which before he thought to be as much of God as this; and, in truth, he had as much assurance of the one as the other, but only by the mad persuasion of his own frantick brain. You may read more of these three grand Sectaries in an old book, intituled, Conspiracy of pretended Reformation. Many other examples might be collected out of our historians of this fanatick spirit in former times, which never, till our late horrid rebellion, and anarchical confusion in government, was permitted to grow to so great a head. And from the consideration of these, which have, for the most part, been gathered out of Mr. Fox's Acts and Monuments, we may justly charge that author with a great double injury: The first and principal, in canonising a great number of apparent fanaticks and sectaries into the list of protestant saints and martyrs; it being evident to every impartial reader, even by Mr. Fox's own relations, that a very notable part of his sufferers were such; and, if the records of those times were extant, and the examinations of those ancienter fanaticks freely perused, without question a far greater number of such mad saints might be discovered amongst them: Which I am so much the more inclined to believe on the authority of a learned writer, who lived very near those days, and thus expresses their character: They were drunk, says he, with the pride of heresy, and put out of their right senses by the frenzy thereof. Which is just the periphrasis of a fanatick. The other injury, which I find this author guilty of, is, his immoderate reviling, and sometimes falsly accusing both Queen Mary, and the papists of those days, of greater severities and persecutions than they were really guilty of, though in some cases they certainly were too cruel and rigorous; yet it was no more than what Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth, her predecessors, did before her, and what Queen Elisabeth, her successor, did after her. For proof of this, I find one Greenwood, or Grimwood, of Hitcham, in the county of Suffolk, accused by Mr. Fox to be a perjured papist, and a great persecutor of his martyrs, and therefore had great plagues inflicted on him, and, being in health, his bowels fell out of his body by the terrible judgment of God. Now, for an evident conviction of this falshood, one Parson Prick, not long after the first edition of Fox's Acts and Monuments, and in the twenty-seventh year of queen Elisabeth, took occasion to revile the papists in a sermon, as the custom was, and, in particular, told this story of Greenwood in the pulpit, and cited his author as infallible. But so it happened, that Mr. Greenwood, who was a good protestant, was present at that very sermon, and never was so plagued, but soon after brought his action on the case against Mr. Prick, for calling him perjured person, to which the defendant pleaded not guilty; and, this matter being disclosed upon the evidence, Wray, Chief Justice, delivered the law to the jury, in favour of Mr. Prick, that, it being delivered but as a story (such it seems are too many of Mr. Fox's), and not with any malice or intention to slander any, he was not guilty of the words maliciously, and so was not found guilty: And Judge Popham af firmed it to be good in law. The exact particulars of this case you may find amongst the records of Westminster-hall of that year; and, in a case of like nature betwixt Brook and Montague, 3 Jac. it was cited by Sir Edward Coke, then attorney-general, and is briefly printed in the second part of Judge Croke's Reports, published by the learned Sir Harbottle Grimston, Bart. Speaker of the late Parliament. THE PARALLEL. Ancient. Thomas Lord Cromwell, Earl of Essex, and Lord-Keeper of the Great Seal (son of a blacksmith of Putney, who was in his latter days a brewer) was first a servant to Cardinal Wolsey, and afterwards a principal Minister of State to king Henry the Eighth; and, among other great offices which he had, he was vicar-general over all the spirituality, though a layman, and sat divers times in the convocation among the bishops; by means whereof, and of his great power, and propension to schism and heresy, he ransacked, dissolved, and subverted many ab. bies and religious houses, and, if he had lived, had a heart inclined to act greater mischiefs, both in church and state; but, on the nineteenth of July, 1540, he was arraigned and condemned of heresy and treason, and, on the twenty-ninth of the same