford, Southwold, Dunwicb, Aldeburgh, Hadleigh, Bildeston, Needham, Strad broke, and Debenham, has clean passed away. Lavenham has shared the fate of these places. It is now nothing more than a quiet village in an agricultural district, remarkable only for its beautiful church and its numerous old charitable institutions.

The thirty-five years during which Gurnall lived at Lavenham, and filled the pulpit of the old parish church, were years full of stirring incidents in English history, The final overthrow of the King's party in the Commonwealth wars, the beheading of Charles I., the establishment of the Protectorate, the death of Oliver Cromwell, the restoration of the Stuarts to the throne, the passing of the Act of Uniformity, the ejection of two thousand ministers of the Church of England which followed that Act, and the intolerant persecution of all Nonconformists which disgraced this country for many years after the Act was passed, are events with which every student of English history is familiar. What Gurnall thought of most of these we have no means of knowing. What part he took, if any, and how he acted amidst the political and ecclesiastical convulsions which distracted the country we cannot say. His health in all probability prevented

him from frequently leaving his own home, or doing much outside his own parish. Be the cause what it may, I am obliged to confess that the facts on record about the last thirty-five years of his life are exceedingly few.

It is certainly somewhat remarkable that during the period of Gurnall's ministry at Lavenham, that is between 1644 and 1679, some of the best and holiest Puritan divines were at one time or another living within twenty miles of Gurnall's home at Lavenham. I will give their names.

The famous John Owen, w hose name is familiar to every reader of pure English theology, began his ministry at Fordham and Coggeshall in Essex, and only left the latter place when Cromwell made him Dean of Christ Church, and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, in 1650, six years after Gurnall became Rector of Lavenham.

Stephen Marshall, one of the most celebrated divines in the Westminster Assembly, and a prominent character in the Commonwealth times, was Minister of Wethersfield and Finchingfield, in Essex, shortly before Gurnall came to Lavenham, and spent the last two years of his life at Ipswich, where he died in 1655.

Matthew Newcomen, another eminent member of the Westminster Assembly, and an assistant of Arrowsmith and Tuckney in drawing up the well-known Assembly's Catechism, was Vicar of Dedham in Essex, after the famous John Rogers was ejected in 1629, until the time of his own ejection by the Act of Uniformity, in 1662.

Thomas Young, another distinguished member of the Westminster Assembly, and Milton's tutor, was Vicar of Stowmarket, in Suffolk, for the thirty years before 1643, when he became Pastor of a Church in Duke's Place, London. Afterwards, being ejected in 1650, he retired to Stowmarket, and died there in 1655. He was one of the five authors of the famous controversial work, called "Smectymnuus,"

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