to king Charles I. He suffered much by the high-commission court; but, taking part with the parliament, was chosen one of the pacific divines, who met at the Jerusalem-chamber, to accommodate differences in the church: he often preached before the house of commons, and was one of the assembly of divines, but refused to take the covenant till he was suspended. He was ejected at the Restoration from St. Andrew's, in the city of Wells, in Somersetshire, and having laid out all his money in the purchase of bishops' lands, he was reduced to absolute poverty. He appeared at the head of the London divines, against bringing the king to his trial, and was esteemed a very learned and able divine. He died at his house at Watford, June, 1665.

We have already remembered Dr. Cheynel among the Oxford professors, a man of great abilities, and a member of the assembly of divines. He quitted his preferments in the university for refusing to take the engagement, and was ejected from the living of Petworth at the Restoration, without having enriched himself by any of his prefermentst. It is reported that he was sometimes disordered in his head, but he was perfectly recovered some years before his death, which happened at his house near Brighthelmstone, in Sussex, September, 1665‡.

of

[There died in prison this year, Mr. Samuel Fisher, a man of great parts and literature, of eminent piety and virtue, who reflected honour on each denomination of Christians, with which, through the change of his sentiments, he became successively connected. His father was a haberdasher of hats, and mayor Northampton. In 1623, at the age of eighteen, he became a student in Trinity-college, Oxford; where he took the degree of master of arts, and then removed to New-Inn. At the university, he distinguished himself, by his application and proficiency gained an accurate knowledge of Greek and Roman antiquities, and was

deemed a man of solid parts and great learning; that no temptations could induce him to return to the episcopal side; that in the year 1648, he preached a sermon fuller of loyalty than the boldest at that time would dare to express; that he was against imposing the covenant, and refused to take it till he was suspended. He was excellently skilled in the liturgical controversies, and those of church government : and was possessed of all the books of Common Prayer that were ever printed in England, and bestowed them upon Oxford library. Dr. Calamy's Letter to Mr. Archdeacon Echard, p. 107-111.-Ed.

* Wood's 'Athen. Oxon. vol. 2. p. 235; Calamy, vol. 2. p. 586; or Palmer's Nonconformists' Memorial, vol. 2. p. 384.

For he was remarkable throughout his life for hospitality and contempt of money. Dr. Johnson published an account of this extraordinary man, that appeared first in the Gentleman's Magazine for March and April 1775; which, Mr. Dr. Cheynel, Palmer remarks, is a satire both upon Dr. Cheynel and the times. this narrative says, had an intrepidity which was never to be shaken by any danger, and a spirit of enterprise not to be discouraged by difficulty; which were supported by an unusual degree of bodily strength. Whatever he believed he thought himself obliged to profess, and what he professed he was ready to defend." -ED.

Wood's Athen. Oxon. vol. 2. p. 245; Calamy, vol. 2. p. 675; and Palmer's Nonconformists' Memorial, vol. 2. p. 467.

particularly given to the study of rhetoric and poetry. When he had finished his academic course, he became chaplain to Sir Arthur Haslerigge. In 1632, he was presented to the vicarage of Lidd in Kent, a living of 500l. a-year. Here he had the character of a very powerful preacher, united with humility and affability of carriage. While in this situation, in consequence of frequent conversation with a Baptist minister, he was led into an examination of the questions concerning baptism, which ended in his embracing the opinions of the Baptists, being baptized by immersion, and taking the pastoral care of a congregation of that people, having freely resigned his living and returned his diploma to the bishop; which those who differ from him must applaud as a singular instance of sincerity and self-denial. On this he rented a farm and commenced grazier; "by which he procured a decent competency, enhanced (says Mr. Gough) by the consolation of solid content, and the internal testimony of an approving heart." During his connexion with the Baptists, he baptized some hundreds, and was frequently engaged in public disputes in vindication of their sentiments, to the number of nine, in the course of three years, with several noted ministers, sometimes in the presence of two thousand auditors, and once with Dr. Cheynel. He published also a treatise, entitled "Baby-baptism mere babism;" which is represented as containing the whole state of the controversy as it was then managed. He was deemed an ornament to the sect, and was one of the chief defenders of their doctrine. In 1665, he embraced the principles of the Quakers, and became an active and laborious minister among them. He preached at Dunkirk against the idolatry of the priests and friars: and, in company with another friend, travelled on foot over the Alps to Rome; where they testified against the superstitions of the place, and distributed some books among the ecclesiastics: and left it without molestation. After his return, he suffered among Protestants the persecution he escaped among the Romanists. The great part of the four last years of his life was spent in prison; and, after two years' confinement in the White-Lion prison in Southwark, he died "in perfect peace with God; in good esteem both with his friends and many others, on account of the eminence of his natural parts and acquired abilities as a scholar, and of his exemplary humility, social virtues, and circumspect conversation as a Christian; in meekness instructing those who opposed him, and labouring incessantly, by his discourses and by his writings, to propagate and promote true Christian practice and piety." Wood's Athen. Oxon. vol. 2, p. 243. Crosby's History of the Baptists, vol. 1, p. 361, &c. and Gough's History of the Quakers, vol. 1, p. 163; and vol. 2, p. 141.—Ëd.]

