the church which they gathered in a new plantation, which they called Hartford. This church afterwards became famous in the new commonwealth.

Dr. Mather gives the following account of this holy and excellent man. He was godly, sober, and righteous, and could with truth appeal to God, and say, "Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee." He was remarkable for the observance of days of fasting and prayer, by which his spirit was wonderfully ripened for the heavenly inheritance. His conversation was grave, serious, and holy; and he was a most exact observer of the sabbath. The sermons which he intended to deliver on the Lord's day, he usually delivered in his own family on a Saturday evening, In his sermons, which were rather doctrinal, he handled the great points of divinity with admirable skill. He delivered them with an uncommonly nervous address, and concluded with a close and direct application to the hearts of the people by his fervent prayers, his sound doctrine was turned into devotion.

Towards the close of life Mr. Stone was exercised with much trouble. A misunderstanding arose betwixt him and one of the elders of the church, which could not be rectified without the dismission and removal of several pious members further up the country. It is not easy to conceive how extremely painful this was to his humble and holy soul. He, however, continued feeding the flock of God fourteen years with Mr. Hooker, and sixteen years after him. In due submission to God, he was desirous to leave the world and be with Christ. Expressing his longing desires for heaven, he used to say, "Heaven is the more desirable for such company as Hooker, and Shepard, and Hains, who are got there before me." He died July 20, 1663. Mr. Stone was a pious, learned, and judicious divine, equally qualified for the confirmation of the truth and the refutation of error. His ministry was attended with the powerful demonstration and application of the truth. His views of church discipline were congregational. He published "A Discourse upon the Logical Notion of a Congregational Church," of which Dr. Mather gives a very high character.

Mather's Hist. of New Eng. b. iii. p. 116-118. + Morton's Memorial, p. 168.

-THOMAS PATIENT was some time an independent minister in New England, where he embraced the sentiments of the baptists. This was probably the reason why he is not mentioned by Dr.Cotton Mather, who seems to have possessed a portion of that bigotry which disgraced some of his countrymen. Mr. Patient not being suffered to live quietly on the other side the Atlantic, came over to England about the commencement of the civil wars, and was chosen colleague with the excellent Mr. William Kiffin, pastor of the baptist church in Devonshire-square, London. Their names are united in the confession of faith published by the seven baptist churches in London, in 1644. After this, he travelled about the country, and was very industrious in propagating his opinions. Crosby informs us, that he went over to Ireland with General Fleetwood, lord-lieutenant of that kingdom, who, having displaced Dr. Winter, appointed Mr. Patient to preach in the cathedral of Dublin. He also preached at other places through the country. In Dublin he became chaplain to Colonel John Jones, who married the sister of Oliver Cromwell, and was one of the lords of his house. Colonel Jones is described as a person lost in fanaticism; which, it is said, led him to prefer his favourite chaplain Patient, before the regular clergy. Accordingly, he was appointed to preach before Jones and the council, in Christ's-church, Dublin, every Lord's day. It appears, from Milton's State Papers, that Mr. Patient travelled into different parts of Ireland along with the English army: He dates a letter from the head-quarters, Kilkenny, April 15, 1650. Mr. Thomas has preserved the copy of a very excellent letter, dated Dublin, the 12th of the 4th month, 1656, addressed to the churches of Ilston and Llantrisaint, in Glamorganshire; which is subscribed by Mr. Patient and many others, and contains much excellent advice. Crosby says, he was very instrumental in promoting the interests of the baptists in that country; and was probably the founder of the baptist church at Clough-Keating, which, at the time he wrote, was in a very flourishing state.

We do not find in what year Mr. Patient returned to England, but it was, most probably, after the restoration. After his return, being chosen to the office of joint-elder with

* A very interesting account of Mr. Kiffin has been lately published.— See Wilson's Hist. and Antiquities of Dissenters, vol. i. p. 400.

+ Featley's Dippers Dipt, p. 177.

Thurloe's State Papers, vol. iii. p. 90.-Crosby's Baptists, vol. iii. p. 43.
Thomas's MS. History, p. 14, 15.

Crosby's Baptists, vol. iii. p. 43.

Mr. Kiffin, he was set apart in Devonshire-square, June 28, 1666; Mr. Harrison and Mr. Knollys assisting on the occasion. In this office, however, he was not suffered to continue long, by reason of death; as appears from the following memorandum in the church-books belonging to that society :"July 30, 1666: Thomas Patient was, on the 29th instant, discharged by death from his work and office, he being then taken from the evil to come; and having rested from all his labours, leaving a blessed savour behind him of his great usefulness and sober conversation. This his sudden removal being looked upon to be his own great advantage, but the church's sore loss. On this day he was carried to his grave, accompanied by the members of this and other congregations, in a christian, comely, and decent manner." Mr. Patient published nothing besides "The Doctrine of Baptisme,” 1654.

WILLIAM THOMPSON was a lively, powerful, and useful preacher, but much persecuted for nonconformity. He was preacher at some place in Lancashire; where, through a divine blessing upon his zealous and affectionate labours, many souls were converted to God. This worthy servant of Christ having endured manifold interruptions, he, to avoid the furious proceedings of the prelates, retired from the scenes of oppression and persecution; and, in the year 1637, he went to New England.+

Upon his arrival in the new plantation, he was chosen pastor of the church at Braintree, where he continued for many years in the faithful and successful discharge of his numerous ministerial duties. Some time after his settlement at Braintree, he was sent, by the churches of New England, with the glad tidings of the gospel, to Virginia. But the good effects of his mission became no sooner manifest than persecution was raised against him, and he was driven from the place by those who called themselves The Church of England. The good man, therefore, returned to his stated charge at Braintree, where he continued the rest of his days.

Towards the close of life Mr. Thompson was deeply afflicted with melancholy; and was obliged, several of his last years, to relinquish all public ministerial exercises. It pleased

* Wilson's Hist. and Antiq. of Dissenting Churches, vol. i. p. 432, 438. + Morton's Memorial, p. 181.

Mather's Hist. of New England, b. iii. p. 119.

God, however, in his last sickness, to remove the clouds of darkness from his mind, and to administer sweet consolation to his soul. He fell asleep in the Lord, December 10, 1666, in the enjoyment of great peace and comfort. "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace." Mr. Thompson had so warm an affection for the welfare of his people, and was so ardently zealous in the propagation of the gospel among them, that he laid aside his own ease and worldly advantage, and wholly employed himself in promoting the salvation of their souls.

SAMUEL OATES, father to the infamous Titus Oates,+ was a popular preacher among the baptists, and a fellow-labourer with Mr. Thomas Lamb, at the meeting-house in Bell-alley, Coleman-street, London. Edwards, who is mostly angry with separatists from the established church, denominates him a weaver, and endeavours to place him in the most odious light. It appears, from this author, that he spent much time in travelling through different parts of the country, with the view of disseminating his opinions. Speaking of the county of Essex, he says, "Oates hath been sowing his tares and wild Oates in those parts these five weeks, without any controul, and hath seduced and dipped many in Bocking river; and when that is done, he hath a feast in the night, and then the Lord's supper. All these are the works of darkness." If Mr. Oates observed these things in the night, the fault, if there were any, was none of his. The intolerance of the times would not allow such exercises to be observed

Hist. of New England, p. 161.

The following account is given of this man: He was restrained by no principle, human or divine: like Judas, he would have done any thing for thirty shillings, and was one of the most accomplished villains that we read of in history. He was successively an anabaptist, a conformist, and a papist; and then again a conformist. He had been chaplain on board the fleet, whence he was dismissed for an unnatural crime. He was a man of some cunning, more effrontery, and the most consummate falsehood. Soon after the accession of James II., he was convicted of perjury, upon the evidence of above sixty reputable witnesses. He was sentenced to pay a fine of two thousand marks; to be stripped of his canonical habit; to be whipped twice in three days by the common hangman; and to stand in the pillory at Westminster-hall gate, and at the Royal Exchange, He was, moreover, to be pilloried five times every year, and to be imprisoned during life. The hangman performed his office with uncommon rigour. The best thing James ever did was punishing Oates for his perjury; and the greatest thing Oates ever did was supporting himself under the most afflictive part of his punishment with the resolution and constancy of a martyr. The æra of Oates's plot was the grand æra of Whig and Tory.-Granger's Biog. Hist. vol. iv. p. 201, 202, 348.

in the light of day. Crosby, alluding to the above circumstance, observes that, in the year 1646, Mr. Oates took a journey into Essex, preached in several parts of that county, and baptized by immersion great numbers of people, especially about Bocking, Braintree, and Terling. This made the presbyterians in those parts very uneasy; especially the ministers, who complained bitterly that such things should be permitted, and would have urged the magistrates to suppress them. "No magistrate in the country, however, dare meddle with him; for they say they have hunted such persons out of the country into their dens in London, and imprisoned some of them, but they have been released."

If any credit may be given to Mr. Edwards, the conduct of Mr. Oates and some others, in one of their excursions, was highly censurable. He says, "I was informed for certain, that, not long ago, Oates, an anabaptist, and some of his fellows, went their progress into Essex to preach and dip, and among other places they came to Billericay. On a Tuesday at a lecture kept there, Oates and his company, with some of the town, when the minister had done preaching, went up in a body, about twenty of them, (divers of them having swords,) into the upper part of the church, and there quarrelled with the minister that preached, pretending they would be satisfied about some things he had delivered, saying to him, he had not preached free grace. But the minister, one Mr. Smith, replied, if they would come to a place where he dined he would satisfy them; but it was not a time now to speak. Whereupon these anabaptists turned to the people, and said to them, they were under antichrist, and in antichrist's way," and more to the same purpose. After this they committed a riot in the town.+

The same author relates a circumstance in the life of Mr. Oates, that was attended with more serious consequences. "Last summer," says he, "I heard he went his progress into Surrey and Sussex, but now this year he is sent out into Essex. This Oates is a young lusty fellow, and hath traded chiefly with young women and young maids, dipping many of them, though all is fish that comes to his net. A godly minister of Essex, coming out of those parts, related, that he hath baptized a great number of women, and that they were called out of their beds to go a dipping in rivers, dipping many of them in the night, so that their husbands and masters could not keep them in their houses; and it is * Edwards's Gangræna, part ii. p. 3, 8.-Crosby's Baptists, vol. i. p. 236. + Edwards's Gangræna, part i. p. 106. Third edit.