Part 1

Transcribed from the 1812 W. G. Whittingham edition by David Price, email [email protected]

[Picture: Book cover]

[Picture: East View of Lynn Regis, pub. May 1, 1812 by W. G. Whittingham, Lynn. Draw J. Sillett, engraved J. Hassell]

THE HISTORY OF LYNN,

_Civil_, _Ecclesiastical_, _Political_, _Commercial_, _Biographical_, _Municipal_, _and Military_,

FROM THE EARLIEST ACCOUNTS TO THE PRESENT TIME, INTERSPERSED With occasional remarks on such national occurrences as may serve to elucidate the real state of the town, or the manners, character, and condition of the inhabitants at different periods.

TO WHICH IS PREFIXED A COPIOUS INTRODUCTORY ACCOUNT OF ITS _Situation_, _Harbour_, _Rivers_, _Inland Trade and Navigation_, _the Ancient and Modern State_ OF Marshland, Wisbeach, and the Fens, AND Whatever is most remarkable, memorable, or interesting, in other parts of the adjacent country.

IN TWO VOLUMES. _BY WILLIAM RICHARDS_, _M.A._

_Honorary member of the Pennsylvania Society_, _for promoting the Abolition_ _of Slavery_, _and the relief of free Negroes unlawfully held in bondage_.

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VOL. II.

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LYNN: PRINTED BY W. G. WHITTINGHAM, AND SOLD BY R. BALDWIN; PATERNOSTER ROW; LONDON.

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1812.

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PART IV. FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE PRESENT TIME.

CHAP. I.

Miscellaneous remarks on the Reformation—its rise and progress on the continent—introduction into this island, and effects upon this town.

The reformation formed a new era in the history of the world, and was one of those mighty revolutionary events which have a most extensive and lasting effect on the affairs and destinies of mankind. But men have been ever since greatly divided in their ideas and judgments concerning it. While some have hailed it as a most happy, admirable, and glorious event, fraught with heaven’s choicest blessings, it has been deemed by others, and even by a large majority of the inhabitants of christendom, as an exceedingly unfortunate, pernicious, and execrable occurrence, which has produced all manner of mischief, and, like the opening of Pandora’s box, filled the world with calamities and miseries innumerable. The learned and the wise, as well as the illiterate and fly foolish, have been found among each of these opposite and contending parties: their respective opinions and allegations must therefore be entitled to a serious and candid hearing. But it is not intended here to go deeply or largely into this disputed subject: nor would it well accord with the plan or design of this publication. Some cursory hints, however, on a few of the most prominent facts will not, it is presumed, be either impertinent or uninstructive.

SECTION I.

_Statement of different and opposite opinions respecting the reformation—with brief remarks_.

The information, like the French revolution, seems to have been too much admired by its friends, and too much vilified by its enemies. The former, for the most part, perceive nothing in it but what is praise worthy and divine, and the latter nothing but what is detestable and devilish. The truth, probably, lies somewhere about midway between these two extremes, as is usual in most of the disputes that divide and agitate the world. The reformation had certainly some good points in it, as well as some very bad ones, that can never be too much reprobated and detested. Had they been all bad, its friends would have defended them, for they have actually and unblushingly defended its very worst points; {625a} and had they been all good, its enemies, on the other hand, would not fail to condemn them, for they have really done so with its very best parts, whose intrinsic or essential goodness and beneficial tendency are most obvious and demonstrable. {625b}

The friends of the reformation consider the original and chief actors in that great revolutionary work as excellent men, actuated by a right apostolical and christian spirit, with a view to the restoration of primitive christianity, and the promotion of the best interests of mankind. Their opponents, on the contrary, consider them in a very different light, and hold them up as persons of a disreputable character, who were actuated by very unworthy and base motives, from whose thoughts nothing could be further than the restoration of genuine christianity, or the promoting of real benevolence, philanthropy, or human happiness. It will not be safe to give implicit credit to either of these representations. There were, certainly, some good men concerned in the reformation, and there were also some very bad men concerned in it, whose misdeeds ought never to be palliated; and these were probably the most numerous and the most powerful, or the work, surely, would have been more worthy of our praise and admiration.

The reformation, in the judgment of its admirers, was eminently calculated to promote the cause of truth and virtue, and inculcate the practice of piety, morality, and all manner of good works. All this, however, is flatly contradicted by the champions of the opposite cause, who positively affirm that the doctrines of the reformers were, in the very nature of them, of an evil, immoral and impious tendency:—alluding to the grand Lutheran tenet of _justification_ by faith _without works_, {626a} and to the famous Calvinian notion of predestination, as extending to all the deeds of men, bad and good, or that all human actions, even the very worst, originate in the _Divine decrees_, or _will of God_. {626b} This opinion of the evil tendency of the reformation, or of the reformed doctrine, they represent as further corroborated and established by undeniable facts, and authentic historical evidence; or in other words, by its immediate effects, or the very first fruits it produced wherever it did prevail.

