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Taylor should suffer at Hadleigh. The day after his wife had supped with him, he was taken at two o'clock in the morning to an inn beyond Aldgate. His wife, suspecting that he would be carried away secretly, watched all night in St. Botolph's church-porch, with two children, one of his own, and an adopted daughter, "to catch a sight of him as he passed." Just when the sheriff and his company passed by the church, one of the children cried out, "O my dear father! mother, mother, here is my father led away!" Then said his wife, 66 Rowland, Rowland, where art thou?" for the morning was very dark. Dr. Taylor answered, "Dear wife, I am here." The sheriff's men would have hurried him on; but the sheriff, more humane, said, "Stay, let him speak to his wife." Then she came to him (they are the words of good John Fox,) and he took his daughter Mary in his arms; and he, his wife, and Elizabeth, both kneeled down and said the Lord's prayer. At which sight the sheriff wept apace, and so did divers others of the company. After they had prayed, he rose up and kissed his wife, saying, "Farewell, my dear wife; be of good comfort, for I am quiet in my conscience. God shall raise up a father for my children." And then he kissed his daughter Mary, and said, "God bless thee, and make thee His servant." And kissing Elizabeth, he said, "God bless thee. I pray you all stand strong and stedfast unto Christ and His word, and keep you from idolatry." Then said his wife, "God be with thee, dear Rowland; I will, with God's grace, meet thee at Hadleigh."

Whilst Dr. Taylor was kept waiting at the inn for the sheriff of Essex, his wife made another attempt to see him, but was prevented. On coming out he saw his son, and his servant, John Hull. He took his lad before him on the horse on which he rode, John Hull lifting him up in his arms. He again blessed the lad, and returning him to his man, said, " Farewell, John Hall, the faithfullest servant that man ever had." Near Brentwood he was recognised by an old servant; and, in consequence, he was provided in that town with a close visor, having apertures for the mouth and eyes, but otherwise covering all his face. At Chelmsford he supped; and the sheriff of Essex, together with the yeomen of the guard, earnestly persuaded him to recant. Dr. Taylor, even at this solemn crisis, could not altogether suppress his humour. After a pause, he said, "Master sheriff, and my masters all, I heartily thank you for your goodwill. I have hearkened to your words, and marked well your counsels. And, to be plain with you, I do perceive that I have been deceived myself, and that I am likely to deceive a great many at Hadleigh of their expectation." The whole company was delighted at this announcement; but when one of them pressed him to be more explicit, he said, "I will tell you; I had reckoned upon dying in my bed at Hadleigh, and upon being buried in the churchyard there. I am deceived therein. In the said churchyard there is a great number of worms, which have long looked for abundant feeding upon this large carcase of mine. They will be deceived therein; for this my body will be burnt to ashes." Fox says, "When the company heard him say so, they were amazed, and looked one on another, marvelling at the man's constant mind."

At Lavenham he was detained two days, in the hope that he might be persuaded to recant. He expressed great joy at hearing he was to pass through Hadleigh, and see yet once before he died the flock whom "God knew he had most heartily loved, and truly taught." At the foot of the bridge he met a poor man and his five small children, who had often been relieved by the Rector's charity, crying out, "God help and succour thee, as thou hast many a time succoured me and mine!" The streets of Hadleigh were crowded; and prayers, blessings, and grateful acknowledgments of past favours, reached the martyr's ears from every side. Then Dr. Taylor, addressing his sorrowing flock, said, "I have preached to you God's Word and truth, and am come this day to seal it with my blood." In passing the alms-houses, he inquired for the blind man and woman that dwelt there; and not seeing them on the spot, he threw his glove through the window for them, with what money he had left.

On arriving at Aldham Common, and seeing a great multitude collected there, he asked, "What place is this?" "Here you must suffer," was the reply. "Then, said he, "God be thanked, I am at home." Then when the people saw his reverend face and his long white beard, they burst forth with loud lamentations,

