people; and it can hardly be expressed, says Echard, with what joyful acclamations his majesty was received, and what loyal acknowledgments were paid him in all places; but in the affair of the tests, says Burnet,* there was a visible coldness among the nobility and gentry, though the king behaved in a most obliging manner.

He

When the king returned from his progress, he began to change the magistracy in the several corporations in England, according to the powers reserved to the crown in the new charters; he turned out several of the aldermen of the city of London, and placed new ones in their room. caused the lists of lord-lieutenants and deputy-lieutenants to be reviewed, and such as would not promise to employ their interests in the repeal of the penal laws were discarded. Many Protestant dissenters were put into commission on this occasion, in hopes that they would procure such members for the next parliament as should give them a legal right to what they now enjoyed only by the royal favour; but when the king pressed it upon the lord-mayor of London, and the new aldermen, who were chiefly dissenters, they made no reply.

The reason of the dissenters' backwardness in an affair that so nearly concerned them, and in which they have since expressed so strong a desire, was their concern for the Protestant religion, and their aversion to Popery. The king was not only a Roman Catholic, but a bigot; and it was evident, that the plucking up the fences at this time must have made a breach at which Popery would enter. If the king had been a Protestant, the case had been different, because Papists could not take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy to a prince who stood excommunicated by the church of Rome; but now there would be no obstacle, or if there was, the king would dispense with the law in their favour: the dissenters therefore were afraid, that if they should give in to his majesty's measures, though they might secure their liberty for the present, it would stand on a precarious

ter at that time; who, in a speech to king James, on his entering into the city, told him, "that the corporation was his majesty's creature, and depended on the will of its creator; and that the sole intimation of his majesty's pleasure should have with them the force of a fundamental law." Mr. Thompson's MS. collections under the word "CHESTER."-ED.

foundation; for if Popery came in triumphant, it would not only swallow up the church of England, but the whole Protestant interest. They chose therefore to trust their liberty to the mercy of their Protestant brethren, rather than receive a legal security for it under a Popish government.

According to this resolution bishop Burnet observes,* that sir John Shorter the new lord-mayor, and a Protestant dissenter, thought fit to qualify himself for this office, according to law, though the test was suspended, and the king had signified to the mayor that he was at liberty, and might use what form of worship he thought best in Guildhall, which was designed as an experiment to engage the Presbyterians to make the first change from the established worship, concluding, that if a Presbyterian mayor did this one year, it would be easy for a Popish mayor to do it the next; but his lordship referred the case to those clergymen who had the government of the diocess of London during the bishop's suspension, who assured his lordship it was contrary to law; so that though the lord-mayor went sometimes to the meetings of dissenters, he went frequently to church, and behaved with more decency, says his lordship, than could have been expected. This disobliged the king to a very high degree, insomuch that he said, the dissenters were an ill-natured sort of people that could not be gained.

This opposition to the king heightened his resentments, and pushed him on to rash and violent measures: if he had proceeded by slow degrees, and secured one conquest before he had attempted another, he might have succeeded, but he gave himself up to the fury of his priests, who advised him to make haste with what he intended. This was discovered by a letter from the Jesuits from Liege to those of Friburgh, which says, the king wished they could furnish him with more priests to assist him in the conversion of the nation, which his majesty was resolved to bring about, or die a martyr in the attempt. He said, he must make haste that he might accomplish it in his lifetime; and when one of them was lamenting that his next heir was a heretic, he answered, God will provide an heir; which argued either a strong faith, or a former design of imposing one on the nation. Father Petre was the king's chief minister, * Burnet, p. 145. + Ibid. p. 135.

and one of his majesty's privy-council, a bold and forward man, who stuck at nothing to ruin the church. The king designed him for the archbishopric of York, now vacant, and for a cardinal's cap, if he could prevail with the pope; for this purpose the earl of Castlemain was sent ambassador to Rome; and a nuncio was sent from thence into England, to whom his majesty paid all possible respect, and gave an audience at Windsor, though it was contrary to law; all commerce with the court of Rome having been declared high-treason by the statute of king Henry VIII. but the king said he was above law; and because the duke of Somerset would not officiate in his place at the ceremony, he was dismissed from all his employments.

It was strange infatuation in king James to put a slight on the ancient nobility, and turn most of his servants out of their places because they were Protestants; this weakened his interest, and threw a vast weight into the opposite scale. Indeed it was impossible to disguise his majesty's design of introducing Popery,+ and therefore Parker, bishop of Oxford, was employed to justify it, who published a book, entitled, "Reasons for abrogating the test imposed on all members of parliament;" which must refer to the renouncing transubstantiation, and the idolatry of the church of Rome; because the members of parliament had no other qualification imposed upon them besides the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. The bishop said much to excuse the doctrine of transubstantiation, and to free the church of Rome from the charge of idolatry. His reasons were licensed by the earl of Sunderland, and the stationer was commanded not to print any answer to them; but Dr. Burnet, then in Holland, gave them a very smart and satirical reply, which quite ruined the bishop's reputation.

