Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1846,

BY CHRISTOPHER C. DEAN,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.

PREFACE.

It is now two hundred and twenty-five years, since "the May-flower furled her tattered sail," by the bleak and wintry shores of Plymouth. A handful of way worn and careworn pilgrims planted their feet upon that famous rock, bedewing it with tears, still freezing as they fell. That handful of seed-corn has increased and multiplied by successive harvests, till the fruit thereof now shakes like Lebanon, and flourisheth like the grass of the earth. The foundation of the Roman State was as weak and unpromising as that of New England. But we may expect for our people a wider predominance than ever all-conquering Rome attained,—a dominion far more noble than that which is won by force of arms. Ours is the dominion of mind, girded with the armor of truth, and victorious under the banners of freedom and religion.

To achieve the triumph for which we hope, and for which our fathers struggled, it is needful to keep alive their memory, and diffuse their principles. This volume is offered as an humble aid in this great work. As our fathers have been noisily charged with having a spirit of extreme bigotry, and unequaled intoler

ance; and as this charge, more than any other, tends to impede the good influence of their principles and examples, it was thought best to meet it once for all. This will be found attempted at some length, and, it is thought, with the necessary effect, in the third chapter of the Life of John Wilson. The rest of the volume is composed of biographical matter. It may be expected, that this series will soon be extended by other volumes, from several writers, descriptive of the compeers of those good men who are commemorated here.

May the descendants of the Pilgrims and Puritans follow their faith, order, and piety. Let us pray with Solomon;-" O Lord God of our fathers, keep this forever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people, and prepare their heart unto thee."

BOSTON, MAY 1, 1846.

LIFE OF JOHN WILSON.

CHAPTER I.

All true ministers sent of God. John Wilson's birth-parentage-→ education. Eton school. King's College, Cambridge. Fellow. ship. Slander. Conversion. Prejudice against Puritans. Richard Rogers. Mr. Wilson joins the Puritans. Dr. Ames. Mr. Wilson obliged to leave the University. Inns of court. Return to Cambridge. Called to his father's death-bed. Troubled for non-conformity. "Some Helps to Faith." Countess of Leicester. Lecturers. Chaplain. Lady Scudamore. Sabbath-keeping. Mr. Wilson settled at Sudbury. His success there. His troubles in the bishop's courts. Suspended. Silenced. Restored. Death of Harsnet. Mr. Wilson departs to America.

ONE of the most famous of the Lord's ministers with whom the Bible acquaints us, is thus introduced-"There was a man sent from God whose name was John." All true ministers are sent of God. In this sense, they are all missionaries, all apostles; both of which terms, according to their derivations, have the same meaning. They designate such as are commissioned to go upon God's errand, to do his

work, and bear his messages to men.

John, the son of Zecharias, was thus sent, as the text asserts, from God. He was a sort of herald, to precede and announce the near advent of our Lord. And a glorious office it was, to sound the trumpet in Zion, and make proclamation of the coming of the Son of Man. Great was the honor, to be the day-star to that rising orb.

In a lower sense, it may be said of him of whom we are to speak at this time, "there was a man sent from God, whose name was John." This man, like his illustrious namesake, that lone prophet of the desert, was a sort of forerunner of our Lord, proceeding before his face into this part of the wide wilderness. He was the first voice which cried upon the desert peninsula of Shawmut ;-" Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight!"

But the apostolic man whom we now commemorate, more resembles in character that other John, the favored disciple, beloved of God and man. Like that last surviving apostle, the first pastor of Boston, united a burning flame of zeal with a love-breathing spirit of the tenderest charity. Our fathers considered him to excel other men in love, as much as their venerated Cotton exceeded them in light.

John Wilson was born at Windsor, in Eng