crying, "God save thee, good Dr. Taylor, Jesus Christ strengthen thee and help thee; the Holy Ghost comfort thee." He then called one Soyce to him out of the crowd to pull off his boots, and take them for his labour, "seeing he had long looked for them." At last, he exclaimed with a loud voice, as though the moral of his life was conveyed in those parting words, "Good people, I have taught you nothing but God's holy Word, and those lessons which I have taken out of God's blessed Book, the Holy Bible; and I am come hither this day to seal it with my blood;" upon which one of the guard brutally struck him on the head. When he was fastened to the stake, some difficulty was experienced in finding persons to pile the faggots up and to set them on fire. At length four notorious vagabonds undertook these hateful offices, and one of them more brutal than the rest, hurled a faggot at the martyr's head, which caused the blood to flow over his face. "Oh! friend," said the meek saint, "what needed that? I have harm enough." He then proceeded to repeat the fifty-first Psalm in English. "Speak Latin, ye knave," said one of his persecutors, striking him on the lips. When the fire was kindled, the sufferer lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, "Merciful Father, for Jesus Christ, my Saviour's sake, receive my soul into Thy hands." He then folded his arms upon his breast, and stood motionless without uttering a single exclamation of pain. His sufferings were of short continuance, for one of the men struck him with an halbert on the head, and his corpse instantly fell into the fire.

Thus died Rowland Taylor-a name ever to be revered. "The incidents of his life," says Mr. Blunt, "combine so many touches of tenderness with so much firmness of purpose-so many domestic charities with so much heroism—such cheerfulness with such disaster, that if there is any character calculated to call forth all the sympathies of our nature it is that of Rowland Taylor. God's blessing is still generally seen on the third and fourth generation of them that love him; and if Rowland could have beheld the illustrious descendant which Providence was preparing for him in Jeremy Taylor, the antagonist of the Church of Rome, able after his own heart's content-the first and best advocate of toleration—the greatest promoter of practical piety that has ever, perhaps, lived amongst us--he might have humbly imagined that God had not forgotten this His gracious dispensation in his own case; and had approved his martyrdom, by raising from his ashes a spirit more than worthy of his name."

At the place of Dr. Taylor's execution was erected a stone, with the following inscription :

"Anno 1555.

Dr. Taylor, for defending what was good,

In this place shed his blood."

And in the parish Church of Hadleigh, a small tablet of brass has been affixed to a pillar in the middle aisle, near to the reading-desk, in commemoration of this eminent martyr. The following is a copy of it.

Islington.

“Gloria in Altissimis Deo."

"Of Rowland Taillor's fame I shewe

An excellent Devine

And Doctor of the Eivill Law

A Preacher rare and fyne

King Henry and King Cdwarde dayes
Preacher and Parson here

That gave to God continuall prayse
And kept his flocke in feare
And for the truth condemned to dye
He was in fiery flame

When he recieved patientlie

The torment of the same
And thoughe suffered to the nde

Which made the standers by

Rejoice in God to see their friende
And Pastor so to dye

Taillor were thy mightie fame
Uprightly here enroulde

Thy deeds deserve that thy good name
Were ciphered here in golde.”

Obiit Anno Dmn, 1555.

J. Y.

HORTATORY SERIES.

THE OBSCURITY, EQUITY, AND BENEVOLENCE OF PROVIDENTIAL

DISPENSATIONS.

A SERMON, BY THE REV. JOHN CLAYTON, JUN. PREACHED AT THE POULTRY CHAPEL, ON SUNDAY MORNING, APRIL 12, 1840,

ON THE TRAGICAL DEATH OF TWO MISSIONARIES.

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"The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of the isles be glad thereof. Clouds and darkness are round about Him; righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne."Psalm xcvii. 1, 2.

THERE are scarcely any of you, who under the club of the savage and the are not acquainted with those painful spears of the uncivilised horde, yet their details, which have issued from the pulpit spirits have been favoured with an abunand the press within the past few days, dant entrance into the everlasting kingrelative to the death of a valuable mis-dom of Jesus Christ. Then it thinks on sionary and his companion, in the South the weeping widows and fatherless chilSeas. You have read or heard the ac-dren of the departed, and who are not count of their having been murdered by yet able fully to gaze at the bright crown the inhabitants of one of the Australasian Islands, discovered in the year 1606, by Quiros, a Spanish captain, and called byour Captain Cook (who fully ascertained their position and number in the year 1774,) the New Hebrides.

