things not necessary to be done to molest the conscience of his brother, who holds them necessary to be not done? Let such a one but call to mind his own principles above-mentioned, and he must necessarily grant, that neither he can impose, nor the other believe or obey, aught in religion, but from the word of God only. In the sixth article of the Church of England it is said, "Whatsoever is not read in holy scripture, nor may be *proved thereby, is not to be required of any man as an article of faith, or necessary to salvation. And certainly what is not so, is not to be required at all; as being an addition to the word of God expressly forbidden.

"Let us now enquire whether Popery be tolerable or no. Popery is a double thing to deal with, and claims a twofold power, ecclesiastical and political, both usurped, and the one supporting the other. But ecclesiastical is ever pretended to political. Since, through the infinite mercy_and favour of God, we have shaken off his Babylonish yoke, the Pope hath not ceased by his spies and agents, bulls and emissaries, once to destroy both king and parliament; perpetually to seduce, corrupt, and pervert as many as they can of the people. Whe ther therefore it be fit or reasonable, to tolerate men thus principled in religion toward the State, I submit it to the consideration of all magistrates, who are the best able to provide for their own and the public safety. As for tolerating the exercise of their religion, supposing their state-activities not to be dangerous, I answer, that toleration is either public or private; and the exercise of their religion, as far as it is idolatrous, can be tolerated neither way:* not publicly, without grievous and unsufferable scandal given to all conscientious beholders; not privately, without great offence to God, declared against all kind of idola try, though secret.

"It must now be thought how to remove Popery, and hinder the growth thereof, I mean in our natives, and not foreigners, privileged by the law of nations. Are we to punish them by corporal punishment, or fines in their estates, upon account of

* BAYLE's remark on this doctrine is exceedingly just and important, and its spirit cannot be too frequently inculcated, in these days, by every real friend to religious liberty: "By this scrap of Milton's doctrine it is easy to discover, that no one was more zealous than he for toleration. They who are not for excluding the Roman Catholics from the same indulgence, and who consequently limit toleration much less than he, are not, as appears at first sight, the most faithful to the cause of toleration. These men, by an excessive zeal for toleration, run into the contrary extreme with regard to the persecuting sects; and as Popery has, time out of mind, been the most persecuting of all the sects, and incessantly torments both the bodies and the souls of the other Christians wheresoever it has the power, THE MOST PASSIONATE FRIENDS OF TOLERATION exclude it from that benefit."

Milton's opinion on this point was in exact agreement with that of Arminius, quoted in page 621, in which all his Dutch followers, with the exception of Grotius, were his imitators; and in what region of the globe were ever yet discovered more enlightened, sincere, or decided friends of civil and religious freedom? See also page 693.

their religion? I suppose it stands not with the clemency of the gospel, more than what appertains to the security of the State: but first we must remove their idolatry, and all the furniture thereof, whether idols, or the Mass wherein they adore their God under bread and wine. If they say, that by removing their idols we violate their consciences,we have no warrant to regard conscience which is not grounded on scripture: and they themselves confess in their late defences, that they hold not their images necessary to salvation, but only as they are enjoined them by tradition. Shall we condescend to dispute with them? The scripture is our only principle in religion; and by that only they will not be judged, but will add other principles of their own, which, forbidden by the word of God, we cannot assent to. And (in several places of the gospel) the common maxim also in logic is, against them who deny principles, we are not to dispute.' Let them bound their disputations on the scripture only, and an ordinary Protestant, well read in the Bible, may turn and wind their doctors. They will not go about to prove their idolatries by the word of God, but turn to shifts and evasions, and frivolous distinctions.-The next means to hinder the growth of Popery will be, to read duly and diligently the holy scriptures, which, as St. Paul saith to Timothy, who had known them from a child, 'are able to make wise unto salvation.' The Papal antichristian church permits not her laity to read the Bible in their own tongue: our church on the contrary hath proposed it to all men, and to this end translated it into English, with profitable notes on what is met with obscure, though what is most necessary to be known be still plainest; that all sorts and degrees of men, not understanding the original, may read it in their mother tongue. Neither let the countryman, the tradesman, the lawyer, the physician, the statesman, excuse himself by his much business from the studious reading thereof. Our Saviour saith, Luke x. 41, 42 :— Thou art careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful.'-Another means to abate Popery arises from the constant reading of Scripture, wherein believers, who agree in the main, are every where exhorted to mutual forbearance and charity one towards the other, though dissenting in some opinions. It is written, that the coat of our Saviour was without seam; whence some would infer, that there should be no division in the church of Christ. It should be so indeed; yet seams in the same cloth neither hurt the garment nor misbecome it; and not only seams, but schisms will be, while men are fallible: but if they who dissent in matters not essential to belief, while the common adversary is in the field, shall stand jarring and pelting at one another, they will be soon routed and subdued. The Papist with open mouth makes much advantage of our several opinions; not that he is able to confute the worst of them, but that we by our continual jangle among ourselves

make them worse than they are indeed. The last means to avoid Popery is, to amend our lives: It is a general complaint, that this nation of late years is grown more numerously and excessively vicious than heretofore: pride, luxury, drunkenness, whoredom, cursing, swearing, bold and open atheism every where abounding: Where these grow, no wonder if Popery grow also apace.-Let us therefore, using this last means, (last here spoken of, but first to be done,) amend our lives with all speed; lest through impenitency we run into that stupidity which we now seek all means so warily to avoid, the worst of superstitions and the heaviest of all God's judgments, Popery."

