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are eminently manifested in his Eight letters concerning the use of reason in religion,' &c., addressed to Dr Whichcote. are Sermons,' and 'Conciones ad clerum.'

Edmund Staunton, D.D.

BORN A. D. 1600.-DIED A. d. 1671.

His other works

DR EDMUND STAUNTON was of the family of the Stauntons in Bedfordshire. From his earliest years he was a diligent student, and while yet under-graduate, was chosen a probationer fellow of Oxford before eighteen of his seniors. He entered into orders early in life, and preached his first lecture at Witney in Oxfordshire. His first living was that of Bushy in Hertfordshire. In 1635, when the book of Sports came out, he was one among many who were suspended for not reading it. During his suspension he took the degree of D.D. at Oxford. On the meeting of the Westminster assembly, Dr Staunton was chosen a member, and appointed one of the six morning preachers.

In 1648, when the visitors discharged Dr Newlin from the headship of Corpus Christi college, Dr Staunton succeeded him, and introduced a very excellent code of discipline into that establishment. His government was in the highest degree beneficial to the interests of the college, over which he presided twelve years, until discharged from office in 1660. After this he devoted the remainder of his life to the preaching of the gospel in and around St Albans. He died on the 14th of July 1671. A few of his practical treatises have been pub

lished.

Vavasour Powell.

BORN A. D. 1617.-DIED A. D. 1671.

VAVASOUR POWELL was a native of Radnorshire, and educated in Jesus college, Oxford. He was descended, on his father's side, from the Powells of Knocklas, in Radnorshire; and, on the mother's, from the ancient family of the Vavasours. On leaving the university, he perambulated his native country, preaching the gospel wherever he could obtain an audience. It being objected to him, however, that he had not received any kind of ordination, he went to London and obtained, in 1646, a testimonial of his religious and blameless conversation, and of his abilities for the work of the ministry, signed by Mr Herle, and seventeen members of the assembly of divines. Thus furnished, he returned to Wales, where he became a most indefatigable and active evangelist: traversing the country in every direction, visiting the mountain hamlets, attending the fairs and markets, and preaching in every place where he could gain admittance either by night or day. In the midst of all this incessant labour, and of the personal privations to which it exposed him, he maintained the appearance and deportment of a gentleman. He was also exceedingly hospitable and

generous, and would not only entertain and lodge, but clothe the poor and aged, although his whole means of subsistence did not amount to £100 per annum.

At the dawn of the restoration, being known to be a fifth monarchy man, he was taken into custody, and was ultimately confined in the Fleet, London, where he died in October, 1671. His religious sentiments were those of a Sabbatarian Baptist, and he was the founder of upwards of twenty churches in Wales professing similar sentiments.

Bishop Wilkins.

BORN A. D. 1614.-DIED A. D. 1672.

THIS ingenious and learned prelate was the son of Walter Wilkins, citizen and goldsmith of Oxford. He was born in 1614, at Fawsley, near Daventry in Northamptonshire. His earliest teacher was Edward Sylvester. At the age of thirteen he entered New-inn hall, Oxford, whence he removed to Magdalen hall, where he took his degrees in arts.

On obtaining orders, he became chaplain to William, Lord Say; afterwards he attended, in the same character, upon the count-palatine of the Rhine, to whom the proficiency which our young divine was known to have made in mathematical studies was a high recommendation. Upon the breaking out of the civil war, Wilkins took the league and covenant. He was afterwards made warden of Wadham college In 1648 he was created D.D. In 1656, he married Robina, widow of Peter French, and sister of the lord-protector. In 1659, he was made master of Trinity college, Cambridge, but was ejected thence the year following. He then became preacher to the society of Gray's inn, and was chosen a member of the royal society's council.