Those who advocate the cause of the reformers say that their labours were abundantly fruitful of good works, and that their doctrine produced the happiest effects wherever it was received. But their opponents flatly deny it, and positively assert that the very reverse was actually the case: and they support their assertion, not only by referring to those long and bloody wars which resulted from the reformation, but also to the express testimony of credible witnesses, who affirm, that vice and immorality greatly increased wherever protestantism became predominant. Nor is it a little remarkable that these same witnesses are, for the most part, some of the very chief reformers; so that their evidence comes with a force that cannot well be resisted. Some of them belonged to the continent, and others to this kingdom; but we shall in this place bring forward only the former, reserving the latter till we come to exhibit the rise and progress of the reformation in this country.

We shall begin with LUTHER, whose testimony on this occasion is very strong and remarkable.—“The world (says he) grows worse and worse. It is plain that men are much more covetous, malicious, and resentful, much more unruly, shameless, and full of vice, than they were in the time of popery.” {628a} “Formerly, when we were suduced by the pope, men willingly followed good works, but now all their study is to get every thing to themselves by exactions, pillage, theft, lying, usury.” {628b} “It is a wonderful thing, and full of scandal, that from the time that the pure doctrine was first called to light, the world should daily grow worse and worse.” {628c}—The testimony of BUCER, another celebrated reformer, is to the same effect. “The greater part of the people” (says he) “seem only to have embraced the gospel, in order to shake off the yoke of discipline, and the obligation of fasting, penance, &c., which lay upon them in the time of popery; and to live at their pleasure, enjoying their lust and lawless appetites without controul. They therefore lend a willing ear to the doctrine that we are _justified by faith alone_ and _not by good works_, having no relish for them.”—{628d} MUSCULUS also, another eminent reformer, is said to have borne much the same testimony. {628e}

CALVIN’S evidence in this case seems also to be equally forcible and decisive: “Of so many thousands (says he) seemingly eager in embracing the gospel, how few have since amended their lives? Nay, to what else does the greater part pretend, except by shaking off the heavy yoke of superstition to launch out more freely into every kind of lasciviousness?” {629a} Thus said Calvin. When the character of the reformation is duly and thoroughly considered, and especially that of Calvin’s own doctrine, it is no great wonder that such effects should follow. It would have been much more wonderful if they had not followed; at least, when we further consider the abominable conduct, the vile and bloody deeds that were sanctioned by the same reformer’s own example. Had he been a different sort of man, these unsightly fruits of his labours might have led him to doubt the soundness of his faith, or suspect that his creed did not altogether tally with the doctrine that is according to godliness. But from him it could not be expected.

Another testimony of no small weight in this case, and which must not be here omitted, is that of the celebrated ERASMUS, one of the greatest luminaries and most eminent characters of that age, who has been reckoned among the principal authors of the reformation as well as restorers of literature. Let us listen then to his evidence on this subject: “What an _evangelical_ generation is this? Nothing was ever seen more licentious and more seditious. Nothing is less _evangelical_ than these pretended _gospellers_. {629b} Take notice of this _evangelical_ people, and shew me an individual amongst them all who from being a drunkard has become sober, from being a libertine has become chaste. I, on the other hand, can shew you many who have become worse by the change. Those whom I once knew to have been chaste, sincere, and without fraud, I found, after they had embraced this sect, to be licentious in their conversation, gamblers, neglectful of prayer, passionate, vain, as spiteful as serpents, and lost to the feelings of human nature. I speak from experience.” {630}

Upon the whole, it seems impossible to evade the force of this evidence, or deny that vice and immorality increased where protestantism prevailed, and, consequently, that there must have been some radical and essential defect in that system from the very first: so that it must be the very height of folly, absurdity, and arrogance in our present pretended evangelical demagogues to attempt to hold it up to the people as a standard of unadulterated truth and model of christian perfection. It is remarkable enough that these good people, almost to a man, are very loud in their reprobation of the French revolution, although it might easily be proved that that same revolution was nearly, if not quite as honourable in its origin, and respectable in its progress as that which was excited and conducted by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and their coadjutors, and which they seem so much to admire, and so ready to commend and justify. While reprobating the Gallic revolution on account of the licentiousness and crimes it produced, they are not aware how much the protestant revolution is liable to the same imputation.

