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owne hart, for which I desire to bee humblie thankefull.

"I doe not condemne your reasoninges, I doubt them, it's easie to object to the glorious actinges of God-if we look too much upon instruments. I have heard computations made of the members in par.-good kept out, the most bad remayning; it has beene soe this 9 yeears, yett what has God wrought, the greatest workes last, and still is at worke-therefore take heede of this scandall.-Bee not offended att the manner, perhaps noe other way was left, what if God accepted the zeale? as he did that of Phineas, whoose reason might have called for a furye. (?) What if the Lord have witnessed his approbation and acceptance to this alsoe? not only by signall outward acts, but to the hart alsoe. What if I feare my friend should withdrawe his shoulder from the Lord's worke, (O it's greivous to doe soe) through scandalls, through mistaken reasoninges, there's difficulty-there's trouble-in the other way, there's saftye-case-wisdom.

"In the one noe cleerness, (this is an objection indeed) in the other satisfaction. It is well if wee thought of that first and severed from the other considerations which doe often byace if not bribe the minde, whereby mists are often raised in the way wee should walke in, and wee call it darknesse or dissatisfaction. O our deceiptfull harts, O this fleting world! How great is it to bee the Lord's servant in any drudgerie? (I thought not to have written neere the other side love will not lett me alone. I have been often provoked)—in all hazards his work is fare above the worlds best. He makes us able in trouble to say soe, wee cannot of ourselves. How hard a thing it is to reason ourselves up to the Lord's service-though it bee soe honourable, how easie to putt ourselves out of itt, where the Flesh has soe many advantages.

"You was desired to goe alonge with us, I wish it still, yet wee are not tryumphinge -we may (for ought flesh knowes) suffer after all this, the Lord prepare us for his

good pleasure. You were with us, in the forme of things-why not in the power? I am perswaded your hart hankers after the hearts of your poore friendes—and will untill you can find others to close with—which I trust (though wee in ourselves bee contemptible) God will not lett you doe.

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My service to the deare little lady, I wish you make her not a greater temptation than she is take heede of all relations mercyes should not bee soe, yet wee too ofte make them soe.

"The Lord direct your thoughtes into the obedience of his will, and give you rest and peace in the truth, pray for

Your most true and affectionate
Servant in the Lord,
O. CROMWELL.

Corke, 1st of Sept. 1649.

"I received a letter from Rob. Hammond whome trulye I love in the Lord with most entyre affection, it much grieved mee, not because I judged but feared the whole spirit of itt was from-tentation, indeed I thought I perceived a proceedinge in it at which the Lord will (I trust) cause him to vnlearne. I would fayne have written to him, but am straightened in tyme, would hee would bee with us a little, perhaps it would doe noe hurt to him." For the Right Honourable

the Lord Wharton.

Note. For the Lord Wharton, that is, Philip Lord Wharton, whom Clarendon describes as 66 a fast man" to the Parliamentarians. See notices in WHITELOCK and THURLOE and in Noble Memoirs.

This first letter, as Mr. Tilbrook remarks, "was evidently intended to remove certain scruples entertained by Lord Wharton as to the justice of bringing King Charles to a criminal trial without the benefit of a jury." Robert Hammond, mentioned in the postscript, was Cromwell's cousin, and had married a daughter of Hampden. He commanded as a general officer at the battle of Naseby, and was governor of the Isle of Wight, and "the humane gaoler of Charles I. during his confinement there."-J. W. W.

CROMWELL.

