Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

of people attended the meetings, and a cautious and moderate address of thanks was presented to the king for their liberty, but all were afraid of the consequences.

It was reported further, that the court encouraged the non-conformists, by some small pensions of fifty and one hundred pounds to the chief of their party; that Mr. Baxter returned the money, but that Mr. Pool acknowledged he had received fifty pounds for two years, and that the rest accepted it. This was reported to the disadvantage of the dissenters by Dr. Stillingfleet and others, with an insinuation that it was to bribe them to be silent, and join interest with the papists; but Dr. Owen, in answer to this part of the charge, in his preface to a book entitled An Enquiry, &c. against Dr. Stillingfleet, declares, that "it is such a frontless malicious lie, as impudence itself would blush at ; that however the dissenters may be traduced, they are ready to give the highest security that can be of their stability in the protestant cause; and for myself (says he) never any person in authority, dignity, or power in the nation, nor any from them, papist or protestant, did ever speak or advise with me about any indulgence or toleration to be granted to papists, and I challenge the whole world to prove the contrary. From this indulgence Dr. Stillingfleet dates the beginning of the presbyterian separation.

This year died Dr. Edmund Staunton, the ejected minister of Kingston-upon-Thames, one of the assembly of divines, and some time president of Corpus-Christi College in Oxford. He was son of Sir Francis Staunton, born at Wooburne in Bedfordshire 1601, and educated in Wadham college, of which he was a fellow. Upon his taking orders, he became minister of Bushby in Hertfordshire, but

suasion commonly called congregational, with further license and permission to him the said G. S. to teach in any place licensed and allowed by us, according to our said declaration. Given at our court at Whitehall the second day of May, in the 24th year of our reign 1672. By his majesty's command,

* Burnet, vol. ii. p. 16, 17.

ARLINGTON.

+ Dr. Staunton, in 1615, became a commoner of Wadham college; on the 4th of October, in the same year, was admitted scholar of Corpus Christi college and afterwards Fellow, and M. A. Wood's Athen. Oxon. vol. ii. p. 352, and Dr. Grey. Ed.

[blocks in formation]

changed it afterwards for Kingston-upon-Thames. In 1634 he took the degrees in divinity, and in 1648 was made president of Corpus-Christi college, which he kept till he was silenced for non-conformity. He then retired to Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire, and afterwards to a village in that county called Bovingden, where he preached as often as he had opportunity. He was a learned, pious, and peaceable divine. In his last sickness he said he neither feared death nor desired life, but was willing to be at God's disposal. He died July 14, 1671, and was buried in the church belonging to the parish.*

Mr. Vavasor Powel was born in Radnorshire, and educated in Jesus college, Oxon. When he left the university he preached up and down in Wales, till being driven from thence for want of presbyterial ordination, which he serupled, he came to London, and soon after settled at Dartford ia Kent. In the year 1646 he obtained a testimonial of his religious and blameless conversation, and of his abilities for the work of the ministry, signed by Mr. Herle and sev enteen of the assembly of divines. Furnished with these testimonials he returned to Wales, and became a most indefatigable and active instrument of propagating the gospel in those parts. There were few, if any, of the churches or chapels in Wales, in which he did not preach; yea, very often he preached to the poor Welch in the mountains, at fairs, and in market-places; for which he had no more than a stipend of one hundred pounds per annum, besides the advantage of some sequestered livings in North Wales, (says my author) which, in those times of confusion, turned but to a very poor account. Mr. Powel was a bold man, and of republican principles, preaching against the protectorship of Cromwell, and wrote letters to him, for which he was imprisoned, to prevent his spreading disaffection in the state. At the dawn of the restoration, being known to be a fifth monarchy man, he was secured first at Shrewsbury, afterwards in Wales, and at last in the Fleet. In the year 1662 he was shut up in South-Sea castle near Portsmouth, where he continued five years. In 1667 he was released, but venturing to preach again in his own country, he was imprisoned at Cardiff, and in the year 1669 sent up *Calamy's Abridg. vol. ii. p. 63. Palmer's Non-con. Mem. vol. i. P. 173.

