which includes the just rights, liberties, or privileges both of Presbyters and People. I neither dispute nor deny any men's morals, intellectuals, devotionals, or spirituals, further than they seem much warped and eclipsed by their over-eager heats and injurious prosecutions against their antagonists the Episcopal Clergy and Church of England: But I absolutely blame those

wise man, he would, notwithstanding his real love of antiquity, have fallen into the snare of the Calvinian fowlers, to whose sentiments he was greatly inclined: "Certainly God will severely exact of this church and nation, of prince and people, of preachers and hearers, an account for our long-enjoyed and undervalued truth and peace. Have we so long been a vine planted, and watered, and fenced, both to necessity and ornament, by an excessive indulgence of God, and do we bring forth sour grapes, that neither please God nor profit men? May we not justly fear (what we have deserved) to be laid waste and desolate, to be made a hissing and astonishment to all nations, that God should remove or extinguish the glorious lamp of the Gospel, in whose light we have not rejoiced, because we have not loved it?

"Do we love the truth, if we are weary of it, tediously and peevishly affected to it, willing to leave it and withdraw from it? The loathing and nauseating of this heavenly manna, as if we have had so much that it is necessary to recover and quicken men's appetites to it, by a more scanty allowance of it, is this to love the truth? The tampering and essays of some to clip, or wash, or new coin, or alloy and abase, with some Romish mixture, the gold and purity of our doctrine, is this to love the truth? that pure and refined truth, which hath passed the fiery trial, hath been baptized in the blood of many martyrs, sown in a field, made fruitful with their ashes, who loved not their lives so much as the truth! To set up lying vanities, pictures, and images, and to cry down praying and preaching, whereby those toils may be useful and necessary to the ignorant (because untaught) people, is this to love the truth? To suffer idolatry, or superstitious formalities in serving God, to get ground upon our opinions and practices, is this to love the truth? which, the less it hath of painting, the more it hath of true loveliness and native beauty. Are not the lengthening and increase of ceremonious shadows, a presage and sign of the shortening of our day and setting of our sun, or diminishing of our light?

"To quarrel at those truths which have been long ago determined by the Scripture, in the public confession of our Church, and in the writings or preachings of our gravest and learnedest Divines, Prelates, and others,-as in the points of Justification by Faith alone, of Transubstantiation, of Auricular Confession, of Prayer for the Dead, of Worshipping before Images, of Fiduciary Assurance, and the like, which some doting and superstitious spirits dare to question and retractate, is this to love the truth? What hath been done by preaching and printing, by correcting, or rather corrupting, of books, (where the correctors themselves deserve to be corrected,) your piety and wisdom may best find out. Nay, such hath been the shameless impudence and effrontery of some ridiculous heads, that plain and honest minds shall be scorned, derided, and, in juggling fashion, cheated out of truth and the power of religion, (which is a holy life,) if you do not harden your faces, and confirm your resolutions, against the supercilious vanity of such men: Whether they have any intent to re-edify Babel's ruins, or no, I cannot tell: Some vehemently suspect it. Sure I am, there is such a confusion and novelty of language affectated by some men of Altars, Sacri fice, Priests, Corporiety of Presence, Penance, Auricular Confession, Absolute, that is, blind Obedience, the Holy of Holies, and Adoration, which must be salved from a flat idolatry, or at best an empty formality, by some distinction or notion that must be ready at hand, that most people know not what they mean, what they would have, or what they intend to call for next."

Ministers' want of politics and prudentials, who, by their AntiEpiscopal transports, have so far diminished not only themselves and their order as ministers, but the whole state of this Church, as to its harmony and honour, its peace and plenty, its unity and authority."-See pages lv, lvii.

