The jurymen themselves were stung by | could be found in the most florid euloremorse when they thought over what gies pronounced by Bishops on the they had done, and exerted themselves to save the life of the prisoner. At length a pardon was granted: but Rosewell remained bound under heavy recognisances to good behaviour during life, and to periodical appearance in the Court of King's Bench. His recognisances were now discharged by the royal command; and in this way his services were secured.* Lobb. The business of gaining the Independents was principally entrusted to one of their ministers named Stephen Lobb. Lobb was a weak, violent, and ambitious man. He had gone such lengths in opposition to the government, that he had been by name proscribed in several proclamations. He now made his peace, and went as far in servility as he had ever done in faction. He joined the Jesuitical cabal, and eagerly recommended measures from which the wisest and most honest Roman Catholics recoiled. It was remarked that he was constantly at the palace and frequently in the closet, that he lived with a splendour to which the Puritan divines were little accustomed, and that he was perpetually surrounded by suitors imploring his interest to procure them offices or pardons.t Penn. With Lobb was closely connected William Penn. Penn had never been a strongheaded man: the life which he had been leading during two years had not a little impaired his moral sensibility; and if his conscience ever reproached him, he comforted himself by repeating that he had a good and noble end in view, and that he was not paid for his services in money. By the influence of these men, and of others less conspicuous, addresses of thanks to the King were procured from several bodies of Dissenters. Tory writers have with justice remarked that the language of these compositions was as fulsomely servile as anything that State Trials; Samuel Rosewell's Life of Stuarts. But, on close inquiry, it will appear that the disgrace belongs to but a small part of the Puritan party. There was scarcely a market town in England without at least a knot of separatists. No exertion was spared to induce them to express their gratitude for the Indulgence. Circular letters, imploring them to sign, were sent to every corner of the kingdom in such numbers that the mail bags, it was sportively said, were too heavy for the posthorses. Yet all the addresses which could be obtained from all the Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists scattered over England did not in six months amount to sixty; nor is there any reason to believe that these addresses were numerously signed.* One of the most adulatory was that of the Quakers; and Penn presented it with a speech more adulatory still.† of the are Baxter. The great body of Protestant Nonconformists, firmly attached to The civil liberty, and distrusting majority the promises of the King and Puritans of the Jesuits, steadily refused against to return thanks for a favour, the Court. which, it might well be suspected, concealed a snare. This was the temper of all the most illustrious chiefs of the party. One of these was Baxter. He had, as we have seen, been brought to trial soon after the accession of James, had been brutally insulted by Jeffreys, and had been convicted by a jury, such as the courtly Sheriffs of those times were in the habit of selecting. Baxter had been about a year and a half in prison when the Court began to think seriously of gaining the Nonconformists. He was not only set at liberty, but was informed that, if he chose to reside in London, he might do so without fearing that the Five Mile Act would be enforced against him. The government probably hoped that the recollection of past sufferings and the sense of present ease would produce the same effect on him as on Rosewell *The Addresses will be found in the London Gazettes. † London Gazette, May 26. 1687; Life of Penn prefixed to his works, 1726. Howe. If any man stood higher than Baxter in the estimation of the Protestant Dissenters, that man was John Howe. Howe had, like Baxter, been personally a gainer by the recent change of policy. The same tyranny which had flung Baxter into gaol had driven Howe into banishment; and, soon after Baxter had been let out of the King's Bench Prison, Howe returned from Utrecht to England. It was expected at Whitehall that Howe would exert in favour of the Court all the authority which he possessed over his brethren. The King himself condescended to ask the help of the subject whom he had oppressed. Howe appears to have hesitated: but the influence of the Hampdens, with whom he was on terms of close intimacy, kept him steady to the cause of the constitution. A meeting of Presbyterian ministers was held at his house, to consider the state of affairs, and to determine on the course to be adopted. There was great anxiety at the palace to know the result. Two royal messengers were in attendance during the discussion. They returned with the unwelcome news that Howe had declared himself decidedly adverse to the dispensing power, and that he had, after long debate, carried with him the majority of the assembly.