mht prevent a greater. The formidable insurrections, discou raged the attempt. king was prevailed upon with difficulty; and, bursting into tears, la- I have, before me, the "Life mented this sister's obstinacy, and and martyrdom of Rowland Taythat he must suffer her to continue lor," published in 1682, and write in se abominable a way of worship ten by one who appears to have as he esteemed the mass." Ridley's justly admired the pious Rector of Life p. 331. Hadleigh. Dr. T. is described Though Edward was thus warm, as accosting in the following terms ly intent on inflicting the persecu- a Romish Priest, whom soon after tion of restraint, yet, as I shall the accession of Mary, he found have occasion to shew, he was officiating in his church: Thou very hardly persuaded to shed devil incarnate, who made thee so blood on account of religious opi- audacious as to enter this church, nions. His council had no such to defile and profane it with thy scruples. Whatever they had re- abominable idolatry? I command formed in doctrine, they fully thee, thou popish wolf, in the name retained the spirit of the Anti- of God, to depart hence, and not christian church. Cranmer, who to presume thus to poison the flock bore a principal part among them, of Christ. The Priest appears to in ecclesiastical affairs, seems to advantage in his reply to this have possessed a natural disposi- harsh greeting, on the principle tion peculiarly forbearing and to common to both, the magistrate's have exercised a Christian spirit right of controul in religion. He on every subject, but religion. "said to Dr. Taylor," Thou trai Shakespeare makes his Henry the tor, what makes you come hither Ligoth, say 66 mim, as the com- to lett and disturb the Queen's promon voice," ceedings? In an age when perse cution, to death, was in vogue could Dr. T. want any thing but power, to burn the "popish wolf," which had intruded into his fold? of Do my Lord of Canterbury for ever. Yet Cranmer was as staunch a persecutor, under the gentle Ed- This is a fair conjecture, but ward, as when he had approved there is on record a damning proof under his imperious master Henry, of the sanguinary spirit which now the burning of Lambert and Anne possessed the English Reformers. Ascue. Mr. Gilpin, in his Life of Fox, in his Latin Book of Martyrs the Archbishop, (p. 59) says, far which I have not had an opportunity too mildly, that the spirit of po. of consulting but as translated, no pery was not yet wholly repressed." doubt faithfully, in Peirce's VinThe Reformers would have ab- dication of the Dissenters, (2d ed. horred the impiety of repressing p. 30), charges the Reformers with that spirit. Nor is there any good a design against the life of Hooper, reason to doubt that they would if he had not submitted to the hahave anticipated a Marian perse- bits, and adds "which unless he cution and burned the worshippers had done there are those who think with their images, had not the the bishops would have endeapower of the papists, instanced in voured to take away his life; for The effect of this persecution appears in Brandt's History of the Reformation in the Low Countries, where it is said that "in 1539, there were put to death at Delft, one and thirty Anabaptists that had fled from England, the men beheaded and the women drowned." Brandt, i. 77. his servant told me the Duke of tists, and were on the 3d of May, Suffolk sent such word to Hooper, brent on the high-way beyond who was not himself ignorant what Southwark towards Newington. they were doing." This passage P. 579. and others which I shall quote are omitted by Fox with more tenderness to the Reformers, as Mr. Peirce has hinted, than fidelity as an historian, in his English work. That work was certainly designed by its horrid details, assisted by the engraver's art, to excite a popular and unqualified odium against papists, who must not be suffered to On the death of Henry, the Andivide with Protestants even in any abaptists appear to have again proportion the guilt of persecution, visited this country, where, whatYet these bishops, who would have ever commotions some under that killed Hooper and thought they name had raised in Germany, they did God service, would not surely proved themselves a pacific, sufierhave voluntarily contented them- ing people. Burnet (ii. 105.) says selves with imprisoning Bonner that "they were generally Ger. and Gardiner because they refused mans, whom the revolutions there to act the farce of a Protestant pro- had forced to change their seats.” fession. Their lives could have Those called "the gentle or mod been spared only, because, as soon appeared on the accession of Mary, the majority of the nation were their adherents and might have be come their avengers. There were, however, a power less people against whom Protestant persecution might be exercised without reserve. These were the Anabaptists, who had appeared and suffered in the former reign, as I find by the following passages in Stowe's Annals, ed. 1631. 