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view of the Right Honourable Gentleman, had been despoiled. Scripture had been quoted to-night, and he too would quote scripture. St. Paul said in his Epistle to the Thessalonians," If any man will not work, neither shall he eat." And all he wanted was, that those clergy who would not work, should not eat. An Honourable Member behind him had said, that in the time of Archbishop Boulter, the Protestants of Ireland amounted to onethird of the whole; at present they only amounted to one fourteenth. And the whole Church Establishment was kept up for the sake of this small part of the people. His wish was to detect abuses, and to apply remedies; not to spoliate the clergy. In opposition to what had been quoted from Magna Charta, to prove the sacredness of Church property, he would quote an Act passed in the reign of Edward VI., by which, for the better erecting and endowment of schools, no other method could be found than to

give to the King certain churches and chapels. Such a distribution of Church property was not spoliation when it was done by Kings. Selden had also stated, that the Church property was originally divided into four parts: "One part was allowed to the maintenance of the ministry, out of which every parochial minister had his salary; another to the relief of the poor, sick and strangers; a third to the reparation of churches; and a fourth to the bishops." The Church of Ireland

is a mere engine of Government. He would call on the House to support him on his second Resolution. If Ministers were left undisturbed, they would continue the same system they had so long acted on.

On the first Resolution being read, on which, however, no division took place, some few faint ayes were heard, while the noes broke forth in quite a burst of noise.

The House proceeded to divide on the second Resolution

Ayes, 62-Noes, 167-Majority, 105.

APRIL 18.

Quakers Affirmation.

Williams, the Member for Lincoln, that Mr. BROUGHAM gave notice for Mr. it was his intention, on Friday the 2d of May, to bring in a Bill to amend the statute of Anne, allowing members of civil cases on their affirmation, and not the Society of Friends to give evidence in on oath, and to extend the provisions of that Act to Criminal as well as Civil

cases.

[Several debates have taken place, of which we shall give an account hereafter; viz. those on the Catholic Question, on the Case of Mary Ann Carlile, and on the Free-Thinkers at Edinburgh.]

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From R. Baxter to Ambrose Upton, concerning Sir Henry Vane.

THE occasion of this letter will be

best explained by a passage of Baxter's in his Life and Times. Speaking of Sir H. Vane, he charges him with obscurity, and says, "This obscurity by some was imputed to his not understanding himself; but by others to design, because he could speak plain when he listed: the two courses in which he had most success, and spake most plain, were, his earnest plea for universal liberty of conscience, and against the magistrate's intermed. dling with religion, and his teaching his followers to revile the ministry, calling them ordinarily blackcoats, priests and other names which then savoured of reproach; and those gentlemen that adhered to the ministry, they said were priest-ridden.

"Of my own displeasing him this is the true account. It grieved me to see a poor kingdom thus tost up and down in unquietness, and the ministers made odious and ready to be cast out, and the Reformation trodden under foot, and parliaments and piety made a scorn, and scarce any doubted but he was the principal spring of all. Therefore, being writing against the Papists, coming to vindicate our religion against them, when they impute to us the blood of the king, I fully proved that the Protestants, and particularly the Presbyterians, abhorred it, and suffered greatly for opposing it; and that it was the act of Cromwell's army and the sectaries, among which I nained the Vanists as one sort, and I shewed that the Fryers and Jesuits were their deceivers, and under several vizors were dispersed among them; and Mr. Nye having told me that he was long in Italy, I said it was considerable how much of his doctrine their leader brought from Italy; whereas it proved, that he was only in France and Helvetia, upon the borders of Italy, and whereas it was printed from Italy, I had ordered the printer to

VOL. XVIII.

2 L

correct it from wards Italy, but

though the copy was corrected, the impression was not. Hereupon Sir Henry Vune being exceedingly provoked, threatened me to many, and spake against me in the House, and one Stubbs (that had been whipt in the Convocation House at Oxford) wrote for him a bitter book against me, who from the Vanists afterwards turned a Conformist, since that he turned physician, and was drowned in a small puddle or brook, as he was riding near Bath.

