Page images
PDF
EPUB

tises; as, A spiritual antidote for a dying soul; and God's terrible voice in the city. He not only preached in public, but visited all the sick who sent for him in their infected houses, being void of all fear of death. He contin ued in health during the whole of that dreadful calamity, and was afterwards useful, as the times would permit, to a numerous congregation, being generally respected by men of all persuasions; but his excessive labors put an end to his life October 15, 1678, in the forty-fifth year of his age.†

Mr. Theophilus Gale, M. A. and fellow of Magdalen college, Oxford, was ejected from Winchester, where he had been stated preacher for some time; after which he travelled abroad as tutor to the sons of Philip lord Wharton. Upon his return, he settled with Mr. John Rowe as an assistant, in which station he died. The Oxford historian allows, that he was a man of great reading, an exact philologist and philosopher, a learned and industrious divine, as appears by his Court of the Gentiles, and the vanity of Pagan Philosophy. He kept a little academy for the instruction of youth, and was well versed in the fathers, being at the same time a good metaphysician, and school divine. He died of a consumption this year, [1678] in the forty-ninth year of his age.§

* Calamy, vol. ii. p. 32. Palmer's Nonconf. Mem. vol. i. p. 125.

Mr. Thomas Vincent had the whole New Testament and Psalms by heart. He took this pains, as he often said, "not knowing but they who took from him his pulpit, might in time demand his bible also." Calamy. Besides his publications enumerated by this writer, Mr. Vincent, on occasion of an eruption of Mount Etna, published a book, entitled "Fire and Brimstone: 1. From heaven in the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah formerly. 2. From earth, in the burning of Mount Etna lately. 3. From hell, in burning of the wicked eternally.”4670, 8vo. Granger's History, vol. iii. p. 329, note. Ed.

The

Mr. Gale was a frequent preacher in the university and a considerable tutor: bishop Hopkins was one of his pupils. He left all his real and personal estate for the education and benefit of poor students, and his library to the college in New-England, except the philosophieal part, which he reserved for the use of students in England. world had like to have lost his great and learned work, "The Court of the Gentiles," in the fire of London. A friend, to whose care he left his desk while he was travelling, threw it into the cart merely to make the load, when he was removing his own goods. Palmer, p. 190.British Biography, vol. v. p. 182-186. Ed.

§ Calamy, vol. ii. p. 64. Palmer, vol. i. p. 189.

The king having summoned a new parliament to meet in March, all parties exerted themselves in the elections ; the non-conformists appeared generally for those who were for prosecuting the popish plot, and securing a protestant succession: these being esteemed patriots and friends of liberty, in opposition to those who made a loud cry for the church, and favored the arbitrary measures of the court, and the personal interest of the duke of York. The elec tions in many places were the occasion of great heat, but were carried almost every where against the court. Mr. Rapin says, that the presbyterians, though long oppressed, were still numerous in corporations. The semi-conformists, (as Mr. Eachard calls the moderate churchmen) and the dissenters, were on one side, and the high churchmen and papists on the other. Before the parliament assembled, the duke of York was sent out of the way to Flanders, but with this positive assurance, that his majesty would consent to nothing in prejudice of his right of succession. And further to ingratiate himself with the peo ple, and make a shew of moderation, a new privy council was chosen out of the low church party; but this not satisfying as long as the duke's succession was in view, the commons, soon after the opening the sessions, ordered in a bill to disable the duke of York from inheriting the imperial crown of England, and carried it through the house with a high hand. Upon which his majesty came to the house, and dissolved them, before they had sat three months. This threw the nation into new convulsions, and produced a great number of pamphlets against the government, the act for restraining the press being lately expired.

The popish plot having fixed a brand of infamy and ingratitude on the whole body of Roman catholics, the courtiers attempted to relieve them, by setting on foot a sham protestant plot, and fathering it upon the presbyterians :* for this purpose spies and other mercenaries were employed, to bring news from all parts of the town, which was then full of cabals. At length a plot was formed by one Dangerfield, a subtle and dangerous papist, but a very vilJain, who had been lately got out of gaol by the assistance of one Mrs. Cellier, a midwife, a lewd woman who car,

* Burnet, vol. ii. p. 272. Rapin, vol. ii. p. 711.

ried him to the countess of Powis, whose husband was in the Tower for the popish plot; with her he formed his scheme, and having got a list of the names of the chief protestant nobility and gentry, he wrote treasonable letters to them, to be left at the houses of the non-conformists and other active protestants in several parts of England, that search being made upon some other pretences, when the letters were found, they might be apprehended for treason. At the same time, he intruded into the company of some of the most zealous enemies of popery about town, and informed the king and the duke of York, that he had been invited to accept of a commission; that a new form of government was to be set up; and that the king and royal family were to be banished. The story was received with pleasure, and Dangerfield had a present, and a pension of three pounds a week, to carry on his correspondence. Having got some little acquaintance with colonel Mansel in Westminster, he made up a bundle of seditious letters, with the assistance of Mrs. Cellier, and having laid them in a dark corner of Mansel's room behind the bed, he sent for officers from the Custom-house, to search for prohibited goods while he was out of town, but none were found, except the bundle of letters, which, upon examination of the parties concerned, before the king and council, were proved to be counterfeit; upon which the court disowned the plot, and having taken away Dangerfield's pension, sent him to Newgate. Search being made into Mrs. Cellier's house, there was found a little book in a meal-tub, written very fair, and tied up with ribbands, which contained the whole scheme of the fiction. It was dictated by lady Powis, and proved by her maid to be laid there by her order, from whence it obtained the name of the meal-tub plot. Dangerfield, who was a notorious lyar, finding himself undone if he persisted in what he could not support, made an ample confession, and published a narrative, wherein he declared that he was employed by the popish party; and chiefly by the popish lords in the Tower, with the countess of Powis, to invent the MEAL-TUB PLOT, which was to have thrown the POPISH PLOT wholly upon the presbyterians. It was printed by order of the house of commons in the year 1680. Dangerfield being pardoned, went out of the way

