12 Court of Parliament: only forbid by foreign Laws, and Canons of the Pope, coloured with Visor of the Church. Which Laws and Canons were extinguished by the Parliament, and so abrogated by the Convocations in their Synod by their Subscriptions." Printed in 1562, without his name.-2. "Elfric [Abbot of St. Albans about the year 996] his Saxon Translation of a Latin Homily, entitled, A Sermon of the Paschal Lamb, and of the Sacramental Bodie and Blood of Christ, written in the Old Saxon tongue before the Conquest, and appointed in the reign of the Saxons to be spoken unto the People at Easter, before they should receive the Communion. Or, A Testimony of Antiquity, shewing the Antient Faith of the Church of England, touching the Sacrament of the Bodie and Blood of the Lord, here publicly preached, and also received, in the Saxons time, above seven hundred years ago. With two Epistles of Elfric." He published in 1570, folio, 3. "Flores Historiarum per Matthæum Westmonasteriensem collecti, præcipuè de Rebus Britannicis ab Exordio Mundi usque ad Annum Domini, 1307." With a large preface.-Likewise in 1571, folio, 4. "Matthæi Paris Monachi Albanensis Angli Historia major."And the Life of king Alfred, in 1754, entitled, 5. "Alfredi Regis res gestæ ab Asserio Shirburnensi Episcopo conscriptæ." Printed in Saxon letters, the same as the original manuscript was written in; on purpose to bring gentlemen to the knowledge and study of the Saxon tongue. To which is subjoined, "Historia brevis Thomæ Walsingham ab Edvardo primo ad Henricum quintum;" with his "Upodeigma Neustriae vel Normanniæ."— It was through his advice and encouragement, that the learned John Fox published king Alfred's Saxon Translation of the Gospels; and Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum, 1571, 4to. Another considerable work of his, was, The Lives of his Predecessors Archbishops of Canterbury, entitled, "De Antiquitate Britannica Ecclesie et Privilegiis Ecclesiae Cantuariensis, cum Archiepiscopis ejusdem LXX." London, 1572, folio. Though London is put in the title page, it is said to have been printed at Lambeth, where the archbishop had workmen of all sorts. He caused only a few copies to be printed, which he occasionally distributed amongst his friends. PARSONS, ANDREW, M. A. was born in Devonshire, and was minister there some years before the civil war. Being driven thence to London, he became well known to Mr. Pym, who sent him to Wem, when that town was garrisoned for the parliament. There he continued in the exercise of his ministry till 1660, at the close of which year he was brought into trouble, on the account of seditious words words being sworn against him. The words he used were these; "The devil is like a king that courts the soul, and speaks fair till he has gotten into the throne," &c. The witness deposed, that he said," the king was like the devil;" which was contrary to the coherence of the discourse: and it appeared from his own notes, and those of four persons who wrote after him, that the above were the words he used. He was tried at Shrewsbury, before lord Newport, Mr. Serjeant Turner, and others, May 28 and 29, 1661. It was also charged upon him, that he said other things reflecting upon the church and the king. He had council assigned him, who pleaded, that the time limited by the statute, on which he was indicted, was expired. The court yielded it was so, allowing twenty-eight days to a month, but they would understand it of calendar months. So he was found guilty, fined two hundred pounds and sentenced to be imprisoned till it should be paid. (Conformist's 4th Plea, p. 32.) This trial made a great noise at that time; and the more, because Mr. Parsons was a person of known loyalty. He ran several hazards of losing his life and estate when king Charles passed with his army to Worcester; and he sent a horse and arms to the rising at Chester in his favour. He continued near three months in prison, till lord Newport, without his knowledge, procured the king's remission of the fine. His living was presently sequestered by the chancellor of Litchfield. Perhaps the value of this living made him the more noxious. He told them in open court, that his benefice was condemned long before, and that four hundred pounds was bidden for it by a great man in the country, &c. One of the jury, when he had reflected upon what was done, afterwards came to him much dejected, and told him, the foreman went against the sense of the majority. He went also to the judge, and told him the same; who replied, he need not trouble himself about that. Mr. Parsons after this went to London, where he was for several years assistant to Mr. Wadsworth, in Southwark, and afterwards had a congregation near Covent Garden. His wife contributed towards their subsistence by making gold and silver lace. He was a grave and solid, and a lively and useful preacher. He was also very generous and charitable, though his circumstances were but low. Upon a dreadful fire that happened at Wem, in 1677, he collected some money for the sufferers; and with it sent them them a printed letter full of seasonable instructions and consolations. He died at London, in peace, about the end of 1684, aged sixty-eight. PARSONS, HENRY, was born about the year 1630. He was a man of good learning, and had episcopal ordination. While he was at Burstock, which was but a small living, he taught the languages to several youths committed to his care, some of whom lived to shew him great respect in his old age. Soon after his ejectment by the Uniformity Act, the living of Uplime, worth three hundred pounds per annum, being vacant by the death of the incumbent, the patron solicited Mr. Parsons to accept it; but he excused himself, by saying that his conscience would not permit him to do it. Besides his pecuniary loss he suffered much for his nonconformity; having had his house rifled and plundered; being driven from his abode, and several times thrown into prison. He was once seized at Taunton, when preaching to a numerous congregation, who were desirous of enjoying his labours, and was carried to