SECTION II.

_The former subject continued_, _with occasional and brief remarks_.

There does not seem on any point a greater difference of opinion between the admirers of the reformation and their opponents than that which relates to the real character of the reformers. Volumes have been written on both sides of the question: one party extolling them to the skies, as if they had been all perfect beings or angels of light, and the other degrading them to the lowest point, as if they had been no better than so many demons. Too much, no doubt, has been said both for and against them. We must not believe them to be quite so bad as some catholic writers have represented them; nor yet, on the other hand, altogether so good and perfect as they have been described by the generality of our protestant authors. What is unfounded on either side we wish to explode; but some apparently well established facts relating to the reformers, and not generally known among protestants, ought not here to be passed over unnoticed, as they are well calculated to correct the reader’s ideas, both as to the reformers and the reformation.

As to Luther, it seems to be the common opinion among protestants that he was convinced of the errors and corruptions of the church of Rome, and, of course, decidedly hostile to them before the appearance of _Tetzel_ with his indulgences. But this opinion appears to be untenable. It is more likely that he had thought nothing about the said errors and corruptions before the arrival of that memorable vender of pardons; and that either wholly out of detestation of his extravagant and shameless pretensions, or partly also out of spite to the Dominicans, to which order he belonged, he then ventured to oppose that scandalous traffick, without any direct intention to declare against any others of the papal abominations, towards which it does not seem that he had yet begun to conceive any aversion.

Accordingly, he appeared for some years after, to have no mighty objection to any thing in the popish religion but the _abuse_ of the traffick of indulgences; and even on that point he actually consented to observe in future a profound silence, provided the same condition were imposed on his adversaries. Nay he went still further, and proposed to write a humble and submissive _Letter to the Pope_, acknowledging that he had carried his zeal and animosity too far: and such a Letter he actually did write. He even consented to publish a _circular Letter_, exhorting all his disciples and followers to reverence and obey all the dictates of the Roman church. He declared that his only intention, in the writings which he had composed was to brand with infamy those emissaries who abused its authority, and employed its protection as a mask to cover their abominable and impious frauds. {632}

Such was the hostility to the pope and his cause, and such the anxiety for religious reformation which Luther manifested for some years after he had assumed the character of a reformer, or rather after the commencement of his quarrel with Tetzel and the Dominicans. Had _Leo_ X. been wise and politic enough to accept his proffered submission, about the time of the conferences with _Miltitz_, he would, to all appearance, immediately and gladly have returned into the bosom of holy church, and, most probably, never have given his holiness or the world any further trouble on the score of religious abuses and corruptions.

The haughty pontiff, however, instead of embracing the golden opportunity, and receiving readily and kindly his rebellious, but now repentant son, had recourse to the very opposite mode of proceeding. He fulminated his anathemas against him, had him solemnly excommunicated, declared an enemy to the church, and even to the holy Roman empire. Luther having now no alternative, was obliged to make virtue of necessity; and it is easy to see that he was actually forced to take that course which he afterwards pursued, and in the pursuit of which he displayed such wonderful address, and such extraordinary talents as have really immortalized his name. But as to real virtue, it seems hard to see or say how much of that there was in his opposition to the pope and church of Rome, except what is implied in the law of selfpreservation. _Cromwell_ too, had that law on his side, to the full as much, perhaps, as Luther, even while engaged in what has been deemed the most criminal parts of his conduct, the dethronement of the king and attainment of the supreme power. But which of these two men was the most virtuous or most vicious, was the better or worse man, is a point that will not be presumed or attempted to be made here a subject of investigation. They certainly had, both of them, great talents and great defects.

Lutheran and other protestant writers have appeared not a little anxious to have Luther acquitted from the imputation of having opposed Tetzel out of spite to the Dominicans, or from resentment for the preference shewn them in the distribution or traffick of indulgences. We pretend not to say that that was the _sole_ cause of his opposition; but that it might be _partly_ the cause seems not at all improbable from what he himself has owned on other occasions. Thus he acknowledges that he had tried to persuade himself of there being no real presence of Christ in the sacrament, “on purpose _to spite the pope_, but that the words of scripture were too plain in favour of it.” Likewise, in his letter to the Vaudois, he says, “I have hitherto thought it of small consequence whether the bread remains in the sacrament or not, but now, _to spite the papists_, I am determined to believe that it does remain.” Thus also, writing against those who had presumed to alter the public service without his authority, he says, “I knew very well that the elevation of the sacrament was idolatrous, but 1 retained it _out of pure spite to that devil Carlostadius_.” {634} A very glaring and most odious trait in Luther’s character was the ungentlemanly and foul language in which he used to address his opponents, than which nothing could be more unbecoming in one who pretended to be engaged in, or anxious for the reformation of mankind, and the revival or restoration of genuine and primitive christianity. We have just now seen in what style he could speak of his quondam friend Carlostadius: “that _devil_ Carlostadius:” and it seems he could be sometimes equally uncivil and foulmouthed when he had occasion to speak of _Zuinglius_ and the rest of that party, who did not receive his favourite doctrine of consubstantiation, or the real presence; for whom he had no mercy, but consigned them all to everlasting perdition; just as his modern disciples, our present _evangelicals_, do to the poor Arians and Socinians.

