Thus, even the humble and benevolent Mr Fox was not without his enemies; who narrowly watched his conduct, and waited for an opportunity to injure him. His singular openness and sincerity did not long leave them at a loss for ways and means. Snares were laid for him; and his generous honesty betrayed him into them. A moderate portion of dissimulation (commonly called, prudence and circumspection) would, perhaps have secured him a while from the machinations of his adversaries. But he chose rather to suffer affliction, with the people, and for the cause, of GOD; than to enjoy the pleasure of sin for a season: Mindful of that decisive and alarming declaration, Whosoever is ashamed of me, and of my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father, with his holy angels. Through grace, our Author, determined to venture the loss of all things, for Christ's sake In consequence of which, he openly professed the gospel, and was publicly accused of heresy. His college passed judgment on him, as an heretic convicted; and, presently after, he saw himself expelled from the university. His enemies maintained, that he was favourably dealt with by that sentence; and might think himself happily off, to incur expulsion, instead of death.

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Mr Fox's troubles sat the heavier on him, as they lost him the countenance and good offices of his friends, who were afraid to assist and protect a person condemned for a capital offence. His father-in-law, particularly, seized this opportunity to withhold from Mr Fox the estate which his own father had left him: Thinking, that he, who stood in danger of the law himself, would with difficulty find relief by legal methods.

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Being thus forsaken and oppressed, he was reduced to great straits: When GOD raised him up an pected patron in Sir Thomas Lucy, of Warwickshire; who received him into his house, and made him tutor to his children. Here he married a citizen's daughter, of Coventry; and continued in Sir Thomas's family, till his pupils were grown up: After which, he, with some diffi-. culty procured entertainment with his wife's father, at Coventry; from whence, a few years before the death of Henry VIII. he removed to London.

For a considerable time after his arrival in the capital, being without employment or preferment, he was again reduced to extreme want. But the Lord's good providence relieved him, at length, in the following extra

ordinary

ordinary manner. As he was sitting, one day, in St Paul's church; his eyes hollow, his countenance wan and pale, and his whole body emaciated (or, rather, within a little of being literally starved to death;) a person, whom he never remembered to have seen before, came and sat down by him: And, accosting him familiarly, put a respectable sum of money into his hand, saying, Be of good comfort, Mr Fox; take care of yourself, and use all means to preserve your life: For, depend upon it, GOD will, in a few days, give you a better prospect, ⚫ and more certain means of subsistence.' He, afterwards, used his utmost endeavours, to find out the person, by whose bounty he had been so seasonably relieved: But he was never able to gain any discovery. However, the prediction was fulfilled; for, within three days from that memorable incident, he was taken into the duchess of Richmond's family, to be tutor to her nephew the earl of Surrey's children, who (on the imprisonment of the earl, and of his father the duke of Norfolk, in the tower,) were committed to the care of the duchess for education.

Mr Fox lived with this family, at Ryegate, in Surrey, during the latter part of Henry VIII's reign, the five years reign of K. Edward VI. and part of Q. Mary's. Gardiner, the bloody bishop of Winchester, in whose diocese this good man so long lived, would have soon brought him to the shambles; had he not been protected by one of his noble pupils, then duke of Norfolk. Gardiner always hated Mr Fox (who, it is said, was the first person that ventured to preach the gospel at Ryegate;) and saw, with deep concern, the heir of one of the noblest families in the kingdom, trained up in attachment to Protestantism, under Mr Fox's influence. The prelate, therefore, formed various designs against the safety of the latter; and sought, by many artifices, and stratagems, to work his ruin. The holy man, who was no less suspicious of the bishop, than the bishop was of him, found himself obliged in prudence (though much against the duke's inclination, who loved and revered him as a father) to quit his native land, and seek shelter abroad. His grace of Norfolk, perceiving that no arguments nor intreaties could induce his honoured tutor to remain in England, took care to provide him with every accommodation, requisite for his voyage. Mr Fox, accordingly, set sail from Ipswich haven: Accompanied by his wife, who was then pregnant; and by several other persons, who were leaving their country on a religious

account. The vessel had not been very long at sea, ere a storm arose; which, the next day, drove them back into the port from whence they had set out. Having, with great difficulty and danger, reached the land; Mr Fox was saluted with indubitable information, that bishop Gardiner had issued a warrant for apprehending him, and was causing the most diligent search to be made after him. On this, he made interest with the master of the ship to put to sea again, without delay; though at evident hazard of their lives, as the tempest had not yet subsided. Through GOD's goodness, however, they all arrived, in two days, at Nieuport in Flanders: From whence Mr Fox and his company travelled to Antwerp, and Frankfort: and so to Basil, in Switzerland; whither great numbers of the English resorted, in those times of domestic persecution.

The city of Basil was then one of the most famous in Europe, for printing: And many of the learned refugees, who retired thither, got their subsistence by revising and correcting the press. To this employment, Mr Fox betook himself: And it was here, that he laid the first plan of his inestimable history and martyrology, entitled, Acтs AND MONUMENTS OF THE CHURCH.

Q. Mary died in the month of November 1558. And, the day before she died in England, Mr Fox, in a sermon then preached by him at Basil, publicly and positively predicted, that the day then next ensuing would be the last of her life. An event, so circumstantially foretold, by one at such a distance from the place of Mary's residence; and so punctually accomplished, by the hand of divine Providence, is so remarkable an occurrence, that it does not seem hasty to conclude, that GOD alone could have revealed it.

