above, and no likelihood of stopping it. Met with the King and Duke of York in their barge, and with them to Queenhith, and there called Sir Richard Browne to them. Their order was only to pull down houses apace, and so below bridge at the waterside; but little was or could be done, the fire coming upon them so fast. Good hopes there was of stopping it at the Three Cranes above, and at Buttolph's Wharf below bridge, if care be used; but the wind carries it into the city, so as we know not by the waterside what it do there. River full of lighters and boats taking in goods, and good goods swimming in the water, and only I observed that hardly one lighter or boat in three, that had the goods of a house in, but there was a pair of virginalls in it. Having seen as much as I could now, I away to Whitehall by appointment, and there walked to St James's Park, and there met my wife, and Creed, and Wood and his wife, and walked to my boat; and there upon the water again, and to the fire up and down, it still increasing, and the wind great. So near the fire as we could for smoke; and all over the Thames, with one's faces in the wind, you were almost burned with a shower of fire-drops. This is very true; so as houses were burned by these drops and flakes of fire, three or four, nay, five or six houses, one from another. When we could endure no more upon the water, we to a little alehouse on the Bank side, over against the Three Cranes, and there staid till it was dark almost, and saw the fire grow, and as it grew darker, appeared more and more, and in corners, and upon steeples, and between churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of the city, in a most horrid, malicious, bloody flame, not like the fine flame of an ordinary fire. Barbary and her husband away before us. We staid till it being darkish, we saw the fire as only one entire arch of fire from this to the other side the bridge, and in a bow up the hill for an arch of above a mile long it made me weep to see it. The churches, houses, and all on fire, and flaming at once; and a horrid noise the flames made, and the crackling of houses at their ruin. So home with a sad heart, and there find everybody discoursing and lamenting the fire.

2. THE APPEARANCE OF THE DUTCH FLEET IN THE THAMES. June 10th, 1667. Up; and news brought us that the Dutch are come up as high as the Nore; and more pressing orders for fireships. W. Batten, W. Pen, and I, to St James's; whence the Duke of York gone this morning betimes to send away some men down to Chatham. So we then to Whitehall, and meet Sir W. Coventry, who presses all that is possible for fire-ships. So we three to the office1 presently; and thither comes Sir Fretcheville Hollis, who is to command them all in some exploits he is to do with them on the enemy in the river. So we all down to Deptford, and pitched upon ships and set men at work: but, to see how backwardly things move at this pinch, notwithstanding that by the

1 Pepys's office at the Admiralty.

enemy's being now come up as high as almost the Hope, Sir J. Minnes, who was gone down to pay some ships there, hath sent up the money; and so we are possessed of money to do what we will with. Yet partly ourselves, being used to be idle and in despair, and partly people that have been used to be deceived by us as to money, won't believe us; and we know not, though we have it, how almost to promise it; and our wants such, and men out of the way, that it is an admirable1 thing to consider how much the king suffers, and how necessary it is in a state to keep the king's service always in a good posture and credit. Down to Gravesend, where I find the Duke of Albemarle just come, with a great many idle lords and gentlemen, with their pistols and fooleries; and the bulwark not able to have stood half an hour had they come up; but the Dutch are fallen down from the Hope and Shellhaven as low as Sheerness, and we plainly at this time hear the guns play.

11th. This morning Pelt writes us word that Sheerness is lost here last night, after two or three hours' dispute. The enemy hath possessed himself of that place; which is very sad, and puts us into great fears as to Chatham. Home, and there to our business, hiring some fire-ships, and receiving every hour almost letters from Sir W. Coventry, calling for more fire-ships; and an order from Council to enable us to take any man's ships; and Sir W. Coventry, in his letter to us, says, we do not doubt but at this time (under an invasion, as he owns it to be) the king may by law take any man's goods.

