Joseph Alleine: HIS COMPANIONS & TIMES; A Memorial of “Black Bartholomew,” 1662. By Charles Stanford. “O, sit anima mea cum Puritanis Anglicanis!” - ERASMUS. London: JACKSON, WALFORD, AND HODDER, ST. PAUL’S CHURCHYARD, Printed by G. Unwin, At the Gresham Steam Press, BUCKLESBURY, LONDON. 1861 Formatting, minor spelling changes (‘fancy’ for ‘phansie’, etc.), and additional notes by William H. Gross – Colorado Springs CO 2010 Table of Contents AUTHOR’S PREFACE. .................................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER I. ‐ JOSEPH ALLEINE’S FATHER. ...................................................................................................... 3 CHAPTER II. – STRANGE SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS ........................................................................... 12 CHAPTER III. – LIFE IN THE PURITAN UNIVERSITY ........................................................................................ 20 CHAPTER IV. – VISIT TO TAUNTON .............................................................................................................. 33 CHAPTER V. – ALLEINE’S SETTLEMENT......................................................................................................... 42 CHAPTER VI. WORDS AND WAYS OF THE LAST PURITANS ........................................................................... 53 CHAPTER VII. – ALLEINE IN THE SABBATH OF HIS LIFE .................................................................................. 66 CHAPTER VIII. – THE ACT OF UNIFORMITY ................................................................................................... 78 CHAPTER IX. – BLACK BARTHOLOMEW AND THE TWO MINISTERS .............................................................. 93 CHAPTER X. – TRIAL AT TAUNTON CASTLE ................................................................................................ 107 CHAPTER XI. – DOINGS IN ILCHESTER GAOL .............................................................................................. 119 CHAPTER XII. – CARDIPHONIA .................................................................................................................. 134 CHAPTER XIII. – FREEDOM FOUND AND LOST AGAIN ................................................................................ 141 CHAPTER XIV. – FAINT, YET PURSUING ...................................................................................................... 164 CHAPTER XV. – TOLL FOR THE BRAVE ........................................................................................................ 177 APPENDIX. ............................................................................................................................................... 187 INDEX ....................................................................................................................................................... 190 Author’s Preface. THE following work is an attempt to bring into notice some of our early Nonconformist worthies, the story of whose life-long sufferings for truth and duty is now almost unknown. It professes to be a book of “OBSCURE MARTYRS.” True it is, that the chief hero, Joseph Alleine, was well-known in his own times, but even then he was obscure in comparison with many in the constellation of eminent men around him. With prophet-like solemnity, Richard iv Baxter says: “Let posterity know, that though this servant of Christ was exalted above very many of his brethren, yet it is not that such men are wonders in this age that his life is singled out to be recorded.” The “Life,” in the introduction to which these words occur, was first published in 1672. It includes a narrative, twenty-five pages long, written by his widow; several essays, like prose elegies, contributed by his friends; and also forty of his letters. Only a few facts are related, and although the volumes spread the fame of his worth, it still left much of his life in obscurity. In our own day, “Joseph Alleine” is little more than a name – a name that stands on the title- page of an old book, called, “AN ALARM TO THE UNCONVERTED;” – a dead name, without substance, personality, or history. Still less is known of his companions for, generally speaking, their very names have faded out of remembrance. It has been said by some of my friends, that the life of some great Nonconformist v leader would have been a more attractive subject than that which has here been selected. But we are already well-acquainted with Baxter, Owen, Howe, John Bunyan, and men who in the same day had similar influence. Accounts of them have been so often and so ably recorded, that little more remains to be told. My preference has been decided in favour of Alleine and his companions, because I venture to think that most of the information now offered respecting them is important; and that also, to most of my readers, it will be new. Important? I am sure it is. To know the heroic age of Nonconformity correctly and completely, we must not only know the men who were then influential from commanding genius and station, but we should know something of the average ministers and the provincial congregations. You are invited to live with one of those ministers; to study his principles, and the various influences which tended to fix and try them; to look on some of those external things to which his mind owed its vi 1 formation and its information; to be introduced to some of the men and women whom he met in his daily walks and country labours; and to follow him, in thought, both to prison and to death. As you thus accompany him, you are invited to watch, all the way along, the development of the events which led to the Act of Uniformity, and then to observe that Act in its operation. This is my plan; and although it has been very imperfectly realised, I hope some good will be effected by the attempt to carry it out. I address more especially the younger members of our congregations, and if they are led to examine afresh the reasons for Nonconformity, to search into some of its historical connexions, and above all to emulate the holy lives of its earlier confessors, then my principal object will be gained. At the present time, having nearly reached the second centenary of the year when the peculiar sufferings of our ancestors began, and when their good confession was made, it becomes us all to renew our attention to the truths for which vii they suffered, and also to renew our praise to Him, who, through the growing ascendancy of those truths, has permitted us to see the day of liberty which they desired to see but saw not. “They that are delivered from the noise of archers in the places of drawing water, there shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the Lord, even the righteous acts towards the inhabitants of his villages in Israel.” My cordial acknowledgments are due to the various friends who have kindly answered my inquiries and contributed to my materials; but chiefly to my friend James Waylen, Esq., of Etchilhampton, near Devizes, who first suggested the idea of undertaking the work, and who has ever been ready to help me with the results of his extensive reading and minute antiquarian research. For courteous permission to see books and papers, in Dr. Williams’s library most especially, also in the library of the Guildhall, in that of the London Medical Society, in that of the Society of Friends at Devonshire House, in that of Sion College, viii and in that of the Baptist College, Bristol, the Trustees and Librarians will be pleased to accept my best thanks. Charles Stanford. Camberwell, October, 1861. 2 JOSEPH ALLEINE’S FATHER Chapter I. - Joseph Alleine’s Father. “Was I not born of old worthy lineage?” SIR THOMAS MORE. In the course of searching for lost facts in the life of Joseph Alleine, a few particulars have come to light in relation to his father, worthy Mr. Toby Alleine, of Devizes. Slight and disconnected as they are, it would be a pity to let them vanish into darkness again; they are therefore now for the first time presented, and all the more readily, because a notice of them will involve some historic statements which may prepare us to estimate the facts given in the following chapters. Some old writers on heraldry seem to think that the father of all the Alleines in England, or, at least, of all whose families have been longest established in the counties where they live, was Alan, Lord of Buckenhall, in the reign of the first Edward; 4 stopped under the glimmer of the trees in the marketplace to chat with him about the good old times. Many allusions to him occur in the ancient municipal documents. In 1636, and subsequently, he stands as sponsor for the due appearance and equipment of a musketeer in the town train- bands. At a later period, mention is made of £300 (about £1000 in present value), which he lends the borough authorities to relieve the straits occasioned by the wars. For many years his name is written first in the list of majores or “capital burgesses” of the common-council; these, and similar notices, seem to certify that he was a man of public spirit, that he held a respected but unpretending station in society, and that as to his circumstances, he had neither poverty nor riches.1 He does not appear in the gentry lists of Wilts for the year 1623, though his family had always been thus reported before.2 The omission in his instance was only remarkable because, tradesman as he was, he might have been supposed to have some claim to the honours