absolute Voluntaryism in Religion, but all these amalgamated with new ingredients. Burnet tells us that, though he had taken pains to find out Vane's meaning in his own books, he could never reach it, and that, as many others had the same experience, it might be reasonable to conclude that Vane had purposely kept back the key to his system. Friends of Vane had told Burnet, however, that "he leaned to Origen's notion of a universal salvation of all, both of devils and the damned, and to the doctrine of pre-existence." Even when Cromwell and Vane had been close friends, calling each other "Fountain" and "Heron" in their private letters. Vane had been in possession of such peculiar lights, or of others, beyond Cromwell's apprehension. "Brother Fountain can guess at his brother's meaning," he had written to Cromwell in Scotland August 2, 1651, with reference to some troublesome on-goings in the Council of State during Cromwell's absence, begging him not to believe ill-natured reports about "Brother Heron" in connexion with them, and adding, "Be assured he answers your heart's desire in all things, except he be esteemed even by you in principles too high to fathom; which one day, I am persuaded, will not be so thought by you, when, by increasing with the increasings of God, you shall be brought to that sight and enjoyment of God in Christ which passes knowledge." If this to Cromwell, what to others? Three years had passed, and Vane was now in compulsory retirement. His _Retired Man's Meditations_ had not yet been published. Such Vanists, therefore, as there were in 1654 must have imbibed their knowledge of them from Sir Henry's conversation or indirectly. Among these Baxter mentions Peter Sterry, one of Cromwell's favourite preachers, and afterwards known as a mystic on his own account. Of Sterry's preaching, already notoriously obscure, Sir Benjamin Rudyard had said that "it was too high for this world and too low for the other," and Baxter puns on the association of Vane and Sterry, asking whether _Vanity_ and _Sterility_ had ever been more happily conjoined. But the sect of the VANISTS existed perhaps mainly in Baxter's fancy.[3] [Footnote 1: Stationers' Registers from 1644 to 1654; Baxter, 77-78; Neal, IV. 112-113.] [Footnote 2: Engl. Cycl. Art. _Lilly_; Stationers' Registers of date June 10, 1653 (Gataker's Tract) and of other dates (Lilly's Almanacks).] [Footnote 3: Baxter, 74-76; Milton Papers by Nickolls, 78-79; Wood's Ath. III, 578 et seq. and IV. 136-138.]