month, was beheaded at Tower hill. Hugh Latimer, son of a husbandman in Leicestershire, pretended to the office of the ministry, affected a drollish way of holding forth in the pulpit, was a great enemy to bishops and Modern. Oliver Cromwell had, indeed, some advantage over his name. sake Lord in the quality of his birth, but none in that of his profession, he being a brother too of the jolly brewhonse, though he far surpassed the other in the mystery of iniquity. In the late rebellion, raised against king Charles the First, of blesssd memory, he began to set up a new trade, and was at first captain of a troop of sectaries; afterwards, by unheard of policy, became general, and, the better to serve his own ambitious ends, on the thirtieth of January, 1648, did most barbarously murder that good king at his own palace-gate; then made himself Protector of an Utopian Commonwealth, and, on the third of September, 1658, died full of murders, wickednesses, and treasons: His body lay inhumed at Westminster, till the thirtieth of January, 1660, when it was, by order of parliament, hanged at Tyburn, with Bradshaw and Ireton his accomplices; and, finally, bu ried under that gallows. Hugh Peters, of like mean extraction, usurped the office of the ministry; was used by Oliver, as a fit instrument in the pulpit, to encourage rebels in their evil ways; had a great Ancient. clergy, and as great a patron of fanaticks; and, finally, was burnt at Oxford, the sixteenth of October, 1555. William Hacket, of Oundle in Northamptonshire, proclaimed himself in London to be Christ Jesus, come with his fan in his hand to judge the earth; and was attended by Edmund Coppinger and Henry Arthington, his two false prophets, the one of mercy, the other of judgment; for which, on the twenty-eighth of July 1590, he was hangod on a gibbet in Cheapside. Coppinger died a prisoner in Bridewell, and Arthington long after in Wood-street Compter. John Lambert, of Norfolk, a Zuinglian (in our modern dialect, a fanatick) was accused of heresy, and had the honour to be tried by king Henry the Eighth, and many Lords Spiritual and Temporal, in Westminster-hall; was found guilty and obstinate, and burnt in Smithfield, in the year 1538. John Tewksbury, of London, leather-seller, obstinately held certain anabaptistical and heretical opinions; for which he was condemned and burnt in Smithfeld, in December, 1529. John Maundrell, of Kevel in Wiltshire, cow-herd, was condemned by the Bishop of Salisbury, for obstinately holding divers heretical and fantastical opinions, and burnt in the year 1556. William Tyndal, about the Modern. hand in spilling the royal blood, was no better a friend to the hierarchy, than other sectaries are was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Charing-Cross (the same sixteenth of October) 1660. James Naylor, of Anderslow in Yorkshire, declared himself, at Bristol, to be the Son of God, and King of Righteousness; where he rode about, pronouncing his blasphemies, attended by Martha Simons, Hannah Stranger, and Doreas Erbury, representing the three Maries in the gospel, John xix. 25. For which (instead of a thousand deaths, which he deserved) he had only his tongue bored through with a hot iron, at the Old Exchange, Londen, the twenty-seventh of December, 1656. John Lambert, of Yorkshire, a great sectary, a partaker in Oliver's iniquities, had the honour to be judged by king Charles the Second, and his parliament, in the year 1660; was found guilty, but mercifully reprieved during their pleasure. Praise-god Barebones, of London, leather-seller, was a great anabaptist Commonwealth's-man, a lay-preacher, and of a factions spirit, yet the mercy of the king and parlia ment has pardoned his errors, in hopes he may grow better. Giles Prichard, of Islington in Middlesex, cow-herd, was, upon his trial at the SessionsHouse in the Old-Bailey, found guilty of the rebellion, in Ja nuary, 1660, and hanged in Cheapside. William Prynne, in the year Ancient. year 1527, wrote a seditious and invective book against the bishops and prelates of the church, and intituled it, The Wicked Mammon. John Lewis, an obstinate Arian heretick, for denying the Godhead of Christ, and hold. ing other blasphemous and detestable heresies, was burnt at Norwich, the seventeenth of September, 1583. In the year 1414, Sir John Oldcastle and Sir Roger Acton, with other fanaticks, plotted a desperate rebellion, in St. Giles's Fields, against king Henry the Fifth; for which thirty-seven of them were, in the same year, and in the same place, hanged. Sir Roger Acton soon after was hanged, drawn, and buried under the gallows, for his de testable rebellion. Modern. 