1538. The 24th November, four Anabaptists, three men and one woman, all Dutch, bare faggots at Paul's Cross. And on the 27th of November, a man and a woman, Dutch Anabaptists, were brent in Smithfield. P. 576. 1540. The 29th of April, one named Mandeveld, another named Colens, and one other were examined in St. Margaret's Church, and were condemned for Anabap erate Anabaptists, only thought that baptism ought not to be given but to those who were of an age capable of instruction. This opinion they grounded on the silence of the New Testament about the baptism of children, and they said the great decay of Christianity flowed from this way of making children Christians, before they understood what they did. But others who carried that name, denied almost all the princi ples of the Christian doctrine." Burnet was writing his history by command of the parliament, and had the 39 articles of a parliamen tary religion to support. He had just before stated, that this most heretical class of Anabaptists agreeing with Luther, "that the scripture was to be the only rule of Christians, argued that the mys teries of the trinity, and Christ's incarnation and sufferings, of the The poor affrighted John Asheton is then brought in detesting fall of man and the aids of grace, to bring us to the acknowledging were indeed philosophical subtle of his holy power by the Testaties, and only pretended to be de- ment." duced from scripture, and therefore they rejected them; among these the baptism of infants was and abhorring" such " damned opinions," and "willingly and with all his power affecting hereafter firmly to believe in the true and perfect faith of Christ and his holy church." That faith is described according to the tenor of one." Strype, in his Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer, (p. 179.) describes as the "heresies now vented abroad, the denial of the trinity, and of the deity of the Holy Ghost, and the assertion modern orthodoxy, and the scene that Jesus Christ was a mere man thus concludes. John Asheton and no true God, because he had "lifting up his hand, beseeched the accidents of human nature, his Grace to deal mercifully and such as hungering and thirsting graciously with him; and touchand being visible; and that the ing the gospel gave his faith, that benefit men receive by Jesus Christ he would faithfully and humbly was the bringing them to the true obey the commands of the Holy knowledge of God." A clergy- Mother Church, and whatsoever man of the name of Asheton, penance the said most reverend "preached these doctrines," for Father should lay upon him." which he was summoned, 28th Mr. Lindsey, in his Historical Dec. 1548, to Lambeth." Two View, (p. 65.) has quoted at large of the archbishop's chaplains soon this passage from Strype. Nor formed out of them the following can I forbear to add my late ven"schedule of diverse heresies erable friend's remarks on the and damned opinions," which transaction. (P.69.) Asheton was now tempted to re nounce. "1. That the trinity of persons was established by the confession of Athanasius, declared by a psalm Quicunque vuit, &c. and that the Holy Ghost is not God, but only a certain power of the Father. 2. That Jesus Christ, that was conceived of the Virgin Mary, was a holy prophet, and especially beloved of God the Father; but that he was not the true and living God: forasmuch as he was seen, and lived, hungered and thirsted. 3. That this only is the fruit of Jesus Christ's passion, that where as we were strangers from God and had no knowledge of his Testament, it pleased God by Christ, "Thu, by promises of life, and fears of the most dreadful fuf. ferings, were unhappy men dealt with and prevailed upon to make abjuration of their heresies, 1. e. to dissemble and speak contrary to their inward persuasion. For hardly any one, who, on such good grounds, as this Asheton, believed Jesus Christ to be truly one of the human race; or who believed the Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit, to be only the power of the Father; could soon, or, indeed, at all, be brought to believe these two to be, each of them, the most high God, and equal to the Father of all.” Cranmer, however, having thus begun in the flesh was not likely to end in the spirit. He soon found that the power of his chaplains to worry a heretic was une. qual to the now rapidly advancing mischief. As a persecutor, he determined to go on unto per fection," and, like a civil tyrant, began to cry" havoc, and let slip the dogs of war." a 66 mer the archbishop, seven bishops, Burnet (ii. 105.) says, that "on the 12th of April, 1549, there was complaint brought to the council that, with the strangers that were come into England, some of the Anabaptist persuasion had come over, and were disseminating their among their subjects, but more errors and making proselytes. So especially of himself, a defender a commission was ordered to exa- of the faith. After enlarging on mine and search after all Anabap- the idea of