3. JOHN EVELYN, ESQ.

ONE of the most valuable of the modern publications which I have quoted, is BRAY'S Memoirs, illustrative of the Life and Writings of John Evelyn, Esq., F.R.S. Those passages in the Diary, which, to a common reader, will seem to be extremely trivial, are in reality of great consequence, and have been selected with nice discrimination by the highly accomplished editor. No man of letters, who pretends to any acquaintance with the history of the interesting period in which Evelyn flourished, will neglect this important accession to the authentic records of the kingdom. In the composition of this "Comparison between Calvinism and Arminianism," I acknowledge myself to be under immense obligations to its instructive pages; and the intelligent reader will discover, especially in the second volume, that it has been my guide in some difficult passages of the Interregnum, in which no light is obtained from the cotemporaneous historians. Evelyn's intimacy and correspondence with all the principal Arminian clergy, render his artless accounts uncommonly affecting and instructive. A deep tone of genuine piety is heard in nearly every paragraph, and his style strongly reminds one of that of our old friend Isaac Walton. The conclusion of the following extract, from his polite and christian letter, addressed in 1664, to Lord Corneberry, is quite descriptive of the man: "In this one town of London, there are more wretched and obscene plays permitted, than in all the world besides. At Paris three days, at Rome two weekly, and at the other cities of Florence, Venice, &c. but at certain jolly periods of the year, and that not without some considerable emolument to the public; while cur interludes here are every day alike: So as the ladies and the gallants come reeking from the play late on Saturday night, to their Sunday Devotions; the idea of the farce possesses their fantasies to the

• Thus, the subjoined brief notices, which occur under the several dates, in different parts of the DIARY, are exceedingly important in serving to prove, that the famous Continuator of Baker's Chronicle, whose authority I have often quoted, was a man well-qualified, both by his talents and from his opportunities, to execute such an undertaking:

“Oct. 24, 1663. Mr. Edward Phillips came to be my son's preceptor. This gentleman was nephew to Milton, who wrote against Salmasius's Defensio, but was not at all infected with his principles, though brought up by him.-Feb. 24, 1665. Mr. Phillips, preceptor to my son, went to be with the Earl of Pembroke's son, my Lord Herbert.-Sept. 18, 1677. I preferred Mr. Phillips (nephew of Milton) to the service of my Lord Chamberlain, [Lord Arlington] who wants a scholar to read and entertain him sometimes."

infinite prejudice of devotion, besides the advantages it gives to our reproachful blasphemers. Could not Friday and Saturday be spared? Or if indulged, might they not be employed for the support of the poor, or as well the maintenance of some workhouse as a few debauched comedians? What, if they had an hundred pound per annum, less coming in! This were but policy in them; more than they were born to, and the only means to consecrate (if I may use the term) their scarce allowable impertinences. If my Lord Chancellor would be but instrumental in reforming this one exorbitancy, it would gain both the King and his Lordship multitudes of blessings. You know, my Lord, that I (who have written a play, and am a scurvy poet too sometimes,) am far from Puritanism; but I would have no reproach left our adversaries, in a thing which may so conveniently be reformed. Plays are now with us become a licentious excess and a vice, and need severe censors, that should look as well to their morality as to their lines and numbers."

4. GROTIUS AND LAUD.

A SKETCH of the personal history of these eminent individuals is given in pages 566-768.

Of Archbishop Laud I shall, in this place, say very little, since much concerning him will be found in other parts of the volume. In page 684, I have said, "Grant me but one small and not "unreasonable concession, similar to that which in our days is "demanded for the personal obliquities of every Republican Demagogue, or petty Independent Pastor, under the Commonwealth, "allow me to plead a consideration of the aspect of the times, the peculiar difficulties of his situation, and the inflamed state of parties, "—and I will undertake to prove, that Laud's patriotism was in reality purer and more disinterested, than that of any of his "Calvinistic cotemporaries, who had an opportunity of display"ing the genuineness of their patriotism in their public actions." -The facts which I have adduced, and the epistolary correspondence which I have translated, will, I hope, stand in proof not only of the Archbishop's transcendant love of his country, but likewise of his extensive philanthropy.

I have already mentioned, (p. cxvi,) the antipathy against this eminent Frelate, which I had conceived early in life: This unfavourable impression, however, was afterwards removed by the high character of him which the famous LIMBORCH has given in the preface to that inestimable collection of letters, entituled Præstantium ac Eruditorum Epistola. In the year 1812, an intimate friend, to whom as a lover of learning I am under the greatest obligations, presented me with a fine copy of the first edition of Limborch's collection, which, both for the sake of the donor and of its Arminian contents, I perused with the greatest