"I confess my writing was a means to lessen his reputation, and make men take him for what Cromwell (that better knew him) called him, a juggler; and I wish I had done so much in time. But the whole land rang of his anger and my danger; and all expected my present ruin by him, But to shew him that I was not about. recanting, (as his agents would have persuaded me,) I wrote also against his Healing Question, in a Preface before my Holy Commonwealth, and a speedy turn of affairs did tie his hands from executing his wrath upon me

"Upon the king's coming in, he was questioned with others before the Parliament, but seemed to have his life secured. But being brought to the bar, he spoke so boldly in justifying the Parliament's cause, and what he had done, that it exasperated the King, and made him resolve upon his death. When he came to Tower-Hill to die, and would have spoken to the people, he began so resolutely as caused the officers to sound the trumpets and beat the drums, and hinder him from speaking. No man could die with greater appearance of gallant resolution and fearlessness than he did, though before supposed a timorous man: insomuch that the manner of his death procured him more applause than all the actions of his life. And

when he was dead his intended speech was printed, and afterwards his opinions more plainly expressed by his friend than by himself.

"When he was condemned, some of his friends desired me to come to him, that I might see how far he was from Popery, and in how excellent a temper (thinking I would have asked him forgiveness for doing him wrong): I told them that if he had desired it I would have gone to him; but seeing he did not, I supposed he would take it for an injury; for my conference was not like to be such as would be pleasing to a dying man: for though I never called him a Papist, yet I still supposed he had done the Papists so much service, and this poor nation and religion so much wrong, that we and our posterity are like to have cause and time enough to lament it.” *

"DEAR BROTHER,

"I am very sensible of your spiritual love, that have more care of me than I have of myself. Coll. Birch brought me a message from Sir H. V. to the same purpose as you speak; and I told him that I am uncapable of returning him a particular answer, till I know the particular words that I am charged with, and their faultiness; which I also must say to you. God forbid that I should be so injurious to my own conscience as not most publicly to recant any passage, which I shall be convinced is injurious_to another in any of my writings. But for the words you mention, I never did directly or indirectly affirm in any book that Sir H. V. had a hand in the King's death, or that he was in Italy (though the latter I was told by Mr. Philip Nye). That liberty for Popery should be woven into our fundamental constitution, is a thing that I shall oppose to the utmost of my weak abilities, whoever be for it; and I will be reconciled to no man's palpable errors. The Vindication is such a bundle of gross untruths, that I look on it as not concerning me. Dear Brother, I am not so destitute of selflove as to refuse any lawful means for my peace, nor I hope so destitute of grace as to deny reparation of any

wrong that ever I did any man, so far as I am capable: but if God call me to a more open testimony against the contrivances of these times, (by which I may be disobliged from some obligations to silence that are upon me,) I rest confident that the benefit of it will be greater to the church than my peace could have produced. Oh! is there any hope that a life so often rescued from the pit, and trembling now upon the snuff, might be so happily concluded, as to be a sacrifice to

for a sinking church and state, and that the death that is even at the doors might be thus improved? · It would be a sufficient recompence for my sufferings, if it were but that Sir H. V.'s doctrine of liberty might, at the entrance, be read by the commentary of his persecution. confident suffering in that cause will prove to me as comfortable as preaching, and I doubt not but it will turn to a public good, if God so order it. I rest,

I am

"Your thankful Brother, "R. BAXTER. "Conceal Mr. Nye's name.

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Interpret not this as if I were ambitious of contending or suffering, but as expressing what I think will be the worst if God shall call me to suffer in this cause.

"To Mr. Ambrose Upton, concerning Sir H. Vane."

Letters from the Earl (afterwards
Duke) of Lauderdale to R. Baxter.

