showed a fondness for heraldry, became Bluemantle Pursuivant, and Windsor Herald, to which he was appointed by his patron Thomas, Earl of Arundel." Exemplary" (says Fuller)" his patience in his sickness (whereof I was an eye-witness), though a complication of diseases, &c. seized upon him." He was buried on Dec. 23rd, at St. Bennet's, Paul's Wharf, a church in which many noblemen and gentlemen worshipped during the Commonwealth, the Rector, Dr. Adams, and the Churchwardens continuing to have the Liturgy constantly used, and the Sacraments administered. "with swift feet and sad face" before the Exchange, asked the cause of his discontent; and having heard it, advised him to put his needless going and coming into progressive motion, and it would bring him to his own country; giving him money for that end. "Norgate very cheerfully consented, and footed it " home. Worthies, § Cambridgeshire, p. 161. CHAPTER XVII. LECTURER AT LONDON. MINOR WORKS. (1651-4). OF FULLER APPOINTED LECTURER AT ST. CLEMENT'S.-SERMONS ON THE TEMPTA- 66 "Grand is the difference betwixt an hireling whose mind is merely mercenary, and him that works for his hire." (Pisgah-Sight, ii. 277.) T was in part to Fuller's extensive patronage by the London merchants and others that his re-appearance as a City Lecturer must be attributed. The Lecturers came into their employment in consequence of the unsettled condition of the parish churches. Evelyn, in 1650, notes that he wandered to divers of the churches, where he found that the pulpits were "full of novices and novelties." But gradually many of the exiled parish clergy began more openly to re-engage in their calling, there being then less fear of interruption; and they were receiving encouragement from their former hearers. Frequent meetings of the clergy also took place in London to adopt measures for the benefit of the Church. It is related that during Faringdon's forced retirement from "the scholars' church," St. Mary Magdalene's, in Milk Street, a friend, appealing on his behalf to the congregation, said that there had been seen in that church those who were able to create a temple wheresoever they went; men, each of whom singly and alone made up a full congrega. tion." Other assemblies were also formed in many of the City mansions. The memoir of Dr. George Wilde illustrates the kind of life generally led by the clergy of the time. For some years, says Dr. Mossome, "Wilde hovered, sometimes preaching in the country and sometimes in the City, sometimes in private and sometimes in public, as he found opportunity offered to promote piety and persuade loyalty. At length . . . an house is provided near Fleet Street, in London; and in the house an vπeρov, an upper room is prepared, which upper room becomes an oratory fitted for the preaching of the Word and administering the sacraments, with constant use of the public liturgy of the Church." Among others, Fuller was finally settled in a stated London pulpit. His biographer, alluding to the ministers who again appeared to exercise their vocation, "through the zeal of some right worthy citizens, who hungred after the true and sincere Word from which they had so long been restrained," adds among the chief of whom was our good Doctor, being settled Lecturer for a time at St. Clement's Lane, near Lombard Street, where he preached every Wednesday in the afternoon to a very numerous and Christian audience.”1 Fuller's settlement at ST. CLEMENT'S (which was near Eastcheap rather than in it, being now in St. Clement's Lane, near King William Street) belongs to his second appointment there, his first Lectureship, in 1647, having been interrupted, as described page 411, by an inhibition of "the powers that were." There is nothing to show who then succeeded Fuller; but his place had probably been filled by occasional clergymen, towards the payment for whose ministrations it was ordered at a vestry meeting in October, 1648, that," in the vacancy of a parson, the rent of the parson's house shall be paid, as it is due, towards the payment for preaching during the parishes pleasure. From the fact that in Spencer's Things New and Old there are five references3 to a sermon or sermons by Fuller, preached at this church in 1650, the conclusion might be drawn that he was even in that year also an occasional Lecturer. The parishioners seem to have made their arrangements with their Lecturers about the autumn of each year; and in the arrangements made in the year now under notice (1651) there is a record in the vestrybock which throws an interesting light upon the relations between Fuller and the parish: "The 5th of September, 1651. Item, Whereas it was then declared that Mr. Thomas Fuller, minister, did resolve, according to his promise, to preach his weekly lec 1 Life, p. 41. * Vestry Book. * Nos. 509, 913, 918, 920, 987 (pp. 128, 234, 235, 236, 256, orig. fo.). ture in the parish church of St. Clement's: the persons then present did give their free consent (nemine contradicente) that hee should preach, and that the churchwardens should provide candells and other necessaries for the said lecture upon the account of the parish. And that the friends and auditors of the said Mr. Fuller