avidity; and to that noble work I acknowledge myself indebted for many of those enlarged views of the ecclesiastical affairs of Europe, and particularly those of England and Holland, which I have obtained, and of which the reader will discover some traces in various parts of this volume. I had learned from LIMBORCH'S correspondence with LOCKE, that our great countryman, during his exile in Holland, immediately prior to the Revolution in 1688, received from the liberal Dutch Professor ample encouragement to those Whiggish principles which he had imbibed, and which he afterwards so ably defended; and I knew, that a man so warmly attached to free institutions, as Limborch had proved himself to be, would never have written the following character of the ill-fated English Prelate, unless he had believed him to be what he has here depicted: "But the very reverend WILLIAM LAUD, Archbishop of Canterbury, who, on account of his religion, was beheaded by hot zealots, here shews himself entitled to the highest admiration. Though attacked with grievous accusations, and loaded with numerous calumnies, in his most familiar letters to Vossius he gives no utterance to curses against his ferocious enemies; but, imitating the example of his Saviour, when reviled, he reviled not again, and, when attacked, he threatened not, but blessed them who cursed him, and poured forth the most ardent prayers for his persecutors. In these letters, he is so fully acquitted of that monstrous accusation with which his most implacable enemies, openly before all the world and most invidiously, traduced him, as though his attempts had been directed to bring back the authority of the Pope into the Church of England,that it is not possible for calumny herself to discover any thing in him on which to fasten her talons. This volume contains his continued importunities, repeated at least ten times in his letters, for Vossius to undertake the province of confuting Baronius. Indeed, he never desisted from pressing him into that employment: In one of his letters he says, I am par'ticularly desirous to behold Baronius [the Popish Annalist] 'falling under the force of your weapons, before the destinies open the tomb for me; you cannot therefore expect to receive any letter from me without a repetition of this stimulus.' ”—See the preceding part of this letter in page 577.

Notwithstanding Bishop Burnet's unjust vituperations, this is not a solitary encomium from the pen of a man of acknowledged candour: I have subsequently met with other as ample and impartial testimonies in the Archbishop's favour, from eminent Whig Divines of the Church of England. Several circumstances respecting Laud, and the peculiar situation in which he was placed, receive elucidation from BRAY'S valuable Memoirs of Evelyn; and though I shall introduce a further notice of the good Archbishop in the second volume, yet, from a perusal of what I

have now written, every man of piety and ingenuousness will, I am persuaded, be induced to conceive a still more exalted opinion of that great man and of his public measures.

Those who wish to behold the praises to which HUGO GROTIUS, or HUGH DE GROOT, is justly entitled, and which he has received in ample measure from admiring friends and reluctant foes, may consult Sir THOMAS POPE BLOUNT'S Censura celebriorum Authorum. His well-earned reputation is founded on too durable a basis to be moved by such petty attacks as those to which I have alluded in a previous part of this Introduction, (p. xxxi,) or those of Mr. Orme in page 641.

That a man so accomplished, virtuous, fearless, and unfortunate, should have had many enemies among his cotemporaries, is not wonderful: But the number of those who evinced their hatred to him, or to his philanthropic labours, increased after his decease, when they could display it with impunity. "This very pious, learned, and judicious man, "says Dr. Hammond, "hath of late, among many, fallen under a very unhappy fate, being most unjustly calumniated, sometimes as a SOCINIAN, sometimes as a PAPIST, and, as if he had learnt to reconcile contradictories, or the most distant extremes,-sometimes as both of them together!"

One cause of the charge of SOCINIANISM being preferred against him, has been already mentioned, (p. xxxiii,) and it is more fully explained in pages 637-642. The reader will not require many additional reasons to convince him of the untenable ground for such an accusation, when he is told that VOETIUS, one of the most violent of his enemies, laid down this grand axiom-" to place the principal part of religion in an observance of Christ's commands, is RANK SOCINIANISM!"-To such a practical observance of the requisitions of the Gospel, by what name soever it might be stigmatized, Grotius pleaded guilty. He says, (p. 637,) “I perceive this was accounted the principal part of religion by the Christians of the primitive ages; and their various assemblies, divines, and martyrs taught, that the doctrines necessary to be 'known are exceedingly few, but that God forms his estimate of us from the purpose and intention of an obedient spirit.' I am likewise of the same opinion, and shall never repent of having maintained it."

But as the charge of POPERY is of the utmost importance, I have discussed this topic at great length, (pp. 566-746,) and have proved, (pp. 549, 561,) that Grotius was as little attached to the principles or the practice of the Romish Church, as the most zealous of his accusers. Whatever tends to vindicate the conduct of Grotius in this matter, will operate still more powerfully in favour of Archbishop Laud. The design of Grotius is well described by Dr. Hammond in a Digression which he added to his Answer to the Animadversions on his Dissertations; in which he says: