DEMISE OF CHARLES THE SECOND. 669 ecclesiastical matters. Judge ye, my brethren, whether, if the object had been realized, it would have been worth the expense. Such were the sufferings of our forefathers in the cause of religious liberty-in defence of those principles and those privileges which we enjoy in such rich profusion. May we never undervalue them! May our posterity never have occasion to censure us for forfeiting them by our supineness or negligence, but may our zeal for God, our love to Christ, and our regard for the interests of religion, both at home and abroad, shine with increasing lustre, and afford convincing proof that we know how to value the blessings which have been transmitted to us at the cost of fasting and prayer, watching and tears, exile and imprisonment, the loss of all things, and death itself! Terminating a life of dissipation and sloth, Charles II. breathed his last, after an illness of a few days, on the 6th of February, 1685, in the fifty-fourth year of his age, regretted by none but those who dreaded the accession of his papistical successor. The following account of the manner in which he passed his last Sabbath on earth, is not from the pen of an adversary :—“ I can never forget the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming, and all dissoluteness, and as if it were total forgetfulness of God (it being Sunday evening), which this day sen'night I was witness of; —the king sitting and toying with his concubines, Portsmouth, Cleveland, and Mazarine, &c.; a French boy singing love songs, in that glorious gallery, whilst about twenty of the great courtiers and other dissolute persons were at basset round a large table, a bank of at least £2,000 in gold before them, upon which two gentlemen, who were with me, made reflections with astonishment. Six days after was all in the dust."* The duke of York, who now ascended the throne by the title of James II., began his reign with an honest avowal of popery; and now the dissenters were persecuted with tenfold fury. The king, availing himself of Monmouth's rebellion to crush the enemies of popery and arbitrary power, converted the whole kingdom into a slaughter-house, of which judge Jeffreys was the * Evelyn, iii. 137. grand butcher. He went the western circuit, and after finishing it, the quarters of several hundred persons were hung up all over the country for fifty or sixty miles. This fiery persecution produced an effect most honourable to the subjects of his vengeance and the cause of the poor sufferers; for, disgusted with such atrocities, and those that sanctioned them, many ministers of the establishment forsook it as unworthy the name of a Christian church, since it was stained with the blood of the saints.* Pursuing his infatuated councils for the space of three years, the patience of the nation became exhausted, and to redress their grievances, they invited over William, prince of Orange, who had married James's daughter, to rescue them and their liberties from the galling yoke of such a despot. The sequel is well James abdicated the known, and need not here be enlarged on. throne and quitted the kingdom, having occasioned about eight thousand persons to perish in prison, or by other means, for the sole crime of dissenting from the church of England. And here I bring my Lectures to a close. On the 4th of November, 1688, William landed at Torbay, and a new dynasty took possession of the British throne; the consequence of which was an entire revolution in the political transactions of the kingdom. On the 24th of May, 1689, the Act of Toleration received the royal assent-the first legal toleration that England ever knew. From this period it became legalized as a principle of the legislature, that Christians, living peaceably under the government of the country, and holding no principle contrary to its welfare, ought to be allowed to worship God in a manner agreeable to the dictates of their own conscience! * Burnet's Own Times, vol. ii. ; Warner's England, pp. 630–633; Peirce, 263, 4. ERRATA ET CORRIGENDA. Page 101, line 9, last word, read abuses. Page 473, line 3 of the note, for put, read but. Page 553, line penult, for pereunto peveat, read pereunté pereat. INDEX. Abstinence, advantages of, i. 325. Academics, ancient, their philosophy, i. 29. Act of Uniformity, its terrible consequences, iii. 665. Act of Toleration, passed 1689, iii. 679. Adrian, emperor, his reign and character, i. 205.-His rescript, 207. Erians, Mosheim's account of the, i. 476.-View of their principles,479. Alaric, the Gothic chief, i. 417. Albanus Verulam, the protomartyr of Britain, i. 331, 455. Albans, St., disputation there, i. 460. Albigenses, the, narrative of, ii. 269; not Manichæans, 273; their increase, 274; Alcuin's amusing picture of Antichrist, ii. 48; his history, 171; his letter to Char- Alexander VI., Pope, some account of, iii. 290. Alfred the Great, particulars of, ii. 30, 32; repulses the Danes, 33; his laws, 34; Allen, John, his Modern Judaism referred to, i. 45, note, 53. Allwood, Rev. Philip, his "Key to the Revelation" noticed, i. 343, note. Alps, or Alpine mountains described, ii. 417-419. Alva, Duke of, his tyrannical proceedings in the Netherlands, iii. 370, 1. Ammianus Marcellinus, his excellent remarks on the clergy of his day, i. 381-401. Andrews, St., contest for the archbishopric of, iii. 406; assembly of the army of Anglo-Saxons described, ii. 8. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, some account of, ii. 56. Antoninus, Emperor, his reign, i. 209; his letter to the magistrates, 210. Antioch, origin of the church there, i. 112. Antichrist, the Man of Sin, described in Scripture, i. 388; his coming foretold, Anthony, the hermit, some account of, i. 500. Apostasy, affecting instances of, i. 317; prophetic intimations of, 358, 9. Apostles, credibility of their testimony, i. 155; persecution of the, 190; their warn- Apostolic ministry, its leading object, i. 94. Apologies, of the Christian Fathers, referred to, i. 222. Arians, two of them burnt, iii. 560. Arian controversy, the, i. 346; progress of, 390; persecution, 466. Arnold, of Brescia, his interesting history, ii. 211. Athenagoras, some account of, i. 223; his Apology, 225. Athelard, archbishop of Canterbury, some account of, ii. 25. Attalus, the Hunn, some account of, i. 420. Auto-da-fé, description of one, ii. 361; iii. 360. Augustin, his mission to England, ii. 15; success, 16; and death, 17. Babylonian empire, its extent, &c., i. 12. Bancroft, Bishop, a persecuting divine, iii. 558; his works against the catholics, Baptism, of infants, its origin, i. 273–275; an innovation, ibid.; Rigaltius, quoted Baptism, adult, a canon relating to, ii. 28; how observed in the tenth century, 199; Baptists, English, their rise, and sketch of their early history, iii. 620; their Barnabas, the apostle, at Antioch, i. 111. Barchochebas, the Jewish impostor, i. 208. Bernard, St., some account of, ii. 205; his description of dissenters, 247; his account Basiège, siege of, and massacre there, ii. 365. Bartholomew's-day, in the reign of Charles II., reflections on, iii. 666 ; massacre of, Beausobre, Mr., his excellent remark on the Manichees, ii. 242. Becket, Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, his history, ii. 71. Beccaria, Count, letter of the Duke of Savoy to, ii. 517. Bede, the learned, his Ecclesiastical History referred to, i. 456, 459, 461; ii. 15-18. Beziers, the massacre at, ii. 287. Beza, Theodore, biographical sketch of, iii. 257; his death, 259. Bible, the, commanded to be kept in all parish churches, iii. 470. Bilney, Thomas, account of his martyrdom, iii. 458. Bishop, universal, when first made, i. 493. Bishop and elder, not distinguished in Scripture, i. 266. Bishop of Cava, his punishment, iii. 339. Bithynia, residence of the Roman emperors, i. 329. Blair, Adam, strictures on his History of the Waldenses, ii. 452, and 475, note. Bohemia, state of, in consequence of Jerome's death, iii. 87. Bohemians, Luther's letter to them, iii. 95. Boleyn, Anne, her affecting history, iii. 450. Boniface III., Pope, some account of, i. 498. Boniface VIII., some account of, ii. 97; his exorbitant commands, 123; gance and usurpation, iii. 10. Bonner and Gardiner, cruel persecutors, iii. 484–487. his arro- Booth, Ab., his Essay on the Kingdom of Christ, quoted, i. 77, note, and 78, note, 361. Britain, Great, one of the ten apocalyptic kingdoms, i. 426; introduction of the British Islands, barbarous state of, i. 427; progress of the gospel in them, 445. British churches, i. 449. Britain, state of, under the Romans, ii. 2-6. Brownists, their views of the church of England, iii. 607; their early existence, Brown, Robert, some account of, iii. 617. Bruys, Peter, answers the question, "What is Antichrist?" ii. 260-5. Bruys, Peter de, martyrdom of, ii. 207; his tenets, 208; absurd accusations against Bryant, Jacob, extract from his writings, i. 146, note. Burnet, Bishop, his letters from Italy quoted, ii. 616–618, 647, note, 648-650. CABBALA, a species of learning among the Jews, i. 53. Calvinists, how persecuted in France, iii. 320. Calvinistic and Lutheran reformations distinguished, iii. 539. Calvin, John, biographical sketch of, iii. 247; publishes his Institutes, 248; his Campbell, Dr. George, quoted, i. 73, note, 174, note, 269, note, 271, 368–376, note. Castlemain, Lord, his censure on the English prelates of his day, iii. 662. Catholic bishops, their character described, iii. 17. Catholics and Protestants, a conference between, iii. 269; cruelties exercised by Catholic church in the sixteenth century described, iii. 294. Catholic church, first dissenters from it, i. 309; increased darkness of, i. 532; the Celsus, why he censured the Jews, i. 192. Cerinthus, his heresy, i. 178. Charles I. of England, commencement of his reign, iii. 567; persecutes the puri- Charles II. swears to the solemn league and covenant, iii. 644; abdicates the king- Charles IX. of France, his character and reign, iii. 276; his treacherous conduct, Charlemagne, his reign described, ii. 166. Christ, scriptural character of, i. 2; nature of his kingdom, 72. Christ, sole legislator in his own kingdom, i. 362—4. Christian church, pattern of the primitive, i. 96-98; its progress during the first Christianity, its origin and evidence, i. 1; its history as connected with prophecy, Christianity, its difficulties at the outset, i. 139; innovations in, 220; proofs of its Christianity, remarks on its design, ii. 140; its divine simplicity, iii. 2, and corrup Christendom in the sixteenth century, view of the state of, iii. 261. Church of Rome, its state before Luther, iii. 99.* Church and State, unholy alliance between, iii. 569. Churches, planted after the destruction of Jerusalem, i. 169. Church of Christ, its suffering state, i. 539; its union with the state unwarranted, Clarke, Dr. Adam, extract from his writings, i. 243, note, 279, note, 306. Clarke, Dr S., extract from his Sermons, i. 262. Clarendon, constitutions of, ii. 75. Claude, of Turin, some account of, ii. 185. Claude, Mr. John, his account of the cruelties of the catholics in France, iii. 328. Clemens, Alexandrinus, some account of, i. 232. |