The vices of the nation not being sufficiently punished by pestilence and war, it pleased Almighty God this year to suffer the city of London to be laid in ashes by a dreadful conflagration, which broke out in Pudding-lane behind the Monument, Septem

ber 2, 1666, and within three or four days consumed thirteen thousand two hundred dwelling-houses, eighty-nine churches, among which was the cathedral of St. Paul's; many public structures, schools, libraries, and stately edifices. Multitudes lost their goods and. merchandise, and the greatest part of their substance, and some few their lives; the king, the duke of York, aud many of the nobility, were spectators of the desolation, but had not the power to stop its progress, till at length it ceased almost as wonderfully as it began. Moorfields was filled with household goods, and the people were forced to lodge in huts and tents: many families who were last week in prosperity, were now reduced to beggary, and obliged to begin the world again. The authors of this fire were said to be the Papists, as appears by the inscription upon the Monument. The parliament being of this opinion, petitioned the king to issue out a proclamation, requiring all Popish priests and Jesuits to depart the kingdom within a month, and appointed a committee who received evidence of some Papists who were seen to throw fire-balls into houses, and of others who had materials for it in their pockets; but the men were fled, and none suffered but one Hubert, a Frenchman, by his own confession.*

In this general confusion, the churches being burnt, and many of the parish-ministers withdrawn for want of habitations or places of worship, the Nonconformists resolved again to supply the necessities of the people, depending upon it, that in such an extremity, they should escape persecution. Some churches were erected of boards, which they called tabernacles, and the dissenters fitted up large rooms with pulpits, seats and galleries, for the reception of all who would come. Dr. Manton had his rooms full in Covent-Garden; Mr. Tho. Vincent, Mr. Doolittle, Dr. Turner, Mr. Grimes, Mr. Jenkyns, Mr. Nath. Vincent, Dr. Jacomb, Mr. Watson, had their separate meetings in other places. The Independents also, as, Dr. Owen, Dr. Goodwin, Mr. Griffiths, Brooks, Caryl, Barker, Nye, and others, began the same practice; many citizens frequented the meetings, where the liturgy was not read; though the few parish-pulpits that remained were filled with very able preachers; as, Dr. Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Patrick, White, Gifford, Whichcote, Horton, Meriton, &c. But none of these calamities had any farther influence upon the court prelates, than that they durst not prosecute the preachers so severely for the present.+

Among the Nonconformist ministers who died this year, were the reverend Mr. Edward Calamy, B. D.‡ the ejected minister

* Hubert was a French Huguenot, of Rouen in Normandy. Though he confessed the fact, yet according to Echard, he suffered unjustly; for he was a sort of lunatic, and had not landed in England till two days after the fire, as appeared by the evidence of the master of the ship who had him on board. Grey's Examination, vol. 3. p. 439.-ED.

+ Baxter's Life, part 3. p. 19.

Calamy's Abridg. vol. 2. p. 4.,

of Aldermanbury, born in London 1600, and bred in Pembrokehall, Cambridge; he was first chaplain to Dr. Felton, bishop of Ely; and afterward settled at St. Edmundsbury, from whence, after ten years, he with thirty other ministers, were driven out of the diocess by bishop Wren's visitation-articles and the book of sports. Upon the death of Dr. Stoughton, 1639, he was chosen to Aldermanbury, where he soon gained a vast reputation. He was one of the divines who met in the Jerusalem-chamber for accommodating ecclesiastical matters in the year 1641. He was afterward a member of the assembly at Wesminster, and an active man in all their proceedings. He was one of the most popular preachers in the city*, and had a great hand in the king's restoration, but soon repented having done it without a previous treaty. He refused a bishoprick, because he could not have it upon the terms of the king's declaration; and soon after the Bartholomewact, was imprisoned in Newgate for preaching an occasional sermon to his parishioners. He afterward lived pretty much retired till this year, when being driven in a coach through the ruins of the city of London, it so affected him, that he went home and never came out of his chamber more, dying within a month, in the sixty-seventh year of his age‡.

