fresh examples ' Mr Samuel Ward's case, and Mr Chauncy's case,
are then naiTated. ' To these we could add,' he proceeds, ' Mr Cotton, Mr Hooker, Mr Davenport, Mr Wells, Mr Peters, Mr Glover, and sundry other ministers, driven into New England and other plantations.' And then ' Dr Stoughton, Dr Sihhes, Dr Taylor, Dr Gouge, Mr White of Dor- chester, Mr Piogers of Dedham, with sundiy more of our most eminent preaching, orthodox divines, were brought into the High Commission, and troubled or silenced for a time by his procurement upon frivolous pre- tences, but in truth because they were principal props of our Protestant rehgion against his Popish and Arminian innovations.'*
Now, we have the actual books containing the actual preach- ing of these men, and the numerous others who shared their per- secution. They are in our libraries ; and he must be either a bold or a very foolish man, not only rash, but reckless, who gainsays that, re'move these hooks fromi the Christian literature of the period and you reinove the very life-blood of that literature.
The most recent, truthful, and catholic of ' the church' histo- rians, Mr Perry,t admits that all the practical writers of the age were of the puritans and sufferers for nonconformity ; and he names a few, Willet and Dyke, Preston and Byfield, Bolton and Hildersam, and Sibbes. ' This fact,' he candidly observes, ' must needs have told with extreme force against the interests of the church. It was doubtless alleged that the church divines could only speak when their position or their order was menaced, but in the face of the great and crying sins and scandals of the age they were dumb and tongue- tied ;' and he might have added, in view also of the gross ignorance and darkness in which whole districts of the country were shrouded.
I should make larger reservation or exceptions in favour of 'church' writers than Mr Perry does ; for I find in Thomas Adams and Anthony Farindon, and others, whom I love equally with the fore- most of the puritans, the same preaching with theirs. Still it re- mains that the men whom Laud delighted to honour were the men who were vehement enough to bring men to ' the church,' but not at all concerned about bringing them to Christ ; ready to dispense
* ' Canterburie's Doom,' pp. 362, seq. 1646, folio.
t The History of the Church of England from the death of Elizabeth to the pre- sent time. By the Rev. G. G. Perry, MA., Rector of Waddington. Vol, I. 1861. (Saunders. Otley, & Co.) See C, ix. p. 326.
VOL. I. e
Ixviii MEMOIE OF EICHARD SIBBES, D.L).
the sacraments, but oblivious of their antitype ; swift to jangle in. hot controversies on ' super-elementation,' but cold about the one transcendent change ; reverers of the altar, but despisers of the cross. We have defences of the church, its tithes and dignities, its upholstery and repairs, ad nauseam. We have the primate himself fervid about his genu-flexions and reverence to the na,7ne of Christ, and the name only ; and a Mountagu, ribald as Billingsgate against holy Samuel Ward. They were, as was jested of a modern Lord Chancellor, buttresses rather than pillars of ' the church.' We look in vain all through the extant writings of the bishops named, from Laud downward, for anything ap- proaching one earnest, heartfelt utterance as from a servant of Jesus Christ to perishing sinners, one living word to men as * under wrath,' nay, for one flash of genius, one gush of human feeling. They had no answer for the 'Anxious Inquirer' as he cried — ■ 'lama sinner, full of doubts and fears, Make me a humble thing of love and tears.' *
There exists not a more meagre, inane, contemptible literature, taken as a whole, than that composed of the Laudian books pro- per; for it were a historic blunder, as well as a slander, to include Hall or Ussher or Bedell or Davenant among them, from the mere accident of their first appointment, more or less, coming from Laud. Yet we must believe that what they printed and gave to the world was their best, and at least was the preaching their auditories heard. On the other hand, it equally remains unchallengeable that the men whom Laud delighted to persecute were the only men then in England who were really discharging, in the fear of God, their office of preachers of the gospel, men, at the same time, of gener- ous loyalty, and lovers, with the deepest affection, of that reformed church from which they were driven in 1662.
Such having been the state of things, it is only what we should expect, to find even the unpolemic and gentle Sibbes speaking out against the doings and tendencies of the men in authority. There is a time to be silent, and a time to speak. Fealty to truth demanded plain words, and translating of words into acts. Nor was either awanting. For words take these, over which we can conceive even the rheumy eyes of the primate flashing fire. They are taken from sermons preached during this period, and afterwards fearlessly published. I venture to italicise some few lines : —
' What shnll wc tliiuk them to bo of that take advantacjos of the bruised- ncss and iiihnnitios of men's spirits to relieve them with iiilse peace for