which he preached in the church-yard, which was considered as a crime too great to be connived at, or excused. At length he was taken into custody, and was first prosecuted, at a petty sessions, in the county, and then sent up a prisoner to London with articles of complaint against him to the parliament. On his examination he proved, by witnes ses of reputation, that he had neither sowed sedition, nor raised a tumult, and that all the disorders which had happened were owing to the violence and malignity of his opposers, who had acted contrary both to law and common civility. He produced copies of the sermons he had preached, and afterwards printed them. His answers were so satisfactory, that on the report made by the committee to the house, he was not only discharged, but a vote passed, that he might have liberty to preach in any part of Suffolk, when the minister of the place did not himself preach there. But, besides the trouble which this business occasioned to him, it devolved on him an expence of sixty pounds.

Mr. Knollys, finding how much offence was taken at his preaching in the church, and to what troubles it exposed him, set up a separate meeting in Great St. Helens, London; where the people flocked to hear him, and he had, generally, a thousand auditors. Great umbrage was taken at this, the landlord was prevailed upon to warn him out of the place, and Mr. Knollys was summoned before a committee of divines, who used to sit in the room called the Queen's Court, Westminster, to answer for his conduct in this matter. The chairman asked, why he presumed to preach without holy orders? To which he replied, he was in holy orders. The chairman, on this, was informed, that he had renounced episcopal ordination: this Mr. Knollys confessed, but pleaded, that he was now ordained, in a church of God, according to the order of the gospel, and then explained the manner of ordination amongst the baptists. At last he was commanded to preach no more: but he told them, that he would preach the gospel, both publicly, and from house to house; saying, "it was more equal to obey "Christ who commanded him, than those who forbad him :" and so went away. A letter, which Mr. Knollys wrote to Mr. Dutton, of Norwich, in which were some reflections on the persecuting measures of those times, and which com

ing into the hands of the Suffolk committee was sent up to London, and presently published by one of the chief promoters of persecution, is supposed to have inflamed the proceedings against him. As it is short, I will give a copy of it below. It was too common a practice, then, to seize and publish the letters of those who were called sectaries.

This happened to Mr. John Sims, who preached at Hampton. He was prevailed on, in a journey to Taunton, to preach in the parish church of Middlesoy. On this he was seized by virtue of the act against unordained ministers, and the letters, which he was to deliver to some pious friends were taken from him. These with the examination were sent to London, by way of complaint against him, and printed. The charges specified in the examination were for preaching and denying infant-baptism. He admitted the latter, and pleaded against the former, that "as Peter was called, so was he."+

The next name on the list of sufferers is Mr. Andrew Wyke. On his examination he refused to answer to the questions concerning the doctrines he held, or his authority for preaching; alledging, that as a freeman of England

* Crosby, vol. i. p. 226-230; and a very short and partial account in Edwards's Gangræna, vol. i. p. 39.

"Beloved Brother,

"I salute you in the Lord. Your letter I received the last day of the week; and upon the first day I did salute the brethren in your name, who re-salute you and pray for you. The city presbyterians have sent a letter to the synod, dated from Sion-College, against any toleration; and they are fasting and praying at Sion-College this day, about further contrivings against God's poor innocent ones; but God will doubtless answer them according to the idol of their own hearts. To-morrow there is a fast kept by both houses, and the synod at Westminster. They say it is to seek God about the establishing of worship according to their covenant. They have first vowed, now they make enquiry. God will certainly take the crafty in their own snare, and make the wisdom of the wise foolishness;" for "he chooseth the foolish things of this world to confound the wise, and weak things to confound the mighty." My wife and family remember their love to you. SaJute the brethren that are with you. Farewell.

Four brother in the faith and fellowship of the gospel, HANSERD KNOLLYS." "London the 13th day of the 11th Month called January, 1645.”

† Crosby, vol. i. p. 232, 3; and Edwards's Gangræna, vol. ii. p. 50, &c. where four of the letters are printed.

VOL. III.

70

he was not bound to answer to any interrogatories, either to accuse himself or others: but if they had ought against him, they should lay their charge, and produce their proofs. This conduct was looked upon as great obstinacy, and expressive of high contempt of authority; and he was therefore sent to gaol, 3d June 1646. The duration of his imprisonment is not known; but while he was under confinement a pamphlet, drawn up by himself or some friend, entitled "The Innocent in Prison complaining," being a narrative of the proceedings against him, was published: in which the committee and some members of it did not escape severe reflection.*

The last person, whom I shall mention as suffering in this period, is Mr. Samuel Oates; whose name is brought forward by Mr. Neal, in a manner that has provoked, not wholly without reason, the severe censure of Mr. Crosby: for it leaves the reader to confound this Outes with Titus Oates, so noted in our historians with a brand of infamy upon him; and uninformed of the issue of the proceedings against him on the heavy charge of murder.