† He and Lobb. The hope was disappointed. | however, to have been such as the Baxter was neither to be corrupted nor world thinks venial. His keen sensito be deceived. He refused to join in bility and his powerful imagination any address of thanks for the Indul- made his internal conflicts singularly gence, and exerted all his influence terrible. He fancied that he was under to promote good feeling between the sentence of reprobation, that he had Church and the Presbyterians.* committed blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, that he had sold Christ, that he was actually possessed by a demon. Sometimes loud voices from heaven cried out to warn him. Sometimes fiends whispered impious suggestions in his ear. He saw visions of distant mountain tops, on which the sun shone brightly, but from which he was separated by a waste of snow. felt the Devil behind him pulling his clothes. He thought that the brand of Cain had been set upon him. He feared that he was about to burst asunder like Judas. His mental agony disordered his health. One day he shook like a man in the palsy. On another day he felt a fire within his breast. It is difficult to understand how he survived sufferings so intense, and so long continued. At length the clouds broke. From the depths of despair, the penitent passed to a state of serene felicity. An irresistible impulse now urged him to impart to others the blessing of which he was himself possessed. * He joined the Baptists, and became a preacher and writer. His education had been that of a mechanic. He knew no language but the English, as it was spoken by the common people. He had studied no great model of composition, with the exception, an important exception undoubtedly, of our noble translation of the Bible. His spelling was bad. He frequently transgressed the rules of grammar. Yet his native force of genius, and his experimental knowledge of all the religious passions, from despair to ecstasy, amply supplied in him the want of learning. His rude oratory roused and melted hearers who listened without interest to the laboured discourses of great logicians and Hebraists. His books were widely circulated among the humbler classes. One of them, the Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan. To the names of Baxter and Howe must be added the name of a man far below them in station and in acquired knowledge, but in virtue their equal, and in genius their superior, John Bunyan. Bunyan had been bred a tinker, and had served as a private soldier in the parliamentary army. Early in his life he had been fearfully tortured by remorse for his youthful sins, the worst of which seem, *Calamy's Life of Baxter. Calamy's Life of Howe. The share which the Hampden family had in the matter I learned from a letter of Johnstone of Waristoun, dated June 13. 1688. Bunyan's Grace Abounding. was, in his own lifetime, translated | stowed on him some municipal office: into several foreign languages. It but his vigorous understanding and was, however, scarcely known to the his stout English heart were proof learned and polite, and had been, against all delusion and all temptation. during more than a century, the He felt assured that the profferred delight of pious cottagers and artisans toleration was merely a bait intended before it took its proper place, as a to lure the Puritan party to destrucelassical work, in libraries. At length tion; nor would he, by accepting a critics condescended to inquire where place for which he was not legally the secret of so wide and so durable a qualified, recognise the validity of the popularity lay. They were compelled dispensing power. One of the last to own that the ignorant multitude had acts of his virtuous life was to decline judged more correctly than the learned, an interview to which he was invited and that the despised little book was by an agent of the government.* really a masterpiece. Bunyan is indeed as decidedly the first of allegorists as Demosthenes is the first of orators, or Shakspeare the first of dramatists. Other allegorists have shown equal ingenuity; but no other allegorist has ver been able to touch the heart, and to make abstractions objects of terror, of pity, and of love.