above three thousand ministers admitted into the church, who were unfit to teach because of their youth; of fifteen hundred debauched men ordained; of the ordination of many illiterate men; of one thousand three hundred forforty-two factious ministers, a little before ordained; and that of twelve thousand church livings, or thereabouts, three thousand or more being impropriate, and four thousand one hundred sixty-five sine cures, there was but a poor remainder left for a painful and honest ministry.

Such were the spoils of uniformity! And though Mr. Eachard says, there was more sense and sound doctrine preached in one twelve-month after the presbyterian ministers were turned out, than in nigh twenty years before; yet another church writer, who knew them better, calls the young clergy "florid and genteel preachers, of a more romantic than true majestic and divine stile, who tickled and captivated people at first, but did little service to the souls of men, and in process of time had fewer admirers and friends than at first. He adds, that in the late times they all spake the same things, and carried on the same work, which was the instruction, conversion, consolation, and edification of souls, not biting one another, nor grudg ing at one another. I never heard (says he) in many hundreds of sermons, diversities of opinions either set up by some, or pulled down by others; we heard indeed that some were independents, others presbyterians, and others episcopal, but we heard no such things from the pulpits. Some men think that the preaching of those days was mere fanaticism, blessing the usurpation, railing against bishops, or deifying Calvin with an infallibility; but Cal vin was preached no farther than Christ spake in him; Non Calvinum sed Christum prædicabant.”*

The truth of this observation will appear further, by mentioning the names of some of those ministers, whose learning and piety were universally acknowledged, and who were capable of preaching and writing as good sense, and to as good purpose, as most of their successors; as Dr. Gilpin, Bates, Manton, Jacomb, Owen, Goodwin, Collins, Conant, Grew, Burgess, and Annesly; Mr. Bowles, • Conformist Plea, part I. in pref. and p. 53. 52

VOL. IV.

Baxter, Clarkson, Woodbridge, Newcomen, Calamy, Jackson, Pool, Caryl, Charnock, Gouge, Jenkins, Gale, Corbet, Cradock, Matt.Mead, Howe, Kentish,Alsop, Vincent, Greenhill, S. Clark, Flavel, Phil. Henry, and others of like character, "whom I have heard vilified, and represented according to the fancies, passions, or interests of men, (says a learned conformist) but I dare not but be just to them, as to eminent professors of the christian faith, and think that common christianity has suffered much by their silencing and disparagement. A great part of the world is made to believe, that the non-conformists are not fit to be employed in the church, nor trusted by the state; but what they are God knows, and the world may know, if they please to consult their writings-They are not to them that know them, what they are reported by them that know them not

I know them sufficiently to make me bewail their condition, and the vast damage to thousands of souls by their exclusion, not only in the outskirts, but in the very heart of England, who are committed in many parts to them that neither can nor will promote their everlasting interests."* Upon the whole, though I do not pretend that all the ejected ministers were equally learned, pious‡ and deserving, yet upon a calm and sedate view of things I cannot help concluding, that in the main they were a body of as eminent confessors for truth and liberty as this or any other nation has produced.

Many complied with the terms of conformity, not because they approved them, but for the sake of their families, or because they were unwilling to be buried in silence, as bishop Reynolds, Wilkins, Hopkins, Fowler, &c. Several young students, who were designed for the pulpit, applied themselves to law or physic, or diverted to some secular employment. Bishop Kennet,in order to extenuate their

Conform. Plea, in pref. part i.

To suppose that more than 2000 men could be equal in worth and piety, would be to admit an impossibility; but it deserves notice, that bishop Kennet is so candid as to limit the charge of scandalous lives and characters, or of a conduct which was at least no credit to the cause for which they suffered, to some few only. Grey's Examination, p. 332. Ed.

calamities, has taken pains to point out the favors the ejected ministers received from private persons:* Some (says he) found friends among the nobility and gentry, who relieved their necessities; some were taken as chaplains into good families, or officiated in hospitals, prisons, or chapels of ease; some became tutors, or school-masters; some who went beyond sea were well received in foreign parts; some became eminent physicians and lawyers; some had good estates of their own, and others married great fortunes: But how does this extenuate the guilt of the church or legislature, who would have deprived them of these retreats if it had been in their power? The bishop adds,

Therefore we do ill to charge the church with persecution, when the laws were made by the civil government with a view to the peace and safety of the state, rather than to any honor or interest of the church." It seems therefore the load of persecution must lie wholly upon the legislature: but had the bishops and clergy no hand in this affair; did they not push the civil government upon these extremities, and not only concur, but prosecute the penal laws with unrelenting rigor throughout the greatest part of this reign? The church and state are said to be so incorporated as to make but one constitution, and the penal laws are shifted from one to the other till they are quite lost; the church cannot be charged with persecution, because it makes no laws; nor can the civil government be charged with it, because it makes them not against conscience, but with a view to the safety of the state; with such idle sophisms are men to be amused, when it is to cover a reproach !

