LARKHAM, THOMAS, was born at Lime in Dorsetshire, May 4, 1601, and was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of M. A. He was first settled in the ministry at Norham, Devonshire. Being a Puritan, he was so followed with vexatious prosecutions, that, in a little time, he had been a sufferer in almost all the courts of England. He was in the Starchamber and High-commission court at the same time. He was articled against in the Consistory, at Exeter, and under a suit of pretended slander, for reproving an atheistical wretch, under the name of an atheist ; and pursuivants came upon him, one on the back of another, till at last (to use his own words) by the tyranny of the bishops, and the tenderness of his conscience, he was forced as an exile into New England. Though he there sojourned in a land that he knew not, God was with him. After some time he returned, when he was chosen by the inhabitants of Tavistock as their pastor, the noble earl of Bedford having promised to present and pay whomsoever they chose. In this place his labours were crowned with more than ordinary success. Mr. Larkham met with his share of trouble after his ejectment, and at last died in the town where he had lived and laboured, confined in the house of his son-in-law, not daring to stir abroad for fear of a jail. The malice of some followed him even after his death, for they would have prevented his being interred in the church. But the steward of the earl of Bedford interposed, and he was buried in that part of the chancel which belonged to that noble family. He died 1669, aged sixty-eight, lamented by pious persons of all persuasions in those parts. He was a man of great sincerity, strict piety, and good learning. He had been chaplain for some time to Sir Hardress Waller, and was the father of Mr. G. Larkham, of Cockermouth. He was author of, 1. "Sermons on the Attributes of God."-2. "The Wedding Supper."-3. "A Discourse on paying Tythes." LASCO, JOHN A, the Polish Reformer, was born of a noble family, (which took its name from Lasco, or Latzki, or Latzco,) in Poland, and received a very learned and accomplished education. In the course of his literary pursuits, we find him traversing the Alps, and sitting A a 2 himself himself down in the barren cold region of Switzerland. It seems, that divine grace, while he was visiting the world, here first visited his heart. It not only visited, but fixed its abode within him. Zuinglius appears to have been the instrument; for we find, that he staid some time with him at Zurich, and that Zuinglius, being fully acquainted with his eminent tales as well as gracious affections, prevailed upon him to study divinity, with a view of promoting the cause of the Gospel. After some stay at Zurich, he returned to his own country: but Po land was no favourable place for his profession of protestantism, or the increase of his spiritual knowledge as a divine. Accordingly, though his family and connections opened his way for any sort of preferment; he left his country, his friends, and all human expectations, in order to propagate the truth with freedom, and to enjoy it with. safety. He did not quit the kingdom, however, without the knowledge and consent of the king. But, having obtained the royal licence, he chose rather to suffer afflictions (like Moses) with the people of God, than to enjoy all the riches and honours, which the world could afford him. He had been made provost of Gnesna and bishop of Vesprim in Hungary; but these dignities had no weight with him to quit or conceal the knowledge of the truth, for which he was accused of heresy, and even sentenced without hearing. It appears by a popish historian, quoted by Melchior Adam, that our noble professor left Poland in 1540. We find him retired, however, to Embden in Friesland about the close of 1542, where he took upon him the office of a pastor, and preached constantly at his church in that town. In the following year, he was engaged, by Anne countess dowager of Oldenburg in East Friesland, to introduce and establish the reformed religion in that territory. This he attempted with great success, and continued in this labour, till he received an invitation from Albert duke of Prussia for the same purpose. 'He sent the prince, in a spirit of fairness and candour, a declaration of his doctrine of the sacrament, which accorded with the doctrine of Zuinglius; and therefore, as the duke was a Lutheran, the affair dropped between them. He had laboured in the work of the Gospel near ten years in East Friesland, not daring to venture into Gen many many, on account of the threats of Charles V. and the contest upon the business of the Interim; when he was invited into England, by archbishop Cranmer, to assist in the work of the Reformation, about 1549. He arrived in England, when the publication of the Interim drove the Protestants into any country, that would grant them a toleration; and such they found in England, where they had several privileges granted them by king Edward the VIth. Three hundred and fourscore were naturalized, and erected into a corporate body, which was governed by its own laws, and allowed its own form of religious worship independent of the Church of England; which at that time was a most extraordinary concession, and proved how highly they were held in estimation. A church in London, the Austin Friers, was also granted to them, with the revenues belonging to it for the subsistence of their ministers, who were either expressly nominated, or at least approved, by the king. His majesty also fixed the precise number of them. According to this regulation, there were four ministers, and a superintendant; which post was assigned to John à Lasco, who had been invited over, and who, in the letters patent, is called a person of illustrious