Lord, it is indeed. His friend adding, "The Lord make your passage easy;" he said, I trust he will. Being asked if he had any thing to say to the sheriff, he said, No, but only to thank him for his civility. The hangman then preparing him for death, and drawing away the cart, Mr. James cried aloud, with his hands lifted up towards heaven, Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit. The sheriff and hangman were so civil to him in the execution, that they suffered him to be dead before his body was cut down. The hangman then took out his heart and bowels, and burned them in a fire prepared for the purpose. He then cut off his head, and cut his body into four quarters; and, by the appointment of the king, the quarters were fixed upon the gates of the city, and his head first upon Londonbridge, then upon a pole opposite the meeting-house in Bulstake-alley.* This tragic and brutal scene was transacted upon the remains of this humble and holy man, November 26, 1661. But if there were any undue combination against him; and if he suffered for some reason of state, rather than for any crime that he was guilty of, his blood will God require at the hands of his enemies. Several remarkable judgments befell those who were active instruments in promoting his sufferings, or expressed their delight in them. PRAISE-GOD BAREBONE was of the baptist persuasion, and pastor to a church of that denomination, meeting in Fleetstreet, London. This church was originally part of that under the pastoral care of Mr. Stephen More; which, upon his death, divided by mutual consent, just one half choosing Mr. Henry Jessey for its pastor, the other half Mr. Barebone. He was by trade a leather-seller, afterwards a very popular preacher, and at last a member of parliament, and a man of so much celebrity, that one of Cromwell's parliaments was, out of contempt, called Barebone's parliament. In a pamphlet entitled, " New Preachers, New," is the following scurrilous, but amusing account of him and several others:"Greene, the felt-maker; Spencer, the horse-rubber; Quartermine, the brewer's clerk; and some few others, who are mighty sticklers in this new kind of talking trade, which many ignorant coxcombs call preaching. Whereunto is added the last. tumult in Fleet-street, raised by the disorderly preach+ Ibid. p. 47. * Narrative, p. 46. ment, pratings, and prattlings of Mr. Barebones, the leatherseller; and Mr. Greene, the felt-maker, on Sunday last, the 19th of December." The tumult alluded to is thus curiously described:"A brief touch in memory of the fiery zeal of Mr. Barebones, a reverend unlearned leather-seller, who, with Mr. Greene, the felt-maker, were both taken preaching or prating in a conventicle, amongst a hundred persons, on Sunday, the 19th of December last, 1641. "After my commendations, Mr. Rawbones, (Barebones, I should have said,) in acknowledgment of your too much troubling yourself, and molesting of others, I have made bold to relate briefly your last Sunday's afternoon work, lest in time your meritorious pains-taking should be forgotten, (for the which you and your associate Mr. Greene, do well deserve to have your heads in the custody of young Gregory, to make buttons for hempen loops :) you two having the spirit so full, that you must either vent, or burst, did on the sabbath aforesaid, at your house near Fetter-lane end, in Fleetstreet, at the sign of the Lock and Key, there and then did you and your consort (by turns) unlock most delicate strange doctrine, where were about thousands of people, of which number the most ignorant applauded your preaching, and those that understood any thing derided your ignorant prating. But after four hours long and tedious tattling, the house where you were beleaquered with multitudes that thought fit to rouse you out of your blind devotion; so that your walls were battered, your windows all in fractions, torn into rattling shivers, and worse the hurly-burly might have been, but that sundry constables came in with strong guards of men to keep the peace, in which conflict your sign was beaten down and unhanged, to make room for the owner to supply the place; all which shews had never been, had Mr. Greene and Mr. Barebones been content (as they should have been) to have gone to their own parish churches." This account shews that these new preachers excited uncommon attention, and were so very popular as to draw thousands after them. The tumult was occasioned, not by their preaching, but by the opposition that was raised against it, "by certain lewd fellows of the baser sort." The preachers and a hundred of the people were taken by the constables, but it is not said whether they were taken to preserve them from the fury of the mob or to bring them to justice. Had * New Preacher's, New. the latter been the case, and they had suffered any thing for their conduct, it is highly probable this writer would have transmitted some account of it to posterity. Mr. Barebone, however, continued his ministerial labours for many years among the people; and, in the year 1654, when the baptist churches published their " Declaration," he was still pastor of this church. Among those who subscribed it, "twentytwo were of the church that walks with Mr. Barebone."* According to Rapin, he passed among his neighbours for a notable speaker, and used to entertain them with long harangues upon the times. This undoubtedly pointed him out to the notice of Cromwell, who nominated him a member of the legislative body that succeeded the long parliament in 1653. Thus he continued pastor of his church, even after he became member of parliament. In this assembly, he was so greatly distinguished for ability and activity, that the members, who were but little skilled in politics, received from him, in derision, the appellation of Barebone's parliament.t As a politician, he was constantly zealous in the cause of the commonwealth; but upon the dissolution of the above assembly, about five months afterwards, he appears to have retired from any further concern in the government. Upon the motion of inviting home the king, he took part with the opposition, and presented a petition to the parliament, from the "well-affected persons, inhabitants of the cities of London and Westminster," declaring their determination to support the commonwealth. General Monk, being then in London, with a view to restore the king, and intent upon the re-admission of the secluded members, who knew Mr. Barebone's popularity, was obliged to make a general muster of his army; when he wrote a letter to the parliament, expostulating with them " for giving too much countenance to that furious zealot and his adherents." The petitioners, however, received the thanks of the house for the expression of their good affections to the parliament.