preached many months in peace, there being no justice willing to disturb us. This was in 1677. When Dr. William Lloyd became pastor of St. Martin's in the Fields, upon Lamplugh's preferment, I was encouraged by Dr. Tillotson, to offer my chapel in Oxendon-street for public worship, which he accepted, to my great satisfaction; and now there is constant preaching there; be it by Conformists or Nonconformists, I rejoice that Christ is preached to the people in that parish, whom ten or twenty such chapels cannot hold."

This account of the transaction was some time afterwards publicly and shamelessly contradicted. Baxter, in the memoir of his wife, had stated that "Dr. Lloyd and his parishioners had accepted the chapel for public worship on the offer of himself and his wife." The author of "The Complete History of England,' after Calamy's' Abridgment of Baxter' was published, stated "that this part of the relation, as to the offer of a chapel, is known to be false;" thus giving the lie direct to Baxter's own declaration. Lloyd, however, then bishop of Worcester, being applied to for an explanation of the circumstance, stated "that Mr. Baxter being disturbed in his meeting in Oxendon-street by the king's drums, which Mr. Secretary Coventry caused to be

Dr. Lamplugh, formerly rector of St. Martin's, was raised to the bishoprick of Exeter, in 1676; and after the Revolution, was made archbishop of York. Judging from an anecdote of him told by Baxter, 'Life,' part iii. pp. 178, 179, he must have been both a high and a fierce man. While rector of St. Martin's, he met old Mr. Sanger, a Nonconformist, at the house of one of his parishioners, who was sick, and accosted him, "Sir, what business have you here?" "To visit and pray with my sick friend, who sent for me," was the answer. The doctor then fiercely laid hold of his breast, and thrust him to the door, saying, "Get out of the room, Sir;" to the great dismay of the sick woman, who had shortly before buried her husband.

* After the chapel in Oxendon-street, built by Baxter, had been a chapel of ease to the parish of St. Martin for more than a century, it fell again into the hands of the dissenters. The lease of it was taken, in 1807, by the Scots secession church, then under the ministry of the late Rev. Dr. Jerment, who has been succeeded by my respected friend, the Rev. William Broadfoot, its present minister.-Wilson's Diss. Churches, vol. iv. p. 56.

1 Life, part iii. pp. 176-179.

m Breviate of the Life of Mrs. Baxter, 4to, p. 57.

beat under the windows, made an offer of letting it to the parish of St. Martin for a tabernacle, at the rent of forty pounds a year; and that his lordship hearing it, said he liked it well. That therefore Mr. Baxter came to him, and proposed the same thing. He then acquainted the vestry with it, which took it upon those terms."" Thus the veracity and disinterestedness of Baxter were satisfactorily vindicated. Lloyd, who became successively bishop of St. Asaph and Worcester, was one of the best informed men of his profession, and, on the whole, more moderate in his principles than most of them.

"About March, 1677, fell out a trifling business, which I will mention, lest the fable pass for truth when I am dead. At a coffee-house, in Fuller's Rents, where many Papists and Protestants used to meet together, one Mr. Dyet, son to old Sir Richard Dyet, chief justice in the north, and brother to a deceased, dear friend of mine, the wife of my old, dear friend, Colonel Silvanus Taylor, one that professed himself no Papist, but was their familiar, said openly that I had killed a man with my own hand; that it was a tinker, at my door, who, because he beat his kettle and disturbed me in my studies, I went down and pistoled him. One Mr. Peters occasioned this wrath, by oft challenging, in vain, the Papists to dispute with me; or answer my books against them. Mr. Peters told Mr. Dyet that this was so shameless a slander, that he should answer for it. Mr. Dyet told him that a hundred witnesses would testify it was true, and that I was tried for my life at Worcester for it. To be short,

n Calamy's Abridgment, vol. i. p. 348.

• Colonel Taylor was an officer in the parliamentary army, and served some years under Colonel Massey. He was an active man in the county of Hereford. He appears, however, to have obtained favour after the Restoration, and was appointed keeper of the king's stores arwich, where he died in 1678. He was a great antiquary; a distinguished amateur in music, having published Court Ayres or Pavins,' 'Almaine's Corants and Sarabands;' and a good mathematician and linguist.—Athen, Oxon, vol, iii. p. 1175; Aubrey, vol. iii. p. 555.