"For the Right Noble the Lord Wharton,

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"I PROVE I love you-love you the Lord -take heede of disputinge, I was vntoward when I spake last with you in St. Jeames parke, I spake crosse in stateinge groundes, I spake to my iudginges of you which was that you-shall I name others? H. Laurence-Rob. Hammond, &c. had ensnared your selves with disputes-I believe you desired to bee satisfied and weyed and doubted your sinceritye, 'twas well-but vprightnesse (if itt bee not puerlye of God) may bee nay is comonlye deceaued, (?) the Lord perswade you, and all my deare friendes the results of your thoughts concerning late transactions, I knowe all your mistakes by a better argument than successe, let not your ingaginge too far vpon your own judgments bee your tentation or snare -much lesse successes-least you should bee thought to returne vpon lesse noble argument-it is in my hart to write the same thinges to Norton, Mountagu, and others-I pray you reade or comunicate theise foolish lines to others. I have knowne my folly do good—when affection has overcome my reason-I pray you iudge mee sinceere least a preiudice or coil bee putt vpon after advantages. How gracious has the Lord beene in this great businesse.

"Lord hyde not thy mercyes from our eyes my servise to the deare Ladye,

"I rest your most humble Servant,
"O. CROMWELL."

Note. This letter was written the day after the battle of Dunbar,-on which day Cromwell appears to have written two other letters at least, one to Mr. Speaker Lenthall, and another to his relation, Richard Major, Esq. Harsley, Hants. See HAWE's Life of Oliver Cromwell, vol. 3, p. 238, and Appendix, p. 513.

The persons alluded to in it are Colonel Robert Hammond, abovementioned; H. Lawrence, afterwards Lord H. Lawrence; Colonel Norton; and Montague, afterwards Earl of Sandwich. See TILBROOKE'S MSS.-J. W. W.

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My Lord,

"I KNOW I write to my friend therefore give leave to one bould word, in my very hart, your Lordship Dick Norton, Tom Westrowe, Robt. Hammond (though not intentionally) have helped one an other to stumble att the dispensations of God, and to reason your selves out of his servicewhich (?) now you have an oportunitye to associate with his people in his worke-and to manifest your willingnesse, and desire, to serve the Lord, against his and his people's enemies. Would you bee blessed out of Zion-and see the good of his peopleand reioyce with his inheritance-I advise you all, in the bowells of love, let it apeare you offer your selves willingly to his workwherein to bee accepted is more honor from the Lord-then the world-can give or bath.

"I am perswaded it needes you not save— as our Lord and Master needed the beastto shew his humilitye, meeknesse, and condescention-but you neede it to declare your submission to and owninge yourself the Lord's, and his people,—if you can breake through ould disputes I shall reioyce, if you help others to doe soe-alsoe doe not say you are now satisfied, because it is the ould quarrell as if it had not beene soe all this while, I have noe leisure, but a great deale of entyer affection to you and yoursand those names, which I thus plainly expresse-thankes to you and the dear Lady for all love and for poor foolish in all. (?) I am in good earnest, and soe alsoc, "Yr Lordps faythfull Friend, " and most humble Servant, "O. CROMWELL.

"Stratford on Avor, Augt. 27th. 1651."

Note. This letter was written during Cromwell's pursuit of King Charles II. and just a week previous to the memorable battle of Worcester, which was fought on the anniversary of that of anbar.

Mr. Tilbrook says, "of the third person men

K

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Laud.

LAUD-RUSHWORTH.

ARCHBISHOP ABBOT, in his Narrative (RUSHWORTH, vol. 1,) speaks of him thus malignantly.

"This man is the only inward counsellor with Buckingham, sitting with him sometimes privately whole hours, and feeding his humours with malice and spight. His life in Oxford was to pick quarrels in the lectures of the public readers, and to advertise them to the then Bishop of Durham, that he might fill the ears of King James with discontents against the honest men that took pains in their places, and settled the truth (which he called Puritanism) in their auditors. He made it his work to see what books were in the press, and to look over epistles dedicatory and prefaces to the reader, to see what faults might be found. It was an observation what a sweet man this was like to be, that the first observable act that he did was the marrying of the Earl of D. to the Lady R. when it was notorious to the world that she had another husband, and the same a nobleman who had divers children then living by her. King James did for many years take this so ill, that he would never hear of any great preferment of him; insomuch that the Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. Williams, who taketh upon him to be the first promoter of him, hath many times said, that when he made mention of Laud to the King his Majesty was so averse from it, that he was constrained oftentimes to say, that he would never desire to serve that master which could not remit one fault unto his servant. Well, in the end he did conquer it, to get him to the Bishopric of St. Davids, which he had not long enjoyed but he began to undermine his benefactor, as at this day it appeareth. The Countess of Bucking

tioned in this letter, Tom Westrowe,' I can find no mention whatever. Had it been 'Desbrowe' no difficulty would have occurred."-MSS. Notes. J. W. W.