But his majesty's chief dependance was upon the army, which he was casting into a Popish mould; Protestant officers were cashiered; Portsmouth and Hull, the two principal sea-ports of England, were in Popish hands; and the majority of the garrisons were of the same religion. Ireland was an inexhaustible seminary, from whence England was to be supplied with a Catholic army; an Irish Roman Catholic, says Welwood, was a most welcome guest at Whitehall; and they came over in shoals. Over + Ibid. p. 178.

*Burnet, p. 168

and above complete regiments of Papists, there was scarce a troop or company in the army wherein some of that religion were not inserted, by express orders from court. Upon the whole, the affairs of the nation were drawing to a crisis; and it was believed, that what the king could not accomplish by the gentler methods of interest and persuasion, he would establish by his sovereign power. The army at Hounslow was to awe the city and parliament; and if they proved refractory, an Irish massacre, or some other desperate attempt, might possibly decide the fate of the

nation.

About this time died the Rev. David Clarkson, B. D. born at Bradford in Yorkshire, February 1621-22, and fellow of Clare-hall, Cambridge, where he was tutor to Dr. Tillotson, afterward archbishop of Canterbury. Dr. Bates in his funeral sermon gives him the character of a man of sincere godliness and true holiness: humility and modesty were his distinctive characters; and his learning was superior to most of his time, as appears by his Treatise of Liturgies, his Primitive Episcopacy, his Practical Divinity of Papists destructive to Men's Souls; and his volume of Sermons, printed after his death. He was sometime minister of Mortlake in Surrey, but after his ejectment he gave himself up to reading and meditation, shifting from one place of obscurity to another, till the times suffered him to appear openly; he was then chosen successor to the reverend Dr. John Owen,* in the pastoral office to his congregation. Mr. Baxter says, he was a divine of solid judgment, of healing, moderate principles, of great acquaintance with the fathers, of great ministerial abilities, and of a godly upright life. Great was his solemnity and reverence in prayer; and the method of his sermons was clear, deep, and instructive. His death was unexpected, though, as he declared, it was no surprise to him, for he was entirely re

* This is an inaccuracy: he was chosen co-pastor with Dr. Owen, July 1682, a year before the doctor's death. To the above account of Mr. Clarkson, it is not improper to add, that his excellent pupil, bishop Tillotson, always preserved that respect for him which he had contracted while he was under his tuition. His book on Diocesan Episcopacy shews him, says Mr. Granger, to have been a man of great reading in church history. In his conversation, a comely gravity, mixed with innocent pleasantness, were attractive of respect and love. He was of a calm temper, not ruffled with passions, but gentle, and kind, and good; his breast was the temple of peace. Palmer's Nonconformists' Memorial, vol. 2. p. 451. Birch's Life of Tillotson, p. 4; and Granger's History of England, vol. 3. p. 310, 8vo.-ED.

signed to the will of God, and desired not to outlive his usefulness. This good man, says Dr. Bates, like holy Simeon, had Christ in his arms, and departed in peace, to see the salvation of God above, in the sixty-sixth year of his age.

Dr. Thomas Jacomb was born in Leicestershire, and educated first in Magdalen-hall, Oxon, and after in Emanuel-college, Cambridge, from whence he removed to Trinity-college, of which he was fellow. He came to London in 1647, and was soon after minister of Ludgate parish, where he continued till he was turned out in 1662. He met with some trouble after his ejectment, but being received into the family of the countess dowager of Exeter, daughter of the earl of Bridgwater, he was covered from his enemies. This honourable and virtuous lady was a comfort and support to the Nonconformist ministers throughout the reign of king Charles II. Her respects to the doctor were peculiar, and her favours extraordinary, for which he made the best returns he was able. The doctor was a learned man, an able divine, a serious affectionate preacher, of unspotted morals, and a Nonconformist upon moderate principles. He died of a cancerous humour, that put him to the most acute pain, which he bore with invincible patience and resignation till the 27th March 1687, when he died in the countess of Exeter's house, in the sixty-sixth year of his age.*

Mr. John Collins was educated in Cambridge, New-England, and returned from thence in the times of the civil war, became a celebrated preacher in London, having a sweet voice, and a most affectionate manner in the pulpit. He was chaplain to general Monk when he marched out of Scotland into England, but was not an incumbent any where when the act of uniformity took place. Being of the Independent denomination, he succeeded Mr. Mallory as pastor of a very considerable congregation of that persuasion, and was one of the Merchant lecturers at Pinner's-hall.

* It is a proof what different colouring a character derives from the dispositions and prejudices of those whose pen draws it, that Dr. Sherlock, who seems to have received some provocation from Dr. Jacomb, represents him "as the prettiest, nonsensical, trifling goose-cap, that ever set pen to paper." This description is contradicted by the nature of his library; if the choice of books indicate the turn of the mind. He left an incomparable collection of the most valuable books in all kinds of learning, and in various languages, which sold for 1300l. Granger's History of Englaud, vol. 3. p. 307.-ED.