* He Great as was the authority of Bunyan over the Baptists, that Kiffin. of William Kiffin was still greater. Kiffin was the first man among them in wealth and station. He was in the habit of exercising his spiritual gifts at their meetings: but he did not live by preaching. traded largely his credit on the It may be doubted whether any Exchange of London stood high; and English Dissenter had suffered more he had accumulated an ample fortune. severely under the penal laws than Perhaps no man could, at that conJohn Bunyan. Of the twenty seven juncture, have rendered more valuable years which had elapsed since the services to the Court. But between Restoration, he had passed twelve in him and the Court was interposed the confinement. He still persisted in remembrance of one terrible event. preaching: but, that he might preach, He was the grandfather of the two he was under the necessity of disguis- Hewlings, those gallant youths who, ing himself like a carter. He was of all the victims of the Bloody often introduced into meetings through Assizes, had been the most generally back doors, with a smock frock on his lamented. For the sad fate of one of back, and a whip in his hand. If he them James was in a peculiar manner Lad thought only of his own ease and responsible. Jeffreys had respited the safety, he would have hailed the Indul-younger brother. The poor lad's sister gence with delight. He was now, at had been ushered by Churchill into length, free to pray and exhort in the royal presence, and had begged for open day. His congregation rapidly mercy: but the King's heart had been increased: thousands hung upon his obdurate. The misery of the whole words; and at Bedford, where he family had been great: but Kiffin was ordinarily resided, money was plenti- most to be pitied. He was seventy fully contributed to build a meeting years old when he was left desolate, ouse for him. His influence among the common people was such that the government would willingly have be the survivor of those who should have survived him. The heartless and venal sycophants of Whitehall, judging by themselves, thought that the old man would be easily propitiated by an Alderman's gown, and by some compensation in money for the property which his grandsons had forfeited. Young classes Bunyan's prose with Durfry's poetry. The people of fashion in the Spiritual Quixote rank the Pilgrim's Progress with Jack the Giant-killer. Late in the ighteenth century Cowper did not venture to do more than allude to the great alle-Penn was employed in the work of Forist : "I name thee not, lest so despised a name Should move a sneer at thy deserved fame." VOL. II. *The continuation. of Bunyan's Life ap❤ pended to his Grace Abounding. D * 66 The Since Kiffin could not be seduced by blandishments and fair promises, it was determined to try what persecution would effect. He was told that an in seduction, but to no purpose. King determined to try what effect his own civilities would produce. Kiffin was ordered to attend at the palace. He found a brilliant circle of noble- formation would be filed against him men and gentlemen assembled. James in the Crown Office, and he was immediately came to him, spoke to him threatened with a lodging in Newgate. very graciously, and concluded by say- He asked the advice of counsel; and ing, "I have put you down, Mr. Kiffin, the answer which he received was that, for an Alderman of London." The old by accepting office without taking the man looked fixedly at the King, burst sacrament according to the Anglican into tears, and made answer, 'Sir, I ritual, he would make himself legally am worn out. I am unfit to serve liable to a fine of five hundred pounds, Your Majesty or the City. And, sir, but that, by refusing office, he would the death of my poor boys broke my make himself liable, not legally, but in heart. That wound is as fresh as ever. fact, to whatever fine a servile bench I shall carry it to my grave." The of judges might, in direct defiance of King stood silent for a minute in the statutes, think fit to impose. He some confusion, and then said, "Mr. might be mulcted in ten, twenty, thirty, Kiffin, I will find a balsam for that thousand pounds. His family, which sore." Assuredly James did not mean had already suffered so cruelly from to say anything cruel or insolent: on two confiscations, might be utterly the contrary, he seems to have been in ruined by this third calamity. After an unusually gentle mood. Yet no holding out many weeks, he so far subspeech that is recorded of him gives mitted as to take the title of Alderso unfavourable a notion of his charac-man: but he abstained from acting ter as these few words. They are the words of a hardhearted and lowminded man, unable to conceive any laceration of the affections for which a place or a pension would not be a full compensation.† * An attempt has been made to vindicate Penn's conduct on this occasion, and to fasten on me the charge of having calumniated him. It is asserted that, instead of being engaged, on behalf of the government, in the work of seduction, he was really engaged, on behalf of Kiffin, in the work of intercession. In support of this view the following passage is tri umphantly quoted from Kiffin's Memoirs of himself. "I used all the means I could to be excused both by some lords near the King, and also by Sir Nicholas Butler, and Mr. Penn. But it was all in vain There the quotation ends, not at a full stop, but at a which fully bears out all that I have said, is also in what honour or advantage I could me." t Kiffin's Memoirs ; Luson's Letter to Brooke, May 11. 1773, in the Hughes Correspondence. either as a Justice of the Peace or as one of the Commission of Lieutenancy which commanded the militia of the City.