concerning ecclesiastical affairs, that others also be permitted to meet for religious worship, so be it they do it not to the disturbance of the peace; and that no justice of peace offer to disturb them. When this was debated in the king's presence after the restoration, the bishops wisely held their peace; but Mr. Baxter, who was more zealous than prudent, declared plainly his dislike of a toleration of papists and socinians; which his majesty took so very ill, that he said the presbyterians were a set of men who were only for setting up themselves. These still flattered themselves with hopes of a comprehension, but the independents and baptists were in despair.

And here was an end of those distracted times, which our historians have loaded with all the infamy and reproach that the wit of man could invent. The puritan ministers have been decried as ignorant mechanics, canting preachers, enemies to learning, and no better than public robbers. The universities were said to be reduced to a mere Munster; and that if the Goths and Vandals, and even the Turks, had overrun the nation, they could not have done more to introduce barbarism, disloyalty, and ignorance; and yet in these times, and by the men who then filled the university chairs, were educated the most learned divines and eloquent preachers of the last age, as the Stillingfleets, Tillotsons, Bulls, Barrows, Whitbys, and others, who retained a high veneration for their learned tutors after they were rejected and displaced. The religious part of the common people have been stigmatized with the character of hypocrites; their looks, their dress and behavior, have been represented in the most odious colors; and yet one may veature to challenge these declaimers to produce any period of time since the reformation, wherein there was less open profaneness and impiety, and more of the spirit as well as appearance of religion. Perhaps there was too much rigor and preciseness in indifferent matters; but the lusts of men were laid under a visible restraint; and though the legal constitution was unhappily broken, and men were governed by false politics, yet better laws were never made against vice, or more vigorously executed. The dress and conversation of people was sober and virtuous, and their manner of living remarkably frugal: * Compl. Hist. p. 258.

There was hardly a single bankruptcy to be beard of in a year; and in such a case the bankrupt had a mark of infamy upon him that he could never wipe off. Drunken

ness, fornication, profane swearing, and every kind of debauchery, were justly deemed infamous, and universally discountenanced. The clergy were laborious to excess in preaching and praying, and catechising youth, and visiting their parishes. The magistrates did their duty in suppressing all kind of games, stage-plays, and abuses in public houses. There was not a play acted on any theatre in England for almost twenty years. The Lord's day was observed with unusual reverence; and there were a set of as learned and pious youths training up in the university as had ever been known. So that if such a reformation of manners had obtained under a legal administration, they would have deserved the character of the best of times.

But when the legal constitution was restored, there returned with it a torrent of debauchery and wickedness. The times which followed the restoration, were the reverse of those that preceded it; for the laws which had been enacted against vice for the last twenty years being declared null, and the magistrates changed, men set no bound s to their licentiousness. A proclamation indeed was published against those loose and riotous cavaliers, whose loyalty consisted in drinking healths, and railing at those who would not revel with them; but in reality the king was at the head of these disorders; being devoted to his pleasures, and having given himself up to an avowed course of lewdness; his bishops and chaplains said, that he usually came from his mistresses apartments to church, even on sacrament days. There were two play-bouses erected in the neighborhood of the court. Women actresses were introduced into the theatres, which had not been known till that time; the most lewd and obscene plays were brought on the stage; and the more obscene, the better was the king pleased, who graced every new play with his royal presence. Nothing was to be seen at court but feasting, hard drinking, revelling, and amorous intrigues, which engendered the most enormous vices. From court the contagion spread like wildfire among the people, insomuch Kennet's Chron. p. 167.

that men threw off the very profession of virtue and piety, under color of drinking the king's health; all kinds of old cavalier rioting and debauchery revived; the appearances of religion which remained with some,furnished matters of ridicule to libertines and scoffers:* Some who had been concerned in the former changes, thought they could not redeem their credit better than by deriding all religion, and telling or making stories to render their former party ridiculous. To appear serious, or make conscience either of words and actions, was the way to be accounted a schismatic, a fanatic, or a sectarian; though if there was any real religion during the course of this reign, it was chiefly among those people. They who did not applaud the new ceremonies were marked out for presbyterians, and every presbyterian was a rebel. The old clergy who had been sequestered for scandal, having taken possession of their livings, were intoxicated with their new felicity, and threw off all the restraints of their order; every week (says Mr. Baxter, produced reports of one or other clergyman who was taken up by the watch drunk at night, and mobbed in the streets. Some were taken with lewd women; and one was reported to be drunk in the pulpit. Such was the general dissoluteness of manners which attended the deluge of joy which overflowed the nation upon his majesty's

restoration!