Mr. Peters ceased not till he brought Dyet to my chamber to confess his fault, and ask my forgiveness. With him, came one Mr. Tasbrook, an eminent, sober, prudent Papist; I told him that these usages to such as I, and far worse, were so ordinary, and I had long suffered so much more than words, that it must be no difficulty to me to forgive them to any man; but especially to one whose relations had been my dearest friends; and that he was one of the first gentlemen who ever showed so much ingenuity as to confess and ask forgiveness. He told me, he would hereafter confess and unsay it, and vindicate me as openly as he had wronged me: I told him, to excuse him, that perhaps he had that story from his late pastor at St. Giles', Dr. Boreman, who had printed that such a thing was reported; but I never heard before the particulars of the fable. Shortly after, at the same coffee-house, Mr. Dyet openly confessed his fault." p

"In November, 1677, died Dr. Thomas Manton, to the great loss of London, being an able, judicious, faithful man, and one that lamented the intemperance of many self-conceited ministers and people, who, on pretence of vindicating free-grace and Providence, and of opposing Arminianism, greatly corrupted the Christian doctrine, and schismatically impugned Christian love and concord, hereticating and making odious all who spake not as erroneously as themselves. Many of the Independents, inclining to half Antinomianism, suggested suspicions against Dr. Manton, Dr. Bates, Mr. Howe, myself, and such others, as if we were half Arminians. On which occasion, I preached two sermons on the words of Jude, 'They speak evil of what they understand not.' 4

P Life, part iii. p. 179. I have not quoted the tail-piece of this foolish story. It is very odd to find such a man as Baxter accused twice of killing persons. Dr. Boreman's story, to which he alludes, is the affair of Major Jennings, of which we have given an account, with its refutation, in pp. 69 -71. They must have been greatly at a loss for scandal, when it was found necessary to accuse Baxter of murder.

a Life, part iii. p. 182.

These discourses, which were preached at the merchants' Tuesday morning lecture, at Pinner's Hall, were never, I believe, printed. Baxter had rashly carried some idle reports into the pulpit, and thus occasioned a considerable flame both among the lecturers and the people. The preachers consisted of four Presbyterians and two Independents. I believe the whole matter was, the Independents were more thorough systematic Calvinists than the Presbyterians, though there was no difference of importance between them. They finally separated in 1695, in consequence of the mischievous dispute about Dr. Crisp's sentiments."

"About October, 1678, fell out the murder of Sir Edmund Burry Godfrey, which made a very great change in England. One Dr. Titus Oates had discovered a plot of the Papists, of which he wrote out the particulars very largely, telling how they fired the city, and were contriving to bring the kingdom to Popery, and in order thereto to kill the king. He named the lords, Jesuits, priests, and others, who were the chief contrivers, and said that he himself had delivered to several of the lords their commissions that Lord Bellasis was to be general, Lord Petre lieutenant-general, Lord Stafford major-general, Lord Powis lord chancellor, and Lord Arundel, of Warder, (the chief,) to be lord treasurer. He told who were to be the archbishops, bishops, &c., and at what meetings, and by whom, and when all was contrived, and who were designed to kill the king. He first opened all this to Dr. Tongue,s and both of them opened it to the king and council. He mentioned a multitude of letters, which he

Neal's Purit. vol. v. p. 414.

$ Dr. Israel Tongue was one of the city divines, whose head was full of all sorts of fancies about Romish plots and conspiracies. According to Wood, "he understood chronology well, and spent much time and money in the art of alchemy. He was a person cynical and hirsute, shiftless in the world, yet absolutely free from covetousness.-Athen. Oxon. vol. iii. p. 1260. It seems more probable that he was imposed on by Oates, than that he was a party to a scheme of deception.-Burnet, vol. i. pp. 424, 425.

himself had carried or seen, or heard read, that contained all these contrivances. But because his father and he had once been Anabaptists, and when the bishops prevailed, had turned to be conformable ministers, and, afterward, the son turned Papist, and confessed that he long had gone on with them under many oaths of secrecy, many thought that a man of so little conscience was not to be believed. His confessions however were received by some justices of the peace. None was more forward in the search than Sir Edmund Burry Godfrey, an able, honest, and diligent justice. While he was following this work, he was suddenly missing, and could not be heard of. Three or four days after, he was found killed near Mary-le-bonne Park. It was plainly found that he was murdered." The parliament took the alarm upon it, Oates was now believed; and, indeed, all his large confessions, in every part, agreed to admiration. Hereupon the king proclaimed pardon and reward to any one that would confess, or discover the murder. One Mr. Bedlow, that had fled to Bristol, began, and confessed that he knew of it, and who did it, and named some of the men, the place, and time; it was at the queen's house, called Somerset House, by Fitzgerald and Kelly, two Papist priests, and four others, Berry, the porter, Green, Pranse, and Hill. The priests fled: Pranse, Berry, Green, and Hill, were taken. and discovered the rest aforesaid, more than Bedlow knew of, and all the circumstances, and how he was carried away, and by whom; and also how the plot was laid to kill the king. Thus

Pranse first confessed all,

t From Crosby's History of the Baptists,' it appears that this account of Oates is substantially correct. He was a Baptist in his youth, and, after running the round of religious professions, was, in the latter part of his life, received among them again, after a separation of thirty years. In a short time, however, the church with which he connected himself was obliged to exclude him. He seems to have been a consummate hypocrite and villain. -Crosby, vol. iii. pp. 166, 182.

"The death of Sir Edmund Burry Godfrey is a subject involved in great obscurity. Burnet gives a very minute account of his disappearance, and of the state in which his body was found, but throws no light on the manner in which he came by his death.