12th. Up very betimes to our business at the office, the hiring of more fire-ships; and at it close all the morning. When I come to Sir W. Coventry's chamber, I find him abroad; but his clerk, Powell, do tell me that ill news is come to court of the Dutch breaking the chain at Chatham; which struck me to the heart. And to Whitehall to hear the truth of it; and there, going up the Park Stairs, I did hear some lacquies speaking of sad news come to court, saying, there is hardly anybody in the court but do look as if he cried. Home, where all our hearts do now ache; for the news is true that the Dutch have broke the chain, and burned our ships, and particularly "The Royal Charles:" other particulars I know not, but it is said to be so. And the truth is, I do fear so much that the whole kingdom is undone, that I this night do resolve to study with my father and wife what to do with the little that I have in money by me; for I give all the rest that I have in the king's hands for Tangier for lost. So God help us!

XX. RICHARD BAXTER.

RICHARD BAXTER, the most eminent of the Nonconforming divines of this period, was born in 1615. His first public appearance as a clergyman was at Dudley, where his sincerity, zeal, and unwearied

1. e., extraordinary.

exertions are said to have produced a great reformation among the inhabitants. In the civil war he adopted the side of Parliament, with the hope that the nation would gain by its triumph a redress of grievances and an increase of liberty; when, therefore, he found that Cromwell had ceased to labour exclusively for the public good, and contemplated his own advancement, he forsook his party, and never ceased to regret the abolition of monarchy. At the Restoration, which he had laboured to promote, he became one of the Royal chaplains, and it was hoped that he would conform to the rites of the English Church; it is even said that he was offered a bishopric; but he refused to accede, and left the Church with the Nonconformists on Bartholomew's Day. While thus obeying his conscience, he by no means promoted his own comfort; he lost the esteem of the Established clergy, while at the same time he was so friendly to the Establishment as to expose himself to the dislike of the more bigoted of his Dissenting brethren. After this he devoted himself with untiring zeal to his ministerial duties, in which he was occasionally disturbed, the laws having prohibited the meetings of Nonconformists, and in one instance he was tried before the notorious Jeffreys and fined, but the penalty was remitted by the king. He died in 1691. His works are very numerous, amounting, it is said, to no fewer than one hundred and sixty-eight: and some of them, such as the "Saints' Rest," and the "Call to the Unconverted," are still largely read. They were in most cases hastily prepared, and being issued with a higher end than mere literary fame, they ought not to be tried by any rigid literary standard. They are, however, characterized by liberality, charity, thought, earnestness, and unaffected piety; and though Baxter can never be ranked with such men as South and Barrow, not to speak of Taylor or Hall, he will always be read with pleasure as an instructive writer, and his memory revered as one whose whole energies were devoted to the benefit of his fellow-men.

1. VANITY OF KNOWLEDGE.—(" DYING THOUGHTS.")

How small is our knowledge in comparison of our ignorance. And how little doth the knowledge of learned doctors differ from the thoughts of a silly child! For from our childhood we take it in by drops, and as trifles are the matter of childish knowledge, so words, and notions, and artificial forms, do make up more of the learning of the world than is commonly understood, and many such learned men know little more of any great and excellent things themselves, than rustics that are contemned by them for their ignorance. God and the life to come are little better known by them, if not much less, than by many of the unlearned. What is it but a child-game, that many logicians, rhetoricians, grammarians, yea, metaphysicians, and other philosophers, in their eagerest studies and disputes, are exercised in? Of how little use is it to know what is contained in many hundred of the volumes that fill our libraries! Yea, or to know many of the most glorious speculations in physics, mathematics, &c., which have given some the title of virtuosi, and ingeniosi, in these times, who have little the more wit

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or virtue to live to God, or overcome temptations from the flesh and world, and to secure their everlasting hopes. What pleasure or quiet doth it give to a dying man to know almost any of their trifles?

Yea, it were well if much of our reading and learning did us no harm, nay, more than good. I fear lest books are to some but a more honourable kind of temptation than cards and dice, lest many a precious hour be lost in them, that should be employed on much higher matters, and lest many make such knowledge but an unholy, natural, yea, carnal pleasure, as worldlings do the thoughts of their land and honours, and lest they be the more dangerous by how much the less suspected. But the best is, it is a pleasure so fenced from the slothful with thorny labour of hard and long studies, that laziness saveth more from it than grace and holy wisdom doth. But, doubtless, fancy and the natural intellect may, with as little sanctity, live in the pleasure of reading, knowing, disputing, and writing as others spend their time at a game at chess, or other ingenious sport.