may be accommodated with convenient pewroome, it was then ordered that the present churchwardens should cause to be made two decent and necessary pews of the two seats in the chancell where the youths of the parish doe now sit."1 Fuller's doctor, Baldwin Hamey, who was connected with the church, and to whom Dr. Pearson inscribed encomiastic Latin verses, may have been concerned in this arrangement. He is mentioned in the Worthies as connected with the beautifying or rebuilding of the parochial churches," amongst which St. Clement's, Eastcheap, is not to be forgotten: the monument of the bounty of Baldwin Hamey, doctor in physic." The "right worshipful and well-beloved" parishioners are commended in the dedication of An Exposition of the Creed, by the celebrated Dr. Pearson, who was Lecturer at the church in the years 1654, 1655, and 1656, he being probably appointed in succession to Fuller.3 The discourses on the Creed were delivered in the years in question or just subsequently, being printed by Roger Daniel and published in 1659 by John Williams under the above well-known title. The chief discourses preached by Fuller at St. Clement's are his xii. Sermons on the Temptations of Christ. Though these discourses are now little known, they are certainly the most characteristic and finished of his pulpit compositions. They were published in 1652 by a new "stationer," George Eversden. As the best present his condition could then afford, Fuller dedicated the volume to "the truly religious" ISABELLA, the COUNTESS of James the third Earl of NORTHAMPTON, and daughter and co-heiress of Richard Sackville, third Earl of Dorset. The lady had been married at Clerkenwell Church, July 1647, about 'Archdeacon Churton, who copied the above minute in his Edition of the Minor Theol. Works of Bp. Pearson (p. cxi.), says that this occasional Lecturer was Thomas Fuller "the jester;" adding that the record seemed to imply that his droll, quaint way made him popular. 2 § London, p. 192. At a Vestry-meeting the 18th of August, 1654, in the Vestry-house of St. Clement's, Eastcheape: Whereas it was declared that Mr. [John] Pearson, Mr. Hall, and Mr. [Nathanael] Hardy, ministers, would preach a lectuer sermon weekly in the parish church of St. Clements, Eastcheape, it was freely consented unto by the persons then present, and that the churchwardens should provide candells and other necessaries for the said lectuer uppon the accompt of the parish." The entries in the following years are similar, Mr. Hardinge's name being added to the others. (Churton's Pearson's Minor Works, pp. cxi. cxii.) which time the Earl compounded for his estates. His mother, Mary, the Countess Dowager, was also heavily fined. Fuller, who was very intimate with the family, alludes to his "real respect" and "cordial gratitude" in reference to his patroness; adding that his "meanness is not capable in any other way to deserve the least of those many favours" which the lady had conferred upon him. In the same book Fuller also addressed "my constant hearers at St. Clement's, Eastcheap," justly remarking that "a sermon preached serveth but an auditory; a sermon printed, auditories; and (if pious in itself), not only the present, but ensuing age may partake of the profit thereof." In reply to the objection that the sermons had been much contracted in printing, having been more enlarged in the delivery, he wittily replies: "Let them know that the hand, when the fist is closed together, is the same with the same hand when the fingers were stretched forth and palm thereof expanded." He speaks of having made "a decoction of sermons into a comment, and therefore boiling them down to a fifth part." He tells his hearers that the sermons were "yours; at first intended for your instruction, delivered to your attention, digested (I hope) by your meditation, and now published for your further edification." These discourses contain much that is in Fuller's happiest style. The first four are on "Christ's Temptation to Despair." On the doctrine that "solitariness is most advantageous for the devil to tempt us," he says: "Therefore Christ sent always His disciples by twos. . . . And this perchance was one reason why Christ, in the choice of His apostles and disciples, pitched on an even number-twelve of the one and seventy of the other -that if He should have occasion to subdivide them they should fall out into even couples, and no odd one to lack a companion."-"The Popish Lent is only an exchange of the shambles for the fish market: they abstain from flesh and feed on fish; which fish is also termed flesh in the language of the apostle, I Cor. xv. 37, another flesh of fishes.'"""There is a received fancy, as old as common, false as either, having no footing in Scripture, but founded partly on that licence which painters assume to themselves, partly in the pretended apparitions of ignorant monks, That the devil is horned. The best moral I can make of so fond a conceit is this: the devil's temptations are horned or forked, bi-cornea argumenta. So that, chuse which you will, he hopeth to gore the soul," &c.3 In the discussion of the ways by which God wonderfully sup A 1 Page 9. 2 Page 21. 3 Page 50. |