But among the sectaries themselves arose a class of divines, who, on account of their firm attachment to the sound principles of civil and religious liberty, subsequently became the glory of the Episcopal Church and the boast of Great Britain. Many of these excellent men had known the Church of England only in the days of her captivity; and, a short time prior to the constitution of the Calvinistic commissions of TRIERS and EJECTORS, had accepted ecclesiastical preferment under the republican rulers. Disgusted with the arrogance, fanaticism, and ignorance of the ministers whom it was their misfortune to own as associates,* they exaini

One instance of this disgust I subjoin, as it occurs in the Life of Dr. Owen, with Mr. Orme's lame strictures appended to it :

66 Tillotson told me,' says Bishop Burnet, that a week after Cromwell's death, he, being by accident at Whitehall, and hearing that there was to be a fast that day in the household, out of curiosity, went into the presence-chamber where it was held. Ou one side of a table, Richard, with the rest of Cromwell's family was placed, and six of the preachers were on the other side-Thomas Goodwin, Owen, Caryl, and Sterry, were of the number. There he heard a great deal of strange stuff, enough to disgust a man for ever of that enthusiastic boldness. God was, as it were, reproached 'with Cromwell's services, and challenged for taking him away so soon. Goodwin, who had pretended to assure them in a prayer that he was not to die, which was but a very few minutes before he expired, had now the 'impudence to say, Thou hast deceived us, and we were deceived. Sterry, praying for Richard, used those indecent words, Make him the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person.'

The same story is repeated on the authority of Burnet, in BIRCH'S Life of Tillotson.-Without impeaching the veracity, either of Tillotson or of Burnet, there are circumstances which induce a strong suspicion of the accuracy of the anecdote. The gossiping disposition of Burnet led him to commit many mistakes; and writing down conversations about others long after they were held, was no great security for fidelity. That such a meeting took place, is highly probable; but it looks somewhat suspicious, that Tillotson, who was then only a divinity stripling without a name, should, from mere curiosity, presume to go into the presence-chamber of the Protector on such an occasion. Burnet does not seem to have adverted to the fact, that Goodwin's words, with which Tillotson was offended, are the very words of the prophet Jeremiah, (chap. xx, 7); and they were used, in all probability, in the very sense in which the prophet employs them, not as denoting what God had done, but only what he had permitted men to do. Thou has suffered us to deceive ourselves, and we have been deceived.' Nothing is put into the mouth of Owen; and I am quite satisfied that he was not there. We know from himself, that he had not been with Cromwell on his death-bed, nor long before. He was none of the household chaplains,

ned the creeds and pretensions of the various contending sects, and became at length decided converts to the holy and tolerant system of Arminius. Their union therefore with the Episcopal

and this was a private household fast. He was not a favourite of Richard's; not likely, therefore, to be asked on such an occasion; and still less likely to be a volunteer. The entire story seems a compound of imperfect recol lections, exaggerated in the repetition, with a view to get a hit at the fanaticism of Cromwell's chaplains."

Though my own estimate of Bishop Burnet's historical fidelity is very low, yet I consider him, on any point, as competent a witness as Dr. Owen, and far superior to Mr. Orme. When the Bishop first published this display of Calvinistic fanaticism, which, if we may believe the veritable Mr. Orme, was not graced even with the presence of the Doctor, many persons were still in being who could have contradicted this anecdote had it been capable of successful contradiction, and who were extremely forward to bear their testimony against more trifling affairs, if the least flaw occurred in the narration, But no such contradictory evidence on this point was ever given. Birch's reputable evidence to the fact is an additional voucher. Mr. Orme's reasons for attempting to invalidate Burnet's account, are very apparent: Owen's presence on such an occasion, if allowed to stand as a well-attested historical fact, would have inflicted a still deeper stain on the Doctor's character, by exhibiting in a striking manner the base duplicity of his subsequent conduct towards the new Protector. The prayers which Owen uttered before his friends of the Wallingford-house party, when he exclaimed concerning Richard Cromwell, "He must down, and he shall down!," would have presented an awkward contrast to the court-prayers of his enthusiastic brethren, had not Mr. Orme with much industry but with small success endeavoured to exculpate his Independent friend, and free him at once from both these charges. To accomplish this favourite purpose, he adopts his usual method of rash and unfounded assertions; and, in each of the cases, opposes his own potent sayings, "I BELIEVE" and "I AM QUITE SATISFIED, to the most stubborn historic facts. In the Wallingford-house affair, he, tries to impugn the testimony of his Dissenting brethren, Neal, Baxter, Palmer, Calamy, and Sylvester, though the latter of these writers" applied to Dr. Owen's widow to explain these passages if she could," but, says Mr. Orme," she left him to do what he pleased.". Dr. Calamy's attempt to prove that Owen had told a public lie," which is Mr. Orme's own phraseology about this matter, was viewed by the men of that age as an enterprise towards which the party accused had himself contributed satisfactory evidence: For Owen's versatility of disposition and seditious conduct had then been more narrowly investigated and correctly appreciated, than they are by his modern ill-informed biographer.