Elizabeth's accession encouraged Mr Fox to return home : Where, on his arrival, he still found a faithful and serviceable friend, in his late pupil, the duke of Norfolk; who hospitably and nobly entertained him, at his manor of Christ-church, in London, till his [i. e. till the duke's] death From which latter period, Mr Fox inherited a pension, bequeathed to him by his deceased benefactor, and ratified by his son the earl of Surrey.

Nor did the good man's successes stop here. On being recommended to the queen, by her secretary of state, the great Cecil; her majesty gave him the prebendary of Shipton, in the cathedral of Salisbury; which was, in a manner, forced upon him; for he brought himself with difliculty

culty to accept of it. The truth is, that, wise and holy and learned as Mr Fox unquestionably was, he entertained some needless doubts, concerning the lawfulness of subscribing to the ecclesiastical canons: A requisition, which, in his ideas, he considered, as an infringement of Protestant liberty. Through this extreme scrupulousness, he excluded himself from rising to those dignities and promotions in the church, to which his uncommon merit, as a scholar and a divine, eminently entitled him : And to which he would most certainly have risen, but for the cause now assigned. His friends were many, great, and powerful; as Sir Francis Walsingham, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Thomas Gresham, Sir Drue Drury, archbishop Grindal, bishop Aylmer, bishop Parkhurst, &c. who would have been the instruments of raising him to very considerable preferments, had not his coolness towards the canons and ceremonies of the church of England, restrained him. from accepting any of her capital emoluments. While, however, we may impute this conduct to his prejudices; we cannot but revere him for his honesty, and for his extreme tenderness of conscience.-Dr Fuller tells us, that archbishop Parker summoned him to subscribe; in hope, that the general reputation of his piety might give the greater countenance to conformity.' But, instead of complying with the command, Mr Fox pulled out of his pocket the New Testament, in Greek; and, holding it up, said, "To this will I subscribe." And, when a subscription to the canons was required of him, he refused; saying, "I have nothing in the church, but a prebend at "Salisbury: And, if you take it away from me, much "good may it do you." But he was permitted to retain it until his death: Such respect did the bishops (who had, most of them, been his fellow exiles abroad) bear to his age, parts, and labours.

Yet let it be remembered, that, notwithstanding his acknowledged moderation in point of thorough conformity; he was still a declared enemy to the heats and violences of rigid puritanism. "I cannot but wonder, (said he, in a "letter to a bishop) at that turbulent genius, which in"spires those factious Puritans.-Were I one who, like "them, would be violently outrageous against bishops "and archbishops; or join myself with them, i. e. be"come mad, as they are; I had not met with severe treat"ment (at their hands.) But because, quite different "from them, I have chosen the side of modesty and pub"lic tranquillity; the hatred which they have long con

"ceived

"ceived against me is at last grown to this degree of bit❝terness. Your prudence is not ignorant how much the "Christian religion suffered formerly by the dissimulation "and hypocrisy of the monks. At present, in these men, "I know not what new sort of monks seems to revive; so "much more pernicious than the former, as, with more "subtle artifices of deceiving, and under pretence of per"fection, like stage-players who only act a part, they "conceal a more dangerous poison: Who, while they "require every thing to be formed according to their own "strict discipline, will not desist, until they have brought "all things into Jewish bondage *."

Thus thought, and thus wrote, this admirable divine! this friend to good men of all parties, but a slave to no party of men!

How benevolently disposed this great and good man was, even toward those who differed the most widely from him in religious principles; appears, among many other instances, from the Latin letter, which he wrote to queen Elizabeth, A. D. 1575, to dissuade her majesty from putting to death + two Anabaptists, who had been condemned to the fire. Fuller has preserved the whole of this masterly

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*The occafion on which this letter was written, and the whole of the letter itself, in its original Latin, are extant in Fuller's Church-Hift. b. ix. p. 106. For a fummary of it in English, fee Biographia Britannica, vol. iii. p. 2021.

On Eafter-day was difclofed a congregation of Dutch Anabaptifts, without Aldgate in London; whereof feven-and-twenty were taken and imprisoned; and four, bearing faggots at Paul's-Cross, folemnly recanted ⚫ their dangerous opinions. Next month, one Dutchman, and ten women, were condemned, of whom one woman was converted to renounce her errors, eight were banished the land, two fo obftinate that command was iffued out for their burning in Smithfield.' FULLER'S Church Hist. b. ix. p. 204.

This fhocking and unjustifiable perfecution, could not but reflect deep difgrace on the Proteftant name. The two unhappy victims were burned, according to their fentence, July 22, 1575. They were both Dutchmen, and, as we are informed by Stowe, died in great horror, with roaring and crying.' Chronicle, p. 680. Strype fays their names were John Wickmacker and Hendrick Ter Woort, and that they fuffered after an imprisonment of fixteen weeks. Much intereft was made in their behalf by the Dutch congregation fettled in London, but the privy council would not fpare them. (Strype's Annals, vol. ii. p. 380.) It was eminently humane, in their countrymen here, to importune the government fo earnestly in their favour; especially when we recollect that the interceffors were Calvinifts, and that the fufferers added, to their other herefies, the maintenance of free-will, perfection, juftification by works, and falling from grace; which, however, was infinitely far from warranting the fanguinary rigour with which they were treated.