[163] Recent writers among our sectarists assert that Dr. Owen was the _first_ who wrote in favour of toleration, in 1648! Another claims the honour for John Goodwin, the chaplain of Oliver Cromwell, who published one of his obscure polemical tracts in 1644, among a number of other persons who, at that crisis, did not venture to prefix their names to pleas in favour of toleration, so delicate and so obscure did this subject then appear! In 1651, they translated the liberal treatise of Grotius, _De Imperio Summarum Potestatum circa Sacra_, under the title of "The Authority of the Highest Powers about Sacred Things." London, 8vo, 1651. To the honour of Grotius, the first of philosophical reformers, be it recorded, that he displeased both parties! [164] J. P. Rabaut, "sur la Revolution Francaise," p. 27. [165] "Life of James the Second, from his own Papers," ii 114. [166] This was a Baron Wallop. From Dr. H. Sampson's Manuscript Diary. [167] It is curious to observe that the catholics were afterwards ashamed of these indiscretions; they were unwilling to own that there were any medals which commemorate massacres. Thuanus, in his 53rd book, has minutely described them. The medals, however, have become excessively scarce; but copies inferior to the originals have been sold. They had also pictures on similar subjects, accompanied by insulting inscriptions, which latter they have effaced, sometimes very imperfectly. See Hollis's "Memoirs," p. 312-14. This enthusiast advertised in the papers to request travellers to procure them. [168] The _Sala Regia_ of the Vatican has still upon its walls a painting by Vasari of this massacre, among the other important events in the history of the Popes similarly commemorated. [169] "Memoires de Michel de Castelnau," liv. i. c. 4. [170] "Life of Thuanus, by the Rev. J. Collinson," p. 115. [171] Dr. M'Crie's "Life of John Knox," ii. 122. [172] I quote from an unpublished letter, written so late as in 1749, addressed to the author of "The Free and Candid Disquisition," by the Rev. Thomas Allen, rector of Kettering, Northamptonshire. However extravagant his doctrine appears to us, I suspect that it exhibits the concealed sentiments of even some protestant churchmen! This rector of Kettering attributes the growth of schism to the _negligence_ of the clergy, and seems to have persecuted both the archbishops, "to his detriment," as he tells us, with singular plans of reform borrowed from monastic institutions. He wished to revive the practice inculcated by a canon of the counsel of Laodicea of having prayers _ad horam nonam et ad vesperam_--prayers twice a day in the churches. But his grand project take in his own words:--