of martyrdom which sits on the brows of those who are more than conquerors; and lifts up an aspiration-"Be Thou their God and Judge in Thine holy habitation." Then it meditates on the loss sustained by the church, in the early The reports of the afflictive intelli- demise of those excellent men, who were gence seem to bear all the internal evi- cut down in the meridian of their days, dence of truth; so that we have no and in the zenith of their usefulness; and reason to doubt the facts, that when with a fresh pang of regret the lips utter Messrs. Williams and Harris paid a visit the appeal" My father, my father, to Aromanga, one of this group in the the chariots of Israel, and the horsemen Pacific Ocean, the latter was speared to thereof!" Then follows many an anxious death a little way from the beach, and prayer; one while for the murderershis inestimable missionary brother was Father, forgive them; for they know dispatched by the blow of a club, just as not what they do ;" and then for the he had reached the shore and was at-companions of the deceased, that God tempting to make his escape in a boat.

would prove their shade and keeper, on On the receipt of such unexpected and the right hand and on the left; and for disastrous intelligence, the mind becomes the cause, deprived of some of its effithe subject of a variety of emotions. At cient advocates, that the Lord of the first it is utterly shocked and distressed harvest would send forth more labourers to think on the tragical termination of into the harvest; till at length faith the lives of such eminently devoted springs up into vigorous action-faith in servants of Jesus Christ, and one of whom the sovereignty of God, who does what appeared in every point of view so well He pleases without consulting us-faith fitted to the character and object of that in His wisdom, which cannot err- -faith work to which he was consecrated. But in His love and compassion, which by degrees it subsides into more calm mingle mercy with judgment-faith in and sedate reflection. It adverts to the His power, which can bring good out of parties who have thus suddenly ended evil, and can turn that which has the their course, and is consoled by the per- aspect of a curse, into a blessing to the suasion, that though their bodies died church and to the world. Thus the

:

Our subject, then, is not altogether inappropriate to the events which we have lately been led to deplore, and I shall proceed

I. To confirm and illustrate the sentiment here expressed.

mind, like the magnetic needle, after fire goes before Him-("A fire goeth many vibrations, arrives by degrees at a before Him, and barneth up His enemies point of rest in the moral administration round about; His lightnings enlightof God; and the sentiments are expressed ened the world; the earth saw and trem with which the Psalm before us opens bled; the hills melted like wax at the "The Lord reigneth; let the earth re- presence of the Lord, at the presence of the joice; let the multitude of the isles be glad Lord of the whole earth;") yet all the peothereof. Clouds and darkness are round ple shall see His glory-they shall be conabout Him; righteousness and judg-founded that serve graven images, and ment are the habitation of His throne." boast themselves of their idols and There is one thing, of which I beg Messiah shall be acknowledged as worthy you to take particular notice; and that of universal veneration, love, trust, and is, the connection in which the words homage, from one end of the earth to the of my text stand. In the immediately other. preceding Psalm, the author is referring to the extension of the truth and the honour of God among the Gentiles; and he is calling on the church to rejoice on this account. "Give unto the Lord, O ye kindreds of the people, give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto 1. It is true in reference to the natuthe Lord the glory due unto His name; ral world. There is something which bring an offering and come into His creates unpleasant and often painful imcourts. Oh! worship the Lord in the pressions, in the opaque and heavy cloud; beauty of holiness: fear before Him, and we expect the outbreak of a storm. all the earth. Say among the Soon the tempest follows, which rouses heathen, that the Lord reigneth the the elements into a sort of fierce contenworld also shall be established, that it tion. But shortly we see, that although shall not be moved: He shall judge the it may have torn the foliage of many a people righteously." He continues the tree, and laid many a blossom and flower same strain in the opening of this sacred low on the ground, and here and there piece of composition; invites the inha- has uprooted the monarchs of the wood, bitants of the multitude of the isles to yet the agitation of the air and of the rejoice in the fact, that the Lord reigneth; waters has conduced to the purification as though He meant to prepare our minds of the atmosphere the removal of injufor some dark or mysterious events, which rious matter with which it was loaded might occur in the series of scenes and the promotion of the processes of vegetaamongst the agencies by which He car- tion and the establishment of the health ried on His work, He forewarns us, that both of man and beast. Moreover, when His way may be in the cloud and storm, these storms have multiplied, and the but still all His works are done in righ-weather has been so dull and dark and teousness and truth. The reference, too, is obviously to the Messiah. to Christ, and the progress of His kingdom in the latter day. If we had any doubt of this, Paul settles it in his epistle to the Hebrews; and alluding to the seventh verse of this chapter-"Worship Him all ye gods" says, that this was the mandate of the Father concerning Christ; "Let all the angels of God worship Him." If 2. The sentiment may be justified also He reigns supreme in the church and by looking into the arrangements of over all worlds, we may safely leave the Providence. How many of these are interests of man in His hands. And surrounded by such obscure shadows, though in the successive movements by which He is pleased to advance His cause, there may be much that is painful and even alarming--though He comes as in clouds and thick darkness-though a

seemingly unpropitious, that multitudes despaired of the sufficient production of the ground, how has the God of creation sustained the character of His government, and displayed the veracity of His promise, that while the earth remained, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night should not cease!