preserving that field of tists, heretics, or contemners of the the Church committed to his care Common Prayer, "sacrificing," as from the pernicious seeds of false Robert Robinson remarks, (Lect. doctrine, he complains of those p. 5.) "the rights of all the na. who are reviving and instilling into tion to a fancied prerogative of the minds of the rude vulgar the a boy." Strype (Mem. ii. 214,) impious errors of the Anabaptists says, that" Arianism now shewed and other heretics. itself so openly, and was in such All such the commissioners are danger of spreading farther, that it directed to search out, to call for was thought necessary to suppress papers in evidence, and swear and it by using more rigid methods than examine witnesses. Then, should seemed agreeable to the merciful these usual methods not reach the principles of the professors of the urgency of the case, they are emgospel." Yet neither Strype nor powered to set up a Protestant Burnet ventured to place this inquisition; for I know not what commission among their large col- to make less of the direction, om. lection of records, though they nibus aliis viis modis et formis could not reach the manly inde- quibus meliùs et efficaciùs poteritis, pendence, becoming impartial his. de veritate premissorum etiam sumtorians, of protesting against its in- mariè et de plano, ac sine strepitu quisitorial and sanguinary clauses. et figura judici, cognoscendum inIt is preserved, in the original la- quirendum et investigandum. The tin, in that great collection of recommendation especially to prostate papers, Rymer's Fadera, ceed without noise or the forms of (xv. 181,) from whence I shall a court of justice, sine strepitu et give some account of it, as the figura judicii, carries our thoughts first English Protestant manifesto to the secret chamber of an Inquisitor-General, surrounded by his against religious liberty. familiars. This commission is dated April 12, 1549, and directed to Cran The commissioners are next di The first founder of the society rected to restore heretics who ab. gregation in Leeds, which has jure, and appomt penances; but been repeatedly mentioned in the to proceed against the pertinacious Repository. and obstinate, desperately immersed in their errors, erroribus which afterwards assembled in suis desperatè immersum. Per. Call Lane chapel, Leeds, was the haps here is a pleasantry upon the Rev. Christopher Nesse, (in regard mode of the Baptists. Persecution to whom, see the Nonconformist's relaxing her brow for a moment, Memorial, vol. ii. 567.) ejected to grin horribly a ghastly smile. from his preferment in Leeds, Such, however, are to be cast out A. D. 1662. After suffering of the communion of the faithful, much persecution, he was at last and delivered over to the secular excommunicated three times; and, arm. There is added a full power upon the fourth, a writ was issued of calling before them all sus. out" de excommunicato capien. pected persons, of committing do;" to avoid which, he removed them to prison, and putting them to London in 1675. The follow in irons, carceri et vinculis, si ing anecdote will shew that he opus fuerit, mancipandi. was a man very much superior to Such was the formidable engine vulgar prejudices (but you will of oppression of which the English either insert or suppress it at pleaProtestant Reformers now accept- sure). Going one Christmas with ed the use, or rather which they one of his hearers to pay some had prepared for their own pur. visits in the congregation, a good pose, as it would be unfair to fix woman brought out the great upon the memory of the royal Yorkshire goose-pie for the enterchild the deep disgrace of this tainment of her visitors. sanguinary commission. Nesse's friend objected to this dish, as savouring of superstition. "Well then, brother (said Mr. Nesse), if these be walls of superstition, let us pull them down." I need not add that he immediately set about the business of demolition. After him was Mr. Thomas Whitaker, who is mentioned in the Monthly Repository, (vol. vi. pp. 9, 260.) as having been a pupil of the Rev. Richard Frankland. He too suffered much for conscience sake, I designed, when I began this letter, to trace the steps of English Protestant Persecution to the conclusion of the reign of Edward. But I have already sufficiently intruded on your pages, and must reserve an account of the sufferers under this commission for the subject of another letter. R. G. S. Mr. Dissenting Congregation, Call and was imprisoned for some time Lane, Leeds. in York castle. He died, minis. ter at Call Lane, Nov. 19, 1710. aged 66. (See M. Rep.) He was succeeded by the Rev. William Moult (whose son Samuel was minister at Rotherham, and died there, Sep. 16, 1766, aged 58). SIR, March 7, 1812. Perceiving that you seem inclined to insert accounts of Dissenting congregations and their successive ministers, I take the liberty of sending you a few particulars relating to a Dissenting con- Mr. Moult died in 1727 or 1728, |