a man would have expected nothing but what looked like gravity."Dr. Farmer, in his essay On the Learning of Shakespeare, spoke of Fuller as "a diligent and equal searcher after truth and quibbles."—An Edinburgh Reviewer gave the following opinion on the Church-History: "Neither has Fuller fared much better [than Foxe] with posterity. His narrative, though always lively, is slight and flimsy, while his quaint and antiquated wit is perhaps more frequently found to disgust than to delight a fashionable age." 3-Dibdin, who speaks of Fuller as one who loved to jeer, and as scattering about his criticisms with very little regard to truth, says: "Of course old Tom Fuller must be read 'cum granis salis' in matters of ancient history. He was a loose chronicler, but an admirable and honest relator of what passed under his own eyes. Burnet, criticising our Church-historian, says that he "Got into his hands some few papers that were not seen before he published them; but being a man of fancy, and affecting an odd way of writing, his work gives no great satisfaction. But Doctor Heylyn wrote smoothly and handsomely; his method and style are good, and his work was generally more read than anything that had appeared before him but either he was ill-informed, or very much led by his passions; and he being wrought on by most violent prejudices against some that were concerned in that time, delivers many things in such a manner, and so strangely, that one would think he had been secretly set on to it by those of the Church of Rome, though I doubt not he was a sincere Protestant, but violently carried away by some particular conceits." 5 Bishop Warburton's opinion was as follows: "Our repeated complaints of the defective state of the General History of the Church of England amongst us extends to the ecclesiastical as well as to the civil History of Great Britain. There are only two writers of the General History of our Church who deserve the name of Historians, Collier the Nonjuror, and Fuller the Jester. The first hath written with sufficient dignity, elegance, and spirit; but hath dishonoured and debased his whole work with the absurd and slavish Tenets of the High Churchmen. The other is composed with better temper, and on better principles, and with sufficient care and attention; but worked on a slight fantastic ground, and in a style of buffoon pleasantry altogether unsuitable to so grave and important a subject. Yet much may be learnt from it; much indeed to avoid as well as to improve." Dr. Heylyn's famous censure on the work, which produced from Fuller one of the most entertaining controversial rejoinders in the English language, demands a chapter to itself. 1 Eng. Hist. Lib. p. 5. Page 6, edit. 1767. Edin. Rev. (1810), vol. iv. 96. Preface to his Hist. Reform. vii. Works, ed. 1811, 8vo. : Directions for the Study of Theology, vol. x. p. 371. CHAPTER XIX. "SERVING THE TIME," AND "SERVING THE LORD." (1655-1658.) LECTURER AT ST. BRIDE'S. -SERMON ON THE JEWS.-FOUR SERMONS AND " NOTES ON JONAH."-FULLER AND SION COLLEGE.—JOHN SPENCER AND HIS "THINGS NEW AND OLD."-FULLER'S RELATIONS TO THE COMMONWEALTH.-THE EDICT AGAINST SCHOOLMASTERS, ETC.-FULLER'S BENEVOLENCE.-APPOINTMENT OF THE TRIERS.-FULLER'S INTERVIEW WITH HOWE AND WITH THE COMMISSIONERS.--FUNERAL SERMON ON GEORGE HEYCOCK.-FULLER'S LIFE OF HENRY SMITH.-FULLER AND FORMS OF PRAYER-BECOMES CHAPLAIN TO THE HON. GEORGE BERKELEY, AND RECTOR OF CRANFORD.-CRANFORD CHURCH AND THE MANOR-HOUSES.-THE OIL-PAINTING OF FULLER.-THE ANONYMOUS PORTRAIT, ETC.-FULLER'S APPEARANCE AND MANNERS. THE APPROACH OF THE RESTORATION. "There is a sinless, yea lawful and necessary agreeableness to the Times, insomuch that no meaner Father than St. Ambrose, or worse Critic than Erasmus, read the text, Romans xii. 11, dovλebovтEÇ TÝ KaipÝ, 'serving the time.' A reading countenanced by the context, 'Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing in prayer; all being directions of our demeanour in dangerous times. And even those who dislike the reading as false, defend the doctrine as true; that though we must not be slaves and vassals, we may be servants to the times, so far forth as not to dis-serve God thereby." (Appeal of Injured Innocence, chap. xiv. p. 12. See p. 449 ante.) NOTHER City Lectureship held by Fuller about this time (1655) or earlier, was that at ST. BRIDE'S. "Shortly after from thence [St. Clement's] he was removed to St. Bride's in Fleet-street, in the same quality of Lecturer, the day being changed to Thursday, where he preached with the same efficacy and success." 