[Of Lauderdale, whose initial furnished the final letter of the word Cabal, denoting the detested junto who swayed the profligate counsels of Charles II., Bishop Burnet gives the following character: "The Earl of Lauderdale, afterwards made Duke, had been for many years a zealous Covenanter: but in the year fortyseven, he turned to the King's interests; and had continued a prisoner all the while after Worcester fight, where he was taken. He was kept for some years in the Tower of London, in Portland Castle, and in other prisons, till he was set at liberty by those who called home the King. So he went over to Holland. And since he continued so long, and, con

Reliquice Baxterianæ, Lib. i. Pt. 1, trary to all men's opinions, in so high a degree of favour and confidence, it

pp. 75, 76.

may be expected that I should be a little copious in setting out his character; for I knew him very particularly. He made a very ill appearance: he was very big: his hair red, hanging oddly about him: his tongue was too big for his mouth, which made him bedew all that he talked to: and his whole manner was rough and boisterous, and very unfit for a court. He was very learned, not only in Latin, in which he was a master, but in Greek and Hebrew. He had read a great deal of divinity, and almost all the historians, ancient and modern : so that he had great materials. He had with these an extraordinary memory, and a copious but unpolished expression. He was a man, as the Duke of Buckingham called him to me, of a blundering understanding. He was haughty beyond expression; abject to those he saw he must stoop to, but imperious to all others. He had a violence of passion that carried him often to fits like madness, in which he had no temper. If he took a thing wrong, it was a vain thing to study to convince him: that would rather provoke him to swear, he would never be of another mind: he was to be let alone: and, perhaps, he would have forgot what he had said, and come about of his own accord. He was the coldest friend and the violentest enemy I ever knew: I felt it too much not to know it. He at first seemed to despise wealth; but he delivered himself up afterwards to luxury and sensuality: and by that means he ran into a vast expense, and stuck at nothing that was necessary to support it. In his long imprisonment he had great impressions of religion on his mind; but he wore these out so entirely, that scarce any trace of them was left. His great experience in affairs, his ready compliance with every thing that he thought would please the King, and his bold offering at the most desperate counsels, gained him such an interest in the King, that no attempt against him, nor complaint of him, could ever shake it, till a decay of strength and understanding forced him to let go his hold. He was in his principles much against Popery and arbitrary government: and yet by a fatal train of passions and interests, he made way for the former, and had almost established the latter.

And, whereas some by a smooth deportment made the first beginnings of tyranny less discernible and unacceptable, he, by the fury of his behaviour, heightened the severity of his ministry, which was liker the cruelty of an Inquisition than the legality of justice. With all this he was a Presbyterian, and retained his aversion to King Charles I., and his party to his death."*]

LETTER I.

"Reverend and much-honoured Sir, "Last week I received yours of the 19th July; all the trouble I shall now give you, as to my outward condition, shall be only to tell you, that you need not apprehend your application did me any hurt, for that person is so earnestly engaged against me, (if I be not misinformed,) that nothing can take him off, nor set him more eagerly on. It is a great comfort to me that you did consider me so much, and I am sure it can do no hurt. I pray God forgive him, and I hope (by God's grace) I shall never entertain the least revengeful thought against him, but labour patiently to submit to what the Lord shall do in relation to me, knowing that all shall work together for good. My portion is not here, it is above the reach of sequestration, and the meditations of it may easily sweeten what can befal me in the way.

"Your notion concerning Papists, in relation to the Catholic Church, is certainly right, and the only way to deal with them; for if we limit the Catholic Church to Protestants only, how can we avoid that charge of uncharitable schism which they are deeply guilty of? I am glad you do proceed to unmask that generation more and more, and if I could serve you in providing but straw to such a building, I should think my time well employed. You tell me you are promised a translation of Moulin, Of the Novelty of Popery.' As for Blondel, De Primatu,' it is a folio book (I have it in my library beyond sea; for my library is safe, and that is all hath scaped): to translate it all is too great a

* Life and Times, 8vo. 1809, I. 139, 140.

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