ham told Lincoln, that St. David's was the man that undermined him with her son. And verily such is his aspiring nature, that he will underwork any man in the world, so that he may gain by it.

"This man who believeth so well of himself, framed an answer to my exceptions. But to give some countenance to it, he must call in three other bishops, that is to say, Durham, Rochester, and Oxford, tried men for such a purpose; and the whole style of the speech runneth We and We."

-p. 440.

1626. LAUD wrote a kind letter in behalf of some Catholic Priests in the Clink prison whose rooms had been searched, and complaint made to the H. Commons of the superstitious matters found there. "Good Mr. Attorney (General)," he says, "I thank you for acquainting me what was done yesterday at the Clink. But I am of opinion that if you had curiously enquired upon the gentleman who gave the information, you should have found him to be a disciple of the Jesuits, for they do nothing but put tricks on these poor men, who do live more miserable lives than if they were in the Inquisition in many parts beyond the seas. By taking the oath of allegiance, and writing in defence of it, and opening some points of high consequence, they have so displeased the Pope, that if by any cunning they could catch them, they are sure to be burnt or strangled for it. And once there was a plot to have taken Preston, as he past the Thames, and to have shipt him into a bigger vessel, and so to have transported him into Flanders, there to have made a martyr of him. In respect of these things, King J. always gave his protection to Preston and Warrington. Cannon is an old man, well affected to the cause, but meddleth not with any factions or seditions, as far as I can learn. They complain their books were taken from them, and a crucifix of gold, with some other things, which I hope are not carried out of the house, but

RUSHWORTH.

may be restored again unto them; for it is in vain to think that Priests will be without their beads or pictures and models of their saints; and it is not improbable that before a crucifix they do often say their prayers." -RUSHWORTH, vol. 1, p. 243.

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or the chief innovators of the Christian world, having nothing to say, accuse us of innovation; they themselves and their complices, in the mean time, being the greatest innovators that the Christian world hath almost ever known. I deny not but others have spread more dangerous errors in the Church of Christ; but no men, in any age of it, have been more guilty of inno

ACCOUNT of his Letters to Vossius, vation than they, while themselves cry out NICHOLS's Calvinism, p. cxxxi.

1637. THE information against Alex. Leighton, a Scotsman and D.D. charged him with affirming in his plea against Prelacy "that we do not read of greater persecution and higher indignity done upon God's people in any nation professing the Gospel, than in this our Island, especially since the death of Queen Eliz." Our prelacy he termed Anti-Christian and Satanical; the Bishops, men of blood, enemies to God and the State,-ravens and magpies that prey upon the state; and he said that the maintaining and establishing them in this realm is a main and master sin established by law. Kneeling at the Sacrament was "the received spawn of the Beast." The Queen he called the "daughter of Heth," and seemed most impiously to commend him "that murdered Buckingham, and to encourage others to second him in such like attempts."-RUSHWORTH, vol. 2, p. 55.

"WHEN the sentence was given against Prynn, Bastwick and Burton, Laud in his speech said, 'My care of this church, the reducing of it into order, the upholding of the external worship of God in it, and the settling of it to the rules of its first Reformation, are the causes, (and the sole causes, whatever are pretended) of all this malicious storm which hath lowred so black upon me and some of my brethren. And in the mean time, they which are the only,

against it. Quis tulerit Gracchos' " Ibid. vol. 2, p. 383.

LETTER to Lord Traquaire, 7th Aug. 1637, after the explosion at Edinburgh.