1 No documents relating to his intercourse with the parishioners are in existence, St. Bride's being one of the eighty-nine churches consumed in the Great Fire, when its records were lost. It was afterwards rebuilt by Wren on the same spot. The sequestered vicar was Thomas Palmer, B.D. " a pious man and painful preacher;" a benefactor to the ejected clergy (see p. 406), and charitable to their widows. Simon Ash, one of the Assembly and Chaplain to the Earl of Manchester, held the 1 1 Life, p. 41. living: he supplied Fuller with certain particulars for the Hist. Camb. relating to the Visitation of 1643. Fuller in one of his sermons makes allusion to the many wealthy persons in his auditory at St. Bride's. He seems to be referring to this or another London parish in a passage which shows how necessary it then was for the clergy to keep a guard upon their lips: "I know a factious parish wherein, if the minister in his pulpit had but named the word Kingdom, the people would have been ready to have petitioned against him for a Malignant. But as for realm-the same in French-he might safely use it in his sermons as oft as he pleased. Ignorance, which generally inflameth, sometimes by good hap, abateth men's malice.The best is, that one now [1660] may, without danger, use either word, seeing England was a kingdom a thousand years ago, and may be one (if the world last so long) a thousand years hereafter.” 1 Fuller perhaps held the same relation to the parishioners of St. Bride's as to those of St. Clement's. At the former church, in 1655, he preached a sermon "occasioned by a motion of bringing in of the Jews into England." This item is of great interest as being a reference to an unpublished sermon. All that remains of it is a fragment, the preservation of which is due to Fuller's friend, John Spencer of Sion College, who entitles it "Ignorance and Wilfulness well met." The Jews, who had been banished from England since the year 1290, were in Fuller's day also prohibited from entering France and Spain. They were congregated in some numbers in Holland, &c. ; but to a greater extent in Turkey ("Jews, Turks, Infidels and Heretics"). The Jews often made attempts to engage in trade in England. On the 5th Jan., 1649, a curious request to that end was addressed to Fairfax and the Council of Officers. The petitioners were "Johanna Cartwright, Widdow, and Ebenezer Cartwright her son, freeborn of England, and now inhabitants of the City of Amsterdam ;" and they state that being "conversant in that city with and among some of Izraell's race called Jewes, .. both they and we find that the time of her call draweth nigh; . and that this nation of England with the inhabitants of the Netherlands shall be the first and readiest to transport Izraell's sons and daughters in their ships to the land promised to their fore-fathers." The petition was presented at Whitehall, and favourably received. A few years afterwards Manasseh Ben Israel, a learned Jew practising medicine in Holland, but by birth a Portuguese, Mixt Contemp. pt. ii. xlix. 'Spencer's Things New and Old, No. 1903, p. 645. 66 visited England with a view to obtain in our land civil equality for his race. In a flattering Petition to the Protector, reprinted a few years ago at Melbourne, the Rabbi besought his Highness, for God's sake that ye would, according to that Piety and Power wherein you are eminent beyond others, vouchsafe to grant that the Great and Glorious Name of the Lord our God may be extolled, and solemnly worshipped and praised by us throughout all the bounds of this Common-wealth; and to grant us place in your country that we may have our Synagogues and free exercise of our religion. . Our people did in their own minds presage that the Kingly Government being now changed into that of a Common-wealth, the ancient hatred towards them would also be changed into good will: that those rigorous laws (if any there be yet extant, made under the Kings) against so innocent a people, would happily be repealed.' With the same end in view the Rabbi also wrote a "Declaration to the Common-weath of England." In consequence, four conferences (two lawyers, seven citizens of London, and fourteen divines forming the committee) were held-the first at Whitehall, 12th Dec. 1665, under the presidency of the Protector. Cromwell was willing to grant toleration to the Jews; as an earnest