VINCENT ALSOP, A. M. the admired author of Anti-Sozzo, was born in Northamptonshire; and received his academical education at St. John's college, Cambridge, where he took the two first degrees in arts. On quitting the university, he removed to Okeham, in Rutlandshire; and became, for a time, assistant to the master of the free school at that place.

His genius being very quick and brilliant, and his disposition remarkably cheerful, he was, before his conversion, what the world calls, a lively, entertaining companion. After effectual grace had formed him anew, his wit and humour were consecrated to the service of the sanctuary; and his acquired parts, which were not inferior to his natural talents, were also devoted, as an whole burnt-offering, to the glory of God and the salvation of men. His politeness and affability, his engaging sweetness and vivacity of temper, never deserted him to the last. They were not extinguished, but refined and sanctified, and rendered still more lovely and respectable than before, by his being born again of the Holy Ghost.

Mr. Benjamin King (an eminent puritan minister, at or near, Okeham) seems to have been in God's hand, the instrument of Mr. Alsop's conversion; who, soon after, married Mr. King's daughter, and

removed to Wilbee, in his native county of Northampton, where he was fixed as parish minister, and where we hear little of him until 1662, when he was ejected from Wilbee by the act of uniformity. An act, which (through the cruel and unprotestant manner of its first enforcement) gave the true church of England so severe a bleeding, that she has never entirely recovered herself, from that time to this.

On being displaced from Wilbee, Mr. Alsop and his family settled at Wellingborough; where, and likewise at Okeham, he sometimes ventured to preach, notwithstanding the rigorous execution of the then persecuting laws. Justice compels me to own, that Charles the Second stood partly indebted for his restoration, to the zeal and activity which the protestant dissenters had exerted in his behalf. And he rewarded them well! Among other effects of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny in conjunction, Mr. Alsop suffered six months imprisonment, for having dared to pray by a sick person.

In 1674, Dr. William Sherlock (afterwards dean of St. Paul's, London) published a treatise, entitled, “A Discourse, concerning the Knowledge of Jesus Christ." The Dr. was an Arminian; and, as such, could not avoid Socinianising, on many important articles Socinus and Arminius being the two necessary supporters of a free-willer's coat of arms. Good Mr. Alsop would not suffer a performance, so horrid and so shameless as that of Sherlock, to walk abroad, without chastisement. He therefore, in the year 1675, published a confutation of it; which he entitled, Anti-Sozzo (i. e. a book in opposition to Socinus the real, unlatinized name of Socinus, who was an Italian, being Sozzo).

The editor (such an editor as he was) of Mr. Hervey's letters, observes *, very properly, on this

* Vol. ii. p. 270.

subject, that " In the reign of Charles the Second, the Socinian tenets were gaining ground in England." And no wonder. For Arminianism is the head, and Socinianism the tail, of one and the selfsame serpent; and, where the head works itself in, it will soon draw the tail after it. In the abovementioned critical days of the unmartyred Charles, the said editor goes on to inform us, "Mr. Alsop, one of the wittiest, as well as one of the best men in that age, wrote this book, called, Anti-Sozzo. He [i. e. Mr. Alsop] and Dr. Sherlock had been pupils at college under the same tutor. And [now], when he saw that Sherlock had no more reverence to the majesty of God, no more regard to the authority of scripture, than to write as above; he was determined to attack him, and to plead for Christ and his truth here at the footstool, who pleads for us, according to his truth at the throne.

"Nor was any man better qualified than him, self, either to give a check to a man of Sherlock's talents and imperious disposition; or to the growing petulancy of the then daily encroaching profaneness. On grave subjects, he appeared as he was, the truly reverend Mr. Alsop; and wrote with a becoming seriousness. But, where wit might properly be shown, he displayed his to great advantage, as may be seen in his Anti-Sozzo."

Controversy, when either frivolously or captiously founded, seldom brings any advantage or honour to the cause of God. But the controversies which have from time to time taken place, between the orthodox on one hand, and the Arminians and Socinians on the other, have been attended with the most important utility to the church and visible interests of Christ. "If," as Mr. Alsop observes, “the Socinians oppose, every true Christian should defend the gospel of Jesus Christ. For the dispute is not now about decency and order, about fringes and phylacteries, about the tything of mint, anise, and

cummin; but about the influence of the righteousness of Christ's life, and the sacrifice of his death, upon our acceptance with God; about the influence of the blessed Spirit in the glorious work of the new creation. Whether Christ be a proper priest, or not? Whether, as a priest, he offered himself as a proper sacrifice to God, or not? Whether God and man are reconciled, and we redeemed from the curse of the law by the blood of Jesus, or not? Whether we are justified before the just and holy God by our own righteousness, or by the righte ousness of a mediator? In which the concerns, and all the eternal hopes of every Christian are wrapt up."

The excellent Mr. Hervey's character of this work, in a letter which he wrote, not quite seven weeks before his departure to eternal rest, deserves to be admitted here. "I could wish, methinks, at this critical juncture, that Alsop's Anti-Sozzo, which made its first appearance in 1675, was judiciously abridged; and, in the neat Glasgow type, reprinted in a duodecimo volume. Though it is almost pity to abridge it (unless it were well executed), as the whole is so interesting. It is, I can assure you, a very smart book; and one of the best defences of the evangelical doctrines I ever saw, or ever expect to see; even if my life which now draws very near its end, could be prolonged to the next century. In short, I think it an unanswerable performance; and divines of every denomination, would do well, to make themselves thoroughly masters of this spirited and entertaining writer; as they would then be able to defend the truth as it is in Jesus, against all kinds of opponents, how witty, keen, subtle, or malignant soever the attack might be. I would therefore beg you to recommend this book, as a specific against Socinianism."

* See the fore-cited vol. p. 269-273.

The learned, pious, and candid Dr. Edmund Calamy bears a testimony no less honourable to Mr. Alsop." Dr. Sherlock's affecting to treat the most sacred things of religion in a jocular way, gave no small offence to a number of persons, famous for piety and prudence; and was the very inducement to Mr. Alsop, to draw his pen against him. And though, in his management of the controversy with him, he treated serious matters with abundance of gravity; yet, where that gentleman [viz. Sherlock] was upon the merry pin, he [viz. Alsop] being an ingenious and facetious man, so wittily and sharply turned the edge upon him, that he beat him at his own weapon; so that that celebrated author never cared to answer him, nor was he ever fond of that way of writing afterward. Though Mr. Wood endeavoured to pour contempt on him; yet Dr. South, who was as famous for his wit and drollery as any one of the age, and as bitter an enemy of dissenters as any one whatever, acknowledges that Mr. Alsop obtained a complete victory."

The merits of this book against Sherlock, induced Mr. Crawton, who had the pastoral charge of a congregation in Westminster, to cast his eye on our author, as a proper person to succeed him in the spiritual care of that people. Mr. Cawton dying soon after, Mr. Alsop left Northamptonshire, to settle in London, where he was very assiduous, both as a preacher and a publisher. "His living in the neighbourhood of the court t," say the compilers of a celebrated work, "exposed him to many inconveniencies. However, he had the good fortune to escape imprisonment and fines, by an odd accident; which was, the informers not knowing his Christian name; which, for this reason, he studi

*Continuation, vol. ii. p. 634. vol. i. p. 132.

Biographia Britannica,