But some of this man's reasons for being "quite satisfied that Owen was not" present at the household fast, are of the most curious description, and such as were never before offered to the world in refutation of any statement. His "not having been with Cromwell on his death-bed nor long before,' if it even were a well attested fact, would be too indefinite to be of any service in the way of disproof; as would likewise "his not being a favourite of Richard Cromwell's, and not likely, therefore, to be asked on such an occasion." He had, indeed, become personally obnoxious to Cromwell, on account of the insidious part which he acted, at the instigation of Desborough, Pride, Fleetwood, and others of the Wallingford-house party, when he drew up the petition which Colonel Mason presented to the Parliament, against the assumption of ROYALTY by their General, whose son Richard seems to have formed a right estimate of the politic Independent, and dismissed him from the office of Vice-chancellor of Oxford. (Page 382.) But, though thus discarded both by the father and son, it is a fact well known to all who are extensively read in the private history of that crisis, that Owen, in common with the various sectarian ministers, was a frequent visiter, or rather lounger, at Court. Dr. Gauden, whose Puritanical connections among the disloyal nobility made him acquainted with the most minute cir

Church, at the Restoration, and their able defences of Episcopacy, were necessary consequences of their having embraced

cumstances of that era, favoured the world with a description of some of these pragmatical divines and their practices, which I have quoted in the second volume, and in which he declares, "We have daily seen many petty "Presbyterian and Independent preachers as busy as bees, and every "where eager sticklers in all secular councils and affairs, &c. How prone "are they still, [in 1659] uncalled, to crowd or insinuate into all public, yea "into cabinet councils, both military and civil?" Aware of his being an unwelcome guest at Court, Owen might not for a time be quite so constant in his attendance as he had formerly been; but it is certain, that he did not entirely intermit his accustomed visits, and that his associating with the other Independent and Presbyterian ministers in the presence-chamber was one mode by which the high Republicans obtained a part of their information. Besides, the politicians just enumerated, to whom he had devoted himself, were a party sufficiently powerful to create serious alarm to Cromwell during the few last months of his existence; and, how willing soever the Protector or his son Richard might have been to insult Owen on such occasions, they durst not, under these circumstances, have made the attempt. Indeed, in those the days of his audaciousness, much plaindealing would have been necessary to render the Doctor sensible of a Courtaffront. But had this excuse, which is of Mr. Orme's invention, been true, it would not have operated to the Doctor's advantage: For if such loose verbiage as he has adduced were allowed to substantiate the plea of an alibi, many culprits at an Old Bailey Sessions would evade punishment. But, in moral or historical evidence, the bare plea of such an excuse, deficient as it is of all collateral support from facts, is wicked in the extreme. Yet I am almost inclined to believe, that there is more of weakness than of wickedness in the defence which Mr. Orme has instituted: For, at the close of his inconsequent reasoning about Owen's absence from the household-fast, with evident self-complacency he subjoins, "Where the characters of others are "involved, the testimony of Bishops and Archbishops ought to be subject to "the same laws of evidence which regulate that of other men." No man could draw this conclusion from flimsy premises, unless, through the weakness of his understanding, or the partiality of his affections, he supposed himself to have accomplished a mighty achievement. What effect this feeble blow at the chief members of the hierarchy may produce, among such of Mr. Orme's brethren as are governed in their conclusions more by their passious than by the strict laws of evidence, I will not predict; but I may venture to say, that no Dissenter possessed either of common discernment or christian moderation, will be induced to hesitate about one particle in the testimony of Tillotson, Burnet, and Birch, about this matter, after all the quirks and quibbles of Owen's biographer.

But another part of Mr. Orme's account displays still more the woeful deficiency of his information, and his utter incapacity to elucidate the period about which he has written: I allude to his remark concerning Tillot son, whom he denominates" a Divinity stripling without a name.' Were the athletic minister of an Independent congregation at Perth in Scotland to arrive in town, with a packet of papers under his arm, suppose them to be prosy communications to the Congregational Magazine, under the title of Remarks on Heber's Life of Jeremy Taylor," or the "Review" of some work containing animadversions on "Orme's Memoirs of Dr. Owen," whatever the contents of his packet might be, were such an able-bodied man, in pure ignorance of the modern rules of court-etiquette, to force a passage into Carlton-palace, and try to obtain a sight of his most gracious Majesty and the members of the royal household, every person resident in London, on hearing of such presumption, would call it a very rude and indecorous intrusion. Just such a representation as this, Mr. Orme had undoubtedly been conjuring up in his mind, when he wrote this clause," It looks some"what suspicious, that Tillotson, who was then only a divinity stripling with"out a name, should, from mere curiosity, presume to go into the presencechamber of the Protector on such an occasion." I have shewn, at the