of which he bestowed upon their advocate a yearly pension of £100. There was, however, a warm difference of opinion among the clergy at the conferences, and in consequence much public debate; and though the main point at issue was not ultimately conceded, Jews, upon obtaining the private sufferance of the Protector (who, weary of the wrangling of the divines, characteristically dissolved the conference), were allowed to settle in the country. Fuller's discourse thus belongs to December. His views in regard to the policy of the motion may be gathered from the closing chapters of the Pisgah-Sight, where he enumerates the existing obstructions to the conversion of the Jews. His first point is "Our want of civil society with that nation: there must be first converse with them before there can be converting with them." Other drawbacks were their cruel usage in point of estate in those countries where they were tolerated; their offence at image-worship; and lastly the discord amongst Christians: "In vain do we hollo to the Jews to come over to us whilst our voices are hoarse with railing one at another, and beckon with our hands to them to be on our side whilst our hands are imbrued in the blood of those of our own religion." He next remarks on the great internal obstacle, "that Topwors, that blindness, which is happened unto them." Then follows the illustration thus preserved at more length by Spencer: "It is a maritime observation that if a thick fog darken the air there is then (the great God of Heaven and earth having in His providence so ordered it) no storm, no tempestuous weather. And if it be so that a storm arise, then the sky is somewhat clear and lightsome: for were it otherwise, no ship at sea, nor boat in any navigable river could ride or sail in safety, but would clash and fall foul one upon another. Such is the sad condition of every soul amongst us wherein Ignorance and Wilfulness have set up their rest together. And why? Because that if a man were ignorant only and not wilful, then the breath of wholesome precepts and good counsel might in time expel those thick mists of darkness that cloud his understanding. And were he wilful and not ignorant, then it were to be hoped that God in His good time would rectify his mind and bring him to the knowledge of Himself; but when the storm and the fog meet,-when Wilfulness and Ignorance (as at this day amongst the Jews, and too too many Christians) do close together, nothing without the greater mercies of God can befall that poor shipwrack't soul but ruin and destruction.' Fuller's Four Sermons with Notes on Jonah, 1656 and 1657, were dedicated "to my worthy friends of S. Bridgets (commonly Brides) parish in London." These discourses, preached in 1655 and 1656, were (with others noticed further on in this chapter) delivered at St. Bride's; for Fuller hopes "that these nails which were entered into your hearts at the preaching of them, shall now be riveted into them by the printing thereof." The sermons are included in a series of ten, which, with the Notes on Jonah, the author seems to have put for publication into the hands of Stafford, who published them gradually, entering the above four (with the Notes) at Stationers' Hall, 23rd Jan. 1655-6. Out of the remaining six, three were published by Stafford in 1657, appended to The Best Name on Earth. The other three (qy. unpublished ?) were: on Eccles. vii. 10, "The former days were better than these;" on Matt. x. 8, " Heal the sick, &c.: freely ye have received, freely give ;" and on 2 Pet. i. 10, which was perhaps intended for a new edition of the Sermon of Assurance, first published in 1647 by Williams. As regards the above two missing discourses, I have met with no trace of them amongst the publications of Stafford or elsewhere; but it is not unlikely that they were published. One of them seems of a peculiar interest in a biography of Fuller. The first of the four sermons, called The Best Employment, is on Acts x. 38. Dwelling on the character of the Centurion, the preacher speaks favourably of the military profession. "Let them not conceive the principles of fearing of God and fighting with men so opposite that they cannot meet in the same person; seeing on enquiry it will appear that all the Centurions 'Pisgah-Sight, bk. v. 200; Spencer, p. 645. The latter adds a parallel pas. sage from Boetius, iii. 8. Fuller's ac count of the Jews in England will be found in the Church-History, book iii. cent. xiii. |