His eminent scientific talents, and the patronage of Villiers, procured for him some notice at court, and the bishopric of Chester was ultimately bestowed upon him, though not without considerable opposition from the primate Sheldon. He did not enjoy his preferment long. He died on the 19th of November, 1672. Burnet bears this testimony of him, that "he was a man of as great a mind, as true a judgment, as eminent virtues, and of as good a soul as any he ever knew." All the works which Bishop Wilkins published are learned and ingenious. His first was the famous piece entitled, The discovery of a new world; or a discourse tending to prove that it is probable there may be another habitable world in the moon; with a Discourse concerning the possibility of a passage thither.' This was a juvenile production, but the bishop in his old age adhered to the speculations of his youth, in spite of the ridicule to which they exposed him. The reader may be curious to know what the means of conveyance were which Wilkins proposed to employ in a journey to the moon; and we shall allow him to explain them in his own language :— "If it be here inquired," says he, "what means there may be conjectured for our ascending beyond the sphere of the earth's magnetical vigour, I answer: 1st. It is not, perhaps, impossible that a man may be able to flye by the application of wings to his oune body, as angels are pictured, and as Mercury and Dædalus are fained, and as hath been attempted by divers, particularly

by a Turke in Constantinople, as Busbequius relates. 2d. If there be such a great Ruck in Madagascar as Marcus Polus, the Venetian mentions, the feathers in whose wings are twelve feet long, which can soope up a horse and his rider, or an elephant, as our kites doe a mouse, why then it is but teaching one of these to carry a man, and he may ride up thither as Ganymed does upon an eagle. 3d. Or, if neither of these ways will serve, yet I doe seriously and upon good grounds, affirm it possible to make a flying chariot, in which a man may sit, and give such a motion into it as shall convey him through the aire." The mathematical and philosophical works of this enthusiastic projector were collected and published in one 8vo. volume in 1708. His theological works consist of discourses on preaching, on providence, and on prayer, also sundry sermons, and a posthumous work on the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion.'

Philip Nye.

BORN A. D. 1596.-DIED A. D. 1672.

He was

THIS celebrated nonconformist was a native of Sussex. born of a genteel family in 1596, and educated at Magdalene college, Oxford. In 1630 he was curate of St Michael's, Cornhill. In this situation he soon made himself obnoxious to the high church party, and to avoid Laud's persecuting measures, retired to Holland in 1633. While abroad, he chiefly resided at Arnheim. In 1640 he ventured to return home, and was soon after made minister of Kimbolton, in Huntingdonshire.

In 1643 he was appointed one of the assembly of divines, and was sent by that body, in conjunction with Stephen Marshall, whose daughter he had married, to procure the assistance of the Scots. On his return, when parliament assembled to take the covenant in St Margaret's church, Westminster, he was the person who read it from the pulpit, and endeavoured to show its warrant from scripture. He was also one of the committee who drew up the preface to the Directory, which was to be substituted for the book of Coinmon prayer. When the presbyterian party insisted on establishing their own form of church-government, Nye left them, and threw the weight of his talents and influence into the independent side.

After the restoration, he was ejected from his charge, and it was even debated in council whether he should not be excepted for life, on the ground of the extraordinary share he had taken in promoting revolutionary measures and principles. He employed the declining years of his life in preaching the gospel as he had opportunity amongst the dissenters in the metropolis. He died in 1672. Nye wrote and published a considerable number of polemical and political tracts.

Bishop Hacket.

BORN A. D. 1592.-DIED A. D. 1670.

JOHN HACKET, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, was born in London in 1592. He was admitted, when yet very young, into Westminster school, where his diligence and proficiency procured for him the favourable notice of Dr Andrews, then dean of Westminster. In 1608, along with Herbert the poet, he was elected to Trinity college, Cambridge, of which college, after taking the proper degrees, he was chosen fellow. He took orders in 1618, and was collated to the rectory of Stoke-Hamon, in Buckinghamshire. In 1621, Bishop Williams, lord-keeper of the great seal, appointed Hacket his chaplain. Two years afterwards, James I. placed him on the list of his chaplains, and gave him the rectorship of St Andrews, Holborn, in London, and Cheam, in Surrey.