birth, of singular probity, and great learning. In the midst of these favours, it was certainly neither prudent nor grateful to attack the established church, which we find he did by writing a book against her ritual, her ecclesiastical habits, and the gesture of kneeling at the sacrament. What a pity, when so many essentials were concerned, that good men should occupy themselves and differ about modes, and forms, and trifles! The writing, however, of this book did not operate to the prejudice of John à Lasco. On the death of Edward VI. The change of public measures and counsels was soon written in blood; but John à Lasco and the other foreigners of the Protestant faith, were suffered to depart, or rather were sent away, upon the accession of queen Mary. They formed a great company of Polish, Germans, French, Scots, Italians, Spaniards, and others. John à Lasco embarked Sept. 17, 1553, with one hundred and seventy-five of his flock, and his colleagues, all, except two, who staid in England concealed, together with the rest of the German Protestants, who were deprived of their churches, and all their privi leges leges taken away. These distressed exiles arrived on the coast of Denmark, in the beginning of a very severe winter; but they met with a reception as cold and as barren as the country itself. For, though they were known to be Protestants, yet because they professed the Zuinglian doctrine concerning the sacrament; to the disgrace of the Danes, both as men and as Christians, they were not suffered to disembark, nor to anchor longer than two days, without daring to put their wives and children on shore. An instance of brutality, which would have disgraced a nation of Pagans! They were treated in the same inhospitable and unchristian manner at Lubec, Wismar, and Hamburgh; because, with Lutherans and the Papists, they could not believe, contrary to the evidence of their senses, and without the least authority from the Scripture to look after a miracle, that the bread and wine in the sacrament actually became that very body and blood of Jesus Christ, which is ascended to heaven, and which, it is declared, shall remain there, till the final restitution of all things. After spending the winter, which is commonly very severe in those countries, in this dreadful manner, tossed about from place to place, they at length resolved to steer for Embden, where, after a multitude of perils and hardships, they did not arrive till March, 1554, when the worst of the winter was nearly over. From September to March, they had wandered to and fro, and were driven about upon the seas. Through the wide world these people sought after a home, of whom the world, indeed, was not worthy. At Embden they were received with kindness and hospitality; and most of them settled in the country. The good countess dowager, Anne of Oldenburg, became their immediate patroness, and probably procured for them all the good offices, which they found in Friesland. John à Lasco, however, did not remain here; for, in 1555, he went to Frankfort upon the Maine, where he obtained leave of the senate to build a church for the reformed strangers, and particularly for those of the Low Countries. While he was at this city, he wrote an apologetical letter to Sigismund king of Poland, against the aspersions of Joachim of Westphalia, of Timann, and of Pomeran, who had all represented him as a vagabond, desirous of drawing away people after him. This letter was written in 1556. In this year, 1556, with the consent of the duke of Wirtemberg, he maintained a disputation against Brentius the Lutheran, upon the subject of the eucharist. Brentius published a very unfair account of this controversy, in which he stated many things, which John à Lasco had not said, and omitted many others, which he had urged, but which bore too hard upon the Lutherans. He also abused the church of the strangers, over which John à Lasco presided, calumniating them for differing from the confession of Augsburg, respecting the sacrament. This obliged our sufferer to publish an apology for himself and his church, about the beginning of 1557, in which he proved, "That their doctrine did not militate with the Augsburg confession concerning the presence of Christ in the supper;" as their adversaries had charged upon them: "but that, if even they did differ from that confession, it did not follow they were to be condemned; if they justify their dissent from that confession by the word of God." After an absence of twenty years, this noble Pole returned to his native country; where, notwithstanding the bishops and other ecclesiastics did their utmost to drive him away; their efforts proved ineffectual, through the favour of king Sigismund, who made use of his talents in his most important affairs. In Poland, the harvest truly was plenteous; but the labourers were few. The popish clergy obstructed every attempt of a Reformation, and would have destroyed John à Lasco, but for fear of the consequence to themselves. They once attempted to remove him from the king's confidence, and had the boldness to address his majesty upon the subject. But the king nobly replied, "That he had indeed heard, that the bishops had pronounced him an heretic; but the senate of the kingdom had determined no such matter: that John à Lasco was ready to prove himself untainted with heretical pravity, and sound in the cathole faith.” When open attacks would not serve, they attempted (in the true spirit of their profession) to destroy him by secret arts. Nolie, no calumny, was too gross or bitter for circulation, if there was the least prospect of its gaining belief among the multitude. They set it about, that he was a trumpeter of sedition, and would soon introduce a civil war into the land. But these artifices, likewise, had no other |