§ Mr. Barebone was at this time concerned in the publica tion of a book against the court of Charles the Second, entitled, "News from Brussels, in a letter from a near attendant on his majesty's person, to a person of honour here. Dated March 10, 1659, O. S." A reverend prelate styles this a rascally piece against the king, to expose him to the hatred of his people;" and it was designed, it is said, “ to ·Declaration, p. 22. +Rapin's Hist. of Eng. vol. ii. p. 590. Granger's Biog. Hist. vol. iii. p. 68. Ibid. Kennet's Chronicle, p. 52. VOL. III. | Ibid. p. 80. 2 D . destroy the favourable impressions that many had received of his natural inclination to mildness and clemency." It ought, however, to be observed, that the reputed author of this book was Marchmont Needham, and Mr. Barebone was only his agent in conveying it to the printer or bookseller.t On the thirtieth of the foregoing month, Mr. Barebone was summoned before the council of state, to answer such matters as were objected against him; but, on signing an engagement not to act in opposition to the existing government, or to disturb the same, he was discharged from any further attendance. After the restoration of the king, he was looked upon with a jealous eye, and on November 26, 1661, was apprehended, together with Major John Wildman, and James Harrington, esq., and committed prisoner to the Tower, where he continued for some time. On the meeting of parliament, early in the following year, Lord Clarendon, then lord chancellor, thought fit to alarm the house with the noise of plots and conspiracies, and enumerated the names of several persons whom he reported to be engaged in traitorous designs against the government. Among these were Major Wildman, Major Hains, Alderman Ireton, and Mr. Praise-God Barebone. How far the charge against these persons was substantiated, or whether it was only a political engine of government to get rid of suspected individuals, we will not take upon us to affirm. Certain it is, that Mr. Barebone had now to contend with the strong arm of the civil power, which was directed with all the acrimony of party prejudice against persons of his stamp. Wood, in contempt, styles him "a notorious schismatic, and a grand zealot in the good old cause."¶ The time of Mr. Barebone's death is not mentioned by any author we have seen, nor are we acquainted with any further particulars of his history. It may be observed, however, for the amusement of the reader, that there were three brothers of this family, each of whom had a sentence for his christian name, viz. Praise-God Barebone; Christ-came-into-theworld-to-save Barebone; and If-Christ-had-not-died-thouhadst-been-damned Barebone. In this last instance, some are said to have omitted the former part of the sentence, and to have called him only "Damned Barebone." This style * Biog. Britan. vol. v. p. 613. Edit. 1778. § Ibid. p. 567. ¡ Ibid. p. 602. I Wood's Athenæ, vol. ii. p. 469. of naming individuals was exceedingly common in the time of the civil wars; yet the absurd practice was not peculiar to that period; but was in use long before, and continues, in some measure, even to the present day. It is said that the genealogy of our Saviour might be learnt from the names in Cromwell's regiments; and that the muster-master used no other list than the first chapter of Matthew. JOHN LEY, A. M.-This laborious divine was born at Warwick, February 4, 1583, and educated at Christ's Church, Oxford. Having finished his studies at the university, he was presented to the vicarage of Great Budworth in Cheshire, where he continued a constant preacher for several years. Afterwards, he was made prebendary and sub-dean of Chester, where he had a weekly lecture at St. Peter's church, and was once or twice elected member of the convocation. But having always been puritanically inclined, he, upon the commencement of the civil war, espoused the cause of the parliament, took the covenant, was chosen one of the assembly of divines, and appointed Latin examiner to the assembly. A certain writer has placed Mr. Ley at the head of those divines who, he says, encouraged tumults," and whom, in derision, he styles "able, holy, faithful, laborious, and truly peaceable preachers of the gospel." The proof of his accusation is contained in Mr. Ley's own words, which are as follows: "It is not unknown, nor unobserved by the wise, that the ministers have been very serviceable to the civil state, and to the military too; not only by their supplications to God for good success in all their undertakings, and their happy proceedings in all their warlike marches and motions, as at the removal of the ark, Num. x. 35., Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered: Let them that hate thee, flee before thee; but by their informations and solicitations of the people to engage both their estates and persons in the cause of God and their country." The author, having produced these, with some other similar citations, triumphantly adds: " After these proofs and declarations of the ministers' zeal and industry for promoting, supporting, and carrying on the late bloody, impious, and unnatural war; let any man take upon him any longer to acquit the nonconformist divines of the guilt and consequence of that execrable rebellion." These are certainly * L'Estranges's Dissenters' Sayings, part ii. p. 51, 55. |