giddy and unthinking youth of the age, they have given occasion to the publishing such a number of incomparable defences of Christianity, as have confirmed the faith of many, and must satisfy the minds of all reasonable enquirers after truth.

Nor do we think it right to fix the boundaries of religious liberty. upon the degree of people's differing from the national establishment, because enthusiasts or Jews have an equal right with Christians to worship God in their own way; to defend their own peculiar doctrines, and to enjoy the public protection, as long as they keep the peace, and maintain no principles manifestly inconsistent with the safety of the government they live under.

But his lordship apprehends he has a chain of demonstrable propositions to maintain his boundaries: he observes, "1. That the true ends of government cannot subsist without religion, no reasonable 'man will dispute it. 2. That open impiety, or a public opposition 'made to, and an avowed contempt of the established religion, which ' is a considerable part of the constitution, do greatly promote the disturbance of the public peace, and naturally tend to the subversion of the whole constitution." It is here supposed that one particular religion must be incorporated into the constitution, which is not necessary to the ends of government; for religion and civil government are distinet things, and stand upon a separate basis. Religion in general is the support of civil government, and it is the office of the civil magistrate to protect all his dutiful and loyal subjects in the free exercise of their religion; but to incorporate one particular religion into the constitution, so as to make it part of the common law, and to conclude from thence, that the constitution, having a right to preserve itself, may make laws for the punishment of those that publicly oppose any one branch of it, is to put an effectual stop to the progress of the reformation throughout the whole christian world; for by this reasoning our first reformers must be condemned; and if a subject of France, or the ecclesiastical state, should at this time write against the usurped power of the pope; or expose the absurdities of transubstantiation, adoration of the host, worshipping of images, &c. it would be laudable for the legislative powers of those countries to send the writer to the gallies, or shut him up in a dungeon, as a disturber of the public peace, because popery is supported by law, and is a very considerable part of their constitution.

But to support the government's right to enact penal laws against those that opposed the established religion, his lordship is pleased to refer us to the edicts of the first christian emperors out of the Codex Theodosianus, composed in the 5th century, which acquaints us with the sentiments of that and the preceding age; but says nothing of the doctrine of scripture, or of the practice of the church for 300 years before the empire became christian. His lordship then subjoins sundry passages out of a sermon of archbishop Tillotson, whom he justly ranks VOL. I.

2

among the greatest of the moderns. But it ought to be remembered. that this sermon was preached at court in the year 1680, when the nation was in imminent danger from the popish plot. His lordship should also have acquainted his readers with the archbishop's cautious introduction, which is this: "I cannot think (till I be better informed, ' which I am always ready to be) that any pretence of conscience warrants any man, that cannot work miracles, to draw men off from the 'established religion of a nation, nor openly to make proselytes to his ' own religion, in contempt of the magistrate and the law, though he is never so sure he is in the right." This proposition, though pointed at the popish missionaries in England at that time, is not only inconsistent with the protestant reformation, (as I observed before) but must effectually prevent the propagating of christianity among the idolatrous nations of the eastern and western Indians, without a new power of working miracles, which we have no ground to expect; and I may venture to assure his lordship and the world, that the good archbishop lived to see his mistake; and could name the learned person to whom he frankly confessed it after some hours conversation upon the subject: But human authorities are of little weight in points of reason and speculation.

It was from this mistaken principle that the government pressed so hard upon those puritans whose history is now before the reader; in which he will observe how the transferring the supremacy from the pope to the king, united the church and state into one body under one head, insomuch that writing against the church was construed by the judges in Westminster-Hall, a seditious libelling the Queen's government, and was punished with exhorbitant fines, imprisonment and death. He will observe further, the rise and progress of the penal laws; the extent of the regal supremacy in those times; the deplorable ignorance of the elergy; with the opposite principles of our church reformers, and of the puritans, which I have set in a true light, and have pursued the controversy as an historian in its several branches, to the end of the long reign of Queen Elizabeth; to all which I have added some remarks of my own, which the reader will receive according to their evidence. And because the principles of the Scotch reformers were much the same with those of the English puritans, and the imposing a liturgy and bishops upon them gave rise to a confusion in the next age, I have inserted a short account of their religious establishment; and have enlivened the whole with the lives and characters of the principal puritans of those times.

* Abp. Tillotson's Works, vol. i. fol. p. 320, 321.

The learned person, to whom Mr. Neal refers, I conceive. was Mr. Howe; the purport of the conversation he had with the bishop on the proposition contained in his sermon, was given to the public by Dr. Calamy in his memoirs of Mr. Howe. p. 75, 76. The fact was, the bishop was sent for, out of his turn, to preach before the King, on account of the sickness of another gentleman: and had prepared his discourse in great haste, and impressed with the general fears of popery: the sentiment above quoted from it, was the occasion of its being published from the press. For the King having slept most. part of the time while the sermon was delivered, a certain nobleman, when it was over. said to him; Tis pity your majesty slept, for we have had the rarest piece of Hobbism that ever you heard in your 'life." Odsfish, he shall print it then," replied the King. When it came from the press the author sent a copy, as a present to Mr. Howe, who freely expostulated with Dr. Tillotson on this passage first in a long letter, and then in a conversation which the doctor desired on the subject, at the end of which he fell to weeping freely, and said " that this was the most unhappy thing that had of a long time befallen him."