Dr. Bates says, "they (the ministers) fell a sacrifice to the wrath and revenge of the old clergy, and to the servile compliance of the young gentry with the court, and their distaste of serious religion.† That this is no rash imputation upon the ruling elergy is evident (says the doctor) not

Kennet's Chron. p. 388, &c.

Dr. Grey has given the passage of bishop Kennet at length, which Mr. Neal has here noticed. But the amount of the bishop's statement, which runs out into 31 particulars, only shews, that some men were more equitable and kind than was the legislature; and that they who suffer. ed under the operation of an iniquitous law, met with relief from the kind disposals of Divine PROVIDENCE. Ed.

+ Baxter, p. 101.

only from their concurrence in passing these laws, (for actions have a language as convincing as those of words) but from Dr. Sheldon their great leader, who expressed his fears to the earl of Manchester lest the presbyterians should comply. The act was passed after the king had engaged his faith and honor in his declaration from Breda to preserve liberty of conscience inviolable; which promise opened the way for his restoration; and after the royalists had given public assurance, that all former animosities should be laid aside as rubbish, under the foundation of universal concord."

Sad were the calamities of far the greater part of these unhappy sufferers, who with their families must have perished, if private collections in London, and divers places of the country, had not been made for their subsistence.* Bishop Burnet says, they cast themselves on the providence of God, and the charity of friends. The reverend and pious Mr. Thomas Gouge, late of St. Sepulchre's, was their advocate, who with two or three of his brethren, made frequent application to several worthy citizens, of whom they received considerable sums of money for some years, till that charity was diverted into another channel; but nevertheless "many hundreds of them, (according to Mr. Bax ters) with their wives and children, had neither house nor bread ; the people they left were not able to relieve them, nor durst they if they had been able, because it would have been called a maintenance of schism or faction. Many of the ministers, being afraid to lay down their ministry after they had been ordained to it, preached to such as would hear them, in fields and private houses, till they were apprehended and cast into gaols, where many of them perished. The people were no less divided, some conformed,

§ Life, part ii. p. 385.

* Kennet's Chron. p. 838, 192. + The observation made, not long before he died by the excellent Mr. Phillip Henry, who survived these times, deserves to be mentioned here. It was. that "though many of the ejected ministers were brought very low, had many children, were greatly harrassed by persecution, and their friends generally poor and unable to support them; yet in all his acquaintance he never knew nor could remember to have heard of any non-conformist minister in prison for debt." P. Henry's Life, p. 74, 2d ed. Ed.

and others were driven to a greater distance from the church, and resolved to abide by their faithful pastors at all events: they murmured at the government, and called the bishops and conforming clergy cruel persecutors; for which, and for their frequenting the private assemblies of their ministers, they were fined and imprisoned, till many families left their native country, and settled in the plantations."

The presbyterian ministers, though men of gravity, and far advanced in years, were rallied in the pulpits under the opprobrious name of schismatics and fanitics; they were exposed in the play-house, and insulted by the mob, insomuch that they were obliged to lay aside their habits, and walk in disguise. "Such magistrates were put into commission as executed the penal laws with severity. Informers were encouraged and rewarded. It is impossible (says the Conformist Plea for the Non-Conformist*) to relate the number of the sufferings both of ministers and people; the great trials, with hardships upon their persons, estates and families, by uncomfortable separations, dispersions, unsettlements and removes; disgraces, reproaches, imprisonments, chargeable journies, expenses in law, tedious sicknesses, and incurable diseases ending in death; great disquietments and frights to the wives and families, and their doleful effects upon them. Their congregations had enough to do besides a small maintenance, to help them out of prisons, or maintain them there. Though they were as frugal as possible they could hardly live; some lived on little more than brown bread and water; many had but eight or ten pounds a year to maintain a family, so that a piece of flesh has not come to one of their tables in six weeks time; their allowance could scarce afford them bread and cheese. One went to plough six days and preached on the Lord's day. Another was forced to cut tobacco for a livelihood. The zealous justices of peace knew the calamities of the ministers, when they issned out warrants upon some of the hearers, because of the poverty of the preachers. Out of respect to the worth and modesty of some of them, (says my authors) I forbear their names." Upon these foundations, and with these triumphs, Ibid. part iv. p. 43.

* Part iv. p. 40.