to London, and confined a prisoner in the Fleet, where he died, and was buried in Bunbill-fields, in the presence of an innumerable croud of dissenters, who attended him to his grave. He was of an unconquerable resolution, and of a mind unshaken under all his troubles. The inscription on his tomb calls him, "A successful teacher of the past, a sincere witness of the present, and an useful example to the future age; who, in the defection of many, found mercy to be faithful, for which being called to many prisons, he was there tried, and would not accept deliverance, expecting a better resurrection." He died October 27, 1671, in the 53d year of his age, and the eleventh year of his imprisonment.*

*To Mr. Neal's account of Mr. Vavasor Powel it may be added, that he was born 1617, and descended from an ancient and honorable stock: on his father's side, from the Powells of Knocklas in Radnorshire; and on his mother's, from the Vavasors, a family of great antiquity, that came out of Yorkshire into Wales, and was related to the principal gentry in North Wales. So active and laborious was he in the duties of the ministry, that he frequently preached in two or three places in a day, and was seldom two days in the week, throughout the year, out of the pulpit. He would sometimes ride an hundred miles in the week, and preach in every place where he could gain admittance, either by night or day. He would often alight from his horse, and set on it any aged person whom he met with on the road on foot, and walk by the side for miles together. He was exceedingly hospitable and generous, and would not only entertain and lodge, but clothe the poor and aged. He was a man of great humility, very conscientious and exemplary in all relative duties, and very punctual to his word. He was a scholar, and his general deportment was that of a gentleman. His sentiments were those of a Sabbatarian Baptist. In 1642, when he left Wales, there was not then above one or two gathered churches; but before the restoration, there were above twenty distinct societies, consisting of from two to five hundred members, chiefly planted and formed by his care and industry, in the principles of the Baptists. They were also for the ordination of elders, singing of psalms and hymns in public worship; laying on of hands on the newly baptised, and anointing the sick with oil, and did not limit their communion to an agreement with them in their sentiments on baptism. He bore his last illness with great patience, and under the acutest pains would bless God, and say, he would not entertain one hard thought of God for all the world," and could scarcely be restrained from acts of devotion, and from expressing his sentiments of zeal and piety.-Dr. Grey after Wood, has vilified Mr. Powel by retailing the falsehoods of a piece entitled "Strena Vavasoriensis." Crosby's History, vol. i. p. 373, &c. Life and Death of Vavasor Powel. Ed.

[ocr errors]

493

A

SUPPLEMENT

то

CHAPTERS V. VI. VII. and VIII.

SECT. I.

The History of the Baptists.

AT this period it is proper to resume the History of the Baptists, which we only slightly touched in our supplemental pages, at the end of the fourth chapter. This people, from the Restoration to the Declaration of indulgence in 1672, were exposed to severe sufferings: though they had no influence in the preceding vicissitudes of government. It was not known that during the contest between Charles I. and the parliament, any one of this sect was in the king's army; some of them in that of the parliament; and it was supposed, that a special reason of disbanding one entire regiment in the earl of Essex's army was, the colonel having entertained and given countenance to Separatists and some Anabaptists. Although in and after 1649, their numbers did increase, insomuch that the principal officers in divers regiments of horse and foot became baptists, particularly in Cromwell's own regiment of horse, and the duke of Albemarle's of foot; yet it is said, on good information, that before that year there were not, at any time, twenty of this denomination in any sort of command in the whole army. Until the year 1648, two only of this profession, Mr. Lawrence and Mr. John Fiennes, a son of lord Say, were members of the house of commons; and, in that year, before the death of the king, they withdrew from the parliament, not approving their proceedings, and lived private for about six years, when Mr. Lawrence was called again into public employment. In 1650, some

« AnteriorContinuar »