Among the numerous pretenders to the gift of prophecy, few were more fuccefsful than the celebrated Lodowick Muggleton, who, from the humble station of a journeyman taylor, was fuddenly exalted into the founder of a fect. His affociate was a perfon of the name of Reeves, who was perfectly on a level with him both as to ftation and erudition. They exhibited themfelves as the two laft witneffes of God; they affumed an abfolute power of difpenfing damnation or falvation to mankind; and preached that the end of the world was at hand. From the nature of their tenets, however, their popularity was but of fhort duration. The difappointment of a prediction is generally fatal to the reputation of the prophet: -their credit, therefore, furvived them but a few years; and we believe the fect is now nearly, if not utterly, extinct.

Moft of thefe vifionaries had their advocates. But few of the productions which contain their literary history, have defcended to pofterity; and thefe are only depofited in the libraries of ecclefiaftical antiquarians. They indeed trufted more in general for the propagation of their doctrines to the force of their extempore eloquence, than to the excellence of their compofitions. Enthusiasm is an active principle, and but seldom fubmits to the patient drudgery of literary labour.

While a ftrict regard to truth obliges us to afcribe the origin of the quaker profeflion to a fpirit of enthufiafm in its first preachers, yet we must acknowledge that religious enthufiafm has never appeared in a more amiable form, nor was ever blended with purer and more refined principles of morality. George Fox, the famous founder of this refpectable fect, was born at 'Drayton in Leicestershire, and exercifed the humble occupation of a fhoe-maker for a confiderable time in the town of Nottingham. He is reprefented to have been of a penfive and retired temper; and as fober manners in that clafs of life are commonly connected with a devotional fpirit, his leisure hours were spent in the affiduous

affiduous ftudy of the fcriptures. He at length publicly proclaimed himfelf to be an infpired preacher; and the fimplicity of his manners, the purity of his life, the general utility and excellence of his precepts, and his adroitness in defending his tenets upon the principles of fcripture, foon attracted a number of difciples. He declaimed with vehemence and with energy against the vices of the age. He condemned war, and proved it incontestably to be altogether inconfiftent with the chriftian profeflion. Oaths, upon every occafion, he regarded as a species of blafphemy. -He ftrenuously recommended fimplicity in drefs, and frugality in all domeftic arrangements. The perfecutions which this good man, this truly apoftolical preacher, endured in his endeavours to reform a corrupt yet bigoted age, are a ftigma on the times in which he lived, and a difgrace to profeffing chriftians. The ufurper Cromwell himself felt the force of his rebukes; and his military defpotism tottered before the preacher of peace*. His foldiers themselves were unable to refift that reafoning which proved from the gofpel the unlawfulness of their profeffion; and the fatellites of tyranny became the apoftles of peace, and the martyrs of religion. Not only many of the converts of Fox, therefore, were feverely punished, but he himself was fubjected to a rigorous imprifonment by the orders of the government; and the rest of the quaker preachers were enjoined filence under fevere penalties:-but what human authority can filence or counteract the force of truth?

Among the military converts of Fox, one of the most extraordinary was James Naylor, who had been bred a

The following story is told by Whitlocke, p. 599. Some quakers at Hafington in Northumberland coming to the minister on the fabbathday, and fpeaking to him, the people fell upon the quakers, and almoft killed one or two of them, who going out fell on their knees, and prayed God to pardon the people, who knew not what they did; and afterwards fpeaking to the people, fo convinced them of the evil they had done in beating them, that the country people fell a-quarrelling, and beat one another more than they had before beaten the quakers.