that we cannot penetrate them! This is true of mankind in general, and of individuals in particular. The state of mankind is in some respects to us inexplicable. What a mystery is the origin of moral

3. Now, my hearers, as it is in the ordinances of nature and in the dispensations of Providence, so it is in the economy of Divine grace. If we examine closely a portion of the contents of this inspired Volume, while we must admit, that it contains many things, which are plain to the wayfaring man, there are also many things dark and hard to be understood. There is the exhibition of an eternal and infinite Spirit; but while we pronounce the descriptive words, we cannot at all comprehend their meaning; Nor can we, when we speak of a triune Deity, of the union of two perfectly remote natures, God and man, in one person, and the contact of the blessed Spirit with the human soul so as to produce in it a complete moral change, and of the wonders of a future resurrection of the bodies of mankind from the grave. All these are mysteries, and enveloped in shadows; they pass the human understanding.

evil! How came it to be permitted in
heaven-how in paradise, to mar the
creation of God? or when it gained
admission, how was it, that it was suffered
to be perpetuated? and that the whole race
of men, as they enter the world, are born
in sin, and as they spring up into life
discover the most decided propensities to
every thing that is bad; so that all flesh
corrupts its way? How is it, that even
numbers of the animals seem also to
have undergone a change in connection
with man's apostacy from God? that
they appear to possess noxious qualities,
by which they were not originally dis-
tinguished, and to be enemies to one
another, and to man? How is it, that
the very ground on which we tread is
evidently subject to a curse, bringing
forth poisonous weeds and unprofitable
thorns and thistles, or is totally barren
where it does not receive cultivation ?
These are difficulties which we cannot
solve; and were it not for the volume of
Revelation, we could not in any way ac-
There is something too in the represen-
count for the fact of that wretched con- tations given of experimental reli-
dition in which the inhabitants of the gion which is incomprehensible. What
world are, in what is justly called their sentences are these? "Your life
natural estate. The lots of individuals, is hid with Christ in God." "I am
moreover, are matters, of which God gives crucified with Christ, yet I live; yet not I,
no account, and which we are unable to but Christ liveth in me; and the life I
explain. Who can tell me why this now live in the flesh, I live by faith on
person has such commanding intellectual the Son of God." "I in them, and
talents, that he is the admiration of his they in Me." Though all creatures fail,
species for the solidity of his judgment and "yet will I rejoice in the Lord ;” “ I will
the brilliancy of his genius? why the indi- joy in the God of my salvation." We
vidual born in the same cottage and in the commonly apply these words to heaven,
same village, nay, and of the same family, and truly they will fully apply to things
is a drivelling idiot? Who can say why unseen, and eternal; but they refer, as
that excellent person is pinched by the used both by the prophet and apostle, to
most bitter poverty, and that abandoned the blessings, privileges and pleasures of
profligate rolls in abundance and luxury? piety; to the things which God reveals
Who can say why you are permitted to to us by His Spirit.
66 Eye hath not
enjoy an unbroken state of health for seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it en-
years, and another has languished a dis-tered into the heart of man to conceive
eased cripple from his cradle to his the good things, which the Lord hath
grave? In one word, who can inform laid up for those who love Him."
me why some of the most benevolent,
useful of characters, are cut down by a
swift or violent death in the midst of
their philanthropic or religious enter-
prises, and others who are mere useless
drones in society and in the church, are
suffered to live a burden to themselves
and others, to a very advanced period of
life? We look at such arrangements
with surprise, and we cry out, "Thy way,
O God, is in the deep, and Thy footsteps
in the mighty waters, and Thy judg

ments are not known."

And as it is with their inward experience, so it is with the outward trials of the people of God. That the wicked and the enemies of God should meet with these troubles, would not be a matter of surprise; but to see such eminently pious men as a Job, a Joseph, an Elijah, and many of the prophets and apostlesto see these a spectacle to all on account of their accumulated afflictions and sore persecutions, this may well awaken in our bosoms a feeling resembling that of Asaph, who tells us that he was oppressed

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