And I

For my own part, I know that the knowledge of natural things is valuable, and may be sanctified, much more theological theory, and when it is so, it is of good use; and I have little knowledge which I find not some way useful to my highest ends. And if wishing or money could procure more, I would wish and empty my purse for it; but yet if many score or hundred books which I have read had been all unread, and I had that time now to lay out upon higher things, I should think myself much richer than now I am. must earnestly pray, the Lord forgive me the hours that I have spent in reading things less profitable, for the pleasing of a mind that would fain know all, which I should have spent for the increase of holiness in myself and others! and yet I must thankfully acknowledge to God, that from my youth He taught me to begin with things of greatest weight, and to refer most of my other studies thereto, and to spend my days under the motives of necessity and profit to myself, and those with whom I had to do. And I now think better of the course of Paul that determined to know nothing but a crucified Christ among the Corinthians, that is, so to converse with them as to use, and glorying as if he knew nothing else, and so of the rest of the apostles and primitive ages. And though I still love and honour (and am not of Dr Colet's mind, who, as Erasmus saith, most slighted Augustine), yet I less censure even that Carthage council which forbade the reading of the heathens' books of learning and arts, than formerly I have done. And I would have men savour most that learning in their health, which they will, or should, savour most in sickness, and near to death.

And, alas! how dear a vanity is this knowledge! That which is but theoretic and notional is but a tickling delectation of the fancy or mind, little differing from a pleasant dream. But how many hours, what gazing of the wearied eye, what stretching thoughts of the impatient brain must it cost us, if we will attain to any excel

lency! Well saith Solomon, " Much reading is a weariness to the flesh, and he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow." How many hundred studious days and weeks, and how many hard and tearing thoughts, hath my little, my very little knowledge, cost me : and how much infirmity and painfulness to my flesh, increase of painful diseases, and loss of bodily ease and health! How much pleasure to myself of other kinds, and how much acceptance with men have I lost by it, which I might easily have had in a more conversant and plausible way of life! And when all is done, if I reach to know any more than others of my place and order, I must differ so much (usually) from them; and if I manifest not that difference, but keep all that knowledge to myself, I sin against conscience and nature itself. The love of man and the love of truth oblige me to be soberly communicative. Were I so indifferent to truth and knowledge as easily to forbear their propagation, I must also be so indifferent to them as not to think them worth so dear a price as they have cost me (though they are the free gifts of God).

But if I obey nature and conscience in communicating that knowledge which containeth my difference aforesaid, the Dissenters too often take themselves disparaged by it, how peaceably soever I manage it; and as bad men take the piety of the godly to be an accusation of their impiety, so many teachers take themselves to be accused of ignorance by such as condemn their errors by the light of truth; and if you meddle not with any person, yet take they their opinions to be so much their interest, as that all that is said against them they take as said against themselves. And then, alas! what envyings, what whispering disparagements, and what backbitings, if not malicious slanders and underminings, do we meet with from the carnal clergy! And O that it were all from them alone! and that among the zealous and suffering party of faithful preachers there were not much of such iniquity, and that none of them preached Christ in strife and envy! It is sad that error should find so much shelter under the selfishness and pride of pious men, and that the friends of truth should be tempted to reject and abuse so much of it in their ignorance as they do: but the matter of fact is too evident to be hid.

2. BAXTER'S OPINIONS ON THE COVENANT AND OCCASIONAL CONFORMITY. (FROM HIS FAREWELL SERMON INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN PREACHED AT KIDDERMINSTER BEFORE BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY, BUT FORBIDDEN.)

I am glad that you were kept from taking the solemn league and covenant, and the engagement, and all consent to the change of the constituted government of this kingdom. I took the covenant myself, of which I repent, and I will tell you why: I never gave it but to one man (that I remember), and he professed himself to be a Papist physician newly turned Protestant, and he came to me to