In 1625, he was appointed to attend an embassy from the court of England to Germany; but, recollecting how sarcastically he had treated the Jesuits in a Latin comedy, entitled 'Loyola,' which he composed in early life at Newstead abbey, the seat of the Byrons, he got alarmed at the prospect of visiting the continent, and declined the appointment. Preferment, however, still continued to flow in upon him. In 1641, he was made archdeacon of Bedford. In March 1641, he was appointed by the house of lords one of the sub-committee on the reformation of the liturgy. We hear little more of him from this period until 1648, when he attended Henry Rich, earl of Holland, on the scaffold.

After the restoration, Hacket recovered all his preferments, and was offered the bishopric of Gloucester, which he refused; but he accepted shortly after that of Lichfield and Coventry, to which he was consecrated in December 1661. In the ensuing year, he repaired Lichfield cathedral—which had suffered greatly during the civil wars-at his own expense. He also added some buildings to Trinity college, Cambridge. He died at Lichfield, in October 1670.

A century of Bishop Hacket's sermons was published by Dr Plume in 1675. They are inelegant compositions, with all the quaintness, but little of the force of Bishop Reynold's discourses. His 'Life of Archbishop Williams,' is a good piece of biography. It is said he intended to have done a similar service to the memory of that royal pedagogue, James I., but was disheartened by the loss of his manuscript collections during the interregnum. According to his own biographer, Dr Plume, Bishop Hacket, though a tolerant episcopalian, was very zealous against popery. Trained under Davenant and Ward, he leaned towards Calvinistic views in doctrine. In his younger years, he had applied himself with great diligence to the study of the scholastic logic; but, as he advanced in life, he perceived the futility of the study, and declared "that he found more shadows and names than solid juice and substance in it; and much disliked their horrid and barbarous terms, more proper for incantation than divinity; that he became perfectly of Beatus Rhenanus's mind, that the schoolmen were rather to

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be reckoned philosophers than divines; but, if any pleased to account them such, he had much rather, with St John Chrysostom, be styled a pious divine, than an invincible or irrefragable one with Thomas Aquinas, or our own countryman, Alexander Hales. For knowledge in the tongues," continues Dr Plume, "he would confess he could never fix upon Arabian learning, the place was siticulosa regio, a dry and barren land, where no water is;' and he being discouraged in his younger years by such as had plodded most in it, and often quarrelled with his great friend Salmasius, for saying he accounted no man solidly learned without skill in Arabic and other eastern languages."

Joseph Caryl.

BORN A. D. 1602.-DIED A. D. 1673.

THIS eminent non-conformist divine was born in London in 1602, and educated at Exeter college, Oxford. He preached for several years with considerable acceptance before the society of Lincoln's inn, and was a member of the Westminster assembly. In 1653 he was appointed one of the 'triers' for the examination and licensing of preachers. He was subsequently sent by the parliament to attend Charles I. at Holmby house, and was one of the commissioners in the treaty of the isle of Wight. In 1650, in company with Dr Owen, he attended on Cromwell in Scotland.

Soon after his ejectment from the rectory of St Magnus, in London, in 1662, he gathered a congregation in the same neighbourhood, to whom he preached as the times would permit, until his death on the 7th of February, 1673. Caryl was a man of considerable parts and learning, and indefatigable industry. His personal piety was unquestionable; in his views of church government he was an independent. His principal work is an exposition of the Book of Job, which was first published in twelve volumes 4to, but is more commonly met with now in two volumes folio.

Hugh Paulin Cressey.

RORN A. D. 1603.-DIED A. D. 1674.

HUGH PAULIN CRESSEY, a celebrated Roman catholic writer of the seventeenth century, was born of respectable parents, at Wakefield, in 1603, and was taught the first rudiments of learning at a grammarschool in that town. In 1619, he went to Oxford; and in 1626, was admitted fellow of Merton college. He took the degree of A. M., and entering into holy orders, became chaplain to Viscount Falkland, accompanied his lordship to Ireland, and was promoted, by his interest, to a canonry in the collegiate church of Windsor, and to the deanery of Laughen, in Ireland. On the death of his patron, he accepted a proposal that was made him of making the tour of Italy with Mr Bertie, afterwards created earl of Falmouth; and whilst thus engaged, and after a serious examination of the doctrine and discipline of the church of

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