A history of this kind was long expected from the late reverend and learned Dr. John Evans, who had for some years been collecting materials for this purpose, and had he lived to perfect his design, would have done it to much greater advantage; but I have seen none of his papers, and am informed, that there is but a very small matter capable of being put in order for the press. Upon his decease I found it necessary to undertake this province, to bring the history forward to those times when the puritans had the power in their own hands; in examining into which I have spent my leisure hours for some years; but the publishing those collections will depend under God, upon the continuance of my health, and the acceptance this meets with in the world.

I ain not so vain as to expect to escape the censures of critics, nor the reproaches of angry men, who, while they do nothing themselves, take pleasure in exposing the labors of others in pamphlets and newspapers: but as I shall be always thankful to any that will convince me of my mistakes in a friendly manner, the others may be secure of enjoying the satisfaction of their satyrical remarks without any disturbance from me.

I have endeavored to acquaint myself thoroughly with the times of which I write; and as I have no expectations from any party of christians, I am under no temptation to disguise their conduct. I have cited my authorities in the margin, and flatter myself that I have had the opportunity of bringing many things to light relating to the sufferings of the puritans, and the state of the reformation in those times, which have hitherto been unknown to the world, chiefly by the assistance of a large manuscript collection of papers, faithfully transcribed from their originals in the university of Cambridge, by a person of character employed for that purpose, and generously communicated to me by my ingenious and learned friend Dr. Benjamin Grosvenor; for which I take this opportunity of returning him my own, and the thanks of the publie. Among the ecclesiastical historians of these times, Mr. Fuller, bishop Burnet, and Mr. Strype, are the chief; the last of whom has searched into the records of the English reformation more than any man of the age; Dr. Heylin and Collyer are of more suspected authority, not so much for their party principles, as because the former never gives us his vouchers, and yet the latter follows him blindly in all things.

Upon the whole, I have endeavored to keep in view the honesty and gravity of an historian, and have said nothing with a design to exasperate or widen the differences among christians; for as I am a sincere admirer of the doctrines of the New Testament, I would have an equal regard to its most excellent precepts, of which these are some of the capital, that "We love one another; that we forgive offences; that we bear one another's infirmities, and even bless them that curse us, and 'pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us." If this spirit and temper were more prevalent, the lives of christians would throw a bright lustre upon the truth and excellency of their divine faith, and convince the atheists and infidels of the age, more than all their arguments can do without it.

I would earnestly recommend this temper to the protestant non-conformists of the present age, together with an holy emulation of each

other in undissembled piety and sanctity of life, that while they are reading the heavy and grievous sufferings of their ancestors from ecclesiastical commissions, spiritual courts and penal laws, for conscience sake, they may be excited to an humble adoration of divine providence, which has delivered them so far from the yoke of oppression; to a detestation of all persecuting principles; and to a loyal and dutiful behavior to the best of Kings, under whose mild and just government they are secure of their civil and religious liberties. And may protestants of all persuasions improve in the knowledge and love of the truth, and in sentiments of christian charity and forbearance towards each other, that being at peace among themselves, they may with greater success bend their united forces against the common enemy of christianity! DANIEL NEAL.

MEMOIRS

OF

MR. DANIEL NEAL, M. A.*

MR. DANIEL NEAL was born in the city of London, on the 14th of December 1678. When he was very young, his parents were removed by death, and left him their only surviving child, in the hands of a maternal uncle whose care of his health and education was faithful and affectionate, and was often mentioned by his nephew with gratitude. He received his classical education at Merchant Taylor's school; to which he was sent when he was seven or eight years of age, and where he staid till he was head scholar. In this youthful period he gave a proof of the serious and conscientious principles by which he was governed. For an exhibition to St. John's college in Oxford being offered to him, out of a foundation belonging to that school, he declined it; and chose an education for the ministry amongst the protestant dissenters.

About the year 1696, or 1697, he removed from this seminary to a dissenting academy, under the direction of the Rev. Thomas Rowe; under whose tuition several eminent characters were, in part, formed.† To this gentleman Dr. Watts addressed his animated ode, called "Free Philosophy," which may in this view, be considered as an honorable testimonial to the candid and liberal spirit with which Mr. Rowe conducted the studies of his pupils.

Mr. Neal's thirst after knowledge was not to be satisfied by the limited advantages of one seminary: but prompted him to seek further improvement in foreign universities.— Having spent three years with Mr. Rowe, he removed to Holland; where he prosecuted his studies, for two years,

This narrative is drawn up chiefly from the memoirs of Mr. Neal's life in the funeral sermon by Dr. Jennings, and a MS. account of him and his works by his son Nathaniel Neal, Esq. communicated by his grandson Daniel Lister, Esq. of Hackney.

† Among others Dr. Watts, Dr. Hort, afterwards archbishop of Tuam, Mr. Hughes the poet, Dr.John Evans, Mr. Grove, and Dr.Jeremiah Hunt.