Mr. Arthur Jackson, M. A., the ejected minister of St. Faith's, was born about the year 1593, and educated in Cambridge. He became minister of St. Michael's Wood-street, in the year 1625, when the pestilence raged in the city; and continued with his

His week-day lecture was constantly attended for twenty years together by persons of the greatest quality, there being seldom so few as twenty coaches. He was president in meetings of the city-ministers, and qualified, by natural and acquired abilities, to be the leader of the Presbyterians. He dared to censure the conduct of Cromwell to his face, and was never known to be intimidated, where he thought his duty was concerned; of which his grandson gives a remarkable proof¶. He was one of the writers against the liturgy. The title of one of the answers to him and his brethren is a curious specimen of the taste and spirit of the times. It was called "A Throat Hapse for the Frogs and Toads that crept abroad croaking against the Common Prayer-book." Granger's History of England, vol. 2. p. 184, octavo, and note.-ED.

This confinement made no small noise; Mr. Calamy was a man so generally beloved and respected. Dr. Wilde published a copy of verses on the occasion, which was spread through all parts of the kingdom. And the passage through Newgate-street was obstructed by the coaches of those who visited him in his imprisonment. A Popish lady, who had been stopped by them, finding what alarm and disturbance this proceeding against Mr. Calamy had produced, took the first opportunity to wait upon the king at Whitehall, and communicate the whole matter to him, expressing her fear, that if such steps as these were taken, he would lose the affections of the city, which might be of very ill consequence. On this remonstrance, and for some other reasons, Mr. Calamy was in a little time discharged by the express order of his majesty. Memoirs of Dr. Edmund Calamy, MS.-ED.

Nonconformists' Memorial, vol. 1. p. 73.

Preaching before general Monk, soon after the Restoration, having occasion to speak of filthy lucre, he said, "Some men will betray three kingdoms for filthy lucre's sake: " and immediately threw his handkerchief, which he usually waved up and down while he was preaching, towards the general's pew. Palmer and Granger, ut supra.—ED,

parish throughout the whole course of the distemper*. He was fined 5007. for refusing to give evidence against Mr. Love, and committed prisoner to the Fleet, where he remained seventeen weeks. At the Restoration he was chosen, by the provincial assembly of London, to present a Bible to the king at his public entrancet. He was afterward one of the commissioners of the Savoy ; and when the uniformity-act took place, being old, he retired to a private life, and died with great satisfaction in his nonconformity, August 5, 1665, in the seventy-fourth year of his age.

Dr. William Spurstow, the ejected minister of Hackney, was sometime master of Katherine-hall, Cambridge, but ejected for refusing the engagement. He was one of the authors of Smectymnuus, a member of the assembly of divines, and afterward one of the commissioners of the Savoy; a man of great learning, humility, and charity, and of a cheerful conversation: he lived through the sickness-year, but died the following in an advanced aget.

This year was memorable for the fall of the great earl of Clarendon, lord-high-chancellor of England, who attended the king in his exile, and upon his majesty's restoration, was created a peer, and advanced to the high dignity of chancellor of England. He governed with a sovereign and absolute sway as prime-minister for about two years; but in the year 1663, he was impeached of high-treason by the earl of Bristol; and though the impeachment was dropped for want of form, his interest at court declined from that time, and after the Oxford parliament of 1665, his lordship was out of all credit. This summer the king took the seals from him, and on the 12th of November sir Edward Seymour impeached him of high-treason, at the bar of the house of peers, in the name of all the commons of England, for sundry arbitrary and tyrannical proceedings contrary to law, by which he had acquired a greater estate than could be honestly gotten in that time.-For procuring grants of the king's lands to his relations, contrary to law-for corresponding with Cromwell in his exile§-for advising and effecting the sale of Dunkirk-for issuing out quo warrantos to obtain great sums of money from the corporations--for deter

Calamy's Abridgment, vol. 2. p. 3; or, Palmer's Nonconformists' Memorial, vol. 1. p. 104.

"There was (Mr. Granger observes) a particular propriety in assigning this office to him, as he had written a commentary on several parts of the Bible." He was a man of prodigious application; at the university he studied fourteen or sixteen hours a day, and to the day of his death constantly rose, summer and winter, at three or four o'clock in the morning. Granger's History of England, vol. 3. p. 43, octavo.-ED.

Calamy, vol. 2. p. 471; or, Palmer's Nonconformists' Memorial, vol. 2. p. 173. Dr. Grey supposes that Mr. Neal could not but know that lord Clarendon had cleared himself from this charge to the king's satisfaction during his exile; who declared "that he was sorry that he was not in a condition to do him more justice than to declare him innocent, which he did, and commanded the clerk of the council to draw up a full order for his justification which his majesty himself would sign."-ED.