As to the _papists_, it was not to be expected that he should be more civil or polite to them than to the Zuinglians. Accordingly, we are told that “the usual flowers of his speech, when addressing the pope and other catholic prelates, were: villain, thief, traitor, apostle of the devil, bishop of sodomites: and that the extent of his charity to them was to wish that their bowels were torn out, that they were cast into the Mediterranean sea or into the flames, and that they were hurried away to the devil. His treatment of the king of England, Henry VIII, with whom he had at one time a theological controversy, (though afterwards they grew into a better understanding with each other,) was not more respectful than his treatment of the pope. Luther makes no difficulty to call his royal antagonist, a Thomistical pig, an ass, a jakes, a dunghill, the spawn of an adder, a basilisk, a lying buffoon disguised in a king’s robe, a mad fool with a frothy mouth and a whorish face. He even addresses him as follows: You lie, you stupid and sacrilegious king.” {636a}

Another very unamiable and disgustful trait in Luther’s character was his assuming an extraordinary and apostolic dignity and authority, under the name or title of _Ecclesiastes_: “Martin Luther _Ecclesiastes_ of Wittemberg.”—“It is not fitting, (said he,) that I should be without a _title_, having received the work of the ministry, not from man, or by man, but by the gift of God, and the revelation of Jesus Christ.” {636b} This was evidently putting himself upon a level, at least, with Peter and Paul, and the rest of the apostles, and claiming from professing christians the deference or submission due to them. Accordingly, “he plainly proclaims to the whole body of protestants, in case they presume to consult together and determine about their common belief, that he will return back to the ancient church, and revoke every word he had ever written or taught against it; telling them that even in acting right, when they acted without his authority, they were plunging themselves into the jaws of hell.” {636c}

It is not a little remarkable that this reformer pretended to have some extraordinary intercourse, not only with the Deity, but also with _Satan_. Accordingly, he has published to the world, not only that he held frequent communications with the devil, but also that he learned the most material part of the reformation, namely, the abolition of the mass from him. In his treatise on that subject there is an account of Satan’s appearing to him by night, and of a long dialogue that passed between them, in which Luther defends the mass, and the devil argues against it. The conclusion is that this new apostle yields to the motives suggested by his internal antagonist, and adopts the important reform which he proposes. We are also informed, that Luther in one of his Sermons, according to _Cochleus_, affirmed that he had “eat more than a bushel of salt with Satan;” and that in his Colloquies he describes himself as constantly haunted by the devil, who, he says, “sleeps nearer to me than my wife Catherine.” {637}

Luther bears testimony to the unfavourable effects of the reformed religion, not only upon his followers, (as we have seen before) but also upon _himself_. He says that whilst he continued a catholic monk he observed chastity, obedience and poverty; and that being free from worldly cares be gave himself up to fasting, watching, and prayer: whereas, after he commenced reformer, he describes himself as raging with the most violent concupiscence, to satisfy which he broke through his solemn vow of continency, in direct opposition to his former doctrine, by marrying a religious woman, who was under the same obligation. He then proceeded to teach what most people deem shameful and licentious lessons, such as the permission, in certain cases, of concubinage and polygamy, and that pestilential doctrine, which is the utter destruction of all morality, that there is no freedom in human actions—and that when the scripture commands good works, “we are to understand it to forbid them, because we cannot do them; that a baptized person cannot lose his soul, whatever sins he commit, provided he believe, inasmuch as no sin can damn except infidelity.” {638}

SECTION III.

_Further remarks on the reformers and reformation—tenaciously adhered to_, _and retained the very worst part of popery_, _its intolerant_, _persecuting_, _and bloody spirit—the very first thing whose reformation or expulsion they ought to have attempted—its omission rendered their whole undertaking illfavored_, _preposterous_, _and ineffectual_.