flchester jail. The persons who conducted him, obliged him, so soon as he came to the end of the town, to quit his horse, and travel through a bad road on foot; whipping him on in a barbarous manner. His feet were so much hurt as to bleed. He took his trial at the assizes for the county, before judge,Hale, who treated him with great respect, and found means to discharge him. He was afterwards imprisoned in Dorchester jail, with several of his brethren, suffering for the cause of nonconformity. He was after that confined in the county jail of Devonshire for many months, upon the same crime. And finally, he was imprisoned in one of the Western jails, soon after the duke of Monmouth's defeat, and thrown into a vile dungeon, from whence several of the quarters of some, who had been executed for that affair, had been carried out the preceding day to be dispersed, and hung up as monuments of king James's and judge Jefferys's humanity. After the Revolution, Mr. Parsons lived many years at Stoke under Ham in Somerset, where he spent the remainder of a useful life, with a society of Protestant Dissenters. He died in 1717, in the eighty-eighth year of his age, full of satisfaction in his nonconformity, and of the hope of a crown of life. He had a numerous family. VOL. III.-No 72. 3 X PASCO, PASCO, THOMAS, was, in his early years, together with his pious mother, a constant hearer of the late Dr. Gifford, under whose ministry he received those serious impressions which extended their influence throughout his life. At the usual age, he passed through a regular course of education in surgery and medicine; and competent judges have always spoken highly of his professional attainments. In 1777, he removed from London to Oxford, where he settled as a chemist and druggist, and soon obtained, by his integrity and obliging attentions in business, that high degree of confidence and respect which he ever afterwards preserved. In that city, which now became his place of residence, the interest of serious godliness, and especially among the Dissenters, had sunk into a low state; and Mr. Pasco was evidently directed thither by Providence, as the mean of cherishing and reviving it. In 1780 he became a member, and soon after, a deacon, of a Baptist Society at Oxford; in both which characters he was highly honourable and useful for a period of twenty-six years. He often declared that he considered the few services which he was enabled to render to the cause of Christ, as by far the most important end of his existence. In his habitual conduct, Mr. Pasco combined great integrity with singular wisdom; and a steady avowal of religion with courtesy and gentleness of manners. His professional knowledge introduced him to the acquaintance of many characters of great respectability; and his general knowledge of the interests of society, united with an accurate judgement and indefatigable activity, rendered him a friend whose aid was eagerly coveted by all around him, in the management of their temporal concerns. Much of human character is unfolded in the scenes of domestic life; and here, that of Mr. Pasco was highly worthy of imitation. He sustained the relations of a son, a husband, a father, and a master, with affectionate gentleness, prudence, and honour. In his intercourse with his Christian brethren, he was "not soon angry;" but could bear much contradiction without any apparent resentment. "Smite me on the one cheek, and I will turn to thee the other," was his usual answer to any of his friends who censured his conduct; and the interest of religion owes much to this excellency of dis position in one who, on many occasions, possessed suffi cient influence to have carried his point, had he chosen to do it, without a due regard to the opinions of his brethren; but he was the disciple of Him" who pleased not himself;" and he acted under the influence of that declaration, "Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the sons of God." The doctrinal sentiments of Mr. Pasco were decidedly Calvinistic; and he conscientiously adhered to the views of the Baptist denomination; but his love to Christians, and his services to the church of Christ were unconfined. Mr. Pasco was always liberal; yet, as is usually the case with characters of genuine piety, he made great advances in this respect, during his later years. Among many symptoms which indicate the prosperity of evangelical religion, and in which he sincerely rejoiced, there is one of a different nature, which he deeply deplored, "Why should serious and godly ministers, of different denominations," he would say, "who have long been accustomed to the most friendly intercourse with each other, now withhold their acquaintance, and every expression of esteem from all who are not in their own communion? Such a conduct cannot issue in good, by whomsoever it is countenanced or commanded." In his own deportment, Mr. Pasco never discovered the least alienation of affection from ministers or professors of evangelical piety; and by a ready distribution, to different denominations, of public property left under his own direction, he fully proved that the love of religion, and not a spirit of party, ruled in his heart. Those who best knew Mr. Pasco have no doubt that he spent much of his time in devout retirement; and his conversation savoured of the spirit which he imbibed in these exercises; nor can it be supposed that a life like this could be sustained without those supplies which no other source can afford. As he knew the pleasures of secret prayer, so he constantly recommended them to others; and was especially fond of circulating Dr. Hawker's tract, concerning Ten Minutes Advice," on this subject, as well as many other Religious Tracts; often accompanying his gifts. with good advice, and with other acts of beneficence, to which the poor were always accustomed under his hospita ble roof. Living authors also found as ready a welcome The distribution of religious tracts, so much practised of late years by the benevolent exertions of The Religious Tract Society, has been the mean of doing much good. 3 X 2 with |