1636, wrote the like, intituling it, The Unbishoping of Timothy and Titus; the only person in this unhappy parallel, who has given large testimonies, of his reconcilement to loyalty and reason. John Fry, a member of the long-parliament, held the like opinions, and asserted them in print; for which he was only dismembered, escaping further punishment, through the liberty of those evil times. In January, 1660, Thomas Venner, Roger Hodgkins, and other fanaticks, contrived a horrid insurrection in Wood-street, London, against king Charles the Second (whom God long preserve!) for which fourteen of them were hanged in the same month, and near the same place. On the thirtieth of January, 1660, Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, were drawn, hanged, and buried under Tyburn, for murder and rebellion. The ancient and modern fanaticks agreed exactly in these particulars; First, They pretended the motion and impulse of the Spirit for what they did. Secondly, They declared against kings and magistrates. Thirdly, Against payment of tithes. Fourthly, Against the Whore of Babylon and popish clergy (only our moderns have gone farther, against even all kinds of clergy.) Fifthly, Against swearing in any case; and they alledged scripture for whatsoever they asserted, We will not,' says The Door of Hope, have any thing to do with the antichristian magistracy, ministry, tithes, &c. which are none of our Lord's appointment, but false and Babylonish.' From such saints, and such martyrs, good Lord deliver our gracious king and all his kingdoms. AN EPISTLE TO CHARLES THE SECOND, KING OF ENGLAND, And to every Individual Member of his Council. Presented to them in pure love and good-will, that they might consider of the things herein contained, before the King was crowned, or had taken his oath; forasmuch as a necessity from the Lord was laid upon the Penman of the said Epistle, in order thereto, who is known to divers people, by the name of Christopher Cheesman. From the Town of Reading, in Berkshire, the 15th of the second Month, 1661. GIVE YIVE ear, O king, and hearken to counsel; let thy heart be inclined to understanding, and diligently consider tle things that concern thy everlasting peace, and the well-being of all people, under thy government. And oh, you counsellors of the king, know you this, that the God of Israel, who governs in the heavens, and in the earth, hath appeared in these nations, in the absence of the king, and since his father's days, to bring to pass his great work, in performance of his promises, and returning the captivity of his people, who have been, many ages past, most cruelly afflicted and oppressed, under Pharaoh's hard task-masters, who have exercised authority over their consciences. But, now, the Lord God is come to deliver his Israel, in the Spirit, by the hand of the great prophet, that Moses prophesied of, saying, The Lord your God shall raise up a prophet, like unto me; one from among your brethren; him shall you hear in all things : And whosoever shall withdraw his ear from hearing that prophet, shall be cut off from among the people.' This is the prophet, O king and council, that is worthy to reign, and, by the hand of this prophet, will the Lord bring to pass the purposes of his heart, and will set up justice and righteousness in the earth; and whoever they be, that will not bow down and hearken to this prophet, whether king, councils, parliaments, armies, synods, or others, shall assuredly be destroyed, and cut off from among the people. For this great prophet, of whom Moses spoke, is the only begotten of God, the Christ, the Saviour, the Light of the World, that enlighteneth every one that cometh into the world. This is he, O king and council, that the Lord God hath raised up in these nations, since thy father's days, and in thy absence, and he alone is worthy to reign, not synods, nor hireling ministers; and thousands there be within thy dominions, O king, that have re. ceived this great prophet and true light, and a good understanding thereby (glory, glory to the Lord God for evermore) and now are making war with the nations in righteousness, and in particular, with thee, O king, and with thy council; not with sword, nor VOL. VII. |