"I think you know my opinion, how I would have church business carried, were I as great a master of men, as (I thank God) I am of things. 'Tis true, the church there as well as elsewhere hath been overborne by violence, both in matter of maintenance and jurisdiction. But if the church will recover in either of these, she and her governors must proceed, not as she was proceeded against, but by a constant temper she must make the world see she had the wrong, but offer none. And since law hath followed in that kingdom, perhaps to make good that which was ill done; yet since a law it is, such a reformation or restitution would be sought for, as might stand with the law, and some expedient be found out how the law be by some just exposition helped, till the state shall see cause to abolish it."Ibid. vol. 2, p. 389.

SOME of Laud's libellers complained "that the prayer for seasonable weather was purged out of the last Fast-book, which was," said they, "one cause of shipwrecks and tempestuous weather."

After pleading the undoubted right to put in or leave out whatever should be thought fit on such occasions, he observes that "for the particular, when this last book was set out, the weather was very sea

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sonable. And it is not the custom of the church, nor fit in itself, to pray for seasonable weather when we have it, but when we want it. When the former book was set out, the weather was extreme ill, and the harvest in danger; now, the harvest was in, and the weather good.

"Thirdly, 'tis most inconsequent to say that the leaving that prayer out of the book of devotions caused the shipwrecks and the tempests which followed; and as bold they are with God Almighty in saying it was the cause. For sure I am, God never told them that was the cause. And if God never revealed it, they cannot come to know it."-1637, Speech at the Censure of Prynne, Bastwick and Barton, RUSHWORTH, Vol. 2, p. 2, App. 120.

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20 Nov. 1640. "A RESOLUTION of the House of Commons that none should sit in that House after the communion-day, but those that had first received the sacrament. And a committee was appointed to go to the Lord Bishop Williams, Dean of Westminster, to desire that the elements might be consecrated upon a communion table standing in the middle of the church, according to the Rubrick, and to have the table removed from the altar thither. The Dean replied, He would readily do it at their request, and would do the like for any parishioner in his diocese." — Ibid. p. 3, vol. 1, p. 53.

THE London Petition, 1640, complains of "the suppressing of that godly design set on foot by certain saints, and sugared with many great gifts by sundry well-affected persons, for the buying of impropriations and placing of able ministers in them, maintaining of lectures, and founding of freeschools, which the prelates could not endure, lest it should darken their glories, and draw the ministers from their dependence upon them."—Ibid. p. 94.

ALSO of "the great conformity and likeness, both continued and increased, of our Church to the Church of Rome, in vestures, postures, ceremonies, and administrations; namely, as the bishop's rotchets and the lawn sleeves, the four-cornered cap, the cope and surplice, the tippet, the hood and the canonical coat; the pulpits cloathed (especially now of late) with the Jesuits' badge (I. II. S.) upon them every way."

SIR HARBOTTLE GRIMSTON. 1640.

"There is scarce any grievance or complaint come before us in this place, wherein we do not find him intermentioned, and as it were, twisted into it; like a busy angry wasp, his sting is in the tail of every thing. This man is the corrupt fountain that hath corrupted all the streams, and till the fountain be purged, we can never expect nor hope to have clear channels."-Ibid. part 3, vol. 1, p. 122.

"Ar the beginning of Charles's reign, the monks and secular clergy disputed in print concerning their respective rights to the abbey lands! The latter relied upon the dispensation granted by Cardinal Pool in the second year of Queen Mary, and therefore, they argued, this dispensation having been given in public parliament, and parliament having enacted that it should stand of form in law to be pleaded, &c. it may now be questioned whether, by the ancient laws of this land, his holiness can now restore the lands of those deaneries and chapters challenged by the monks, to any religious order without express consent of the king, and that this act of parliament be first repealed.

"And therefore,' says Mr. Button, a missioner, writing in 1628, we may see what folly it was in these monks, that published their challenge in print, to make both us and themselves laughing-stocks to such as hold the possession from us both; and

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