Nov. 20. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



491 



whole life could have made any parade of 9" — Discourse 

 by way of Vision concerning the Government of Oliver 

 Cromwell. Works, p. 71.: Lond. 166%, M. 



To do Dr. South only common justice, we must 

 not for a moment forjjet this fact. He does not 

 congratulate Cromwell upon wading "through 

 blood and slaughter to a throne ; " but he com- 

 pliments him upon reducing the enemies of Eng- 

 land to submission. 



Besides, at this time the Dutch were peculiarly 

 hostile to England. There was a long outstanding 

 debt of punishment due to them, and the heart of 

 any English subject must have leaped for joy 

 when that debt was exacted. The Letters and 

 Despatches of the great Lord Strafforde abound 

 with allusions to the matter (e. g. pp. 22. 397., 

 vol. i. : Dublin, 1740, foL). And, unless I grie- 

 vously mistake, the following statements are facts. 

 The blood of the English subjects barbarously 

 massacred by the Dutch at Amboyna had never 

 been avenged. 



The Dutch had helped on in every way the 

 Scotch and English fanatics in their rebellion 

 against King Charles I. They had refused the 

 outcast Charles II. shelter in their dominions, and 

 *'did warm their hands at those unhappy flames 

 which they themselves had kindled ; tuning their 

 merry harps, when others were weeping over a 

 kingdom's funeral." {The Dutch Usurpation, Sfc, 

 p. 25. : Lond. 1672, 4to.) 



Thus, not merely had England in general a 

 blood feud with the Dutch, but the Royalists in 

 particular had additional causes of complaint. And 

 if I am to credit the tract from which I have just 

 quoted, — 



" Amsterdam was made the great emporium or market 

 for the rebels to sell those rich and costly goods which 

 they had plundered from his Majesty's best subjects in 

 England (whereas no king or prince in Christendom 

 would suffer them to make use of any of their ports to 

 that purpose) ; and the best furniture that some of the 

 States have in their houses at this very day, are many 

 of those stolen goods." — The Dutch Usurpation, p. 25. : 

 Xiond. 1672, 4to. 



It is rather amusing to find, that one of Wood's 

 anecdotes against South, which he takes from the 

 Mirahilis Annus, must have related to this same 

 year : and yet it happened when he was about "to 

 lash severely the sectaries of his house, and of the 

 University" (Biog. Brit., sub voc. South, note b.). 



But the crowning accusation against South is 

 the following : 



" The fact is, that Owen and South were both at 

 that time the friends of Cromwell ; or if South was not 

 bis friend, he was at least his open partizan, and had also 

 professedly adopted the religious opinions of the Pro- 

 tector's party, having appeared at St. Mary's as the great 

 champion for Calvinism against the Arminians." 



All this statement, and almost all that follows, 



is adopted by Vindex from Wood {Ath. Ox., iv. 

 pp. 633, 634., edit. Bliss), with this startling and 

 deliberate omission on the part of Vindex : 



" He appeared the great champion for Calvinism 

 against Socinianism and Arminianism." 



There is a remarkable note by South himself to 

 his "Good Friday Sermon" upon Isaiah liii. 8., 

 which was preached befoi-e the University of Ox- 

 ford in 1668. Having mentioned Dr. Pococke's 

 opinion of Grotius, he goes on to say : 



" There was a certain party of men whom Grotius 

 had unhappily engaged himself with, who were ex- 

 tremely disgusted at the Book de Satisfactione Christi, 

 written by him against Socinus ; and therefore he was 

 to pacify (or rather satisfy) these men, by turning his 

 pen another way in his Annotations, which also was the 

 true reason that he never answered Crellius ; a shrewd 

 argument, no doubt, to such as shall well consider 

 those matters, that those in the Low Countries, who 

 at that time went by the name of Remonstrants and 

 Arminians, were indeed a great deal more." — Vol. i. 

 p. 482. : Dublin, 1720, fol. 



Whether South's conclusion were right or wrong, 

 is quite beside my purpose to inquire. Dr. Ham- 

 mond, in his controversy with Owen, rested his 

 defence of Grotius on the de Satisfactione Christi 

 (Orme's Memoirs of Owen, p. 223.), and declared 

 it unjust to pronounce him heretical on the testi- 

 mony of his posthumous works. 



In South's mind, as we have seen, the Remon- 

 strant party were associated with " a great deal 

 more;" but it is utterly false, and utterly unjust, 

 to suppose that at any period of his life he held or 

 maintained either extreme Calvinistic or extreme 

 Arminian views. He always leant more to the 

 school of Sanderson than of Jeremy Taylor : and 

 whatever opinions he preached in his first sermons, 

 he preached half a century after in his last. Be- 

 sides, that he maintained these doctrines from the 

 University pulpit during the life of Cromwell, pro- 

 ceeds on the wanton and gratuitous assumption 

 that he preached before his ordination. I know 

 that Wood apparently gives credit to a cowardly 

 insinuation of the kind ; but South himself, in the 

 Epistle Dedicatory to Interest Deposed and Truth 

 Resto7-ed, which was preached July 24th, 1659, 

 declared that it, and the following sermon (on 

 Ecclesiastical Policy the Best Policy'), were his 

 "first essays of divinity." It was the first of 

 these two sermons that pleased the Presby- 

 terians, from some sarcasms upon Unton Croke, 

 who was the colonel of a regiment of horse, and a 

 leader of the Independent party. It was the same 

 sermon also that won the applause of Dr. Edward 

 Reynolds, who was present when it was delivered. 



But whatever party it pleased or displeased, 

 there is scarcely another sermon in the English 

 language that, for bold and fearless truthfulness, 

 can be compared with it. Bishop Ken, in his 