About this time died the reverend Mr. Francis Taylor, sometime rector of Clapham in Surry, and afterwards of Life, part ii. p. 288.

* Kennet's Chron. p. 493. Dr. Grey questions the truth of the above charge. But whoever reads Mr. Baxter's account of the matter, and of the conduct of himself and some of his brethren on the report of it. which rang through the city, will scarcely doubt the fact. But there is force and candor in what Dr. Grey adds concerning the reply of Mr. Selden to an alderman of the long parliament on the subject of episcopacy. The alderman said, "that there were so many clamors against such and such prelates, that they would never be quiet, till they had no more bishops." On this Mr. Selden informed the house, what grievous complaints there were against such and such aldermen; and therefore by parity of reasoning, it was his opinion, he said, that they should have no more alder. men. Here was the fault transferred to the office, which is a danger. ous error; for not only government, but human society itself, may be dissolved by the same argument, if the frailties or corruptions of particular men shall be revenged upon the whole body. Grey's Examination, vol. iii. p. 267. Ed.

Yalden, from whence he was called to sit in the assembly of divines at Westminster, and had a considerable share in the annotations which go under their name. From Yalden Mr. Taylor removed to Canterbury, and became preacher of Christ-Church in that city, where I presume he died, leaving behind him the character of an able critic in the oriental languages, and one of the most considerable divines of the assembly. He published several valuable works, and among others a translation of the Jerusalem Targum on the Pentateuch out of the Chaldee into Latin, dedicated to the learned Mr. Gataker, of Rotherhithe, with a prefatory epistle of Selden's, and several others, relating to Jewish antiquities. Among the letters to archbishop Usher there is one from Mr. Taylor, dated from Clapham, 1635. He corresponded also with Boetius, and most of the learned men of his time. He left behind him a son who was blind, but ejected for nonconformity in the year 1662, from St. Alphage church in Canterbury, where he lies buried.

He lost his sight by the small-pox: but pursued his studies by the aid of others, who read to him. His brother, who was also blind, he supported, and took great pains to instruct and win over to serious religion, but not with all the success he desired: He was a man of good abilities, and noted for an eloquent preacher: and his ministry was much valued and respected. He did not long survive the treatment he met with, in being seized and carried to prison; but was cheerful in all his afflictions. Palmer's Nonconformist's Memorial, vol. ii. p. 57, 8. Ed.

296

A SUPPLEMENT

ΤΟ

CHAPTERS III. AND IV.

MR. NEAL has allowed a few pages only, in the two preceding chapters, to the History of the QUAKERS: and they are chiefly spent on the wild extravagancies and sufferings of JAMES NAYLOR. But the lot of this people, while other sectarists breathed a freer air under the protectorship of Cromwell, was peculiarly hard and afflictive. The change of government, on his taking the reins, produced no revotution in their favor; but their sufferings continued to increase with the increase of their numbers. The subordinate magistrates were continued in office; and the ecclesiastics, their former persecutors, retained power to be troublesome to them. The protector has been represented as the friend to religious liberty; and so, in some instances, he certainly shewed himself, but the Quakers derived little benefit from his liberal views and regard to the rights of conscience. For, though he himself did not openly disturb them on account of their religious opinions and practices; yet those who acted under his authority grievously persecuted them, and he gave little or no check to their intolerance, although he had the power and was repeatedly and earnestly solicited to do it. The dominant parties had imbibed a spirit of hatred and animosity against this people: and the protector, it is supposed, might be fearful of disobliging them, by animadverting on their oppressive measures: or he might consider the Quakers as too contemptible or too pacific a body to fear any danger from, even under the greatest provocations.§

To give some color of law to the severities practised against them, pretexts were drawn from supposed violations

§ Gough's History of the Quakers, vol. i. p. 132, 198.