This Mr. Samuel Oates was a popular preacher, and great disputant. On a journey into Essex, in 1646, he preached in several parts of that county, and baptised by immersion a great number of people, especially about Bocking, Braintree, and Tarling. Amongst the hundreds he baptised, one died within a few weeks after, and her death was imputed to her being dipped in cold water. The magistrate was prevailed upon to apprehend Mr. Oates on this charge, and to send him to prison, and to put him in irons as a murderer, in order to his trial at the ensuing assizes. The name of the woman was Ann Martin, and the report spread against Mr. Oates was, that in the administration of baptism he held her so long in the water, that she fell presently sick; that her belly swelled with the abundance of water she took in; that, within a fortnight or three weeks, she died; and on her death-bed expressed this dipping to be the cause of her death." He was arraigned for his life at Chelmsford assizes. But on the trial, several credible witnesses, amongst them the mother of the deceased, deposed on oath, that "Ann Martin was in better health for

Edwards, vol. ii. p. 169; Crosby, vol. i. p. 235.

several days after her baptism than she had been for some time before, and that she was seen to walk abroad afterwards very comfortably." So that, notwithstanding all the design and malignity which discovered themselves in the trial he was brought in Not guilty. But this verdict was not sufficient to disarm the rage of the populace against him. For a little time after, some who were known to have been batized going, occasionally, to Wethersfield in Essex, on alarm being given that Mr. Oates and his companions were come, the mob arose and seized upon these innocent persons, dragged them to a pump, and treated them like the worst of villains: though Oates, against whom they were chiefly enraged, was not of the party. Not long after this the mob, without any provocation, but because he dared to come to the place, drew him out of a house at Dunmow, and threw him into a river, boasting that they had thoroughly dipped him.*

The preceding facts shew, that obloquy attached itself to the principles of the baptists, and that they were marked out as objects for the virulence of the populace and the animadversion of the magistrate. Next to the quakers, observes a late historian, "they were perhaps the most hated and persecuted sect." But it should be owned, in mitigation of the conduct of their persecutors, that at least in some instances they inflamed the spirits of men against them, as Mr. Neal suggests, by their own imprudence and the impetuosity of their zeal. Much enthusiasm appears

* Edwards's Gangræna, vol. i. p. 121; and Crosby, vol. i. p. 236— 38, and p. 240. In the preceding detail the disturbance given to an assembly, at Deadman's place, January 18, 1640, mentioned by Fuller, is omitted; because he is mistaken in calling it an anabaptistical congregation; and the matter has been stated, before, by Mr. Neal, vol. ii. p. 375, 76. But it may be added to what is there said, either in the text or the notes, concerning this congregation and its ministers, that Mr. Hubbard, or Herbert, its first pastor, was a learned man, and had received episcopal ordination; that in his time, the church accompanied him to Ireland, where he died; that it then returned to England ; that Mr. Stephen Moore, its minister in 1640, who had been a deacou of it, was possessed of an estate, a man of good reputation, and endowed with a considerable share of ministerial abilities; that, from the beginning or very early, it practised mixed communion: and that it was severely persecuted by the clergy and the bishops' courts. Crosby, vol. i. p. 163-5.

+ Gough's History of the Quakers, vol. i. p. 52, note.

to have animated the profession of their opinions; and it was the fashion of the times for every party to advance its peculiar sentiments in coarse and irritating language; each assumed this licentiousness of speech, but none took it patiently from others. The baptist incurred censure, and excited jealousy and resentment, by disturbing congregations and dispersing challenges to dispute with any minister or ministers on the questions relative to baptism. This was much according to the practice of the times. Mr. Baxter, we have seen, challenged Mr. Cox and Dr. Gunning, afterwards regius professor of divinity at Cambridge and bishop of Ely, in the year 1656, went into the congregation of Mr. Biddle, and began a dispute with him. But while the members of the dominant parties did this uncensured, it was considered, and treated, as insolence in the minority to advance their opinions, even in their own assemblies only. When the public peace is broken, men are justly amenable to the civil magistrate: but for the breach of the peace merely, and not for the sentiments they may at the time avow. Violence, penalties, and imprisonments, on account of religious tenets, are, in no view, justifiable. Against error they are needless; for that, not being founded in reason and proof, will of itself die away: against truth they are ineffectual; for that will finally prevail, by its own weight and evidence, above all opposition. Every person, against whom they are directed, feels them to be in his own case iniquitous and cruel.

The only good effect which persecution hath ever produced, has been opening the eyes of men to see the iniquity of it, and raising in their hearts an abhorrence of it. The severities, of which the baptists were the marked objects, led them to be advocates for liberty and toleration. So far back as the year 1615, Mr. Helwise and his church, at London, published a treatise, entitled "Persecution for 6 religion judged and condemned." The dedication to which was subscribed thus; "By Christ's unworthy witnesses, his Majesty's faithful subjects, commonly, but 'falsely, called Anabaptists." In this piece they asserted, "That every man hath a right to judge for himself in