farmer,

farmer, but who, during the civil wars, had enlifted as a foldier in the parliamentary army. Naylor foon became a preacher among the new fect; and his zeal was not unaccompanied by talents. But the modefty and fimplicity which characterized the quakers in general, were, in the violence of enthusiasm, or in the career of vanity, forgotten by Naylor. Not content with affuming the prophetic character, it is faid he arrogated to himself titles which approached to blafphemy, and difgraced religion by the extravagancies which he committed. His followers participated in his zeal and his infanity; and (if we may credit contemporary writers), as he paffed through Bristol in his way to London from the weft, the multitude who accompanied him, proclaimed him as the promifed Meffiah, and, in imitation of our Saviour's entry into Jerufalem, fung, as they marched before him, the facred hymnHoly, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth-Hofannah in the highest, &c." So grofs a mockery of religion was not to be endured by fanaticifm itfelf. The pretended prophet was apprehended by the magiftrates, and fent to London to be examined by the parliament. The parliament, in this inftance, departed from their functions as legiflators, and affumed the complex character of judges, jury, and accufers. The fentence was as fevere as it was probably unjuft; and the irregularity of the proceedings leads us to fufpect the truth of the evidence on which he was faid to be convicted. Either his fufferings reftored him to his right fenfes, or (what we are difpofed to believe) his errors had been grofsly exaggerated and mifreprefented. In his confinement he compofed feveral tracts in a strain of piety, bordering indeed on enthusiasm,' but in a fpirit of humility little confiftent with the charges of blafphemy alleged againtt him. The writings of the quakers in general were, however, at this period but little noticed without the narrow boundaries of their own fect. In the fucceeding reign the tenets of the fociety were acutely defended by the learning and talents of a Barclay; and their conftitution was organized and digeted by the judgment of a Penn.

The

The Socinian doctrines, which had been published in Poland in the latter end of the preceding century, had at this period made but little progrefs in Great Britain; yet the doctrine of the Trinity was vigorously impugned by John Biddle, a ftudent of Magdalen hall, Oxford, and 'mafter of the free school of Crypt, in the city of Glou cefter, who fuffered a long and rigorous imprisonment from the Calvinistic party in the long parliament, and was at length tried for his life on the infamous ordinance of blafphemy, which was paffed by that body, and was refcued from the fatal effects of this profecution only by the interference of Cromwell. It does not appear that Biddle was converfant with the writings of the Polith brethren; and his objections to the received doctrine of the Trinity were chiefly confined to the divinity of the Holy Ghoft. He was committed to prifon along with other diffenters after the restoration, where he foon contracted a difeafe, of which he died.

The more powerful and numerous fects, thofe which at different periods of this fluctuating government enjoyed the favour and protection of the legislature and the court, it may well be imagined, included among their partizans feveral men of great and eminent talents. Among the prefbyterians there are none whofe names have defcended to pofterity with a reputation equal to that of Matthew Poole, and Edmund Calamy. Mr. Poole. was, however, only known, at the period of which we are now treating, as the author of fome ufeful tracts, and as a man of confiderable erudition. His great work, the Synopfis Criticorum Bibliorum, was not undertaken till. the fucceeding reign, after his ejection from the church. of St. Michael-le-Quern, of which he was rector upwards of twelve years. Edmund Calamy was, as well as Matthew Poole, educated at Cambridge; and, in the year 1739, was chofen by the parishioners, minister of St. Mary, Aldermanbury. Very early in life he evinced strongly his antipathyto the Arminian party; and this circumitance, it is alleged, prevented his obtaining a fellowship in the univer

fity, though his literary acquirements and his ftanding both entitled him to it, and though his character was unblemished. Mr. Calamy commenced his ecclefiaftical career as a conformist to the church of England, and is faid rather to have objected to the forms under which epifcopacy was established in this country, than to epifcopacy itfelf. Though he occafionally preached before the house of commons during the interregnum, yet he took no part in the violent proceedings of the republican party, and opposed the beheading of the king with conftancy and courage. During the ufurpation of Cromwell he was paflive; yet when called upon to declare his fentiments, he was far from approving that proceeding. There is indeed a remarkable ftory of our author related by Harry Neville, one of the council of ftate, which is deferving the notice of all posterity, fince it conveys to the reflecting reader the real fecret of every tyrannical government, and the means by which the liberties of mankind are wrefted from them. When Cromwell firft afpired to the fupreme dignity, defirous of the fupport of the prefby terian clergy, he fent for fome of the moft eminent of the city divines, informing them that, as a matter of confcience, he would fubmit his arguments and his fcruples to their determination. Among thofe who attended, was Mr. Calamy; and he oppofed the project of Cromwell's fingle government with equal boldness and force, and endeavoured to prove it not only unlawful but impracticable, afferting that it was evidently against the fense of the nation, and that nine out of ten would openly oppofe it. 66 Well," replied Cromwell, " if that is all, fuppofe I fhould difarm the nine, and put the fword into the tenth man's hand, will not that, think you, effect the business?"

Mr. Calamy was one of the non-conformift divines who were principally concerned in writing the famous book known by the name of Smedtymnuus, which, in the year 1641, gave, as he himfelf exprefies it," the first mortal blow to epifcopacy." It is entitled, Answer to a Book entitled, An humble Remonftrance; in

"An