into Flanders; but returning to England in King James's reign, he was tried for it, and sentenced to be whipt at the cart's tail from Newgate to Tyburn; in his return from whence he was murdered by one Frances in the coach. Mrs. Cellier was tried June 11, 1680, before lord chief justice Scroggs, and acquitted for want of evidence. But the discovery, instead of relieving the papists from the charge of the popish plot, turned very much to their disadvantage; for when the next parliament met, the house of commons resolved, that Sir Robert Can be expelled the house, and sent to the Tower, for declaring publicly in the city of Bristol, that there was no popish but a presbyterian plot.* Sir Robert Yeomans was sent for into custody on the same ac count; and Mr. Richard Thompson, a clergyman, was impeached for decrying the popish plot in his sermon, Jan. 30, 1679, and for turning the same upon the protestants ; for which, and for preaching against the liberty and property of the subject, and the privileges of parliament, the house declared him a scandal and reproach to his profession.

This year [1679] died the reverend and learned Mr. Matt. Pool, M. A. the ejected minister of St. Michael's Querne; he was born in the city of York, and educated in Emanuel college, Cambridge, a divine of great piety, charity, and literature. He was indefatigable in his labors, and left behind him (says the Oxford historian) the character of a most celebrated critic and casuist. After ten years close application, he published his Synopsis Criticorum,† in five folios. He afterwards entered on a commen

* State Tracts, vol. ii. p. 217.

"The plan of this work," says Mr. Granger, "was judicious, and the execution more free from errors than seems consistent with so great a work, finished in so short a time, by one man." It includes not only an abridgment of the "Critici Sacri," and other expositors, but extracts from a great number of treatises and pamphlets, that would have been otherwise lost. It was undertaken by the advice of the learned bishop Lloyd: it was encouraged and patronized by Tillotson, and the king granted a patent for the privilege of printing it. Mr. Pool formed and completed a scheme for maintaining young men of eminent parts at the university of Cambridge, for the study of divinity: and by his solicitations, in a short time, raised 900l. a year for that purpose. The scheme sunk at the Restoration; but to it the world is said, in some measure, to owe Dr. Sherlock, afterwards dean of St. Paul's. While he was

tary upon the whole bible, but proceeded no farther than the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah: however, the design,being valuable, was carried on, and completed by other hands. Mr. Pool published several excellent treatises, as The nullity of the Romish faith, &c. for which he was threatened to be assassinated ;* his name being in Dr. Oates's list; he therefore retired to Holland, but died (as it is thought) by poison at Amsterdam, in the month of October, 1679, etat. fifty-six.

Dr. Thomas Goodwin, born at Rolisby in Norfolk, and educated in Catherine-hall, Cambridge. He was a great admirer of Dr. Preston, and afterwards himself a famous preacher in Cambridge. In 1634, he left the university, being dissatisfied with the terms of conformity. In 1639, he went into Holland, and became pastor of an independent congregation at Arnheim. He returned to London about the beginning of the long parliament, and was one of the dissenting brethren in the assembly of divines.After the king's death he was made president of Magdalen college, and one of the tryers of ministers. He was in high esteem with Oliver Cromwell, and attended him on his death-bed. In the common register of the university drawing up his Synopsis, it was his custom to rise at three or four o'clock, and take a raw egg about eight or nine, and another about twelve; then to continue his studies till the afternoon was far advanced. He spent the evening at some friend's house, particularly alderman Ashurst's, and would be exceedingly but innocently merry; when it was nearly time to go home, he would give the conversation a serious turn, saying, "Let us now call for a reckoning." His "Annotations" were completed by other hands; the 59th and 60th chapters of Isaiah by Mr. Jackson of Moulsey. Dr. Collinges wrote the notes on the remainder of that prophet, on Jeremiah, Lamentations, the four Evangelists, the Epistles to the Corinthians aud Galatians, to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, and on the book of Revelations. The Annotations on Ezekiel and the minor prophets were drawn up by Mr. Harst, and on Daniel, by Mr. Wm. Cooper. Mr. Vinke commented on the Acts, Mr. Mayo on the Romans. The notes on the Ephesians, and the epistles of James, Peter and Jude, were composed by Mr. Veil; on Philippians and Colossians, by Mr. Thomas Adams; on the Thessalonians by Mr. Barker; on the Hebrews by Mr. Obad. Hughes. Mr. Howe undertook the three Epistles of John. Calamy and Palmer, ut supra. Granger's History, vol. iii. p. 311, and Birch's Life of Tillotson, p. 36. Ed.

*Calamy, vol. ii. p. 14. Palmer's Nonconf. Mem. vol. i. p. 133. ↑ On which occasion ho was overheard by Dr. Tillotson to express

« PreviousContinue »