* That section of the dissenting body which was favourable to the King's new policy had from the first been a minority, and soon began to diminish. For the Nonconformists perceived in no long time that their spiritual privileges had been abridged rather than extended by the Indulgence. The chief characteristic of the Puritan was abhorrence of the peculiarities of the Church of Rome. He had quitted the Church of England only because he conceived that she too much resembled her superb and voluptuous sister, the sorceress of the golden cup and of the scarlet robe. He now found that one of the implied conditions of that alliance which some of his pastors had formed with the Court was that the religion of the Court should be respectfully and tenderly treated. He soon began to regret the days of persecution. While the penal laws were enforced, he had heard the words of life in secret *Kiffin's Memoirs. of theologians who had never been weary of railing at Popery when Popery was comparatively harmless and helpless, and who now, when a time of real danger to the reformed faith had arrived, studiously avoided uttering one word which could give offence to a Jesuit? Their conduct was indeed easily explained. It was known that some of them had obtained pardons. It was suspected that others had obtained money. Their prototype might be found in that weak apostle who from fear denied the Master to whom he had boastfully professed the firmest attachment, or in that baser apostle who sold his Lord for a handful of silver.* and at his peril: but still he had heard | gone no alteration. Within living methem. When the brethren were as- mory, never had Roman Catholic priests sembled in the inner chamber, when been so active in the work of making the sentinels had been posted, when proselytes: never had so many Roman the doors had been locked, when the Catholic publications issued from the preacher, in the garb of a butcher or press: never had the attention of all a drayman, had come in over the tiles, who cared about religion been so closely then at least God was truly worshipped. fixed on the disputes between the RoNo portion of divine truth was sup-man Catholics and the Protestants. pressed or softened down for any What could be thought of the sincerity worldly object. All the distinctive doctrines of the Puritan theology were fully, and even coarsely, set forth. To the Church of Rome no quarter was given. The Beast, the Antichrist, the Man of Sin, the mystical Jezebel, the mystical Babylon, were the phrases ordinarily employed to describe that august and fascinating superstition. Such had been once the style of Alsop, of Lobb, of Rosewell, and of other ministers who had of late been well received at the palace: but such was now their style no longer. Divines who aspired to a high place in the King's favour and confidence could not venture to speak with asperity of the King's religion. Congregations therefore complained loudly that, since the appearance of the Declaration which purported to give them entire freedom of conscience, they had never once heard the Gospel boldly and faithfully preached. Formerly they had been forced to snatch their spiritual nutriment by stealth: but, when they had snatched it, they had found it seasoned exactly to their taste. They were now at liberty to feed: but their food had lost all its savour. They met by daylight, and in commodious edifices; but they heard discourses far less to their taste than they would have heard from the rector. At the parish church the will worship and idolatry of Rome were every Sunday attacked with energy but, at the meeting house, the pastor, who had a few months before reviled the established clergy as little better than Papists, now carefully abstained from censuring Popery, or conveyed his censures in language too delicate to shock even the ears of Father Petre. Nor was it possible to assign any creditable reason for this change. The Roman Catholic doctrines had under- ants. Thus the dissenting ministers who had been gained by the Court were rapidly losing the influence which they had once possessed over their brethren. On the other hand, the sectaries found themselves attracted by a strong religious sympathy towards those prelates and priests of the Church of England who, in spite of royal mandates, of threats, and of promises, were waging vigorous war with the Church of Rome. The Anglican body and the Puritan body, so long separated by a mortal enmity, were daily drawing nearer to each other, and every step which they made towards union increased the influence of him who was their common head. William was in all things fitted to be a mediator between these two great sections of the English nation. He could not be said to be a member of either. Yet neither, when in a reasonable mood, could refuse to regard him as a friend. His system of theology agreed with that of the Puritans. *See, among other contemporary pamthreatening Dangers impending over Protest phlets, one entitled a Representation of the |